Global Content Management – Challenges and Opportunities for Creating and Using Digital Translation Resources

In this paper the concepts of content management and cross-cultural communication are combined under the perspective of translation resources. Global content management becomes an integrative paradigm in which specialised translation is taking place. In a case study we discuss the Global Content Management strategy of the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna. Convergence of content management and cross-cultural communication Two different paradigms that have previously developed independently of each other have converged into a complex area of practical activities: cross-cultural communication has become an integral part of technical communication and business communication, and content management has become a process that is complementary to communication by focusing on its semantic level, i.e. its content. Specialised translation as a form of cross-cultural communication is a content-driven process, thus digital translation resources become a crucial element in content management that takes places in a globalised marketplace. Content management has emerged as a concept that builds upon information management and knowledge management with an additional focus on content products, such as databases, electronic encyclopedias, learning systems, etc. Due to globalised commerce and trade, such products are increasingly offered on multiple markets, therefore they have to be adapted from a cultural perspective, which also includes the linguistic viewpoint. We will have a closer look at the concept of content, its transcultural dimension, and the role translation resource management plays in this area. Reflections on concurrent trends Economic globalisation had been a re-current development during several phases in modern history and several industrial revolutions and has been one of the crucial driving forces in the development of modern engineering, in particular computer technology. Together with rapid advances in telecommunications it was the basis for building databases and global information access networks such as the Internet. Visualisation techniques and constantly increasing storage capacities led to multimedia applications. This increasingly powerful technology base has then been combined with terminology management practices in the form of termbases, with multilingual communication and translation requirements as well as with cultural adaptation strategies in the form of localisation methods. Language engineering applied to translation in the form of computer-assisted translation, translation memory systems, and machine translation, have recently been combined with localisation methods and terminology management for creating integrated workbenches. On the economic level, international trade and commerce have increasingly required crosscultural management and international marketing strategies tailored towards cultural conventions in local markets. This trend towards customisation of products has generated personalised products and services that are based on specific user profiles, customer satisfaction and quality management schemes. The emergence of information and knowledge management systems has been another key development in recent years. Computerisation and economic globalisation are the key drivers in a complex context of the information society, leading to interactive processes between linguistic and cultural diversity, professional communication needs in economic and industrial processes and technological developments. As a result, cross-cultural specialised communication and content management have emerged, both complex processes themselves, as dynamic and integrative action spaces in society.