oa The evaluation of pragmatic and functionalist aspects in localization: towards a holistic approach to Quality Assurance

Current localization QA models are based on componential error-based approaches to quality evaluation. However, as it is more complex to objectively measure pragmatic issues than language or functionality problems, the communicative-pragmatic adequacy of the target text is normally ignored while assuring that a text "look[s] like it has been developed in-country" (LISA, 2004, p. 11). Consequently, most QA models do not incorporate a category for this type of issue. This paper presents a critical review of the notion of quality in localization and its implications in current QA practices from a functionalist perspective (Nord, 1997). The main goal is to set the foundation for an evaluation process that can account for functionalist and pragmatic inadequacies through the use of localization evaluation corpora. The main issues and applications are illustrated through examples extracted from the 40,000 webpage Spanish Web Evaluation Corpus compiled by the author (Jiménez-Crespo, 2008a).

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