Anno Accademico 200506

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• Anno Accademico 2005-06
• Laurea Specialistica I - classe 104/S
• Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Teoria e Prassi
  della Traduzione
• Curriculum Traduzione Tecnico-Scientifica
• Laurea Specialistica I - classe 43/S
• Corso di Laurea Specialistica in Mediazione
  Interculturale
• Prof. A. Sportelli Dott. M. Demata Dott. G.
  Falco

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Software Localization

• Parte I
• Mercoledì, 19 ottobre 2005
• Dott. G. Falco

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• Globalization
• Internationalization
• Localization
• Translation

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(January 28, 1930)
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Localized websites.

• Symantec.com
• Symantec.it
• Symantec.fr
• Ikea.com
• Ikea.it
• Ikea.uk

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The Cultural Background

• The IT revolution (Castells 199640-6)
• a shift from a technology based primarily on
  cheap inputs of energy to one predominantly based
  on cheap inputs of information derived from
  advances in microelectronics and
  telecommunications technology. (Freeman 198810)

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The Cultural Background

• As a result
• A global and informational economy/society.
• What is an informational economy/society?
• It is an economy/society based on the
  accumulation of knowledge, moving towards higher
  levels of complexity in information processing.
• Information society a society based on the
  communication of relevant information to their
  members.
• Informational society a society based on a
  particular way of organizing the economy and
  society itself.
• This particular form of organization generates
  productivity and power. It mainly relies on new
  technologies.
• Information/knowledge (i.e. both knowledge-based
  information and information-based knowledge) and
  technological innovation go hand in hand. They
  generate a virtuous circle.

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The Cultural Background

• What is a global economy/society?
• new economy is global because the central
  activities of production, consumption and
  circulation, as well as their components
  (capital, labour, raw materials, management,
  information, technology, markets), are organized
  on a global scale, either directly or through a
  network of connections between different economic
  agents. (Cronin 200311)

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The Cultural Background

• A global economy is something different with
  respect to world economy, ndr it is an economy
  with the capacity to work as a unit in real time
  on a planetary scale. (Castells 199692)

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The Cultural Background

• A shift from Fordist economy to post-Fordist
  economy, i.e. from an industrial system based on
  mass production to one based on flexible
  production
• (see Cronin p. 12)

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Global economy and Translation

• Economic globalisation and linguistic
  globalisation
• How has translation been affected by the new
  global economy?
• Translation partakes both of the Self and of the
  Net. (Cronin 200313)
• What does this mean?
• It means that translation is split between two
  opposing forces
• a centripetal force pushing towards the adoption
  of a global language, an interlanguage (Scarpa
  2001209), towards a worldwide, electronically
  mediated environment (Cronin ibid)
• a centrifugal force pushing towards the desire of
  preserving their own national language (Scarpa
  ibid)

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Global economy and Translation

• To put it otherwise as far as translation is
  concerned, the informational economy in an era of
  global markets simultaneously generates two
  moves
• one towards internationalization, i.e. the design
  of a product so that it can easily be adapted to
  foreign markets
• another towards localization, which is taking a
  product that has already been designed and
  tailoring it to meet the needs of a specific
  local market (Sprung 2000xvi-xvii)

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LOCALIZATION

• Bulls eye diagram
• (Source The Guide to Translation and
  Localization, Lingo Systems ATA)

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GLOBALIZATION

• Globalization refers both to the compression of
  the world and to the intensification of
  consciousness of the world as a whole (Robertson
  19928)
• The dynamic process of globalization of culture
  can be clearly seen in the converging style of
  dress and eating habits among the young. National
  fast or cheap food places, the fish and chip
  shops, the traditional American diner, the
  Italian osteria and even the Malay satay centres
  are being spurned by the young in favour of the
  queue-to-be-served hamburger. in sociology is
  also called McDonaldization. It is, according
  to George Ritzer (19931) who coined the word,
  the process by which the principles of the
  fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more
  and more sectors of American society as well as
  the rest of the world.
• Katan, D. (1999) Translating Cultures. An
  Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and
  Mediators, Manchester, St. Jerome, p. 21.
• the dominance of English as globalism operates
  at the level of international mass communication
  which involves the issues such as cultural and
  media imperialism, Americanization of global
  culture, McDonaldization and Dallasization of the
  society, the unequal flow of international news
  and information, the dominance of English in the
  Internet, and so on. In short, the dominance of
  English operates as a means of promoting
  globalization. The dominance of English
  doubtlessly serves to facilitate globalization.
  Globalization, in turn, assumes and encourages
  the use and dominance of English. In other words,
  the dominance of English is a reflection of the
  structure of global relations.
• Tsuda, Y. The Hegemony of English and Strategies
  for Linguistic Pluralism Proposing the Ecology
  of Language Paradigm

