translation in video games localisation dipinto vito
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My presentations about translation in video game localisationTRANSCRIPT
Key Aspects of a Localisation Process:
Translation in video game localisation
Dipinto Vito
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Some definitions of what is video game translation
The translator’s role and required skills
Translation procedures and techniques used by video game translators
Compensation technique in the Italian localisation of Far Cry 3
Linguistic variation in the Italian localisation of Word of Warcraft
Experimental video game translation: Dear Easter
Video game Translation• Video game translation is the process of modifying linguistically
an existing video game to make it accessible, usable and culturally suitable to a target locale.
• The process of translation of video games concerns the sphere of cultural localisation: that is the adaption of visuals, sound and scripts conceived in one language by members of one community to another language and another culture
• The process can be considered as an adaption rather than a translation. Adaption is meant to recreate the Message, to give it the look and feel of the equivalent local product.
• Video game translation is performed by translators. Individuals who do not just transfer words or sentences as unit of texts, but act as cultural mediators who are responsible for successful cross-cultural communication and for the creation of functionally optimal target texts in target cultures.
‘The main priority of video game translators is to produce a version that will allow the players to experience the game as if it were originally developed in their own language and to provide enjoyment equivalent to that felt by the players of the original versions’ (Magiron & O’Hagan 2006)
Controversial issues about video game localisation
Video game localisation supports the role of Translation as ‘domestication’ = THE TRANSALTED TEXT TO PASS FOR THE ORGINAL(Mangiron & O’Hagan 2006)
Cultural localisation is about unsettling, recombination, hybridization, ‘cut and mix’ (Di Marco 2007)
Video game localisation creates neutral translations (Gutiérez 2012)
Translator’s role and required skills
The Translator should be able to
deal with the different kind of
text types displayed in video
games
Translators should be aware of the
software age ratings. (Europe:
PEGI; Unites States: ESRB;
Germany: USK)
Be familiar with the specific
features of screen translation
(dubbing and subtitling)
Mastering of natural and idiomatic
language. They should not
translate word for words!
We really need this by today, can you do it faster?
“Please be careful not to break the
variables throughout the
text”
Cultural awareness. Video games are packed with pop
culture reference , which can be challenging to
localise!
ARE YOU A FAN? SURE, I JUST WROTE A FANFIC, WOULD YOU
LIKE TO READ IT? SURE, THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE A GREAT TRANSLATION, ISN’T
IT?
Familiar with the global pop culture.
CREATIVITY
Tools Description Useful for:
Translation Memory systems: SDL Trados, Wordfast, OmegaT etc.
Fuzzy matching Reusing dataReduce translation time, improves consistency and quality.
Terminology management systems
Extracting terminologyCreation of glossaries
Maintaining game glossaries
Shared folders. Dropbox
Storing Reference, Source Text, Work in Progress, finalised files etc.
Project management Software: Microsoft Project, qdPM,
Tracking and managing projects
Planning, scheduling etc.
Speech recognition tools: Dragon Naturally Speaking
Dictation, text-to-speech and command input
Improves productivity, reduce translation, mistakes,Improve quality
ApSIC XBench Quality assurance tool
Terminology search. Terminology check, Creation of translation memories
Translation procedures and techniques used by video game translators
Linguistic variation (use of dialects, accents, idiolects used to achieve a comic effect )
Re-naming of key terminology and character names
Contestualisation by addition (to make clearer a concept to the player)
Recreation of play on words, puns, jokes, rhymes and idioms
Compensations techniques
Borrowing
Literal or word for word translation
Calques
Rewriting
Compensation technique in FAR
CRY 3
English Source TextYou see. The thing is, up there, you thought you had a chance way up in the fucking skies you thought you had your finger on the pussy trigger. But hermano, down here, down here…? You hit the ground. Italian Target TexVedi, il fatto è, lassù credevi di avere una chance. Là. Tra quelle nuvole di merda pensavi davvero di aver il dito sul grilleto. Ma hermano, quaggiù..quaggiù. Hail il culo per terra.
FINGER ON THE PUSSY TRIGGER = The Play on words with sexual reference in the Italian language doesn’t have an equivalent and it’s lost in translation.
The translator, compensates for that lost by introducing in the following sentence an Italian expression: ‘Hai il culo per terra’ = BT ‘are on the ground’.
Linguistic variation in Word of Warcraft
Word of Warcraft (in a nutshell)
• Company: Blizzard Entertainment (USA)• MMORPG• The player impersonates a character• Stratified word: race and creatures• Idea of progression often through missions• Lots of interactions between users• WoW the most successful \ of all times• 12 millions of subscribers in March of 2011 and
Guiness Record!
• The game has been fully localised into different languages and locale: German; French, Spanish, Russian, Korean, both Traditional and Simplified Chinese and recently into Italian.
What is a linguistic variation?
• It’s the introduction in the target text of language depending on geographical, social cultural and/or historical conditions (Gutiérez 2012)
Choice of words
Linguistic structures
Accents
Dialects
Idiolects (a variety of language that is unique to a person)
The localisation of game’s races into Italian:
The Neaples Connection
Races in WOW
English Version
Italian localication
Humans of Glineas
London accent Standard Italian Language
Dwarves Scottish accent Standard Italian Language
Trolls Jamaican accent
Neapolitan dialect
Troll‘The savages trolls of Azeroth are infamous for their cruelity, dark mysticism, and seething hatred for all other races’
Reception
The solution to use Neapolitan dialect has been criticised by many players in the official forum of WoW
• Neapolitan dialect introduces un undesirable comic effect
• The Neapolitan accent is judged by game players as out of context
• It contributes to break the suspension of disbelief
• Some players complained about the absence of other dialects. Why not make dwarves speak with a dialect from North of Italy? For example Milanese dialect (spoken in Milan and the surrounding area)
• It contributed to some generate among players some form of racism
• It reinforced existing stereotypes about people from Naples: criminal, cruel, corrupted, immoral, deplorable
What does this teach us?• Before reproducing any linguistic variation in the
target locale, translators should research any possible implication and effect.
• Translators should act as geopolitical strategists and suggest the best solution to developers.
• In Video games accents, dialects and idiolects act as a jarring link to reality (real word)
• The solution is to remove the accent altogether, using standard language
NEUTRALISATION
Italian Localisation
Experimental video game = Experimental translation
The reception
• The Italian players didn’t like the translation
• Many players say that ‘it’s a bad translation’.
• It doesn’t make easy to follow. Very hard to understand.
A bad work?
• Not at all! The translation is extremely careful and clearly the translator had to work hard during the process of creation.
• But, it feels artificial and disjointed.
ConclusionIn video game localisation, translators have the freedom to make any change they want.
• Translators can choose to create ‘domesticated translations’ , that rely on fluent strategies (standard translation / easy translation. Extensive use of adaption and rewriting.
• Translators can choose to create ‘ hybrid translations’, trying to maintain some flavor of the foreign culture
• Translators can choose to create ‘non standard translations’, by deviating from the norm (the standard) (Community translation)
ReferencesArsludica.org (2012). Lo strano caso della traduzione in Italiano di Dear Esther. [Online] Accessed: 29 November 2012). Available at: http://arsludica.org/2012/02/27/lo-strano-caso-della-traduzione-in-italiano-di-dear-esther/
Costales, A.F. (2011). Adapting humor in video game localization. Multilingual. Volume 22, Issue 6. pp. 33-35
Dellepiane, A. (2012). Podcast: Videogame Localization special feature on Outcast.it. [Online] Accessed: 27 November 2012). Available at: http://localization.it/podcast-videogame-localization-special-on-outcast-it/
Dellepiane, A (2012). (not so) Funny accents, the case of Jamaican in the Italian Videogame Translations . [Online] Accessed: 27 November 2012). Available at: http://localization.it/not-so-funny-accents-the-case-of-jamaican-in-italian-videogame-translations/
Bernal-Merino, M. (2007) .Challenges in the translation of video games. Revista tradumàtica. Numero 5: Localizacio de videojocs. [Online] Accessed: 26 November 2012). Available at: http://www.fti.uab.es/tradumatica/revista/num5/articles/02/02art.htm
Bernal-Merino, M. (2008). Where terminology meets literature. Multilingual. Volume 19 Issue 7. pp.42-44
Chandler, H. (2005). The Game Localization Handbook. Massachusetts: Charles River Media.
Crosignani, S. (2008). Preserving the spell in games localization. Multilingual. Volume 19 Issue 7. pp. 78-41
Dellepiane, A. (2012). Writing for game translators: Dear Esther, the (ghost) in the (game) machine. . [Online] Accessed: 29 November 2012). Available at: http://localization.it/writing-for-game-translators-dear-esther-the-ghost-in-the-game-machine/
Di Marco, F. (2007). Cultural Localization: Orientation and Disorientation in Japanese Video Games. Revista tradumàtica. Numero 5: Localizacio de videojocs. [Online] Accessed: 26 November 2012). Available at: http://www.fti.uab.es/tradumatica/revista/num5/articles/06/06art.htm
Mangiron, C. & O’Hagan, M. (2006) “Game Localization: unleashing imagination with ‘restricted translation’. The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 10-21. [Online] Accessed: 25 November 2012) Available at: http://www.jostrans.org/issue06/art_ohagan.pdf
Mangiron, C. (2009). Video Games Localisation: Posing new Challenges to the Translator. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. [Online] Accessed: 29 November 2012). Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09076760708669046
O’Hagan, M., Ashworth, D. (2012). Translation-Mediated Communication in a Digital World: Facing the Challenges of Globalization and Localization. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters LTD.
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