Re: say please--cultural differences?

[Bill Burns <BillDB -at- ILE -dot- COM>]

Fish ON! (Read, "Okay, I'll bite.")

> It seems to me these differences will carry over into technical
> documentation.  Purely out of curiosity, I would like to hear replies to
> Jessica N. Lange's question, "Does anyone take these cultural differences
> into account when writing
> documentation?" from people on this listserv who've worked in
> localisation.
>
When we write documents that will be localized, we write with the English
audience in mind. The translators who see the text after us do what is
necessary to make the delivery appropriate. We simply make certain that the
content itself is accurate and inoffensive to other cultures-- meaning, in
part, that we avoid idioms, metaphors, and stock phrases that are
culture-specific. When we write internationalized documentation (docs in
English for global markets), our aim is to make the information appear
accurate for the target markets. We also use formats for measurements, phone
numbers, addresses, currencies, and the like are familiar to the specific
markets.

We don't use English modalities to accomplish something that a target
locale's language does unless it's also appropriate for English. In essence,
that's what you'd be doing if you tried to turn all imperative statements in
an English document into requests.


Bill Burns
ILE Communications/Eccentric Technology Consultant
billdb -at- ile -dot- com
> Madness takes its toll.  Please have exact change.
>
>