HERMES - Journal of Language and Communication in Business

Localisation Training in Spain and Beyond: Towards a Consensus on Content and Approach

María del Mar Sánchez Ramos — 2022-12-12

Since localisation emerged in the 1980s as an activity linked to the software industry, its evolution has gone hand in hand with technological advances. In the globalised market of the 21st century, an ever-increasing range of digital products must be localised. While academic institutions are aware of how the increasing demand for localisation is affecting the translation industry, there is no consensus regarding what and how courses and modules on localisation should be taught. This article reports the findings of a survey-based study that adopted a descriptive-interpretive methodology to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from a group of 16 localisation trainers teaching on undergraduate translation programmes at Spanish universities. To contextualise and help with the focus of the survey, a literature review on localiser education was carried out. The results of both the survey and the literature review reinforce the findings of an earlier unpublished study by the same authors that localisation training is keeping pace with technological evolution, despite its scarce presence in translation studies curricula. In addition, respondents noted that one of their main challenges is finding authentic teaching materials and recommended closer collaboration between academia and the localisation

Revision of Business Content on Corporate Social Responsibility

Alessandra Rossetti — 2022-12-12

With more and more people interested in how sustainable and socially responsible companies are, the comprehensibility of content on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become paramount. Producing easy-to-read business content – either by writing it from scratch or revising it – is a cognitively demanding undertaking, especially for second-language non-professional writers. Both formal training and sustained practice can help writers build expertise and, in turn, be considerate of their intended audience. In particular, research on the impact of training has usually yielded positive results when examining the texts produced following specific instruction. However, the extent to which training has a positive effect on the process of writing and revision is still under-researched, especially in second language. To address this gap, we report on an experimental study that examines the impact of reader-oriented training on the cognitive effort experienced by 47 second-language university students when revising CSR content. We adopted a pre-test post-test design, and we used keystroke logging and retrospective interviews to collect data on students' pausing behaviour, use of online sources, and strategies to approach the revision task. Our training seemed to reduce the cognitive effort linked with lexical choices. Furthermore, it provided some students with procedural knowledge on how to approach the revision task in a more efficient way. We also observed a general tendency to rewrite (rather than revise) CSR content despite the higher cognitive effort required by rewriting. We discuss implications for training, limitations, and future research avenues.

Die "hyggeligen" Dänen und die arroganten Deutschen - kommunikative Unterschiede als Konsequenz nationaler Stereotype?

Anne Marie Hulgaard — 2022-12-12

The “hyggelige” Danes and the arrogant Germans – Communicative Differences as a Consequence of National Stereotypes?

The aim of this article is to discuss why German students code switch between German and Danish in a more appropriate way than their Danish fellow students do. The data consist of approximately 230 emails written by 40 German and Danish students enrolled in the Cross-Border Study Programme at the University of Southern Denmark and Europa-Universität Flensburg. A reason for this difference in ability to switch code can be explained by the students’ stereotypes about their own group as auto stereotypes and about the others as hetero stereotypes. In general, Danish auto stereotypes are very positive contrary to the negative hetero stereotypes of the Germans. Because of this, the Danish students seem to think that it is acceptable to use Danish communication structures even though they know that the chosen formulation will not be seen as appropriate German by their German professors.

Source First or Target First? Insight into the Order of Reading in Revision Using In-depth Interviews

Aurélien Riondel — 2022-12-12

While revision procedures have been studied in some detail in the literature on revision, the question of the order of reading during bilingual revision has hardly been investigated. This article explores this issue by analysing in-depth interviews conducted in Switzerland with translators in different professional contexts. It discusses the practices described in the interviews and analyses the reasons given by the participants for choosing their method. It shows that both orders of reading are well represented in the dataset: 10 participants read the source first during the bilingual check, 9 read the target first, and only 3 alternate between both orders. No pattern was found according to sector activity or languages, but trends emerge at the level of translation departments. The justifications provided by translators appear very similar: all participants who read the source first stated they seek to better spot discrepancies in meaning, whereas participants who read the target first indicated they want to avoid interferences between the languages or better appreciate the readability or correctness of the target language.

