To adapt or not to adapt in web localisation

Abstract

Since the early 90´s, the localisation industry has striven to produce non-culture-specific texts that can be easily localised into most languages. Nevertheless, international websites include sections, such as legal disclaimers or privacy policies, that preferably need to be adapted in order to be fully effective and increase the credibility of the website (Kenny and Jones 2007). This study explores these two seemingly contradictory perspectives through a comparable corpus analysis of original and localised legal sections in corporate websites. Following a genre-based approach (Swales 1990; Bhatia 1993; Gamero 2001), the main analysis concentrates on macrostructural differences and representative conventional linguistic forms associated with rhetorical moves. The analysis shows significant differences in the prototypical macrostructures of original and localised texts, as well as an impact on their terminology and phraseology. As far as the adaptation is concerned, only 32.60% of websites were somewhat adapted to the Spanish target legal system, while the rest were localised but not legally adapted. The results shed some light on the question of whether current industry strategies favor single internationalised vs. adapted localisations and on the inevitable effect of source text structures and phraseology on the final localised website.