Unleashed

Unleashed

When it comes to adapting copy for foreign markets, translators get to unleash their inner artist. Ad campaigns, slogans, scripts, and packaging let linguists tap into creative powers. Certain rules apply.

Paul Auster once compared the act of translating to shoveling coal—one word after the other, one sentence at a time. Writing, on the other hand, he described (somewhat less originally, thus possibly with some irony) as an act of creation, starting with the blank page and ending with a brave new world that just came into being. As the great-granddaughter of a Polish coalminer, I liked the idea of family tradition and the sense of physical, earth-bound labor his definition conveyed, but as a translator, I did feel a little offended…

Inventing for a new world

The universe on the translator’s page may be pre-defined, but his task lies in bringing it to other tides, reshaping it on the way. When it comes to the type of materials mentioned above, this may go as far as throwing out what’s there and replacing it with something that still echoes the idea but comes along in an entirely different outfit. To spark connection with a new audience, the respective translator must put into words what market researchers spend their time investigating: Preferences, idiosyncrasies, cultural identities, taboos, trends.

It’s how you say it

Not one can be left out, and they need to blend into the translator’s choice of wording without drawing attention to themselves, unless the effect is intended, which of course is popular practice in modern marketing. Proper analysis of the source text will lead the way, and then it is the translator’s call to see where the same tools can be applied and where the transformation begins. This applies to the broader strokes as well as to the finer ones—are we being funny, provocative, cute, or smart? Does the original text follow a certain rhythm, rhyme, or alliteration? Any colloquialisms, plays on words, made-up terms?

Strangely familiar

Sometimes we enjoy the unknown, the exotic, the strange; other times we find comfort in what we know and what feels familiar. Characters in an ad may speak to us more if they are a bit like us, or become more fascinating if they appear completely out of the ordinary. An article by Susan Bernofsky in the Wall Street Journal* about the German versions of the Donald Duck comics—tremendously popular to this day—made me aware why it never even occurred to me as a child that Entenhausen (aka Duckburg) could be anywhere outside of Germany: The original translator of the comics did not only change the names of locations and of some of the characters, but infused the latter with a love for Goethe, philosophy and grammar that resonated deeply with the target audience.

To each his own

As we (re)invent, we are guided equally by our understanding of the source text and texture as by our knowledge of the target market and customs. Some concepts transcend borders and traditions, but the pre-dominance of certain languages and cultures can also be deceptive. The realm of the artist, where form and content are to be balanced, where images are to be conjured to resonate with their audience, becomes very much the domain of the translator when his or her raw materials are of creative nature. While the groundwork of turning over every source sentence remains, the process goes on to working these pieces into a new, blank canvas, dimensioned by the perimeters of the target culture—Auster today, Goethe tomorrow.

*“Why Donald Duck is the Jerry Lewis of Germany”, Susan Bernofsky, Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2009

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