Cultural Adaptation of Imagery in English-Language Advertising: A Translation Perspective

Abstract

The study examines cultural adaptation of imagery in the translation of English-language advertising into Ukrainian, focusing on the ways culturally marked verbal images are transformed to preserve their communicative, persuasive, and emotional functions in the target culture. The research aims to identify the principal translation strategies used to reproduce advertising imagery and to determine how cultural differences influence translators’ decisions between preservation, modification, and replacement of source-text images. The research material comprises English-language advertisements and their Ukrainian translations containing metaphors, culturally specific associations, symbolic images, idiomatic expressions, and other figurative elements. The methodology combines comparative translation analysis, contextual and semantic analysis, and functional-pragmatic analysis of source and target texts. The findings demonstrate that the translation of advertising imagery frequently requires a shift from formal correspondence towards functional and cultural adequacy. Depending on the degree of cultural accessibility of the original image, translators may preserve it directly, modify its semantic or associative structure, replace it with a culturally more recognizable target-language image, or explicate elements necessary for its interpretation. The analysis shows that successful adaptation depends not only on the semantic content of an image but also on its cultural connotations, emotional resonance, persuasive potential, and relevance to the target audience. Particular difficulties arise when source-text imagery relies on culture-specific knowledge, wordplay, symbolic associations, or culturally embedded stereotypes that do not activate comparable meanings in Ukrainian. The study concludes that cultural adaptation in advertising translation should be regarded as a functionally motivated translation strategy rather than a departure from the source text, provided that the transformation preserves the communicative purpose and persuasive effect of the original advertisement.