Translation shifts in multimodal texts: A case of the Thai version of Cosmopolitan

Abstract

The American lifestyle women's magazine Cosmopolitan is currently available in different versions worldwide. The magazine's focus on the female 'liberated' lifestyle, in which women's intimate relationships are the central theme, however, does not always sit comfortably with culture in Eastern societies. Adaptation of Western narratives and illustrations is sometimes necessary. This leads to shifts in meaning in both verbal and visual semiotic resources in the translated text. Since the magazine is a multimodal text, analyzing both verbal and visual elements can potentially be more productive than examining either one of these two constituents in isolation. This study applies the systemic functional linguistic model of text and context relationships, supplemented with social semiotics' 'visual meanings.' An integrated tool of analysis is proposed as an appropriate instrument to examine and explain the overall translation shifts in the translated text.