Transcreation Strategies of Male-Related Traits from English Online Fragrance Labels into Chinese: From a Cultural Perspective

Abstract

In recent years, transcreation has been a buzzword in the translation industry and academia. It is defined as a combination of translation and new content creation, with translation used in its traditional sense. Although transcreation strategies have been explored, few studies have addressed whether translation or new content creation predominates in transcreation strategies and the underlying cultural reasons. This study examines the transcreation strategies involved in the Chinese translations of male stereotypes in English online fragrance labels. More specifically, as transcreation strategies can be divided into minimal and marked interventional strategies, this paper examined the cultural reasons underlying marked interventional strategies drawing on the Hofstede model. It adopts a descriptive and interpretive qualitative research method. A non-probability purposive sampling method is used to collect data. Findings illustrate that marked interventional strategies, including addition, substitution and omission, predominate transcreation strategies. Whereas minimal change including direct translation is less. The unveiled cultural reasons suggest the differences of male stereotypes in advertising between China and the US, thus contributing to the research on East-West comparison of male stereotypes. Meanwhile, it will provide implications for translators to deal with male stereotypes in advertising.

Manipulation of Female Stereotypes in Chinese Translations of Fragrance Product Descriptions

“…A recent study on English-language fragrance descriptions (Nemčoková et al, 2021) demonstrated that female stereotypes were generally suppressed, whereas male stereotypes were still present. Further, male stereotypes in fragrance product descriptions have been identified and translated into Chinese (Zhu et al, 2021). However, it remains unknown whether female stereotypes in fragrance product descriptions are imported or manipulated through translation from English (limited to the US websites) into Chinese (limited to mainland China websites).…”