A Study On The Translation In Localization From The Perspective Of Information Economics

Localization industry has been growing rapidly since its inception in1980s, and is now the most prominent sector of language services industry. Translation in Localization (TIL) refers to the translating activities involved in the localization industry. Bound with advanced technology and production organization in information industry, TIL represents the highest level of translating productivity in the21century. Deeply involved in the economic globalization process, TIL features on its economic nature and business logic. New theoretical questions arising from TIL practice call for the attention from translation studies academia. This thesis, with TIL as its research subject, is of both theoretical and practical significance:theoretically, TIL could be used as a good sample to investigate the change and transformation of translating practice in the background of economic globalization; in practice, a study of TIL could help us to figure out newly-raised professional demands on translators, so that translation education could be renewed to cater to the need.This thesis explores and describes the production process of TIL and studies related production factors in detail. In the main body of this study, which consists of seven chapters (from Chapter2to Chapter8), four sub-researches are carried out:1) it describes the operation procedures of TIL as well as its relationship with economic globalization, operation of multinational corporations and language services industry, and summarizes the features of TIL;2) it argues that "TIL is an economic activity" and supports this argument by analyzing the value and use value of TIL within the theoretical framework of information economics, and by illustrating that upgrading translation technologies and reforming translation production organization contribute to the progress of translating productivity;3) it explains how translation competence is produced and supplied as human capital, and investigates the contradiction between supply and demand in China’s translation labor market;4) it discusses the possibility and potential of a new paradigm called economic paradigm in Translation Studies.The research results can be summarized as follows:1) A description of TIL practice. As an important sector generating large revenue, localization industry is closely connected to the other six sectors of language services industry. Economic globalization makes companies going global. There are two steps to go to develop globalized products:internationalization and localization. Translation is an integrated step in the localization process. Highly profit-motivated and technology-centered, TIL differentiates itself from literary or canonical translation in four aspects:initiator, text, translator and quality standard.2)TIL as a production process. Multinational corporations localize their products to break cultural, linguistic, legislative, and customary barriers in locales. They initiate TIL by funding localization projects. Their business logic to reduce cost and pursue efficiency determines the performance of other parties in localization industry. TIL transforms information carried in one language into information carried in another language. This activity constitutes a link in the whole chain of producing information product. Translators’work creates and transfers value; the use value of TIL is realized in reducing the average cost and transaction cost on the part of multinational corporations, and transaction cost on the part of customers. The improvement of translation technologies and reform of translation production organization have a positive effect on translating productivity. Translation technology tools have progressed from Computer Assisted Translation tools to Linguistic Infrastructure. The application of technology tools to production process can help to reduce labor cost, marginal cost and average cost. In order to cater to the clients’ ever-increasing demand on throughput and cost, language services providers employ mass production, which is based on division of labor, cooperation and management.3) The supply-demand mechanism of translation human capital. Human capital is the most important factor of production in the information-economic production. Competence-based translation education is the way to produce human capital used in translating production, i. e. translation competence. School education is restricted by its production possibility frontier. That’s to say, it cannot nurture translation competence to unrestricted high level because of limited length of education. The translating labor market in China faces two problems:structural surplus resulted from malfunctioned supply and demand mechanism; excessive expectation on school education vs. little responsibility on on-the-job training. The cooperation between schools and companies, emphasis on on-the-job training and reform in certification system are possible ways out.4) The possibility and potential of economic paradigm of translation studies. New forms of translating practice, represented by TIL, require Translation Studies to renew itself to reflect the social reality. With Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm as a criterion, four paradigms could be recognized in the history of Translation Studies:philological paradigm, linguistic paradigm, cultural paradigm and cognitive paradigm. Theoretical questions newly arising from TIL cannot be answered in the previous four paradigms. Translation Studies is now in the abnormal and crisis stage and thus calls for a new paradigm. The new paradigm could borrow from economics its perspective, theoretical framework and methodology. Out of the five elements constituting a paradigm, this new paradigm has established its common belief, model problems and methodology, has found concrete research questions and formed a community of researchers. A new paradigm, which could be named economic paradigm, has almost come into being and has shown its potential.This thesis is an innovative study, which studies a new translation phenomenon from a new theoretical perspective. It reveals the economic nature of translating activity apart from its linguistic and cultural nature, and thus broadens and deepens our understanding of the nature of translation; the detailed studies on the factors of production such as translation technologies, production organization and human capital make clear the status quo in social practice and the demand on translators, providing the basis for the reform in translation education; the exploration of the new paragidm of translation studies, i. e. economic paradigm, predicts the future trend in translation studies.