Azərbaycan Respublikası “ÇAĞ” Öyrətim İşlətmələri

THREE CHALLENGES IN TRANSLATION PROCESS 
Safura KERIMOVA  
 
Qafqaz university Translation 3year student  
Academic advisor: f.e.n.N.Əliyeva 
 
Translation is a very ancient kind of human activity which enables human beings 
to exchange ideas and thoughts regardless of the different tongues used. Translation 
is a modern science at the interface of philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and 
sociology. 
There are eight types of translation: 
1. word for word translation 
2. literal translation 
3. faithful translation 
4.semantic translation 
5. adaptive translation 
6. free translation 
7. idiomatic translation 
8. communicative translation 
I am just going to give brief information about the most important challenges 
that each translator can come across during translation process. 
1. Faithful and false friends 
2. Ambiguity 
3. Unfindable and untranslatable words 
1. We must not be afraid of literal translation, or, in particular, of using a TL word 
which looks the same or nearly the same as the SL word. The translation of objects 
and movements is usually more literal than that of qualities and ways of moving. 
Many common adjectives of feeling cut up meaning on their own way, so that we 
cannot trust a transparent translation of ‘sincere’, ‘loyal’, ‘trivial’, ‘important’, ‘brutal’ 
only one or two like ‘excellent’ and ‘marvellous’ are usually transparent. And again, 
the more and abstract words (‘phenomenon’, ‘element’, ‘affair’) may or may not be 

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translated transparently; there is a shift at that abstract level but the translation is still 
usually one-to-one. In general, there are more faithful friends than faux amis, and 
we must not hesitate to use them, since any other translation is usually wrong. 
Many theorists believe that is more a process of explanation, interpretation, and 
reformulation of ideas than a transformation of words; that the role of language is 
secondary, it is merely a vector or carrier of thoughts. Consequently, everything is 
translatable, and linguistic difficulties don’t exist. 
2. Ambiguity in languages shows that how complex verbal combination might 
be an instead of regarding it as a problem we should perceive it as an element of 
adding value. It occurs when we can understand something in two or more different 
ways; if it happens in one word is lexical and if it appears in a sentence it is structural. 
We take ‘ambiguity’ in the sense of stretch of a SL text, normally a word or a 
syntactic structure, having apparently more than one meaning, in or on spite of its 
context. W usually come across with types of ambiguity such as grammatical, lexical, 
pragmatic, cultural, idiolectal, referential, and metaphorical. 
Grammatical ambiguity-if a sentence is a syntactically ambiguous within its 
context, it must be poorly written. We have to become intensively and selectively 
sensitized to the common syntactical ambiguities of the languages we are translating 
from. Grammatical or functional words are a common source of grammatical ambi-
guity. Common prepositions often have many senses. It is sometimes notoriously 
difficult to identify the referents of pronouns. He approach to her –o, ona yaxilasdi/ 
o qadina yaxinlasdi.) 
Lexical ambiguity-is both more common and mare difficult to clear up than 
grammatical ambiguity. Words may have anything from one sense to thirty and the 
senses may be close to or remote from each other. 
Pragmatic ambiguity-is inevitably more common on written than in spoken 
language, since it arises when the tone or the emphasis is SL sentence is not clear. 
The emphasis of a sentence such as ‘ I’m working here today’, can only be perceived, 
if at all, from its context, although italics one word would help. 
Referential ambiguity-in a sense all ambiguity is referential, since it prompts 
two or more images of the reality the translator is trying to describe. 
Metaphorical ambiguity-we can find ambiguities in mast sentences in a state of 
trying hard enough-that is the nature of language. It is important to translate the most 
probable sense, and to put less probable sense in a footnote. 
Reference source: Peter Newmark (A textbook of translation) 
 
 
 
 
 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»   IV Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
 
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BUSINESS TRANSLATION; FROM ADAPTATION               
TO LOCALIZATION 
Səbinə SƏFƏRLİ 
Qafqaz University Translation Department  
Academic advisor: Natiq Adilov 
 
