Cultural Transcreation in A sian Languages with Prompt-Based LLM s (2025)

Abstract: This research explores Cultural Transcreation (CT) for East Asian languages, focusing primarily on Mandarin Chinese (ZH) and the customer service (CS) market. We combined Large Language Models (LLMs) with prompt engineering to develop a CT product that, aligned with the Augmented Translation concept, enhances multilingual CS communication, enables professionals to engage with their target audience effortlessly, and improves overall service quality. Through a series of preparatory steps, including guideline establishment, benchmark validation, iterative prompt refinement, and LLM testing, we integrated the CT product into the CS platform, assessed its performance, and refined prompts based on a pilot feedback. The results highlight its success in empowering agents, regardless of linguistic or cultural expertise, to bridge effective communication gaps through AI-assisted cultural rephrasing, thus achieving its market launch. Beyond CS, the study extends the concept of transcreation and prompt-based LLM applications to other fields, discussing its performance in the language conversion of website content and advertising.

## introduction transcreation, also known as creative translation, is a language conversion approach in which discussions remain relatively sparse and primarily emphasise manual approaches, with a focus on its application in fields such as advertising, marketing and literary translation @xcite . the present research aims to expand this concept beyond human transcreation by developing an automatic transcreation product that incorporates cultural awareness through the adoption of © 2025 the authors. this article is licensed under a creative commons 4.0 licence, no derivative works, attribution, cc-by-nd. 1 part of this work was previously published in an international peer-reviewed venue, namely eamt 2024. for the sake of clarity and ethical transparency, the following publication is integrated into the present work: @xcite prompt engineering and large language models (llms), with a primary emphasis on mandarin chinese (zh) -both simplified (zh-cn-hans) and traditional (zh-tw-hant) -along with japanese (ja) and @xcite . this research was carried out at unbabel, which provides translation services widely used in industries such as customer support (cs) and ecommerce. the cultural transcreation (ct) product developed in this study is integrated into unbabel's machine translation (mt) workflow as a pre-translation step, creating a new automated ct pipeline, as shown in figure 1 . the product is implemented on a cs platform, and is currently only available for use in the cs sector. the tickets (e-mails) produced by cs agents are first anonymised, and then undergo cultural adaptation within the source language to align with the target culture. only after this cultural alignment are the tickets processed by the mt systems. notably, the principle of this product is aligned with the concept of augmented translation, which builds on douglas @xcite vision of leveraging computational tools to enhance, rather than replace, human capabilities. in this context, our ct tool aims to equip cs agents -who communicate in the source language but lack cultural awareness of the target audience -with enhanced capabilities to effectively cross cultural and linguistic boundaries. augmented translation, as introduced by csa research and building upon engelbart's integration of human expertise with aidriven processes, represents a paradigm shift in the translation industry. it combines human expertise with advanced language technologies to enhance communication. unlike traditional mt workflows, which rely solely on automation, this approach reinforces the role of human workers by integrating ai with human-in-the-loop processes. rooted in @xcite vision of technology augmenting human capabilities, studies such as @xcite and @xcite have further developed the concept, emphasising the necessity of a humancentered approach. ultimately, our ct solution minimises misunderstandings caused by a single mt and the cultural differences that could lead to conflicts. it ensures that cs adheres more closely to the cultural conventions of the target language. in essence, transcreation bridges the gap between maintaining the source intention and addressing the cultural and audience-specific nuances. as @xcite defines it: "transcreation is an intra-/interlingual re-interpretation of the original work suited to the readers/audience of the target language, which requires the translator to come up with new conceptual, linguistic, and cultural constructs to make up for the lack (or inadequacy) of existing ones. it can be looked at as a strategy to overcome the limits of 'untranslatability'". along this line, we can develop the perspective that translation, localisation, and transcreation represent distinct yet overlapping approaches to language conversion, varying in their degree of adaptation and cultural sensitivity. while translation primarily emphasises on linguistic accuracy and fidelity to the source text, localisation adapts content to fit specific cultural and technical contexts, incorporating elements such as date formats and currencies @xcite . transcreation, by contrast, is a highly creative process that prioritises cultural adaptation, re-interpreting content to align with audience expectations while preserving