Translation strategies in advertisements

Abstract

In newspapers and magazines, on the internet and television, on the radio and public transport, advertisements have become inescapable in our daily lives. With the advent of technology, global communications and the internationalisation of markets and economies, manufacturers and consumers began to have access to international products and this led companies to further their outreach and communicate with consumers in different countries and in different cultures through the use of advertisements. Yet, an advertisement’s success depends on its appeal in the target country and on the needs and desires of the targeted consumers. This appeal is very often brought out through careful consideration of the target culture, the target country’s advertising culture, the target consumers, their lifestyle and purchasing habits and of course, the emotive connotations through the use of language. Promotional and advertising texts come in different forms: from advertisements to information campaigns, from tourist brochures to Curricula Vitae, or from company websites to classified listings. Advertisements even differ from each other according to the medium used (television, radio or print) and according to the amount of information and persuasion employed in every advertisement. However, all promotional and advertising texts have one purpose in common: they all seek to persuade the reader to act upon the message communicated in the advert. In the case of promotional material in information campaigns for instance, these work towards making the reader take a different stance to a certain issue or to improve their way of thinking or acting. Commercial advertisements aim at promoting their brand and services and to pushing potential clients to buy their product. As no promotional genre, or advertising text type is the same, and since advertisements are tied to different cultures and act upon different audiences, the translation of promotional and advertising texts must also be adapted to suit the text’s linguistic and extra-linguistic characteristics. However, just like the original advertisements, the translation must also have a persuasive purpose. Translating promotional material and most especially, advertisements, thus often requires the translator of advertisements to resort to strategies such as creativity, thorough rewriting, trans-creation, in-depth cultural adaptation and localisation, discourse analysis, semiotics, pragmatics and cross-cultural communication studies. This study has two purposes. The first is to present the relatively new study and theory of advertisement translation and to explain its specificities and particularity. The second is to explore the challenges the translator meets when translating advertisements and the strategies and methods that must be taken in order to properly translate an advertisement. Throughout this dissertation, I will be shedding light onto the composition of advertisements as it is important that the advertisement translator understands their particularity before working on their translation. Subsequently, I shall be explaining the strategies to be taken when translating the adverts, which include the translation, adaptation, localisation and, when needed, the trans-creation of advertisements, and their language, such as wordplay, alliteration, rhyme and other figures of speech. As non-verbal elements, such as colours, graphics and images make up an immense and vital part of advertisements and contribute to their aim of persuading and enticing the public to purchase a product or service, this study will also focus on the translation of these aspects. Culture, which plays a key role in advertisements, must also be adequately translated into the receiving culture so as to appeal to the target audience. Finally, I shall be putting theory and strategies presented into practice through my translation of English and French advertisements into Maltese. The first chapter of this dissertation, titled “Context” sets out to explain the particularity of the advertising genre: characteristics which the advertisement translator must understand well, look out for and keep in mind before attempting the translation. 1.1 gives a brief introduction on advertisements, 1.2 explains the characteristics of the components of print advertisements, such as the slogan and the copy, and 1.3 expands on advertising claims and the persuasive language used in advertising, including figures of speech. 1.4 deals with the Maltese context, i.e., adverts in Malta and the choice and use of language and creative language. The second chapter is dedicated to the Literature Review on advertisement translation. This chapter starts off with a history on the study of advertisement translation, and goes on to describe the external and internal factors determining the translation of adverts. Theorists’ strategies on approaching advertisement translation, such as the use of creativity, and if and how to go about translating brand names, slogans, and non-verbal elements are then explained. In order for a translated advert to truly reach out to its targeted audience, Skopos and communicative and functionalist approaches which all are principal and determining factors behind the translation of adverts, are discussed, along with the importance of culture, domestication and localisation. The third and final chapter preceding the Conclusion presents my translations of English and French adverts into Maltese and puts into practice the strategies discussed in Chapter 2 while taking into account the characteristics and specificity of the advertisement genre, as discussed in Chapter 1. The advertisements used in this study are taken from local and foreign magazines published during the years 2014 and 2015, as well as from internet searches made through internet search engines. So as to have a wider choice as to how features of advertisements and their translations differ from category to category, this study shall focus on more than one sector of adverts. This study would be of help and use to translators who wish to translate commercial texts and advertisements and to students and trainee translators who wish to acquire knowledge and awareness of the challenges encountered in the translation of advertisements, and the strategies needed to solve them. I also believe this study would be useful to marketing companies who wish to better attract and appeal to the Maltese population.