The 9th Asia-Pacific Forum on Translation and Intercultural Studies (APFTIS-2021)

Abstract: China is playing an increasingly important role in globalization process, so more and more enterprises start introducing their products into China. Based on this, the translation of brand names into Chinese becomes a vital task because the translation names leave the first impression on local consumers. To fill the gap of the analysis on E-C translation of cosmetics brand names, this paper aims to analyze the translation of English cosmetics brand names into Chinese from the perspective of Functional Theory. The first step is to prove the feasibility of the theoretical framework on this topic. Then through comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between English cosmetics brand names and Chinese cosmetics brand names, the paper adopts quantitative and qualitive analysis to research the collected 56 cosmetics brand names, thus further analyzing the use of some translation principles and translation strategies in the brand names translation process under the guidance of Functional Theory. Finally, the paper concludes that in terms of translation strategies of English cosmetics brand names into Chinese, translators should consider lexical features, phonetic forms and translating methods. As for specific translation methods, translators are supposed to adopt different methods depending on different conditions. Therefore, the paper provides some suggestions on this topic.