An evaluation of Linguistic and Cultural implications of Localising software in Kiswahili: the case of google

Abstract

Localisation of software products and computer Applications from English into major world languages has been going on for a fairly long time. The motivation behind this endeavor is business related, where global companies try to reach local markets for their products. However, it was until early 2000 when companies such as Microsoft started localising their software products in Kiswahili with the aim of availing computer programmes and applications to the over 150 million Kiswahili speakers within the East African region where Kiswahili is a lingua franca. So far, many other technology companies have joined the endeavor. Google, which is the subject of this research, has so far localised most of the content in its software products and mobile Applications in Kiswahili. However, although generally the project has been successful to a larger extent, the endeavor has had to deal with some linguistic and cultural challenges. These two challenges informed the overall objective of this research, which was to study linguistic and cultural elements in localised Google products with the aim of assessing how they impact on localisation quality. To do this, the researcher analysed lexical and terminological units (LTUs) from the localised Google software products such as Gmail, Google Search, Hangouts, and Google Maps among others. Source text English LTUs were compared with target texts Kiswahili texts and analysed interpretively. Data from secondary sources was also used as a basis for an interview and survey used to gather information on localiser experience during the project undertaking. The findings revealed that the skopos (functions) of source texts was achieved to a larger extent in the target text (TT). However, there were linguistic challenges encountered by localisation translators. These challenges were mainly equivalence related borne from the fact that there are several lexical and structural differences between English as the SL and Kiswahili as the TL which prevent a one-to-one textual relationship. The challenge was observed more in cases where technical requirements such as space limitations impeded localisers’ ability to find creative solutions to the problems. On the issue of culture, Kiswahili speaking locale is highly multicultural, a factor that problematizes the work of looking for neutral cultural terms. Nevertheless, on the issue of culture, the study found out that although localisation theory places culture as one of the most important things in orienting localisation endeavors, on the contrary, there are very few culture-specific elements in software that would render the work of localising software challenging. Furthermore, it emerged that a culture has emerged that can be described as digital culture whereby anyone who uses Internet by extension subscribes to this culture. This culture was found to supersede national cultures in the way people interact with the web. The study recommends that a follow-up research be done to understand user demographics. This is because quality evaluation for localisation and translation particularly for public use highly depends on the users’ perception rather than the perception of linguists.