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Page 1: Translation in video games localisation dipinto vito

Key Aspects of a Localisation Process:

Translation in video game localisation

Dipinto Vito

12096695

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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

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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.

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‘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)

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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)

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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?

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“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

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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

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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

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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’.

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Linguistic variation in Word of Warcraft

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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.

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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)

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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’

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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

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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

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Italian Localisation

Experimental video game = Experimental translation

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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

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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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Questions?