Game localisation as software-mediated cultural experience: Shedding light on the changing role of translation in intercultural communication in the digital age

Multilingua ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Minako O’Hagan
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Target Market ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Cross Lingual

AbstractIn this rapidly technologising age translation practice has been undergoing formidable changes with the implication that there is a need to expand the disciplinary scope of translation studies. Taking the case of game localisation this article problematises the role of translation as intercultural communication by focusing on cultural elements of video games. Game localisation evolved in response to the game industry’s need to distribute game software in territories other than the country of origin whereby adjusting games technically, linguistically and culturally to suit the requirements of the target market. Despite the importance of this cross-lingual and cross-cultural operation for the industry’s success in the global market, game localisation remains an underreported area of research in translation studies. A critical analysis of game localisation as generating software-mediated cultural experiences reveals intercultural communication issues due to the nature of modern digital games as technological and cultural artefacts. By combining translation studies perspectives and the theoretical framework of critical theory of technology, the author argues that game localisation is eliciting something new about the role of translation in forging intercultural communication in the digital age.

scholarly journals From Translation Studies and audiovisual translation to media accessibility

Target ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aline Remael ◽  
Nina Reviers ◽  
Reinhild Vandekerckhove
Keyword(s):  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Audio Description ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The One

Abstract Recent developments in Translation Studies and translation practice have not only led to a profusion of approaches, but also to the development of new text forms and translation modes. Media Accessibility, particularly audio description (AD) and subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH), is an example of such a ‘new’ mode. SDH has been evolving quickly in recent decades and new developments such as interlingual SDH and live subtitling with speech recognition bring it closer to established forms of translation and interpreting. On the one hand, interlingual SDH reintroduces Jakobson’s (1959) ‘translation proper’ while the use of speech recognition has led to the creation of a hybrid form that has affinities with both subtitling and interpreting. Audio description, for its part, cannot even be fitted into Jakobson’s ‘intersemiotic translation’ model since it involves translation from images into words. Research into AD is especially interesting since it rallies methods from adjacent disciplines, much in the same way that Holmes ([1972] 1988) described TS when it was a fledgling discipline. In 2008, Braun set out a research agenda for AD and the wealth of topics and research approaches dealt with in her article illustrate the immense complexity of this field and the work still to be done. Although AD and SDH research have developed at different paces and are concerned with different topics, converging trends do appear. Particularly the role of technology and the concept of multimodality seem to be key issues. This article aims to give an overview of current research trends in both these areas. It illustrates the possibilities of technology-driven research – particularly popular in SDH and live-subtitling research – while at the same time underlining the value of individual, human-driven approaches, which are still the main ‘modus operandi’ in the younger discipline of AD where much basic research is still required.

Literary Translation and Digital Culture: The Transmedial Breakthrough of Poland’s The Witcher

2020 ◽  
pp. 205-226
Author(s):  
Paulina Drewniak
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Fan Fiction ◽  
High Literature ◽  
Digital Cultures

This chapter explores the international transmedial phenomenon, The Witcher, which began life as a 1986 Polish short story, ‘Wiedźmin’ (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapowski, but has become a paradigm of the intercultural communication facilitated by the digital age, including not only translated fiction, but also fan fiction and fan translations, a videogame trilogy and a film. The chapter highlights the new opportunities that digital cultures offer translated literatures, regardless of national origin, and the challenges they present to existing translation studies theory, dominated by the circulation of high literature in book form. It also notes, however, how even internationally co-owned genre franchises, old considerations of national cultural diplomacy, narrative and identity remain.

The Role of Corpora in Investigating the Linguistic Behaviour of Professional Translators

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Baker
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Individual Source ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour ◽  
The Impact

The Translational English Corpus held at the Centre for Translation Studies at UMIST is a computerised collection of authentic, published translations into English from a variety of source languages and by a wide range of professional translators. This resource provides the basis for investigating a range of issues related to the distinctive nature of translated text, the style of individual translators, the impact of individual source languages on the patterning of English, the impact of text type on translation strategies, and other issues of interest to both the translation scholar and the linguist. Most importantly, this concrete resource allows us to develop a framework for investigating the validity of theoretical statements about the nature of translation with reference to actual translation practice.

scholarly journals Altered States: Translation and Minority Languages

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cronin
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Language Bias ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Intellectual Inquiry ◽  
Translation Practice

