Brand Name Translation in China [PDF]

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Babel 49:2 131-148 © Fédération des Traducteurs (FIT) Revue Babel



Brand Name Translation in China: An Overview of Practice and Theory He Chuansheng Xiao Yunnan



1.



Importance of brand name translation in China



In an age of economic globalization when international brand names become the norm, businesses around the world spare no effort to market their products or services in the world marketplace and to build their brand images on a global basis. Before entering into world market, developing the right internation(c) John Benjamins al brand names has become a very important marketing strategy to most businesses. This article, however, will not study how to develop new international Delivered by Ingenta brand names, but will only focus on translating existing brand names from one on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 language into another, here it is from Chinese into English. to:What’s University Illinois in a name? at When it comes at to aUrbana-Champaign brand, it means enormous value. IP: 130.126.32.13 Brand name is a fundamentally important choice of brand elements as it often captures the central theme or key associations of a product. Naming can be crucial to businesses. A good brand name can bring about unexpected advantages just like Apple, Pampers and Lux do, while a bad one can jeopardize the business just like Nova and Incubus do. So is the case for translated brand names. A well-translated brand name can adjust to local market, lingual, cultural, and legal environments, can reflect brand image, can convey product information, such as Coca-Cola’s translation into Chinese 可口可 (ke-kou-ke-le), meaning ‘tasty and happy’. While a badly translated brand name can only evoke unfavorable association to customers, such as Lactogen’s translation into Chinese — 勒吐精 (le-tu-jing), meaning ‘forcing you to vomit the essence’. As the term implies, brand name translation is one practical form of translation. Unlike other forms of translation that involves whole text, brand name translation is the transfer of single word or few words, thus having its own specific requirements and characteristics. Translation of brand names is getting important in today’s globalization of economy, and is vital to companies that



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do businesses in foreign countries. It is an especially worthwhile subject matter to study for Chinese brand names, as China is the largest developing country with its economy steadily integrated into the world economy. Translation of brand names has become increasingly important and a critical strategic choice for Chinese businesses who want to compete in the global markets. 2.



Chinese way of translating brand names into English



English has become the international language, or lingua franca, in almost every field of society, it is also widely used to name companies, products, and services because of its dominance in business communications (He Chuansheng 2000: 305-306). Brand names in English can be recognized and identified with in most of the global markets, and need no translation at all. Most of the western languages are of the same origin Indo-European family, sharing many same roots and morphemes, and they are all phonographic languages using alphabet, thus it is relatively easy to transliterate them. Brand names in these languages (c)Siemens, John Nestlé, Benjamins may not need translation. Fiat, Nokia, and other non-English brand names needDelivered no translation atby all and work well in the world marketIngenta places. on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 In the case of China, it is different. Admittedly, the Chinese language, to: University at Illinois atin Urbana-Champaign though spoken by the largest population the world, is not an international IP: 130.126.32.13 language; it is mainly spoken by the Chinese people in China and overseas Chinese. Brands named in Chinese characters can rarely, if never, recognized by consumers of other countries. If Chinese characters are used for international brand names, companies should first spend a lot of money to advertise the brand name in foreign countries. And unlike most of the western languages, the Chinese language is an ideographic language made up of strokes, if customers do not know a Chinese character, then they can not pronounce it. Foreign customers will not ask for them if they do not know how to say it. Aware of this, most Chinese companies, when their products sell worldwide, will translate their brand names into English so as to make it easily recognizable and identifiable in the international marketplaces. In the translation of Chinese brand names into English, different approaches are employed, which show the developments of translation theories and practices, as well as marketing science in China. Chronologically, we identified four approaches in the Chinese way of translation of brand names, namely Pinyin, literal translation, transliteration, and coining, which can roughly fall into two stages — be-



