ACROSS THE POND AND BEYOND. A UK/US comparison of game localisation and literary translation from Japanese works

Abstract

Critics of Venuti‘s foreignisation/domestication concept tend to focus on his vague definitions of key terms or the limited viability of implementing his ideas in practice. However, few question the premise of his perspective, i.e. linking domesticating translation practices to both linguistic and cultural dominance. Meanwhile, pioneering research into the culturally charged field of video game localisation is zeroing in on everything from its technical issues to its demand for creativity and genre-specific knowledge, but the one consistent theme throughout is a belief that game localisation ultimately aims for entertainment above all. Today‘s enormous diversity of game genres and increasing emphasis on rich narratives make this claim difficult to take at face value. By comparing British and American localisations and literary translations of Japanese works (the fourth game in Nintendo‘s Advance Wars series and Kenji Miyazawa‘s children‘s novel Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru), the goal is to challenge both the conventional wisdom on localisation and Venuti‘s unwillingness to separate language from culture, as evident in his constant insistence on associating domestication with both English and ―Anglo-American culture‖. To that end, this study employs a dual analysis method, numerically tracking changes in samples comprising about 3-4% of the analysed works and qualitatively examining nearly the entire selected translations, concentrating on problematic themes like humour, cultural references and Japanese role language. The findings show that while all the translations aim for linguistic fluency, the game localisations set themselves apart in their propensity for artistic licence; changing names, amplifying character quirks and re-writing or censoring references presumed to be culturally offensive. The literary translations range from faithful to heavily target culture-oriented, but share a respect for the sanctity of the source text that the localisations seemingly lack. A divide can also be observed between the British and American translations, where the latter more frequently clarify, omit, or alter original passages. Further research is needed to confirm the implications of these results, namely that localisation truly is distinct from typical translation, and that the notion of a unified ―Anglo-American‖ cultural discourse is invalid.