World brands naming in China: Problems of linguistic translation into Chinese

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the development strategy of the world market puts special requirements for the formation and promotion of brands. The analysis of the current state of the Chinese market shows that there are about 90 foreign brands included in the Top 20. Foreign brands of household goods, cosmetics, clothing and footwear, goods for children and equipment are popular in the Chinese market. The popularity of a foreign brand in China is associated not only with the high quality of products, the lack of similar products from Chinese manufacturers, but also with the particular qualities of branding in the Chinese language. Analysis of the language materials shows that brands that follow the Chinese naming tradition and have positively marked hieroglyphs are especially popular among Chinese consumers. When translating foreign brands into Chinese, transliteration and tracing techniques are regularly used, while the sound and semantics of a foreign brand are adapted to traditional Chinese culture. In the process of naming, discordant and unusual for the Chinese language for the combination of sounds are eliminated, the number of syllables in the brand name is reduced, the phonetic appearance of the original word is adapted. It was found that translation is rarely used in pure form of tracing; it is usually accompanied by semantic additions, insertions and transliteration. Particular attention is paid to the choice of signs that are used in the process of transliteration, with specific examples it is proved that successful brands use hieroglyphs with a "non-zero" meaning. In the process of brand translation, pictograms and ideograms associated with ancient cultural tradition and rituals are used, many signs in the structure new words already have a symbolic meaning associated with the positive qualities of a person, traditional Chinese morality, etiquette and rituals. Thus, concrete examples confirm the hypothesis that brand success is associated with marketing strategies and the translation of the name into Chinese. Branding is a complex regulated process related to the language and culture of the titular nation and the state as a whole, is closely related to the existing national tradition of naming, which allows regulating and guiding the process of entry of world brands into the Chinese market.

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