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fore and after the Reforming and Opening of China. Before the Reforming and Opening, the prevailing approaches were Pinyin and literal translation, after the Reforming and Opening, transliteration and coining become more popular. 2.1 The Pinyin approach Because the Chinese language is a pictographic language, Pinyin system was invented to help people pronounce Chinese characters. Although Pinyin also uses Latin alphabet, it conveys no meaning and does not conform to the international phonetic system. Some of the Pinyin of Chinese characters look very strange, and can not be uttered at all to foreign people, such as Xingqiu (meaning ‘celestial body’ in Chinese), which is the Pinyin name of a famous Chinese character brand name (星球®). Suppose that this brand product — radio sets — goes international, how to name it? Of course, it is unwise to use its Pinyin because it can neither convey any meaningful information about product attributes, nor can it be pronounced or pronounced very awkwardly. In fact, it John was the case in which (c) Xingqiu is usedBenjamins as its brand name for foreign markets. Sometimes, however,Delivered the Pinyin of a certain Chinese word may coincide with by Ingenta an English word, then it has meaning in the English language. If the meaning is on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 positive, then you are lucky, but if it is negative, then you are at a loss. Such is to:case University at Illinois at brand Urbana-Champaign the of FangFang, which is the Pinyin name of a baby skin powder ® IP: 130.126.32.13 (芳芳 , meaning ‘fragrance’ in Chinese) produced in Shanghai, unfortunately fang means the teeth of poisonous snakes in English The Pinyin approach has been very popular in the 50s to 60s of the 20th century, and cannot be considered as translation, rather it should be called transcription. Because of its fundamental defects, it was soon given way to another approach, the literal translation approach. 2.2 The literal translation approach For a long time, translators in China attach great importance to equivalent translation, mainly in literal or meaning equivalence. In the preface to his translation of T. H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, Yan Fu (1854-1921), a pioneer in translation theory and practice in China, summed up his principles for translation in three Chinese characters — 信 (faithfulness), (expressiveness) and 雅 (elegance). These principles have been adhered to by almost all Chinese translators (Ma Zuyi 1998: 377-378), of which the first principle faithfulness is given



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the priority. Following this principle, most Chinese brand names were translated literally into English. This approach is better and more reasonable than the Pinyin approach because words in one language can be converted into another language and have the same semantic meanings. For example, 牡丹 (Mudan) is a beautiful flower in the Chinese language, and its counterpart Peony in English is also the name of the same kind of beautiful flower, so this name can be literally translated between Chinese and English and both convey positive connotations. Such is the case for the 牡丹® brand for TV sets produced in Beijing, and its English brand name is Peony. Sociolinguistics tells us that every language is unique and different and closely related to its culture, some words in one language do not have counterparts in another at all. The Chinese language abounds in words or sayings that can not find counterparts in the English language, and vice versa. Sometimes, the word in Chinese has positive meaning, but it may convey a negative, or even profane meaning in English. In these cases, literal translations may cause trouble or difficulty in brand naming. Here we identified three pitfalls in the literal (c) John Benjamins translations of brand names.



Delivered by Ingenta on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 to: University at Illinois Urbana-Champaign names that may have taboo Lekus (1969) listed several thousands at of brand IP: 130.126.32.13 meanings, involving more than 40 languages. Aman (1982) further summarized 2.2.1 Negative or profane meanings in cultural connotations



four possible sources of taboo meanings from the standpoint of English brand names. David Crystal (1997: 115) also said: “International companies are finding it increasingly important to develop brand names that can be used in a wide range of countries ...and there is always the danger of unfortunate connotations creeping in, because of the name overlapping with words of an irrelevant or taboo meaning”. In the same book, David Crystal (ibid. 348) criticized the literal translation of a Chinese brand name of farming equipment into ‘East Wind’. Due to geographical locations, east wind is a warm wind in China, but a cold wind in Britain. In the past, some Chinese companies made mistakes in translating their brand names into English because they failed in considering their cultural connotations in English, such as Junk, which is the literally translated name of a Chinese garment product. The literal translation of 白 ® pen into White Feather also failed in cultural connotation because ‘white feather’ means a sign of cowardice. In English, there is a phrase — to show the white feather — mean-



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ing ‘to act like a coward’ from the belief that a gamecock with a white feather in its tail was a poor fighter. Other examples include Golden Cock (clock product), Pansy (male shirts), Five Goats (bicycle). English-speaking people can immediately find out the unfavorable cultural associations from these translated brand names. The most notorious one is 白象® battery produced in Shanghai. It enjoyed a good reputation in international markets, especially in the U.K. market thanks to its high quality and low price. In 1976, the company management translated it into an English brand name — White Elephant, the literal translation of 白象 in English. In Thailand, as well as in China and other Southeast Asian countries, white elephant is considered as a sacred animal. So, this brand name conveys favorable meaning in the Chinese culture. But in Britain, sales dropped dramatically and the company did not know why. Later, someone pointed out to the management that White Elephant does not refer only to an elephant that is white in its color; in English it also means a costly but useless thing. Nobody will buy a commodity that is costly but useless (He Chuansheng 1997: 182).



