And yet, the two communities are still not talking enough to each other, as I commented in my editorial earlier in the year. The horizons of localization are indeed expanding as new media come into existence, incorporating language support – often in new ways. In this issue, we examine video games localization which often involves both subtitling and dubbing, and the question of standards for screen translation practice, as screen translators are faced with new working methods driven by the use of new media and tools. We also look into some of the challenges for screen translators working with foreign TV programs where they are often forced to re-invent the original content as translation is not enough to create the right impact on the target audience.

The video games sector is huge, now closely following on the heels of the film industry, and the implications for the localization sector are considerable. And yet, the domain of games localization seems to have only just recently come onto the radar screen of the wider localization community, which has primarily evolved around software localization. As illustrated in the interview with Katrin Darolle (premium content) of Square Enix, games localization appears to have largely developed independent of software localization, and to some extent, continues to do so. Darolle sheds light on the difference between games and software localization, and some of the unique challenges involved in the former, based on her day-to-day experience. It becomes clear that screen translation – as applied to video games – is somewhat different from that used for films, and we begin to appreciate the intricacy of interactive media.

The contributor to our regular Focus on Standards column is Mary Carroll of TITELBILD Subtitling and Translation GmbH, a seasoned subtitler and educator of screen translators. Her article, Changing Standards for New Media? (public content) discusses the thorny issue of standards for screen translation which are closely linked with the introduction of new media. Carroll details the historical development of subtitle standards and illuminates the nature of emerging changes in the working methods, and hence the standards forced upon the translators working with new media, such as subtitling for DVDs. The unhappy sentiment expressed recently to me by a party involved in the industry was one of subtitlers forced to use technology-driven formulae.

The article From Tokyo to Barcelona (premium content), by Dr. Jordi Mas López (a practitioner and academic specialized in screen translation), describes how Japanese anime are brought to the TV screen in Catalonia. López entertainingly poses the dilemma and the challenges faced by the translators bridging the two cultures. Using the case of the wicked and outrageous Japanese manga Crayon Shinchan, he delves into the linguistic quagmire of adapting content, which is often very specific to Japanese language and social conventions, to what feels natural to the Catalan audience. This is obviously related to the issue raised by Carroll in terms of standards for dubbing practices and procedures.

We are delighted to introduce a LISA Member through our new Focus on LISA Members column. This time, we quizzed Xue-Feng Shen (public content) of HP China who was involved in setting up HP’s Localization Management Center in Shanghai. Shen reflects on how well-established the domain of Asian language localization has become, compared to when the Center started business. He also explains how cultural differences are one of the main challenges to be negotiated when working with increasingly diverse virtual teams.

Speaking of Asian localization, few are aware of LISA’s long history and network in Asia. LISA was one of the first professional language industry associations active in Asia, and long before it was popular to do so, it was holding conferences and developing partnerships in China and throughout the region. Please read Global Business Intelligence for Asia (public content) to find out how to leverage LISA’s Asian expertise and contacts.

As an example of the interest of LISA and its members in localizing into non-ASCII languages, Chuck Wrobel of Avaya Inc. provides a preview of his case study presentation at the forthcoming LISA Forum Europe in Paris in October in his article, Why Is My Product Not Selling Better in Japan? (premium content). Wrobel shows how the commonly used Caller ID feature gets complicated when one starts talking about enabling it for double-byte characters – yet another illustration of expanding horizons for localization. Any readers involved in developing similar products in double-byte scripts will benefit from hearing the whole story at the Forum.

When we consider the intricacy which the human translation process entails – making sense of culture-specific references in another language and in another cultural context – the goal of Natural Language Processing (NLP) looks formidable indeed. Dr. Rada Mihalcea and Dr. Timothy Chklovski introduce their approach for building powerful NLP tools in their article, Teaching Computers (public content). One item in our day-to-day information processing that we carry out without thinking is disambiguation of word sense. Humans are automatically able to choose the correct meaning of a word (most of the time) in relation to its context, whereas a computer must have appropriate data to perform the task. We know straight away when our friend says she is “bugged” by her boyfriend’s incessant calls that this does not mean that her phone is “bugged!” In their research projects, Mihalcea and Chklovski are building up data to feed to computers by tapping into the power of connectivity provided by the web by enabling the average human visitor to their site to be a contributor to creating the great NLP engines of tomorrow. Please visit the Teach-Computers.org site if you are interested in participating!

We would like to bring your attention to three other ways for you to participate and increase your level of knowledge at the same time:

• The second in the series of LISA Best Practice Guides to be published this year is now available: Implementing Machine Translation. More than 100 copies were downloaded in less than twelve hours of its initial availability on the LISA website! You can pick up your free copy here. While there, please check out the first guide in this series, Quality Assurance – The Client Perspective.
• Join LISA Member i18N Inc. for its popular workshops during AILIA’s Annual General Meeting in Ottawa, Canada in September or in Paris, France in October during the LISA Forum Europe. Two new workshops in French will debut in Paris.
• Take five minutes and complete the LISA/OSCAR Translation Memory Survey 2004. It will run through the end of September, and the results will be available at no charge.

As always, we welcome receiving your feedback on these articles. Happy reading!

Best wishes,
 
Minako O’Hagan
Asia Pacific Editor
School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies,
Dublin City University