The globalization of economies and trade intensification lead companies to 
communicate with consumers of different languages and cultures. 
Within the framework of international marketing strategies, advertising plays a 
key role. It has to resolve a dilemma which can be summarized in the following 
question: How can we sell a standardized product to local and different consumers? 
This study aims, on one hand, at underscoring some problems related to translation 
of international advertising campaigns, and on the other hand, at raising pressing 
questions regarding the place and the function of the professional translator in this 
specific framework. 
These issues will be dealt with from the perspective of the consulting translation 
specialist with a large expertise in "advertising adaptation". 
GENERAL FRAMEWORK OF ADVERTISING LOCALIZATION 
The general framework would be that of communication and marketing strategies 
adopted by multinational companies especially French multinationals. The debate 
between the upholders of global standardization and those of local adaptation is still 
open and will likely stay that way as long as the Earth is teeming with different lan-
guages and cultures. Nevertheless, the elements of this debate should be defined 
and elucidated briefly. International advertising consists of using the same strategy 
of communication in all targeted countries. The advantage of this approach lies mainly 
in the economies of scale generated because of the standardization of the campaign. 
Numerous arguments, whether theoretical or practical, were given to justify the 
internationalization of some products advertising campaigns. Among the most frequently 
given arguments, we name the following: 
.  The standardization of consumer behaviors in many countries (a tangible 
evidence of the cultural homogenization). 
.  The emergence of similar new categories of consumers on the international level 
(new transnational markets). 
.  The introduction of international themes and icons thanks to the television 
networks and the pop music (movie stars and supermodels) 
To that, one may add the relatively scarce numbers of brilliant ideas in the field 
of communication and thus it is easy to understand why companies tend, in their 
vast majority, to this type of standardized strategy. 

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But it is also obvious that the risks of a forced standardization are not insignificant. 
The relevance and the influence of the local culture are still very substantial in 
numerous countries around the globe including in Western Europe. It is indeed very 
risky not to adapt communication to some local markets especially in countries where 
the cultural tradition is still very present. 
Faced with a potential failure, which can have serious sequels financially speaking, 
the trend towards localization is gradually gaining ground. But what does it really 
entail in the advertising field? 
Localization of international advertising campaigns consists of adapting the com-
pany's communication to the specificities of the local environment of the hosting 
countries targeted by the campaign. 
This local environment could be divided in several components to which the 
localizing translator must pay careful attention: 
.  The socio-cultural component: which includes the local particularities stemming 
from religion, mores, social and commercial habits, rules of conduct and ethical norms. 
In short, this component is related to the main features of the hosting culture and 
society. 
.  The politico-legal component: which includes the local particularities stemming 
from the nature of the political system, the stage of opening onto the world, the res-
trictions imposed on advertisements and the regulations related to information and 
to certain products (such as spirits and tobacco). 
The localization of advertising campaigns consists of adapting the company's 
communication while taking into account the above-mentioned parameters. The re-
levance and influence of these parameters are certainly varied according to regions 
and countries but overlooking them leads undoubtedly to the failure of the campaign. 
In this context, the translator plays a key role in the adaptation of the communi-
cation campaign. Beside his role as a translator of the speech - strictly speaking - he 
must make sure that the socio-cultural restrictions, which could be problematic in the 
advertising transfer, are taken into consideration. 
The issue, which is at the heart of multilingual communication in this globalized 
era, is about managing cultural differences between the different hosting countries 
of a single advertising campaign. 
I shall try to explain briefly the terms of the problem and the diverging points of 
view of the parties involved in this process concerning specifically the cultural issue. 
First of all, we have the sponsors of the ads (in other words the producers of 
goods and services) who champion an offensive approach with a very peculiar con-
ception of culture stating the following: culture is "global"; it is American and global 
based on international icons and standard messages. 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»   IV Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
 
