Exploring the boundaries of transcreation in specialized translation

Transcreation has recently become a buzzword in Translation Studies. Definitions abound, some of them placing it within a functionalist perspective (e.g. Baker 2009), some interpreting it as a heuristic method to be used in the translation of poetry (e.g. Snell-Hornby 1994), some others relating it to the translation of computer games (O’Hara & Mangiron 2006). Nowadays often used in advertising and the media, transcreation is a portmanteau word made by combining together translation and creation, in order to emphasize the considerable amount of creativity required in the process. Yet, since a varying degree of creativity is implicit in the translation of any type of text, this study argues that creativity is not the discriminating factor in order to recognize the difference between translation and transcreation; the aim, rather, is to restore the original conception of the term, based on the word ‘creation’, i.e. the generation of new words or meanings. From this perspective, no single domain (poetry, computer games, advertising, etc.) can be said to have priority in the use of transcreation. In particular, I argue that even a domain which is thought to impose the heaviest semiotic constraints on the translator, i.e. legal translation, is developing in ways that generate ‘semantic voids’ to be filled; an example is the lack of lexicalization of new concepts.