Language functions and intercultural translation in the world of advertising: the case of wine marketing

ABSTRACT

Trade is increasingly global. This phenomenon is due to different reasons, including the technological development, which has enhanced means of transport and communication services, a general slowing down of the growth in the domestic market of many countries, that pushed several firms to export their products and a lowering of trade barriers.
However, the internationalization of a company is a sequential and orderly process. It needs a special strategy to be competitive on an global scale. International marketing deals with issues generally related to the positioning of a product on a foreign market. The concept of marketing can be defined in different ways , especially as “that segment of business concerned with the planning, promoting, distributing, pricing, and servicing of the goods and services desired by consumers” (Albaum et al. 1998: 8). The definition of international marketing differs from the previous one in that it is referred to goods and services that are marketed across political boundaries. An effective marketing strategy is based on a good arrangement of “the four P’s”, that is Product (product and packaging), Place (target market and audience), Promotion (advertising and channels of distribution) and Price.
The main purpose of this dissertation was to analyse “the four P’s” of the marketing mix, especially Promotion, and to draw up an advertising campaign for a product seen as one of the most representative of the Salento region tradition: wine. Particularly, the survey focuses on the language functions and translation strategies in the world of marketing and, especially, intercultural advertising.

The matter in hand is if it is appropriate to think globally and act locally or not. Advertising translation is quite an important issue in the field of international marketing. The main translation problem that translators have to face is the so-called cultural transposition. Only prepared professionals have the relevant tools to act in such a context, otherwise the message conveyed could be misunderstood.
The theoretical analysis has been accompanied by a practical project, carried out collaborating with a well-known wine industry, Cantine “Due Palme”, based in Cellino S.Marco (Brindisi). In drawing up a promotional program, all the features above mentioned were considered. In order to advertise successfully its product, the strategy chosen was that of planning globally and acting locally. This means that the advert and the related trailer were conceived in the light of the final customers’ needs and tastes. They focus on the high-fidelity of Italian trademarks, especially in the field of winemaking, considering that Cantine Due Palme is famous behind national borders for the quality of its manifold products, constantly awarded in many international wine competitions. It has been necessary to render the Selvarossa wine, promoted in the advertising campaign, desirable for the country (the United Kingdom) where it could be sold. The values of the wine industry - high quality, care, experience, polish, tradition mixed with innovation – have been carefully combined, trying to transpose them into the target culture (and, obviously, through a skilful use of the target language). In order to be effective and successful, the advert follows the seven standards of textual communication identified by De Beaugrande & Dressler (1981) (cohesion, coherence, intentionality, situationality, acceptability, informativity, intertextuality) and Halliday’s (1973) register analysis parameters (domain, tenor, mode). Moreover, Jakobson’s functions of language have been taken into consideration, in order to demonstrate that the slogan has the greatest influence on the target audience, through cross-cultural references and funny puns.
The final outcomes are an advert and a commercial, both in English, that can be actually used by the wine industry at issue, in order to be broadcast on the Internet or shown during wine exhibitions or competitions.
In this way, it has been demonstrated that an actual knowledge of the target language and, obviously, of the target culture, is an essential factor in carrying out an advertising plan. Since Promotion has been identified as one of the pillar of a good marketing strategy, it is clear that if a firm wants to be competitive on the international scale, it needs a competent staff, foreign language experts and translators, able to convey the exact message, fully-comprehensible in the cultural and linguistic environment of the target market.