Translation of figures of speech in advertisement slogans and the translator?s approaches

In today?s competitive atmosphere, advertisements, as one of the most important marketing tools, need to appeal to the expectations of different cultures in the international platform. According to advertisers, for an advertisement to be successful, it should arouse a desire in the consumers to buy the commodities marketed by drawing their attention.To realize this, it is obvious that advertisers prefer to use a clear, catchy, arresting, and convincing language. For a slogan to attract attention, they make use of various figures of speech. As what will be convincing in a culture depends on the background and habits of that culture, advertisements need detailed cultural analysis to define how to convince consumers.Since it is known that how meticulously writers work on slogans and how strategic these slogans are, it is expected that the practice of translation is also strategic with respect to analysis of cultural elements and parameters Thus, this emphasizes the importance of translation in international advertising.The translation of an advertisement may be regarded as a dynamic activity just like the advertisement itself shaped according to the habits of cultures showing the differences between languages. Hence, the task of the translator is to determine appropriate translation methods and strategies in terms of sociocultural and ideological features of the target text.In this study, thirth nine international advertisement slogans have been examined in the frame of transference, broadly source - language focused and broadly target-language focused translation strategies. To realize that these translation strategies may result productive and functional consequences parallel to sociocultural and ideological approaches, supports the idea that an advertisement slogan cannot be translated through a single and common translation strategy.Consequently, it is realized that the target-language focused translation strategies which help preserve the rhetoric figures and consider cultural differences, provide more operational flexibility and creativity to the translators. However, the translators as the experts in both languages and cultures are the ultimate responsibles for the success of marketed commodities or services. Thus, giving the translators more freedom in their acts may result in more cultural effective translated slogans.Keywords : Advertisement, Figures of Speech, Culture, Translation of Advertisements, Translation Strategies.