Introduction to Digital Translation: International Journal of Translation and Localization

Abstract

This editorial provides a background to the new journal Digital Translation: International Journal of Translation and Localization (DigiTrans) which has evolved from the Journal of Internationalization and Localization (JIAL). DigiTrans aims to be open to the widening scope of research avenues in translation studies (TS) aligned with the current rapid cycle of technological advances. Some of the resulting changes look set to reframe translation and localization as we further substantiate in this introduction. The new title for the journal solidifies the focus on the interconnection between translation and the digital world, of which localization was among the early embodiments.Software developers recognised the need to adapt software for general consumers when international mass markets opened up for personal computers in the 1980s, in contrast to the limited market in the previous era of the mainframe computer (Dunne 2014, 148). From the pioneering days of the early 1980s, multilanguage vendors began to form in the mid-1980s, offering localization services, and thereby paving the digital pathway for large-scale language services (Esselink 2000, 5). By the end of the decade localization became "a veritable industry unto itself " (Dunne 2014, 149) with the establishment of the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) in 1990. Localization began with computer software (Esselink 1998), then websites (Esselink 2000), followed by apps (Roturier 2015) and digital objects and platforms (Foralon 2020), enabling them in different locales to serve users across regions. Although closely related to the computer