Drug Advertisements across Cultures

Abstract

The present paper intends to approach the pharmaceutical text as a genre of medical discourse,
focusing especially on the translation of Drug Advertisements (DA).The aim of this paper is to
investigate the translation issues raised by these texts and to offer some translation strategies in order to
facilitate their understanding by the non – specialist readers. One of the novelty elements of this article
consists in an interdisciplinary approach of the pharmaceutical promotion texts and their analysis from
different perspectives: of translation and cultural studies, of linguistics, of pragmatics and of the
advertising discourse. The advertising language uses textual as well as cultural strategies in order to get
the reader’s attention. The understanding and the observance of the cultural values of the target audience
is essential for an efficient approach to translation. Consequently, the translator needs to focus not only
on the linguistic particularities of the text but also on respecting the socio-cultural differences of the
target reader when interpreting the source-text. A difficult element in the translation of the
pharmaceutical promotion text represents the cultural appropriateness of the sent message. The publicity
of a product can be inefficient owing to the non-compliance with the socio-cultural differences in
interpretation that leads to an inadequate promotion. The attempt of finding the optimum translation
strategies in order to facilitate the understanding of these texts by the lay – receiver, preserving the
meaning as well as the cultural atmosphere in the target text, represents another new element of this
approach, given that, there are not many studies in the field literature that focus on this topic.