the original intent. though scholars such as @xcite and rike (2013) clearly differentiate transcreation from other approaches, some @xcite consider it a subset of localisation. then, focusing on the perspective of distinguishing transcreation from the other two concepts, some theoretical frameworks, such as juliane house's functionalism and lawrence venuti's critique, further elucidate these distinctions. @xcite @xcite defines translation as a process to achieve functional equivalence between the source and the target, distinguishing between "overt" translations, which retain source-cultural elements, and "covert" translations, which adapt more seamlessly to the target culture. this functionalist perspective highlights that translation, though adaptive, primarily preserves the original content's intent and scope without significant creative re-interpretation. localisation, aligning with skopos theory @xcite , extends beyond translation by embedding content within cultural, linguistic, and technical norms, ensuring usability without fundamentally altering the original's communicative intent. transcreation, on the other hand, represents the most adaptive approach, focusing on emotional and cultural resonance over literal fidelity. @xcite domestication theory is particularly relevant here, as transcreation prioritises audience engagement by reshaping content to align with target cultural expectations. from a functionalist perspective, transcreation aligns even more closely with skopos theory, as it prioritises intended impact, often requiring significant creative restructure. in sum, distinguishing transcreation from the other two requires recognising their varying degrees of adaptation. while all three involve crosscultural transformation, transcreation occupies the most dynamic end of this spectrum, ensuring content is not only translated but strategically reshaped to maximise cultural and emotional resonance. in this way, transcreation, particularly ct, challenges the traditional boundaries of translation industry by addressing the need for cultural adaptation. the concepts of "high-context" and "lowcontext" cultures, introduced by @xcite , are vital for understanding cultural adaptation in language conversion. low-context cultures, such as english-speaking countries, favour more ex-plicit and direct communication. in contrast, languages of high-context cultures, such as chinese and japanese, rely heavily on implicit communication, shared assumptions, and contextual understanding. effective translation between these frameworks requires more than linguistic accuracy, it demands cultural adaptation to ensure resonance with the target audience. @xcite concept of "dynamic equivalence" emphasises the impact over direct translation, particularly for highcontext audiences. @xcite notes that lowcontext information often requires adjustment to accommodate cultural subtleties, highlighting the critical role of ct in avoiding miscommunication. the emergence and development of ct introduces several qualitative improvements compared to traditional translation methods. it enables creative adaptation that maintains the original message's essence while aligning with the cultural expectations of target audiences by prioritising key features of high-context cultures. moreover, it mitigates the risks associated with hyper-literal translation, reducing potential misunderstandings and cultural misalignment. beyond its academic value, transcreation holds significant economic potential for international markets. as noted by @xcite , the rising demand for ct stems from nonlanguage service provider companies addressing global communication challenges. it facilitates cross-cultural understanding, enhancing brand perception and customer engagement. culturally sensitive communication strengthens customer relationships, ensuring content is engaging, relatable, and aligned with audience expectations. moreover, integrating llms into transcreation workflows can amplify these benefits, enhancing cost and time efficiency while reducing reliance on manual transcreation, making it an economically viable solution for companies in global markets. ## methodology this section outlines the systematic approach undertaken to develop a transcreative mt pipeline that incorporates cultural awareness into the translation workflow by leveraging prompt engineering and llms, and evaluates the effectiveness of prompt-based llm transcreation. the research transitions from the theoretical aspects of transcreation to its practical implementation, addressing the current challenges in machine-generated cultural transcreation. after constructing guidelines and prompts tailored to the specific sector, these concepts will be integrated into the innovative product and applied in real-world scenarios to collect authentic data for evaluation and iterative optimisation of its market performance. the core investigation and development area of this product is the cs sector. this field was chosen not only for the accessibility of relevant data but also because it offers pronounced cultural differences in communication between english-speaking cs agents and their international target audience. for this research, zh-cn-hans, zh-cn-hant, ja, and ko were identified as target languages, focusing specifically on mandarin chinese in this paper. considering english (en) as the source working language, mandarin chinese as the target working