Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed

Video game industry has seen massive growth in the last two decades. With the booming prosperity, many attempts have been made to monetize the success, including through the novelization of games and production of other derivative literature works. However, this incited a new issue. Game literature...

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Main Author: Yu, Tong
Other Authors: Sim Wai Chew
Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139505
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1395052020-05-20T02:36:28Z Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed Yu, Tong Sim Wai Chew School of Humanities wcsim@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::Linguistics Humanities::Language Video game industry has seen massive growth in the last two decades. With the booming prosperity, many attempts have been made to monetize the success, including through the novelization of games and production of other derivative literature works. However, this incited a new issue. Game literature is highly aligned with the original video game in content, hence, most of the potential audience would be video game players. Given the fast-changing and highly-domesticated nature of video game and video game localization, an issue has arisen. Should the strategies applied in translation of canonized literature be used for game literature? Or should other alternatives be considered? To increase the monetization possibilities of such game-literature works, the pertinent question is how we “convert” game players into readers. By conducting linguistic and theoretic analysis of the official novelization of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (by Gordon Doherty) and its authorized Chinese-language translation (by A Zei and Huang Peiyuan), the present research proposes a set of new strategies more focused on the domestication and level of communicativeness of the translated text. In order to gather quantitative data regarding the practicality and effects of the new strategy, a survey was carried out via questionnaires on 13 video game enthusiasts and another 10 translation/literature professionals. The volunteers were prompted to rate two unmarked translations of the pertinent text. One of the two is the authorized Chinese translation, the other was generated using the proposed set of new strategies. According to survey results, this set of strategies significantly increased the readability and smoothness of the target text, hence generating a reading experience closer to that of playing a video game, while potentially increasing the conversion rate between players and readers. Master of Arts (Translation and Interpretation) 2020-05-20T02:36:28Z 2020-05-20T02:36:28Z 2020 Thesis-Master by Coursework https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139505 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Linguistics
Humanities::Language
spellingShingle Humanities::Linguistics
Humanities::Language
Yu, Tong
Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed
description Video game industry has seen massive growth in the last two decades. With the booming prosperity, many attempts have been made to monetize the success, including through the novelization of games and production of other derivative literature works. However, this incited a new issue. Game literature is highly aligned with the original video game in content, hence, most of the potential audience would be video game players. Given the fast-changing and highly-domesticated nature of video game and video game localization, an issue has arisen. Should the strategies applied in translation of canonized literature be used for game literature? Or should other alternatives be considered? To increase the monetization possibilities of such game-literature works, the pertinent question is how we “convert” game players into readers. By conducting linguistic and theoretic analysis of the official novelization of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (by Gordon Doherty) and its authorized Chinese-language translation (by A Zei and Huang Peiyuan), the present research proposes a set of new strategies more focused on the domestication and level of communicativeness of the translated text. In order to gather quantitative data regarding the practicality and effects of the new strategy, a survey was carried out via questionnaires on 13 video game enthusiasts and another 10 translation/literature professionals. The volunteers were prompted to rate two unmarked translations of the pertinent text. One of the two is the authorized Chinese translation, the other was generated using the proposed set of new strategies. According to survey results, this set of strategies significantly increased the readability and smoothness of the target text, hence generating a reading experience closer to that of playing a video game, while potentially increasing the conversion rate between players and readers.
author2 Sim Wai Chew
author_facet Sim Wai Chew
Yu, Tong
format Thesis-Master by Coursework
author Yu, Tong
author_sort Yu, Tong
title Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed
title_short Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed
title_full Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed
title_fullStr Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed
title_full_unstemmed Translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for Assassin’s Creed
title_sort translation strategies for video game literature : a case study of the authorized novelization for assassin’s creed
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2020
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139505
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