Software and Website Localization

Localization adapts software, websites, and video games—linguistically and culturally—for users in particular locales, integrating translation into engineering workflows.

Definition

The adaptation of software, websites, and digital products to the language, conventions, and expectations of a specific target locale.

Scope

This topic covers the localization industry and its research: the adaptation of user interfaces, help content, websites, and games to target locales; the related processes of internationalization that prepare products to be localized; the handling of encoding, layout, formats, and cultural conventions; and the integration of translation memory, terminology management, and continuous localization. It treats web localization and game localization as distinctive specializations and connects to translation technology. The treatment is descriptive.

Core questions

• How does localization extend beyond translating text?
• What is the relationship between internationalization and localization?
• What distinctive challenges arise in web and game localization?
• How do translation technologies support localization workflows?

Key theories

Localization as distribution of a moving text

Anthony Pym's framing of localization as the adaptation of a continually updated 'moving text' to locales within global distribution systems, integrating translation with internationalization and content management.

Web and game localization as specializations

Accounts by Jiménez-Crespo and by O'Hagan and Mangiron of how web and game localization adapt not only language but interaction, hypertext, and play, introducing constraints and creativity beyond conventional translation.

History

Localization emerged as a distinct industry in the 1980s and 1990s as software companies adapted products for global markets, giving rise to the GILT cluster (globalization, internationalization, localization, translation) and standards bodies. Academic study followed, with web localization and game localization developing as research areas as the internet and the games industry expanded.

Debates

Is localization a kind of translation?

Scholars debate whether localization is a subset of translation or a broader engineering-driven process that subsumes it, a question with implications for how translators' work and status are defined in the industry.

Key figures

• Anthony Pym
• Bert Esselink
• Miguel Jiménez-Crespo
• Minako O'Hagan
• Carmen Mangiron

Seminal works

• esselink2000
• pym2004
• jimenezcrespo2013

Frequently asked questions

What does 'internationalization' mean in localization?

Internationalization is designing software so that it can be adapted to different languages and regions without engineering changes, which makes the subsequent localization for each locale far easier.

How is game localization different from software localization?

Game localization must adapt not only interface text but dialogue, voice acting, humour, and cultural references while preserving gameplay and player immersion, making it closer to creative audiovisual translation.