UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA CENTRO DE COMUNICAÇÃO E EXPRESSÃO CURSO DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM ESTUDOS DA TRADUÇÃO Fernando da Silva THE MAPPING OF LOCALIZED CONTENTS IN THE VIDEOGAME inFAMOUS 2: A MULTIMODAL CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS Orientadora: Prof. Drª Viviane M. Heberle Florianópolis 2016 Fernando da Silva THE MAPPING OF LOCALIZED CONTENTS IN THE VIDEOGAME inFAMOUS 2: A MULTIMODAL CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS Tese submetida ao Programa de Pós- graduação em Estudos da Tradução da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina para a obtenção do grau de doutor em Estudos da Tradução. Orientadora: Prof. Drª Viviane M. Heberle Florianópolis 2016 Folha de assinatura Folha de assinatura Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to my PhD supervisor, Professor Viviane M. Heberle, who accompanied me throughout this long journey of four years of academic and personal achievement. To professor Lincoln Paulo Fernandes, for the valuable insights provided for my investigation in the qualification. To Cristiane Vidal, whose partnership and friendship were fundamental for my academic maturity. To my family, Sérgio, Elenir, Gabriel, Mariana, Betina, Eduardo, Silvia, Frederico, Luciana, whose support was paramount during my stay in Florianópolis and throughout the challenging moments that the academic life has put me through. To my friend Enrique Nuesche for the long talks, the jokes and the incentive to finish this research. To Juniores Jr., whose company over kilometers of chatting has allowed me to become a better person. To Sandro Bincher, Cristiano de Sales, Thiago Pires, Márcia Batistella Noemi Teles de Melo, Wagner Saback Dantas and all of those who directly and indirectly have helped me keep the mental balance necessary during this period. To Maria José Laiño, my love, my partner, my beacon, my friend, for the emotional support she has given me. And last, but not least, to the uncountable individuals who constantly contribute for sharing knowledge over the internet, and without whom the access to most of the source references used in this research would not be possible. To those, my sincere gratitude. Resumo Esta tese tem por objetivo analisar a prática de localização em videogames a partir das áreas de estudos da tradução e análise de corpus multimodal. Além disso, este estudo se pauta na investigação do game inFamous 2 (PS3) e sua versão localizada para o Português Brasileiro observando como este é atravessado por especificidades culturais de ordem linguística e da própria mídia. Como objetivo secundário, mas não menos relevante, esta investigação tem por meta também desenvolver uma representação sistematizada de conteúdos localizados nas interações entre personagens no jogo analisado de forma a oferecer um aparato de pesquisa baseada no uso de computadores para a análise de dados em formato de texto e em formato a partir do software ELAN. O aparato metodológico e de análise dos dados coletados orienta-se pela observação dos aspectos de ordem de consistência terminológica, de percepção cultural, narrativa e prosódia semântica entre os pares linguísticos Inglês dos Estados Unidos da América e Português do Brasil (En-US e Pt-Br) nos diálogos entre personagens do jogo analisado. Quanto aos resultados obtidos, o sistema de anotação utilizado mostrou leves mudanças em termos de uso da linguagem avaliativa que acompanhava as linhas de diálogos de alguns personagens, os quais fazem parte do enredo do jogo. O perfil lexical observado nas linhas de diálogos associadas aos personagens demonstrou uma atenuação na prosódia semântica em termos de perfil collocacional e registro de linguagem Por fim, as discussões e interpretações expandidas dos dados coletados visam refletir acerca da prática de localização como campo de expertise tradutória dentro da área de estudos da tradução. Palavras-chave: Localização de games; Análise de corpus; Estudos da tradução; Prosódia semântica; Análise multimodal; Game studies. Abstract This dissertation aims at analyzing how localization practices operate in video games from the perspective of the fields of Translation Studies and multimodal corpus-based research. Furthermore, it intends to investigate how the video game inFamous 2 (PS3) and its localized counterpart is constrained by implicit cultural specificities in their Brazilian-Portuguese translation and specificities of its very own media. As a secondary objective, but not less important, this study aims at developing a systemic representation of localized content in video game interactions by providing a computer-assisted framework of annotation for written and audio-visual data. This analysis was based on the annotated data performed by the software ELAN. The methodological and analytical framework also have the purpose of observing and describing the aspects of terminological consistency, cultural awareness, narrative and semantic prosodic nature within the linguistic pairs En-US and Pt-Br in the dialogue lines belonging to the characters in the game. As for the results obtained, the annotation framework used informed slight changes in terms of the evaluative language that accompanied the dialogue lines of the certain characters, who are part of the game’s plot. The lexical profile observed in the dialogue lines associated to these characters displayed an attenuation in the semantic prosodic features in terms of collocation profile and language register. Finally, the discussions and interpretations expanded from the data collected are used to systematically map the practices involved in digital game localization by drawing upon the practical aspects of this field of expertise in translation studies. Keywords: Game localization; Corpus analysis; Translation studies; Semantic prosody; Multimodal analysis; Game studies. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................... 23 2. Review of Literature ............................................................... 29 2.1 Translation and localization ............................................ 29 2.2 Translation equivalence and adaptation in localization ....... 44 2.3 Video game localization: cultures and markets .................. 51 2.4 Video game rating system .............................................. 63 2.5 Games, creativity and industry standards .......................... 70 2.6 Games as culture ........................................................... 75 3. Games and multimodal resources ............................................ 86 3.1 Game localization beyond the verbal text ......................... 86 3.2 Games and Multimodal analysis ...................................... 94 3.3 Multimodal investigation: the limits of analysis ................. 99 3.4 Semantic prosody ....................................................... 103 3.5 Collocation, colligation and semantic preference ........... 107 3.6 Connotation in translation............................................. 109 3.7 Specific patterns in semantic prosody............................. 113 4. Methods ............................................................................... 125 4.1 Hypothesis and Research Questions ............................... 125 4.2 Corpus Design ............................................................ 126 4.3 Type of corpus ............................................................ 131 4.4 Hardware and software used in the study ........................ 135 4.5 ELAN – Annotation software........................................ 140 4.6 Annotation categories .................................................. 144 4.7 Extra categories .......................................................... 148 5. Results and discussion ........................................................... 152 5.1 An overall view of infamous 2...............................................152 5.2 Translation vs Localization in the data ............................163 5.3 Use of technical apparatus.............................................168 5.4 Overall analysis of data ................................................171 5.5 Annotation categories ...................................................196 5.5.1 Cultural awareness................................................196 5.5.2 Subtitle segmentation ............................................205 5.5.3 Transcreation .......................................................211 5.5.4 Null ....................................................................223 5.5.5 Linguistic variation...............................................232 5.6 Character representation ...............................................237 5.6.1 Characterization of Nix .........................................238 5.6.2 Zeke ...................................................................245 5.6.3 Cole MacGraph ....................................................251 5.6.4 Kuo ....................................................................258 5.6.5 Joseph Bertrand III ...............................................265 5.7 Semantic prosody ........................................................278 6. Conclusion ............................................................................287 6.1 Revisiting the research questions ...................................287 6.2 Concluding remarks ...................................................290 BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................294 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1 – Globalization, localization and translation ............................