Influencing Cultural Factors

The cultural factors that come into play in the translation of advertisements will of course be those of the receptor culture. Guidère points out that they can be either “prescriptive and explicit (for instance, the legislature of the target country) or implicit and left to the judgment of the translator (like uses and customs)” (6). This obviously plays a role in all forms of translation, but more so in the case of advertisement translation because an advertisement campaign has a commercial aspect also to it. The producer cannot afford to lose the money she has invested in the product advertisement campaign, and the translator has to be cautious to avoid unseemly controversies. A slip will prove costly and the advertisement can backfire.

Even within the cultural component, there can be two types of restrictions that control and determine the nature of translation. The first is the purely cultural component like accepted norms of social behavior, popular religious beliefs etc. The other factor is the legal component where it is illegal or banned by law to advertise certain products or in a certain way. Unwritten social restrictions will advise against the advertising of beef in India. This became a problem in the sale of hamburgers that generally use beef in the US. Eating of beef is a social taboo even today in many areas of India, and there was no way in which hamburgers could be advertised by highlighting the beef component. Similarly, we do not have largescale advertisement of bikinis in India not only because a majority of women here do not wear that swimming costume, but because an advertisement for that would offend sensibilities.

Advertising certain products is illegal in some countries. For instance, it is illegal in India to advertise liquor and tobacco. So the manufacturers take recourse to roundabout ways to advertise their product. They usually have proxy ads where they promote something else that uses the same brand name. For instance, the liquor brand Bacardi has advertisements in India that promote their music CDs instead of the liquor that goes under the same name. The linguistic text that goes with it advertises the music, while the visual emphasizes the drink. The advantage is that the brand name gets fixed in public memory.

The translator has to be sensitive to such cultural and other legal parameters that might influence the translation process. Guidère points out how the legal component is important for translators, as they might land in legal trouble if such laws are ignored (6). France has passed the Evin Act to see that advertisers use only the French language in their advertisements. In Saudi Arabia it is forbidden by law for advertisements to refer to the relationship between a man and a woman. The translator has to know all these legal details.