Abstract Altered States: Translation and Minority Languages — The linguistic complexity of Europe is often ignored in political accounts of its translation practice. In particular, the historical experience and contemporary fate of European minority languages are overlooked in assessing the translation strategies available to speakers of minority languages. The problem partly results from a failure to think creatively about definitions of minority languages in a translation context. This context includes the dimension of new technologies which may lead to a new reclassification of languages in Europe and elsewhere. The role of translation in the case of one European minority language, Irish Gaelic, is considered in terms of the dilemmas faced by lesser used languages. Translation is both welcomed and feared. The options available to translators in minority languages differ crucially from those on offer to translators in majority languages. These differences need to be reflected in the theoretical discourse on translation in minority languages but this is not often the case. Furthermore, translation studies as a discipline rarely reflects on its own majority language bias, embedded in the structures of the disciplinary dissemination of knowledge. Minority languages are not only essential to a diversity that sustains the fragile ecosystem of human culture but they also raise questions that lie at the heart of translation studies as an area of intellectual inquiry.

scholarly journals Exploring the Role of Translation Studies in the Promotion of Chinese Culture Abroad: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Tao Yang
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Reform And Opening Up ◽  
International Status ◽  
Research Domains

Since the reform and opening up, China’s comprehensive national strength and international status have been continuously enhanced. Compared with its economic achievements, however, China has a disproportionate discourse power in international communities. Consequently, it becomes a top priority for the country to further strengthen its international communication and elaborately construct an external discourse system to meet the national strategy of telling China’s stories well and making China's voice heard. As an important medium of communication, translation studies should be integrated with intercultural communication studies in response to the urgent issue: How to effectively translate China and enhance its external discourse power in the world. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this article proposed that the boundaries of translation studies should be expanded to integrate correlated research domains including external discourse studies, intercultural communication studies, and national translation studies for the sake of exploring effective paths for the promotion of Chinese culture abroad.

scholarly journals Odgrywanie emigracji: tłumacze-poeci leningradzkiego podziemia, przeł. Edyta Kurzawa

2020 ◽  
pp. 80-95
Author(s):  
Miriam Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Poetry Translation

Performance of Exile: Poet-Translators in the Leningrad Underground Literary translation during the Soviet period has been mostly analysed in terms of conforming to or resisting the dominant ideology. However, there were spaces where translation practices were to a certain extent free from this dichotomy, though excluded from the official literary field. The focus of the article is the particular condition of displacement or exile experienced by the underground poets who lived in Leningrad during the 1980s. The samizdat poet-translator plays the role of an exile, living on the fringes of the society and creating a network in the underground. The outcomes of this “performance of exile” are the translated texts, which show the handprints of the translator’s conditions. The article responds to Anthony Pym’s call for humanizing Translation History, and using the sociological tools developed in Translation Studies by Daniel Simeoni and Moira Inghilleri, it investigates the role of context, agent and text in the poetry translation practice of late samizdat.

scholarly journals Social compensation as an indicator of national budgetary policy fairness and effectiveness

2020 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 11003
Author(s):  
Prateep Wajeetongratana
Keyword(s):  
National Policy ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Compensation Policy ◽  
Budgetary Policy ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Market Situation ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
Compensation Program ◽  
Compensation Index

Paper offers new, author’s method to calculate “social compensation” index (as aggregated macro economical one) reflecting the role of the state in social compensation policy implementing (fair policy and effective policy); analyzes these indices changes with dynamics of Ginny coefficient in the countries of the world, assess the effectiveness of the national social compensation program in countries grouped by the level of per capita income; gives recommendations on directions and principles of national policy of social compensation modernization which is relevant for the dynamics of the global market situation.

The metalanguage of localization

Target ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iwona Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Present Discussion ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
The Future ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The One

In recent years localization has become a popular concept in both translation practice and theory. It has developed a language of its own, which, however, still seems to be little known among translation scholars. What is more, being primarily an industry-based discourse, the terms related to localization are very fluid, which makes theorizing about it difficult. Therefore, the aim of this article is, first of all, to explain the basic terms of the metalanguage of localization, as they are used by both localization practitioners and scholars, and, secondly, to make this metalanguage more consistent by proposing some general definitions that cover the basic concepts in localization. This, in turn, should, on the one hand, facilitate scholar-to-practitioner communication and vice versa and, on the other, should result in concept standardization for training purposes. In the conclusions I link the present discussion of the metalanguage of localization to a more general debate on metalanguage(s) in Translation Studies and propose that in the future we might witness the emergence of a new discipline called Localization Studies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document