The Role of Revision in English-Spanish Software Localization
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THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Massonnat Mick ADVERTIMENT. L'accés als continguts d'aquesta tesi doctoral i la seva utilització ha de respectar els drets de la persona autora. Pot ser utilitzada per a consulta o estudi personal, així com en activitats o materials d'investigació i docència en els termes establerts a l'art. 32 del Text Refós de la Llei de Propietat Intel·lectual (RDL 1/1996). Per altres utilitzacions es requereix l'autorització prèvia i expressa de la persona autora. En qualsevol cas, en la utilització dels seus continguts caldrà indicar de forma clara el nom i cognoms de la persona autora i el títol de la tesi doctoral. No s'autoritza la seva reproducció o altres formes d'explotació efectuades amb finalitats de lucre ni la seva comunicació pública des d'un lloc aliè al servei TDX. Tampoc s'autoritza la presentació del seu contingut en una finestra o marc aliè a TDX (framing). 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UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick GRACIELA MICK THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION DOCTORAL THESIS Supervised by Dr. Anthony Pym Intercultural Studies Group PhD program in Translation and Intercultural Studies Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain Department of English and German Studies Tarragona 2015 UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick Abstract The main task of this empirical research project is to explore the Spanish translation revision/review process of three software solutions developed by Siemens PLM Software Inc. We will focus our attention especially on the role of Spanish in-country reviewers or revisers as one of the main agents for localized output. The in-house translator and in-country reviewer team is emerging as a concept of interest to researchers, language teachers and translation practitioners. Translation revision efforts are becoming increasingly more relevant in a software localization scenario. The main research questions in this project are: Does the Spanish version communicate what the English does? Why do some Mexican customers prefer to use the English-language software applications? To evaluate the language appropriateness and functionality of the user interface of the PLM software products in the Spanish-localized versions, we conducted a detailed language evaluation of sixty UI segments translated and revised by in-house translators and in-country reviewers respectively. The data analysis indicates that translation and language errors were corrected during the revision stage. Furthermore, an electronic assessment questionnaire was completed by a select group of Siemens PLM software Spanish-speaking customers. The evidence from the survey instruments suggests that the localized version of the user interface reads fluently and naturally. However, the main statistical difference between the source and the target text was found in the number of functional errors. For this reason, some Spanish-speaking end-users actually switch to the English version of the software solutions. And finally, to identify which language version is most used by Mexican customers we collected and analyzed a number of problem reports submitted by our application users during a six- month period. The evidence from the problem reports suggests that the number of PRs is low for that particular time frame and that there is no indication of any functional issues. The research findings should have important implications for the practice of software translation revision and for raising awareness that localization is a team effort involving more players than just translators and revisers. Keywords Software localization, translation revision and review, in-house translators, in-country reviewers, product lifecycle management software, UI segments, errors, problem reports i UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick ii UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick Professor Anthony Pym President European Society for Translation Studies URV. Av. Catalunya 35 43002 Tarragona, Spain [email protected] September 20, 2015 I hereby certify that the present study The Role of Revision in English-Spanish Software Localization, presented by Graciela Mick for the award of the degree of Doctor, has been carried out under my supervision at the Department of English and German Studies of the Rovira i Virgili University, and that it fulfills all the requirements for the award of Doctor. iii UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick Acknowledgements I would like to thank Prof. Anthony Pym for his patience, expertise, encouragement, advice, support, dedication and innumerable hours spent on this project. I also want to thank Christian Redmann (Director of the Localization Department for Siemens PLM Software Inc.) for his diligence in obtaining the necessary permissions that allowed me to contact the Siemens Spanish-speaking customers and invite them to participate in the survey questionnaires. Eurídice Aviléz (Siemens Mexico) and Aurea López (Siemens Spain) for their collaboration in obtaining the list of Spanish-speaking end-users. I am extremely thankful to Madir Mabbott and Lindsay Sandhurst (Siemens United Kingdom), survey managers in England, who patiently taught me how to use the internal survey tool. Advice given by Dale Honeycutt, Joel Boechers, and Valerie Stoehr has been of great help in writing the electronic survey questionnaires. And finally, my completion of this thesis would not have been accomplished without the data provided by the Siemens PLM Spanish-speaking customers who participated in the surveys. v UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI THE ROLE OF REVISION IN ENGLISH-SPANISH SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION Graciela Mick Table of contents Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Overview ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software ....................................................... 1 1.3. Relevance of this study ............................................................................................... 3 1.4. Limitations of this study ............................................................................................. 4 1.5. Thesis structure ........................................................................................................... 4 1.6. Statement of the problem ............................................................................................. 4 1.7. Performance metrics ................................................................................................... 6 1.8. Research questions ....................................................................................................... 8 1.9. Research plan ............................................................................................................... 8 1.10. Why software localization matters ......................................................................... 10 1.11. Translating and revising global English ................................................................