[Air-L] Impact of translation of social software

[Daniel Jung]

Hi

I would need literature (in English, German, French, Scandinavian, 
Spanish) for a personal project:

The internationalization/localization/translation of internet sites and 
their functions (communities) must use some form of common ground 
(greatest common divisor) for the cultural background of their 
participants.

For example, if Facebook makes you choose "yes|maybe|no" as a predefined 
answer to a party invitation, and collects the answers in statistics, it 
implies (on behalf of the users who invite) that all invited users have 
the same notion of "maybe", and the same inclination to choose one 
option above the other, while this may differ across cultures, even if 
there are seemingly 1:1-translations of the words "yes|maybe|no".

There may be cultures whose languages don't handle the choices exactly 
as intended, English does, and there may be differences in wide spread 
English speaking population, e.g., Indian and American)

I want to look at what this kind of globalization does to the users and 
their culture, and the other way round: how different cultures (i.e., 
the programmers' knowledge about them) may impact the development of 
social software.

Any help in finding suitable literature (and other input) is highly 
appreciated. Thanks

- Daniel