Translation of Rhetorical Figures in the Advertising Discourse: A Case Study

Rhetorical figures, which are frequently applied in advertisements, can add literary flavor to the texts, gratify audiences’ aesthetic needs, and deepen their impression. In advertisement translation, it is very common that the rhetorical figures applied in the original text are replaced with new ones in the translation. This research focuses on rhetorical figures’ function of enhancing audiences’ memory and discusses the realization of this function in translation. The psychological studies on human needs are referred to in the analyses, especially aesthetic needs, for the use of rhetorical figures provides audiences with aesthetic pleasure and gratifying their aesthetic needs involves their emotion and enhances their memorization. To have aesthetic needs is universal across cultures; however, the ways to satisfy such needs may vary due to linguistic and cultural differences. The flexible treatment of rhetorical figures in advertisement translation mirrors such differences in terms of needs gratification, and investigation in this regard can reveal the linguistic and cultural nuances and provide translators with practical guidance.