Manipulation of Female Stereotypes in Chinese Translations of Fragrance Product Descriptions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1301.26Keywords:
female stereotype, fragrance product description, manipulation, manipulative strategy, transcreation, translationAbstract
Although most research examines female stereotypes in advertising, few studies focus on translating female stereotypes in advertising texts from English into Chinese. This study explores how female stereotypes are recognized in fragrance product descriptions and how they are manipulated in Chinese translations. Twelve fragrance brands with 136 product descriptions were selected, and the qualitative analysis software ATLAS.ti was used for data analysis. This research recognized female stereotypes by examining communal and agentic traits. Results indicate that the female portrayals in the source and target texts present a positive trend but are stereotypical in different aspects. Female stereotypes in the Chinese translations are overwhelmingly indicated by communal traits but surprisingly by fewer sex-related traits. Manipulative strategies account for 70% of the strategy used to render female stereotypes. These manipulative strategies include gender omission, gender addition, gender reversal, gender permutation, and gender explicitation. Cross-cultural differences could partly explain the choice of manipulative strategies. The findings ascertain translation as manipulation in rendering female stereotypes in fragrance descriptions. It may provide references for translation practitioners in their future translation practice.
References
Abele, A. E., & Wojciszke, B. (2014). Communal and agentic content in social cognition: A dual perspective model. In M. P. Zanna & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 50, pp. 195–255). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7
Åkestam, N. (2017). Caring for her: the influence of presumed influence on female consumers’ attitudes towards advertising featuring gender-stereotyped portrayals. International Journal of Advertising, 37(6), 871–892. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2017.1384198
American Psychological Association, Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. (2007). Report of the APA task force on the sexualization of girls. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf
Antoniou, A., & Akrivos, D. (2020). Gender portrayals in advertising: Stereotypes, inclusive marketing and regulation, Journal of Media Law, 12(1), 78-115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17577632.2020.1783125
Brown, R. (2017, August 24). Will fragrance be the first non-gendered beauty category? Beauty Independent. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.beautyindependent.com/unisex-fragrance/
Cook, G. (2001). The Discourse of Advertising. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
De Marco, M. (2016). The ‘engendering’ approach in audiovisual translation. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 28(2), 314-325. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.28.2.11dem
Dukāte, A. (2007). Manipulation as a specific phenomenon in translation and interpreting. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Latvia. https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/4984/6969-Aiga_Dukate_2007.pdf?sequence=1
Emsenhuber, B. (2009). Scent marketing: Subliminal advertising messages. Informatik 2009-Im Focus Das Leben, Beitrage Der 39. Jahrestagung Der Gesellschaft Fur Informatik e.V. (GI), 3894–3903.
Eisend, M., Dens, N., & De Pelsmacker, P. (2019). Gender roles in advertising. In S. Rodgers & E. Thorson (Eds.), Advertising theory (2th ed., pp. 187–197). Routledge.
Evans, L., & Davies, K. (2000). No sissy boys here: A content analysis of the representation of masculinity in elementary school reading textbooks. Sex Roles, 42(3–4), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007043323906
Fetto, F. (2020, February 19). Smell like you: Why gender-free is the future of fragrance. The Guardian. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/feb/19/smell-like-you-why-gender-free-is-the-future-of-fragrance
Gaballo, V. (2012). Exploring the boundaries of transcreation in specialized translation. ESP Across Cultures, 9, 95–113. http://www.edipuglia.it/volume.php?id=733
Grau, S. L., & Zotos, Y. C. (2016). Gender stereotypes in advertising : A review of current research. International Journal of Advertising, 35(5), 761–770. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2016.1203556
Hentschel, T., Heilman, M. E., & Peus, C. V. (2019). The multiple dimensions of gender stereotypes: A current look at men’s and women’s characterizations of others and themselves. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(11). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00011
Ho, N. K. (2019). Evaluation in English and Chinese marketing communications: An adaptation of the Appraisal Framework for the genre of luxury fashion promotional texts. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Heriot-Watt University. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.25053.36327
Ho, N. K. (2020). Transcreation in marketing: A corpus-based study of persuasion in optional shifts from English to Chinese. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 29(3), 426-438. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2020.1778046