(c) John Benjamins 2.2.2 Untranslatability Delivered by Ingenta on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 Untranslatability is a common phenomenon in translation. Every language has to:ownUniversity at isIllinois at Urbana-Champaign its unique lexicon that only indigenous to that culture. For example, the IP: 130.126.32.13 American Indian people have hundreds of words for snow because there are so many different kinds of snow in their lands and snow is so important to their life. China is a country with a long history of more than 5,000 years, and is very rich in tradition and culture. Some words, especially those concerned with history and culture are only indigenous to the Chinese language and culture, without counterparts in foreign countries and foreign languages. Therefore, these words cannot be literally translated into any other languages, including English. And the Chinese people has a long affinity to these cultural words and like to brand their products with them, believing that they can convey a feeling of national pride and trust to consumers. There are numerous brands named after those culturally unique words. Such is also the case for other countries. Every people is pride of their civilization and it is customary to use these words as brand names. For example in the U.S., we find many car brand names related with the Frontiers Movement, such as Dodge, Frontiersman, Mustang, Pathfinder, Pontiac, etc. These words are related to the Frontiers Movement, and cannot be translated literally into Chinese.



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2.2.3 Non-compliance with features of brand names A good brand name should be simple, distinct, and easy to remember and pronounce, and preferably suggestive of product benefits. Due to the syntactic and semantic differences in languages, a short brand name in one language, if translated into another language, may render into a long sentence. A long sentence is rarely, if never, used as a brand name because it is difficult to remember (we find only one brand name in English that is made of a sentence — Gee-YourHair-Smells-Terrific). ® brand floor wax has long been an export product of China. The Chinese brand name means ‘dash’, or ‘big progress’ in English. If it were translated into Dash, then it would be an excellent brand name in English (P & G produces a detergent under Dash brand name). But unfortunately, it was translated into Great Leap Forward. This name is too long, and conveys a negative association to consumers that this kind of floor wax will make you fall heavily on the floor. Another example is a recent one of the Heng’an Group, the largest producer of (c)TheJohn Benjamins paper products in China. company developed a new facial tissue in 1997 and marketed it underDelivered the Chinese brand of 心相映®, meaning ‘heart to byname Ingenta heart’, someone translated it into ‘Mind Act Upon Mind’. Later the company on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 realized that such a name does not comply with the criteria of brand names in to:it University at Illinois that is too long. The company coined aat newUrbana-Champaign brand name for it — Heartex, apIP: 130.126.32.13 parently imitating the famous Kotex brand name of Kimberly-Clark. 2.3 The transliteration approach Aware of these cultural pitfalls in literal translation, more companies turn to another approach, transliteration. Transliteration is to write or spell a word, name, or sentence in the alphabet of a different language, mainly used to translate proper names from one language into another. When transliterating a Chinese character brand name into English, the new name will be constructed from the English alphabet by the phonetic rules of the English language. The new name will sound phonetically almost the same as its Chinese characters, but is not its Pinyin. This approach proves to be a useful one in the translation of brand names from Chinese into English. In the late 1970s, the Shanghai Jahwa Company developed a new line of products of cosmetics under the Chinese brand name of 美加 ®, which means literally ‘Beautiful And Clean’ in English. This line of products were so suc-



