An Intercultural Approachto the Study of Brand NamesAbstract With the acceleration of the globalization,the international economiccommunication becomes much more frequent.Brand names not only transfer the informationconcerning commodities,but also transfer the cultural information to the receivers in the targetculture as cultural messenger,In the course of selling for the products,some brand names promotethe selling,because these brand names are recognized by the foreign culture,arouse the samesympathy from the foreign consumers,While on the other hand,some brand names receivedpassive feedbacks because theses heavy culture-loaded brande names have proved to result in“cultural shock”in foreign market.This thesis has studied the cultural origin.cultural connotation of brand names from theintercultural approach and revealed their reflectiong in various aspects such as socialcustoms,religion,morality and so on.with the application of Nida's"functional equivalence"andprovide concrete techniques for the translation of brand names so as to provide some help to thetranslation of English and Chinese brand names.The author points out that the translation of brandnames in foreign market should gibe as much attention as possible to commodity information andcultural information contained in original brand names.But also be sure that the translation cannotarouse cultural confilict,arouse unfavorable association,thus result in the failure of the selling,Sothe designer and translator of brand names should try to avoid heavily culture-loaded brandnames'appearing in the foreign market,since they are not easily accepted by the receivers,Key words:Brand names;Intercultural communication;Translation从跨文化角度论商标的翻译摘要：随着全球化进程的加速，国际经济交往的频繁。商标向异域消费者传递了商品信总：同时，作为文化使者也向外族传递了本国的文化信息。在产品销售的过程中，一些商标名称促进了产品在国外市场的销售，是因为这些商标名称得到了异域文化的认可，引起了异域消费者的共鸣：而另一方面，某些商标名称却有消极的反馈，这是因为这些商标名称蕴含的浓厚的源语文化特色在异域文化中产生了“文化休克”。本文从跨文化的角度研究了商标的文化起源，商标的文化蕴涵，商标名称在风俗习惯、宗教、道德规范、地域文化等各方面的反映。以奈达的“功能对等”理论为原则，运用大量汉英牌名实例分析讨论品牌名称翻译的具体方法提出在国外市场中的商标词汇的翻译要尽量兼顾商标名称在源语中所蕴含的商品信息和文化特色，更要注意商标名称是否会产生文化冲突，引起消极联想，从而导致产品滞销。关键词：商标名称：跨文化交流：翻译IntroductionBrand name is an essential part of advertisements.It is a name given by a producerto a certain product,by which it may be recongnied from among like products madeby other producers,Along with the increasing international contact,brandnames havebecome more and more important,They are the carrier of culture and the medium oftransferring certain culture to the consumers,Therefore,a properly translated brandname is essential for acompany to compete in the world market.But brand nametranslation has ever een ignored.Nowadays it has been drawing more and moreattention from the translators because of the trend of economic globalization andrapid development of economy and society.Along with the increasing contact withforeign countries after China's entry into WTO,more and more products together withtheir brand names have been pouring into China's market.And manufacturers becomeaware of the importance of brand names for them to go into world market andcultivate foreign market to promote sales which is basic to the success ofacompany.And as we know brand name is the bridge which connects manufacturerswith consumers.Therefore,properly translated brand name is vital for a company's2entry into world market.Generally speaking,studies of brand names have been largely conducted inWestern countries on the products which are branded in Westenr Europeanlanguages.Some studies have focused on the guidelines and criteria for developingeffective brand names.For example,John Murphy,a brand expert in Interbrand(globalbranding consultancy),has edited and published many guide books on branding.AndAdrian Room has pubulished Dictionary of Trand Name Origins,which collects quitea lot fo famous brand names.American branding professors at University of Californiaat Berkeley have also contributed a lot to studies in this field.They make theoreticanalyses on brand naming in their works,such as Keller's Strategic BrandManagement and Aaker's Strong Brands.However,though brand names are vital and brand name translation plays acritical role in establishing the international image of a company and cultivatingforeign markets,the translation of brand names failed to attract translators in Chinauntil around 1994,when really inprotand studies began to be conducted in this field.Inthe past ten years,there are about thirty esays have been published in three leaingtranslation journals in China,namely Chinese translators'Joural,Chinese Science andTechnology Translators'Journal,and Shanghai Science and TechnologyTranslators'Journal.More than half of the precious studies have been dealing with theprinciples and methods of brand mae translation.Another two essays have beendealing with the translation of brand names when used in different parts ofspeech.And about eight essays have touched upon the importance of culture in brandname translation.Tang Gende,Bao Huinan,Xiao Hui and Tao Yukang all agree thaculture plays an important role in brand name translation.Hu Kaijie stresses theimprotance of an appropriate conversion of cultural meaning and Jiang Lei clearlyputs forward the opinion that ignoring cultural differences can cause pragmaticfailures in brand name translation.Zhu Xiaoju also approaches brand name translationform the angle of cultural difference,considering ti crucially important to know thewestern customers'aesthetic conception and their reponse to the translated brandnames.Cang Lanju considers it's necessary to take into considerrationconsumers'psychology,product nature,conciseness of translations and target culture