Abstract

The digital revolution in the twentieth century has had a profound impact on the professional world of translation, and by extension, on Translation and Interpreting studies. Landmarks such as the emergence of the Internet in the 1970s, personal computing in the 1980s, and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, have resulted in a dramatic change from a world of printed texts to a digital paradigm. Each day, vast amounts of digital texts are produced, distributed, localized or accessed by end users via computers, smartphones, tablets or digital devices. For those living in non-English speaking contexts, these digital devices often contain localized software products, web browsers, apps or user interfaces. The Internet continues to permeate everyday lives. In Spain, Internet access is available to 76.9% of the population, while the penetration rate of the Internet in Latin America is 68%; in Central America it is 53% (InternetWorld Stats 2017). Nevertheless, in some countries such as Costa Rica, the Internet reaches as much as 86.8% of its citizens. In addition, Spanish is currently the third language with the most users in the Internet behind English and Chinese (InternetWorldStats 2017). In this context, consumption of web content translated into Spanish and their associated translation processes will continue to increase.