Ah, I'm expanding my reading about translation, and it pays.

Hi, Lency. Can you expand on what is your area of study?

u might want to look at frame switching literature. Perracio

Thanks Ankur.

Hi Daivata, I think skopos theory (Nord, Vermeer, Schäffner) may be useful since it focuses on adaptation of the source text message to a specific audience.

Hi Stella, I am reading on skopos theory and also some material by Susan Basnett. If you can suggest any study that focuses on cross cultural impact, it would be really very helpful.

Hope this helps: Snell-Hornby, Jettmarová & Kaindl (eds), Translation as Intercultural Communication 1997 (esp. Introduction + art. Smith & Klein-Braley); Nord, Translating as a Purposeful Activity, 2005; Nord, Text Analysis in Translation, 2005; M. de Mooij, Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes, 2009 (3rd ed.), inspired by Hofstede's model on cross-cultural differences; see also www.mariekedemooij.com.

Hi every body,

I am looking for a proposal to be my phd topic in translation in addition to the universities which offer the degree

If you want to provide better understanding of “the translation process” in real-world advertising copy development I would focus a bit more a couple of ideas.

As background, I was born, raised and worked professionally in English and Spanish all my life, completed doctoral studies in psycholinguistics, and co-founded and ran the largest “transcultural” marketing, advertising and consumer research consultancy in the US Hispanic and Latin American markets. Before selling the company to Taylor-Nelson-Sofres, we conducted several hundred transcultural adhoc projects per year.

To eliminate any academic overlay, the real world of ad copy development involves a close working relationship between: (a) brand manager, (b) ad agency account exec, (c) ad agency copy writer(s), (d) consumer research agency’s transcultural, company and brand strategic analyst.

Since brand managers pay for ad copy development, they expect that copy generate ad copy-recall and persuasion measures that have a track record of effectiveness in their industry, company and their particular brand; that plus brand managers’ personal years of experience and proven measures with the brand and target market.

To develop effective ad copy in transcultural markets, novices use “translation” while experts use “adaptation.” Some novices use “back-translation,” which anthropologists developed for field studies with indigenous populations; while useful for ethnological research, back-translation does not produce reliable, persuasive, “case-moving” ad copy. Additionally, in anthropology there are no serious consequences, like losing your job if you cause a measurable decline in the brand’s sales and loss of share of market.

In Brazil our client was executing an expensive national probability sample in a sensitive service category. Our consumer research partners assigned the survey instrument to a native-speaking category-experienced researcher. I felt the category was too sensitive and the potential for error too great to assign someone with no category experience, nor the nuances copy writers need to produce “case-moving” copy. So I asked, instead, for a native, category-experienced sociologist for the adaptation, plus me (native in Portuguese/English) monitoring the adaptation to insure that the firm's strategic nuances were well embedded. These are real-world ways to control context and construct validity and measurably proving you have.

Finally, for impactful ad copy one needs solidly grounded ways to discriminate across “bilingual” decision processes since no one-size-fits-all “bilingual” exists. Why is because they don’t have identical AA&U and purchase habits by category/brand. In the 50 million US Hispanic market, > 80% is made of the rapidly growing foreign-born market segment while the < 20% that is US-born is growing at the same rate as the the general population. That means, very slowly, plus ad clutter in English makes the 20% far more costly to reach.

We had AA&U data-bases among: (a) foreign-born, Spanish-dependent Hispanics with Latin American based marketing communications category/brand knowledge/awareness; (b) US-born, English-dependent Hispanics with US-based marketing communications category/brand knowledge/awareness; (c) a control group of American counterparts by category. The findings showed that in their media and category/brand/usage habits that, while the differences between US-born Hispanics and their US-born American counterparts were statistically insignificant, those between the foreign-born and their US-born counterparts were statistically highly significant.

The findings are self-evident: When category/brand environments are not identical, one can’t validly compare US-born with any foreign-born in any category.

So, control of content and construct validity are critical to transcultural ad copy development. “Translation” is error laden enough to compromise any findings, conclusions and recommendations for ad copy development. It is more effective to sample “decision process” dependence and category/brand development to develop ad copy. “Monolingual” and “bilingual” if defined colloquially – or in fields with none of the competencies needed to execute “case-moving” marketing communications – are heavily error-laden constructs and render any findings, conclusions and recommendations unreliable, invalid and therefore unusable.

