230563 Registers of English / English in Applications Contexts: L10N: Technical Terms, Cultural Adaptation and Translation in Technical Documents (S) (WiSe 2007/2008)

Prerequisites:
You must have completed your basic module phase in linguistics with the
classes How to Handle Speech, How to Make a Dictionary and the Introduction to
Linguistics or equivalent classes. Though we are going to use specialized
software on a computer and read some technical sources, programming skills are
not required. The idea of translation in this classes project is not
restricted to the English-German language pair, so if you do not feel
comfortable with German, you still may choose to attend this class.

L10N is a form of abbreviation used by professionals in the translation
industries meaning LocalizatioN (first letter, number of letters to be left
out, final letter). Localization is the area of technical translation where
texts and computer programmes are translated and if necessary also adapted to
the target culture. This applies for example to technical manuals where
examples need to be embedded into the culture.

This class will cover questions such as I18N (InternationalizatioN), e.g. what
is different in a text if you plan on translating it into multiple languages,
what possible problems may occur in the localization process and what tools
are available to assist translators.

In this class you will learn about the linguistic principles behind L10N,
prerequisites of I18N, how to operate helper applications, etc. Part of this
class will be a small L10N project.

External comments page

http://www.spectrum.uni-bielefeld.de/~ttrippel/l10n/index_ws2007-08.html