Translating Cosmetic & Hygienic Advertisements: A Study on Some English Advertisements and Their Persian Translations

Advertising is one of the phenomena which has most contributed to the transmission of ideas and values. The purpose of the advertisement is to persuade people to purchase a product. Based on the Venuti, in translating advertisements, a translator may find it useful to frustrate domestic exceptions of a foreign culture. It isn't enough to find linguistic equivalents of the words and phrases in the target culture. When a translator translated an advertisement, he or she needed certain skills in order to duplicate the impact of an advertisement in the foreign market. The translators use different strategies and approaches in the process of translation. Without effective and productive translation, it is impossible to have an effect on the foreign consumer. So, this study explores the issue of translated advertisements in view of Skopos theory and Eco-translatology theory by examining thirty-five advertisements in English and their Persian translation of cosmetic and hygienic products. Five of them have Persian subtitles. The researcher investigated them with respect to amplification, abridgement, adaptation, imitation, language dimension, culture dimension and communication dimension. The researcher found the most strategies that a translator is used are the abridgement and adaptation. The translators followed their culture. The analysis demonstrates that translating advertisements does not always involve the direct equivalent in the target language, but translators sometimes have to produce readable and acceptable target texts. This kind of advertisement from communication dimension has the same effect. At the end, the researchers found out both theories (Skopos and Eco-translation theory) are useful in translating advertisements.