1

Writing Project 2

Genre Translation

Jacky Rodarte

Writing 2

Valentina Fahler

May 24, 2020

WRITING PROJECT 2 2

Website: https://ageoldfootwear.weebly.com/

*My first suggested revision was for me to write a better, more engaging introduction.*

Have you ever wondered what goes into making the websites you shop at? Or perhaps how a

website in general differs from articles? Well, wWith an endless variety of genres in the world, it

is important that each one has unique conventions that appeal to the intended audience of the

author. These conventions include diction, organization, evidence, and much more. One way for

us to further our knowledge on genres and their context is to do a genre translation. In this case,

translating an academic article into a website different genre will help me us further my our

understanding of genre conventions with a focus on a different intended audiences. I will

therefore be translating an historically academic article about high heels into an online storehop

website. This article, High Heels, by Marie-Agnés Parmentier explores the evolution of and

ideology surrounding high heels. MyThis translation will focus on conveying the same historical

information, while appealing to a more fashion oriented audience through the use of more colors,

images, and descriptive vocabulary. completely different audience through a multimodal

platform. *My second suggested revision was to construct a more specific thesis.*

*My third suggested revision is to make my paper more organized and structured.*

To begin the translation, I had to decide which genre I would be creating.When deciding

on which genre to create, I wanted to choose something that would be easily compatible with the

primary text so I would not have to stray from the author’s purpose too much.. I wanted to

translate the article into a genre that made sense and might actually exist in the real world. This
WRITING PROJECT 2 3

goes hand in hand with who I wanted my intended audience to be. I considered the thought that

my intended audience could be kids if I chose a genre like a children’s poem or picture book., but

I was not immediately sure how that would work out in terms of execution. However, after

searching through countless websites for possible multimodal projects, it occurred to me that I

could generate a website of my own. TheSince the main topic of the article is high heels, so it

seemed only fitting to make a shopping website since plenty of online high heel shops already

exist.

Once I realized what multimodal platform would work for me, I had to make sure that I

could appropriately address a distinct audience through my choice of diction and imagery.than

that of the primary text. That text was a historical article with somewhat sophisticated language,

using words such as “arosdimment” and “decried” (Parmentier, 2016). These word choices that

would sound foreign to an uneducated individual suggests that the intended audience were other

academic learners of at least high school age. An online store, however, is typically aimed

towards shoppers who are interested in the specific products. In this case, the products would be

high heels which are often associated with fashion oriented shoppers, most of whom are old

enough to purchase and wear said shoes. This would be my new audience. Additionally, I

planned to include plenty of heel images, bright colors, and interesting backgrounds on the

website, therefore also gearing it towards viewers who are more interested in visually pleasing

executionsplatforms rather than simple essays. After this step, my genre of choice and intended

audience were clear and established and I could move on to translating the information..

Since I was supposed to include historical information on my website, I decided that the

descriptions of the items would be used included to incorporatetoincorporate the necessary

WRITING PROJECT 2 4

information ensure that it would be a proper genre translation. I had a different audience,

however, so could not just include the information in the same way. My audience cared mostly

about the shoes, unlike the original audience who was interested mainly in the history. The

primary article discussed the history of the shoes with less emphasis on what the footwear looked

like. In contrast, I decided to mainly describe the shoes and slightly incorporate how they fit into

history as is explained in the primary text. For example, after mentioning that heels were once

worn by noblemen, I conclude the description with, “these male oriented pumps will make any

one of you look like a King (or Queen)”. The brief explanation of history immediately ties back

to why the shoes would be perfect for the buyer, therefore appealing to my intended audience

more than the primary text would. These descriptions would serve as my attemptMy translation

would include the descriptions only to appeal to the buyers and to convince the audiencethem to

make a purchase, which is what most shops strive to accomplish.

Seeing as how my audience were shoppers and not writers, I decided to leave out a lot of

the sophisticated language and instead included many more descriptive adjectives. I used words

such as cherry red, godly, and flirty to describe the items in a way that would captivate the

attention of the reader. This would, again, help me appeal to buyers, who care less about the

background and more about the appearance of the shoes. Another way in which I embodied the

primary text in my translation was by using images. While the author of the original text

provided some images, she mainly used them to help readers visualize her descriptions. In my

translation, I figured that showing the heels alone would appeal to my buyers more than the

description would since most people would only consider purchasing items they find appealing.
WRITING PROJECT 2 5

Through these uses of adjectives, descriptions, and images, I was am better able to appeal to my

audience.

