[ecrea] cfp - Culture in/and Multimedia Localisation

“Culture in/and Multimedia Localisation” One-Day Symposium

The University of Burgundy (Dijon, France) is organising a symposium on 
23^rd November 2018, to focus on the cultural aspects of multimedia 
localisation.

Link to download Call for Papers: 
https://cloud.u-bourgogne.fr/index.php/s/Pz4hwznbHWdBC29/download

*//*

*/Background:/*

Despite, or perhaps because of, growing scholarly and professional 
interest in the field, multimedia localisation remains an awkward 
subject to conceptualise, teach, and explain to potential clients. One 
factor here is the lack of a sufficiently robust practical definition: 
if “[l]ocalization involves taking a product and making it 
linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale 
(country/region and language) where it will be used and sold” (LISA 
2003), both the diversity of products and the varied technical, 
linguistic and cultural skills required to adapt them for different 
markets and submarkets make it difficult to determine where the process 
begins and ends.

Part of the problem lies in the evolution of interactive digital 
products since the field first came to be recognised: from software 
interfaces through web-based content to mobile and tablet apps, and from 
text-based to multimedia, VR, AR and IoT products, capable of 
increasingly complex input as well as output channels. But whether we 
adopt a restrictive definition of localisation as covering only the 
questions specific to interactive multimedia products beyond the more 
general issues of translation and adaptation (cf. Martin 2005), or a 
“holistic” view of “a complex communicative, cognitive, textual and 
technological process by which interactive digital texts are modified to 
be used in different linguistic and socio-cultural contexts, guided by 
the expectations of the target audience and the specifications and 
degree requested by initiators” (Jimenez-Crespo 2013: 20), the 
intangible cultural dimension of localisation ultimately seems more 
problematic than the strictly technical one. While Jimenez-Crespo 
highlights the importance of following client specifications, the 
increased emphasis on multimedia content and on interaction in digital 
products arguably implies a greater need for cultural expertise in 
adaptation than in the case of specialised written texts.

The notion of a “culturally customised” website has long been a mainstay 
of research into multilingual digital communication strategies (cf. 
Singh and Pereira 2005, Baack and Singh 2007, Singh 2012). A search 
through Google results, social media and other content posted by 
localisation professionals also suggests that the concept offers a 
viable marketing strategy, at least from the point of view of explaining 
the need for and benefits of culturally-oriented localisation to 
clients. What is less clear, however, is how principles of “cultural” 
customisation can be balanced against the demands and preferences of a 
given market segment, or against the source or target market positioning 
of a specific organisation, service or product. Contributions to the 
academic literature cover both theory-driven deductive and data-driven 
inductive approaches to the question of cultural differences (cf. Moura, 
Singh, & Chun, 2016 for a comprehensive review). Although some are 
sensitive to the influence of multiple factors on the localisation 
process (e.g. Shneor, 2012), sometimes extending to questions of 
strategic marketing or communications positioning, a relatively small 
number of studies underline the need, for example, to take into account 
representations of the organisation or its national identity among the 
target publics (cf. Tigre Moura, Gnoth, and Deans, 2015).

While it is difficult to object, in principle, to cultural customisation 
as a factor in the localisation process, it is also important to 
acknowledge the danger of indulging in cultural generalisations. Indeed, 
the very notion of cultural customisation in web localisation begs the 
question of a working definition of “culture” in the context of global 
digital communication. In the absence of this and faced with the large 
number of potential variables to be taken into account in elaborating a 
localisation strategy, parallels might be drawn with the global product 
development or GILT cycle, which is better understood as an analytical 
tool than as a recipe for successful internationalisation and 
localisation, or indeed a similar approach to standardisation vs 
diversification in the domain of global advertising (De Iulio, 1999).

//

*/Call for proposals:/***

In order to address this theme, proposals are invited from industry 
professionals, researchers and graduate students, for :

·20-minute papers

·90-minute panel sessions

·Interactive workshops, case studies or round table sessions

Contributions may address but are not limited to the following topics:

-How can we apply “culture” to the field of web or multimedia 
localisation? Can generalising models such as Hofstede’s be useful here?

-In today’s globalised societies, what understanding/s of the term 
“culture” should we adopt? How can we relate it to notions such as 
subculture, target market and locale?

-What criteria are perceived as important by localisation professionals, 
and how might these differ from the criteria used to market localisation 
services to potential clients? Can academic research help?

-Does the cultural dimension of localisation depend on the nature of the 
product? Can we apply the same guidelines to websites, mobile apps, 
videogames, and other interactive products?

-Is “localisation” a unified phenomenon? How can we compare perspectives 
from different disciplines (translation studies, applied and corpus 
linguistics, UX design, computer science, etc.), and what can we learn 
by combining these perspectives?

-How might the “cultural appropriation” debate affect localisation 
strategies?

Please send proposals of up to 500 words plus references, accompanied by 
a short bionote, to (culturelocalisation2018 /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(culturelocalisation2018 /at/ gmail.com)>.

*/Deadline for proposals: Friday, 1 June 2018/*.

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