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Article published In:
Translation Practice in the Field: Current research on socio-cognitive processes
Edited by Hanna Risku, Regina Rogl and Jelena Milosevic
[Translation Spaces 6:1] 2017
► pp. 44–61

Managing transcreation projects

An ethnographic study

| Aarhus University

This paper investigates the translation spaces of a very specific translation practice, namely transcreation. In a marketing context, transcreation is usually concerned with the adaptation of advertising material into several different languages or for different markets. The paper is based on an ethnographic field study carried out at a marketing implementation agency in London, during which a group of transcreation managers was followed over a period of four weeks. The study relies mainly on observations of the interactions between the employees of the above-mentioned agency and their partners as well as on the researcher’s own participation in some of the agency’s work-related activities. As an activity, transcreation often involves two or more writers. These writers are most likely to be physically separated, but as the data from this study show, a transcreation agency can serve as a case for joint, situated efforts.

Keywords: transcreation, sociology of translation, ethnography, workplace studies, advertising, translation process
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Key concepts
    • 2.1Transcreation
    • 2.2Assumed transcreation
    • 2.3The sociology of translation
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Workplace studies in translation
    • 3.2Researcher roles
    • 3.3Frames of the ethnographic study
  • 4.Analysis
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Perspectives for translation
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.6.1.03ped
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