Degree Thesis
Bachelor’s level (First cycle)
A case study on the translation of Japanese Web
novels
Author: Markus Svanberg Supervisor: Hiroko Inose Examiner: Herbert Jonsson
Subject/main field of study: Translation Studies Course code: GJP23Y
Higher education credits: 15 credits Date of examination: 2021-01-17
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Abstract
:This thesis was aimed towards translated Japanese web novels to find out what kind of features they have and if the translated text kept the features of the original novel. Simultaneously, the translation techniques utilized in the translated novel were also examined. To find out the answer, two case studies were conducted and the web novels were chosen at random with some parameters set. An interview was conducted with translators of web novels to help reinforce or clear up doubts surrounding the results of the case study. The thesis also briefly describes the overall industry surrounding web novels. The randomly chosen translated novels did have most of the features of the original.
Though some aspects were lost in translation. The translation techniques utilised were also overwhelmingly literal translation. Why that is has several possible answers among which the language proficiency of the translator or no formal training in translation.
Keywords:
Japanese web novel. Web novel features. Web novel translation. Web novel translator interview.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ... 1
2 Background ... 2
2.1 Different forms of novels relevant to the present study ... 2
2.1.1 Web Novel ... 2
2.1.2 Light Novel ... 3
2.1.3 Keitai Shousetsu ... 3
2.2 Structure of the industry ... 3
2.3 Japanese WN translation industry ... 4
3 Previous Studies ... 6
4 Material and Methodology ... 8
4.1 Material used in the Case Studies ... 8
4.2 Interviews ... 9
4.3 Procedures – case studies ... 9
4.4 Procedures - Interview ... 10
5 Results and Analysis ... 11
5.1 Translation analysis of The Wolf won't sleep. ... 11
5.1.1 ST features ... 11
5.1.2 Translation Strategy ... 12
5.1.3 Translation Quality... 13
5.2 Results of the translation analysis of Jack of all Trades. ... 14
5.2.1 ST features ... 14
5.2.2 Translation features/Strategy ... 16
5.2.3 Translation Quality... 17
5.3 Interview ... 19
6 Discussion ... 22
7 Conclusion ... 23
Bibliography ... 24
Appendix ... 25
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1 Introduction
Web novels can be found since the dawn of the internet. They are written in all kinds of languages on the internet in their own communities. This thesis will focus on the Japanese part of web novels, translated Japanese web novels to be exact. A more in- depth analysis will be conducted on the features of the translations of Japanese web novels. There are two questions that will be in focus in this paper, namely:
1. Are there any specific features observed in the translation of web novels?
2. Does the translation maintain the style of the original web novel?
To answer these two questions case studies will be conducted as well as an interview with translators of the genre.
The thesis has the following structure: The Introduction will be followed by a small section on terminology. Background will be divided into each form of novel, web novel, light novel and cell phone novel, followed by the structure of the industry of said novels. What novels and how they were chosen along with how the case study was conducted will be in the material and methodology section. The analysed case studies and interview are analysed one by one in the results and analysis section while they will be discussed relative to one another in the discussion. Following this, the research questions will be answered concretely in the conclusion. Due to little to no previous research on web novels, this thesis aims towards filling up the huge hole that has been present in the web novel genre.
The terminology in this thesis can be difficult to understand, especially since it will be abbreviated. Ergo below are all the abbreviations that will be employed henceforth in this thesis be listed out as shown as below:
Web novel, light novel, keitai shousetsu (携帯小説, Cell Phone Novel) will all be abbreviated to WN, LN and KS henceforth. Main character will be abbreviated to MC. Plural and singular will both be the same.
During the text analysis, source text and translated text will all be abbreviated to ST, TT henceforth. Also source language and targeted language will be SL and TL.
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2 Background
2.1 Different forms of novels relevant to the present
study
In this section, three relatively new forms of novels written in Japanese language will be presented, namely web novel, light novel and cell phone novel. These genres are closely related to each other. The rise to prominence and the specific style of said novels will be discussed in each of the sub-sections.
2.1.1 Web Novel
WN, also known as web fiction, is a form of literature that is being written on the web. The sentence structure and language style are almost identical to LN with both using simpler sentence structures and easier choice of words than novels for adults.
If a WN is analysed compared to LN one may come to the conclusion that the language itself is rather similar, albeit less grammatical and spelling errors in LN.
This is mainly due to the fact that one is working with publishers and professional proof-readers while WN tends to be a solo project. The biggest separating factors between the two are that WN are predominantly free to read whilst LN are a licenced work with a publishing company behind it.
It is hard to determine when this genre came to be since it has always been there since the internet came. The universal hit, Sword Art Online started in 2002 as a WN which may be a good estimate when the boom came.
WN authors are, in general, close to the readers. Usually WN are uploaded to websites that have systems where anyone can comment with criticism, praise or even suggestions which can help push a story to greater heights than it could have on its own, (e.g. Shousetsuka ni Narou (小説家になろう, “let’s become a novelist”) https://syosetu.com, Royal Road https://www.royalroad.com/home and Webnovel https://www.webnovel.com). It is common for famous LN to have started as a WN which garnered reputation and therefore either being found by a publishing company or the author contacts the publishing company himself to make a contract. A few examples would be Hiro Ainana’s (愛七ひろ) Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody (デスマーチからはじまる異世界狂想曲), Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles (精霊幻想記) written by Yuri Kitayama (北山結莉), Sword Art Online (ソードアートオンライン) written by Reki Kawahara (川原礫), and Overlord ( オーバーロード) who is written by Kugane Maruyama (丸山くがね). Of course, not all famous WN become a LN. Some are turned directly into a manga. One such example is The Wolf Won’t Sleep (狼は眠らない).
