Rhetorical Devices in Advertisement English and Their Translation

Rhetorical Devices in Advertisement English and Their Translation

Abstract

With the highly development of economy, advertising, plays an important role in delivering information. Advertising experts say, advertising language is the core content of advertising, and also is the fulcrum of the life. In order to achieve the effect of advertising, English advertisements use a lot of rhetorical devices for the advertising added gorgeous color to enhance the attraction of the advertising. The using of rhetorical devices can enrich the expression ability of language, and greatly increase the expression effect of language, advertising products and services. It also can transfer the business information, attract the attention of consumers, and deepen the impression in consumer's brain. English and Chinese rhetoric has both similarities and differences, but because of the English and Chinese language cultures exist differences, and the differences bring difficulties to the translation of English advertising. The creative use of rhetorical devices in advertising may result in advertisements that are emotionally alive, intellectually appealing and memorable. Therefore it appears to be more important to understand, appreciate and translate adverting language properly.

In this thesis，the author parses the language feather of advertisement English through the rhetoric feather of advertisement English language, also basically to explain the rhetoric devices in advertisement English and their translation, try to put forward several specific technique on how to deal with rhetorical devices in advertising translation.

Key Words: advertisement, rhetorical devices, translation

Introduction

Advertising is a language phenomenon, it has a vivid image, humorous and concise characteristics, and also can leave people deep impression. The word advertise in English is derived from the Latin word advertere, which means "to call the attention of the public to a product or business so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize".

In the Chinese dictionary Word Sea, guanggao (advertising) is defined as a kind of publicity to introduce a product, service or entertainment program to the public。Successful advertising language can not only show the roles and characteristics, and influence consumer behavior, and also can bring substantial social benefits. No beautiful language is no good advertising, the majority of exquisite advertising language is never use of rhetorical devices improperly. Advertising writers always use all sorts of rhetorical devices to increase advertising language conviction and aesthetic effect. Advertising experts often use simile, metaphor, personification, pun, inquiry and the rhyme and so on. In order to enhance the effect of language expression, various kinds of rhetorical devices are used.

Advertising has become a popular subject of numerous scholarly studies and is an effective and critical tool not only to promote tangible commodities and services such as hairdressing but also to broadcast economic, political, religious and social ideas. As the advertising experts point out, the ads have a great effect on society. This point is similar to the impact of school and church systems which have a long historical tradition. It has the power to control the media, makes it become people's loving standards. Now the advertisement has become one of the things which can control various systems in society. This is because ads spread the merchandise to society widely through media, and ads can attract people's interests to some goods and guide people's consumption trend. However the merchandise can enrich the spirit life through the dissemination of ads. It can affect people's values and control their lifestyles.

Language is the chief vehicle of advertising. Successful advertisement language can not only fully spread the roles and characteristics of the advertisement and affect the consuming behavior of the audience, but also can reflect the fashionable factors and cultural history in recent times, and bring substantial social benefits. There are no excellent advertisements without an exquisite language, and the vast majority of an exquisite advertisement language never ignore of rhetorical devices. Through the ages, in the process of language communication, rhetorical devices have been studied by people because the use of them can enhance the performance of expression and effect. It can not only make the language lively, but also make the language full of beauty. In English advertisements, in order to enhance the aesthetic effect and persuasive power of an advertising text, the advertisement writer always uses various kinds of rhetorical devices. So a study of the rhetorical devices in advertisement English can familiarize us with the use this artistic aesthetic to attract audience's attention and inspire the audience's enthusiasm, eventually attaining the goal of promoting the sale of goods.

Rhetoric Devices and Translation Methods in ad English

Advertising has become a popular subject of numerous scholarly studies approach from a wide range of disciplines, such as anthology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, literary criticism, aesthetics, marketing and media studies, for all kinds of advertisements have bombarded each of us in our daily life.

Due to the fact that advertising is influenced by anthology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, literary criticism, aesthetics, marketing and so on, it has different linguistic characteristics, special features in rhetoric and translations.

The modern society is a commercial society; advertisements have become an important source that merchants, the enterprises and the vast number of consumers get commodity information.

In order to make consumers trust in the goods, advertising writer often uses innovative and unique vocabulary, easily memorable sentences and skillful rhetorical devices. English advertising often left customers a deep impression.

Rhetoric originates from ancient Greece two thousand years ago .It is a science that studies of language art. Rhetoric is the art of using language; it must base on the communication contents, the linguistic context and other relevant factors to choose expression patterns. Rhetorical devices are one of the content which rhetoric studies, including negative rhetoric and positive rhetoric. The former refers to a sentence words in accord with the usual rules and grammars logically, "in order to make clear, smooth and fluent" to avoid adverse effects. The latter refers to the "use a variety of emotion expression