Software-Mediated Public Health Information Localization as Social Justice Work

Abstract

Using an autoethnographic approach, I discuss lessons from my role in a software-mediated localization of health information. I argue that the universalization of localization software disregards the uniqueness of languages involved in this project. The software did not recognize idiosyncratic sound sequences and syllable structure of tonal languages like Ewe—a West African language. I suggest some ways that global designers of localization software —and technical communicators in general—could redress the challenges of power in multilingual meaning-making by seeing their work as part of a vigilant public intellectual practice that must be liquid, iterative, and regenerative.