Translation, case-by-case

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Website Localization: Comparison of the Translation Strategies in Mexico and the U.S.

Webpages of The North Face Company

An original research work by Erica Jiang, Valeria Diaz, Anacelia Rosales, Danelly Lopez, Nereyda Sanchez

TRST 301

Introduction

Translation is quickly becoming a useful tool in people’s everyday lives. It is inevitable

to come across something that is communicated from one language to another. In this case, it can

be seen most prominently through website localization within global Ecommerce. Amidst a time

where technology has become remarkably advanced, big and small businesses are shifting their

focus more towards internet business. Especially this year (2021), due to the pandemic, every business had to be shut down and everyone was mandated to stay home. However, online businesses were flourishing since that is one of the few things that everyone could do at home. When discussing online businesses and their websites, it is important for these big and small businesses to adapt their products to specific locales when marketing to other countries. Every country is different and has different cultural values, different systems of measurements, and different currency structures.

In this research, we take a look at a large American corporation that sells outdoor

recreation products and also produces outdoor apparel, footwear, and equipment — The North

Face company. This brand is known worldwide and has been around for more than 50 years

selling to consumers that are passionate about outdoor activities and who seek out new

adventures. In terms of their business, their online marketplace is a profitable platform to their

business considering their global rank against all other brands. Being such a large and globalized

industry, their online website needs to be specifically catered to each target market in order to

successfully sell their products. In this case, it asks the question, what specific translation strategies does the localizer use when localizing an online business website from the source text

to the target culture? The objective is to successfully identify those strategies used on The North

Face company’s website to localize from the web page’s source language to the target language’s

page. In this research, the U.S. and Mexico North Face webpages were examined to determine

the translation approaches and compare particular features that are different between the two

countries.

Literature Reviews

When we began searching for literature we had to keep in mind that the research we were

trying to find was specific to website localization and the strategies that are used during the

process of localizing from one language and culture to another. In our first article, Peter Sandrini

(2005) analyzes the concept of website localization within translation studies and what strategies

to apply when localizing a website. He states that when localizing a website the localizer will not

only be translating the text, but adapting everything on the website to a certain locale. “A locale

refers to a group of people who share a language, a writing system and other properties… This

could be a region, a country or just a language community” (Sandrini, 2005, p. 132). He further

maintains that this can be done by applying the Skopos theory since the localizer has to remember the function that the website is trying to convey in the target language and culture as

defined by the client since s/he is the one expanding her/his business, but also keeping the target

audience in mind. This is important for our analysis of the U.S. and Mexico webpages of The

North Face since we observed that the webpage for the Mexico site has been adapted accordingly to the locale as they have added a page that provides routes for customers to explore in different Mexican cities.

Furthermore, in our second article Anthony Pym (2009) goes more in-depth and explains

the complex process that is website localization since it requires for the localizer to be attentive

to a list of items that need to be modified from one language and culture to another. Like in our

first article, Pym also mentions the importance of adaptation, but believes that “equivalence

strategies become far more common than anything approaching adaptation” (Pym, 2009).

According to Pym, the localizer will have to find the equivalences of date and time formats,

currency formats, number formats such as the decimal separator and thousand separator, units of

measure, etc. (2009). Although in our first article we learned the importance of adaptation

and the Skopos theory, in this article we see that localizers have to be aware that certain items

need to be localized by finding their equivalences. This helps our analysis because while

comparing both the U.S. and Mexico webpages, we observed that the size charts, currency, and

number formats were changed using this strategy.

Lastly, our final source is a book by Miguel A. Jiménez-Crespo and we focused on two

sections that had to do with web localization, localization levels, and cultural adaptation. In these

sections the author expresses the importance of understanding culture and cultural adaptations

while localizing websites since it is a target oriented approach. According to Jiménez-Crespo,

“Scholars have indicated that the goal of the cultural adaptation is not to ‘mislead’ the user into

believing that the website is a local production, but rather, to perceive that the company is

conscious and respectful of the receiving culture” (2013, p. 32). Now, he goes on to explain that

although scholars advocate for fully culturally adapted websites, most businesses do not opt for

total immersion in the target locale (Jiménez-Crespo, 2013). During our comparison of the U.S.

and Mexico webpages we did observe that even though oblique strategies have been used

(adaptation and equivalence), there are a few instances where the localizer chose to use direct

strategies such as borrowing.

