UWTC Homepage | UW Homepage | Contact

Syllabus

Course Objectives | Class Materials | Assignments, Grading and Deadlines| Weekly Schedule and Readings

Instructor
Ulrike Irmler, M.A., 206 661 8148, irmler@u.washington.edu

Class Hours and Location (Winter Quarter 2009)
Wednesdays, 6:00-9:30 PM, Loew Hall 114

Office Hours
By appointment

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

Understand the essentials of cultural schemata and contrastive rhetoric

Be able to identify methodologies to target specific audiences and cultures

Be able to map various content and text types to appropriate translation strategies

Be able to articulate the uses and applications of translation technology and tools

Understand localization and market-relevance

Be able to interpret and apply international user research and recognize different requirements for international user experiences

Understand the fundamentals of cross-cultural management and teams

Class Materials

Course Packet (Part 1 and Part 2) purchased at Ave Copy center, 4141 University Ave. N.E.
Book: Hofstede, Geert: Cultures and Organizations: Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival (Revised and Expanded Edition, McGraw Hill, 2005)

Assignments, Grading and Deadlines

Assignment	Description	Weight	Due
Market study	Students will pick a target market (not US and not their native country) and conduct research on relevant market trends and conditions.	25%	Week 5
Critique	Students will write a critique of a multi-national company’s international web strategy.	15%	Week 7
Final research project	Students can choose between a traditional research paper on a topic of their choosing OR a report and analysis of an application of the material on a project of their choosing Individual and team projects will be accepted (contributions need to be clearly associated with individuals)	45%	Week 9
Oral presentation on research paper	10 minute presentation on students research topic. 5 minute question and answer session	15%	Weeks 8-10

Weekly Schedule and Readings

Week 1 - January 7

Course Introduction. Audience Segmentation. Research.

Wind, Yoram and Susan Douglas: “Some Issues in International Consumer Research.” European Journal of Marketing 8, 3. 2001.

Krull, Robert: “What Practicioners Need to Know to Evaluate Research.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 40, 3. 2007

Kotler, Philip and Gary Armstrong: Principals of Marketing. Chapter 7, p. 195-209.

Week 2 - January 14

Cultural Models. Cultural Schema. Contrastive Rhetoric.

Hofstede, Geert: Cultures and Organizations. Chapters 1, 3 and Appendix.

Gogan, Janis: “Intersecting Cultures and E-Commerce: A Case Study.”

Gould, Emilie W.: “Synthesizing the Literature on Cultural Values.”

Kaplan, Robert B.: “Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education.”

Wang, Junhua: “Toward A Critical Perspective of Culture: Contrast or Compare Rhetorics.”

Week 3 - January 21

Contrastive Rhetoric. Text Types. Translation Strategies.

Spyridakis, Jan and Waka Fukuoka: “The Effect of Inductively Versus Deductively Organized Text on American and Japanese Readers.”

Spyridakis, Jan, Waka Fukuoka and Yukiko Kojima: “Illustrations in User Manuals: Preference and Effectiveness with Japanese and American Readers.”

House, Juliane: “Translation Quality Assessment: Linguistic Description versus Social Evaluation.”

De Pedro, Raquel: “The Translatability of Texts: A Historical Overview”.

Potsus, Whitney Beth and Kaarina Kvaavik: “Is Your Document Translation Friendly”.

Pinto, Maria: “Quality Factors in Documentary Translation.”

Week 4 - January 28

Controlled Languages. Translation Technology and Tools. Machine Translation.

Huijsen, Willem-Olaf: “Controlled Language – An Introduction."

Spyridakis, Jan H, Heather Holmback and Serena K. Shubert: “Measuring the Translatability of Simplified English in Procedural Documents”.

De Lotbiniere, Max: “Safer Air Language Set for Long Haul.”

Rychtyckyj, Nestor: “Machine Translation for Manufacturing: A Case Study at Ford Motor Company.”

Altanero, Tim: “MT and TM”.

Guerberof, Ana: “Post-editing MT and TM: a Spanish Case”.

