The GREEN Digital Library A Specialized Materials Science Collection Of the National Science Digital LibraryKent State University
Internet World Stats estimates the current number of WWW users at 785 million. Of these, 29% reside in North America, 27.7% reside in Europe, and 31% reside in Asia with penetration rates of 69.8%, 29.9% and 6.7% respectively.
With 58.7% of current users residing in regions with an average penetration rate of only 18.3%, it is clear that these foreign markets offer substantial rewards for those prepared to enter them.
Internet, E-Commerce & Foreign Markets
The growth of the Internet and e-commerce over the next decade will be driven by the expansion of foreign markets.
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In 2003 e-commerce sales to foreign customers exceeded domestic sales. This year the European Internet economy is expected to break the 4 trillion dollar mark, growing at a compound annual rate of 87%. Western Europe is expected to lead all regions with 692 billion dollars in global online exports in 2004.
North America will move 23% of its exports online, with the U.S. pumping 210 billion dollars into cross border e-commerce. The Asia-Pacific region will reach 219 billion dollars in 2004, sparked by 57 billion dollars in Japanese online exports.
Consumer as Foreigner
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Global, Globalize, Globalization
Companies that intend to sell online will have to globalize their web presence and their products to reach the majority of the online marketplace. They will have to make their web sites, software interfaces, and product documentation available in the languages and cultural styles of an increasingly diverse and international market by applying a process called localization – the translation of content and adaptation of interface and form to reflect the expectations of one or many given locales.
For global-strategy American companies, over
40% of total revenue comes from international
sales. These companies market high-
technology products such as software,
medical instrumentation, CAD / CAM devices,
and so on.
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Global, Globalize, Globalization
Most of these products have a high document overhead, with instructions on the assembly, use, maintenance, and repair of the products delivered via off- and on-line electronic documentation. Most are marketed and supported online. Further, many products may have embedded software components and user interfaces use on-line databases. These products and documents must be delivered to locales, target markets with different cultural and linguistics contexts.
CBT
computer-based-training
UI
Language Industry
While global marketing existed before the 1990’s, the translation / software localization industry (or “language industry” for short) today has evolved primarily as a result of the rapid global expansion of the computer software market and the increasing use of the Internet as a global marketing and customer service tool – all part of globalization.
The corporate problem is, of course, that many companies do not understand HOW to prepare their many products, documents, web pages and database interfaces for distribution in other linguistic and cultural locales – hence the need for the services of the language industry.
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New Media, New Markets
Experts estimate the current worth of the U.S. language industry at just under $2 billion annually, with the global market worth approximately $6 billion. Indications are that growth will continue to be strong into the next decade because of new electronic media and markets.
Consider the case of massively multi-player online games (MMOGs): the language industry enables the publishers of these games to leverage their initial development investment by translating and adapting the games for international locales. Industry projections are that MMOGs will post a 52% cumulative annual growth rate between 2002 and 2006.
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This presentation examines the issues and processes involved in software internationalization and localization.
There are three related major processes to consider. We have already discussed globalization.
globalization, a strategic decision to reach an international audience or to include different linguistic and cultural materials in a product, software application, web site or digital collection;
internationalization, a design process intended to enable efficient and cost-effective subsequent linguistic and cultural adaptation;
localization, the preparation of locale-specific versions of an application’s interface and content.
G11N L10N I18N
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Localization is the preparation of locale-specific versions of a software application, electronic document, internet resource, or digital collection. It consists of the translation of textual material into the language and textual conventions of the target locale and the adaptation of non-textual materials and delivery / display mechanisms to take into account the cultural requirements of that locale.
Internationalization is an “upstream” engineering process that should precede localization. Its aim is to make subsequent localization/translation easier, more efficient, and less costly.
Internationalization & Localization
documents, interfaces, tools
Each of these processes has a different scope and occurs at a different
point in the business and document cycles of an organization.
Earlier
Later
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Evolution of Software Localization
Software localization developed as part of the globalization of the personal computer software market. Software applications and supporting electronic documents were the first “localized” products. The growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web created a demand for localized web pages and sites. Digital multimedia and digital repositories (including digital libraries) are emerging foci of localization.