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2.1.2 Light Novel
LN is a style of writing that is the bridge between manga, anime and literary novels.
The LN is aimed towards older teens and younger adults and has a simpler structure and more often than not, simpler words compared to literary novels.
Nowadays not only manga works are being adapted into anime, but LN have strong influences and are also being adapted into anime. Not only anime but all forms of media such as, but not limited to, manga, live action movies, video games, mobile games etc. The origin and the typical themes are discussed in the “2.2 Structure of the industry” section.
2.1.3 Keitai Shousetsu
KS are novels that are written using the standard of an SMS or IM (Instant message), therefore each chapter can be as long as 200 words but usually has a length of 50 to 100 words. The language style also differs greatly from standard novels. According to Nishimura (2011) “The language style in KS is more fragmented, conversational in style, lacks predicates that otherwise express modalities such as tense and aspect”.
You would suspect that KS would include emoji, a small digital image, but due to display issues, they are not prevalent in KS with the exception of music notes, hearts and stars (Coates 2010).
KS received its boom thanks to the author Yoshi. He wrote the novel Deep Love in the early 2000. It later became a hit that received a printed version, film, and two live action series. Nishimura (2011) explains that one of the reasons why it has become so popular may be because of the subject matter. They usually base their novels on personal experiences in everyday settings.
There has been criticism from the established literary community about KS. The 2008 special volume of the journal Literary World’s (Bungakukai, 文學界) special volume from 2008’s “Is the cell phone novel killing (the author)?” (「ケータイ小 説は『作家』を殺すか」) concluded that keitai novels are best categorized not as literature (Hutchinson, and Morton, 2016). However, a study by Nishimura (2011) did not agree with the anecdotal criticism and concluded that KS and literature are not all that different from each other.
With all that said, it is quite a controversial topic and Takatsu, writer of Secondhand Memories, explains in an interview in 2013, that due to the word constraints, the poetic and emotional storytelling shines through. You also have to carefully choose line breaks, rhythm, punctuation and white space, the best of minimalism.
2.2 Structure of the industry
The structure or the industries of WN and LN is ever changing yet always the same.
To explain the phenomenon, we look towards the beginning of it all. The foundation of the term “light novel” dates back to 1977 (Wang, 2019). Some of the early works
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are, for example, “Slayers” (スレイヤーズ！), written by Hajime Kanzaka, a short story that started in 1989 and was published in Dragon magazine (Clements, and McCarthy, 2015). In this era of LN, fantasy was the most common genre and it would not diversify until the start of the 21st century. In the beginning, LN were something that came out in magazines, similar to the old American magazine Pulp fiction. This is important because of the arrival of prominence of the WN that would, for the most part, change the LN structure.
WN have been around since the beginning of the web, but became more accessible in the 21st century. Web pages such as Arcadia, founded in 2000 and Shousetsuka ni Narou (小説家になろう, “let’s become a novelist”) that was founded in 2004, provided easy, accessible places where you could start realizing your dream of becoming a novelist. At the same time, it also provided a place for the community to interact with the authors via comments. Not only readers were drawn to this phenomenon, but also publishers searching for the new hit started scouring the web for sites like the ones previously mentioned. This opened up a whole new path for writers. A path to gain recognition and land a contract with big publishers to start moving away from writing WN, since it is predominantly free, to products which have to be purchased. Some authors stop writing the WN when they land a contract, e.g. Overlord written by Kugane Maruyama whilst others continue with the WN until they are completely done. One such example is Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody written by Yuri Kitayama.
At this point the overall structure of the industry has taken a drastic turn, it has become driven by the internet’s WN rather than more of the conventional methods.
Hence the structures are ever changing yet always the same.
2.3 Japanese WN translation industry
When a translator decides to start translating a project of a WN, one has a couple of different options. One could either start their own Translation Group and start up a website and start posting from there. Another option is that the translator puts up their project on someone else’s website and still gets the profits from the translated project. The third and last option is to join an already existing group that is currently hiring translators to either start a new project or bolster up their line up for an already existing project. Doing the last option will more often than not give you a salary but as a downside, you do not choose your own project anymore and the revenue from donations, ad revenue, and subscriptions will go to the group owner and not the translator, unless stated in the contract.
Independent translation group websites that are completely free are no charity workers nor do they lose any money. On the contrary, they make more than enough to stay afloat and make it their side job or real job. There are a couple of different methods they have to monetize themselves. First off, they have ads. The bigger the traffic to their site, the more they make from ad revenue. It is in their own best interest to make it as convenient as possible for readers. Another big revenue they
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have is from donations. They usually either have a donation button or they have a Patreon page. Patreon (https://www.patreon.com) is a website that lets fans support the translator group by offering them a monthly membership. To give a perspective, Shin Translation (https://shintranslations.com/) have six tiers of monthly membership, cheapest one starting from $1 to the most expensive one at $100 per month. This usually gives the readers the ability to read ahead and be able to read the piled up chapters. Piled up chapters are already translated chapters that have yet to be released in order to be able to have a stable release schedule, in case something happens that keeps the translator away from translating. Normally you have a certain amount of chapters piled up so that in case something happens that might hinder you from translating you can keep your release schedule. Other translation groups such as Sousetsuka (https://www.sousetsuka.com/) also have an option of paying whatever you want once, a donation, or as they call it, “Buy me a Coffee”. They make incentives for readers to help the translator group out with more chapters per x amount of dollars. This will give the readers bonus chapters on top of the original chapter that they are translating. For example, the normal release schedule is three chapters per week but if everyone donates a certain amount of dollars, they get four chapters that week.