Best,

Dr. A-F

Thank you Stella and Henry for your valuable inputs. This indeed is helping me frame my research better.

Dear Maria,

You are correct when you say that all translation is interpretation. Idiomatic translations contain a huge amount of interpretation, but it is possible to reduce this and give the readers more choices—even to let the readers have a part in the very translation process. This can be achieved by literal translations, where one word in the source language as far as possible is rendered by one word in the target language. When you ask for translation theories, I will mention my own book: "The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation with a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses." (2012) Awatu Publishers ([email protected]). The book presents a theory for literal translation based on the modern principles of linguistics and applied linguistics, and it shows that theology must play a role in Bible translation, but bias should not. It also shows that modern translations are full of biased renderings.

I have translated many texts from different Semitic languages into Norwegian, and because of the needs of my target groups I have used an idiomatic translation method, but my method is still quite literal. Readers of the Bible who are not interested in the nuances of the Bible need idiomatic translations. But those who want to come as close as possible to the original languages by using their own mother tongue, need a literal translation. Therefore a linguistic theory of literal translation is needed.

Yes.

Your “PhD in loss of content and context in the translation process of advertising copy and its effect on monolingual and bilingual audiences” strikes me as needing a bit more tightening, but that's alright at this point.

My comments will be based on 25 years experience at Market Development, Inc., which developed the first scientifically based (sociology, psycholinguistics and Young & Rubicam ad agency experience) “transcultural marketing” specialty practice in the US, became the largest US Hispanic and Latin American ad hoc research company with 250 employees, and was ultimately acquired by Taylor-Nelson-Sofres, one of the world’s largest global marketing consulting firms.

I’ll note that effective advertising requires many steps that aren’t obvious to folks with no salaried experience working in a well-oiled marketing organization or advertising agency that helps management achieve their strategic objectives among their brand’s most profitable consumers. Let’s look at the steps of real world globalized advertising.

First, management develops – since the aim is advertising only – a very clear communications objective (copy point recall, increased persuasion scores, etc.) which defines the advertising procedure that will be executed.  Consumer research (scanner data, AA&U data, etc.), relevant to the brand, target and strategic objective, is refined based on qualitative findings that then must be confirmed quantitatively in representative markets, often based on a national probability sample projectable to the total market. Corporate management also brings in company insiders with extensive experience in the corporate culture, the brand, and who know the target consumer better than anyone in and outside the company.

This corporate team then meets with their copy, creative and account management counterparts at the ad agency to tighten copy and creative development. This effort bounces back and forth between the two teams and management which results in development of several trial spots that are tested against other to see which wins “by the numbers only.”

Data is collected in representative markets among heavy-users and, again, “the numbers” objectively determine which ad gets launched. All this with the ok of corporate VPs of marketing, advertising and category and the members of corporate management who know the company’s way of doing things for key brands. I thought of them as the "keepers of the bottom line” who must be on board to get the ok from the CEO. All that is part and parcel of advertising development, global or not.

Why does corporate management take this rigorous a stance? Because when management must answer to stockholders and when massive amounts of money and jobs are at stake, experience shows that there's no objectively based benefit to using academics, peer-reviewed journal article writers, basic scientists or anyone who can’t show more than 5 years in the industry, in the company, who hasn't filled progressively more responsible positions, and who have never personally managed a brand and who “moved lots of cases out of the warehouse.”

You’ll notice I’ve said nothing about translation. That’s because if one follows these real world global marketing/advertising practices, good applied science and commonsense in the particular culture, Where exactly in this track-proven procedure would “translation” fit strategically? The answer I got early on from an outspoken brand manager paraphrased what the “bandidos” said in the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, “We don’t need no stinkin’ translation.” I raised the word “translation” once in business and never again. Why? Because the brand manager is the one who has to answer for authorizing an expenditure for which there is no strategic justification.

Now, stepping back from all this, Daivata, don’t you really think Bible “translation” might be an easier road to travel so you can get your dissertation completed quickly and then, once you have your Ph.D. in hand, you can join a Fortune 100 globalized marketing organization or ad agency and find out first hand what the answer is to your question.

The problem is, once you’re working for either a Fortune 100 marketing organization, or ad agency, you can't say a word about your new knowledge because it’s all proprietary, and competitive and you would fired and probably sued in Court.

Best,

Dr. Henry Franceschi

Thank you for all the inputs.