How Web Texts Meet International Users
2007-07-19 13:40 | 06. Characteristics of Web Texts , 02. Internet Usage
Most of the companies that run a Web site do so because they already have many of their sales overseas, or at least plan to have so. “They don’t call it World Wide Web for nothing.” (
Nielsen 2000, p 313) Consequently, textual information on the Web is often given in other languages additionally to the language of the content provider. Therefore, content managers have to ensure international usability as well of their Web sites as of their Web texts. In fact, some additional aspects beyond the mere translation of web content should be considered when developing a Web site.
Too Many Little Differences
There are numerous smaller things that result from the countless differences between the many countries and cultures in the world; these are so many that one could spend books upon. Those refer to relatively easy-to-research institutional conventions for making Web texts more international, such as paying attention to times and dates (e.g. ‘2004-08-23, 2:30 pm’ versus ’23.08.2004, 14:30 Uhr’), punctuation and currency symbols (e.g. ‘€1.000’ versus ‘$1,000’), or comparable aspects (see Nielsen 2000, see also Del Galdo & Nielsen 1996).
The literature already offers some guidance through such details, although a complete list of the little differences is rarely given anywhere. Thus, I will focus on some issues that are rather related to the question of which language(s) to choose in order to reach international users, and to the way users can select their preferred language.
Internationalisation vs. Localisation
Generally, traditional software development provides two different approaches for increasing international usability of interfaces and screen contents (see Nielsen 2000). Applied to Web texts, the ‘internationalisation’ approach refers to having texts that can be used world wide, i.e. relying on the English language as the standard global language1.
Of course, this can only work to a certain extent. As in fact, there are Internet users who are not familiar with the English language as to get the information from the content completely. In such a case, one could follow the ‘localisation’ approach – providing adopted versions of each text for a specific locale.
The problem is, of course, that few companies would ever be able to ‘localise’ every single text for every possible language in order to meet their international audiences. Translating a Web shop and all of its system dialogues as well as hundreds or thousands of product details into five, six, or more languages may just be too expensive. Thus, a mixture of both approaches may be convenient, that is, providing a version that corresponds to the company’s head quarter’s or main market’s language, and publishing another English version as an attempt to cover the international users.
Most probably, there are also companies who are not interested in overseas business at all. These, of course, should at least make “[…] clear up front if they are interested in serving only a local market to avoid wasting both parties’ time” ( Nielsen 2000, p332).
However, can it be all so simple? Is a mixture of these two approaches described above really efficient? Is the English language still that popular on the Web?
Adequate Knowledge of English with Most of Internet Users
German statistics showing who actually uses the Internet have stressed the majority of higher educated people surfing the Web (see Federal Statistical Office Germany 2004). I expect a similar tendency for other Western industrial countries. Thus, one can assume that there is at least sufficient knowledge of the English language with a majority of the Internet users from these countries, even if it is not their mother tongue. English can nevertheless serve as a vehicle of communication, not only in typical contexts as in IT or e-commerce. John Connolly (in: Del Galdo & Nielsen 1996, p 23) points on the fact that “English, of course, often serves such a purpose, and it is an important consideration that many users of IT systems throughout the world have either a native or at least an adequate command of English.” I consider this an argument in favour of the efficiency in mixing both strategies (localisation and internationalisation).
This also leads us to a second consideration: Huge parts of the Web are already based on the English language. Nielsen (2000) has given reference to an NUA Internet Survey, showing that, by 1999, the U.S. and Canada accounted for around 55 percent of total Web user population2. Even as there was a trend to seeing the picture reversed by the year 2004 and onwards, including a strong shift towards Asian countries, this is still a lot. (See also “Why Blogging in English?”)
Considering this, the comparatively simple approach of mixing the two strategies as described above may be both efficient and economic.
In the next posting I will discuss the way different language versions ought to be presented on a Web site in terms of selection and navigation.
1 David Crystal (1997) has explored the history of the rise of English as a global language, its current status and the potential of English as the international language of communication. See also Kachru (1992).
2 The United Kingdom, Australia, and other English speaking countries are not considered in these percentages, yet.
Published by Christian Kuhn
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