The above holds true for smaller groups that are translating on the web but for some of the behemoths out there, e.g. Webnovel (https://www.webnovel.com/) which is owned by Qidian (https://www.qidian.com/) a Chinese company for WN, have a micro transaction based website. On the English version, Webnovel, they have everything from Japanese, Korean, Chinese translated works and original works from the community. When a novel becomes popular, translated or original, they sign a contract and then they lock up toward 90 percent or more of the chapters and make you pay their own currency “Coins” to unlock them.
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3 Previous Studies
There have been numerous studies done about translation of Japanese literature, both modern and the newer formats such as LN. However, the latter has mostly been done in Japanese and not much has been published in English.
Not much has been published about translation of the newer formats previously mentioned in this thesis, but there have been some publications on the industry and how it came to be so popular. Hutchinson, Rachael, and Leith Douglas Morton’s Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature book from 2016 is one such example where they compile Japan's modern literary production. They have different sections for different topics which also involves KS, LN and WN. They include both how they came to be so popular in Japan and an introduction into how they came to be. They also discuss how they are intertwined and relate to other forms of popular cultures.
KS has been the focus of quite a few studies but studies focuses on the linguistic and cultural side instead of the translation. Coates’s study The Language of Mobile Phone Novels: Japanese Youth, Media Language and Communicative Practice in 2010 had the focus more on the cultural part with emphasis on youth culture. Coates went into detail about the linguistic style of KS. Coates concluded that keitai shousetsu reproduces spoken features by using tactics of written language.
Furthermore, Coates (2010) found “Japanese youth ornament their texts with symbols to create interest and to replicate the playful feel of spoken conversation”
(p. 10). On the other hand Nishimura’s study in 2011 in the book Digital Discourse:
Language in the New Media went to dispute the harsh criticism KS received from both mainstream media and public commentators. Nishimura conducted, “…as explained on page 86, an quantitative analysis of linguistic and stylistic similarities and differences between keitai and conventional novels (86).” Her conclusion was that “Linguistic and stylistic analysis shows that keitai and conventional novels are quantitatively not very different. However keitai novels reveal a clear preference for conversational styles, while conventional novels have more in common with typical written language.” (Nishimura 2011: 100) She also goes on about the noticeable difference in string length and that KS employ kanji which are a bit simpler.
In contrast to the papers published in English, in Japanese, there have been multiple studies that have been published on translation of the previously mentioned newer formats.
Ishii , et al. (2012) has done a study on the gender expressions of characters in manga and LN with focus on how there are translated characters whose gender cannot be identified. The study states that if the translators are Japanese, they have literal translations while non-Japanese translators have free translation styles. In this study they studied four manga works and one LN, and the translations of said books whilst taking into consideration if the translator is Japanese or foreigner.
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Tamai examined the structure of the story in the book “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime” (転生したらスライムだった件) written by Fuse. He examined the first book of the story throughout all the different versions, WN, LN, manga and anime. He noticed that the structure of the story as well as the ways the characters are being portrayed changed by the new publications. He also mentions that all the other works are made on the premise on the WN but not confined to it.
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4 Material and Methodology
4.1 Material used in the Case Studies
In the case study we have randomly chosen two books, namely The Wolf won’t sleep (狼は眠らない), started in 2017 and is written by Shien BIS (支援 BIS), and Jack of all trades (異世界に来た僕は器用貧乏で素早さ頼りな旅をする ), started in 2016 and is written by Kamifuusen (紙風船). Jack of all trades has two known English titles, Jack of all trades which is the title we are using in this thesis, and I Came to Another World as a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None to Journey. The novels were found using the website Novel Updates (https://www.novelupdates.com/). On their website there was a search function that you could set restrictions to, named “Series Finder”. With this tool the parameters of: Web Novel, Japanese and a rating above 4 (from a scale 1 to 5) were set up. The books chosen also must be a part of the genera 異世界 (Isekai, alternative universe).
The Isekai genre was chosen due to the popularity of the genre in WN. The chosen chapter we conduct the case study on is the chapter where the MC appears in the other world. This, by pure coincidence happened to be in chapter two in both novels.
The Wolf won’t sleep had a total of 901 characters in the chosen chapter and Jack of all trades had 3564 total characters in the chapter.
The novels was read through a website called Shousetsu wo Yomou! (小説を読も う！,”Let’s read novels!”) which is connected to the website Shousetsuka ni Narou (小説家になろう, “let’s become a novelist”).
The Wolf won’t sleep is a novel about two adventurers, the MC and his friend, who discovers a so-called black hole which they proceed to jump into. It is said that there are riches and powerful items within these black holes and hence why people are searching for them. But many people who allegedly have jumped into those black holes have not returned, hence the possibility of danger is high. This novel is being translated by a group called “Sousetsuka” (https://www.sousetsuka.com/) which has four projects currently on their website.
Jack of all trades is a novel about a person who worked at a convenience store who got murdered and in his final passing moment, he got summoned into another world with the unique skill jack of all trades, master of none. He wakes up in an unknown place with nobody around and starts to explore the area. The novel follows along the MC to explore the unknown world. This novel is being translated by a group called “Tiger Translations” (https://tigertranslations.org). This group has currently nine different novels which are being translated.
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4.2 Interviews
Novel Updates (https://www.novelupdates.com/) was used to search up different translation groups. Three different mediums were used to contact them; email, Discord (https://discord.com/new) and lastly, the implemented chatting system if the translation group has one. Here are a couple of sites that were contacted; Shin Translation (https://shintranslations.com/), Sousetsuka (https://www.sousetsuka.com/), Translation group Word except (Big group) (https://wordexcerpt.com/), Miwu is Bored (https://miwuisbored.wordpress.com/), daydrop (https://daydrop.nowaki.net/), Hinjaku Honyaku (https://hinjakuhonyaku.com/).
