Localizing a phone app: Challenges and reflections

Warburton, Kara; Lee, Ka Wai; Harding, Tyler

doi:10.1075/dt.22010.war

Article published In:

Digital Translation
Vol. 10:1 (2023) ► pp.88–120

Localizing a phone app

Challenges and reflections

Kara Warburton | Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

Ka Wai Lee | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tyler Harding | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In this paper we describe the localization of a phone app that was completed by students enrolled in a university translation program. The app in question serves the university campus community. The experience related herein follows the earlier localization of a COVID-related app, described in Warburton and Krishnan (2021). The current project was larger in scope, covered more subject areas, included additional languages, leveraged different technologies (as a result of lessons learned), and repurposed more linguistic resources. We also reflect on phone apps as a genre and the impacts of their increasing role in society for the localization industry. We demonstrate that the Functionalist approach to translation is appropriate for app localization. However, challenges, both technical and linguistic, point to the need for better internationalization practices and localization tools. The localization of phone apps would benefit from further research of this genre in translation theory.

Keywords: translation, localization, phone apps, terminology, agile

Article outline

1.Background
2.Universal access, language rights, and the digital divide
3.Theoretical and practical considerations
4.The current project with the Illinois app
- 4.1Preparation phase
  - 4.1.1Selecting a CAT tool
  - 4.1.2Setting up the Crowdin project
  - 4.1.3Configuring the connection to GitHub
  - 4.1.4Understanding the source file
  - 4.1.5Terminology
    - Stage 1.Cleaning glossaries from the previous localization project
    - Stage 2.Extracting new terms
    - Stage 3.Combining terms from the two sources
    - Stage 4.Finding target language equivalents
  - 4.1.6Translation memory
    - Stage 1.Aligning the source and translated files
    - Stage 2.Cleaning the TMX files
    - Stage 3.Importing the cleaned TMX files to Crowdin
    - Stage 4.Assessing the quality of the translation memories
5.Translation phase
- 5.1Translation strategies
  - Locale choices
  - Formality and tone
  - Gendered language
  - Text expansion in Spanish
- 5.2Linguistic issues and challenges
  - Handling English characters in the Chinese translation
  - Uppercase as formatting
- 5.3Technical issues and challenges
  - String concatenation and variables
  - Lack of context
- 5.4Proofreading and linguistic review
6.Testing
7.Conclusion
Notes
References

Published online: 24 July 2023

https://doi.org/10.1075/dt.22010.war

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