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GLOBALIZATION

• The process of conceptualizing your product line
  for the global marketplace so that it can be sold
  anywhere in the world with only minor revision.
  It is mostly easily thought of as your global
  marketing strategy and is associated with all
  marketing concepts (branding, establishing market
  share and the like). Globalization is
  particularly important in consumer industries
  such as clothing and food. Anyone can drink Coca
  Cola or wear Levi Strauss jeans, for example.
  (Source Lingo Systems ATA, The Guide to
  Translation and Localization)
• Addresses the business issues associated with
  taking a product global. In the globalization of
  high-tech products this involves integrating
  localization throughout a company, after proper
  internationalization and product design, as well
  as marketing and sales, and support in the world
  market. The translation industry uses the
  abbreviation g11n for globalization, where 11
  stands for the number of letters between g and n.
• SOURCE Localization Industry Standards
  Association (LISA)
• Globalization (G11N) includes all the
  company-wide preparations that must be made in
  order to enter the international marketplace.
  G11N covers anything that must be done
  differently in any part of the business to
  optimize international success.
• Source How to internationalize your website. SDL
  International

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INTERNATIONALIZATION

• the design of a product so that it can easily
  be adapted to foreign markets, (Cronin
  200313)
• The process of engineering a product so that it
  can be easily and efficiently localized.
  Engineering can take the form of something as
  basic as document layout, for example, the more
  complex enabling of software to handle
  double-byte character sets. (Source Lingo
  Systems ATA, The Guide to Translation and
  Localization)
• The process of generalizing a product so that it
  can handle multiple languages and cultural
  conventions without the need for re-design.
  Internationalization takes place at the level of
  program design and document development. The
  translation industry uses the abbreviation i18n
  for globalization, where 18 stands for the number
  of letters between i and n.
• SOURCE Localization Industry Standards
  Association (LISA)
• Internationalization (I18N) is the practice of
  creating source material that is locale
  independent. In other words, all
  language-specific and market-specific content
  resides outside the core application. In the
  context of this document, I18N refers to code
  changes that are made to ensure that a product or
  website can be localized and that all information
  is presented in a format to which the end user is
  accustomed.
• Source How to internationalize your website. SDL
  International

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LOCALIZATION

• Localization, , implies a wholly new process
  which engages effortlessly with the local,
  thereby eliminating any unpleasant imperial
  aftertaste left by agonistic conceptions of
  translation as conquest (Robinson 1997a). With
  its emphasis on target-oriented translation,
  wholly consonant with the more popular versions
  of functional and polysystemic theories of
  translations, localization appears to be the
  corporate linguistic response to the ecological
  injunction to think global and act local.
• (Cronin 200363)
• glocalization
• (GLObal loCALIZATION) Specializing a Web site for
  a particular country by translating everything
  into that language. It also refers to targeting
  the site contents to the culture of the country.
• http//www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/
• Web2.0 is about glocalization, it is about making
  global information available to local social
  contexts and giving people the flexibility to
  find, organize, share and create information in a
  locally meaningful fashion that is globally
  accessible.
• The process of customizing a product for
  consumers in a target market so that when they
  use it, they form the impression that it was
  designed by a native of their own country.
• (Source Lingo Systems ATA, The Guide to
  Translation and Localization)
• Involves taking a product and making it
  linguistically and culturally appropriate to the
  target locale (country/region and language) where
  it will be used and sold.
• SOURCE Localization Industry Standards
  Association (LISA)
• Localization (L10N) is the process of adapting a
  product or service for a particular country or
  region. This includes translation, but goes
  beyond it. For example generic contact
  information must be replaced with local contacts
  for that particular country.
• Source How to internationalize your website. SDL
  International

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TRANSLATION

• (Interlingual) translation or translation proper
  is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of
  some other language.
• Jakobson, R. Linguistic Aspects of Translation.
• The process of actually converting the written
  word of a source language into the written word
  of a target language. Translation is a crucial
  component of localization.
• (Source Lingo Systems ATA, The Guide to
  Translation and Localization)
• The rendering of a message from one language into
  another. A properly translated message takes into
  account the cultural characteristics of the
  target locale. Translation is one of the
  activities of localization. Other activities are
  project management, software engineering, testing
  and desktop publishing.
• SOURCE Localization Industry Standards
  Association (LISA)
• Translation is the process of adapting meaning
  from one language into another. This is not a
  literal, word-for-word process. Rather, the
  translator must first understand the meaning
  communicated by the source language and then
  author words in the target language that convey
  the same meaning.
• No translation, no product (Topping 2000111)