4.3 Procedures – case studies
The texts will be broken up sentence by sentence, making each sentence a unique case. The cases will be following the format: 1.X if it is from the novel “The Wolf Won't Sleep” and 2.X if it is from the novel “Jack of all trades”, where X is the case number. Then each sentence will be analysed to see which translation strategies were employed in the TT. This will all be done in the program “Excel” with each column labelled as the following: Case number, ST, TT, Translation Technique and lastly, Comments on TT. During the case study, we will abbreviate a couple of words. Mistranslation as MT and misinterpretation as MI.
In the Results and Analysis section, these two texts will be analysed separately and in the discussion section of the thesis, the similarities between the two will be discussed.
The translation analysis will be done by applying the translating techniques used in Hasegawa’s book The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation. The techniques used in the book are the following:
Borrowing: Lone words, e.g. karaoke, manga, anime.
Calque: Lone translation, is a special kind of borrowing whereby elements of an expression in the SL are translated literally into the TL. E.g. 秋祭り (Aki matsuri) translates to autumn festival
Literal translation: Literal translation is word-for-word replacement of words closely following the SL syntactic structure in the TL, normally at clause level defined as “transparent translation” in Newmark’s a textbook of translation (1988).
To have a clear definition we will consider the following literal translation if they contain one or more of these cases:
1. Not changing information and/or its order within a sentence.
2. Not changing order of sentences within a paragraph.
3. Not changing sentence units.
Transposition: involves rendering of an SL element using TL elements which are semantically, but not formally, equivalent.
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Modulation: is a variation of the form of the message that is accomplished by changing its point of view.
Equivalence: refers to the strategy that creates “equivalent texts” by using different structural or stylistic methods.
Adaption: is used when the type of situation in the ST is totally unknown in the TL culture.
Omission: Omission is a drastic strategy, but in some contexts, omitting some part of the ST may be feasible if the ST is exceedingly repetitious or if the information being conveyed is judged not vital but, rather, distracting to the reader.
Addition: Addition is a strategy used to give information that is not given or is implied in the ST.
This is the basic description of all the techniques that will be applied to the case study to help us understand and categorize the translation problems.
4.4 Procedures - Interview
Interviews with translator groups that are established on the web have been conducted to get informed opinions on how both the industry is operating, from a translator point of view, and what kind of problems there are with translating the text.
The information that we wanted from the interview is about the WN industry and the problems they have with the text. The questions we asked the translators are as follows:
1. How long have you been translating web novels?
2. Why did you start translating web novels?
3. Is translating your main job or is it something you do on the side?
4. What difficulties do you have while translating web novels?
5. Could you give an example of a typical translation problem that you find difficult or commonly recurring?
6. How do you personally solve your translations problems mentioned above?
Do note that everything that could be related to them personally will be omitted or otherwise changed. Translation groups name, personal details, and the book they are translating will be scrambled or omitted completely. This is to protect the translator’s identity.
The responses from the translation groups were not sufficient so in order to proceed, a deeper interview was conducted with one of them. It was conducted over the program Discord.
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5 Results and Analysis
In this section we will go into detail about each of the texts separately and in the discussion section, they will be discussed compared to each other.
The overview of the case studies can be seen in table 1 and 2 respectively. Since one sentence is one case, multiple translation techniques within a case are a possibility.
Total cases Literal Translation Modulation Omission
37 36 (97.3%) 2 (5.4%) 4 (10.8%)
The Wolf won't Sleep
Table 1, summary of the case study of The Wolf Won’t Sleep.
Total cases Literal Translation Modulation Omission Addition Borrowing 185 167 (90.3%) 13 (7.0%) 16 (8.6%) 3 (1.6%) 7 (3.8%)
Jack of All Trades
Table 2, summary of the case study of Jack of All Trades.
5.1 Translation analysis of The Wolf won't sleep.
5.1.1 ST features
The ST has interesting features, among which being easy to read and has almost exclusively straight forward sentence structures is one of them.
Example 1, Case 1.7
ST: レカンは、息を吸って吐くのと同じように、ごく自然に 索 敵を行うのだ。
Rekan wa, iki o sutte haku no to onajiyōni, goku shizen ni sakuteki o okonau noda.
TT: Lecan is detecting his surroundings as natural as he's breathing.
This is one of the longest sentences in the chapter. It is straightforward, simple and with no obscureness. Straight to the point.
The ST writing style can only be described as a narrative writing style which heavily focuses on what the main character sees and hears or what is going on around him.
The Narrator is not always the main character, it is sometimes viewed from a third person, almost omniscient point of view.
An important point of the ST is the use of game terminology. We are shown terminology such as, but not limited to: “索敵 (Sakuteki, Enemy search/Searching
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for the enemy), 緑の点 (Midori no ten, Green dots), ボス (Bosu, Boss)”. Words such as these are frequently used with next to no explanations that go with them.
Along with these we have abilities, magical spells, ranks of monsters e.g. Boss monster, magical beast etc. If the reader has next to no previous knowledge of game terminology, following this WN may be a hard task. To explain the “Green dots”
for example, it almost always refers to “friendly” NPC’s (Non-playable characters, an entity within the game that is not controlled by a player) that you can see on your
“mini-map” (a map which displays entities and terrain at all times). See fig 2.1.
Fig 1.
Pictures taken from World of Warcraft, published by Blizzard Entertainment.
