Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements

Advertisements often use poetic devices like images to provide aesthetic pleasure and facilitate promotion. This investigation aims to explore the functions and characteristics of images and outline the linguistic methods to create images in English-Chinese advertisement translation, referring to re...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ying Cui, Jie Li
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: ZHAW 2021-07-01
Series:JoSTrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation
Online Access:https://www.jostrans.org/article/view/7957
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849706239893700608
author Ying Cui
Jie Li
author_facet Ying Cui
Jie Li
author_sort Ying Cui
collection DOAJ
description Advertisements often use poetic devices like images to provide aesthetic pleasure and facilitate promotion. This investigation aims to explore the functions and characteristics of images and outline the linguistic methods to create images in English-Chinese advertisement translation, referring to research on translation, marketing, imagery, and poetics. Image is defined in its broad sense in this study to refer to linguistic expressions that evoke a sensory experience in readers or leave a vivid impression on them. Poetic images can increase the aesthetic value of advertisements, arouse readers' emotional response and influence their attitudes, and facilitate their comprehension and enhance their memorisation. Our corpus is composed of 357 English-Chinese advertisements of Apple Inc., which has been successful in its marketing campaigns in China. The analysis of the corpus shows that 61% of the Chinese translations use images. The major methods to set up images in Chinese translations include explicitation, which is most widely used, accounting for 54% of the total, metaphor, which makes up 37%, balanced structure, which constitutes 32%, and sensory stimulation, which is used in 12% of the examples. Applying those linguistic methods and setting up images in English-Chinese advertisement translation can be an effective way to engage readers and facilitate promotion.
format Article
id doaj-art-800069ca6b8640b2b724092e05234aaf
institution DOAJ
issn 1740-357X
language deu
publishDate 2021-07-01
publisher ZHAW
record_format Article
series JoSTrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation
spelling doaj-art-800069ca6b8640b2b724092e05234aaf2025-08-20T03:16:15ZdeuZHAWJoSTrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation1740-357X2021-07-013610.26034/cm.jostrans.2021.057Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisementsYing CuiJie LiAdvertisements often use poetic devices like images to provide aesthetic pleasure and facilitate promotion. This investigation aims to explore the functions and characteristics of images and outline the linguistic methods to create images in English-Chinese advertisement translation, referring to research on translation, marketing, imagery, and poetics. Image is defined in its broad sense in this study to refer to linguistic expressions that evoke a sensory experience in readers or leave a vivid impression on them. Poetic images can increase the aesthetic value of advertisements, arouse readers' emotional response and influence their attitudes, and facilitate their comprehension and enhance their memorisation. Our corpus is composed of 357 English-Chinese advertisements of Apple Inc., which has been successful in its marketing campaigns in China. The analysis of the corpus shows that 61% of the Chinese translations use images. The major methods to set up images in Chinese translations include explicitation, which is most widely used, accounting for 54% of the total, metaphor, which makes up 37%, balanced structure, which constitutes 32%, and sensory stimulation, which is used in 12% of the examples. Applying those linguistic methods and setting up images in English-Chinese advertisement translation can be an effective way to engage readers and facilitate promotion.https://www.jostrans.org/article/view/7957
spellingShingle Ying Cui
Jie Li
Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements
JoSTrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation
title Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements
title_full Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements
title_fullStr Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements
title_full_unstemmed Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements
title_short Imagery packed with poetic qualities: A case study on English-Chinese translation of Apple's advertisements
title_sort imagery packed with poetic qualities a case study on english chinese translation of apple s advertisements
url https://www.jostrans.org/article/view/7957
work_keys_str_mv AT yingcui imagerypackedwithpoeticqualitiesacasestudyonenglishchinesetranslationofapplesadvertisements
AT jieli imagerypackedwithpoeticqualitiesacasestudyonenglishchinesetranslationofapplesadvertisements