Abstract
Transcreation, a term merging “translation” and “creation”, has become a buzzword in the language service industry as well as in translation studies. However, pertinent questions with regard to it are: “what is transcreation?” and “what kind of text is a transcreated text?” This paper addresses the first issue by a systemic functional linguistics based survey of definitions from professional translators, language service providers and scholars in translation studies respectively for a real definition of transcreation with descriptions of its metafunctions. Further, by textual analysis in the case study of the Chinese and its English translation corporate profiles of Huawei, a multinational information and communication technology company of China, the paper studies the application of transcreation in corporate communication writing by examining its metafunctions. It is concluded that transcreation requires multi-party’s interplay and produces new constructs in the transcreated texts, which poses both challenges and opportunities to translators. The research findngs prove transcreation’s effectiveness and flexibility in corporate communication and showcase the challenges and opportunities it brings to the translation profession by linking its real definition with its practical use.
Highlights
As a “buzzword” in recent years (Benetello, 2017: 237), transcreation is used more and more by “advertising and marketing professionals” (Fang & Song, 2014: 72) as it is well aware that traditional translation could hardly meet the changing demand of translation “across business worldwide” today (Ferose et al, 2018)
By examining the metafunctions of the sample to see if it is a work of transcreation or not according to the benchmarks set by the real definition, this study aims to showcase the metafunctional features of a transcreated text in corporate communication
These changes are to be analysed to decide if they fulfil the requirement of the real definition by conveying “messages not existing in the Source Text”
Summary
As a “buzzword” in recent years (Benetello, 2017: 237), transcreation is used more and more by “advertising and marketing professionals” (Fang & Song, 2014: 72) as it is well aware that traditional translation could hardly meet the changing demand of translation “across business worldwide” today (Ferose et al, 2018). Professional translators, language service providers (hereafter referred to as LSPs) and even scholars in translation studies give different answers in describing what transcreation is. Professional translators view transcreation as something not so new in that they think they have been doing the same thing under different names for years, while LSPs emphasize the complexity and creativity of transcreation claiming that it is a more advanced and demanding service compared with traditional translation. With no regularized definition of transcreation, confusion arose both in language service business and translation studies as there is no clear boundary between transcreated texts and texts translated in the traditional sense
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