Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts

Ira Torresi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781905763207, 9781138134065
• eBook ISBN: 9781317640110
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Lingüística

Promotional and advertising texts come in different forms and account for a considerable share of the translation market. Advertisements, company brochures, websites, tourist guides, institutional information campaigns, and even personal CVs all share a common primary purpose: that of persuading the reader to buy something, be it a product or a lifestyle, or to act in a particular way, from taking preventive measures against health risks to employing one candidate in preference to another. Consequently, their translation requires the application of techniques which, although they vary depending on the specific text type, are all aimed at preserving that persuasive purpose. This often requires in-depth cultural adaptation and, on occasion, thorough rewriting.

Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts covers different areas of personal promotion, business to business promotion, institutional and business to consumer promotion, including advertising. Numerous examples from a wide variety of languages and media, taken from the author's own professional experience and from real-life observation, are provided throughout. The volume is designed for use as a coursebook for classroom practice or as a handbook for self-learning. It will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, but also freelance and in-house translators, as well as other professionals working in sales, public relations or similar departments whose responsibilities include involvement in the management of multilingual advertising and promotion activities.

1. Introduction

Why a Book on the Translation of Promotional Texts?

In introducing this volume, it is perhaps necessary to justify why one would write a book about the translation of a wide array of promotional genres, from advertising to institutional brochures, from company websites to personal promotion (CVs, job application letters, personal websites). One might argue that such text types have different topics and addressees, circulate across different media, and therefore have different linguistic and contextual characteristics that call for different translation strategies. What unites them, however, is that they all share a persuasive purpose. Or in more cynical terms, they all aim at selling something, be it a service, product, life-style, company (of any size), or public institution. For translators, this has one major implication: if a source text is intended to promote something or someone, then the one who commissions the translation of that text usually wants the same purpose to be re-created in the target (i.e. translated) text. This means that the translations of promotional texts are assessed in functional terms — i.e. for what they do rather than what they are, or for how well they affect the reader rather than how close they are to the original (§ 3.2). In other words, promotional translations, just like their source texts, are assessed in terms of their effectiveness or success, which means in terms of an increase in sales or, in the case of institutions, an increase in the number of contacts received as a token of visibility.

Thus, even if they belong to different genres, all promotional texts can be tackled within the same translational approach, which, in turn, needs to be adjusted to the specific nature of the text in question (for instance depending on its information-to-persuasion ratio, § 3.3), and the situational context of the translation job (for instance, a given commissioner might want a literal translation of a promotional text for non-promotional purposes, or for later re-creation).

For readers who may be interested in definitions, this shared translation approach can be broadly identified with functionalism or Skopostheorie (Reiss and Vermeer 1984/1991; Nord 1997; Schäffner 1998, 2009), and may be considered a kind of consumer-oriented translation, which applies to a larger number of text genres, including recipes, technical handbooks and instructions in general (Hervey and Higgins 1992/2002:196–204; Hervey et al 1995/2006: 145–154). It is also an instance of covert translation, which implies the naturalness of the target text, i.e. the translated text appears to have been written directly in the target language (House 1977/1981: 189). This implies that the source text is usually domesticated, i.e. made to conform as much as possible to the linguistic and cultural norms the target community attaches to that text genre (Venuti 1998b).

1.1 How to use this book

This book can be used in University classes as a coursebook, or as a self-learning handbook. In either case, note that chapters do not correspond to study units and require different periods of time and degrees of effort. In particular, the first three chapters are more general, and while they contain some examples, they do not have any exercises. They should not take more than one-tenth of the time you devote to the entire course or self-learning process. It is however important that practice-related and general issues (chapters 2 and 3) are studied before going on to practical examples.

As for timing, an adaptation of the book was piloted on an Italian undergraduate 30-hour (10-week) course focusing on translation practice. For shorter courses, I advise trainers to make a selection of topics from chapter 4 to chapter 7 rather than rushing through the whole coursebook. Professionals may also find it useful to skip sections about text types which they do not usually encounter in their work. To this purpose, I have designed chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 in such a way to make it easier, I hope, for readers to select the topics and materials that best suit their own teaching or learning needs.

Teachers and trainers may also want to integrate this book with translation coursebooks and translation theory handbooks, such as the ones listed in the last paragraph of the Introduction above (especially Nord 1997), as well as a selection of relevant works from the further reading section in the References. Additionally, the materials provided in this book should be taken as examples, and should always be integrated with fresh real-life material that best suits learners’ needs, including languages that are not accounted for here.

