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Les maux de la traduction : Le marketing de contenu des antidouleurs en traduction : une approche fonctionnaliste / The Pains of Translation : A Functionalist Approach to Translating Content Marketing of Painkillers

The purpose of this master’s thesis, written in French, is to examine some of the challenges that the content marketing genre poses on translation. More specifically, it studies the author’s translation of the medical advice published on the website GammeDolipraneConseils.fr: a site published by the company behind a French line of pain-killers. The functionalist Skopos theory, particularly as described by Christiane Nord, answers for the theoretical background, as well as adding to the understanding of the purpose of the source text. To understand what is being sold, the notion of conceptual metaphor and the previous research made on medical metaphors are used. The translated website was created to make the line Doliprane more visible online, by using search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. Analysing the skopos (purpose) of the source text allows the translator to understand the text and its distinctive problems. One of the characteristic problems found in this translation, is the balancing between the use of correct terms, which in the case of medical advice creates a sense of authority, and the way that search engines understand, index and show a website to its users. This type of text puts terminology in a new light, as each specialised word becomes more than a term, but also a keyword for the search engine. As shown in the analysis, this can both limit and broaden the way the terms are translated, from using two words (smärta and värk) where there were only one (douleur), or diminish it (using only huvudvärk for maux de tête and céphalée). A content marketing text is, although it is not always obvious, also a part of a campaign that aims to sell. To keep with the genre’s soft-sell approach, the products or services marketed need to be presented in a discrete way. Our translated text tries to sell pain-killers, or more abstractly the decreasing of pain, and the notion of conceptual metaphor helps to analyse and understand how to express this purpose. This translation shows that though there are some concepts that are equal in the source and target language, most are not. Adapting a concept proposed by other scholars, our finds suggest that the concept of PAIN IS A MOVEMENT can complement the recognized concept of PAIN IS A WAR in understanding the expressions of pain and painkillers in Swedish. Furthermore, our examination of the expressions of the decreasing of pain shows that there are more verbs used to express this in French, than in Swedish. The results suggest that the Skopos theory is highly useful when it comes to translating content marketing, and that the functionalist analysis proposed by Nord is particularity helpful in understanding the context, function and purpose of this sort of text – a genre that is increasingly important in our modern world.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-65937
Date January 2017
CreatorsM Jagemark, Lisa
PublisherLinnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR)
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageFrench
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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