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Ziyi Xin

Instructor Mario Tumen

Writ 2

14 April 2021

Brochure Explication

As Lisa Bickmore states: “so a genre is an act of language—for our purposes here, mostly

acts of writing, in particular—that behaves in typical or characteristic ways.” This is to say that

genre serves to organize our content into a proper style that best fits our audience. For this project, I

translated a paragraph from a history textbook into a museum brochure. To do so, the first step is to

analyze the key features of both genres and make the connection between them.

The text that I chose for the project is the section introducing Voltaire called “The World of

Philosophes” from chapter 17: Europe During the Enlightenment of the book “Western Civilization,

Twentieth Edition Volume Two” by Joshua Cole and Carol Symes.

As a textbook, the main purpose of the passage is to provide the key knowledge of one of

the famous philosophers Voltaire, a key character during the European Enlightenment, about his

thoughts, ideas, and contribution to the audience that are willing to know more about European

history or who are learning history systematically. Therefore the passage is written in academic

language that serves to provide information from an objective perspective in a formal tone. For

example, the textbook used more than 600 hundred words as the description of Voltaire including

some of academic words like “bigotry”, “fanaticism”. These are proper words but they are a little

abstract for the people who know little about history, or people who doesn’t really care about

history. Therefore, I don’t think these specific vocabulary should be introduced in the brochure,

instead, we are looking for language that are as simple as possible.

Besides, as a history textbook, the author removed an in-detailed introduction of Voltaire’s life but

retains a specific period and contribution of Voltaire that closely related to the enlightenment as the

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chapter is introducing the Enlightenment. Textbook suggests that during three years of exile in

England, “Voltaire became an admirer of British political institutions, culture, and science; above

all, he became an extremely persuasive convert to the ideas of Newton, Bacon, and Locke.” This is

the key experience for Voltaire to shape his values, which leads to his contribution to promoting

Newton’s idea in France.

What’s more, as a book that contains only truth, rhetorical devices’ use are limited in

textbooks. For example, in a storybook, we would often see the use of hyperbole, metaphor, and

personification that makes the story attractive and vivid; In contrast, those techniques are not

suitable for textbooks as it would affect the credibility of the content. The main technique used is a

citation. Citing directly from the historical figures may enhance the value of the content and help

readers to know more about history. Joshua Cole cites Voltaire’s famous battle cry “Écrasez

l’infâme(“Crush this infamous thing”) to inform readers about his position against repression and

bigotry.

Comparing to textbooks, brochures are much more simple both in their form and content.

Brochures are similar to an informative poster that can be folded and put in a pocket. It is often seen

when advertising a target product or service handled by a salesperson to people who don’t know

much about the target before. Due to this reason, brochures need to be written in concise and simple

language that is easily understood.

Besides, brochures are created to draw attraction from readers and provide the key

information that readers may need to know within seconds. Therefore, the design for brochures and

their text should be carefully selected. The content of brochures is generally divided into several

columns so that when folding the paper, each column is still a complete section. One of the columns

is used as the cover, including the title of the brochure, address, contact, and some necessary

information that readers may need of the organization. The rest of the columns contains general

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description, pictures, and key features of the topic and also some slogans advertising the topic.

Texts are organized to be short, concise, and easy to read.

I am going to re-invent the introduction of Voltaire in the history textbook into a brochure

that serves as the advertisement of Voltaire at Panthéon in France. Since the people who visit

Panthéon could be anyone, and most of them don’t have a strong background in history, the main

purpose of the brochure is to provide a basic description of Voltaire so that visitors can get to know

him within a second. With that purpose in mind, the way to translate the text is clear.

First, the cover of the brochure should be Panthéon, the place that the brochure belongs to

with a key sentence: “Aux grands hommes, la patrie reconnaissante”(“To the great man, the grateful

homeland”), which is the crypt of Panthéon. And a column should be used to introduce the

Panthéon’s to serve as an advertisement, including a brief history, position, map, and also

picture. Also, the contacts and the link about buying ticket is needed as an advertisement about the

Panthéon. By doing so, if someone occasionally see the brochure, they know where to find the

place.

Second, I would use a column to introduce Voltaire briefly and his main contribution during

the period. As no one would like to read a detailed Voltaire’s life experience in a brochure, I would

describe what he is known for, like the various in-depth article he wrote within distance area, and

his main idea, including equality, freedom, and science. On the back, I would choose some of

Voltaire’s famous works and briefly described the idea behind the work to give readers an overview

of Voltaire's thoughts. A quote of Voltaire commenting on Voltaire would be best for the end of the

brochure. The key contribution of Voltaire is removed as rather than a specific idea, people may

only want to have a general impression about Voltaire.

Third, I would choose some of the representative pictures to enrich the brochure. If the

brochure is taken out of the Panthéon, there’s no need to show the picture about Voltaire’s statue in

Panthéon. Instead, to evoke visitors’ interest toward Voltaire, I chose the picture of “Seated

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Voltaire”, which is another famous Voltaire statue to provide readers more about Voltaire if they are

interested. The rest two images are the original portray of Voltaire so to give readers a more vivid

impression of Voltaire.

Generally speaking, the introduction of Panthéon was added so to make the brochure fits the

setting, putting in the Panthéon. In the brochure, the academic text is re-organized into daily

language, detailed knowledge is removed to keep the brochure interesting and brief to satisfy

everyone’s need. Therefore, I believe the translation is effective since it successfully fits the new

target audience.

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Work Cited

1.Cole, Joshua, and Carol Symes, Western Civilization, Twentieth Edition Volume Two,

W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.

2.Arouet, François-Marie. Letter to Jean le Rond d'Alembert. Paris, 1762.

3. D’anger, David. “Aux Grands Hommes, La Patrie Reconnaissante”, Panthéon, Paris,

France, 1791.