【正文】 also helps to arouse favorable associations of customers and also consider the phonetic beauty. Equivalence of Vocative FunctionSimply speaking, the vocative function means that brand name can arouse people’s interest and persuade them to make purchases. Brand name translation should not only inform people of the value of products, but also cater to the customers’ psychological need to achieve equivalence in vocative function. One example is “Mr. Muscle” (a detergent brand name). If it is translated as “肌肉先生”，Chinese people are likely to associate it with a person who merely has a simple brain and strong limbs without intelligence. Of course, such a translated version in Chinese will attract few people’s interest and its vocative function would be impossible. A revised version of “威猛先生” can fulfill its vocative function of inducing housewives to do some cleaning with this detergent.Besides the abovementioned equivalence in functions of brand names, a translator must also take into consideration simultaneously such elements as linguistic and cultural factors in order to achieve functional equivalence in brand name translation. Thesis Chapter 3 Methods Employed in Brand Name TranslationChapter 3Methods Employed in Brand Name TranslationAs discussed above, the successful observance of the principle of “functional equivalence” in translating source brand names into target ones depends on many factors, among which the most important is the flexible employment of translation techniques in practice. There are four kinds of translation techniques: literal translation, transliteration, bination of literal translation and transliteration and creative translation. Literal TranslationLiteral translation means translating meanings literally, namely, keeping both the original form and the original sense. It is often used when the brand names can find corresponding expressions in target language. As Chinese and English cultures share many similarities, many brand names can be translated into target language by literal translation, especially those brand names invented after the names of plants, animals, birds or precious things like gem, diamond and gold. （Murphy, 1987） For example, “梅花”(recorder) is translated as “Plum Blossom”。 “小天鵝”(washingmachine) as “Little Swan”。 “鉆石”(watch) as “Diamond”。 “金杯”(sports shoes) as “Golden Cup”. Some Brand names which indicate the material, the quality, the usage and the peculiarity of certain products can be translated into English by this technique as well.Literal translation is often adopted in many cases as an effective technique for achieving functional equivalence in translating brand names. Nevertheless, translators must make sure first that versions produced by this technique are acceptable in other culture and are not negative in the target market. And this is of great importance, for we may fail to reproduce the same vocative function of the brand names if we do something opposite. For example, “白翎”(White Feather) are well accepted in domestic market。 while in American and British market, the product was rejected, because its English rendering White Feather does not meet the psychology of the potential customers. In their culture, to show the white feather is a means of insulting, equivalent to abuse the person for being coward. TransliterationTransliteration refers to the way of translating brand names by taking the sounds of words instead of their verbal meanings into account. It is frequently used when the brand names created by culturespecific notions, for these names can hardly find any correspondences in English.（Murphy, 1987） For example, “厚樸” is a famous Chinese brand name for toothpaste. We Chinese know quite well about the traditional herb named magnolia officinal. But if we translate it as “Magnolia Officinal”, the foreigners may not have the same acknowledgement as we do. And this rendering seems to be something bizarre to English people. In order to solve this problem, we can use transliteration. Hence we get the brand name “Hope” which sounds similar to Chinese word “厚樸” and conveys a favorable meaning in English.One of transliteration methods is to translate the brand names by Chinese Pinyin. Take the famous Chinese brand name “鴨鴨”(downfilled coat) for example. Although “鴨鴨” has its literal substitutions “Duck” and “Ducky” in English, it is not translated so, but transliterated into “Ya Ya” by Chinese Pinyin. The reason is that either “Duck” or “Ducky” often indicates something silly and clumsy in English language culture, which may lead to an unpleasant feeling. However, “Ya Ya” will of course not cause such kind of feeling though it is aliencolored and is not a meaningful English word. In general, most proper Chinese brand names are transliteration by Chinese Pinyin. For example, “李寧”is translated as “Li Ning”。 “茅臺”as “Mao Tai”。 “太極”as “Tai Ji”。 etc. Transliteration by Chinese Pinyin can transfer the typical Chinese flavor to the target receptors so as to attract and persuade them. However, translators must avoid ambiguity or negative associations caused by some Chinese Pinyin when translating the brand names by this method.Owing to the inadequacy of transliteration by Chinese Pinyin, another method is proposed. It means that some Chinese brand names can be transliterated by English words, or even coined English words, whose pronunciations are the same or the similar to them. Therefore, the renderings will look more like English brand names so that they bee closer to foreign receptors, and thus bee more elective and memorable. This method is most often used for the coined word brand names translation. For instance, “美而暖”(clothing) is translated as “Malran” instead of “MEI ER NUAN”。 “華帝”(kitchenware) is translated as “Vantage” instead of “HUA DI”. Combination of Transliteration and Literal Translation Which way should we use in bra