5.1.2 Translation Strategy
In the translated version, the most common strategies to utilise are literal translation, modulation and omission. Literal translations were used in all but three sentences.
There were no other strategies employed in the translated text that were analysed.
Literal translation is the most basic strategy used to translate texts and can be useful for readers to understand the ST. However, as described in Hasegawa’s book The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation (2012).
Nevertheless, overly close correspondence to the syntax of the SL can seriously impair the effectiveness of communication in the TL and can even come out sounding ridiculous (173).
The translated version has almost the identical sentence structure as the ST, as close as you do with the difference in sentence structure between English and Japanese.
Example 2, Case 1.21
ST: だが、みわたすかぎり木々と山々が広がっており、上には 果てしない空がある。
Daga, miwatasu kagiri kigi to yamayama ga hirogatte ori, ue ni wa hateshinai sora ga aru.
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TT: However, trees and mountains spread out as far as his eyes can see, with endless sky above.
As shown in example 2, the sentence structure of the ST and TT are as close as identical. This leads to the flow of the text may not feel as natural in the TT as it does in the ST. While translating novels, the flow of the text is among the most important aspects. Just like Newmark talks about in his A Textbook of Translation (1988), the naturalness of the TT must be kept. He also mentions that sometimes you must ‘disengage’ yourself from the ST and only focus on the TT as though no original existed.
5.1.3 Translation Quality
The overall quality of the translation is fairly low with plenty of mistranslation and misinterpretations. To give an example of misinterpretation:
Example 3, Case 1.17
ST:〈黒穴〉に飛び込んだことは、はっきりと覚えている
〈Kuro ana〉 ni tobikonda koto wa, hakkiri to oboete iru
TT: He remembers clearly when he jumped into the <Black Hole>.
The misinterpretation in this sentence is that, it is not about that he remembers (when) jumping into the black hole, but that he remembers (that) he jumped into the black hole. Another small but significant change is that he translated いろんな国 (ironna kuni, various countries) as “all over the places”. See example 4 below.
Example 4, Case 1.25
ST: レカンは世界中のいろんな国を旅してきたが、その旅の記 憶に照らしてみても、この森の木や草は異質だ。
Rekan wa sekaijū no iron'na kuni o tabi shite kitaga, sono tabi no kioku ni terashite mite mo, kono mori no ki ya kusa wa ishitsu da.
TT: Lecan has traveled all over the places around the world, yet the trees and grass in this forest are something that don't exist in his memories of his travels.
This may seem fine at a glance but it removes a lot of unexplained details that would otherwise be understood. One thing that is completely removed when translating it like this, is that you have no idea that the character in question has traveled to various countries. Neither that the different countries may differ from each other. It removes information from the ST which is not ideal.
In the translated version of the text, there has been a lot of information omitted completely from the text. Sometimes there are reasons for doing that and can have
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a positive effect in the TT, one such case is redundancy. But in this case, more often than not, it has a negative effect. One such example would be:
Example 5, Case 1.8
ST: 〈立体知覚〉 で近距離の(索敵)を 行い、〈生命感知〉 で 長距離の(索敵)を 行う。
〈Rittai chikaku〉 de kinkyori no (sakuteki) o okonai,〈seimei kanchi
〉 de chōkyori no (sakuteki) o okonau.
TT: <3D Perception> to detect short range, <Life Detection> to detect long range.
Here the word 索 敵 (Sakuteki, Enemy search/Searching for the enemy) is completely removed from the translated version of the text. Removing the word has a negative impact on the translated version because you have no idea what he is detecting. Is he detecting living beings or is he detecting something more specific as in enemies, allies or something simple as herbs.
The last point on the quality of the translation is that there are several grammatical and spelling mistakes. Some minor things such as getting the main character’s name incorrectly. Sometimes the verb conjugations are not correctly conjugated, e.g. “he would immediately (woke up)”.
5.2 Results of the translation analysis of Jack of all
Trades.
From the translation analysis of the ST and the TT, a couple of features of WN were clear. Below we go into detail on three different aspects of the texts.
5.2.1 ST features
The style of the novel Jack of all trade is colloquial style. It uses colloquial language in each and every paragraph, while also is almost exclusively in first person narrative. Here is a couple of examples of colloquial language:
Example 6, Case 2.22
ST: これはそういうことなんじゃないか？
Kore wa sō iu koto nan janai ka?
English version: Perhaps that was what this was?
Here in this example sentence above, the なん (nan) part is colloquial style that is often used in informal speech. But that is not all, most of the time the character speaks or has an inner dialog, the colloquial register is also apparent.
Example 7, Case 2.24
15
ST: まぁここが日本のド田舎 でしたーなんてことだったら恥ず かしいが。
Ma~a koko ga Nihon no do inaka deshita-- nante kotodattara hazukashīga
TT: Well, this would be quite embarrassing if it turned out to be nothing more than a countryside in Japan.
The start of this sentence has a colloquial register that the character uses. If this was a formal text, that would be left out completely from the sentence. Also to note in this sentence is the ド田舎 (doinaka, remote countryside) which also indicated colloquial word choice in the text. Colloquial register is also frequently used at the end of sentences like in the example below:
Example 8, Case 2.56
ST: ちょっと緊張するな……。
Chotto kinchō suru na…….
TT: I was becoming a little nervous…
This is part of the colloquial register and only used in casual speech.
The ST, not only has the colloquial style to it but also has straight forward sentences.
To show this, here is an example.
Example 9, Case 2.5
ST: 夢現の中、目を開く。草が見える。草？ 意味が分からない まま、ゆっくりと体を起こし、周囲を見回す。
Yumeutsutsu no naka, me o hiraku. Kusa ga mieru. Kusa? Imi ga wakaranai mama, yukkuri to karada o okoshi, shūi o mimawasu.
