How can Spanish toy manufacturers achieve intercultural competence in English? A contrastive study of Spanish and U.S. business websites

Abstract

The general purpose of this paper is to study the way in which context dependence (Hall 1976) and the individualism index (Hofstede 1991) influence the communicative strategies used by U.S. and Spanish toy manufacturers to express information and to establish a social relationship with the consumer in their business websites. Consequently, we will try to achieve two specific aims: (a) to analyze how the cultural orientations held by Spaniards and North Americans towards both cultural dimensions are reflected in the communication strategies used in their business websites to describe and promote the product and (b) to determine what kind of communicative strategies should be considered appropriate to improve the intercultural competence of Spanish translators, in English, when designing and translating web sites targeting the U.S. market.