Research Objectives & Rationale of Study

Website localization promotes international interchange between consumers and companies. The way it is done, is by integrating relevant elements in websites’ translations and media, to adapt it for a better customer experience for the target market. This can be done by adapting the website and adding or changing elements such as the target market’s currency, cultural elements such as pictures and phrases, adapting the legal aspects of websites to

a country, etc. This is again, to provide a relevant experience to the target audiences/consumers,

and motivates them to interact with platforms to consume advertised products.

As stated in the introduction, the paramount research objective of this study is to identify

and to analyze the localization strategies found in The North Face website; particularly, in the

Mexico and U.S. page. The intention is to achieve a better understanding on how different

strategies are utilized to promote Ecommerce, just as well as to gain more knowledge on how

these strategies differ to cater the two selected markets (U.S. vs Mexico). The ancillary

objectives of the study are to briefly examine how translation of text and media in localization

may provide a better customer experience, and how this may lead to greater customer relations

and loyalty.

This evaluation is relevant to the translation field, as translation is compulsory for

localization to take place, and therefore, to target consumers internationally. With this in mind,

the acquisition of knowledge of localization through the translation perspective is imperative for the effective development of websites that are oriented to international trade. This objective is

relevant for not only this study, but also the general translation and marketing communities, as

“the lack of a systematized transparent translation procedure can lead to ineffective advertising

strategies" (Nauert, 2007).

Methodology

The research performed focuses on analyzing how the North Face website utilizes

localization strategies to differentiate the needs of their consumers in the United States vs.

Mexico. The research will be approached through observations in which we will identify the

localized features and their purpose on both aspects of the websites. The study will compare

factors like currency, language, and size charts in order to demonstrate how they are localized in

accordance with the country that customers are shopping from. This analysis will also

distinguish how these elements are confined accordingly to either United States or Mexico

customers in the most efficient ways.

Based on this study, we predict that oblique strategies such as adaptation and equivalence

are more effective when applying localization than direct strategies, because a website can't be

fully understood by the TC, if it's not adapted culturally. Localizing the products and utilizing a

number of strategies to make the website more comprehensive will concur with the target culture

and will attract more consumers to buy their items. Customers are more likely to purchase The

North Face gear if the website is localized. This is due to the intention of persuading any

customer and their background by culturizing a website.

The findings of this evaluation might suggest that the use of specific translation strategies to

localize certain images and descriptions like pricing, size, etc., prompts consumers to shop their

products.

The approach to this research was, specifically, to investigate and explore what

translation strategies were used to localize websites in reference to images and descriptions, such as prices, size charts, etc. within the North Face website in the U.S. and Mexico webpages. The type of data used to achieve this aim was qualitative, collected from both, primary and secondary resources, as well as gathering data from the original website.

We compared both North Face webpages by contrasting specific coupled pairs. For example, we compared the type of currency used in each page, in this case, the U.S. webpage used dollars, but the Mexico webpage used pesos and these differentiations facilitated the target people linguistically and culturally. According to Peter Sandrini people "want to read the web page in their own language, and expect clear and understandable information and not be culturally offended by language, images, colors, and so on" (2005, p.133), so we analyzed the client's principal goal, which is to understand the website as a whole.

This is why we observed that the most important aspects in this observation were the causes and

effects that descriptions and images gave people to make them use the website, therefore, we

focused on providing an overview of how these strategies (which include adaptation and equivalence) might induce people to buy these products.

Findings

Through our first comparison, based on the localization of the NorthFace website, we

observed the strategies the localizers used to adapt the web page according to their clientele. This

is in line with our first hypothesis, based on the idea that using those specific translation

strategies to localize certain images and descriptions — price, size, etc., gives more people the

incentive to shop their products. We found that the use of oblique translation allowed for the

adaptation of the site. The NorthFace localizers used the strategy of adaptation to meet the needs

according to the American to the Mexican culture. The website’s Spanish text was not translated

word for word from English, but instead replaced with one suited to the culture of the target

language. Conversely, our second comparison went into detail about those changes made within

both websites. Based on the specific it was observed that language, currency, and sizing charts

were altered (shifted) to assist the customers. This is in line with our hypothesis, based on the idea that these conversions are necessary based on the locations the customers are shopping from.

Localization was used to accommodate cultural differences.

