The Whole of Japan is a Pure Invention? Minako O'Hagan School of Communications and Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand In this article, Minako O'Hagan outlines the evolution of quality control in Japan and examines quality issues affecting translation and localization in the past, present and future. She then puts a Japanese perspective on the quality requirements which Japan is allegedly imposing on its market suppliers. A Brief History of "Quality" in Japan The foundations of the Japanese quality system were established during the 1950s and 1960s. The quality movement dates back to 1946, when General MacArthur of the US Occupation Force was on his mission to reconstruct Japan, including reviving the communications equipment industry. Homer Sapasohn, appointed to spearhead this endeavor, established education for top Japanese executives on the management of quality. In the same year the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) was formed in the USA. In 1950, Sapasohn's successor W. Edwards Deming was commissioned to carry out a seminar in Japan on statistical quality control (SQC), on the basis of which the criteria for the prestigious Deming Prize was established. Deming's work was adopted by JUSE, the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers, and influenced a wide range of products being produced in Japan, including transistors, radios, cameras, binoculars and sewing machines. In 1954, Joseph M. Juran (also of the USA) established the concept of company-wide QC systems, which was adopted by JUSE, by building on the quality management at the factory floor and placing the emphasis on systems thinking. This was the move from SQC to total quality control (TQC), which introduced such concepts as QC circles and quality management principles. Kaoru Ishikawa of Japan elaborated TQC management with his now well-known "Ishikawa" diagram". Ishikawa devised his "cause-and-effect" diagram based on four common causes of quality dispersion which he found statistically, namely, "materials", "equipment", "processes" and "measurement". Ishikawa argued that variations in these affect product quality. Today, TQC is also known as "Kaizen" or "continuing improvement", and has become an integral part of many companies the world over. A recent American study (1) on the Japanese electronics industry confirms that "Japanese experts have advanced these concepts [by American experts] into peerless total quality management", and that as a result "quality and reliability are two attributes required for all Japanese products". In Search of TQC in Translation and Localization During the last few years the subject of quality has been raised repeatedly in the context of translation and localization. Why is the issue back again long after QC was supposedly taken for granted in most industrialized countries? It seems that the localization industry is contributing to highlighting the importance of translation and its quality. Until recently, the traditional translation industry has largely escaped the official QC net although quality has been discussed frequently enough. For example, despite the stringent quality-oriented approach by Japanese corporations, their English language product manuals often failed to match the high quality of the products themselves-in fact, they were long known to be baffling at best and outright incomprehensible at worst. The reasons for this apparent double standard are many and varied. For one thing, the translation industry has tended to invariably rely on heuristics-based, in-house QC, which often lost out to deadline demands, rush jobs and a lack of key resources (such as native-speaker checkers). In addition, unlike manufactured goods the nature of translation work makes defects difficult to detect. Many translated versions can be derived from a given sentence while the distinction between a good translation and a bad one can be a matter of subjective judgment. The delay in embracing official QC measures on the part of translation suppliers also seems to stem from a lack of appreciation of the importance of translation and its quality by the immediate customer. The translation component even today is often treated as an "afterthought" and allocated insufficient time and resources. The translation supplier is likely to be selected on the basis of price regardless of quality or QC measures used. In this environment, it is extremely difficult to enforce industry-wide QC systems to translation. In comparison with conventional translation work, today's localization often means larger projects (and therefore more money at stake) with a wider range of languages and more extensive use of technology, plus management of geographically dispersed production teams. Furthermore, in localization QC management, results are more tangible and linked directly to product sales figures, unlike in some traditional translation sectors. Consumers who may have lived with poorly translated instruction booklets for a home appliance may be less tolerant of poorly localized software. These conditions are driving clearly laid out industry-wide quality measures. The translation supplier is likely to be selected on the basis of price regardless of quality or QC measures used. In this environment, it is extremely difficult to enforce industry-wide QC systems to translation. Some of the recent quality movements for translation include a Dutch quality label, "Taalmerk" [language mark], created by the Netherlands Association of Translation Agencies (ATA) in March 1997 for domestic translation companies, and an Italian translation-quality standard code named UNI 10574 issued by the Italian quality assurance authority UNITER for translation and interpreting services in 1997 (2). These moves were in response to the existing ISO requirements, which were considered too onerous both in terms of cost and content to be applicable to most language services. For example, the ATA president points out that "the mass paperwork [required by ISO] could hinder an efficient production process. The demands of the Taalmerk are specifically directed at the situations of translation companies and deal with practical, specific situations such as selecting translators, revising translations and handling complaints" (3). Major impediments of ISO 9000 for translation services are the requirement to formalize and update business processes, and to fully document them in new job instructions (4). As a result, there are very few ISO 9000 certified translation/localization firms as yet anywhere in the world. One ISO certified American translation/localization company is quoted as saying that "as opposed to traditional manufacturing,...a language-services company is faced with the challenge of quantifying each step of a process in an environment of dissimilarities"(5). However, the company believes that ISO has made the production process more efficient and helped improve quality