TT: Half awake, I open my eyes. I see grass. Grass?
Uncomprehending, I slowly pull myself up and take in my surroundings.
We can notice two points from the above example. How it is described, i.e. in first person narrative. The sentence structure is simple, straight forward, no intricate long sentence. To better show the second point, here is another example:
Example 10, Case 2.40
ST: もし奴らに襲われるなら僕はそれに抵抗しなきゃいけない。
Moshi yatsura ni osowa rerunara boku wa sore ni teikō shinakya ikenai.
TT: If they decided to attack me, then I would need to fight back.
16
The sentence structure is always short, concise and to point that leaves little to nothing to the reader’s imagination or wit.
The story is described in a narrative writing style that is focused on what the main characters does, feels, hears and sees. Although this is not to be confused with a descriptive style since it is not describing anything in great detail, rather it may employ descriptive writing to make the narration more vibrant.
Example 11, Case 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 (First paragraph)
ST: 駅前に似た冷たさが肌を刺す。何だろう、肌もしっとりす る。しっとりするが、チクチクもする。なんだろう？
Ekimae ni nita tsumetasa ga hada o sasu. Nanidarou, hada mo shittori suru. Shittori suru ga, chikuchiku mo suru. Nandarou?
TT: I feel a chill reminiscent of the nearby train station sting my skin.
What was this? My skin felt damp. Damp, but also prickly. What was it?
The narrator in this story is the main character. His senses are always included in one way or another, i.e. monologue or through his thinking process but the author does not include any other beings’ thoughts that are not said out loud.
One could make an argument for the novel to have certain game elements, such as being granted a skill (Jack of all trades, master of none) or being summoned to a presumably an unknown world with 魔物 (mamono, monster). While it is true that it does contain these elements, the story is written in such a way that anyone, even if not having any knowledge of these elements, would understand the text with little to no problem.
5.2.2 Translation features/Strategy
The TT has a variety of translation techniques that are being utilised, though some more than others. The most common translation technique was overwhelmingly literal translation but also omissions, additions, modulation and borrowing. The sentence order was also unchanged in the TT. Example 12 below is an example of the literal translation which was common in the TT.
Example 12, Case 2.19
ST: つまり僕は何か、何者かなのか何物なのかは分からないが、
何かの意思によって召喚されたことになる。
Tsumari boku wa nani ka, nanimono ka na no ka nanimonona no ka wa wakaranai ga, nanika no ishi ni yotte shōkan sa reta koto ni naru.
TT: In other words, something or someone, I didn’t know which, had summoned me for a reason.
17
The ST and TT are almost identical in structure with the exception of an added comma and the last sentence is reversed due to the differences in Japanese and English.
Borrowing was employed while translating sounds from monsters such as グギュ ルル…… (Gugyururu) got turned into Googururu… in the TT. Addition was used once when explaining something related to kanji. The place the main character woke up at in the novel was the meaning of his name in Japanese which cannot be translated without addition, which the translator used by putting a bracket in the sentence.
Example 13, Case 2.31
ST: 何の因果だろうか、この僕 、『上社 朝霧』の名と同じロ ケーションに放り出された訳だ。
Nani no inga darou ka, kono boku ,“Kamiyashiro Asagiri” no na to onaji rokēshon ni hōridasareta wakeda.
TT: What sort of trick of fate was this, I had been thrown into a location that was the same as my own name, ‘Asagi Kamiyashiro.’(*Asagi = morning mist)
Modulation was being utilised in a variety of places such as this one:
Example 14, Case 2.64
ST: これで棒は槍に生まれ変わった。
Kore de bō wa yari ni umarekawatta.
TT: And just like that, you have a spear.
The ST literary means “With this, the pole/stick is now reborn as a spear” which the translator modulated, as in the viewpoint was changed. Only when sentences would not be clear by literal translation, did the author employ modulation. The notion of something being “reborn” is rarely used in English when not talking about reincarnation e.g. a phoenix. Hence the translator had to modulate the sentence.
5.2.3 Translation Quality
The TT only has a few grammatical errors within the text. Most of which comes from the fact that the translator is mixing present tense with past tense. The ST is mostly in present tense while the TT is mixing them and putting past tense where it does not belong.
Example 15, Case: 2.72
ST: 頭の中で思い浮かべるが、特にそういうのは表示されない。
Atama no naka de omoiukaberu ga, tokuni sō iu no wa hyōji sa renai.
18
TT: I think of this, but no such images appeared in my head.
Here he is mixing present tense, think, with the latter of the sentence is in past tense.
Only looking at the TT the author would either have to change the “think” to
“thought” or the “appeared” to “appear”.
Only a few times did the author not properly conjugate the verbs. Here are a few of them:
Example 16, Case 2.103, 2.104
ST: 肌が薄い緑。尖った耳まで裂けた口から乱杭歯が覗いてい る。
Hada ga usui midori. Togatta mimi made saketa kuchi kara ranguiba ga nozoite iru.
TT: “Its skin was a light green. Its mouth was so wide that its corners reach its pointed ears, and I could see its uneven teeth.”
Example 17, Case 2.135
ST: 今がチャンスとばかりにうつ伏せに倒れた其奴のうなじに 槍を当てる。
Ima ga chansu to bakari ni utsubuse ni taoreta soitsu no unaji ni yari o ateru.
TT: “Here’s my chance, I think. It had fallen face first into the dirt, and I point the tip of the spear into the back of its neck.”
