The Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Game Localization


Book Description

This book explores the impact of a video game’s degree of realism or fictionality on its linguistic dimensions, investigating the challenges and strategies for translating realia and irrealia, the interface of the real world and the game world where culture-specificity manifests itself. The volume outlines the key elements in the translation of video games, such as textual non-linearity, multitextuality, and playability, and introduces the theoretical framework used to determine a game’s respective degree of realism or fictionality. Pettini applies an interdisciplinary approach drawing on video game research and Descriptive Translation Studies to the linguistic and translational analysis of in-game dialogs in English-Italian and English-Spanish language pairs from a corpus of three war video games. This approach allows for an in-depth look at the localization challenges posed by the varying degree of realism and fictionality across video games and the different strategies translators employ in response to these challenges. A final chapter offers a comparative analysis of the three games and subsequently avenues for further research on the role of culture-specificity in game localization. This book is key reading for students and scholars interested in game localization, audiovisual translation studies, and video game research.




Game Localization


Book Description

Video games are part of the growing digital entertainment industry for which game localization has become pivotal in serving international markets. As well as addressing the practical needs of the industry to facilitate translator and localizer training, this book seeks to conceptualize game localization in an attempt to locate it in Translation Studies in the context of the technologization of contemporary translation practices. Designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the topic of game localization the book draws on the literature in Game Studies as well as Translation Studies. The book’s readership is intended to be translation scholars, game localization practitioners and those in Game Studies developing research interest in the international dimensions of the digital entertainment industry. The book aims to provide a road map for the dynamic professional practices of game localization and to help readers visualize the expanding role of translation in one of the 21st century's key global industries.




Localization in Translation


Book Description

Localization is everywhere in our digital world, from apps to websites or games. Our interconnected digital world functions in part thanks to invisible localization processes that allow global users to engage with all sorts of digital content and products. This textbook presents a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical, practical, and methodological issues related to localization, the technological, textual, communicative, and cognitive process by which interactive digital texts are prepared to be used in contexts other than those of production. Localization in Translation provides an interdisciplinary introduction to the main practical and theoretical issues involved in localizing software, web, video games, and apps. It discusses the many technological, cultural, linguistic, quality, economic, accessibility, and user-reception issues related to the different localization types. It also provides an updated overview of localization in an ever-changing technological landscape marked by advances in neural machine translation and AI. Each chapter includes a basic summary, key questions, a final section with discussion and assignments, as well as additional readings. Online resources with additional questions and assignments are included on the Routledge Translation Studies portal. This is the essential textbook for advanced undergraduates and graduates in translation studies and translation professionals engaged in localization practice.




Translation, Adaptation and Digital Media


Book Description

Adaptation has always been central to Translation Studies, and, as print media becomes less and less dominant, and new media become central to communication, Adaptation is more than ever a vital area of Translation and Translation Studies. In addition, links to new digital media are examined. This is the only user-friendly textbook covering the full area of Translation, Adaptation, and Digital Media applicable to any language combination. Divided into nine chapters, it includes a wide range of texts from Brazilian culture, ensuring an ex-centric view of translation. Each chapter contains an expository section, case studies, and student activities to support learning. It emphasises the central role of Adaptation in the translation of works for the popular book market, for theatre, cinema, radio, and, especially, the new media. This is the essential textbook for students in Translation and Adaptation Studies courses and instructors and professionals working on adaptation and transmedia projects.




Transmedial Perspectives on Humour and Translation


Book Description

This innovative collection spotlights the role of media crossovers in humour translation and how the latter is conveyed through new means of communication. The volume offers an in-depth exploration of the entanglements of film, theatre, literature, TV, the Internet, etc., within the framework of transmediality and their influence on the practice of translating humour. Chapters focus on the complex web of interrelationships shaped by and shaping the process(es) of transformation and adaptation that take place across media and across languages and cultures. Situating translation practices and innovations within an interdisciplinary context, the volume underscores the hybrid nature and complex semiotics of humour and the plurality of possibilities for new insights that contemporary approaches offer driven by technological advancements in the industry. The book will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of Translation Studies, Humour Studies, Audiovisual Translation, Media Studies, and Adaptation Studies.