PC
software
1980
2005
WWW
repositories
multimedia
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Localization focuses on both display (appearance, presentation) and content. Thus, localization includes a cultural adaptation as well as a linguistic translation component.
date, time, calendar,
currency, number, address
strings are
printf("This program converts decimal numbers to hexadecimal\n\n");
while(1) {
printf("\nDo you want to continue? ");
scanf("%s",y);
localizable material:
dialog boxes
not breaking tags
evaluating CSS and stylesheet changes
making changes to graphics
Localization of HTML
Web sites are also now being localized. The link below points to a commented HTML file that gives a simple introduction to localizing an HTML web page. At the localizer’s level some of the issues (not an exhaustive list) are:
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A Solution: Re-Engineer the Software
As one could imagine, localizing directly in code led to problems. First, translator / localizers were quite capable of “breaking code.” There were also problems associated with the necessity for multiple “re-builds” of the basic software for each language version. Language expansion (differences in textual volume) created sizing problems in dialogs and controls. Localization was labor-intensive, difficult and expensive. A solution was to re-engineer the software with the intent of separating language resources from the underlying delivery mechanism.
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Internationalization is a re-engineering and re-design process intended to make localization and translation easier, faster and more cost-effective.
A first step in the inter-nationalization of software applications is the separation or extraction of linguistic and cultural resources from the application, leaving a “neutral” software kernel.
Extraction requires specialized localization tools.
applicationsoftware
kernel
resources
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main()
printf(intl_m_msg("","mypg",1));
while(1) {
printf(intl_m_msg("","mypg",2));
\n Enter decimal number:
\n Do you want to continue?
\n exiting ..\n
main()
printf(intl_m_msg("","mypg",1));
while(1) {
printf(intl_m_msg("","mypg",2));
Ce programme convertit les nombres décimaux en hexadécimal\n\n
\nEntrer le nombre décimal:
\nVoulez vous continuer?
<TR><TD>Kent</TD></TR>
<TR><TD> Ohio</TD></TR>
<TR><TD> 44240</TD></TR>
.
.
.
Content and Display in Web Pages
Web pages share the problem of “separation of content and coding” with application software. You can see from our web page example how true this is. Internationalization solutions in web pages also involve the “extraction” of linguistic and cultural material from the software vehicle. Cutting edge solutions create dynamic HTML from XML-based language content.
<gradinquiry>
<name>
<addressline2/>
as used in software localization
Multiple static versions of pages stored in a folder hierarchy by language and navigated by selection mechanism
language
selection
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Truly effective internationalization also involves early intervention in and re-design of “upstream” business and document processes like authoring to exert greater control and to reduce variability.
creation: authoring
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internationalized products.
own processes and tools.
Translation memories and terminology managers are important tools for maintaining standardized translations and glossaries. TMs provide the focus of QA, ensure replicability / repeatability, and allow re-use of linguistic and cultural materials.
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localization
toolkit
(distribution)
localization
tool
(translator)
translation
memory
terminology
manager
Specialized localization for alignment and term extraction are used to automate the construction of TMs.
term extraction
previous
20%
change
objective of internationalization and
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reusability
scalability
by separating content from display, defining and extracting culturally variable material from fixed or neutral material,
intervening in the document cycle to exert control over document processes, and using
translation memories and
terminology management to ensure critical characteristics such as authority and reusability
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Future directions in internationalization will involve exploiting document corpora more effectively and extracting useful linguistic and textual objects for control and re-use.
Control of the document cycle begins with understanding the documents we already “own” and enhancing them.
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Corpus
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Corpus Replication
Using statistical techniques it is possible to replicate the contents of a monolingual corpus and add multilingual equivalents for terms, phrases, document segments and other objects to it.
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What The Industry is Doing Now
The language industry currently relies on using translation memories and terminology managers. There are significant drawbacks to this method that prevent new gains in cost reduction and profitability – the goal of inter-nationalization.
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A New Model
New approaches to internationalization and automatic localization leverage the linguistic value of existing corpora and allow the creation of “enhanced” corpora whose contents are understood and controlled. Statistical corpus linguistics and XML combine to allow the next step in localization technology.
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Peer-to-Peer Localization Resources
A peer-to-peer networking platform with a security and digital rights management layer can be used to link clients in an XML resource network. A vendor can assess per transaction charges for access to corpus object stores.
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Socio-Cultural Style Sheets