Standardising Fatherhood across Cultures

Agnes Marie Bamford — 2022-12-12

A current trend in multinational corporations (MNCs) is a strong focus on diversity management in order to attract and
retain talent. The present study investigates the linguistic manifestation and justification of a very recent company policy
intended to facilitate this trend, viz., global paternity leave. The study aims to contribute to the linguistic turn in
organisational studies. As a theoretical point of departure, Corporate Communication, and specifically links between
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Diversity Management communication are discussed. Concepts and tools from
text linguistics are then applied to investigate the communication strategies employed when introducing the new family
leave policy in four MNCs headquartered in the UK and Norway, respectively. The material consists of a set of texts on
global parental leave produced by the four companies. The linguistic analysis identifies similarities as well as differences
between the British and Norwegian companies in how the new global leave policy is presented. The findings also
demonstrate a tension between focussing on the CSR efforts gender equality and inclusion in the justification of the new
measure intended to support the MNCs’ diversity management efforts.

Encoding Memory through Multimodality in Modern-Day Memorial Museums

Grigor Ghazaryan — 2022-12-12

The article is devoted to the study of the use of technology in memorial museums, particularly in those related to geno-cide, with a goal to construct a theoretical framework that can be used to reflect on and analyze the use of technology in similar spaces. A multidisciplinary theoretical framework is assembled through Semiotics, Communication and Memory Studies, as well as Philosophy, in order to explain the benefits and dangers of implementing technology in memorial museums. Particularly, Peirce’s idea ofunlimited semiosis, Eco’s considerations about the multiplicity of meanings (“open text”), the existence of two narratives in memorial museums, Heidegger’s writings on technology (especially enframing and revealing) and Jakobson’s communication theory based on Buhler’s organon model are invoked with the aim of explicating the interplay between technology and memory. Proceeding inductively from the example of the Arme-nian Genocide Museum Institute (AGMI), the authors identify general dangers that should be kept in mind in the process of genocide memorialization.

How Do Vocational Students Perceive the Use of Telegram for their Online Reading Comprehension?

Dewi Nur Suci — 2022-12-12

The advancement of technology encourages English teachers to use online platforms and applications in their English teaching and learning process. There are many apps that can be employed, one of which is Telegram. This study investigates how students perceive the use of Telegram on their reading comprehension and the correlation between the perception and their reading comprehension. For this purpose, 104 students from an Indonesian vocational school from various majors completed an online questionnaire about the use of Telegram for learning English. Besides, a reading test was used to measure the students' reading comprehension. The results portray that the students across departments positively perceived the use of Telegram on their reading comprehension. Furthermore, this study reveals a weak correlation between how the students perceive the use of Telegram and their reading comprehension. It is signified by the correlation between the two variables of interest, .364, which is significant at the .000 level. It indicates that the student's perception and reading comprehension for this set of data were significant but had a weak relationship. This may be caused by the reading strategies instructions as the teacher did not provide guidance before the treatment. It yields the pedagogical implication that teachers should train their students to use reading strategies effectively for their online reading comprehension.

With a “Licence to Adapt”: Translation Shifts in Subsidiary Corporate Value Statements

Victoria Susanne Nydegger Schrøder — 2022-12-16

When organisations implement corporate values as a managerial tool, the Corporate Value Statement (CVS) is a central piece of corporate communication. Nevertheless, little research has been done on the linguistic aspect of the CVS in international settings. In this article, I study the case of Keolis, a French multinational corporation that empowers subsidiaries to translate and adapt the Group’s CVS to local business contexts, resulting in radically rewritten subsidiary versions. I propose a linguistic and discourse analytical approach to identify translation shifts between the headquarters’ CVS in English, and local versions in Denmark and in India. I also investigate which contextual and cultural factors may have contributed to these shifts. Findings suggest that subsidiaries use the value terms as vessels to be filled with corporate content of their choice. Contributing to a translatorial turn in international business and organisation studies, this paper illustrates how applied linguistics may inform management practice.

Comunicación especializada y divulgación en la red. Aproximaciones basadas en Corpus

Pedro A. Fuertes Olivera — 2022-12-12