In the process of generating my translation, I came across difficulties with the platform

itself as well as some translation concerns related to the quantity of information that could be

included. Regardless of the context, gGenerating a website is a bit difficult. in its own, regardless

of the context. In fact, it took me longer to set up the overall format and backgrounds than it did

for me to decide exactly how to incorporate the primary text. This is because one has to worry

about titles, font, images, and especially how to tie all the pages together as a normal website

would, all the while keeping it pleasing to the eye. Once I had set all of the pages up, I was then

able to begin adding the items and descriptions as I desired. The primary article specifically

discusses the evolution of high heels, so I had to decide on a way to incorporate that information.

As mentioned before, my decision was to include the information in the description of each item.

When it came to the genre translation itself, I struggled with finding a balance between including

the information I needed while also making this a realistic website. If I included too much of the

historical information, not as many “buyers” would be interested because of all the unnecessary

reading they would have to do. If I did not include enough, however, it would not be an accurate

genre translation. I therefore had to pay extra close attention to what information from the

primary text would be absolutelyis necessary to explain the history., without delving into too

much of an academic piece of writing. I had to know how to weed out what was absolutely

necessary and what was not. Overall, however, tThese obstacles, however, were only temporary.

mainly required After a a bit of thought and consideration, I was able to surpass these

impediments and continue with my translation. for them to be easily surpassable.

WRITING PROJECT 2 6

Throughout this process, I learned several new ideas related to multimodality that I had

not considered when writing academic papers. Since my chosen genre was based around a lot of

visual aspects, this included how to incorporate more images and captions and how to make my

translation an overall realistic article. . My chosen genre for this assignment was based around a

lot of visual aspects, for example. In “An Introduction To and Strategies for Multimodal

Composing”, Melanie Gagich talks about making a website by saying, “if I am creating a

website (the genre), an audience would expect the following conventions: an easy-to-navigate

toolbar, functional tabs, hyperlinks, and images” (2019, p.79). This is roughly the same idea that

helped me recognize which aspects I needed to include in my website. Seeing as how my website

is a shop, it made sense for me to focus a lot on the images I choseaspect of my translation. I

also had to realize that the way in which I incorporated these images was also important as well.

TIn the case of my “items”, the words that surrounded and captioned these imagesmy images

were important, too. McCloud speaks of using images in multimodality in his piece “Writing

with Pictures” by saying that word choices are about “picking words that add valuable

information and work well with the images around them” (2006, p.10)). I, therefore, named my

items based on words that would either describe how the item looks or how they were used by

people throughout history. Some of the names I decided on were Bloody Murder, Royal in Red,

and Flapper’s night. Names such as these would therefore help identify the shoe before the

description has even been read. Small details such as these are what tied the shop together .

Overall, In the end, I learned how important several aspects of multimodality are in order for a

genre to be well -composed.

WRITING PROJECT 2 7

TOverall, this assignment was an overall interesting one because I was able to further

develop my knowledge of both genre conventions and multimodality. Because I decided to create

a website, it helped me recognize all the separate aspects that go into multimodal projects and

how they all have to coordinate in order to make a comprehendible piece. The genre translation

in general helped me seecomprehend how different genres can be related in some aspects, but

also be completely different based on the intended audience. This is a skill that will most likely

be necessary for my future when presenting specific information to different groups of people.

For the most part, I found this project to be fairly intriguing, informative, and overall

entertaining.
WRITING PROJECT 2 8

References

Gagich, M. (2019). An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing. pp. 65-83.

McCloud, S. (2006). Making Comics: Storytelling secrets of comics, manga, and graphic novels.

New York: William Morrow, pp. 8-57.

Parmentier, M.-A. (2016). High Heels. Consumption Markets and Culture, 19(6), pp. 511–519.

Retrieved from

https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:9443/doi/full/10.1080/10253866.20

16.1153830