Translation Strategies from Target Culture Perspective: An Analysis of English and Chinese Brands Names

As a crucial communication material, the brand name exhibits its growing importance in the worldwide communication. It is a special text with a strong function and a clear persuasive purpose. This paper aims to explore the translation strategy and methods of English brand names from the perspective of culture. According to Skopostheorie, the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translational action. The translation methods should be based on the text’s function and the target culture. This paper is a tentative study of the guiding strategy and possible methods used in English brand names translation by analyzing the Chinese and English brand names, and how they fulfill the function of promoting products and enhancing the cultural exchange in the hope of offering a new perspective in the brand name translation practice. The study used the Skopostheorie as the guiding theory and strategy to analyze English brand names, which were selected from the brand names database “brandirectory”. It is found that the translation should follow the target-culture oriented strategy to conform to the habitual use of target language, social culture and aesthetics in target market