Role of Translation in F-Commerce (Facebook Commerce)
Ms.Latika R.Chawda
Department of Translation Technology,
School of Translation & Interpretation,
Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha,
Maharashtra [INDIA] - 442005
Email: latikachawda09@gmail.com
Tel.: +917620613859,+918624854728
School of Translation & Interpretation,
Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha,
Maharashtra [INDIA] - 442005
Email: latikachawda09@gmail.com
Tel.: +917620613859,+918624854728
Translation has helped knit
India together as a nation throughout her history. Ideas and concepts like
‘Indian literature’, ‘Indian culture’, ‘Indian philosophy’ and ‘Indian knowledge
systems’ would have been impossible in the absence of translations with their
natural integrationist mission. F-commerce
is increasingly generating buzz in the social media and social technology
market. Growing upon the people’s social graph, Facebook is suddenly emerging
not only as a place to connect and share interesting stuff with people but also
as a tool for commerce for brands and customers. The world’s biggest brands are
selling on Facebook today.
In the Same way the term “F-Commerce” (Facebook Commerce) needs to be brought
in Hindi Language with the help of Translation and especially Corpus-based
Translation. The commerce done through Facebook needs to get recorded in the
form of Corpus which is great boon for future studies in the context of
language and its specific domain in which they are created.
The principal object of this paper is to highlight the
importance of Translation in Corpus building, Language studies, Knowledge
Resource building in specific domain through corpus building from Facebook.
Introduction
We
are living in an age of translations and the avenues for knowledge resource
building are constantly expanding. Translation today is not confined to only
transferring a message from one language into another, but it has also covered
the different worlds. Amongst all of them, one such social media is Facebook. According
to one of the online statistics, India is second largest market for Facebook
after America whereas for Twitter India is sixth largest market.
In the case of social
networking site Facebook, the need for translation is immense, where there are load
of websites and companies on Facebook dealing in various Indian goods,
handicrafts and Indian antiques famous all over the world. Though the company
belongs to India, all the Facebook content along with News Feed and comments
etc. related to the products and services provided by them is presented in
English language. And hence, there arises the urgent need to translate the content
in Facebook regarding those websites or
companies in Facebook dealing in Indian goods, handicrafts and Indian antiques.
Facebook Commerce
Up until very recently,
Facebook was a social network in which friends met in their own communities and
kept each other updated about their activities. That has now changed. More and
more brands are establishing a presence on Facebook. According to Compete.com,
it is currently the second most popular website in the world (behind Google) in
terms of unique visitors, and according to ComScore, the most popular social
network overall.Many
companies are now confronted by one such challenge, because something is
heading their way which could permanently change conventional online retailing.
Facebook Commerce has got underway and
it is becoming an effective marketing tool with which products will soon be
able to be sold extremely successfully.
The craftsmen use
different media to express their originality and, as with any social media
tool, the demand for our Indian goods in foreign can be known through Facebook,
as we can find loads of comments, views and Likes by Facebook users directly. Indian Businesses
have an opportunity to use Facebook to expand their online footprint and
directly engage with customers and prospects in India and abroad.
Role of Translation
Translation also plays a role in extending the scope of
language and reframing the boundaries of the sayable. New terms and coinages on
Facebook necessitated by translation create new vocabulary and contribute to
greater expressibility. Translating content, News Feed and all comments etc. of
all those Indian Businesses’ pages on Facebook, is an invaluable source of
knowledge about unfamiliar languages, indigenous cultures and experiences, and
is immensely useful for gaining an understanding of choices, likes and
dislikes, demand for Indian craft goods and Handicrafts in European societies
and non-European countries as well. They should have comprehensive product literature
and data sheets professionally translated into Hindi.
This is in turn, proves
to be useful in terms of Language studies, Translation studies and corpus
building. Moreover, this is also helpful further to boost Indian businesses
abroad.
According to one of the
report of Indian Government on “Indian Handicrafts Industry” in 1998-99
presents the following facts, which can be overcome through translation and
corpus building :
opportunities
:
1.Use
of f-commerce in direct marketing.
2.Rising
appreciation for handicrafts by consumers in the developed countries
3.Widespread
novelty seeking
Weaknesses
:
1.
Lack of adequate infrastructure and communication facilities.
2.
Unawareness of international standards by many players in the market
Translation is no longer just the
process of translating words, but has evolved into the transformation of
meaning and intentions. Here some points have been listed relating to
importance of translation in Facebook Commerce.
1. Vital
for Indian firms, Fashion Houses, Artisans and Artists
The womens’ clothing, Handicraft, traditional goods and antiques produced in India are most
liked and has great demand in foreign countries. Hence, for Indian firms,
Fashion Houses or Industries producing Indian Handicrafts and antiques to know
views of foreigners about the same is important. But, almost all the Indian firms
on Facebook dealing in such goods have their content written in English language, which is sometimes
un-understandable by artists and artisans in India who are mostly illiterate. There
may be artisans who often don’t afford to see the review of their work through
social networking sites. In this situation, Translation proves to be most
important which helps them know the facts and review of their work, which in
turn will help them improve their quality of work too.
2. Earn
Foreign Exchange for our Country
Through the comments, likes by foreigners,
contents and virtual selling stores on Facebook for Indian goods, fashion
accessories etc. translated in Hindi and their collection in the form of corpus
will help them grow their business globally and extend their market reach up to
different countries all over the world and
eventually earn foreign exchange for our country.
3. Linguists
and Translators
This will not only help linguists and translators to know the language
but various various aspects of it used
in domain of Facebook commerce.
4. Cultural
Interchange
The corpus, especially parallel
corpus with language pair of English-Hindi,
will help know the culture abroad in terms of fashion, likings, demand of
people there, which can generate income in terms of fusion items produced as a
result of cultural interchange.
5. To
boost Indian Business abroad
The fact is
known that sometimes some of the Indian articles are not liked by the
foreigners in fullest rather they do like to have some change in it and have
some kind of variation in the same to get it fine tuned to their choice. e.g.
companies like ‘Nike’ are transforming manufacturing by letting in shoppers
into their production arena to design their own shoes and ModCloth is stocking
items based on votes cast by users. It’s fair to say that everything is now
social, and social commerce is the main part of the puzzle. Hence, such
knowledge resource from corpus on Facebook will help Indian Businesses to know
about where and when to bring changes in their products.
Conclusion
In the upcoming years, Facebook Commerce will become more
and more ubiquitous. This will continue to replace traditional online
marketing. It would be beneficial for companies to develop partnerships with
social media sites to engage social communities with their products. Hence, there
is a hope that Facebook in conjunction with Translation and corpus building
mill emerge as an integral part of Language studies and Translation studies.
Recent News of Facebook’s and Twitter’s own terms which includes some hundreds
of words (e.g. bestie and shopaholic) in
all getting entries in Oxford Dictionary supports this hope of mine especially.[2]
Ultimately, Translating, building
and developing corpus in various domains on Facebook will boil down to the
advantages stated above in this paper.
References :
5.
Ai_T-Commerce_Report_2012.pdf
6.
E-book
on net on “Facebook Commerce” by authors Christian Kohlhase, Enrico Poege, Jorg Jelden,
Katharina Michalski, Mechthild Broens, Tim Keller
7.
Times
of India, Mumbai, 19th March, 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment