Translating consumeroriented texts

TRANSLATING CONSUMER-ORIENTED TEXTS 139

analysis and comparison (and not necessarily imitation!). The texts are from the leaflet supplied with a coffee-maker:

One wonders who produced the English text, and why! It may just be an editorial oversight, the TT being an accidental relic from an earlier leaflet. Perhaps it was written by someone who thinks the British do not appreciate the subtleties of coffee-making, or that the Italian text is empty affectation. Whatever the answer, the difference between the two texts implies assumptions about cultural differences between Italy and the United Kingdom. One may not accept the implied assumptions, but the fact is that the Italian manufacturer has published texts that do imply them. This extreme example illustrates particularly clearly that purpose and audience-stereotyping are as crucial in consumer-oriented texts as in any other.

The point is that, as ever, part of the translator's preparation must be to study examples of appropriate TL texts, so as to become familiar with the requirements and assumptions of the genre that is intended for the TT. It is just as important, of course, to be aware of stylistic features and cultural assumptions that are not characteristic of the intended TL genre. Even intralingually, if the style of the Brownie Cookbook were used in Mrs Beeton, her readers would be insulted, and would not not take her seriously; conversely, Mrs Beeton's style might mystify the Brownie. Either option would be commercial suicide. The trendy twentysomething niche requires something else again. In translation, putting notes for a Schubert CD booklet into New Musical Express style would be an act of commercial sabotage as would translating Zucchero notes into the English of Schubert criticism.

All these sorts of consideration will apply in Practical 14. It is, however, also important to remember that changes in structure, vocabulary and register are as much a matter of standard differences between languages as of genrespecific cross-cultural differences. This point can be exemplified from an Italian bath and shower gel carton. It may be that the English text is not actually a translation of

140 THINKING ITALIAN TRANSLATION

the Italian, but they do correspond to one another very closely. The differences are not differences of genre, but of characteristic idiom and grammatical structure. A literal translation of either text would be unidiomatic. Here they are, for comparison and discussion:

Finally, the same point can be made `negatively', by comparing an ST with a TT that, for whatever reason, has not taken grammatical and idiomatic differences between SL and TL sufficiently into account. However scrupulous the attention to genre, the TT suffers somewhat from excessive SL orientation. The texts are from Torino Cultura 1997, a brochure published by the city of Turin: