An-Najah National University 

Faculty of Graduate Studies 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF 

COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS ON 

WEBSITES: TRANSLATION AND 

LOCALIZATION CHALLENGES FROM 

ENGLISH INTO ARABIC 
 

 

 

 

 

 

By  

Sheeraz Jawdat Abdelhadi 
 

 

 

 

Supervisor 

Dr. Mohammad Hamdan 
 

 

 

 

This Thesis is Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of 

Master of Applied Linguistics and Translation, Faculty of Graduate Studies, 

An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. 

2025 



ii 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF 

COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS ON 

WEBSITES: TRANSLATION AND 

LOCALIZATION CHALLENGES FROM 

ENGLISH INTO ARABIC 
 

 

By 

Sheeraz Jawdat Abdelhadi 
 

  

This Thesis was defended successfully on 06/03/2025 and approved: 

 

 



iii 

Acknowledgment 

First of all, I thank God a lot for giving me the strength, will, and support throughout this 

academic journey. I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, 

Dr. Mohammad Hamdan for his encouragement and invaluable guidance. Heartly thanks 

are also due to Dr. Nabil Alawi for his fruitful comments and feedback during my 

master’s courses which have really contributed to adding deep insights and experiences 

to my academic development. His guidance has greatly enriched my understanding of the 

field of translation. I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Rami Qawariq, Dr. 

Sufyan Abuarrah, and Dr. Ruqayah Hirzallah for their dedication and commitment to their 

subjects, which have greatly contributed significantly to my academic experience as well 

as my personal and intellectual growth. I also appreciate my examining committee 

members, Prof. Mohammad Al Salem from The University of Jordan, the external 

examiner, and Dr. Sufyan Abuarrah from An-Najah National University, the internal 

examiner, for their constructive feedback and comments that contributed to the 

improvement of this work. I am deeply thankful to my family and parents for their care 

and goodwill as well as to friends and others who wish me success. Special thanks are 

due to my friend Maryam Kalantan from Saudi Arabia and my sweetie Dr. May Mohd 

for including me in their prayers and giving me the will and patience to complete this 

study. This thesis would not have been possible without the contributions and 

encouragement of everyone around me, and I am truly grateful for each one who gave me 

moral support and believed in me. 

 

 

 

  



iv 

Declaration 

I, the undersigned, declare that I submitted the thesis entitled: 

 

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF 

COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS ON 

WEBSITES: TRANSLATION AND 

LOCALIZATION CHALLENGES FROM 

ENGLISH INTO ARABIC 
 

I declare that the work provided in this thesis, unless otherwise referenced, is the 

researcher’s own work, and has not been submitted elsewhere for any other degree or 

qualification. 

Student's Name Sheeraz Jawdat Abdelhadi  

Signature: Sheeraz Abdelhadi 

Date: 06/03/2025 

 

 

 

 

  



v 

Table of Contents 

 

Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................. iii 

Declaration ....................................................................................................................... iv 

Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. v 

List of Tables .................................................................................................................. vii 

List of Figures ................................................................................................................ viii 

Abstract ............................................................................................................................ ix 

Chapter One: Introduction and Literature Review ........................................................... 1 

1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 

1.2 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................ 6 

1.3 Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................... 7 

1.4 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................ 8 

1.6 The Questions of the Study ......................................................................................... 9 

1.5 Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................. 10 

1.5.1 Translation and culture .......................................................................................... 10 

1.5.2 Translation and Communication ............................................................................ 13 

1.5.3 Definition of commercial advertisements .............................................................. 14 

1.5.4 Advertising and Translation ................................................................................... 17 

1.5.5 Translation & Localization of Websites’ Advertisements ..................................... 18 

1.6 Commercial Website Advertising as a Genre and Text Type .................................. 22 

1.7. Limitations of the Study .......................................................................................... 26 

1.8 Chapters’ Structure ................................................................................................... 27 

1.9 Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 28 

1.9.1 Localization and Challenges of Websites’ Advertisements .................................. 28 

1.9.2 Multimodality in Websites’ Advertisements ......................................................... 33 

Chapter Two: Methodology  ........................................................................................... 38 

2.1 Corpus of the study ................................................................................................... 38 

2.2 Data collection .......................................................................................................... 38 

2.3 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 39 

2.4 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................. 40 

2.4.1 Gunther Kress & Theo Van Leeuwen’s Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) 41 

2.4.2 Kress and Van Leeuwen’s Visual Grammar .......................................................... 42 

2.4.2.1 Representational Metafunction ........................................................................... 43 

2.4.2.2 Interactional Metafunction .................................................................................. 43 



vi 

2.4.2.3 Compositional Metafunction .............................................................................. 44 

Chapter Three: Data Analysis & Discussion .................................................................. 46 

3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 46 

3.2 English Representations of Website Ads .................................................................. 48 

3.2.1 Capitalism and Globalization ................................................................................. 49 

3.2.2 Consumerism ......................................................................................................... 50 

3.2.2.1 Inclusivity ........................................................................................................... 50 

3.2.2.2 Sustainability ...................................................................................................... 54 

3.2.2.3 Individualism ...................................................................................................... 58 

3.3 Arabic Representations of Website Advertisements ................................................ 61 

3.3.1 Consumerism ......................................................................................................... 61 

3.3.1.1 Collectivism ........................................................................................................ 63 

3.3.1.2 Sustainability ...................................................................................................... 66 

3.4 Challenges of Localization of the Website Advertisements ..................................... 69 

Chapter Four: Conclusion and Recommendations ......................................................... 72 

4.1 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 72 

4.2 Research Questions Revisited ................................................................................... 74 

4.3 Implications of the study ........................................................................................... 76 

4.4 Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 77 

List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... 79 

References ....................................................................................................................... 80 

 ب  الملخص 

 

  



vii 

List of Tables 

 

Table (1): The Categories of G. Kress & van Leeuwen MDA for the Selected Data 

Analysis ............................................................................................................... 45 

Table (2): Representative Examples of Inclusivity ......................................................... 51 

Table (3): Representative Examples of Sustainability .................................................... 55 

Table (4): Representative Examples of Individualism ................................................... 58 

Table (5): Arabic Representative Examples of Consumerism ........................................ 62 

Table (6): Representative Examples of Collectivism ..................................................... 64 

Table (7): Representational examples of Sustainability ................................................. 67 

Table (8): Linguistic Challenges ..................................................................................... 71 

 

 

  



viii 

List of Figures 

 

Figure (1): The Semiotic Resources/Modes ................................................................... 47 

Figure (2): The Conceptual Representations .................................................................. 48 

Figure (3): English Conceptualizations .......................................................................... 50 

Figure (4): Arabic Conceptualizations ............................................................................ 61 

 

 

 

 

  



ix 

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMERCIAL 

ADVERTISEMENTS ON WEBSITES: TRANSLATION AND 

LOCALIZATION CHALLENGES FROM ENGLISH INTO ARABIC 
By  

Sheeraz Jawdat Abdelhadi 

Supervisor 

Dr. Mohammad Hamdan 

Abstract  

This study examines a corpus of translated commercial advertisements of three iconic 

American companies— Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and McDonald’s—and their Arabic 

versions on websites. Through the lens of G. Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) visual 

grammar paradigm, the researcher analyzes a collection of 20 English-Arabic ads 

published by the selected companies’ websites for the year 2024. Depending on a 

scientific reading from Kress and Van Leeuwen’s multimodal perspective, the researcher 

identifies the cultural challenges that translators may face when localizing the visual 

elements in American brands to Arab countries. Thus, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s 

methodology with its three metafunctions- representational, interactive, and 

compositional- helps the researcher conceptualize and categorize some critical concepts, 

namely: Sustainability, inclusivity, individualism, and collectivism. 

The results ensure the contrast between American ads, which often frame their ads to 

emphasize the concepts of individualism and inclusivity to enhance capitalist hegemony 

by globalizing their products. Additionally, the researcher concludes that the 

representational function is more dominant in American advertisements since they 

prioritize personal expressions. In contrast, the Arabic advertisements exhibited a stronger 

interactive function to emphasize family connections, community, and a sense of 

belonging, to foster their collective identity. Therefore, reframing these ads to fit the Arab 

audiences who focus on collectivistic social relations may cause challenges for translators 

from English to Arabic. For this reason, translators sometimes decontextualize the source 

texts to recontextualize them to suit the target audience's hegemonic discourse. 

The study’s summary findings contribute to extending the application of Kress and Van 

Leeuwen’s framework to the field of advertising localization, revealing how cultural 

differences affect the interpretation of visual elements. Additionally, the findings provide 



x 

actionable insights for translators seeking to adapt English ads for the Arab countries, 

ensuring the significance of considering semiotic codes and cultural contexts. Ultimately, 

the study underscores the need for cultural awareness in advertising methods that help 

create successful communication strategies in the digitized and globalized era without 

affecting the target audience's norms and ideologies. 

Finally, the study concludes with a set of recommendations that may help future 

researchers as well as future translators of websites’ commercial advertisements or 

multimodal text who intend to use Kress and Van Leeuwen’s framework in translating 

multimedia texts, whether commercial ads, public services, or any other media texts 

Keyword: Visual semiotics; multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA); multimodality; 

ideology.   



 

1 

Chapter One 

Introduction and Literature Review 

1.1 Introduction  

In the era of globalization, the world has become a whole interconnected universal village. 

Therefore, there is a growing need for international communication in order to promote 

cultural exchanges among communities and overcome challenges pertaining to the 

translation of cultural barriers in many possible ways. This would also greatly impact 

sharing experiences or exchanging knowledge and ideas. In today’s interconnected world, 

ideologies and international products spread and cut across geographical boundaries 

rapidly via advertisements, cultural narratives, and consumer behavior. In this sense, 

Aydoğan & Aydın (2023a) state that “advertising of products is an ideological phenomenon 

that affects class and gender relations and ultimately all social relations with its effect on 

popular culture and communication tools” (p. 361). Moreover, the globalization of 

markets enables ideologies to cross borders, since brands adapt their messages to fit 

different cultures and contexts. Thus, localization can strengthen or challenge existing 

ideologies, based on how well the brand resonates with the local values and beliefs of the 

target audiences. 

The advent of the Internet in 1990 has turned the world’s economic activities upside down 

and impacted all walks of marketing and communication. As a result, the profession of 

translation has expanded beyond the traditional translation of written or spoken texts to 

multimodal translation. This new practice of translation includes website advertisements 

and other multimedia content, carried out by experts in the field of translation. For 

instance, in the field of marketing, businessmen and company owners create websites to 

market their brands and products across national and international boundaries. This rapid 

development in the industry is driven by global competition between various brands and 

businesses tending to make the products or services offered globally reachable and 

beneficial for both consumers and companies. Such products are manufactured to serve 

the consumer, who holds the absolute power and ability to shape the market’s dynamics 

since consumer preferences and choices influence product availability, prices, and the 

quality of goods. 



 

2 

In the contemporary global market, the United States of America is currently at the top of 

all competitors that lead the world in the field of trade. In this market, the English 

language has increasingly become a significant means of cultural exchange. Recent years 

have witnessed the emergence of a global market that promotes English products, which 

makes English a common language of business and acculturation. In their paper Shah et 

al. (2024) emphasize that English is a lingua franca, pivotal in international trade and 

economic development. Therefore, huge numbers of people all over the world use English 

to communicate even though it is not their mother tongue. At the same time, English is 

still poorly used by many consumers who seek to benefit economically from the rising 

global trade system by importing products and legalizing brands whose names and 

illustrations are in English. Thus, the benefits and how-to-use instructions of such 

manufactured products should be brought to the knowledge of non-English speakers who 

need to know about these products through translation and localization.  

Furthermore, the need for translating website commercial advertisements, whether 

written, visual, or audiovisual, has increased these days to facilitate global 

communication among people. With the spread of the global economy, international trade 

has achieved phenomenal growth, leading to international advertising trade across diverse 

cultures (Retnowati, 2016). This is why in the last few decades, internationalizing and 

localizing website commercial advertisements have witnessed an increased demand for 

translation from English into other languages. Despite the imperialist nature of the 

internationalization of English products to increase control and economic access in non-

English speaking countries through ads, the translation of these ads into other languages 

has tried to fashionalize a new global economic culture to go with the culture of the 

receiving country.  

The translation of advertisements that promote foreign products has been investigated by 

a few studies, despite its urgent importance. One of which is Munday (2004, p. 210) 

where he notes that scholarly writing and research about the translation of advertisements, 

in general, is rare. The translation of commercial advertisements from English into Arabic 

is among the least examined text types, although it is significant in translation studies. 

Agha (2006) emphasizes that the advertisement translation has to receive considerable 

attention from a scholarly perspective. He adds that the translation of ads from English to 

Arabic, in particular, is becoming more and more important since most products available 



 

3 

in Arab countries are imported from America and other countries where English is the 

main language of commerce. In this regard, Agha (2006, p. 3) suggests: 

The past few decades have witnessed an increased demand for the translation of 

advertisements from English into Arabic because most products and services 

available in  Arab countries are imported from American [sic] and countries that 

use English as the language of commerce. 

This study analyzes advertisements on the websites of three prominent global brands 

(Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Starbucks) and the advertisements of the same brands on 

Arabic websites. The analysis is conducted by utilizing Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) 

framework to explore how visual elements such as images, color, and design 

communicate meaning, which work as a form of language. This analysis aims to compare 

advertisements from American parent websites and their Arabic versions, focusing on the 

translation and localization process. This comparison seeks to identify differences in 

cultural representations, thereby providing insights into effective communication across 

diverse audiences. Further, the analysis explores the challenges that translators may 

encounter when localizing and adapting the websites’ advertisements for Arab 

consumers, particularly in the Gulf countries, which are known as strong consumers of 

international brands. The researcher conducts this comparative analysis of different 

linguistic and cultural identities or ideologies to shed light on the challenges that arise 

when localizing website ads from English into Arabic. By comparing the original website 

ads with their Arabic versions, the study aims to highlight differences that may influence 

the perception and effectiveness of the ads in different cultural contexts. This study 

regards the translation of commercial ads on websites that are culturally sensitive 

material. In their study on the translation of website commercial advertisements, Singh et 

al. (2005) summarize this sensitivity by suggesting that:  

• A website is visible to people across cultures, 

• The interactive nature of the website makes it an ideal medium for creating culturally 

sensitive dialogue, 

•  Links and search options depend on the user and on his or her motivation to browse 

the web, 

• Website templates can be adapted for different cultures, 



 

4 

• Culturally congruent websites are better perceived by their users who can use them 

better.  

• Website translation has introduced many new aspects into the field one of which is 

translating websites’ advertisements that plays a significant role in shaping consumer 

behavior and promoting products and services.  

Websites’ advertisements’ translation from English into Arabic may be more challenging 

than other translations due to the importance of both form and content in cross-cultural 

translation and audience response. Therefore, specialized translators often encounter 

localization challenges when adapting website ads. Translators should consider the 

particularities related to the target audience’s age, gender, religion, social practices, and 

commercial habits when localizing and translating the source ads. Thus, when localizing 

websites’ advertisements, translators should analyze the visual elements to ensure they 

align with the ideology of the political system in the country where the product in question 

is going to be marketed. This includes considering how images, colors, and other visuals 

may be perceived within the specific cultural and political context. This relationship 

between the political system and the translation of website advertisements manifests in 

understanding several key dynamics such as regulations, cultural sensitivities, and target 

audiences. Translators must consider these dynamics when localizing advertisements on 

websites to resonate with the target audience without offending political sensitivities. 

Additionally, translators should understand the political systems of the source and target 

audiences to adjust their translation according to these contexts. By understanding these 

aspects, translators can effectively navigate the complexities of localizing advertisements 

in different political contexts, ensuring that the final product is both culturally relevant 

and politically appropriate. To achieve this, a thorough assessment that employs 

comparative analysis is essential. This thorough analysis of language metafunctions is 

conducted by using G. Kress & van Leeuwen’s visual grammar, which is based on 

Halliday & Matthiessen’s (2004) framework, the standard reference to Systemic 

Functional Linguistics (SFL) that will be instrumental in this study. Specifically, the 

representational, compositional, and interactive aspects of both the source and target 

advertisements. The analysis of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s metafunctions helps identify 

the semiotic codes and cultural values embedded within the source ads. Further, this 

approach provides a deeper understanding of localization challenges faced by translators 



 

5 

and how websites’ ads can be tailored to align with the cultural and political nuances (i.e., 

ideology) of the intended audience. 

After analyzing the screenshots of the ads on the selected companies’ websites by 

employing G. Kress & Van Leeuwen (2006), the researcher dissects the semiotic 

dimensions of commercial advertisements on websites, related to cultural nuances, 

embedded ideologies, and linguistic choices, emphasizing the importance of the layout 

and design choices of images. The researcher tries to unravel the intricate layers of 

challenges inherent in cultural adaptation and linguistic decision-making during the 

translation of English websites’ advertisements to Arabic audiences. Delineating the 

challenges of localization contributes to enhancing and optimizing the quality of 

advertising when translating from English into Arabic in the linguistic and cultural 

contexts of website advertisements. Ultimately, this evaluation of challenges leads to 

more successful and appropriate communication with the Arabic audience. Additionally, 

the study aims to evaluate the influence of semiotic modes such as color, images, writing, 

and format on the cultural appropriateness of website advertisements’ translation. Thus, 

the study provides practical recommendations for improving the cultural adaptation and 

linguistic aspects of translating websites’ advertisements, offering insights for marketers 

and translators. The last aim is to contribute to the academic field of translation by 

offering a nuanced exploration of challenges in translating websites’ advertisements and 

suggesting avenues for further research and improvement. 

In general, dominant contemporary companies worldwide tend to globalize and 

internationalize their products to obtain economic resources and opportunities to access 

a large number of markets and increase their profits. This has led to a significant increase 

in the demand for the translation and localization of website advertisement services. As a 

result, this study endeavors to explore the translation of websites’ advertisements 

regarding localization challenges to facilitate the task for future translators in this field.  

More specifically, the following few pages present more clarification of the main 

objectives of this study and introduce the statement of the problem, the purpose of the 

study, the significance of the study, the limitations of the study, and the research questions 

that the study tends to answer. In addition, they introduce the related conceptual 

framework and the main purpose of this study.  



 

6 

1.2 Statement of the Problem  

 In the digital age, website advertisements are the most powerful discourse determined by 

the capitalist production-consumption chain since the context, motivation, and purpose 

of the communication process are shaped by capitalism. This study seeks to analyze the 

translation of commercial advertisements on American websites and their Arabic versions 

for three iconic companies: Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and McDonald's.  

Specifically, the study examines the cultural values of twenty commercial advertisements 

on websites, revealing the localization challenges that may be faced by translation 

agencies when adapting commercial ads for Arab countries in 2024. The selected 

examples are localized/translated by a team of localization experts and professional in-

house translators who work with translation agencies. However, a specific translator is 

not widely known for translating ads on websites from English to Arabic. Particularly, 

these three large companies are handled by a team of experienced translators rather than 

one single person. The analysis tackles the visual elements such as images, format, color, 

and writing that convey several layers of meaning. Through exploring commercial ads on 

websites, it becomes clear that translating such multimodal ads is problematic due to the 

challenges of localizing the semiotic modes in the advertisements because these elements 

belong exclusively to the source culture (SC), which is different from that of the receiving 

culture. Therefore, translators of website advertisements may face difficulties in 

localizing culture-specific values related to ideologies whose literal transference may 

sound offensive to the target audience in the Arab context. For example, Aydogan et al. 

(2019) examine ideology and discourse in advertising and state that “advertising is an 

ideological phenomenon that affects class and gender relations and ultimately all social 

relations with its effect on popular culture and communication tools” (p. 361).  

Thus, the researcher uses G. Kress & van Leeuwen Theo's (2006) model as a multimodal 

analysis tool to dig deep into various modes to understand the potential meanings. 

Additionally, this framework helps reveal the challenges of localization of commercial 

advertisements on English websites and their versions on Arabic websites by comparing 

the representations of the source websites’ advertisements and their target ones. Because 

cultural gaps such as social culture and religious culture lead to variations in ideological 

perspectives between English and Arabic. For instance, one of the representations in 



 

7 

American websites’ advertisements emphasizes individuality compared to Arabic 

versions, which focus on collectivism and social connections. 

Although Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) model is complex, identifying these 

challenges requires a professional multimedia analysis tool to avoid any breaches of the 

cultural realia in Arab countries while maintaining the product’s primary goal of 

persuading consumers to take action and purchase. This framework, with its three 

metafunctions (representation, interactive, and compositional) and their processes and 

subprocesses, is beneficial in analyzing website ads.  

Further, there is a considerable amount of research on this topic, but there remains a 

shortage of studies on website advertisements’ localization assessment from English to 

Arabic from a multimodal perspective by utilizing Kress and Van Leeuwen’s approach 

for reading images.  

1.3 Purpose of the Study 

This study evaluates the translations of a sample of website advertisements of three 

famous brands (Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Starbucks) from English to Arabic. The 

study explores the challenges translators may face while localizing these ads from English 

into Arabic by utilizing G. Kress & van Leeuwen Theo's (2006) multimodal approach as 

a comparative analytical tool. This analysis clarifies how visual elements are localized 

across different cultural contexts. Moreover, analyzing the American and Arabic websites’ 

ads identifies the dominant metafunction and highlights the key themes in these 

localizations, such as sustainability, inclusivity, and collectivism. For instance, the 

representational metafunction is dominant in English sample website ads which plays a 

crucial role in conceptualizing the observed representations. It emphasizes how these 

concepts and values are depicted through images of ads to convey specific ideas and 

messages. On the other hand, the overwhelming interactive metafunction in Arabic 

representations represents the concept of collectivism which expresses Arab culture and 

traditions. 

By uncovering these patterns and challenges, the study provides insightful ways to 

effective localization practices that maintain cultural relevance, ideological consistency, 

and coherent messaging. This means that despite the underlying difference in ideologies, 



 

8 

the websites’ ads can still show coherent messages reflecting respect for the values and 

beliefs of each culture.  

In a nutshell, by identifying the challenges of localizing websites’ advertisements, the 

study seeks to contribute to the development of more nuanced and culturally relevant 

strategies for translating and localizing commercial website advertising messages from 

English into Arabic. This is to maintain the brand’s consistency and effectiveness without 

causing any contempt, seduction, or influence on the culture and ideology of the receiving 

country. Moreover, the study aims to provide practical recommendations for improving 

the cultural localization and linguistic aspects of translating websites’ ads, offering 

insights for marketers and translators. The last objective is to contribute to the academic 

field of translation by offering a nuanced exploration of critical multimodal analysis 

depending on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s framework suggesting avenues for further 

research and improvement.  

1.4 Significance of the Study 

The focus of translation has been on conventional, outdated, and written texts, giving less 

attention to advertising despite its being one of the clearest examples of the new 

multimedia world of communication. From this sense, the researcher believes that 

translation must move beyond the written texts, and pay more attention to the visual and 

multimodal elements which must be combined into a fuller study of advertising 

translation. Hence the significance of this study can be framed to highlight its 

multifaceted contributions to the fields of advertising, translation studies, marketing, 

cultural studies, and multimodal analysis.  

By employing Kress and Van Leeuwen's multimodal approach based on Halliday’s 

systemic functional linguistics (SFL), this study provides an analysis of how website 

advertisements of American brands are localized in Arab countries. As well, it gives a 

closer look at the way that translators deal with cultural differences when translating 

website ads across various contexts specifically between English and Arabic. Using Kress 

& Van Leeuwen’s framework, the researcher will analyze and assess the visual and verbal 

elements of websites’ ads to identify the challenges involved in localizing website 

commercial advertisements. 



 

9 

Conducting this multimodal analysis, the researcher aims to provide insights and offer 

feedback on how to improve effectiveness and cultural appropriateness when translating 

websites’ ads. Additionally, by identifying dominant processes that reflect cultural values 

and ideologies, the study offers insights into how marketing messages via website 

commercial ads can be tailored to resonate with specific cultural contexts. Therefore, this 

study tries to bridge the cultural gaps by critically analyzing and assessing the verbal and 

visual semiotic resources in online ads.  

This study attempts to describe the cultural representations of challenges of website 

advertisements as a new genre and evaluate them to identify their influence on the 

localization process. This knowledge can enhance the effectiveness of international 

advertising campaigns and contribute to the development of best practices in the field of 

localization and translation across various cultures.  

1.6 The Questions of the Study 

This study attempts to answer the following questions by selecting websites’ ads of the 

three companies under study (Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and McDonald’s). Then, the 

researcher critically analyzes them according to Kress and Van Leeuwen’s framework to 

assess and compare the source ads with their localized Arabic versions to reveal the 

cultural challenges that may face the translators while adapting/translating the English 

ads to the Arab audience. This is to identify the translation challenges to provide effective 

translation that achieves the overall function of ads. 

The study starts with the main question followed by its sub-question, and two other 

questions: 

1. How do Kress and Van Leeuwen’s visual grammar provides a framework for 

analyzing the visual elements (images, colors, format, and writing) in the website ads 

of the selected American companies and then compare them with their Arabic 

versions to reveal the cultural challenges encountered by translators when 

recontextualizing them in Arab countries during localization process? 

2. What is the dominant metafunction in both English and Arabic representations that 

mostly shapes the cultural conceptualizations which in turn pose challenges for 

translators? 



 

10 

3. What are the complexities of Kress and Van Leeuwen’s framework as an analytical 

and evaluative tool? 

4. What are the recommendations for overcoming the identified challenges and 

optimizing the localization process for translating English websites' commercial 

advertisements into Arabic effectively? 

1.5 Conceptual Framework 

 The conceptual framework for this study outlines the key concepts and relationships 

specific to this research. The following sections introduce the definitions that are related 

to the case study which speaks about commercial advertisements on websites. The 

researcher starts to define commercial advertisements in general. Then, offering a brief 

idea about the interconnectedness of culture with communication and translation to 

provide a basic perception of how cultural and communicative contexts affect translation. 

Then, and more precisely, the researcher moves to define the advertisements on websites 

and their localization/translation. 

1.5.1 Translation and culture 

Recent trends in translation research have shown interest in translation studies and the 

close link between translation and culture, which affects the function of translation in the 

receptor context. The process of translation cannot be carried out without including 

cultural values in the construction of meaning. Hassan (2014) states that “a good 

translation is one that carries all the ideas of the original as well as its structural and 

cultural features” (p.2). In the same vein, he (ibid) asserts that the best translations are 

produced by translators who translate into their native language to reconstruct the 

historical and cultural contexts of the source. This means that good translation is not only 

a linguistic act but also a cross-cultural communication. In this respect, cultures are 

regarded as non-linguistic aspects of traditions, values, products, and ideologies, and they 

are expressed in the source text and conveyed to the target text through translation. 

Therefore, translators try to balance economic efficiency and cultural success by being 

aware of the problems of textualism and contextualism in the cultural interaction between 

languages.  



 

11 

Culture and language are interwoven because the transference of linguistic expression 

and extralinguistic elements is precisely an attempt to integrate elements of one culture 

into another. This is what has driven translation theorists and scholars to place a major 

focus on cultural differences and cultural knowledge since ancient Rome. Bassnett & 

Lefevere (1990) are the first scholars to put forward the cultural approach as cited by Yan 

& Huang (2014). They attached great concern to the role that culture imposed on 

translation and the shifts brought by the cultural turn. Additionally, Chun-chieh (2013) 

notes that among different regions, when culture transmits from its home country into 

another country, it is first decontextualized and then recontextualized into the new cultural 

environment, a process that is referred to as “a cultural turn” (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1990). 

The cultural turn goes beyond language and focuses on the interaction between translation 

and the way that culture impacts and constrains translation. It also orients translation 

theorists to analyze translation from a view of its cultural, political, and ideological 

context. Snell-Hornby shows interest in the cultural turn, which is used in translation 

studies to represent a shift in translation analysis from a cultural studies angle. Thus, the 

cultural turn refers to a shift in focus within translation studies toward considering the 

cultural nuances, references, and context present in the original text (Snell-Hornby, 

2006). This approach recognizes that language is deeply intertwined with culture, so 

effective translation goes beyond mere linguistic features and tries to capture the cultural 

context to ensure conveying the message accurately and in a more impactful way to 

resonate with the target audience. On this matter, Nord (1997) defines translation as 

intercultural communication. She adds that text genres are characterized by conventional 

features and are mainly culture-specific.  

Further, many scholars continue to discuss the inherent relationship between culture and 

translation, such as Nida & Taber (1982) who viewed intercultural translation as “a 

translation in which the content of the message is changed to conform to the receptor 

culture in some way, and/or in which information is introduced which is not linguistically 

implicit in the original” (p. 199). Another study by Wati (2017) refers to Vermeer’s 

definition of culture, which is based on the first part of Goodenough & Murdock's (1964) 

definition, that culture includes all that one needs to know, feel, understand, and master 

to evaluate how people of a society are acting in various positions, whether in an 

acceptable manner or not. This is why Vermeer (1989) insists that translators are looked 



 

12 

upon as mediators between cultures, not merely languages, so they should be bicultural, 

if not multicultural to master the appropriate uses of linguistic and extralinguistic context. 

Toury (2021) considers translation as a norm-governed activity, and the translator should 

pay more heed to the original text with its norms and culture. Another study by Al-Rubaii 

& Mohammed Saeed (2021) cites that “the cultural scene includes things like beliefs, 

explanations, perceptions, and values, manifested in aspects like individualistic vs. 

collective consciousness” (Bullock, 1999; Sulaiman, 2014).  

As this study seeks to explore the translation of websites’ ads as a digital genre, it assumes 

a deep understanding of the cultural values of both source and target cultures. Nord claims 

that “advertisement translation involves the production of a communicative event in a 

new culture, having an equifunctional role to that of the original, source text” (ibid. p. 

50). Sometimes, translators of website ads need to be mindful of cannibalism translation 

theory since it helps them integrate cultural elements from the source text with the cultural 

context of the target language, resulting in new texts (Jiang et al., 2022). In this context, 

Munday (2016) cited that Juliane House refers to what she calls a cultural filter that needs 

to be applied by translators to localize and modify cultural elements to give the impression 

that the TT is an original. The translators’ confusion about what to filter, what to change, 

and what to omit may involve changes at the levels of language and beyond language. 

Although the role of the translator is a cultural filterer and mediator, it is governed by the 

commission and ideology of the client or company which translation is for its benefit.  

Finally, it can be said that each language has its own culture propagated through 

translation, which has gone beyond linguistic activity to a communicative cultural 

context. Thereby, the translation of multimodal texts such as advertisements needs 

professional translators who have more awareness of the complexities of differences 

between cultures and their significance for translation. Additionally, the translator’s 

competence or incompetence in dealing with cultural gaps between English and Arabic 

plays a pivotal role in the successful rendition of commercial advertisements, which are 

deeply rooted in the domain of culture. The researcher will explore the definition of 

advertising in general and how it intertwines with culture to influence consumer choices. 

Furthermore, the researcher seeks to examine the interconnectedness between ads and 

culture to show the dynamic nature of advertising as a cultural object. 



 

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1.5.2 Translation and Communication 

As global communication has exploded due to the Internet, consumers worldwide have 

access to products that are only restricted to national markets. The world’s globalization 

and commercialization contribute to offering global access to international products 

through Internet advertisements. Consequently, translation studies have gradually 

incorporated advertisements within their scope as one of the text types, regarding culture 

and communication as key terms to be considered when translating advertising material. 

So, there is an urgent need to understand the best way to translate ads to get perspectives 

and advantages when examining commercial advertisement translation/localization, 

particularly on websites. Thus, the following sections serve a discussion about some 

definitions of communicative translation to illustrate its important role in advertisements’ 

translation. 

Several translation scholars pay attention to communicative translation in an increasingly 

commercial society. Wang’s (2018) research focuses on communicative translation from 

Newmark’s perspective which emphasizes that Communicative translation focuses on 

producing an equivalent effect on its target readers as close to that obtained on the readers 

of the original. For this reason, many scholars analyze advertisement translation utilizing 

Newmark's (1988) theory such as Shi’s (2014) study about advertisement translation 

which is based on communicative translation. In the same sense, Nida’s work suggests 

various aspects of translation and proposes a scientific approach to the study of translation 

by delving into two basic types of equivalence, which are the formal and dynamic 

equivalences to achieve the equivalent effect on the word level (Nida, 1964b). While 

Pinchuck (1977) gives an alternative definition of translation by dealing with it as a skill-

bound activity. Pinchuck criticizes translation that involves strict word-for-word 

rendering. He treats translating as a skill in which the translator should analyze the source 

text (ST) to comprehend the concepts and the intended message to restate the source 

message in the target text (TT). About the value of translation as a communicative 

practice, Neubert & Jäger (1985) consider translation as a tool of communication, 

emphasizing precisely that translation is “interlingual and intercultural, cross-cultural 

communication” (p. 18). Neubert & Jäger (1985) clarify that translators may need to 

manipulate, describe, paraphrase, or substitute one item for another to render acceptable 

translations. In Baker (2018), she cites what Gill & Johnson have argued that: 



 

14 

Translation is a point of contact between peoples [sic], and since it is rare that 

two peoples have the same access to power, the translator is in a privileged 

position as mediator, to make explicit the differences between cultures, expose 

injustices or contribute to diversity in the world (Gill & Johnson, 2010). 

This definition shows that communication has greatly impacted the translation process 

and given it great value since it has made intercultural communication one of its 

components.  

To conclude, communicative translation is a milestone in translating advertisements. 

Therefore, the following subsequent sections provide an overview of commercial ads 

definitions in general, followed by an exploration of ads on websites and their translation 

and localization. 

1.5.3 Definition of commercial advertisements 

There is a common belief that advertising is one of the intrusive discourses in the post-

modern world. The definition of advertising changes over time since advertising is 

considered the engine of commerce that plays a critical role in the success of a company 

and the construction of cultural identities. Advertising's psychological effects and societal 

implications influence consumer choices. In his influential book, Cook (2001) asserts that 

“advertising is a prominent discourse type in virtually all contemporary societies” (p.8). 

Advertisements are not merely written copy in newspapers, magazines, and posters; they 

are a central feature in new technologies such as websites. Danesi (2015) argued that 

advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing in the world which has been derived 

from the Latin word “adverter” which means to “turn the mind towards” or “to direct 

one’s attention to an idea, product or service by announcing an oral or written message in 

common public. As noted by Danesi (2015), advertisements reflect people’s mindsets, 

social and ideological positions, and commercial products. Thus, advertising is a form of 

communication that aims to market a particular product and convey a socially beneficial 

idea and ideology through both verbal and visual resources. These verbal and visual cues 

make ads complex discourses; therefore, the viewers usually perceive the messages being 

conveyed based on their own experiences and assumptions.  



 

15 

The language of advertisements has a similar common-sense assumption or power 

ideology embedded within. In Fairclough (1989), this experience-based assumption is a 

“common sense assumption” which are implicit in the conventions according to which 

people interact linguistically, and of which people are generally not consciously aware 

(p. 2). Fairclough (2001) adds that “ideologies are closely linked to language because 

using language is the commonest form of social behavior and the form of social behavior 

where we rely most on common sense assumptions”. He claims that language “is a 

material form of ideology, and language is invested by ideology” (ibid. p. 73). That is to 

say, discourses are material effects of ideology that also have a strong impact on shaping 

our sense of reality. Similarly, the language of advertising includes common-sense 

assumptions or ideology, influencing how the audiences perceive and interpret messages. 

Even though Fairclough focuses on verbal elements, he also tackles the visuals. 

Fairclough (1989) claims that “the relative social significance of visual imagery is 

increasing dramatically-think of the degree to which one of the most populous and 

persuasive modern discourse types, advertising, works through visuals” (p. 28). 

Crystal (2001) states that “language play is part of the essence of advertising” since the 

strange and sometimes ungrammatical words or structures in language play can catch 

people’s attention (p. 94). Therefore, the use of many techniques makes the 

advertisements more interesting and effective to persuade and promote products in order 

to target a large number of people. Halliday & Hasan (1989) call these different types of 

techniques “semiotic resources”. Since 1970, discourse analysts have focused mainly on 

the forms of language, while ignoring such semiotic resources like images, space, and 

architecture resulting in what O’Halloran (2004) called an “impoverished view” of 

discourse (p. 1). Thus, semiotic resources/modes are considered a major branch of media 

analysis and non-verbal communication (images). They are techniques that introduce 

media to a new challenge by analyzing and interpreting the connotative data to express 

how media creates meaning from the sign system (Bouzida, 2014). 

Speaking of advertising as an act of communication, Arens (2004) suggests that the 

advertising agency for Coca-Cola and Master Cards defines advertising as “truth well 

told” (p. 8). This ensures that advertisers use special methods to tell their stories 

“Communicatively, truthfully and creatively to the marketplace” (ibid). Bovée & Arens 

(1992) have revised the concept of advertising as the sharing and dissemination of 



 

16 

information about services and products in a non-personal manner, usually paid for and 

persuasively promoted by a specific sponsor through specific media. Mooij (2014) asserts 

that advertisements deliver a persuasive message to the target audience and grab their 

attention and emotions by using various techniques to attract one of the viewer’s senses. 

In this respect, Dahlen & Rosengren (2016) propose that advertising is “brand-initiated 

communication intent on impacting people” (p. 334). Marketers adopt different ways to 

communicate their message to consumers, usually, they conceal the negative features of 

their products and display the positive aspects in a sugar-coated way to the customers. 

Marketers deliberately use such types of superlative language and multimodal modes to 

introduce their products to consumers to influence their buying behavior. As cited by 

Ghentulescu (2018), “Any advertisement is a microcosm of all the prosodic, pragmatic, 

syntactic, textual, semiotic and even ludic difficulties to be encountered in translating,” 

(Smith and Klein-Barley, 1997, p. 175). This means that translating ads is a mini-version 

of translation problems because they include meaning, grammar, structure, symbols, and 

word manipulation. 

Therefore, the practice of multimodality in the source ads and the target ones needs 

careful analysis since the multiple resources communicate persuasive messages and 

reflect cultures. The various definitions of advertisements, as noted earlier, universally 

agree on promotional messages that aim to inform, persuade, or remind people of a 

product, idea, or service. In brief, advertising is a crucial domain that is growing very 

rapidly these days, not only to meet the needs of companies to expand their brands and 

increase the number of consumers but also to have new users and buyers.  

As ads play a crucial role in conveying messages to diverse audiences, the art of 

translation is essential in ensuring these messages resonate effectively across different 

cultures. Accordingly, Munday (2004a) states that “The translation of advertising was 

completely overlooked by translation studies for many years” (p. 199), and adds that not 

much has been written about the translation of advertisements (2004b). Thus, this study 

explores how the translation of advertisements impacts their reception and success in 

global markets. Further, the translator's role is necessary in analyzing and understanding 

the verbal and non-verbal elements of ads and what is beyond them. In the following 

section, the researcher explains the relationship between translation and website 

advertisements in particular. 



 

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1.5.4 Advertising and Translation  

 The study of advertising translation is based on methodologies and parameters of other 

disciplines such as pragmatics, discourse analysis, cross-cultural communication, and 

semiotics in order to comprehend the challenges presented by this form of translation. 

Adab & Valdés (2004) state that Munday considers how the analysis of ad genre may 

contribute to the discussion on visual grammar, multimodality, translatability, the debate 

of global-local issues, and how hybrid texts are handled.  

As businesses exploit the power of the internet to reach global markets, effective 

translations can be crucial when targeting foreign audiences. Some of the disciplines that 

can be used to create effective translations of commercial advertisements range from text 

linguistics to audience design, including marketing, visual semiotics, discourse analysis, 

and communication studies. Munday (2004a) claims that Arens (2004) identifies three 

main challenges facing a company entering into a translational advertising campaign: the 

different cultural value systems, environments, and languages. There are three options for 

the company: either to translate or to run new campaigns locally, or to lead an 

international campaign in English. But each option has its pros and cons, for instance, the 

ad may not be culturally appropriate for the target audience, or much more expensive to 

ensure global consistency. Additionally, ads may promote global culture for high-profile 

companies, which would lay these companies open to criticism due to the dominance 

of linguistic and cultural elements belonging to the globally dominant companies. This 

imperialization leads to the marginalization of local languages and cultures to promote its 

dominant culture at the expense of others which causes the loss of cultural diversity. 

Most translators still focus on the semantic aspects of the text as a core value that is mostly 

given full attention while ignoring the communicative worth of the text. However, 

advertisement incorporates more than just linguistic elements, as noted by Cook (1992), 

“It is an interaction of elements” (p. 5). This means that the translation of advertisements 

goes beyond mere linguistic elements to include the sensitivity of cultural nuances, 

norms, and values of the target audience. By addressing the cultural differences during 

localization, translators can bridge language barriers and connect with diverse audiences 

on a deeper level. As quoted by Ho (2008), Chau (1984) claims that “translators of 

advertisements should adopt the strategy of “the beauty of disloyalty” to allow individuals 

to seize opportunities that adherence to loyalty may prevent (p. 192). He adds that 



 

18 

translators should manipulate cultural values and norms to align with the target audience's 

expectations (ibid). The manipulation of social and cultural values when translating 

advertisements highlights how translators or advertisers might intentionally change the 

original message to better fit the target audiences’ cultural context. This means that 

translators might prioritize emotional and cultural relevance over literal translation. 

Further, Munday (2016) states, "The harsh, macro-contextual constraints of censorship 

that may exist in authoritarian regimes are perhaps the most obvious example of 

ideological manipulation” which means eliminating all cultural and textual elements that 

oppose their interests (p. 215).  

Nowadays, the Internet has revolutionized business communication, making website 

advertisements a basic tool for global marketing. Digital advertisements deliver 

promotional content to users through various websites and digital channels such as 

Facebook, Instagram, and many others. The translation of website advertisements 

demands more analysis at the linguistic and extra-linguistic levels as multimodal texts. 

Successful website advertisement translation should hit home to convince the consumer 

to buy the product. Academically, this area of translation studies has also been 

challenging for researchers because it requires a nuanced understanding of both the source 

and target cultures (Munday, 2004a). However, the least attention is paid to translation 

into Arabic despite its being an important strategic and economic hub. Consequently, 

localization and cultural adaptation in website advertisements become necessary issues 

that specialized translators face nowadays. Besides the particularities related to the target 

audience’s age, gender, religion, social practices, and commercial habits.  

The next section explains the nature of the relationship between website advertising and 

localization. 

1.5.5 Translation & Localization of Websites’ Advertisements 

Today, websites are the most important digital channels that pave the way for many 

companies to work outside their original countries and become a part of the global market 

with different cultural practices. These digital hubs are seen as a necessary marketing 

move to offer a range of services, content, and visible and invisible customers in the real 

as well as virtual world. Consequently, the close relationship between websites and global 

trade has led to more interest in the translation of website commercial ads. 



 

19 

This shift in translation role seeks to bridge the gaps between different languages and 

enable effective communication across cultures. Munday (2008) states that “the focus of 

translation studies was shifted from text analysis, which normally concentrates on 

describing the way in which texts are organized to discourse analysis which looks at the 

way language communicates meaning, power and social relations (p. 90). Bassnett 

(2014), notices the implications of the electronic media explosion on the globalization 

process which in turn affects translation itself, highlighting issues of intercultural 

communication. To demonstrate this, Bassnett (ibid) asserts that “The translator is seen 

as a negotiator, mediator, and liberator, someone who frees the text from the fixed signs 

of original shape making it no longer subordinate to the source text but visibly 

endeavoring to bridge the space between source author and text and the eventual target 

language readership” (p. 6).  

The translation of website commercial advertisements as a new multimodal translation is 

carried out by well-informed, experienced, and critical translators who have a solid basis 

in varied areas of lexis, grammar, pragmatics, semiotics, cultures, and ethics which are 

closely related to translation. Therefore, the large companies mentioned in this study 

employ professional translation agencies or teams of in-house translators who handle 

various translation tasks such as translating marketing materials and localizing websites 

and software. For instance, Coca-Cola have worked with the following agencies for 

Arabic translations: Lionbridge, TransPerfect, and SDL (RWS). With well-maintained 

multilingual websites, a company can not only project its image across borders but also 

sell goods online without the material presence of a shop front (Malaval & Bénaroya, 

2001). Multimodal translation has gradually generated certain features, such as 

interactivity, virtuality, hyper-textuality, and simulations (Malaval & Bénaroya (2001). 

These features of multimodal translation play a serious role in the context of website 

commercial advertisements’ translation. Interactivity creates a personalized experience 

that encourages consumers to take action and buy the product. Virtuality presents 

advertisements in a digital environment, allowing brands to create immersive experiences 

that attract consumers' attention. Hypertextuality includes links to more resources about 

the brands’ ads to make access to more information easy. Finally, a simulation visualizes 

the benefits of the products and helps consumers understand the value of the product. 

Pym (2009) ensures that website translation is not different from other types of 



 

20 

translation. But Nord (1997) considers translation to be an activity for a purposeful 

assignment where “the client would give as many details as possible about the purpose, 

explaining the addressees, time, place, occasion and medium of the intended 

communication and the function the text intended to have” (p. 30). Nord point of view is 

compatible with the definition of website translation as a process of translating and 

adapting a website to a specific target audience as the purpose of website translation 

differs between website users. (ibid.). Website translation can be in line with the 

descriptive theories of translation since these theories consider that translation should 

conform to the norms and values prevailing in the target culture.  

Consequently, translators of website ads are at pains to point out the consistencies and 

challenges that face them through the translation process in terms of globalization, 

internationalization, and localization strategies. Evidently, translation is a complex 

discipline that develops over time to pace with global requirements. Since business 

expansion internationally creates a demand for the localization of the brands to resonate 

with target audiences for effective communication. Many studies carried out to discuss 

localization, such as Sandrini (2006) who states that “Website localization constitutes a 

new dimension for translation training, as well as a challenge for a renewed research 

agenda” (p. 13). Further, Munday (2016) agrees with Jimenez-Crespo’s (2013) claim that 

localization refers to “the adaptation of the product to the target locale, the combination 

of a sociocultural region and a language in an industrial setting” (p. 288). Localization is 

a global cycle of processes that makes digital texts available to different sociolinguistic 

communities around the world. Localization of industry is the fastest-growing sector in 

translation involves substituting inappropriate cultural symbols to make the text 

translation fit specific space constraints on web pages/screens. In other words, 

localization involves making the product linguistically and culturally appropriate to the 

locale (country/region and language) where it will be used and sold. This is 

conceptualized by Pym (2009) when describing the process of localization as a 

dehumanizing process that focuses on marketing locale rather than human culture. 

Accordingly, Munday (ibid.) cites that “The difference between translation and 

localization is blurred” (Mazur, 2007, Jimenez-Crespo 2013, p. 11), he explains that the 

industry views localization as a superior term that includes translation (ibid). Jimenez-

Crespo (2013) states that “web localization is a cognitive, textual, communicative, and 



 

21 

technological process by which interactive web texts are modified to be used by audiences 

in different sociolinguistic contexts” (p. 2). Jimenez-Crespo (ibid) adds that the most 

popular definition released by the Localization Industry Standard Association (LISA) is: 

“Localization involves taking a product and making it linguistically appropriate to the 

target locale (country/ region and language) where it will be used and sold” (LISA, 2003, 

p. 13). Further, Jimenez-Crespo claims that “the term localization refers both to the 

processes by which digital texts are modified to be used by audiences in different 

sociolinguistic regions and to the products of these processes themselves” (ibid. p. 12). 

Here, Jimenez-Crespo provides an idea about the unprecedented growth of web 

localization by which interactive digital texts are modified for use by people around the 

world other than those originally targeted to reflect the broader trends of globalization 

(ibid.). 

Thus, the need for adapting the digital content is crucial in the success of websites’ ads 

localization as a global platform for communicating, selling goods, products, and services 

or sharing information which relies on the development of the localization process. This 

ultimately bridges the gap between internet users from different socio-cultural and 

linguistic contexts. On the other hand, translation is a communicative, cognitive, and 

textual process where source texts (STs) are situated in a socio-cultural context which is 

the starting point for all translation activities that are seen as unitary and stable entities 

(Hurtado, 2001). Thus, translators and localizers are inspired by Stephen & Leonard's 

(2015) citation of the well-known motto “think globally, act locally” which implies that 

translation is an essential instrument for making global messages local, especially in 

multimodal translation such as advertisements on websites.  

Both global and local approaches are integral to overcoming cultural barriers and 

language constraints that remain in a global world which has removed geographical 

barriers in communication and trade practices. In regard to localization, it includes some 

procedures such as translation of linguistic elements, and adaptation of non-textual 

elements such as color, layout, images, and others while taking into consideration the 

cultural, technical, and legislative requirements of the target locale. As noted by Dollerup 

(2008) that “the general idea in localization is thus that a culturally indefinable source 

text, which may also consist of simplified language to allow easier translation, is adapted 

to local languages and audiences” (p. 41). Localization goes a step further than adaptation 



 

22 

as it involves adjusting the product strategy and delving deeper into customizing every 

aspect to create a culturally relevant experience for the local market. Cultural localization 

of websites’ advertisements is a relevant topic that translators pay much heed to increase 

the commercial use of the websites of companies that want to operate in multiple 

countries or regions. Hence, to achieve localization in commercial website 

advertisements, the translator should understand the cultural nuances of the target market, 

and translate all elements of the advertisement in order to align with the cultural norms 

of the target audiences.  

Accurate translation and cultural adaptation are vital for successful localized advertising 

campaigns. This study focuses on the English-Arabic localization of commercial website 

advertisements and the challenges of cultural differences. Nowadays, the localization of 

commercial websites is not only their translation but also localizing the content and design 

of the websites. So, the concepts of localization and translation are described in relation 

to globalization and internationalization (GILT), as these processes are interconnected in 

many ways. 

Generally, the term localization refers to the adaptation of websites’ ads of any products, 

services, or contents to a specific market or locale to adapt the products so that they would 

be functionally, linguistically, and culturally acceptable in a target market. To achieve 

this, translators must be fully aware of the nature of the text types and genre of the 

website's commercial ads. This digital genre has recently emerged due to new 

technologies associated with globalization. The below section gives an idea about this 

new genre of commercial website ads. Understanding the genre is a necessity for 

translation as it unifies linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies of translation, psychology, 

and anthropology together to reflect the situation of communication across various fields. 

1.6 Commercial Website Advertising as a Genre and Text Type 

In its wide sense, genre is a conventionalized form of speaking or writing that can be 

associated with particular communicative events where participants tend to have set goals 

with strict norms regulating what can or can't be said within the confines of a given genre 

setting (Hatim & Munday, 2004). By recognizing the characteristics of various genres, 

translators can tailor their decisions, style, and content to meet the needs and engagements 

of the target audience in order to convey the message effectively and clearly. Further, a 



 

23 

better command of genres can help to understand how different text types are structured 

and used for specific purposes and audiences. Genre analysis helps translators to give a 

more accurate, appropriate, and effective translation for the target context. The traditional 

conception of the term genre stems from the early Aristotelian perspective which 

postulated the view of genres as static structures mainly valuable for classificatory and 

explanatory purposes of basic literary manifestations.  

In his work, Swales (2014) , developed the well-known functional approach to genre: 

a genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share 

some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the 

expert members of the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the 

rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the 

discourse and influences and constraints choice of content and style. 

The above definition stresses the importance of the communicative purpose. Over time, 

genre conventions develop within discourse to support the communication of information 

and ideas in social and cognitive forms, namely, genre becomes a dynamic concept that 

is subject to transformation. Devitt (2004) quoted that the new definition of genre adds 

not only to the concept of form and structure but also to content, situation, context, and 

objectives or communicative purposes (Swales 1990, Bhatia 1993, Devitt 1993, 

Berkenkotter and Huckin 1995). Further, Fairclough (2003) suggests that “genre is 

viewed as a way of acting and interacting linguistically” (p. 17). Fairclough (ibid.) 

emphasizes that Intertextuality and interdiscursivity are two relations that are of interest 

in genre analysis. He comments that intertextuality shows the relationship of a text to 

another previous text, in another sense, it shows how the new texts draw upon, 

incorporate, and interact with preceded texts to recontextualize them in a new situation. 

Moreover, Fairclough (2003) states that interdiscursivity explores “the particular mix of 

genres, of discourse, and of styles upon which it draws, and how different genres, 

discourse or styles are worked together in the text” (p. 218). Interdiscursivity analysis 

includes analyzing the embeddings of a text in other genres, genre mixing, and 

hybridization. On the other hand, J. Martin & Rose (2007, p. 8) introduce genre as a social 

process organized to fulfill a definite goal. This means that genres are recurring meanings 

that embody the social customs of a particular culture. Thus, human actions and meanings 



 

24 

in each of these cultures are connected to worldwide patterns of academic, scientific, and 

professional writing.  

The previous definitions ensure that genre helps translators and discourse analysts 

recognize the way how different text types are constructed and written. The Arhus School 

of Business suggests that analyzing the text types through genre analysis can help 

translators create strategies that make their work easier by providing various options and 

addressing potential limitations (Trosborg, 1997 , p. 6). Additionally, scholars note that 

texts intended for specific purposes in particular contexts can be categorized into genres 

such as business letters, newspapers, reports, plays, advertisements, and other forms. 

These genres are, therefore, regarded as “text categories” (Trosborg, 1997, p.8).  

Consequently, through the last decade, scholars have started to pay more attention to 

genre analysis which has been applied to a sizable body of linguistic studies on various 

text types. Reiss (1976) includes examples for each text type and calls them text varieties 

which now are known as genres. She included advertisements in the group of operative 

texts of a persuasive nature and assigned to them an adaptive mode of translation, tailored 

to the conventions and requirements of the target audience. Further, she considers the text 

types in her functional approach to the translation assessment by categorizing text types 

according to their major function, namely the informative text, expressive text, operative 

text, and audio-medial texts (Reiss & Rhodes, 2014) . 

When dealing with advertisement text, Valdés (2019) asserts that “advertisements belong 

to a dynamic text type and fulfill more than a single function, even though the most 

prominent is a persuasive one” (p. 174). This hybrid nature of advertising texts gives them 

the ability to share these particularities with many other genres, which can enhance their 

efficiency. This means that every genre offers distinct features that can be applied to 

advertising, such as visual elements, rhetorical persuasive strategies, or narrative 

approaches. Accordingly, this hybridization allows translators to engage the target 

audiences successfully by appealing to various aspects of communication and cultural 

context. Since advertisements' dominant focus is provoking a particular response or 

behavior in the receptor, they are located in the group of operative texts. Trosborg (1997) 

ensures that each genre has its distinct features referring to what Shaffner says about 



 

25 

public texts such as advertisements that they are comprehensive terminologies addressing 

a variety of text types or genres. 

In short, advertisements can be of different types including traditional genres such as 

radio, TV commercials, print ads, and audiovisual such as websites. Although all forms 

of ads may show similarities, they are different as (Bellman et al., 1999) believe. The 

linguistic and extra-linguistic characteristics of commercial advertisements on websites 

as a new genre give in-depth insights into theories of translation such as Reiss & 

Vermeer’s (2014) translational theory which deals with the purpose (skopos) and function 

of translation. Their translational theory asserts that translation choices are directed by 

the implied function of the translated texts in the target context. Special attention will be 

paid to multimedia promotional texts which are a combination of elements belonging to 

different semiotic codes and their transmission through the media such as advertisements 

that belong to the “multi-media text type” (Reiss, 1981, p. 125). Reiss classifies texts 

according to their functions and asserts that each text type needs a different translation 

strategy. 

In recent years, the Internet has transformed the means of communication which has led 

to the emergence of new genres such as web pages or huge multimedia catalogs, and 

advertising or research articles. Consequently, researchers have focused on this area of 

multimedia and online ads and noted that the lack of genre conventions in the digital 

world could be a major source of user difficulty (Dillon & Vaughan, 1997). As cited by 

Dillon & Grushowski (2000) that Orlikowski and Yates (1994) pointed to the diffusion 

of digital technologies as the source of new genres. Additionally, they cite that Watters 

and Sheperd (1997) also suggest that digital broadsheets might be emerging as a genre of 

web texts that represent new forms of textuality with distinctive features compared to 

printed texts.  

Since the boundaries of web texts are hard to identify, the readers may suffer what 

is known as the informational short-sightedness effect. This challenge is a result of the 

nature of digital genres which are fluid and show a high level of hybridism (Belcher, 

2023). Also, they are characterized by their fragmentation across subtexts, and by the 

impact of functionality such as hyperlinking, scripting, posting facilities, and others 

(Mehler et al., 2010). This leads to new multimodal genres and text types that need a 



 

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professional translator who can tackle the text type and infer the communicative message. 

Jimenez-Crespo (2013) provides a classification according to text types or ‘supra-genres’ 

such as advertisements and web genres (e.g., personal homepages...), and subgenres 

(personal, professional) (p. 97-9). These new genres are produced through a process of 

localization in which linguistic transfer and adaptations are made to allow the product to 

function satisfactorily in its target locale or context. If the translators fail to consider 

cultural and contextual variations in greater depth, their translations will be unsatisfactory 

in engaging the target audience.  

Translation studies should no longer disregard advertisement translation on websites 

because it is considered a hugely growing genre of translation that affects the daily lives 

of millions of people around the world. G. R. Kress et al., (2001) assert that little attention 

has been paid to the translation of website advertisements, whether public or commercial, 

as a new emerging hybridized and specific genre that commonly combines different 

semiotic and communicative modes and systems to form multimodality. This study 

focuses on analyzing a corpus of commercial advertisements on websites as a hybridized 

new genre utilizing Kress and Van Leeuwen’s framework as an analytical tool. 

1.7. Limitations of the Study 

Through a survey of previous studies about the translation of websites’ advertisements, it 

is noted that not much has been written about the translation assessment of websites’ 

commercial ads. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no study has addressed the 

challenges of localization when translating websites’ ads from English into Arabic. 

Accordingly, the researcher decided to conduct this study which is limited to commercial 

advertisements on websites by using Kress and Van Leeuwen's multimodal approach. 

However, the limitations may include the following: 

1. The area of the study is limited to three American companies: Coca-Cola, Starbucks, 

and MacDonald’s which may not represent all cultural nuances in websites’ ads 

translation. Thus, localization/translation challenges might be limited to the cultural 

differences in the selected examples that are analyzed. 

2. Kress & Van Leeuwen’s framework is inherently detailed. It considers various 

semiotic modes of communication (text, image, color, writing, sound). 

Consequently, not all multimodal elements in the selected ads may be equally 



 

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represented, this leads to limiting the breadth of the analysis. In addition, the 

generalizability of the findings of this analytical method of translation evaluation 

may not apply to other forms of translation and localization.  

3. The corpus of the analyzed websites’ advertisements is limited to a specific set of 20 

ads in a limited time frame (2024), so it may not take into account the diversity of 

advertisement trends or translation challenges over time. However, the researcher 

navigated several website ads of the selected brands to gain insights into the 

underlying concepts.  

4. The researcher’s language proficiency and expertise in both English and Arabic, 

particularly in the context of website ads, may limit the accuracy of translation and 

interpretation. Especially, the language of advertising context can be quite creative 

and specialized. 

5. Some degree of subjectivity may be introduced by utilizing KvL’s approach to 

analyze the visual elements as interpretations can vary between researchers. Further, 

this subjectivity potentially affects the consistency of this study’s analysis.  

1.8 Chapters’ Structure 

 The sequence of the upcoming chapters will be as follows: 

 Chapter Ⅱ introduces a literature review of related studies under the main variables of 

the study: localization and challenges in website advertising translation, and 

multimodality in website commercial ads. 

 Chapter Ⅲ includes the methodology, corpus of the study, the collected data, the methods 

adopted in analyzing the data collection, and the theoretical framework of the study 

utilized as a comparative analysis tool for visual and verbal elements in commercial 

websites’ advertisements.  

 Chapter Ⅳ explores the problem of the study, the analysis upon which this study is based, 

and the discussion of the selected ads from English and Arabic websites. The chapter 

presents tables to explain the processes within the three metafunctions: the 

representational, interactive, and compositional that meet Halliday’s metafunctions: 

ideational, interpersonal, and textual. The analysis includes the semiotic resources of 

color, writing, images, and format. Then, the analysis of metafunctions reveals the 



 

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challenges that resulted from cultural differences between English and Arabic. In this 

study, these challenges are conceptualized into the following representations: inclusivity, 

individualism, collectivism, and sustainability.  

Finally, chapter Ⅴ ends with specific summary findings that spotlight the outcomes that 

the researcher has come up with after analyzing the data and discussing the findings. In 

addition, the thesis provides recommendations that are useful in localizing and adapting 

website commercial ads for future studies.  

1.9 Literature Review 

This section reviews related literature that is relevant to the thesis under study which aims 

to analyze commercial advertisements on websites to explore the localization challenges. 

The researcher seeks to fulfill the purpose of the study by discussing multiple aspects of 

website ads. This involves focusing on how they are localized within Arab countries to 

ensure alignment with their cultural norms and persuade consumers to take action and 

purchases, through examining earlier studies. In so doing, the researcher aims to find the 

main study gap by reviewing previous studies which are thoroughly examined in this 

chapter.  

1.9.1 Localization and Challenges of Websites’ Advertisements  

Translation  

The translation and localization of commercial websites’ advertisements from English 

into Arabic poses significant challenges due to cultural, linguistic, and semiotic 

differences between the two languages. The cultural norms, values, and ideologies 

influence the localization process of commercial websites’ advertisements and impact the 

consistency or divergence in modal choices. Taanonen (2014) states that “localization is 

seen as a process of cultural adaptation” (p. 57). The fast globalization of services 

decreases the need for full localization. Localization means the adaptation of colors, 

layout, writing, and images. Translation deals with adapting mostly text to a new market. 

However, localization focuses on delivering a wholesome experience that meets the target 

audience’s cultural expectations. The idea behind moving beyond translation to 

localization is to identify and address the missing communication details often lost in 



 

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translation. Thus, connecting better with the locals and boosting business appeal to 

maximize profits in multiple markets. 

Adomavičiūtė’s (2020) study shows that in response to the current processes of 

globalization and internationalization, and the need of companies to sell their products 

internationally, the request for localization is increased, a contemporary economic 

orientation in translation studies that is also discussed by many scholars such as A. Pym, 

M. A. Jimenez-Crespo, K.J. Dunne and others in their views of translated website 

localization. Adomavičiūtė (2020) explores localization types, strategies, and the process 

of website localization and analyzes the linguistic layer of the content and the non-verbal 

elements in the Lithuanian market. Thus, Adomavičiūtė's research reveals the level of 

localization of McDonald’s website in the Lithuanian market. The study concludes that 

cultural differences remain an important factor in business. For this reason, localization 

consists of translation and adaptation of non-verbal and cultural-specific elements 

concerning the ongoing process of globalization and internationalization. Translation and 

transcreation are employed to localize the linguistic content provided in the American 

MacDonald’s website in order to present the content in a more appealing way for a 

website user. After adapting and localizing McDonald’s website to the needs of 

Lithuanian consumers, Adomavičiūtė finds some similarities between the original and the 

localized website, although the Lithuanian website does not contain any multimedia 

elements used in the American web page; instead, she highlighted multimedia elements 

created on Lithuanian website used for this particular target market.  

In another research, Lee (2009) investigates the non-verbal and verbal signs in commercial 

website translation with a corpus of multinational companies in China. The study argues 

that translation in commercial websites, contrary to the traditional paradigm with a 

definitely source-target textual pair, is a fluid concept that involves a globally relevant 

source text. 

According to strategies, Hamade (2008) examines the importance of advertising translation 

in today’s global world and investigates the strategies and limitations affecting advertising 

translation from English to Arabic. The researcher concludes that advertising translation 

can no longer be disregarded by mainstream translation studies, but rather should be viewed 

as a growing genre of translation that affects the lives of people on a daily basis.  



 

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Many studies further look into adaptation and analyze transcreation as a translation strategy, 

which Kassawat (2020) investigates in the context of corporate website localization in 

Arabic. The study focuses on online promotional texts localized into Arabic (for Saudi 

Arabia) as an under-researched language in website localization. After analyzing and 

examining 15th international corporate websites by following the functional approach, the 

results illustrate components of transcreated texts and shed light on the use of different 

procedures to achieve the creative persuasive purpose.  

In the same vein, Dwesar & Kesharwani (n.d.) lead a study of website content adaptation 

as a response to cultural differences through a study of US and Indian versions of US 

corporate websites. This study categorizes the content of various websites in such a way 

that it can be used to reflect individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and 

masculinity. After the analysis of the content, this study sought to find and establish 

differences between the content displayed on Indian versions of multinational companies' 

websites compared to their home websites, concerning Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions 

(power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance). 

The results of this study show that the Indian versions of advertisements on multinational 

versions of their websites reflect a higher frequency of collectivism and features of power 

distance compared to their home websites.  

Regarding to Coca-Cola ads, Fokam Christelle (2012) conducts a comparative analysis of 

30th Coca-Cola advertisements in English and their translations into French from 1905 to 

2011. By analyzing and comparing the English advertisements of Coca-Cola and their 

translations, this study shows how semiotics and symbolism may be used to analyze the 

techniques that are used in advertisements to achieve persuasion in different French 

settings.  

Translation in commercial websites allows space for locally relevant factors to weigh in to 

produce content appealing to the target website users. Also, it demonstrates that it is the 

ideas, instead of the tangible written texts, that travel across borders into websites that speak 

different languages. Singh et al. (2003) conducted a comparative analysis of US-based 

international companies’ domestic websites and their Chinese counterparts to provide 

marketers and web designers with insights into website localization. The study shows that 



 

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the web is not a culturally neutral medium; rather, it is filled with cultural markers that make 

websites tailored to different countries distinctively reflecting their local culture. 

With regards to American companies, E. Martin (2011) examines the extent to which 

companies tailor their web advertising for global audiences with a particular focus on 

French-speaking consumers in North America, Europe, Africa, and French Polynesia. 

Explored from a sociolinguistic and social semiotic perspective, advertising is seen as being 

strongly rooted in symbolic and cultural codes that are designed to have an emotional 

impact on consumers. This research underscores the cultural differences among global 

consumers and audiences in different markets.  

In their study of cultural material in advertisements, Fadaee & Hashemian (2015) 

investigate the translation of verbal metaphors from English to Persian. The study explores 

the localization, domestication, adaptation, addition, and reduction in the translation 

process. Their results indicate a relative lack of awareness of the cultural approach to the 

translation of advertisements and reveal the similarities and divergences between the two 

languages. Similarly, Ghentulescu (2018) examines the challenges faced by specialized 

Romanian translators in translating advertisements, focusing on localization as a significant 

difficulty. Woodward-Smith & Eynullaeva (2009) examine internet advertisements 

published in English, Spanish, and Russian making a cross-cultural comparison of the 

similarities and differences encountered in the three versions of each of the five adverts 

corresponding to different brands and types of products. Santos & Bidi (2016) explore the 

cultural adaptation of websites in a comparative study of Portuguese and Dutch websites. 

Around the beginning of the 21st century, translators have started to pay more attention to 

website advertisement translation. Many studies dealt with the translation of website 

advertisements from different angles. For instance, Valdés whose research offers insights 

into the transfer of website advertisements from English to Spanish. The study shows how 

globalization and localization approaches integrate translation as a strategy to promote 

different kinds of products in different media. The study finds that local brands and products 

may become both international and local at the same time to preserve their local identity in 

international contexts. In addition, it explores examples from television spots, printed 

campaigns, and promotions from several websites. these were analyzed to show how 

translation reveals the contradictions and principles inherent to globalization or the lack 



 

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of them. Moreover, it focuses on the differences between globalizing and localizing 

strategies to highlight the homogenization of cultural beliefs, customs, and images, 

through a detailed analysis of a global product being promoted in local markets. 

Additionally, it examines how a local brand aims to become international. 

Several researchers also tackle the challenges of translating website advertisements in 

multilingual contexts. Halimah & R Aljaroudi (2019) investigate the linguistic and cultural 

problems encountered in translating English and Arabic business Consumer 

Advertisements in a Saudi environment, using a domesticating approach to assess the 

quality of the translated advertisements. The results of this study demonstrate that there is 

an urgent need for domesticating and culturizing the translation of ads as they tend to lose 

essential linguistic and cultural aspects of the original texts and cause textual violations in 

Arabic advertisements. 

One of the salient challenges in the localization of commercial website ads is cross-cultural 

communication. AMUNTAI (2022a) is one of the scholars who attempts to identify cultural 

elements in advertising and analyze them based on Vermeer’s Skopos theory in the transfer 

of both textual and visual elements of localized advertisements. The focus of the study is 

on cross-cultural communication and defining linguistic perspective in localized 

advertising of international products. The researcher concludes that cross-cultural 

understanding is crucial in producing successful localized advertising that would reflect the 

cultural norms and values of the target audience. The study found that localization was 

essential since cross-cultural advertising was the problem of communicating with people 

of diverse cultural backgrounds. 

A broad sense regarding cultural localization of websites and improving their commercial 

utilization is made clear by (Čermák & Smutny, 2018).They emphasize that cultural 

localization of websites is a relevant topic that has the potential to increase the commercial 

use of the websites of companies that operate in multiple countries or regions. The analysis 

of cultural localization of websites helps companies to optimize the arrangement of visual 

elements, content, and functions on the website considering the cultural differences 

between countries. 

The growing field of multimodality in connection to the study of websites’ advertisements 

as an increasingly prominent concept of communication, attract the attention of many 



 

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scholars. Consequently, many studies trace its analytical development as a field of research 

in commercial ads on websites. The following sections of previous works of literature 

review clarifies how several researches tackle this field. 

1.9.2 Multimodality in Websites’ Advertisements 

Rizvi et al. (n.d.) define multimodality in advertising as “an approach that deals with the 

meaning made by using several modes of communication other than language”. Similarly, 

Adams et al.found that Kress and Van Leeuwen are credited with developing Multimodal 

Discourse Analysis (MDA) (Adams et al., 2014). They contend that multimodality 

provides a way of analyzing the interplay between language and images Ibid. 

Multimodality offers a source for studying semiotics, including text-based messages, 

gestures, and images. This privilege led many researchers to resort to using G. R. Kress 

et al. as a framework for analyzing their data. For instance, Rizvi et al. conducted a study 

concerning a multimodal discourse analysis of e-advertisement visuals. This study tends 

to explore the persuasive and attractive modes used in e-advertisements by advertisers to 

influence and persuade consumers or viewers. The Multimodal Discourse Analysis of G. 

Kress & van Leeuwen Theo (2006) was used as a framework for analyzing the gathered 

data because the study deals with semiotic modes along with language in images. 

According to the results, commercial language is extremely manipulative and persuasive, 

and it is purposefully created in this manner. Besides, the study finds that all modes in 

textual and visual context convey three main meanings (representational, interactional, 

compositional) and that people can understand the implicit meaning in the context by 

comprehending the interaction between language and other social semiotics.  

In her “Multimodality and Contextualization in Advertisement Translation”, (Pan, 2015) 

demonstrates the role of non-verbal elements in advertisements and the need for the 

translator to contextualize the linguistic messages in the translation of advertisements. 

Through a detailed case of analysis of billboards collected from Hong Kong, it explores 

how translated linguistic messages are contextualized by extra-linguistic components. 

Moreover, it indicates that the translation methods used in