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cessful that the company management intended to market them on the world market. A new name in English was needed because its original Chinese brand name is unrecognizable to the foreign customers, neither is its Pinyin form which would be Mei-jia-jing. But how to translate it in English? One alternative would be to literally translate the Chinese name into English, which would be ‘Beautiful and Clean’. But such a brand name is too commonplace and stereotyped, lack of simplicity and distinctiveness characterizing international brand names, and furthermore, this name may be denied legal registration in some countries because some trademark laws prohibit the use of descriptive names as trademarks. An English professor was called on to do the job, who transliterated it into MAXAM — based on the pronunciation of the Chinese name for MAXAM sounds like Mei-jia-jing. Although MAXAM does not have inherent meaning, it is an excellent creation in terms of its shortness, symmetry and ease to remember. This new name looks like a genuine English brand name, implying the word ‘maximum’. For his creative work, the professor was given 2,000 yuan as a reward and he was reported in the newspapers as news head(c) sensation John in Benjamins lines, which caused a great the college and among his colleagues, because 2,000 yuan was a large sum of at that age when the average Delivered bymoney Ingenta salary for professor was only 100 yuan or so (cf. He Chuansheng 2000: 290). on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 Today products under the MAXAM brand name sell very well in the internato: University at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tional markets. IP:Associates 130.126.32.13 In early 2000, Landor (a worldwide naming and branding consultancy in San Francisco) created a new name for a Chinese electrical appliance manufacturer, Midea. Its original Chinese character brand name is 美的® (Mei-di), meaning ‘beautiful’ in English. Landor did not translate it literally into Beautiful or something, which would be too commonplace, rather transliterated it into Midea, which sounds like Mei-di and implies ‘my idea’. Another example is Honric, a newly transliterated brand name of a Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturer — 恒利® (Hengli). The transliterated names do not have meanings, and are not related to their original Chinese names in meaning, and cannot suggest product benefits, they are only coined according to the alphabetic system of English and look like English brand names. Sometimes, if available, morphemes or even words are used in the transliteration and such morphemes and words are deliberately chosen so that they can suggest some useful information of products. In this way, the transliterated brand names are made up from morphemes, or even words, thus having meanings, such is the case for Tecsun — 德生® (Desheng, a manufacturer of radios)



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® and Pharon — (Feilong, a pharmaceutical company in north China) — which is coined from pharmaceutical and — on, a common suffix used to coin brand names for medical products. The Serene company is a maker of air conditioners, its Chinese brand name is 西 ®, named after the geographic name of an ancient Chinese arts society where the company is located nearby. The Chinese brand name is a proper name in the Chinese culture and does not have its counterpart in the English language, so it cannot be literally translated. How to internationalize such a proper name in English? And its Pinyin — Xiling — means nothing to international customers. An English word — Serene — was chosen from the dictionary as its international brand name. Serene sounds like Xiling, and means ‘quietness and comfort’, very suitable for air conditioners, and can suggest the good quality of the product that it works quietly and does not produce noise. In 1996, Tsingtao TV Factory was incorporated into a limited liability company. The new corporation will be run with international operations and by global marketing strategy. The former brand name was in Chinese characters Benjamins afterJohn the geographic name of location. Although Tsing青 (Tsingtao), named(c) tao is a famous coastalDelivered city in China, relatively familiar to many foreign people by Ingenta for it is the home of the world-famous Tsingtao beer, the company management on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 decided not to use the Tsingtao name because there are already numerous idento:brand University atand Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tical names existing such a geographic brand name may be difficult IP: 130.126.32.13 to register internationally. A new Chinese brand name was invented— 海信®, which means literally in English ‘open-minded and sincere like the sea’. Because the new corporation is intended to operate globally and to be grown into a multinational company, so its whole corporate identity system should be adapted to its global strategy. A brand name that can be communicated and identified worldwide is required. Neither the Chinese brand name, nor its Pinyin (Haixin) is able to convey meaningful information, and the name can not be successfully translated into English. Considering these factors, the company invented a new English brand name for it — HiSense, obviously coming from ‘high sense’. It is a good brand name suggesting product benefits and company’s business philosophy, and also it sounds like its Pinyin — Haixin. Today HiSense has grown into an IT giant in China, manufacturing computers, TV sets, air conditioners, and other electrical appliances.



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2.4 The coining approach If businesses couldn’t come up with a name by means of literal translation or transliteration, then it is advisable to coin a new name (including to choose a dictionary word) regardless of its original Chinese brand name, but only to do it like naming a new brand. Of course, such new naming should be in compliance with the procedure and rules of developing international brand names in English. This has been a popular way to transmit brand names into English in today’s Chinese marketing practice. Recently, with the introduction of western advanced marketing science, scholars in both marketing and linguistics have also made some research into brand-naming in English as an ESP. More and more enterprises are aware of the differences in brand-naming in Chinese and English, when transmitting their brand names into English, they prefer to have them re-created according to the prevailing rules and methods in coining international brand names in English, not to have them literally translated, as manifested in the following successful story. (c) John Benjamins In 1995, the Caihong (Caihong isby theIngenta Pinyin of 彩虹®, which literally Delivered means ‘rainbow’ in English) company in north China’s Shaanxi province, the on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 biggest TV monitor manufacturer in China, intended to build its new corpoto:identity University at Illinois at was Urbana-Champaign rate system. Its former brand name the Chinese characters plus its IP: 130.126.32.13 Pinyin name, which are difficult to communicate in international markets. The corporate management planned to re-brand its name in English for the simple reason that the English brand name is easier to be identified with international customers. A noted CI expert, Lin Pansong, a professor in advertising from Taiwan who is also specialized in branding was hired to undertake the brand innovation for the company. Instead of just translating the Chinese name into English, Professor Lin created the new brand name into Irico, blended from ‘Iris’ and ‘corporation’. Iris is the goddess of rainbow in the ancient Greek mythology, who is said to bring good news to people. So, the new name is related to its original Chinese brand name. The new name is simple, distinct, easy to pronounce and memorize, and more importantly, it looks like an international brand name and helps to build a global identity for the company. Other recent coined brand names in English include Powerise (software), Resun (detergent), Keon (detergent), Subor (electrical appliance), Youngor (garment), Marco (micro-oven), and Frestech (refrigerator).