The Translation of Violence in Children’s Literature


Book Description

Considering children’s literature as a powerful repository for creating and proliferating cultural and national identities, this monograph is the first academic study of children’s literature in translation from the Western Balkans. Marija Todorova looks at a broad range of children’s literature, from fiction to creative non-fiction and picture books, across five different countries in the Western Balkans, with each chapter including detailed textual and visual analysis through the predominant lens of violence. These chapters raise questions around who initiates and effectuates the selection of children’s literature from the Western Balkans for translation into English, and interrogate the role of different stakeholders, such as translators, publishers and cultural institutions in the representation and construction of these countries in translated children’s literature, both in text and visually. Given the combination of this study’s interdisciplinary nature and Todorova’s detailed analysis, this book will prove to be an essential resource for professional translators, researchers and students in courses in translation studies, children’s literature or area studies, especially that of countries in the Western Balkans. .




New Perspectives on Gender and Translation


Book Description

This collection expands the body of research on the intersection of gender and translation to highlight perspectives across different countries in Europe, showcasing developments in the field from its origins in the emergence of feminist translation in Quebec over the last thirty years. Building off seminal work on feminist translation by scholars in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s, the book explores the evolution of the discipline in shifting translation practices and research across a range of European countries, with a focus on underrepresented areas such as Malta, Serbia, and Poland. The different chapters examine key developments such as the critical reframing of gender and identity, the viewing of historical translation activity by women through the lens of ideological and political motivations, and the analysis of socio-political contexts where feminist or gender-inspired translation has impacted translators’ practices. The volume looks concurrently at the European context and beyond it, putting the spotlight on new voices in translation and gender research in the region but also encouraging transnational dialogues on key issues in the discipline, pushing the field further into new directions. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in translation studies, gender studies, and European literature.




Translation and the Global City


Book Description

Translation and the Global City showcases fresh perspectives on translation in a global context, drawing on case studies from Montreal and other multilingual cosmopolitan cities to examine the historical, sociological and cultural factors underpinning the travel of languages, ideas and cultures across borders. Building on the "spatial turn" in translation studies, the book adopts a bridge metaphor to explore the complexities of translational spaces and the ways in which translation acts can both unite and divide in the global city. The collection initiates the discussion with a focus on the Canadian context and specifically the city of Montreal, where historical circumstances, public policy and shifting language politics have led to a burgeoning translation industry. It goes on to address issues of translation in other regions and cities of the world, generating new insights and opening avenues for further research into the relations between languages and cultures. This volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars in translation studies, especially those with an interest in translation theory and the sociology of translation.




The Qur’an, Translation and the Media


Book Description

This book aims to identify how the Qur’an is narrated in and by the press media through the use of translation, featuring examples from a corpus of newspaper articles from the UK and Europe across two decades. Drawing on work at the intersection of narrative theory and translation studies, the volume highlights the ways in which press media play an integral role in the construction, promotion, and circulation of narratives about events and communities, shedding light specifically on translations of Qur’anic verses across British, Italian, and Spanish newspapers between 2001 and 2019. Elimam and Fletcher examine how such translations have been used to create and disseminate narratives about the Qur’an and in turn, Islam and Muslims, unpacking the kinds of narratives evoked – personal, public, conceptual, and meta-narratives – and narrative strategies employed – selective appropriation, temporality, causal emplotment, and relationality – toward framing readers’ understanding of the Qur’an. The book will be of particular interest to scholars working at the intersection of translation studies and such areas as media studies, religion, politics, and sociology.




Translating and Interpreting in Australia and New Zealand


Book Description

This volume explores Australian and New Zealand experiences of translation and interpreting (T&I), with a special focus on the formative impact of geocultural contexts. Through the critical lenses of practitioners, scholars and related professionals working in and on these two countries, the contributors seek a better understanding of T&I practices and discourses in this richly multilingual and multicultural region. Building on recent work in translation and interpreting studies that extends attention to sites outside of Europe and the Americas, this volume considers the geocultural and geopolitical factors that have helped shape T&I in these Pacific neighbours, especially how the practices and conceptualization of T&I have been closely tied with immigration. Contributors examine the significant role T&I plays in everyday communication across varied sectors, including education, health, business, and legal contexts, as well as in crisis situations, cultural and creative settings, and initiatives to revitalize Indigenous languages. The book also looks to the broader implications beyond the Australian and New Zealand translationscape, making it of relevance to T&I scholars elsewhere, as well as those with an interest in Indigenous studies and minority languages.