How we view words
on the web
Writing for international audiences
According to a Nua analysis, at the end of the year 2000 414 million people had internet access. By 2005 this figure is expected to triple to 1.17 billion, largely from growth in the developing world. This is almost one in every six people on the planet.
A large number of these extra people will be reading internet text on next generation mobile phones, with much smaller screens than computers.
Many target audiences will speak English but not as their first language. Websites therefore need either to be translated or written in such a way that people who are less proficient in English can easily make sense of them.
When structuring text for an international audience, there are two main considerations. First, to enable readers to understand the literal wording of your communication. And second, to be aware of cultural differences that are relevant to interpreting meaning.
Very often, as Whorf illustrated, the two are interlinked. So, unless your site is quite bland, knowledge of the local culture can be essential.
One of the main problems non-native speakers have is interpreting metaphors, slang and idioms when the combined words have a different meaning from the individual words. For example, 'falling market', 'bad debts', 'backhander'.
Unfortunately, metaphors and idioms are so well built into our language that often we don't know we're using them. Frequently they are linked to concepts in our culture that are not necessarily shared by the target audience.
Take, for example, the Western world's value that 'time is money'. This has given rise to numerous related metaphors, such as 'buy time', 'waste time', 'spend time', 'invest time', 'afford time', 'worthwhile', etc.
Writing in 1940, Whorf commented on plain English. 'I can sympathize with those who say, "Put it into plain, simple English" … but to restrict thinking to the patterns merely of English is to lose a power of thought. … We handle even our plain English with much greater effect if we direct it from the vantage point of a multilingual awareness.'
Next: Web influence on print
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