Iverson, Steve: "Working with Translation Memory."

Alan Melby: “What is Machine Translation? ”(Online) http://www.ttt.org/theory/mt4me/mthow.html

Week 5 - February 4

Software Localization

Kemper, Steve: “Localizing Websites and Software for Japan”.

Marshall, Gwyneth and Sjoert Ebben: “Localization Process: Globalizing Your Code and Localizing Your Site”.

Aykin, Nuray and Allen E. Milewski: “Practical Issues and Guidelines for International Information Display”.

Makarenko, Kateryna, Konstantin Nagorniy and Tkachuk, Nikolay: “Software Localization in Ukraine: Social-Cultural Issues and Technological Aspects.”

Irmler, Ulrike: “Localization: An Overview” (Online)

Week 6 - February 11

Market Relevance. Audience. Information Retrieval.

Lee, Leon Z.: “Creating Worldwide Brand Recognition: Lesson’s From Dell’s Online Global Branding and Internationalization Project”

Pfremmer, Robert: “Content Design Considerations for Localization E-Learning Projects”

Honold, Pia: “Learning How to Use A Cellular Phone: Comparison Between German and Chinese Users”

Thayer, Alexander and Beth E. Kolko: “The Process of Blending for the Global Games Market”

Muddyman, Gary: “Optimizing a Localizer’s Website: SEO challenges”

Halpern, Jack: “Issues in Japanese Information Retrieval”

Chung, Wingyan: “Web Searching in a Multilingual World”

Week 7 - February 18

Technical Communities. Social Networking.

Chapman, Christopher N. and Michal Lahav: “International Ethnographic Observation of Social Networking Sites”

Choi, Jaz Hee-jeong: “The City of Connections: Urban Social Networking in Seoul”

Andrews, Dorine C.: “Audience-Specific Online Community Design”

Wang, Yang and Mainwaring, Scott D.: “’Human-Currency Interaction’: Learning from Virtual Currency Use in China”

Jones, Cameron M., Dinesh Rathi and Michael B. Twidale : “Wikifying your Interface: Facilitating Community-Based Interface Translation”

Week 8 - February 25

Desiging for International Users. Student Presentations.

Chapman, Christopher N. and Michal Lahav: “International Ethnographic Observation of Social Networking Sites".

Choi, Jaz Hee-jeong: “The City of Connections: Urban Social Networking in Seoul”

Andrews, Dorine C.: “Audience-Specific Online Community Design”

Wang, Yang and Mainwaring, Scott D.: “’Human-Currency Interaction’: Learning from Virtual Currency Use in China”

Jones, Cameron M., Dinesh Rathi and Michael B. Twidale : “Wikifying your Interface: Facilitating Community-Based Interface Translation”

Week 9 - March 4

Cross-Cultural Teams. Distributed Teams. Student Presentations.

Hofstede, Geert: Cultures and Organizations. Chapters 5, 6 and 9

Cutler, Gale: “Mike Leads His First Virtual Team”

Li, Mingsheng: “When In China…”

Coggin, William O. and Betty F.: “So You Want to Work in China”

Cochece David, Daniel and Nancy M. Scaffidi: “Leading Virtual Teams”

McAdams, Jennifer: “Casting Call”

Krishna, S., Sundeep Sahay and Geoff Walsham: “Managing Cross-Cultural Issues in Global Software Outsourcing”

Week 10 - March 11

Student Presentations. Career Options. Course Wrap-Up.

Department Policies: Please read Department of Technical Communication (TC) policies for students registered in TC courses regarding student rights, plagiarism, and the TC human subjects pool.
Student rights: http://intranet.uwtc.washington.edu/academicresources/studentrights.php.
Plagiarism: http://intranet.uwtc.washington.edu/academicresources/plagiarismpolicy.php .
TC Human Subjects Pool: http://www.uwtc.washington.edu/navresearch/human_subjects_participants. Students registered in TC courses are part of the TC Human Subjects Pool, which means that they may be asked to participate in research studies. Because participation in research studies is voluntary, students who do not wish to participate will be offered an alternative assignment.