The proper place of localization in translation curricula

Abstract

The teaching of localization has traditionally been an uneasy fit in translation programs, with little consensus about contents, aims and orientation. In this chapter, localization is first analyzed in terms of disciplinary and professional scope, qualifications and definitional overlaps with translation, resulting in a number of criteria for the prototypical definition and the teaching of the localization activity: type of product, multimodality, transformational co-agency and new textual genres. Translation theories (like functionalist, user-centered and systemic-participatory approaches) and educational models (like constructivist, constructionist and other situated, embodied, emergent approaches) are then explored and complemented, in light of the previous discussion, with frameworks like Human-Computer Interaction and social semiotics, leading to the proposal of an inclusive approach combining a communicative and semiotic approach with a strong social and object-driven learning orientation.