Localization or Localisation? 2 Big Reasons You Need It

Great help in business expansion

You may be asking why on earth you need something that you really didn’t even know about until a few minutes ago. There is more than one answer to this very good question.

No matter of the way you’re writing it, localization or localisation could be giving you substantial benefits.

1. 1. 1. Only 7% of communication is verbal.
         Studies show that 93% of communication is transferred through voice tone and facial expressions! This makes the translation of your words that much more important.

         If your words are only half as effective because of poor translation or lack of context, your communication will go down to a mere 3.5%. No business can afford this. Also, since tones and levels of humor, sarcasm, and irony are all different in different cultures, you need localization or localisation services to help you come across correctly.

      2. Different Cultures Have Different Levels of Context.
         Anthropologist Edward Hall identified different cultures on a scale of high context and low context.

         A high context culture generally has many unspoken pieces of information that are assumed to be known or “implicit.” Low context cultures tend to be more “explicit” and assume in some cases that next to nothing has been previously communicated, so attempt to fully explain things. For example, a store where the owner lives in the apartment above may not have any sign on it, but the door is locked. People in the community know they can ring the bell and ask for the owner to open the store when they need to buy something. A low-context culture would think it absolutely necessary to have a sign on the door explaining that someone should ring the doorbell. A person in a high context culture might ring the bell to ask when the store is open and get the owner that way. The person from a low-context culture will wonder why the store is “closed” during normal business hours.

You can see that these differences can lead to great frustration between people of different cultures, while localization or localisation could help eradicate that.