SLLCPostgraduate Taught Programmes Assessed Coursework Marksheet & Feedback Course Unit Code &Title: ELAN60192 Commercial Translation ID No.: ?5 | Li it D L Title of Essayor Assignment: Assignment1 ot 2 First Marker: Dr MaeveOlohan First Marker'sComments (Please complete each section):
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7514402 Globalizing Strategyin Advertising Translation
1rntroduction Introduction or* t$5"/ One of the most significantcurrentdiscussionsin commercialtranslation is 16 adaptationin cross-culturaladvertising.The rapid developmentof technologyhas madeit easierto expandbusinessto every corner of the world; yet meetingthe needsof or creatingdemandsfor people with diverse cultural backgroundswas consequenttVft"ro*" a new challengethat businessmenin all industries face. It is known that the brand name of each company adds value to its productsrandbrandshave becomean incentivegflpeople's purchasingbehaviour.France, in Carolyn Sumbelg's'Brand Leadershipat Stake'(2004),is viewed as a brand which is to be
' . w,lil'",. promored inEry@na. But from the fact that the number of Erlglsh tourists in Francehave
decreased,and that Spain has replacedFranceas the country whic|.British most desireto visit, it becomesapparentthat there are someproblems with the promotion of the brand, France.Viewing this phenomenon,Sumberg(2004) arguesthat one of the problems with the promotion is the translation of the tourism brochures.She claims that "in spite of the fact that advertising texts need to fulfil a precisefunction in the target culture, translatorsstill seemto aim for linguistic equivalencerather than localising or adaptingto target languageconventions" (2004:329) and by examining and analyzingthe translation strategiesof some brochuresthat introducef French cities that are translatedinto English, and comparing the translatedbrochuresto those that are originally written in English to introducecities in the UK, shevalidatesher assertion.However,her research is limited in the tourism industry and the location and languageis limited in the United Kingdom and France.Could similar examplesbe found in other industries,countries and languagepairs? To
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addressthe above question,this essayaims to examine the validity of the above assertionwithin a d^5t-rit-
context' different -2. Scopeof the essay
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Munday (2004) has given very detailed explanation of what translation of advertising is and its current situation infdsociety
nowadays.The translation of advertising requires strategiesthat
are different from the translation of technical, religious and literary texts. The difficulties of the task and the degreeof creativity one needsfor rendition might be similar to the translation of poetry. But the function and purposeof commercial advertising is to persuadepeople to consume,which is also what the translation should prioritize and achieve.To ensurethe effectiveness,text, along with image and sound need to be put into considerationas a whole when translating adverts.This is why Munday assertsthat culture, insteadof text, should be the unit of translation for advertisements
7514402 (2004). Despite the importance of viewing all elementspresentedin the sourceadvertsas a whole that gsd shouldbe translatedall together,the discussionin this essayrestricfitself to the
of textualpairsonly'. -J.-nf comparison
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(,F r-f,-l d ./'Gt\L t* gr<r>olrT Sincethe translationof advertisinghabcrossedinto the other disciplines,the translation
3. Definition of key terms
theoriesthatweredevelopedinthepastwillevidentlyn""aE@ffi|'m,ofother disciplines. The translation strategiesof advertising that translatorsapply can be categorizedinto three types.The first one, as in Sumberg's(2004) assertionmentionedabove,is localization.And the secondtype, as opposedto the first type is, in Sumberg'swords, to "aim for linguistic equivalence"(20A4329). This tendencymay be favoured or disliked dependingon the context in p^
which it is applied. For Venuti, this method has the advantageof arousing awarenessto the pre- ^aft y?r"W existing cultural valuesand belief in the targetlanguage(1993:68).Venuti recognizesit as a strategycalled, "foreignizing", which is a useful ethnodeviantmethod that would help balancethe/,F'ffi)
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ratherthanchallengethe targetreaders,61r{wHowever,whenthe purposeof the translationis to persuade of the adverts.The third foreignizingcouldbe the worst methodfor it risksthe effectiveness
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violatJthe conventionsof the target languageand culture, is strategy,which neither follotor A g".A globalizing.This is a notion that I bonowp'ftomAlden, Steenkampand Batra (1999).They proposethat there are three types of strategiesfor brand positioning: local consumerculture positioning(LCCP), foreign consumerculture positioning(FCCP),and global consumerculture positioning (GCCP). To fuither explicate the strategies,I will take the adverts of beer in Taiwan for example, and look at how the three strategiesare applied on the textual level. By textual level, I meanthe sloganor catchphraseof eachof the brand'sprinted ads.The sloganofAsahi, a Japanese brand,is "Htr!"
