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  3. The increase in global trade means that international companies cannot affor

The increase in global trade means that international companies cannot affor

游客2024-09-16  29
问题     The increase in global trade means that international companies cannot afford to make costly advertising mistakes if they want to be competitive.
    Understanding the language and culture of target markets in foreign countries is one of the keys to successful international marketing. Too many companies, however, have jumped into foreign markets with embarrassing results.
    Translation mistakes are at the heart of many blunders in international advertising.
    General Motors, the US auto manufacturer, got a costly lesson when it introduced its Chevrolet Nova to the Puerto Rican market. "Nova" is Latin for "new (star)" and means "star" in many languages, but in spoken Spanish it can sound like "nova", meaning "it doesn’t go". Few people wanted to buy a car with that cursed meaning. When GM changed the name to Caribe, sales "picked up" dramatically.
    Marketing blunders have also been made by food and beverage companies. One American food company’s friendly "Jolly Green Giant" (for advertising vegetables) became something quite different when it was translated into Arabic as "Intimidating Green Ogre".
    When translated into German, Pepsi’s popular slogan, "Come Alive with Pepsi" came out implying "Come Alive from the Grave". No wonder customers in Germany didn’t rush out to buy Pepsi.
    Successful international marketing doesn’t stop with good translations—other aspects of culture must be researched and understood if marketers are to avoid blunders.
    When marketers do not understand and appreciate the values, tastes, geography, climate, superstitions, religion, or economy of a culture, they fail to capture their target market.
    For example, an American designer tried to introduce a new perfume into the Latin American market but the product aroused little interest. The main reason was that the camellia used in it was traditionally used for funerals in many South American countries.
    Having awakened to the special nature of foreign advertising, companies are becoming much more conscientious in their translations and more sensitive to the cultural distinctions.
    The best way to prevent errors is to hire professional translators who understand the target language and its idiomatic usage, or to use a technique called "back translation" to reduce the possibility of blunders.
    The process uses one person to translate the message into the target language and another to translate it back. Effective translators aim to capture the overall message of an advertisement because a word-for-word duplication of the original rarely conveys the intended meaning and often causes misunderstandings.
    In designing advertisements for other countries, messages need to be short and simple. They should also avoid jokes, since what is considered funny in one part of the world may not be so humorous in another. [br] One way to prevent errors in advertising in different countries is to
选项 A、fire the translators who don’t know the target language.
B、use the technique called "literal translation" to reduce the possibility of blunders.
C、avoid cultural oversights and avoid certain jokes.
D、explain in details when designing advertisement for other countries.
答案 C
解析 由题干中的prevent errors可定位到倒数第3段，本段和下一段指出防止出错的最佳方法一一聘请懂得需翻译的目标语言的专业翻译人员，或者采用回译法(back translation)，而不是B中的“直译法(literal translation)”，且根据倒数第3段的“a word-for-word duplication．．．often causes misunderstandings”也可进一步排除B；A“解雇不懂目标语言的翻译人员”和D“设计国外市场的广告时要详细解释”在文章均没有提到，故也可排除。本文从第7段开始就讲在国外打广告时要避免在文化方面的疏忽和失察，最后还补充“应当避免使用笑话”这一点，因此C为本题答案。
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