A cross-cultural study of the translation and adaptation of advertisements for beauty products

摘要

In his now classic study of human behaviour, Abraham Maslow established that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs have to be fulfilled before higher needs can be met. Advertising uses this hierarchy of needs to stimulate sales, generate expectations and sell not only products but a way of life. However, uniform advertising strategies do not usually work equally well in all cultural contexts. Consequently, adaptations of body copy rather than literal translations are necessary for commercial success in different cultural contexts. Whereas basic needs are universal, higher-level needs, such as beauty products, tend to be culture-specific, and so this fact constitutes a challenge that writers and translators of advertising texts have to address in deciding what kind of information to include in their messages to ensure maximum impact in each cultural context. This article will examine internet advertisements published in English, Spanish and Russian, making a cross-cultural comparison of the similarities and differences encountered in the three versions of each of five adverts corresponding to different brands and types of product, paying special attention to the quantity and type of information offered to the target audience.