Perspectives on Localization

Book excerpt: Over the past two decades, international trade agreements such as GATT and NAFTA have lowered international trade barriers. At the same time, the information revolution has fueled profound shifts in the ways companies conduct business and communicate with their customers, and worldwide acceptance of the ISO 9000 standard has established the notion that quality must be defined in terms of customer satisfaction. Falling trade barriers and rising quality standards have made linguistic and cultural issues increasingly important. To successfully compete in today's global on-demand economy, companies must localize their products and services to fit the needs of the local market in terms of language, culture, functionality, work practices, as well as legal and regulatory requirements. In recognition of the growing importance of localization, this volume explores a certain number of key issues, including: • Return on investment and the localization business case • Localization cost drivers and cost-containment strategies • Localization quality and customer-focused quality management • Challenges posed by localization of games, including Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) • Using a meta-language to facilitate accurate translation of disembodied content • The case for managing source-language terminology • Terminology management in the localization process • Reconciling industry needs and academic objectives in localization education • Localization standards and the commoditization of linguistic information • The creation and application of language industry standards • Rethinking customer-focused localization through user-centered design • Moving from translation reuse to language reuse