On translating the ‘bible of marketing’

Abstract

In 1967, Prentice Hall publishers released the first edition of Marketing Management by Philip Kotler. Since then and through more than four decades, this title has established itself as a bestseller with an exceptional history of transformations. As a canonical graduate-level textbook in a popular discipline in which textbooks are myriad, Marketing Management can be taken as an archetype for the study of translation practices in higher education publishing – an influential sector of the book industry which heavily relies on translation (both in its restricted and extended definitions) but has thus far received scant attention in translation studies. The present article focuses on interlingual translations of Kotler’s volume in three languages (Spanish, French and Italian), which are considered in relation to other forms of rewritings such as new editions and English-language adaptations. The authors analyse and compare the formal characteristics of these interlingual translations; they explore by whom and for what purposes they were initially produced, as well as how they evolved over time. While highlighting the specific trajectory of Marketing Management in each language, the study also reveals common features and questions to what extent these reflect the agency of those who produced the translations as well as ongoing transformations in higher education publishing.