140 3.



He Chuansheng and Xiao Yunnan Considerations and process in translating Chinese brand names into English



In the above section, we list four major approaches of translating Chinese brand names into English and find out that transliteration and coining are the prevailing approaches today. Brand name translation is complex and multi-disciplinary, involving many factors such as lingual, social, ethnical, legal and marketing considerations. Like translation of advertisements, translation of brand names is not only a linguistic and cultural transfer, but also a marketing and legal transfer. Brand names are more than linguistic forms, they are also marketing tools and legal properties, thus, translated brand names should conform to the company’s branding and marketing strategies as well as to legal requirements. Here, we identify four considerations in brand name translation, namely, linguistic, cultural, marketing and legal considerations. 3.1 Considerations in brand name translation



(c) John Benjamins Brand names are theDelivered vessel to carry by the company’s image and philosophy. Ingenta Translated brand names are also brand names in another language, and thereon: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 fore should also meet the linguistic requirements for brand names such as to: University at Illinois phonological, morphological, semantic at and Urbana-Champaign pragmatic rules. Translated brand IP: 130.126.32.13 names should be perceived by target consumers as if they are newly created in their language. Cultural factors must be taken into consideration. A brand name that conveys favorable meaning in one language may connote unfavorably in another language or even it may be a taboo word when rendered into another language. Every country and people has an established set of social conventions, religious belief, and moral value. The translated brand names should be acceptable to the target consumers and should conform to the social conventions, religious belief, moral value of them, otherwise they can cause trouble and misunderstanding to foreign consumers. For example, Lovalift is the brand name of a French cosmetic; translation of this name caused offence and rejection in China because such name is not suitable to the Chinese people who are conservative and never talk about sex in public. Brand naming is a vital choice in corporate marketing strategy. The translated brand name shall also meet the corporate marketing strategy. If the original brand name is targeted for young generation, so must be its translated name;



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if the original brand name is intended to convey product attributes, i.e. suggestive or descriptive of products, so should be its translated brand name. In one word, the translated brand name should have a same, or preferably, better effect than its original names, and the translated brand names should conform to the corporate marketing strategy, with some adaptation to the social and economic climate of the target country. The translated brand name must be registered in the country of target language in order to get a legal status for protection and must conform to the regulations of these countries’ trademark laws. Because brand names are one of the most valuable assets that a company can own, this asset can only be protected when the name is legally registered. So legal availability is the most important consideration in translating brand names; legal availability is the priority that must be guaranteed for the translated brand names. Legal differences among countries exist. Generally, the stipulations on brand name registration are similar for most trademark laws, for example, names of country, international organization, or other sovereignty, and generic, John Benjamins deceptive or misleading(c) names are prohibited from registration, but can names that can suggest or describe product information such as its raw material, qualiDelivered by Ingenta ty, function, utility, weight, number, or other features, be registrable in different on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 countries? Every country’s trademark law may differ in this aspect. Most tradeto: University Urbana-Champaign mark laws of countries at suchIllinois as China, at U.K., Germany, etc. and international IP: 130.126.32.13 treaties have such prohibition, but U.S. trademark law does not have, this is why U.S. has such brand names as Digital and Energizer. For example, Matsushita first chose National as its international brand name, but such a name was denied registration in many countries because of its high descriptiveness, later it changed to Panasonic in 1955 as its international brand name. This example shows the importance of legal problems in translating a brand name. 3.2 Process of brand name translation As indicated from the above four considerations, translation of brand names, like translation of other texts, involves linguistic and cultural transmission of two languages and extralinguistic matters, marketing and legal affairs. In undertaking a brand name translation task, a lot of preliminary work has to be done, which are always beyond the realm of language science and translation theory, such as marketing analysis, brand name positioning, trademark investigation, consumer testing. In translating brand names, typically, the translation process should be:



142 1.