Jones, A. (2021). The difference between translation and transcreation: A crash course for marketers | AJT. Retrieved October 5, 2022, from https://www.teamajt.com/the-difference-between-translation-and-transcreation-a-crash-course-for-marketers/
Katan, D. (2004). Translating cultures: An introduction for translators, interpreters and mediators (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Karoubi, B. (2013). Translating gender between English and Persian: Strategies and beyond. International Journal of Translation Babel, 59(4), 473–497. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.59.4.06kar
Kaur, K., Arumugam, N., & Yunus, N. M. (2013). Beauty product advertisements: A critical discourse analysis. Asian Social Science, 9(3), 61–71. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v9n3p61
Kelly-Holmes, H. (2019). Irish English in intra- and intercultural advertising. World Englishes, 38(3), 352-365. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12426
Mansor, I. (2021). Explicitation in the intercultural communication of technical Culture in Arabic-Malay translation of Rihlat Ibn Battuta. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2021.1884891
Matthes, J., Prieler, M., & Adam, K. (2016). Gender-role portrayals in television advertising across the globe. Sex Roles, 75(7–8), 314–327. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0617-y
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/
Montés, A. (2019). Teaching gender issues in advertising translation: The case of university marketing. In M. De Marco & P. Toto (Eds.), Gender approaches in the translation classroom (pp. 63–82). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Nardi, V. (2012). Translation in advertising: Marketing cars in Italy and the UK since the 1980s [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Warwick.
Nemčoková, K., Kráľová, Z., Holíková, A., & Sampey, D. P. (2021). Gender identities in e-shop perfume descriptions. Topics in Linguistics, 22(1), 63–77. https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2021-0005
Payne, E. (2020). The essence of femininity: The subversive potential of the music video aesthetic in perfume advertisement. Sonic Scope: New Approaches to Audiovisual Culture, 1, https://doi.org/10.21428/66f840a4.0cbdf606
Pedersen, C. (2015). Exploring the concept of transcreation: A theoretical and empirical study of transcreation with BMW as an empirical example. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Aarhus University. http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/61306039/Thesis.pdf
Pedersen, J. (2011). Subtitling norms for television: An exploration focusing on extralinguistic cultural references. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Pounders, K. (2018). Are portrayals of female beauty in advertising finally changing? Journal of Advertising Research, 58(2), 133–137. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-2018-021
Qian, H. (2007). Yun yong ping jia li lun jie shi bu zhong shi de fan yi xian xiang—Xiang shui guang gao fan yi ge an yan jiu [Investigating unfaithful translation via the Appraisal Theory—A case study on perfume ads translation]. Journal of Foreign Languages, (6), 57-63.
Stover, M., & Ibroscheva, E. (2020). Stereotyping in Advertising. In I. Bachmann, V. Cardo, S. Moorti, & M. Scarcelli (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of mender, Media, and communication. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119429128.iegmc116
Taylor, T. (2021, March 30). Boy Smells, and a short history of gender in perfume. The Face. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://theface.com/life/boy-smells-perfume-fragrance-advertising-gender-boundaries
Tianli, Z., Mansor, N. S., Ang, L. H., & Sharmini, S. (2022). Examining rhetorical strategies in humorous discourses: A systematic review. World Journal of English Language, 12(5), 27–40. https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v12n5p27
Toury, G. (2012). Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. In John Benjamins BV (Revised). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Vera, P. G. (2012). The translation of linguistic stereotypes in animated films: A case study of DreamWorks’ Shrek and Shark Tale. Journal of Specialised Translation, 17, 104–123.
Wang, Y., Yu, X., & Chen, Q. (2019). Translation and negotiation of gender stereotypes: Metamorphosis of female characters in the English version of a Chinese classical novel. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 28(5), 702-716. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2019.1663887
Zeven, K., & Dorst, A. G. (2020). A beautiful little fool? Retranslating Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 29(5), 661–675. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2020.1778047
Zhao, P., Yang, L., Sa, Z., & Wang, X. (2020). Propriety, empowerment, and compromise: Challenges in addressing gender among sex educators in China. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, 20(5), 552–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2019.1705779
Zhu, L., Ang, L. H., Rashid, S. M., & Mansor, N. S. (2021). Transcreation strategies of male-related traits from English online fragrance labels into Chinese: From a cultural perspective. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(4), 1408-1422. https: https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i4/9839
