Translation’s essential nature and scope, understood as intellectual activity, political instrument and business service, have been discussed at length throughout history. Fundamentally, translation is a phenomenon that stems from the communication needs of one or more people who are not versed in the language they want to interact with. This means that they must trust the translator to reproduce messages in a correct, accurate and faithful manner. Thus, translation is often a trust exercise where a clear definition of “accuracy” has not always been defined. In the beginning of written translation (since the task of creating understanding between different cultures and peoples has existed since the onset of humanity), translation was an exercise in maximum loyalty with the word as its most meaningful object which required a certain amount of respect during linguistic conversions. Therefore, the first translated texts (mostly made up of writings with a religious or political relevance) were an exercise in what today we would call maximum literalism, where sentences were translated in a strict manner leaving little room for interpretation. Paradoxically, this kind of translation about writings of a symbolic nature or with foreign language resources, gave rise to a phenomenon whereby metaphorical elements were perceived objectively, which caused lots of misunderstandings which have taken root throughout history. For this reason, the scope and effectiveness of literal translation has been broadly discussed in order to evolve towards a more dynamic approach that gravitates toward naturalization.
Likewise, another red line in translation is accuracy, or in other words, the extent to which the translator can intervene. It is historically known that every now and then, the most questionable translators would alter the content of the messages under their care following economic or political agendas. Although this is a reprehensible behavior in any context, there is still talk about the level of intervention on the part of the translator today. For example, this intervention relates to how to reformulate the text in order to reach the intended targets or to identify any piece of information that would not be advisable to attempt to translate since it is not going to be understood in the target culture and is better to remove it. Indeed, this idea is unthinkable when it comes to certain translation fields, such as legal or financial translation, where the veracity and accuracy in the reproduction are key for the translation to be valid and accepted by administrative bodies. On the other hand, there are times when such an accurate translation is not the best option for the target audience or for the application of the localized copy. This is when the translator must reflect on what must be kept or discarded in order to reach a successful result. Here’s when we cross the line into transcreation.
Transcreation consists in adapting the content from one language to another while keeping the tone, the author’s intention and personal style along the way. Although creative translation includes a great portion of the original content, there is a reworking of specific ideas. At other times, this translation modality will involve a complete remake of the content so that it sounds more natural in the destination language. So, how can we tell the difference between translation and transcreation? The abridged version is that translation centers in replacing the words in one language with the corresponding words in a new language, while transcreation is focused on transmitting the same message and concept in a new language without paying much heed to the original structure. But not to worry, because we have compiled the main differences between translation and transcreation in the following paragraphs.
First things first, transcreation specialists usually possess outstanding writing skills in their native language. This is because, in a creative translation, the key task is to reconfigure the copy in a natural and alluring way, such that occasionally the translator must approach the work as a new draft that takes the original content into consideration. It is small wonder that there are so many copywriters in this profession. On the other hand, when a project is being scheduled, transcreation usually comes with a creative brief. Unlike translation, which starts with a source text, with this modality a diagram is designed where all the data about the project are entered, such as the brand image to be transmitted, the target audience for the copy, etc. so that the transcreator has a broader foundation to pursue the best strategy From the merely economical point of view, transcreation is usually more expensive than translation, since this kind of work is usually billed by the hour rather than by number of words, as it is a more cognitive-intensive activity that requires much more imagination and reformulation of concepts. This is a creative service, with more parallelisms to advertising copy writing, graphic design or video production. Furthermore, the most usual field of application is in marketing copy. While translation fits perfectly with informational copy, transcreation is the best option when the text is designed to provoke a call to action in the target audience, as is the case with marketing copy. Finally, it is worth mentioning that transcreation is a wider service that includes any kind of linguistic assessment required by a client to boost their internationalization plans.
Image reference: https://artanddesigninspiration.com/think-outside-the-box/
