Translating the culture of technical documents : some experimental evidence

The approach common in U.S. technical documents, especially the emphasis on user friendliness, is becoming the standard for international communication. In user manuals, industrial proposals, and business plans, that approach strikes a chord among audiences who speak English or other Anglo-Germanic languages. But people whose native language does not fall into that tradition may find the approach inappropriate. American-biased documents may need more than a simple language translation to accommodate such audiences. The documents need to be translated culturally as well. This chapter reports on two experiments conducted at the Eindhoven University of Technology to test techniques of cultural translation: one focused on the writers of such a text, the other on the readers.