Writing for the World

It’s time to return to the topic of the content ecosystem. In previous posts, I described Organize and Develop as parts of the ecosystem. Today I want to discuss the process of preparing your content for the rest of the world. There are many different terms that float around the globalization world.

Let’s look at a few definitions from Wikipedia and The Oxford English Dictionary:

Globalization (G11N)

• The process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of political ideas through communication, transportation, and trade. (Wikipedia)
• [Something that is] developed so as to make possible international influence or operation. (Oxford)

Internationalization (I19N)

• The planning and preparation stages for a product that is built by design to support global markets. (Wikipedia)
• To make (something) international. (Oxford)

Localization (L10N)

The actual adaptation of the product for a specific market (Wikipedia). The Localization Industry and Standards Association (LISA) further describes localization as a phase that encompasses four issues:

• linguistic
• physical
• business and cultural
• technical

Alternatively …
To make (something) local in character. (Oxford)

Translation (T9N)

• The communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. (Wikipedia)
• A written or spoken rendering of the meaning of a word, speech, book, or other text, in another language. (Oxford)

Wikipedia has a decent article on the differences between localization, globalization, and internationalization. You can read it here.

During my day, I rarely think about the differences among all of these terms. They are all important and they all related to content quality in a different language. In other words, when you take content that was developed in one country (say, the United States) and you want that same information to be meaningful in another country (say, South Africa), what are all of the things you need to consider? Among others, you need to think about:

• Culture
• Meaning
• Mores
• Ethics
• Language

I put language at the bottom of the list on purpose. Not all phrases translate in a word-for-word way. In fact, word-for-word translations can be very inaccurate at times. They can be meaningless and they can even be offensive. So, when you are getting ready to distribute your content to the world, make sure you work with people who know a lot about the various countries where you will send the content. Otherwise, the results can be potentially disasterous.

Transcreation

Transcreation is a relatively new term in the world of content. In fact, there is no definition for transcreation in either Wikipedia or the Oxford English Dictionary. I recently attended a conference where Rebecca Ray of the Common Sense Advisory gave a fabulous presentation about transcreation.

There are times when the art of translating content becomes more of an exercise in rewriting the content than simply taking the sentences and putting them into a different language. This is especially true for marketing content. Good marketing content contains nuance that resonates with the reader. This could be a play on words or something that is meaningful in a particular culture. In these cases, you really need to recreate (transcreate) the content for each of the target markets.

Examples

Rebecca showed many examples of transcreation. My personal favorite is the variety of in-country sites that have been developed by the cosmetic company, Lush. Here is the Lush site for the United States:

Here is the Lush site for Saudi Arabia:

And the site for Lush Japan:

As you can see, these sites are not mere translations of each other. They are completely transcreated for each marketplace.

Another example of transcreation are these two different videos from Sony about the NEX camera. The first is for the U.S. market and the second is for Japan:

Bottom line – When it is time to distribute your content globally (and it IS time to distribute your content globally), be sure to consider all of the factors, not just the source and target languages of the text.

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Val Swisher

Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. Val enjoys helping companies solve complex content problems. She is a well-known expert in content strategy, structured authoring, global content, content development, and terminology management. Val believes content should be easy to read, cost-effective to create and translate, and efficient to manage. Her customers include industry giants such as Google, Cisco, Visa, Facebook, Roche, and IBM. Her fourth book, “The Personalization Paradox: Why Companies Fail (and How to Succeed) at Creating Personalized Experiences at Scale,” was published in 2021 by XML Press.

Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.

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