Translating the Information-to-Persuasion Ratio

The effectiveness of advertising texts largely depends on the way they are written. Torresi’s information-to-persuasion ratio is a way of defining the stylistic traits of advertising texts in terms of their informativeness and persuasiveness. This ratio can be used to determine the way an advertising text should be translated, so that the translated advertising text is effective. The purpose of this thesis was to experiment with Torresi’s theory by examining the effects different information-to-persuasion ratios have on readers, and to determine the potential this ratio holds for sales optimisation, using three translations of one English advertising text that have different information-to-persuasion ratios. One translation had the same ratio as the source text, one translation was more informative, and one was more persuasive. The results, gathered through a survey, did not always concur with Torresi’s theory. The results showed that translating texts in a more informative or...Show moreThe effectiveness of advertising texts largely depends on the way they are written. Torresi’s information-to-persuasion ratio is a way of defining the stylistic traits of advertising texts in terms of their informativeness and persuasiveness. This ratio can be used to determine the way an advertising text should be translated, so that the translated advertising text is effective. The purpose of this thesis was to experiment with Torresi’s theory by examining the effects different information-to-persuasion ratios have on readers, and to determine the potential this ratio holds for sales optimisation, using three translations of one English advertising text that have different information-to-persuasion ratios. One translation had the same ratio as the source text, one translation was more informative, and one was more persuasive. The results, gathered through a survey, did not always concur with Torresi’s theory. The results showed that translating texts in a more informative or persuasive manner may have a few benefits. For instance, it may provide readers with a better understanding of the product being sold. In addition, the general information about the product was considered more credible in the informative TT compared to the neutral TT. However, it appeared that changing the ratio may also have several negative effects that override the benefits. For example, it may lengthen the text to such an extent that the reader finds it more difficult to focus on the text. Moreover, the readers of the neutral TT found the product the most relevant for them. Overall, the neutral translation was the most effective translation. In other words, experimenting with the information-to-persuasion ratio did not improve advertising effectiveness in this case, and may therefore hold little to no potential for sales optimisation.Show less

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Translating the Information-to-Persuasion Ratio