Both of the above sentences have the same error. Both are not conjugated to past tense. In the first sentence it should have been “reached” and the second one
“pointed”. It could also have been because the translator did not correctly understand the ST. Japanese mixes past and non-past tenses to describe past time, as can be seen in example 17, 覗いている. Small mistake but a reoccurring one. Other than the incorrect tense of verbs, the author only made one small mistake in the sentence
““You-you have got be kidding me…!” which is that he didn’t add “got to be”.
Conclusively, the grammatical part was fairly good with limited mistakes.
The ST was mostly written in first person and present tense which the translator did not catch all the time. In the TT, it mixes between present and past tense which makes a few discrepancies appear. Along with these discrepancies, there were a few cases of ST misinterpretation. One such example is:
Example 18, Case 2.14
ST: しかしそこに存在するはずのナイフは無く、おまけにその ナイフが貫いた制服にも傷はなかった。
19
Shikashi soko ni sonzai suru hazu no naifu wa naku, omake ni sono naifu ga tsuranuita seifuku ni mo kizu wa nakatta.
TT: But the knife that should have been there was gone, there weren’t even any traces of the wound on my clothes.
Here what the misinterpretation was, is that the wound, (傷) is not referring to the wound that should have been on his stomach, it is referring to the clothes. The kanji that is being used here can also be used on things such as cloths, i.e. a tear, and not only to wounds.
There were some other instances where the author added unnecessary information into the TT. In one place of the story, the main character took a stance with a weapon that the author added “offensive” stance which were not included in the ST.
Example 19, Case 2.70
ST: 試しに槍を構えてみよう。
Tameshi ni yari o kamaete miyou.
TT: I try holding the spear in an offensive stance.
5.3 Interview
The deeper interview was a one to one discussion about translation, WN and who
“he” is as a person. I want to clarify once again that all notions of names, gender or anything that could be linked to this individual are all either fake, e.g. name, or omitted completely. We will refer to this individual as a man named “K”.
A couple of things were interesting in the responses that were given to us. Most of the information from K was in line with the results gathered from the case studies.
Here are a few examples. Note that this conversation was in Swedish and therefore is being translated into English.
Q: Can you go into detail on how and why you decided to start translating web novels?
A: Because I was not satisfied with previous translations after having read the source text.
We wanted to know what exactly he was not satisfied with so we asked in the deeper interview.
Q: You mentioned that you were not satisfied with previous translations, care to elaborate?
A: It was noticeable that the translated text was incomprehensible, as it had grammatical problems and the translators didn’t have English as their mother tongue. It was noticeable that the translator did it in his free time as a hobby and was not serious about it at all.
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This, although a bit stronger, was in line with what the case studies found.
Grammatical errors were quite frequent and features in ST were not properly translated into the TT. Since K brought up that they did not have English as their mother tongue, inquiries about K were made.
Q: If I may, mind if you tell us about yourself?
A: Sure, I’m in my mid-twenties, studying at university. I learned Japanese while studying abroad in Japan for a year.
Permission from K was granted to show the data above. The interview continued:
Q: Why did you start translating, and where did you learn it?
A: Oh, I have no formal training in translation and I started translating in order to improve my Japanese.
This was an aspect which was not previously thought of. Could the translator of WN translate because they wanted to improve their language proficiency and not because they wanted to get into translation? This will be further discussed in the discussion section. From this point, the text in WN was discussed.
Q: What, according to you, is typical of WN?
A: It’s simple to work with. The text isn’t hard to understand.
More confirmations from K which were found by the earlier case study.
Q: What is the hardest part about translating WN? 22
A: Mistakes in the text (ST) which makes it hard to translate. The author (of the ST) makes grammatical mistakes and tries to make callbacks but the author (of the ST) does not remember it correctly. He (The author of the ST) names a thing something, which he later does not remember and calls it by another name several chapters later.
Due to the case study being only a chapter long, the callback problem he described could not be distinguished. The grammatical mistakes did come out during the case study. Since he mentions that both the ST and the TT have grammatical mistakes the question about not having an editor followed.
Q: Do you have an editor for your translated text?
A: I am my own proofreader.
As expected, he did not have an editor. But since he mentioned that he translates because he wants to improve his language skills, maybe it was for his own sake and not anyone else’s? Since no editor is being utilized, the interview continued:
Q: What are you careful with while translating?
A: Word comprehension. Japanese can be weird with words that are written either in kanji or without kanji.
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Since he had no formal training in translation, what he was careful with was word comprehension. It is an important part of understanding the ST but there are many more aspects which need to be considered before starting to translate a text. This gave some sort of understanding to what a non-trained translator would think about when translating.
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6 Discussion
Both TTs had similar techniques used and both had used literal translation as their baseline. To use literal translation to this extent in literary novels, in which semantic or even free translation are normally employed, was surprising. It may be because the translators did not have formal training in translation before starting to translate WN. It could also be because the style of WN, which is straightforward and easy sentence structure, allows for a literal translation to be applied more easily. The translators did not commonly have English as their mother tongue which can also be seen in the TT with all the grammatical errors that were found. The grammatical errors were commonly verb conjugations and mixing of tenses. The mixing of tenses could be due to the typical Japanese narration which mixes past and non-past forms which the translator did not interpret properly. This may also be a big part of why they opted for literal translation. It could have been a problem exclusive to the two novels randomly chosen for this thesis, but since both were chosen at random, the likeliness that only these two are special cases can with relative certainty be ruled out.
