基于目的论的汽车商标翻译研究(2)
II. Functions of Automobile Trademark
Language has to serve various purposes due to different types of occasions for using it. The uses of language can be reduced to different functions. The trademark is the core of a product’s identity and personality. In today’s competitive market, a memorable and successful trademark is of vital importance in creating and sustaining product image．Before purchasing a product，we often take into consideration the brand names of various products or services. We incline to choose the product whose brand name is well—known or that enjoys an excellent reputation. Marketing guru Alvin Achenbaumsays in. The Mismanagement ofm. Brand Equity,“more specifically hat distinguishes a brand from its unbranded commodity counterpart and gives it equity is the sum total of consumer’s perceptions and feelings about the product’s attributes and how they perform about the brand name and what it stands for, and about the company associated with the brand.” Accordingly, brand names usually have distinctive, informative, vocative, legal and communicative functions．
2.1 Distinctive Function
There are often a number of different specifications, qualities, colors of the same kind of goods. It is necessary for producers to adopt special band names to differentiate the kind of commodities(Liang Guotao).Brands, as the faces of the products, enable the consumers to recognize the differences between a certain product and others of the same kind and help the producers to differentiate their own products from the same kinds of goods produced by competitors. For example, “Ford”, “Mazda” “Volvo’’, ‘‘Audi’’, “Chevrolet”, ‘‘Daimler”, “解放”, “红旗”, “跃进”, “东风”,etc., are different brand names of automobiles，which help the consumers distinguish one product from another．
2.2 Informative Function
As it known to all, high—information is an important value of advertisement．Brand names, as a kind of advertisement, should provide the consumers with as much information as possible，such as the information about their characteristics，functions，values and target consumers and so on.
Firstly, some brand names imply the characteristics and functions of the products．For example, “Ettore Bugatti 110”(EB110 for short)and “EB ll8”have special meanings respectively. Ettore Bugatti(埃托雷.布加迪)is the founder of EB automobile company．In celebration of his l10-year-old birthday, EB110 is named. In “EB I18”, the first number “l” here means the first one in the world；and“18”indicates that this type of automobile has 18 cylinders．On the whole，the company intends to tell the consumers that this is the first super sports car with 18 cylinders in the world. “Jatta”(捷达)and “Passat”(帕萨特)are named after the local tornadoes in America, signifying rapidity of their cars.
Secondly, some brand names convey information about the origin of brand naming. “Rolls .Royce”(劳斯莱斯)indicates the founder of the car company ,Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. “Bluebird”(蓝鸟)is the band name of a Japanese automobile company. Here “bluebird” which symbolizes “happy future’’, is quoted from the pantomime ‘‘Bluebird” written by a Belgian writer, Maurice Materlinck in 1911. As an automobile brand name, ‘‘bluebird’’ means “the origin of happiness”
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