Expanding definition of localization

Demand for localization is advancing beyond just computer software to encompass industries which carry out business in the global marketplace. As pointed out by Jeanty (1997), the definition of localization needs to reflect this expanding applicability. He proposes a broader definition of localization: "the provision of services and technologies for the management of multilinguality across the global information flow". Joscelyne (1997), the General Editor of Language International, acknowledges the widespread impact of globalization on language services: "the globalization of the economy as a whole will almost certainly generate more business for language professionals the world over... Demand will presumably reach beyond internationalizing and localizing software products and cover every other sector in which information is a key component."

To provide a real world feel for the widening horizons for future localizers, I will describe some observations of the Japanese entertainment industry in the context of language needs based on my recent visit there.

Joypolis, Playstation and Mulan

Sega runs "Joypolis" amusement theme parks in main centers in Japan where console-based games, including simulations and VR can be played. The park's English guide book (considerably less glossy than its Japanese original) shows that some games are language-independent whereas others require understanding of Japanese. For example, one of their newer attractions, "Murder Lodge", is a ghost house with a difference. Customers have the living daylights frightened out of them by listening to 3D sounds and voices via the headphones they wear. As such, it is almost totally language-dependent, but in this case the voice track is also available in English on request. Players seat themselves on a wooden bench in front of a large dining table in a wooden shed setting, while a voice tells a chilling story which gradually unfolds. Various highly realistic sound effects as well as physical sensations (such as jolting of the chair) make the players freeze in terror. This form of localization enables English and Japanese speakers to share the same setting while the story is told in their respective languages. There is opportunity for much more localization work at Joypolis.

Sony Playstation games must go through a typical localization process which allows the original Japanese product to be exported to non-Japanese markets. The technical aspect involves the adjustment to different TV/video standards such as PAL and SECAM from the Japanese NTSC. Some game titles retain original Japanese words like "Tekken" (meaning "iron fist" in Japanese), becoming part of the players' vocabulary the world over. One wonders what the criteria are for deciding which titles get translated and which remain in the original (I would have thought that "Tekken" is not particularly easy to pronounce for non-Japanese speakers). The amount of localization in terms of language content seems minimal for the Playstation games because of their largely action-oriented nature. Targeted primarily at teenagers, the content of most games seems to require no "culturalization" as such, even for overseas consumption; they have a common appeal to a universal youth culture which has readily embraced computer graphics and animations as well as TV games (Herz, 1997). I note one different aspect of marketing the product, however, at least between in Japan and New Zealand. Japanese bookshops sell stacks of "strategy books" for individual Playstation games whereas in New Zealand help is mainly provided by 0900 telephone numbers (per minute chargeable information) and through Playstation magazines. The books are apparently not translated. The reason is unclear, but it may be related to the translation cost.

In a sense, translation/localization has been around for many years in another form of entertainment, the film industry, which has long relied on subtitling and dubbing to accommodate foreign productions. Each country seems to have a traditional preference for one of these two methods. For example, in Japan today most non-Japanese films are subtitled rather than dubbed. However, in some cases both subtitled and dubbed versions are available, such as with Disney's recent production "Mulan". Traditionally Disney films have only been dubbed because of their generally young audience target. This seems to be changing to allow for an increasing number of Japanese who are keen to hear the original voice tracks. Evidently some films can justify the expense of going through two parallel localization processes. Such luxury certainly requires a big market.

Entertainment on the computer

Much of the entertainment forms mentioned above can be subsumed by multimedia developments in the computer world. Computer games, either standalone or networked, already provide high-resolution graphics as well as speeds in some cases close to Playstation games. Some computer multimedia products require subtitling and dubbing as part of the localization of their text and voice components, generally with more complexity than films.

However, one interesting question is how will language needs be met when these games and multimedia environments are accessed individually via networks? Internationally networked chess games and maths challenges have their own universal languages, but for networked games involving interactions as text, some players will require real-time translation assistance. Increased use of voice over the Internet may herald network games that use the spoken word and players will require real-time interpreting services if they are to be truly international. Real audio provides, for example, radio broadcast over the Internet from all over the world. Unless listeners know each local language they will need access to an interpreter in order to understand foreign programs. Each customer will need "plug-in" real-time translation or interpretation facilities. However, today's machine translation (MT) technology is generally not up to the task and can only provide very rudimentary assistance, as in the case of WebMT products. Calling a human interpreter/ translator each time is clearly not a viable option for everybody in terms of cost and convenience. These situations will require JIT (just in time) localization. One of the implications of progressive globalization seems to be these "synchronous" language service needs emerging in addition to more conventional asynchronous services. The answer seems to lie in a combined force of machine and human intelligence. In the meantime, the job distinction between interpreters who have traditionally catered to synchronous spoken communications, and translators of asynchronous written communications, may become blurred, possibly producing a new breed of language professionals who cater to real-time needs for written and spoken messages.

Future trends

The research in which I am currently engaged is a study of the implications on translation and interpretation of a future infrastructure technology which allows Virtual Reality (VR) to be embedded into physical reality. This is not as far-fetched as it may initially sound when one thinks about the emergence of distributed VR environ-ments, making interactive three-dimensional (3D) graphics accessible on the network. This development will turn today's 2D computing world into 3D and eventually enable one to be telepresent in remote virtual environments. The advancement of the infrastructure to allow this will also mean the emergence of the "virtual workplace", where sophisticated remote collaboration can take place on a global basis.

Already the Boeing company has managed to cut one and a half years off the design and development time for its new model 777 aircraft thanks to the use of 3D CAD (computer-aided design) in a networked environment. In this project, a process known as "concurrent engineering" took place whereby simulated electronic mock-ups were worked on collaboratively by design teams based in the US, Japan and Europe. IBM is also known to have expanded its use of networks to allow inter-national collaboration for R&D. The proportion of IBM's published research papers that were based on collaboration has increased from 2.3% of the total in 1981 to 10.3% in 1994 according to the JICST (Japan Information Center for Science and Technology) database (Noguchi, Nuki, Sudo, 1998). Researchers cite case studies (ibid) as evidence of the synergy effect associated with interorganizational and international "virtual workplaces".

In the context of translation and localization, the increasing amount of international collaboration in real time has two impli-cations: (1) growing demands for language assistance and (2) its applicability as a tool to the language service provider. The first represents both asynchronous and synchronous language service needs. For example, virtual meetings will require an interpreter, likely to be located remotely from other participants, as well as associated text translation. It appears that the second implication raises interesting possibilities for localization work.

Localization based on a virtual team

The concept of "teletranslation" (O'Hagan, 1996) is language services based on networked translators and interpreters. However, while the translation side has taken off using the network environment, interpretation has largely remained "presence-based", with interpreters traveling to the conference or meeting site in person. Translation work does not normally require the translator to be in close proximity to the client. The fact that interpretation has not migrated to "cyberspace" indicates that today's infrastructure is not yet sufficiently developed to enable "presence-based" services to be provided on the network. While translation can be conducted in an "electronic-trading environment", inter-pretation needs a "virtual working environment"; a distinction made according to whether or not "each party is acting on information individually" (Grimshaw & Kwok, 1998). The virtual workplace is not limited to an exchange of information but allows mutual collaboration to achieve a common goal (ibid). The virtual workplace concept is already becoming a reality to allow complex collaboration to be carried out remotely, as in the case of Boeing. Today's localization work typically involves translators, engineers and other support staff, each of whom may work from a separate geographical location. The virtual workplace will allow focused, task-oriented interactions among them in a virtual environment. For example, interactions needed for the initial development and testing of a product may be conducted by localization engineers in a virtual environ-ment which could also link an end-user tester and a translator from a target market.

In the manufacturing sector, the use of the virtual environment is being considered as the way to produce individualized products incorporating individual customers’ require-ments. For example, an apparel maker may provide a virtual garment in a 3D mock-up which a potential customer can access and modify electronically to create a preferred design. This is the next generation manu-facturing strategy which is developing to cater to individual tastes (Noguchi, Nuki, Sudo, ibid). In a similar way, software products may increasingly become indivi-dualized, whereby unique features requested by each customer can be incorporated using the virtual workplace environment. For example, a localization industry expert is predicting increased demand for localization of ERP (enterprise resource planning) software as well as industry-specific software in the future (Lieu, 1998).

In order to be able to respond to such requirements, the creation of the virtual workplace and the virtual team will become essential. The virtual but direct contact with end-users in virtual environments may contribute significantly to product develop-ment and testing, eventually shortening time-to-market and improving quality. The trend towards "one-stop shopping" of loca-lization services may also be dealt with by the application of virtual workplaces and virtual teams supported by a sophisticated infrastructure. This will enable interworking among different experts who need to work together for a localization project, on the one hand, and to have contact with the end-user any time during the production, on the other. In this way, a vertically integrated company which can achieve "one-stop shopping" can also function as a hori-zontally integrated organization linking essential personnel across different fields, perhaps with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, by electronic networks. There are increasing numbers of examples of experiments with this form of work in the fields of education, manufacturing, consul-tancy, legal and medical services. It is essential for the translation and localization industries to constantly search for a modus operandi which is able to respond to the needs of the 21st century. The answer may lie in exploration of the virtual world.

References:

Grimshaw, D.J. & Kwok, F.T. (1998). The Business Benefits of the Virtual Organization. In Igbaria, M .& Tan, M. (Eds.), The Virtual Workplace (1998). London: IDEA Group Publishing.

Herz, J. C. (1997). Joystick Nation. London: Abacus.

Jeanty, R. (1997). The future of the localization Industry. In LISA Newsletter, 6 (2).

Joscelyne, A. (1997). Big localizers, small globalizers. In Language International, 9.2. p.5.

Lieu, T. (1998) Localizing for the Future. In Japanese Computing. January.

Noguchi, H., Nuki, T., Sudo, H. (1998). Denshi Joho Network to Sangyo Shakai [Electronic Networks and Industries]. Tokyo: Chuo-Keizai.

O'Hagan, M. (1996). The Coming Industry of Teletranslation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Minako O'Hagan
School of Communications and Information Management
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
E-mail: Minako.OHagan@vwu.ac.nz