As far as activities are concerned, apart from individual translation exercises that can be corrected and discussed in class or among peers, roleplay can be useful to optimize classroom or individual study time, accommodate distance learning needs, and encompass revision as well as translation roles. This is especially useful with texts that lend themselves more easily to multiple versions (§ 2.2). Pairs or groups of more than two people can work together exchanging roles after each exercise: one component acts as the translator, the other as the commissioner’s reviser/editor, and in larger groups additional members can be second-level revisers, or one of them can play the role of the end client. The reviser, or the end client where present, fills in the brief following the general model in table 1 or any other brief agreed by the group for the specific text to be translated. The translator translates the text following the brief, getting back to the end client or the commissioner’s reviser to clarify the brief or negotiate choices when possible or relevant, and after self-revision hands in the final version(s) of the target text. The reviser revises the target text(s) taking the brief, the visual level and the target culture into account (see Mossop 2001/2007 for revision and editing strategies), and ranks alternative versions, when present, in order of preference and compliance with the brief. This first-level revision is then sent to the second-level reviser or the end-client, if the group includes such figures. At this point, individual choices and suggestions are critically discussed among all group members. In a face-to-face setting such as the classroom, oral communication has the advantage to be less time-consuming, but e-mail, Skype or Messenger communication are more realistic choices and help participants choose specific rhetorical strategies to motivate their translation and revision choices. Of course, given that power relations are non-symmetrical in the group, translators will need to be flexible and ready to accept equally or more fitting alternatives suggested by the reviser(s) or client, but equally ready to tactfully advocate for the validity of their translation options if they are sure about it. It might be a good idea to accompany the translation with a detailed comment that pre-emptively argues for translation choices; revisions should similarly be motivated with a comment. Revisers and end-clients should be well aware of their priorities from the start of each project when they fill in the brief, and investigate into any translation choice that they might interpret as challenges to such priorities. This should drill participants into the practice of negotiation (following § 2.2) and prepare them to face the complaints and claims that might arise during their professional practice.

1.2 Intended readership

This book is intended for both students/trainees and professionals.

Translation students, both undergraduate (BA level) or graduate (in master’s or other postgraduate translation courses) may use it as a coursebook in class, or as a tool for individual training if promotional translation is not a topic of their translation courses.

Promotional translation may also be of interest for those professionals with different priorities. For instance, newly graduated translators who have not received specific training for advertising/promotional material, and who do not want to risk ruining their reputation by venturing into an unknown domain, may want to know more about this field, just in case one of their first clients asks them to translate texts such as a website or a company advertising campaign. As we all know, it is very difficult at the start of one’s career, for both economic and psychological reasons, to say ‘no’ to any translation job. And clients do tend to turn elsewhere after the first refusals.

Similarly, well-established freelance translators or translation agencies specializing in other fields may wish to diversify their translation service offer, for at least two reasons: first, advertising translation is usually paid better than other fields; second, client fidelization is important, especially once one has won one’s own pool of regular clients. For instance, if my clients are mainly small industrial companies, the bulk of my commissions will probably be made up of technical handbooks, but if I turn down, or translate badly, promotional texts, then my precious regulars might look for other providers, not just of promotional translation services, but of translation services in general.

This book, however, does not only address translators, but also in-house marketing people or sales personnel in charge of foreign markets, who work at small to medium sized companies that cannot afford to outsource their international advertising and marketing campaigns. Such professionals might be asked to develop and/or translate in-house the company’s promotional texts (e.g. posters, leaflets and brochures to be distributed and displayed at international exhibitions, chapter 5).

Finally, other professionals working in the fields of marketing and advertising may be interested in gaining some insight into advertising and promotional translation. For instance, figures such as in-house copywriters, sales managers at advertising agencies, or the marketing staff of companies that outsource their promotional translations, may be asked to review or edit the target text produced by a translator, or may wish to have some degree of understanding of and control over the translation/adaptation process. After all, if translators need to learn to know their commissioners in order to work at their best, the reverse applies, too!

1.3 A short note on terminology

The trans-linguistic, trans-cultural, trans-market transfer of advertising and promotional material goes under a number of names. Just to name a few, ‘translation’, ‘adaptation’, ‘localization’, and ‘trans-creation’, each of them referring to different aspects of the same process.

Whereas translation might be considered as mainly connected to the written word and to the transfer of concepts from one language to another, adaptation and localization (a more specific term, which is mainly used for advertisements, websites and software) may be seen to stress the cross-cultural aspect of the process and the need to adjust the promotional text to the target market in order to preserve its persuasive function. This, in turn, might entail trans-creation, i.e. re-building the entire promotional text so that it sounds and reads both natural and creative in the target language and culture.

Given the practical approach of this book, however, I will use the term ‘translation’ for all such aspects, as long as they fall or can fall within a translator’s field of action. In this sense, I give ‘translation’ its etymological meaning of ‘transfer’, i.e. the transfer of a text, concept, or promotional purpose across languages, cultures and markets. This by no means implies that translation is limited to the verbal dimension, nor to texts as seen out of their real-life contexts.

1.4 Structure

After this introductory chapter, we will first see a few notes and caveats concerning professional practice (chapter 2). Section 2.1 briefly outlines some of the non-linguistic abilities involved in p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables and Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Why a Book on the Translation of Promotional Texts?
• 2. Promotional Translation and Professional Practice
• 3. Key Issues in Promotional Translation
• 4. Translating Promotional Material: Self-Promotion
• 5. Translating Promotional Material: Business-to-Business
• 6. Translating Promotional Material: Institutional Promotion
• 7. Translating Promotional Material: Business-to-Consumer
• 8. Translating Persuasion across Cultures
• Appendix
• A Glossary of Terms
• References
• Index