AngularJS directive $destroy

The i18n example you provided would work if you only ever used it once.

I don’t think you should be doing the event binding inside the compile function. You can do it inside the link function instead:

angular.directive('i18n', ['$rootScope', 'LocaleService', function($rootScope, LocaleService) {
  return {
    restrict: 'EAC',
    link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
      var cleanup;
      var originalText = element.text();
      element.text(LocaleService.getTranslation(originalText, attrs.locale));
      cleanup = $rootScope.$on('locale-changed', function(locale) {
        element.text(LocaleService.getTranslation(originalText, attrs.locale || locale));
      });
      scope.$on('$destroy', function() {
        console.log("destroy");
        cleanup();
      });
    }
  };
}]);

Alternatively, you could bind the event on the child scope itself, and use $broadcast on the $rootScope to trigger it. That way the event will automatically be garbage collected when the scope is destroyed:

angular.directive('i18n', ['$rootScope', 'LocaleService', function($rootScope, LocaleService) {
  return {
    restrict: 'EAC',
    link: function(scope, element, attrs) {
      var originalText = element.text();
      setElText();
      function setElText(locale){
        element.text(LocaleService.getTranslation(originalText, attrs.locale || locale));
      }
      scope.$on('locale-changed', setElText);
    }
  };
}]);

$rootScope.$broadcast('locale-change', 'en-AU');