The Translation of Humor in Video Games: a Case Study
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University College London Centre for Translation Studies The translation of humor in video games: a case study Ornella Lepre Supervisors: Dr Jorge Díaz-Cintas Dr Rocío Baños Piñero 1 Declaration of originality I, Ornella Lepre, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Ornella Lepre 2nd November 2014 2 Abstract Over the last thirty years, the practice of game localization has become more and more widespread and has started to attract a growing academic interest. However, the translation of humor in games has received little scholarly attention, despite the fact that humor is a fundamental component of games and can be a difficult area to translate. In this view, the thesis is aimed at identifying and classifying the main types of humor in games and the way in which their translation from English into Italian has been tackled, highlighting how the interactive nature of games may affect translation. As the audiovisual features of games are incredibly varied and cannot always be assimilated to the established categories of audiovisual translation, the thesis also discusses how the various audiovisual modalities of games can have an impact on localization. Then, it examines three popular games that are particularly suitable for this analysis, as they feature plenty of humorous dialogues and situations: The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), Day of the Tentacle (1993) and Discworld (1995). The thesis pays particular attention to instances of humor based on cultural elements, as they are especially likely to cause disruptions in a translated text. The research looks at how often humor is intrinsically based on culture-specific references and analyses how translators deal with them. This issue appears particularly relevant in the case of games, as unfamiliar references can most easily damage the user’s experience. The final part of the thesis discusses the retranslation of games. By comparing the old and new translations of two games in the corpus, the thesis aims at seeing if and how translation choices have changed across time. As one of the retranslations was made by fans of the game, the thesis also aims at giving insight into the phenomenon of fan translation. 3 Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my primary supervisor, Dr Jorge Díaz-Cintas. He trusted in me from the beginning, and he helped me find my way in a field of research that was new to me; for this I owe him my deepest gratitude. His comments and continuous support have been invaluable on both an academic and a personal level, and I feel incredibly privileged to have him as my supervisor. My gratitude extends to Dr Rocío Baños Piñero, my secondary supervisor, for all her useful suggestions and for being happy to advise me even if she found herself involved in this project at a later stage. I am very grateful to my two examiners, Dr Federico M. Federici and Dr Carmen Mangiron for all their useful comments and for proving a very stimulating viva. I would also like to thank Dr Miguel Bernal Merino, for his precious advice. During my research, I have profited from discussions with scholars at seminars and conferences, whose suggestions and constructive criticism have always proved beneficial. Many people I met along the way became my friends, and it is also thanks to them that this journey has been so enjoyable. I am grateful to the members of the Old Games Italia community, who were always willing to answer all my questions; in particular, I have to thank Andrea, who went out of his way to help me when he did not even know me; thanks to him, the process of retrieving the data for my project was much less cumbersome than it could have been. I would also like to acknowledge the teachers and professors who trained me and inspired me throughout the years. A very special recognition goes to Professor Riccardo Martina – I would not have been able to come as far as I have without his guidance and encouragement. I am indebted to my friends, who offered me advice and supported me throughout these years. My thanks to go all of them, especially to Biagio, he knows why. Finally, I will always be grateful to my parents, for their unconditional love and support. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of figures ..................................................................................................... 10 List of tables ....................................................................................................... 12 Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... 13 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 1 Literature Review ............................................................................................... 25 1.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 25 1.2 Localization of video games .................................................................... 26 1.2.1 The peculiarity of video game texts and its implications for localization ................................................................................... 26 1.2.2 Fan translation: a different perspective ........................................ 29 1.2.3 The localization of culture: a battle between constraints and creativity ....................................................................................... 30 1.2.4 Software localization, game localization: common challenges .... 35 1.3 Humor: an overview ............................................................................... 36 1.3.1 The superiority theory .................................................................. 37 1.3.2 Humor and incongruity .............................................................. 38 1.3.3 The mechanics of humor: Freud and the relief theories ............. 40 1.3.4 Verbal humor and the script-based theories ............................... 44 1.4 The translation of humor ........................................................................ 50 1.4.1 Overview ...................................................................................... 50 1.4.2 The translation of humor in audiovisual texts ............................ 55 Chapter 2 Humor in Games .............................................................................................. 65 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 65 2.2 The role of the player ............................................................................... 67 2.3 Meta-references and the fourth wall ........................................................ 73 5 2.3.1 Characters addressing the player .................................................. 75 2.3.2 Referencing the game universe .................................................... 76 2.3.3 Intertextual references .................................................................. 78 2.4 Hidden humor: it’s always Easter in games ............................................. 85 2.5 Video games: towards a customized level of humor? .............................. 88 2.6 Humor and gameplay ............................................................................. 93 Chapter 3 Features of audiovisual content in games ........................................................ 96 3.1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 96 3.2 Dialogue and subtitles: general considerations ...................................... 100 3.3 Subtitles – Aesthetic features ................................................................. 104 3.4 Subtitles – Other formal characteristics ................................................. 108 3.5 Synchronization ...................................................................................... 112 3.5.1 Spoken content ........................................................................... 113 3.5.2 Written content ........................................................................... 123 3.6 The features of text reduction and condensation in video games ........... 126 3.6.1 Reduction in games: general considerations .............................. 126 3.6.2 Reduction and the multimodal nature of games ......................... 132 Chapter 4 The corpus ......................................................................................................... 139 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................ 139 4.2 Adventure games .................................................................................... 139 4.3 The Secret of Monkey Island .................................................................. 145 4.3.1 TSOMI – User interface .............................................................. 146 4.3.2 TSOMI – Types of text and audiovisual features ....................... 149 4.3.3 TSOMI – Humor ......................................................................... 151 4.3.4 The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition ........................... 152 4.4 Day of the Tentacle ................................................................................. 153 4.4.1 Day of the Tentacle – User interface .......................................... 154 6 4.4.2 Day of the Tentacle – Types of text and audiovisual