with stringent, well-documented and repeatable processes. Asked about the future, the firm responds that "while in most cases the ISO 9000 certification for a translation/localization vendor is not a requirement yet, it may become a de facto requirement soon." While the scenario with the ISO requirement may be unlikely in a short run, the need for proper QC standards is increasingly clear. Xenophobia Redux? US President Clinton is quoted to have said that when the Japanese say "yes" it means "no" and their "no" means "yes". This remark illustrates the vastness of the cultural and language gulf which exists between the two nations and is applicable to many other countries. Oscar Wilde once said that "the whole of Japan is a pure invention" (6), meaning that Japan is a product of (non Japanese) people's imagination. I identified well with this impression during my time at the New Zealand government translation office in the 1980s. When it came to Asian translations people often seemed to apply imaginary rules. For example, many clients considered handwritten output was sufficient for name cards, export brochures and signs while the same clients would never dream of giving the same treatment to their European markets. Then there were the opposite extremes who insisted on vertical writing for all Japanese output and wanted their English names written in Kanji characters. Today's clients have come a long way compared with these earlier examples, but the perception gap still exists. As quoted by Rowe (7), some customers "insist on making their own selections from a font catalog, with the result that they may choose a headline font more appropriate for a sushi-bar banner than for their high-tech literature". It seems that history is repeating itself. This is a somewhat similar path to the one trodden a few decades earlier by Japanese manufacturers; when translations into English were judged under a somewhat imaginary category of quality evaluation. The suspicion that allegedly stringent Japanese quality standards are imposed on foreign imports as a way to shut them out of the market perhaps needs case by case assessment. However, restrictive trade practices aside, proof of quality against different linguistic and cultural measures is a reality that localizers/translators ignore at their peril. With the tradition based on English as the lingua-franca of trade and translations into only a few European languages being the norm, entering into the Asian market undoubtedly gives the impression of going into deep water. Above all, it will mean commitment to understanding different rules by which to play the same game. But are the Japanese standards really that impossibly high? Or is this perception in part a reaction to something unknown? The progressively sophisticated communications environment leaves no excuse for a localizer or a translation company in any country to say that it cannot learn to match the quality required by the Japanese market. The above-mentioned American study (1) states: "The concept of certification and standards...breaks down when global competitiveness is at stake. Most recently, ISO 9000 certification has become a requirement for exports to Europe, and Japan has been forced to obtain ISO certification, not because it is a quality issue, but because it is a way of increasing market share. The Japanese companies provide some of the highest-quality products, typically using company product standards...rather than external standards....". This illustrates the point that "quality" is subject to different rules. Another example is the recent debate over Unicode (8)(9). Its proponents argue that it is the only way for the cohabitation of all languages in cyberspace. The opponents rebut by pointing out that the unification of CJK characters is a utilitarian solution at the expense of their users. As a major opponent of Unicode, Sakamura (10) sums up one aspect of the argument: "the decision to force language processing into a 16-bit fixed code was made only from the standpoint of what is easy for computers to handle, when the decisions should have been made on the basis of not tampering with people's language, which is their culture." One cannot help thinking that "quality" changes its meaning according to whose rules one is playing to. So What is the Solution? As reviewed at the beginning of this article, there is no question that the Japanese are quality conscious and that this has helped their products to succeed in the world market. With the progressive developments of the information infrastructure, translation and software localization is an increasingly important industry and it is inevitable that "quality" needs to be considered in a given context. As a promising sign, the Japanese market has already shown that localized products can surpass indigenous products. For example, Microsoft reportedly earns the highest portion of its localization revenues from Japanese products with total localization sales accounting for over 60% of its total revenue (11). The progressively sophisticated communications environment leaves no excuse for a localizer or a translation company in any country to say that it cannot learn to match the quality required by the Japanese market. Localization means that products exclusively serve the interest of a target market. I hope that the LISA Forum - Japan in Tokyo will assist its members to demystify some of the myths and provide the opportunity to learn what needs to be done to tackle this stubborn market. The reward will certainly make the effort worthwhile. Japan is not a pure invention but it does have its own, curious quality habits. References: (1) Pecht and Boulton (1995) "Quality Assurance and Reliability in the Japanese Electronics Industry". http://itri.loyala.edu/ep/c6s1.htm (2) Language International (1997) 9(2) p.6 (3) Language Today at: http://shop.logos.it/ language_today/translation/tl.html http://shop.logos.it/language_today/translation/standard.html (4) Muzui, L (1997) "Italians Clash Over Translation Standards" In Language International 9(3) p. 7 (5) "ISO Gains Ground Among Language Companies" In Language International (1997) 9(5) p. 7 (6) Iyer, P (1992) "What Oscar Wilde Knew About Japan" In Time May 25. p.64 (7) Rowe, T (1998) "Myths & Misconceptions" In Language International 10(1) p. 17. (8) Ito, H (1996) "Kanji bunka to Computer [Kanji Culture and the Computer]" Tokyo: Chuo Koron (9) Yoshimeki, H et al (1998) "Denno Bunka to Kanji no Yukue [Computer Culture and Its Consequences for Kanji]" Tokyo: Heibonsha (10) Sakamura, K (1996) "Multilingual Computing as a Global Communications Infrastructure" http://www.personal-media.co.jp/vs/mltp96/ keynote/keynote_e.html (11) Lieu, T (December, 1997) "Software Localization: The Art of Turning Japanese" Computing Japan. Minako O'Hagan School of Communications and Information Management Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand Minako.OHagan@vwu.ac.nz