Translation vs localization: What’s the difference?

Abstract

The principal goal of the article is to substantiate the idea that a wider application of some forms of translators’ activities does not necessarily entail development of new concepts and approaches to translation. To achieve this goal, the following tasks have been solved: the main approaches to translation specified in European Translation Studies and their provisions have been considered, new trends in translation including the wider use of information technologies and expansion of the areas in which new forms of translation/interpreting are used have been analyzed, definitions of localization as translators’ activity together with substantiation of the distinction between localization and translation have been considered. Moreover, the article provides analysis of definitions of transcreation, transadaptation and transculturation viewed by some scholars as special strategies aimed at bridging the gap between cultures and adapting a text to recipients belonging to another culture. The methodology of investigating translation/interpreting should be based on the combination of the traditional equivalence-oriented approach and the communicative-functional approach to translation. The statements presented in the article are based on the communicative-functional approach which implies placing the “translation event” into the context of a certain communicative situation. The article proves that the so called localization and transcreation presented by many scholars as specific forms of translators’ activity do not deserve this status, and must be viewed as types of translation proper. “Cultural adaptation” of a text performed in the process of “localization” and “transcreation” is another term for pragmatic adaptation widely used by translators and translation scholars for a long time. What matters in such situations is the degree of pragmatic/cultural adaptation.