This master's thesis explores the localisation and cultural adaptation of international companies' websites for target markets, with a focus on identifying culture-specific rhetorical differences between Slovenian and English marketing websites. The study also examines how Slovenian consumers respond to culturally adapted websites and evaluates the effectiveness of these companies’ localisation strategies. The first part of the thesis outlines key concepts related to localisation and presents cultural models, including those proposed by Hofstede, Hall and Singh and Pereira. The second part of the thesis includes an analysis of annotated website features from a corpus of seventeen culturally adapted websites belonging to six international companies operating in Slovenia, United Kingdom, and India. Additionally, it includes a survey conducted with a sample of Slovenian consumers. The research tests two primary hypotheses: first, that significant differences in rhetorical conventions exist between Slovenian and English marketing websites, reflecting the cultural values of their respective markets, and second, that culturally adapted websites enhance the effectiveness and credibility of a company’s message, thus increasing consumer purchase intent. The analysis confirmed the presence of intercultural rhetoric differences, with certain cultural dimensions being specifically prominent. Survey results from the Slovenian consumer sample indicate that while companies’ localisation strategies are generally successful, they do not entirely persuade the consumers.
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