language, and cultural transcreation as the research theme, we adopt a multi-stage experimental approach to achieve the study's objectives, where the outcomes of earlier experiments inform and support developing subsequent ones, creating an interconnected process. it is also worth mentioning that, in addition to all other responsibilities, the evaluation processes across all stages were also conducted manually and solely by the authors. the first aim is establishing culturally aware guidelines based on shared assumptions within the target audience, manual observations of communication features, and real-world translation analysis. in addition, all actions were performed solely by the authors. based on these guidelines, an initial version of the prompts was created to serve as the foundation for the subsequent experimental phases. the guidelines serve as the foundation for benchmark analysis of mt cultural transcreation samples in the cs domain, which assesses the effectiveness of initial prompts and llm-generated outputs in the cs domain. by conducting a cultural assessment of automatic transcreation benchmarks, this stage improves prompt engineering strategies, which lead to establishing a formal version 1.0 of the prompts, and inform subsequent experiments. then, the primary and central goal of this study -exploration and evaluation of the performance of the ct product generated by prompt-based llm -will be achieved by conducting a ct clients pilot. this stage involves testing version 1.0 of the prompts and refining it into version 2.0 through seamlessly continuing data generation, real-time performance monitoring and adaptation. beyond cs, the study extends its last goal to assess the potential of prompt-generated llm tran-screation in other domains. by stepping beyond the primary focus on cs and cultural awareness, the exploration in website content generation and advertising aims to evaluate the adaptability and performance of automatic transcreation in distinct fields, contents, and text types, broadening the scope of its application and identifying future opportunities for research and development. ## conclusions and future work by bridging linguistics and ai, this research has made significant strides, foremost among them being developing an automated ct system for the cs sector. to achieve this, culturally aware guidelines were established for three asian languages, followed by the evaluation of the initial version of the prompts through their automated transcreation outputs using mt benchmark samples. these prompts were then further refined, alongside the creation of a linguistically based classification for categorising transcreation rephrasing. the ct pilot test confirmed that the continuous optimisation of prompt-based llms significantly enhanced the cultural transcreation quality. this showed the product's potential as a valuable ai-assisted tool for real-world applications, increasing the productivity and efficiency of cs agents in their communication tasks. beyond cultural adaptation, this study also explored the feasibility of prompt-based automated transcreation for website content and advertising. as a result, we developed a successful multi-purpose prompt adaptable across industries, content types, and text genres. these findings lay a solid foundation for future advancements and product innovation, with the goal of expanding transcreation applications beyond cs to drive broader industry adoption. at present, efforts are underway to integrate unbabel's proprietary towerllm @xcite into the ct product to replace third-party llms. after optimising prompt 3.0 and training the internal model, towerllm was tested with 21 en-zh ticket samples to generate ct outputs. these outputs were compared with gpt-4o outputs for the same samples to identify the best culturally adapted versions. the results showed that towerllm produced the best transcreated versions for 17 of 21 samples, with the remaining 4 being a tie between the two models. this progress indicates a potential shift to towerllm as the product's primary model soon. additionally, development is underway for an automated ct quality monitoring programme, with ongoing efforts to explore broader areas of transcreation to expand unbabel's services. from a broader ai industry perspective, we believe that the sensible and responsible integration of ai into language services fosters human progress, as pursued by the ct product developed in this study. this aligns with the augmented translation concept, which views ai as a collaborator rather than a replacement for human translators, enhancing workflows and enabling creative problemsolving. in the cs sector, this means that cs agents are not replaced by automation but are instead empowered with ai-driven tools that support decisionmaking, refine translations, and adapt responses to align with cultural expectations. by leveraging this approach, the ct product not only facilitates the work of cs agents and enhances their efficiency, but also mitigates potential challenges arising from communication styles and cultural differences. crucially, it adjusts tone, contextual appropriateness, and subtle linguistic distinctions vital for effective cross-cultural communication. to conclude, maximising ai's benefits requires a balanced strategy -leveraging its potential while maintaining human agency, ensuring ai enriches rather than disrupts professional and social progress.