Media Translation

Show a commercial from the target culture in the target language. Translate any text or dialogue for them. Ask students what they understand and what they don’t understand about the commercial and use this as the starting point for talking about values and aspects of the culture that make the commercial make sense. What references does the commercial make to social structures, assumptions, and knowledge that is culturally specific? Let the class work in small groups to storyboard their own translation of the commercial into an American (or other) setting, using analogous cultural references.