Language & Consumer Behavior In Hispanic Marketing Communication.
September 6, 2005
I recently returned to the United States after a four-year stay in Italy. Culture shock has taken various forms, but none quite as evident as my newfound inability to express certain concepts in my own language. Last week, my roommate asked if I had called the cable company as I had promised I would. I certainly intended to call, but because of other things I hadn’t. The concept and the words I wanted to express to her were clear in my head, in Italian. “Non ci sono riuscita”, loosely translated as “I wasn’t able to.” However, if you understand the Italian language you know that “I wasn’t able to” is insufficient as a translation. The Italian verb riuscire in the negative form indicates that you truly wanted to do something. It means you tried to do it, you gave it your best, but for some reason you failed. The simple fact that you attempted to accomplish the goal nullifies the failure. English, however, doesn’t differentiate between failures. Either you do something or you don’t, but the importance is placed on the results and not on the effort. (If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!)
These language differences reflect notable distinctions between Italian and U.S. cultures. The languages we use to communicate are not just clusters of letters used to represent objects and ideas. They represent culture and collective experiences among the groups of people who share a language. This is a key point in marketing to U.S. Hispanics. When using the Spanish language to market to Hispanic consumers, marketers must be conscious of the literal meaning and how that language connects with consumers on cultural and emotional levels.
Understanding how language and culture are related is essential to marketing. One linguistic theory that connects language and culture is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Simply stated, the theory has two principles: linguistic determinism, which states that how we think is determined by language and linguistic relativism, which states that people who speak different languages think about the world in different ways (Chandler). Sapir maintained that “human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society…the fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group.” (Chandler)
This fundamental correlation between the real world and language leads to problems when trying to communicate across languages. Words have more than just literal meanings. A single word can transmit emotions and values in addition to literal meaning. Can translations truly capture the words, ideas and shared values of one culture and transmit them in another language? The Sapir-Whorf perspective would say no. Communication is a process involving a source that encodes a message and a receiver that decodes, or interprets this message. How can translators be sure that the encoded message is decoded in the proper way?
In fact, translation and the complications that accompany it are an important concern in Hispanic marketing communication. Tony Malaghan outlines some typical problems for English-Spanish translators in his essay “Effective Translations: The Art and Practice of Marketing In-Language”. He states that “A translator should be able to rely on a number of skills and carry out various activities,” including being able to “faithfully reproduce the message in the object language. The translator achieves fidelity when the translation transmits the message of the original text precisely; that is, if it truly corresponds with the idea the author intended. The translator achieved this if he is aware of the contextual meaning of the words used in the original text, possesses a broad vocabulary, the spelling is accurate, the synonyms are properly used and if the translator knows the grammatical laws of the object language. Otherwise, it is easy to distort the message.” (del Valle, 176)
All of these observations are valid, but Malaghan overlooks some fundamental limitations of translation. In light of the previous discussion on the connection between language and thought is a correct translation even possible? Certainly a true translation requires more than grammatical correctness and a large vocabulary from the translator.
The goal of translation in Hispanic marketing is to communicate culturally relevant ideas, emotions and desires to Hispanics. This is always difficult and sometimes impossible because they may not be the same ideas that are marketed to mainstream consumers. Hispanics come from a different culture with a different set of values. Sometimes it makes more sense to recreate a campaign specifically for the Hispanic market.
Still, a marketer who decides to rely upon translation in a marketing campaign can take some simple steps to increase the accuracy and validity of the translation. For one, only translators who are equally fluent in English and Spanish and are able to understand the literal and connotative meaning of the messages to be translated should be entrusted with translations. Another important step is checking the translation with the target Spanish-speaking consumers, to be sure that they understand the intended message (Korzenny and Korzenny, 117). These steps may resolve some problems for marketers, but what about the millions of bilingual Hispanics who are forced to communicate in English and Spanish every day?
The complexities of using two languages have been partially resolved by many bilingual Hispanics in the U.S. through the use of Spanglish, or code-switching. Code-switching is “mixing words or sentences of both languages (Korzenny and Korzenny, 98). In some cases of code-switching, as is often the case with Spanglish, the switching takes place by changing word endings to match the other language. Spanglish serves many functions. First, bilingual Hispanics are exposed to Spanish and English in different places. They may speak Spanish at home and will therefore refer to food items exclusively in Spanish. However, at work they may learn the terms relating to their job in English. Therefore when speaking about food, they may speak in Spanish but terminology related to work may be communicated in English. Secondly, bilingual Hispanics use Spanglish because certain English words and phrases have no equivalent expression or connotation in Spanish and vice versa. In Italy, my American friends and I commonly used Italian terms when speaking as no English word had the same meaning as the Italian word we wanted to communicate. When doing so, we often modified the word so that it sounded better in English, adding typical English pronunciation, conjugation, or suffixes.
Bilingual Hispanics do the same thing. This doesn’t mean that marketers should attempt to use Spanglish when advertising to bilingual Hispanics. It would be impossible. It does mean, however, that communication with this group is more complex, as it is likely to take place in both Spanish and English at times. This is okay! Hispanics in the United States live with the duality of cultures and languages in every aspect of their lives. If marketers learn to be comfortable with this duality, they have a much greater chance of reaching their target audience.
Language and culture are complex issues. They become even more complex when a group of people live and breathe two cultures and languages at the same time. Being sensitive to the connections between language and culture will help marketers understand Hispanic consumers and target them more effectively.
Holly McGavock
hm******@*****il.com
Works Referenced
” Korzenny and Korzenny. Hispanic Marketing: A Cultural Perspective. El Sevier Butterworth Heinmann, 2005.
” Chandler, Daniel. The Sapir Whorf Hypothesis. Retrieved September 20, 2005 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/whorf.html
” Del Valle, Elena. Hispanic Marketing and Public Relations: Understanding and Targeting America’s Largest Minority. Poyeen Publishing, Boca Raton. 2005.
” Skiba, Richard. Code Switching as a Countenance of Language Interference. Retrieved September 20, 2005 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Skiba-CodeSwitching.html
Student in the Hispanic Marketing Communication Program at Florida State University