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Then we have the point of view of communicators/advertising executives who 
consider that communication applies for a particular public viewed as a "target" and 
known as the "target audience". For them, culture is defined as the culture of a trans-
national group of consumers having the same life style and similar consumption habits. 
And finally, we have the point of view of the ads translators/localizers. As lin-
guistic and cultural go-betweens, translators are, by principle, in a mediation position 
that allows them to see the problem from the conciliatory and flexible angle of in-
terculturality. 
I shall give here a few actual examples of the intercultural approach of translators 
within the framework of international advertising. The recurrent question for them 
being: how to convey a single message written in two different languages without 
losing neither the spirit nor the identity? 
"The management of the other", which is what international advertising is all 
about, will be a challenge for the translator/localizer at varying levels related to the 
different parts of the advertising message namely: the image on one hand, and the 
text on the other. Within the latter (the text of the ad), one can recognize: the brand 
name, the slogan or the catch line and finally the caption. 
Every part of these could be a problem when transferring it from one language to 
another. And every one reflects a facet of the cultural issues. 
To understand the stakes of the problem, one should think in semiotic terms, 
that is to say that culture is embedded in linguistic, plastic, graphic and pictorial signs 
that constitute the message. 
For the sake of convenience, we are going to distinguish between the advertise-
ments that have been graphically adapted and those that have been adapted textually 
before looking into the relation between the text and the graphics which is an essential 
element in advertising. 
The adaptations in content and form that we are going to see are typical examples 
of the cultural problem in the field of advertising. 
The first example of international advertising is what we can call the "graphic 
adaptation". In this advertisement for the perfume Tuscany, there was a transformation 
of the ad's framework. The image background was adapted to the socio-cultural en-
vironment of the hosting country. The substitution of a Mediterranean type "street 
scene" for an "Italian" type family scene is not insignificant. It aims at adapting the 
semiotic elements of the original iconography to the imagination of the targeted 
Arabic consumers and to life scenes that are more common in Arab societies. 
In brief, the observed adaptations of the advertising image can be divided in 
two categories: on one hand, the adaptation of the meaning related to the background 
in the different ad's versions. On the other hand, the adaptation of the relation between 
the chosen background and the product in question. 

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a) Regarding the iconography: we find the same graphic elements in the French 
and Arabic versions: the perfume bottle is at the bottom of the page on the right; the 
advertising character (a woman) is at the center of the image and moving. She's dis-
playing the same smile in the two ads and the extras on the background are in the 
same position (sitting around a table). We can thus notice, on the iconographic level, 
the same scene shot from the same angle in both versions. 
But despite these common points, we easily notice a radical scene change when 
we go from one language to another. Instead of the indoor scene poorly lit and well 
delimited, one can see an outdoor scene much brighter and more open to the eye. 
The contrast between shooting indoors and outdoors is well illustrated by moving 
from a family scene (in French) to a street scene (in Arabic); the change is also 
obvious in the setting and the extras in the background. We go from the backyard of 
a house to a busy street. The impression of graphic similarity between the two ver-
sions is maintained mainly by the unity of perspective that puts the perfume bottle 
and the woman on the same line in both ads. The perfume is on the foreground, the 
character in the middle distance and the rest in the background blurred but crucial. 
b) Regarding the meaning: this graphic stratification renders the background 
elements that are decisive in determining the meaning of the advertising message. 
But these elements are totally different in the two versions, which lead to a change 
in meaning despite an apparent unity of perception. The unity is due to the Italian 
identity of the product in both versions whereas the difference is due to the shown 
aspect of this Italian identity. In both cases, the perfume brand name, clearly mentioned 
in the foreground (Tuscany per Donna) reflects the identity of the product and guides 
the reading of the advertising message. But the interpretation of the scene is also 
dependent on other graphic elements especially in this case, the elements that vary 
from one version to another. 
The privacy of the house is replaced by the exuberance of seduction, and the 
family smile by the flirtatious laughter. Thus the attitude of the ad's character could 
be interpreted differently. Instead of the complicity of the female attitude in French 
we have the feigned playfulness of the character in Arabic. In fact, in one version the 
woman turns her eyes towards the family and in the other version she turns her eyes 
away of the young men in the background. And yet it is the same character, the same 
smile and the same look; only the angle of shooting has been changed completely 
altering thus the global meaning of the message. 
The product (the perfume) which is at the heart of the ad doesn't bring about 
joy and delight in the family but instead it has a seductive power in attracting the 
attention of men on the woman who is wearing it. Thus the scene is totally different 
but it perfectly fits with the prevailing social representations in the cultural contexts 
targeted by the product. Pragmatism establishes therefore the nature of iconographic 
adaptation in international advertising. 