Discussion

In the first finding, it was recognized that localizers used the adaptation strategy within

the oblique translation in order to shift between the two languages. The North Face website

adapted from the features of the American webpage into the culture of the Mexico webpage.

This procedure can be seen throughout the entire Mexico webpage. There are some things in English that do not hold the same relevance or meaning as it does in the Spanish language,

therefore utilizing the method of adaptation allows for the localizer to adjust certain things so

that it corresponds to the target culture. It is important that this approach is used because the goal

of their business is to sell their products, so, the localizer must find a way to accurately depict the

same relevance of a product in order to market to the designated consumers. The localizers must

do this so that they can avoid running into issues of inaccuracy, where they can be caught

incorrectly presenting a product from the source text which can be seen as deceptive marketing

and resulting in a bad name to their brand. When localizing, it is ideal for the translator to keep

the perspective of the buyer in mind. What is meant by this is, to understand the locale of where

the consumers are from. By doing so, it creates a sense of familiarity for the consumer of the

target culture to easily understand the products that are being sold.

In the second finding, it was observed that specific features including currency/banking

systems, measurement systems and the language itself was modified in order to accommodate

the target culture. In accordance with Peter Sandrini, “localization today is used in conjunction

with the terms internationalization, which means the preparation of a product to make it suitable

for efficient localization” (Sandrini, 2005). This is accurately in line with how the features of the

products are internationalized in a way that becomes suitable for the intended culture. The

modification of currency, sizing, and payment methods are imperative but can be easily

overlooked, because different countries have different sets of measurements and conversions.

The localizers need to understand these distinctive systems regardless of how different they are,

so that the products are depicted correctly from the source text. For example, in terms of sizing

conversions, it can be regarded that in the U.S. North Face webpage the women’s Ultra Fastpack

shoe size 6 is equivalent to the same shoe in a size 23 on the Mexico North Face webpage. As it

can be seen, there is a large difference between these shoe sizes. Therefore, it is important that

the localizer does not miss these minute features because recognizing these conversions from the

source to the target culture’s own currency and measurement systems gives a better grasp to the

consumer in terms of how they interpret the brand’s globalization and the dependability of their

products.

Implication of Study

After testing and discussing our prediction that Oblique strategies are used over Direct

strategies when localizing, we confirmed that our prediction was supported since, as it

was said before, adaptation and equivalence were used in the Mexico webpage through the

“Encuentra tu ruta” link, currency, size charts, etc. In fact, we have found that other strategies

were used within the same websites, for example Addition and Omission, since in the Mexico

webpage the localizer didn’t add certain things such as student and military discounts, VIP

passes and gift cards, but instead they omitted them completely. Moreover, we believed that our

findings are applicable to the Translation Market overall because when localizing an

international website, translators should opt for approaches such as adaptation and equivalence,

considering that we proved that those strategies were the best option when structuring a website

to fulfill the target locals. As claimed by Sandrini, “website localization poses new challenges to

translators and translation studies'' (2005, p.137), therefore, people in the translation field should

focus primarily on adopting such strategies for future web localization projects.

Suggestion to Study and Conclusion

As Ecommerce evolves, it is important to study the existing localization and translation

strategies, and to develop them to better cater target audiences. Other ideas that we exhort the

academia and individuals in the translation field to develop in future research, are oriented

towards how to better cater the target audiences, to create content that is relevant for them and to

promote interaction with the promoted web pages. Among these recommendations, we propose

future research to refine current strategies, and to identify how these can be used to develop

greater customer relations. These potential findings may compliment this research on

localization, as customer experience is one of the most important goals of translation in the

localization and marketing contexts.

An additional potential concept to develop is to deeply study specific cultural items that

may grab the attention of the Mexican culture, for instance, and to utilize this information to

learn how to use the specific cultural items without expropriating them. The exploration of these

concepts may be useful to promote customer engagement and to maintain boundaries that reflect

respect across-cultures. In addition, this recommendation is useful for translators and brands to

better develop future content and strategies.

To conclude, there is one last concept that we exhort to explore in future research, and it is solely related to word borrowing on the North Face Website. One of the findings in the evaluation of the Spanish-Mexico web page is that some English words and phrases in The North Face are not translated into Spanish. Examples of this are the following “sleeping bag”, “tops,” and “never stop hiking.” We do not clearly know how to interpret the cause of similar translation choices, and we propose a study that evaluates why the brand chose to not translate these terms and phrases, since there are valid, applicable translations in the target language.