إشكالية ترجمة الإشهار الدولي

Abstract

The present research aims to study the different strategies and procedures of translation followed in the rendition of international advertisements, with a focus on two main components: the linguistic and the visual components. For an in-depth investigation, Coca Cola Company has been chosen as the practical sample given the status it enjoys all over the world. It is hypothesized in the study that it is possible to convey the two components composing the international advertisement discourse in the light of international markets competition, through two main translation procedures used in transfering advertisements from English into Arabic: localization or adaptation. To reach the aims of the study, this dissertation has been divided into four chapters, two theoretical and two reamaining others practical. The first chapter reviews the literature on advertisement, which depends on a commercial goal that is considered a relevant element in the chain of marketing and a motivating factor for products to be marketed by a producer to a national consumer, and then to an international consumer. Despite its pragmatic aim, this does not prevent the advertisement discourse to impose itself both as a piece of art and literature. It is also apparent that the advertisement discourse is a hybrid discourse that can be either a communicationl discourse made up of source (advertiser), receiver (consumer), channel (auditory/written/audio-visual/electronic), message (advertisement discourse), context and code (linguistic and non linguistic signs). Also it is a cultural discourse that attempts to integrate cultural aspects which make the pragmatic necessity a living style convenient with the different cultures. The steady progress of media leads eventually to the production of similar cultural messages and products. This paves the way to the occurrence of new type of advertisement namely as, The International Advertisement. Additionally, it is believed that the advertisement discourse is a complex semiotic discourse with linguistic and visual layouts which themselves contain two types of signs: linguistic and non linguistic. In fact, the advertisement translation is tightly related to its effect on the foreign consumer. This effect can be: zero effect, positive or negative. In the practical chapters, the study analyses and criticises the translation procedures as used by Coca Cola Company in the rendition of international advertisements. The study clearly shows that both the linguistic and visual treatment of the advertisement followed the localization strategy of translation since the characteristics of the source discourse were apparent in the transfer, ignoring the target culture and imposing the source culture to become a means of promoting not only the product but also the American material culture as an international culture in the context of globalization. Despite this, the use of adaptation was apparent in some cases to show contrasts in the genius of the source and target languages. More importantly, the adaptation strategy was important to preserve some cultural aspects in the target culture that seemed to be non-negligible. Yet, resorting to both localization and adaptation was crucial in some cases in order to achieve natural language contact with the receiver and mirror the true image of the source culture, but it still remained important to maintain consistency between the linguistic and the visual layouts during the transfer to preserve the natural relation between them and their meanings in the source language. As a conclusion, advertisement translation should exceed the linguistic framework to include semiotic references that encompass linguistic, iconic and plastic signs. All in all, attempts to bypass translation and make English the Babel language seem to have a long way to go.