Transcreation has become famous recently as one of the fields of modern translation. This is an unfair concept for the translation industry. Creativity is an integral part of the translation process, but the degree of creativity and the space of freedom for expression differ between each of the fields of translation. Creativity is the basis of translation so that we can convey the message of the original text with the same feelings and the same sense to the target language.
When do you use creative translation?
The term free translation is used in exchange for creative translation. This strategy is used specifically in the fields of marketing, literary translation, audiovisual translation… and others. If the translation is literary, then each language carries a different cultural heritage, and the translation process may enrich this cultural heritage, or it may be lost behind linguistic transliteration. Adhering to the literal transmission of the text may harm the text, distort its structure, and rob it of its spirit and magnificence. Translating poetry and stories may require a literary translator who has talent and poetic touch, enabling him/her to translate poetic structures and images in a way that may outperform the original poetry at times. When talking about marketing translation, it is necessary to follow the method of creative translation to produce a translated text that touches the nature and feeling of the audience receiving the target language, taking into account its culture, linguistic localization, and marketing tools motivating the target audience.
Thus, we can define transcreation as liberating from the restrictions of the original text and giving space to unleash the translator’s imagination to produce a text that bears the culture and language of the target audience so that the translated text can achieve the same effect as the original text in its original environment.