Promotional and advertising texts come in different forms and account for a considerable share of the translation market. Advertisements, company brochures, websites, tourist guides, institutional information campaigns, and even personal CVs all share a common primary purpose: that of persuading the reader to buy something, be it a product or a lifestyle, or to act in a particular way, from taking preventive measures against health risks to employing one candidate in preference to another. Consequently, their translation requires the application of techniques which, although they vary depending on the specific text type, are all aimed at preserving that persuasive purpose. This often requires in-depth cultural adaptation and, on occasion, thorough rewriting. Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts covers different areas of personal promotion, business to business promotion, institutional and business to consumer promotion, including advertising. Numerous examples from a wide variety of languages and media, taken from the author's own professional experience and from real-life observation, are provided throughout. The volume is designed for use as a coursebook for classroom practice or as a handbook for self-learning. It will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, but also freelance and in-house translators, as well as other professionals working in sales, public relations or similar departments whose responsibilities include involvement in the management of multilingual advertising and promotion activities.

This book is the first comprehensive study combining and integrating advertising, culture and translation within the framework of colonial, Commonwealth, and postcolonial studies, and globalization. It addresses a number of controversial issues evident in two relatively young disciplines, as a result of decades of research and teaching in university courses. A cross-cultural approach to translational issues and the translatability of advertising cohesively is adopted here, exploring the dynamics of the conflict between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’. It introduces the concept of advertising English as lingua franca (AELF), marking new trends in the domain of varieties of English around the world (VEAW). The data examined here show the ambivalent polarity conditioning advertising and translation: both have been mutually exclusive, and both have been subject to bans, censorship and ideological control, racism, propaganda, and stereotyping. In their fundamental principles and concepts of theories and applications, however, neither discipline cannot exist outside a free market and total freedom of expression and trust.

Much has been written about the marketing aspects of promotional material in general, and several scholars (particularly in linguistics) have addressed questions relating to the structure and function of advertisements, focusing on images, rhetorical structure, semiotic functions, discourse features and audio-visual media, amongst other aspects of the genre. Not much, on the other hand, has been written within translation studies about the complexities involved in the transfer of an advertising message. Contributors to this volume explore various interdependent aspects of the interlingual and intercultural transfer of an advertising message. They emphasize features of culture specificity, of multi-medial semiotic interaction, of values and stereotypes, and most importantly, they recommend strategies and approaches to assist translators. Topics covered include a critique of the Western-based approach to advertising in the context of the Far East; different perceptions of the concept of cleanliness in advertising texts in Italy, Russia and the UK; the Walls Cornetto strategy of internationalization of product appeal, followed by localization; the role of the translator in recreating appeal in different lingua-cultural contexts; what constitutes 'Italianness' in advertisements for British consumers; and strategies for repackaging France as a tourist destination.

The globalization and saturation of local markets lead to increased international activities of companies. In this context marketers are forced to advertise globally and to decide between standardization and differentiation of their advertisements, i.e. to either use one single idea all over the world or to make adaptations for local preferences. Besides knowing the pros and cons of these approaches, it is essential that advertisers are familiar with different cultures. Otherwise the advertisement runs the risk of being misunderstood or in the worst case to offend cultural fundamentals. In her book Mirjana Milenkovic examines the specifics of different national cultures and their implications for global advertising. Describing the various local restrictions and obstacles international advertisers have to deal with, the challenge of global advertising becomes clear. The perception of advertising is greatly influenced by the respective culture and its members' understanding of reality. On the basis of Hofstede's Five Dimensions, cultures and their characteristics are described. The reader learns about the behavior in different cultures and how cultural backgrounds impact buying decisions. With numerous practical illustrations Global Advertising in a Cultural Context gives an insight into the specifics of worldwide advertising and the challenge of both approaches in strategy and execution in front of the cultural background. This book gives recommendations for successful global advertising on the basis of six different advertising approaches and their suitability to overcome cultural differences.

This book offers a panoramic view of the emerging eco-paradigm of Translation Studies, known as Eco-Translatology, and presents a systematic study of the theoretical discourse from ecological perspectives in the field of Translation Studies. Eco-Translatology describes and interprets translation activities in terms of the ecological principles of Eco-holism, traditional Eastern eco-wisdom, and ‘Translation as Adaptation and Selection’. Further, Eco-Translatology approaches the phenomenon of translation as a broadly conceived eco-system in which the ideas of ‘Translation as Adaptation and Selection’, as well as translation as a ‘textual transplant’ promoting an ‘eco-balance’, are integrated into an all-encompassing vision. Lastly, Eco-Translatology reinforces contextual uniqueness, emphasizing the deep embeddedness of texts, translations, and the human agents involved in their production and reception in their own habitus. It is particularly encouraging, in this increasingly globalised world, to see a new paradigm sourced from East Asian traditions but with universal appeal and applications, and which adds to the diversity and plurality of global Translation Studies. This book, the first of its kind, will substantially expand the horizons of Translation Studies, a field that is still trying to define its own borders, and will open a wealth of new possibilities. Destined to become a milestone in the field of Translation, Interpretation and Adaptation Studies, as well as eco-criticism, it will introduce readers to a wholly new epistemological intervention in Translation Studies and therefore will open new vistas of thoughts, discussion and criticism.