2. 3. 4.



5.



6. 7. 8.



He Chuansheng and Xiao Yunnan To examine the marketing strategy of the company in the target marketplace, such as its targeted customers, the intended image of the new name in foreign markets; To examine the nature of the product, such as its function, performance, benefits, and other useful information related to the product; To investigate the trademark law of the target country to learn its stipulations on the registration of brand names as trademarks; To transmit the original brand name into English, by whichever approaches he deems suitable, for example literal translation, Pinyin or Wade-Giles, transliteration or coining; preferably, it is advisable to create several or a dozen of candidate names by the different approaches, or to create several by a same method; To analyze each candidate name against the company’s marketing strategy and product positioning, and to delete some that do not comply with them; To screen the remaining names for linguistic performance and cultural connotation in the(c) targetJohn languageBenjamins and society; To check legal status and, if necessary, name availability and conDelivered by domain Ingenta sumer testing; on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 To select the final one.



to: University at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 4. Requirements for IP: brand130.126.32.13 name translators in China



Up to now, translators in China are mainly concerned with literary translation and sci-tech translation while little attention is given to translation of commercial languages such as advertising copies, slogans and brand names. We find only very few articles published on brand name translation. Some of the articles published in China’s translation journals are only concerned with cultural problems of brand name translation, without advancing solutions. In 1998, an article (Tan & Lu 1998: 3-6) published in the China Journal of International Advertising probed into the naming trend of global brands and proposed that Chinese export brands be named directly in English; in 1999, an article (He 1999: 11-13) published in Advertising Panorama advocated that coining is probably the best way to translate Chinese brand names into English. Translation companies in China usually do not offer brand name translation. In western countries, usually translators in commercial organizations also do not translate brand names, which are the products of another profession-advertis-



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ing agencies and specialized naming firms like Lexicon-Branding, NameLab, Namestormers, Brand Guardian, Interbrand, etc. In China, as far as we know, there are no such naming firms. Brand naming in China is different, the trademark law and the new Chinese language use law all stipulate that brand names of China products must be named in the Chinese characters, while for export brands, translation can be used. So, for Chinese products, there must be first a Chinese character brand name, then a translated brand name. With China’s further opening and reform, and with the economic globalization of Chinese economy, it can be estimated that more and more Chinese brands will enter into the international market, demand for translation of brand names will increase, translators specializing in this field will be in increasing demand. It is also unfeasible and unpractical for Chinese companies to hire foreign naming firms to create a new English brand name while completely ignoring the original Chinese character brand name, because of the high fee of naming companies (some may charge as high as 70,000 US dollars for a single name), and that these naming firms mainly cre(c)andJohn ate English brand names may notBenjamins have experience in Chinese brand naming and know little about Chinese character names and naming practices, Delivered by brand Ingenta therefore may not be able to well coordinate the relationship between the Chion: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 nese and English brand names. to:So, University atofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign Chinese brand names should mainly be the task the globalization IP: 130.126.32.13 of China’s translators or linguists who speak Chinese as their native tongue and have profound insight and understanding of English brand naming practice. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We find out that most of the past translations of brand names in China were undertaken by someone else, some by company managers, some by the company’s marketing people, who may know some English and only find a counterpart in a Chinese-English dictionary. This has been the common translation practice for brand names in earlier times. Meanwhile, we happily notice that recently, many forward-looking companies resort to specialized professionals or organizations for brand name translation based on the original Chinese character brand names. For example, the Shanghai Jahwa turned to a linguist for the translation of Mei-jia-jing, Meidi commissioned Landor, Caihong turned to a branding expert for its English brand name. Considering the complexity and subtlety of brand name translation, an ideal translator for brand names should be first of all an expert in translation and should have some knowledge about marketing, branding, and legal affairs.



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Ideally, in order to do a good job in translating brand names, a translator should: 1. 2.



4.



be an expert in the source and target languages and their cultures; be skilled at conventional translation practices (free, literal, and transliteration) and theory; have an understanding of the language in brand naming, know the rules and methods in creating brand names in English, especially the coining of words; know something about marketing, advertising, and laws.



