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TRANSLATION AND LOCALIZATION

Anthony PymUniversitat Rovira i Virgili

Tarragona, Spain

 

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Visible localization:

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Partial localization:

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D-day localization

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What is localization? Localization: taking a product and

tailoring it to an individual local market (i.e. ‘locale’).

Translation: converting user-visible natural-language strings from one language to another.

Localization = translation + factor X.

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What is factor X? Internationalization (e.g. character

encoding) Adaptation (e.g. dates, time, currency

conventions) product reengineering product testing project management.

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Don’t think like this:

ST TT

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Think like this:

ST TT1Interlingua

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Language technicians focus on...

Controlled writing field-specific concept mapping multilingual documentation use of multilingual translation memories integration of MT project management?

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1. Diversity at Microsoft:

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Welcome to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the world’s most acclaimed large-vocabulary continuous-speech dictation system. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking you can dictate to your computer instead of using the computer to enter and revise text.

2. Linearity at Dragon:

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Welcome to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the world’s most acclaimed large-vocabulary continuous-speech dictation system. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking you can dictate to your computer instead of typing.

Two pages later:

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Welcome to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the world’s most acclaimed large-vocabulary continuous-speech dictation system. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking you can compose e-mail messages, create reports, draft letters, edit proposals, and more, all by speaking to your computer instead of typing.

And again:

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This means: Texts become ‘information objects’. They lose linearity (we read with the

Find function). The discourse producer has no locale. Text production is also non-linear

(modifications and updates). Localization extends what is done in the

source language.

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Globalization at Ikea:

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In Malaysia:

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In Greece:

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In Poland:

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Globalization at Ikea:

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In Germany:

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In France:

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In Hong Kong:

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This means: The most global product is the most

symbolically domesticated. There is a clear professional distinction

between natural-language replacement (‘translation’) and complete localization.

The dehumanizing processes are at the level of natural-language replacement.

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Work space at DejaVu...

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This means: Translators are being separated from

the most lucrative IT techniques of localization.

Translators are being separated from the most humanizing marketing techniques.

We remain mere technicians.