Translatability: Understandability and usability by others

摘要

The United States version of the English language, sometimes referred to as “Americanese” is a lively, still developing language. It is frequently interspersed with slang, acronyms, and abbreviations. In daily use, people often employ catch phrases from advertising, television, and “one-liners” voiced by entertainers and other public figures. While this may make for a colorful version of English (deplored by some), it causes untold problems for translators whenever the “colorful” or inconsistent variations creep into documents that must be translated for use in a world market. That language problem is a problem in usability, a human factors problem; not always recognized as such by the computer industry. Akin to the sometimes thoughtless use of idiomatic English, is the bland assumption that what is designed and developed for the U.S. market is satisfactory for other countries. This assumption ignores significant differences in form, format, economic and financial factors, as well as acculturation differences. These are some of the elements that contribute to difficulties experienced by U.S. companies in getting computer programs and other products accepted outside the United States. This article discusses these matters, and four basic steps for alleviating some of the problems.