Translation of technical and promotional materials for GMR ENLIGHTS S.r.l.

This thesis describes a translation project carried out within the framework of the Language Toolkit program, which is the result of a collaboration between the Department of Interpretation and Translation and the Chamber of Commerce of Romagna. For this translation project, technical and promotional materials were translated from Italian into Russian for GMR ENLIGHTS S.r.l., a local company that specializes in lighting technology. Materials that were assigned for this translation project combine technical and promotional writing, which is a common feature of business-to-business promotional texts. The first chapter explores the main characteristics of texts belonging to this category and analyzes the tools and skills that a translator needs to perform promotional and technical translation. More information about the Language Toolkit program and GMR ENLIGHTS S.r.l. can be found in the second chapter. Here the work of the program is analyzed in the context of economic development and internationalization of the region of Emilia-Romagna. This is followed by a brief history of the company's development and a description of the task assigned by the company. The third chapter describes the tools that were chosen for this translation project and the resources that were used in order to acquire the relevant terminology. The fourth chapter provides a detailed analysis of all the source texts. Given the promotional nature of the texts, it was decided to adopt the functional approach to translation and analyze the texts along Nord's (2005) model of translation-oriented text analysis, which revolves greatly around the analysis of the prospective target reader. The most interesting and recurrent translation problems that were encountered in this project, and strategies adopted to solve them are described in the fifth and final chapter.