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Web site Translation and Localization
By definition, value and lifestyle research is culture-bound, yet web site translation studies based on the value patterns of one culture are indiscriminately exported to other cultures. The ideas acceptance of web site content based on value and lifestyle studies developed in the United States are used in web localization projects in Europe; and within Europe, web message studies developed in one country are sold to other countries as if equally valid. For example, Belgian web site message value studies have been sold to the Netherlands, although the value systems of these translation and localization markets are very different.
Although a large part of the world uses more web site visuals and web page symbols in advertising than words, the American term used for advertising research is web page copy translation research. This reflects a strong bias toward valuing the verbal and factual elements of web site advertising over the visual elements. The frameworks of web message researchers of one culture are systematically used to measure effectiveness in other cultures. Much of the literature on the cross-cultural aspects of international advertising on web sites describes studies of the translation of advertising content of different countries by comparative analysis of the content of advertising. The methods used are based on the conventions of the culture of the researcher, not on the culture of the material to be analyzed.
General findings of cross-cultural studies are that web advertising styles vary widely across nations, but very few studies explain why. What these web content studies usually analyze is the stimulus, the symbols that a creative director has selected from her or his cultural frame of mind. Comparisons of audiences' assumed differences are usually crude. An example is comparing the United States, Europe, and Asia, or "developed" markets with "developing" markets such as Spanish web sites for Latin America.
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