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»   IV Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
 
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Let us take now a case of textual adaptation that illustrates, among other things, 
the ideological dimension of advertising message. 
As example, we shall take the advertisement of the luxurious watches Tissot 
that have at least four different versions (French/ English/ Arabic/ Polish) and were 
broadcasted simultaneously in four different languages. What particularly interests 
me at this point is to show how the advertising message was adapted by translators to 
the real restrictions of the targeted market. 
Let us take the French and Arabic versions. This textual adaptation is visible on 
two levels. 
On one hand, on the level of rhetoric images with the translation of the expression 
"blue planet" in French by "our mother, the Earth" in Arabic which is more idiomatic 
and emotionally-charged. 
And on the other hand, on the level of the ideologically chosen words, with the 
translation of the word "citizen" by "inhabitant" in order to neutralize the political 
dimension that is still very consequential in Arabic because it refers to a type of go-
vernment that is rare in the Arab world (the republican and democratic system); to 
that we could add the universalistic range of the original message ("we are all citizens 
of the blue planet") that could irritate some nationalistic regimes. 
These two examples of localization show how the interaction between the trans-
lation itself and the cultural factors of the targeted market takes place within the 
commercial communication. 
Let us now take an example of localization that illustrates, in the same time, an 
adaptation of the text and the image and beyond that an adaptation of the interaction 
between linguistic signs and graphic signs in international advertising. 
We shall examine an advertisement for the perfume Poême by Lancôme that 
was a huge success in France and Europe. We have four versions in four different 
languages (French/ English/ Portuguese/ Arabic). 
The message efficiency lies in its poetic nature at both the text and image levels 
as well as in the double meaning of the woman's speech (interpreted by Juliette Binoche) 
who intones in French a line of poetry as a slogan ("You are the sun that rises to my 
head). 
Needless to insist on the real and objective difficulty to adapt such a message 
whose meaning even in French is still ambiguous and subject to several interpretations. 
(It is noteworthy that in the English version, this line was adapted as follows: 
"You are the sea, you cradle the stars". 
Adaptation of Text + Image + Praxis="Localization" 
The striking graphic adaptations in this version can be summarized in three 
prominent points: 

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.  Dealing with nudity and adapting it to the culture ("blurring" the model's chest). 
.  The writing style (the undulating and colored calligraphy) 
.  The layout of the catching line (writing/reading direction) 
In fact, the slogan has the specificity of being represented following a curve line 
that infringes the usual linearity of writing. However, it reproduces the temporal 
successive nature of the oral speech which strengthens the slogan themes (it speaks 
directly to the reader). The translated version keeps the same slogan design (the curve 
line) while replacing the Latin characters by Arabic ones. Still, there are two major 
differences between the two layouts. 
On one hand, the curve line of French characters results in an ascendant reading 
movement that goes from the perfume bottle to the head of the advertising actress, 
whereas the Arabic characters arise from the perfume bottle and give the sentence a 
descendant movement that ends where the slogan of the French version begins. On the 
other hand, the letters - thus the words- that are enlarged to the maximum differ from 
one version to another. The proportions are totally reversed simply because of the 
reading direction change. The form of the slogan is obviously affected but is not 
really different from the initial line. This is mainly due to the undulating movement 
and to the use of the same character proportions in both versions. 
Whether it is the trademark, the brand name or the slogan, the visual expression 
is as important as the verbal expression that underlies it. In this way, the art of the 
translator/ localizer consists of pushing as far as possible the cultural mimesis without 
losing however the identity of the original message. 
THE CULTURAL "ADDED-VALUE" 
Beside his technical skills and semiotic training, the translator/ localizer of the 
21st century is a professional of culture able to decode and encode the cultural signs 
within the advertising communication. His role has become all the more important 
since globalization has paradoxically exacerbated the feelings of local identity in a 
culturally globalized era. Schematically, let us say that he/she has changed - in a short 
period of time - into an "expert in intercultural communication" because he/she masters 
the cultural codes that "sell". It is this added-value of his/her work as translator that 
renders him/her, today, a localizer. 
BUT IN REAL PRACTICE, WHAT DOES THIS "ADDED-VALUE" 
COVER? 
The answer is both varied and heterogeneous just like the culture that the trans-
lator/ localizer must harness in its moving, yet efficient, outlines. Among the "tech-
nical" knowledge of cultural nature that must be mastered, we name the following 
categories: 
.  The adaptation of dates and hours, weights and measures, currencies and addres-
ses that often vary according to countries and languages.