Abstract:
The relevance of culture and economy in the translation of advertisements for foreign markets continues to attract attention in translation studies. Existing studies on the influence of culture and market economy on the translation of advertisements for foreign markets have emphasised the markets of developed economies with less attention paid to developing economies and local variants of languages. This study, therefore, examined how culture and market economy influenced the translation of GLOBACOM advertisements in Nigerian Pidgin into French in Benin Republic. This is with a view to establishing the extent to which GLOBACOM advertisements in Nigerian Pidgin have been localised in Beninese culture and economy.
The study adopted Eugene Nida’s Theory of Equivalence, which shows interlinguistic and intercultural expressivity. Two hundred and sixty two advertisements were purposively collected from GLOBACOM headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria and from text messages received by GLOBACOM subscribers in Bénin Republic. Out of this number, only 40 advertisements that had the same set of messages in Nigerian Pidgin and French were analysed through text-based descriptive and comparative textual analyses of units of translation.
There were striking differences between the source and the target texts. Nigerian Pidgin was translated into standard French, whereas pidgin variant is not at the same linguistic level. For instance “Ah! Wetin dey cause am...” (Pidgin) vs “Quoi? Mon cher . . .”, (Standard); “Oga make una wait ooo” (Pidgin) vs “s’il vous plaît” (standard). The use of imperative and hyperbolic presentation of products is culture specific whereby imperative in the source language is translated into the target language as exclamatory. For example “... Hurry!! Don’t miss it. Recharge now with N1000...” (Imperative and exclamatory) vs “Une carte GLO de 2500F suffit!” (Exclamatory) (Franc: West African francophone single currency); “Yesso, GLO don land with GLO gista, the best thing for town, gbosa!” (Superlative adjective and exclamatory) vs “GLO vous rend la vie agréable.” (Adjective). The source cultural words that may appear strange to the target audience were translated by their closest cultural equivalents such that the translated texts flow naturally and do not read like translated texts. For instance, “... cold drink ...” vs “... allumette...” (Matches); “...sweet...” vs “ ...arachide...”(Groundnut). Prices of GLOBACOM products in Nigeria were not translated literally into franc. Their translation reflected the purchasing power of the average Beninese. For example, “...recharge with N400…” vs “...carte de 500F. . .”, a difference of N171.10 by the time the research was conducted. A literal translation of the prices without considering the economic indices will lead to the failure of the advertisements in Benin Republic as customers will consider the prices too high.
GLOBACOM advertisements in Nigerian Pidgin translated into French in Benin Republic were strongly oriented towards the Beninese culture and market economic realities. The translation of advertisement is a response to the target culture, market economy and variations of language.
Keywords: GLOBACOM advertisement, Nigerian pidgin, French in Benin Republic
Word count: 485
