Visual Persuasion: Issues in the Translation of the Visual in Advertising

Abstract

RÉSUMÉCette contribution cherche à décoder les messages de la publicité tout en posant la question de savoir comment ils sont accueillis par les représentants de quelques autres cultures. Répondre à cette question devient une tâche urgente lorsqu'on considère la fonction du traducteur dans l'adaptation de campagnes publicitaires mondiales. La plupart des annonceurs publicitaires cherchent à éviter des pièges linguistiques lorsqu'il s'agit d'adapter leur publicité aux besoins de nouveaux marchés, et pourtant la plupart des consommateurs se sentent attirés par les éléments non linguistiques, visuels de la publicité. On pourrait donc affirmer que le but principal du projet publicitaire consiste à activer les connotations visuelles dans la perception des consommateurs. À en croire Barthes, les images sont polysémiques, mais il n'est pas tout à fait clair que toutes les connotations présentes soient réalisées par les spectateurs des différentes cultures. Dans le domaine publicitaire, l'élément visuel s'oriente vers l'originalité et le stéréotype : pendant que la nouveauté attire l'attention, le stéréotype sert de point de repère à la perception conventionnelle. Les principales options du design qui sont discutées ici sont la mise en page et le choix de sujet qui permettent également d'encoder des options rhétoriques. Le décodage dépend de connaissances pragmatiques, culturelles et esthétiques. Le défi que le traducteur doit affronter consiste à décider si les stratégies et les connotations sous-jacentes à l'original peuvent être transposées telles quelles dans le nouveau contexte linguistique régi par des pratiques culturelles différentes. L'analyse présentée ici prend comme point de départ la sémiotique de Roland Barthes qu'elle combine avec des approches plus récentes issues des cultural studies. Elle est illustrée par des exemples qui caractérisent les stratégies des campagnes publicitaires mondiales et comprend une étude modèle de la publicité chinoise. ABSTRACTThis contribution is concerned with the decoding of advertising messages and the question of whether and how such messages are received by members of other cultures. The answers to these questions are important when considering the role of the translator in adapting global campaigns. Most advertisers concentrate on avoiding linguistic pitfalls when adapting advertisements for new markets, but in any advertisement, consumers are primarily attracted by visual elements. It can be said that an advertisement's potential for triggering a train of connotations in the consumers' minds is the most important aspect of advertisement design. According to Barthes, images are polysemous, but it is not clear whether all connotations are accessible to viewers in different cultures. The visual in advertising exploits the original and the stereotypical -novelty attracts attention, while the stereotypical serves as a reference to established knowledge. The main design options discussed are layout and directionality, as well as the choice of subject, which also allows a range...

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