Language functions and intercultural translation in the world of advertising: the case of wine marketing

In Bertazzoli (2006), La traduzione, teorie e metodi, Toury (1980)distinguishes between these two poles: acceptability refers to those translated texts that meet linguistic standards, styles and cultural choices which are as close as possible to the target culture (target-oriented translation).

Conversely, suitability refers to the translator’s skills to maintain a translated text adequate to the original one and its distinctive features, in terms of language structures, styles and cultural behaviours (source-oriented translation).

Since the advertisement is a text-genre motivated by clear intentions and, at the same time, contains many metaphors and idioms that only partially may be rendered through a sourceoriented translation strategy, it seems obvious that a target-oriented translation- when possible- is required, otherwise other strategies (cultural transposition, total re-arrangement of the message according to target language functions) will be more appropriate.

Misunderstandings are often possible if people cooperating with advertisers are not well-prepared translators or, at least, target-language experts. On the Internet, many wrong translations can be retraced. Sometimes they are funny, but it is evident that the reliability of the advertised product is questioned.

The problem is even more complicated for the translation of brands and adverts in Chinese: in this case, a writing system based on ideograms can be oriented towards a similar phonetic reproduction of the brand at issue (i.e. “Parmalat” translated with “Parmalate”) but totally loosing its original meaning, or oriented towards the reproduction of the brand content (i.e. “Apple Computer” translated with “Pinguo Diannao”) but involving an overall re-arrangement of the word’s phonetic structure. As already repeated several times, apart these exceptions linked to a different alphabet and textual structure in general, there are other aspects that have to be considered.

As Forceville (1996) acknowledges in “Pictorial Metaphors in Advertising”, metaphors are becoming more and more predominant in static and non-static adverts, being able to drawn the public’s attention. Metaphors are part of the sociolinguistic components that translators have to take into account. They must consider it in the frame of social, religious and traditional rules that can affect their translation, being able to detect which text is the most convenient.

Moreover, the translator is forced to take the legislation of the target countries into account, at the risk of seeing the entire advertising campaign refused. The law regulates advertisement contents as well as their expression and their presentation. In France, the Evin Act compels advertisers to use the French language exclusively.

In Quebec, advertising posters have to be bilingual. In Saudi Arabia, the code regulating advertising stipulates that "it is forbidden to show all or part of a woman's body except for the features of the face, and to make any allusion whatsoever in advertising to the relationship between man and woman"! All these aspects cannot be ignored. In the scope of marketing and intercultural advertising, translators must be aware that the success of a given product or service most depends on their work.