By Anubhuti Gupta
Tools of an able Translator
Language is the essence of a community that goes way beyond expressing emotions; it reflects the culture, social structure and the ways of the society among much more of that particular region or community. Language is evolved and modified with time adapting itself to the current needs and desires of the people. And a translator should be aware of all these changes especially when dealing with the given processes. Let’s begin with understanding the four terms by the virtue of their respective definitions.
Globalization: All the preparations needed in order to enter the international marketplace. Globalization covers anything that must be done differently in any part of the business to optimize international success.
Localization: Localization is the process by which a product or service is adapted for a particular country or region. Localization includes translation but goes beyond it. For example, if you have a local branch then we will put the contact details of that branch, the same goes for currency, date and time formats and so on. An example is the use of different units of measurement, currency, date and time, phone numbers or addresses. Other examples involve page codes and characters (every alphabet is managed by different sets of characters: ASCII, ANSI, UNICODE, etc.). Localization allows for the correct use of a product/service (such as a software program or a website), while respecting the end user’s cultural habits and expectations
Internationalization: It involves creating source material that is locale independent. All language-specific and market-specific content must reside outside the core application. For applications and websites, I18N refers to code changes that are made to ensure that the software/website can be localized and that all information is presented in a format to which the end user is accustomed.
Translation: By translating the content, the meaning is adapted from one language into another. This is not a word-for-word, literal process. The translator must comprehend the meaning of the source text and be able to communicate the same meaning using the target language. The translator always tries to keep as close as possible to the original text and style and produce local versions that sound just like the original.
Now that we have the basic understanding of the four terms we can say that localization, globalization, internationalization are a product of translation in some way or the other, although, globalization is a much wider term and has a lot more to it. The main document pertaining to some product, application, and software needs to be adapted differently in this world of globalization and be it localization, internationalization or translation of the document, the translation community is the highest contributor. The reasons for this would be that translators are well equipped with the knowledge of two or more cultures along with internationally accepted standards as that is often the target language. A translator’s knowledge about these processes along with the knowledge of the source language and target language as well as the understanding of the cultures associated with them plays an important role in the marketability of the translator. With this additional knowledge, a translator can assess their opportunities accordingly and also help in the marketing of that particular product thus contributing to globalization in its real sense.
The source of the above mentioned definitions: http://translate-localize.com/terminology/
The Author's Profile: http://www.modlingua.com/interns/325-anubhutigupta-japanese-translator.html