5.



Criteria for an ideal translated brand name



3.



How to assess a translated brand name? Most marketing textbooks summarize the criteria for ideal brand names as memorable, distinctive, and positive and preferably suggestive of product attributes (Kevin Keller 1998: 131-132). (c)to translated John Benjamins These criteria also apply brand names. In translating the original brand name into a newDelivered one, these criteria be kept in mind. But translatbyshould Ingenta ed brand names are the products out of their original names, they should share on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 some relevance with their originals to some degree or by some manner. If they to:completely University atandIllinois at names Urbana-Champaign are irrelevant, then the new are re-created, not translatIP: 130.126.32.13 ed. In order to build a unified brand image across borders and to make consumers easy to associate the new names with the old names, it is advisable, from a marketing point of view, to translate with some associative relevance between them, while re-creation means the total loss of original brand assets and new expensive promotion of the new one. With this consideration and prerequisite, an ideal translated brand name should not only have the general criteria for brand names, but should also follow the following additional criteria: 5.1 Phonetic relevance The new translated brand name should sound similar, if not exactly the same, to its original name. Transliteration can well reach this criterion. Midea sounds like Mei-di, MAXAM sounds like Mei-jia-jing, etc. In China, we can find that a large number of foreign brand names are phonetically similar to their translated Chinese brand names. Examples include: Pepsi (Bai-shi), Mazda (Ma-zida), Pentium (Ben-teng), Simmons (Xi-meng-si), Motorola (Mo-tuo-luo-la), Contac (Kang-tai-ke), just to name a few.



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5.2 Semantic relevance By semantic relevance, we do not necessarily mean literal equivalence; rather we mean the new translated brand name should be semantically meaningful. If the original brand name has a similar positive meaning or cultural connotation in the target language, then literal translation may be a choice, such as Peony, Panda. If it is not the case, the new brand name should also be meaningful. Such meaning is not the inherent meaning of the original name, but intentionally given to the new name by choosing suitable morphemes, roots or words by the translator. Modern brand naming trend in the west is to create meaningful coined brand names that can suggest or imply product benefits; meaningless names are harder to promote. To create international brand names that are in trend with the prevailing foreign naming practice, it is necessary to make the translated brand names semantically relevant to product attributes and other information. The recent cases of English translation of Chinese brand names show that this criterion is followed such as Frestech, Youngor, HiSense, Pow(c) John Benjamins erise, Irico, etc.



Delivered by Ingenta on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 to: University Languages are semiotic,at theIllinois brand nameat andUrbana-Champaign its typeface constitute the visual IP: 130.126.32.13 part of brand image. Sometimes, the typeface can suggest or symbolize the fea5.3 Graphic relevance



tures of a product. In translating brand names from one language into another, it is highly recommended to make a similar visual look by adopting the same typeface or font of letters. For example, if the original brand name looks heavy, strong, powerful, then its translated name shall also have similar visual perception. This, however, is beyond the work of translators, but is the work of graphic designers. But to make a good translation, we think it is also important. It is quite possible for translated brand names to meet all the three additional criteria. Then we can conclude that an ideal translated brand name should not only meet the general criteria for brand names, but also should be relevant to its original name phonetically, semantically, and graphically. From the examples of translated brand names from Chinese to English or vice versa, we can see that a large number of them have met these criteria, such as HiSense, Frestech, Maxam, Serene, Youngor, etc. Most foreign brand names are translated into Chinese for both phonetic likeness and effective employment of the meanings of the Chinese characters, as well as graphic conformity. Examples



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include: Coca-Cola (ke-kou-ke-le, ‘tasty and happy’), Pampers (bang-bao-shi, ‘help the baby comfortable’), Avon (ya-fang, ‘elegance and fragrance’), Pentium (ben-teng, ‘rapid and powerful’), Canon ( jia-neng, ‘good performance’) and Colgate (gao-lu-jie, ‘very clear and clean’), etc, whose translations carry a selected meaning in Chinese, which can imply or suggest product benefits, as well as sounding an approximation of their English originals. 6.