[back translation:ohlhow sweet!].The word, 'tf ', which means'sweet', sounds
the sameas'ffi', which is a very colloquial Taiwanesephrasefor 'cheers'.This associationof the brand with the Taiwanesephraseis clearly a strategicapproachof LCCP. The slogan that represents FCCP rs"W,# , Wffi" [back translation:joy, drink freely] by American beerbrand,Miller. These phrasesare of "low-context", which as Hofstede claims. is the characteristicof communication style
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in individualism-orientedculture (1991).This low-contextslogan,when placedin Taiwanese societywhoseculture is more dominatedby collectivism,is thus seenas associatingwith the
foreign consumerculture.Finally, Heineken,as a globally positionedbrand,has "green your heart" as its slogan.It reflectsthe needof peopleliving in the globalizedworld, who are underthe pressureof rapid changesand fast pace,to relax. Resortingto the global consumer'scommonvalue
I
7514402 is one aspectof GCCP strategy,the use of English words is another,for many languagesportray certainimagesthat are stereotypical(1991:77).While the TaiwaneseassociateFrenchand ltalian with romance,English is associatedwith globalization.Henceall threetypes of consumercultural positioning can be found in beer brandsadvertising in Taiwan. Parallel to the strategiesof translation,LCCP would then correspondto localizing and FCCP to foreignizing. I arguethat there
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is a translationstrategythat correspondsto GCCP,which would be 'globalizing'. This translation strategycan also be seenas the concretemanifestation of the metaphorical framework, introcultural theory, advancedby Ho (2004:228). In this theory translation is identified as a eugenic baby, which
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is constructedby the best genes,or the strengthsofboth sourceand target culture through the processcalled 'introcultural', as the introgressionprocess of geneticengineering.
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Having identified the existenceof a new type of strategy,it is now possible to examine the application of it with the real examples.For the purpose of this essay,three websitesare Lrrot,|rgJ U .jneg@Theselectionoftourismwebsitesisbasedmainlyontwolevelsof categorization:the first is basedon the ownership of the websites,i.e. whether they are privatelyowned or government-owned(official websites);the secondkind of categorizationis basedon who the publisheris, i.e., whetherthe publishersare foreignersor domesticcitizens.The threewebsites are: TTNews, a privately-owned tourism website published by local Taiwanese;Taichung Compass city guide, a privately-owned website published by two foreigners (Douglas Habecker and Courtney Donovan Smith); and Taichung traveling guide, the official Taichung (a city in the middle of Taiwan) tourism website published by local govemment officials. Becauseof the constraint of time and space,only the sub-categorizationson the homepageof the three websiteswill be examined. The analysissequenceis to first comparethe two privately-ownedwebsites'homepageand find out the differencesof the sub-categoriesand discusshow culture plays a contributing factor regarding to the phenomena.Next, I will seeif the differencesappearin the Mandarin and English version of the official websiteas well. Both privately/owned websitesare promoting the samebrand, Taichung, but their strategies are different.Compass'brandpositioning strategyis FCCP,and TTNews'brand positioning
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strategyis LCCP. From Table #
i" the appendix"cultural differencescan be analyzed.First of all,
gastronomyis categorizeddifferently. While Taiwanesevalue snacks,westernersvalue afternoon tea. Shoppinginformation is very different as well. Much more information is provided for the local people.The categorizationof leisureactivitiesis also different.Especiallynote the inclusion of night life in Compasswhile it is not mentionedin TTNews.
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7514402 Then as we examine if the differencesof the cultures appearsin the English and Mandarin versionsof the government'swebsite,we can seefrom Tableft
t"the appendixthat thereare
basically two features.First, food is condensedinto one category,which reducesthe importanceof different kinds of food. It is a globalizing strategybecauseit emphasizesthe brand but does not risk discouragingconsumersthat might find all the subcategoriesunattractive.Second,the theme of in the English versionof this website.It showsthat global shoppingis not one of the sub-categories tourists aim for understandingdiverse culture when they travel, for in this globalized world, where export and import are done much more rapidly and frequently, people can buy products from all over the world without the necessityof traveling. 5. Conclusion English is the offrcial languageof many countries which have distinct cultures, so it is " ,.rnclcor-do t,r. d; '1rs:rbL v a{c/\ Jagv,,K+' 7 'shoulff' localizethe'translationaccordingly(the offrcial Frenchtourism website possibleto, or even is a typical model of this localizing translation strategy,for the homepageof the American, Canadianand British version, which are all written in English, have different sub-categories). However, for administrative districts that do not have sufficient people with high language competency,it is hard to adopt the localizing strategy.The best they can do is to prevent foreignizing their translation, which meansmaking the target texts neutral, informative, and clear. Hence my argumentationis that the use of English itself can be viewed as a globalizing translation strategy,which is not, in Sumberg'swords, "adaptinglrget languageconventions" but adapting6 target culture-conventions.The finding here is somehow basedon qualitative researchv#iehmight
"lWi,ffigh.Thusfurtherquantitativeresearchisrequiredtogainthevalidityand objectivity of this finding.
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7514402
,d' References
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1. Alden,DanaL.,Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp& Rajeev Batra (1999) 'Brand Positioning ThroughAdvertisinginAsia, NorthAmerica,andEurope:The Roleof GlobalConsumer Culture' TheJournalof Marketing63(l):75-87. CaseStudyofAsi4 2. Chan,Ding-Yu(2006)'A CultureExplorationon BeerAdvertisement: Europe,andAmerica Brandsin Taiwan'Journal of Jing Yi University 36:l -21
thJU (,> 3. CompassTaiihungCity Gu-ide:http:iiuuw.tair.ranlun.corl/centralitaichung/indcx.htnt [last
12March20101. accessed Cultures',TIteTranslator acrossHeterogeneous 4. Ho, George(2004)'TranslatingAdvertisements 10(2):221-243. t/^'
5. Hofstede$z(tf
tl Culturesand Organizations:Sortwareof theMind,New York: McGraw-Hill.
to translationtheory', TheTTanslator10 6. Mnnday,Jeremy(2004)'Advertising:Somechallenges (2),199-219. 7. Sumberg,Carolyn(2004)'BrandLeadershipat StakeSellingFranceto British Tourists',Zfte Translator l0 (2):329-353. 12March 8. TaichungTravelingNet: http:r'ltravel.tccg.gov.trr'/englishihome.asp fiastaccessed 20101. 12 9. TaichungTravelingNet Chineseversion: http:/itravcl.tccg.gor'.trlr'home.asp [lastaccessed March20101. in English', l0.Venuti,Lawrence(1993)'TranslationasCulturalPolitics:Regimesof domestication TbxtualPractice7.208-23.
7514402
Appendix
THEMES
Compass
TTNews
gasuonomy
DINING TEA/COFFEE
,J.nZ*A [snack] +Af+Ig [cuisine] food] trF#+A finternational
general introductory text/news
ARTICLES INFORMATION TRAVEL HEADLINES WHAI'S ON
tA +'frtr*f ffi [raichune
SHOPPING
andcoupons] *fR@H [sales in lsales Taichungl ^6+4fR*R*R
shopping
traveling news]
ial UG EU[spec lRtrfir<ffi*#E travel planl
ffitfrffiffitrZ [recommended shopsl
l5ffiA#+n[shopping] H+H+g ffashion shopping] ffiEFFt€tr€ [shopping areasguide] accommodation
REAL ESTATE
Tx..fftttr [travel accommodation]
leisure
things that the other website doesnot include
ARTS/LEISURE, MOVIES MUSICSCENE NIGHT LIFE HUMOUR CLASSIFIEDS PERSONALS LANGUAGEEXCHANGE ABOUTUS MAGAZINE SUBSCzuPTION Table 1
t6 +4.itr'ftffi ltaichune leisureactivitiesl
tfr +gliffEj: [taichung art activitiesl eH)f'f H [tourism activities]
*f HfHffi fnewsphotos galleryl
7514402
Enslishversion
THEMES
Chineseversion
gastronomy
AEi6F lTaichung CuisineGuide cuisine]
general introductory text/news
fr-ffifi?ffi [thematic tour] fixffiHifl [travel informationl
F lgetto "*Kffi-fr
know Taichung]
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welcometo Taichuns Tour guide Local expertguide Tourist information Top 10 tourist attractions Travel Service Hot news Hot spots
destinationl
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ifi-ffitftffr [traveling news]
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shopping
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7514402
things that the other website does not include
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