Conclusion



When doing international business, the translation of brand names will be the first task facing many companies, especially those in developing countries like China. A well-translated brand name will be a most valuable linguistic asset to companies. Though great attention is paid to the creation of new international brand names, it seems that little attention is paid to the translation of existing brand names. What’s more, translation of brand names, in our opinion, is more difficult than new creation of brand names because the former has to take into (c) John Benjamins consideration the relationship with their original ones. The difficulty and complexity of naming new international brands also face translation of existing Delivered by Ingenta ones, besides translation of brand names should also heed their relevance to the on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 existing brand names in phonetics, semantics and graphics. to:Brand University at Illinois attheUrbana-Champaign name translation is no longer simple dictionary to dictionary IP: 130.126.32.13 transmission of word, rather it has become a considerable operation, involving different disciplines and comprising different steps, in which many factors have to be considered such as linguistic, cultural, marketing, legal and graphic factors. Brand name translation is getting more and more important to companies in today’s world economic environment, and has become a hot topic in commercial language translation, worthy of further study. It is suggested that Chinese translators and translation organizations consider offering such service to their clients. References Aman, R. 1982. Interlingual taboos in advertising: how not to name your products. In Linguistics and the Professions: Proceedings of the Second Annual Delaware Symposium on Language Studies. Robert J. Di Pietro (Ed). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. pp 215-224. Crystal, D. 1997. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. vii+480 pp. He, Chuansheng. 1997. English for Trademarks. Hunan University Press. vii+291 pp.



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He, Chunasheng. 1999. Globalization of brands: cross-linguistic and cross-cultural transmission. Advertising Panorama 5, pp. 11-13. He, Chuansheng. 2000. International Brands: Naming and Branding Strategies. People’s Publishing House of Hunan. xii+332 pp. Keller, K. K. 1998. Strategic Brand Management. New York: Prentice-Hall. xxvii+635 pp. Lekus, M. 1969. Problems in coining international brand names. The Trademark Reporter. 59: 415-422. Ma, Zuyi. 1998. A Brief Translation History of China. China Translation & Publishing Corporation. xiv+459 pp. Tan, Xu & Taihong, Lu. 1998. Hint of international brand naming. China Journal of International Advertising 7, pp. 3-6.



About the authors HE CHUANSHENG, a holder of a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, a Masters Degree in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, is now a ph.D. candidate in the Hunan University department of Business English and Communication, China. He has been studying the language of branding since 1993 and has published two books in this field. XIAO YUNNAN, professor of language and communication in the same department. Address: Department of Business English and Communication, College of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Changsha City, Hunan Province, People’s Republic of China. 410082 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]



(c) John Benjamins Delivered by Ingenta on: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:54:52 to: University at Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Abstract IP: 130.126.32.13



Brand names are an important part of advertising language, whose translation plays a critical role in international marketing practice, but somehow neglected with very little literature on this topic. This paper, by giving a detailed account of translating Chinese character brand names into English, attempts to study the practice and theory of translating brand names in China from a linguistic, cultural, marketing, and legal point of view. Two stages are summarized which can be roughly set before and after the Reforming and Opening of China in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and four approaches are identified which include Pinyin, literal translation, transliteration and coining, illustrating the development of translation theory and marketing science in China. In this paper, the authors put forward the process of brand name translation, requirements for translators of brand names and the criteria for ideal translated brand names, which, in the authors’ opinion, not only apply to translation of brand names from Chinese to English, but also apply to translation of brand names from other languages to Chinese.



Résumé Les marques de fabrique représentent une partie importante du langage publicitaire, dont la traduction joue un rôle crucial dans la pratique de commercialisation internationale, mais



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elle est un peu négligée du fait que peu a été écrit sur ce sujet. Cet article, qui fait un exposé détaillé de la traduction des marques de fabrique en caractères chinois vers l’anglais, tente d’examiner la pratique et la théorie de la traduction des marques de fabrique en Chine du point de vue linguistique, culturel, commercial et juridique. Deux étapes, qui se situent approximativement avant et après la Réforme et l’Ouverture de la Chine à la fin des années ’70 et au début des années ’80, sont résumés. Quatre façons d’aborder le problème sont identifiées qui incluent Pinyin, traduction littérale, translittération et invention, illustrant le développement de la théorie de la traduction et de la science de commercialisation en Chine. Dans cet article, les auteurs présentent le processus de la traduction d’une marque de fabrique, les conditions requises pour les traducteurs de ces marques et les critères pour que les marques de fabrique soient idéalement traduites. Selon l’opinion des auteurs, celui-ci ne s’applique pas seulement à la traduction des marques de fabrique du chinois vers l’anglais mais aussi à leur traduction à partir d’autres langues vers le chinois.



TRADUIRE



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