Since translators of both TTs chose to employ literal translation, some elements of the features that were found in the ST are also present in the TT. Both texts had not altered the game terminology in any way, with the exception of one mistranslation in Jack of all trades. Both TT also had kept the straightforward, simple sentence structure used in ST including an almost exact sentence to sentence translation with the same sentence order as in the ST. The Wolf won’t sleep TT had the exact number of sentences as in the ST, 37 to be exact. Although Jack of all trades had a total of 185 cases, only 4 sentences were added in the TT compared to the ST. but those added sentences did not add any new information, they only broke up the ST sentences into two.
We also noted how some features of the novels did not translate well into the TT.
The novel The Wolf won’t sleep had a theme of jumping between first and an almost omniscient third person narration which did not get translated at all into the TT.
Same with the novel Jack of all trades, it had a style of sometimes talking directly to the audience which the TT failed to deliver. This may have been conscious decisions, but due to the amounts of mistranslations and misinterpretations present in the texts, the possibility of the author not fully grasping the features and styles used in the ST is quite high.
The interview also confirms the previous notion that the translators of WN do not have formal training in translation and do not have English as their mother tongue.
But the interview brought up an entirely different aspect of why these people may be translating. It came up that the interviewed translator was doing it to improve his language skills. He also claims that he is doing it for his own sake. Could this also hold true for other translators in other translation groups? Doubtable, but requires more information in order to pass a judgement on the issue.
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7 Conclusion
The features of translated web novels are that they have easy language, grammatical mistakes, translated with literal translation technique as baseline. They do employ omission and modulation to some extent but it is apparent that they have no formal training in translation studies. All the grammatical errors that occur, verb conjugations and mixing tenses, point to the fact that they do not have English as their mother tongue. It is important to note that grammatical errors that were found did not exist in the ST, although the ST did have grammatical errors in it as well.
The interviewed individual even started translating WN because he was not satisfied with the translated WN out there.
Does the TT keep the style in ST? This was quite a problematic question to answer directly. Some aspects of the ST were not translated while others were maintained.
Some non-kept aspects were that one text had the style which talks to the audience directly sometimes which were completely omitted in the TT. Another aspect was that they jumped between first person and third person, or kept it vague while the TT chose one and kept with it. The general style of simple and straightforward sentence structure was kept identical with the translators opting to do a sentence to sentence translation and have almost the same number of sentences. The sentence elements and sentence units are also being kept to an unnatural degree. They sacrificed naturalness and readability to have the same sentence structure as the ST.
This may have been due to previously mentioned lack of formal training or lack of language proficiency but no such conclusions can be made from this case study.
This thesis focused on doing two in-depth case studies on randomly selected novels but the sample size may be too small. If done again, one should have as many as one can to get a clearer view of the features of both the ST and TT. Also what could not be determined in this thesis is whether or not different translation groups have different levels of quality control. It may have been an entirely different result if the chosen novels had other translation groups that did the TT but no such things can be said with absolute certainty.
24
Bibliography
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Accessed 27 May 2020.
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Coates, Stephanie. The Language of Mobile Phone Novels: Japanese Youth, Media Language and Communicative Practice. Presented at 18th Biennial of the Asian
Studies Association of Australia. Adelaida,. 5 July 2010.
Hasegawa, Yoko. The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation. Routledge, 2013.
Hutchinson, Rachael, and Leith Douglas Morton. Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature. Routledge, 2016.
Ishii Teruhisa, et al. “Manga to raitonoberu ni okeru sugatakatachi kotoba jendā hyōgen - eigo-yaku dokugo-yaku to hikaku shite – “マンガとライトノベルにお
ける姿形・言葉・ジェンダー表現 -英語訳・独語訳と比較して- [Gender-
expressions of the characters in Japanese, English and German mangas and light novels] Akita. Akitadaigaku kyōiku suishin sōgō sentā, (Mars 2014) no. 14, pp.
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Mroczek. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 86-110
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shitara suraimudatta kudan” o jirei to shite ― “ウェブ小説に見る物語構造と虚
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Reincarnated as a Slime’]. Tohoku. Touhoku geijutsukouka daigaku (Mars 2020)
Appendix
See attached PDF files for appendices.
Case ST TT Translation
Technique comment on TT
1.1 レカンは目を覚ました。 Lecan comes to his sense. Literal translation Grammatical error. Sense should be
in past tense.
1.2 自分が熟睡していたことに、驚きを覚えた。 Astonished to find himself sound
asleep. Literal translation MT. He is astonished "that " he was sound asleep.
1.3 普段、レカンの眠りは浅い 。 Lecan usually never sleeps too
deep. Modulation
The ST talks about Lecan's sleep is normally light while in the TT he modulated it to become "never sleeps too deep"
1.4 寝ていても、近づく者がいたり、物音がした
りすればすぐ目を覚ます。
Even if he did, he would immediately woke up when
someone approached him, or if there was a sound nearby.
Literal translation
Grammatical error. "woke up "is not the correct verb conjugation, "Wake up" .
MT. He would wake up "if", not
"when".
1.5 こんなふうに 深い眠りについたのはいつ以
来か思い出せないほどだ。
To the point that he couldn't remember the last time he slumbered this deep.
Literal translation Word for word the same
1.6 驚きながらも、油断なく索敵を行う。 Even while surprised, he performs
enemy search in full alert. Literal translation 索敵 is Game terminology.
1.7 レカンは、息を吸って吐くのと同じように、
ごく自然に 索敵を行うのだ。
Lecan is detecting his
surroundings as natural as he's breathing.
Literal translation Word for word the same
1.8 〈立体知覚〉で近距離の索敵を 行い、〈生
命感知〉で長距離の索敵を 行う。
<3D Perception> to detect short range, <Life Detection> to detect
long range.
Literal translation Omission
In the TT, the 索敵 is omitted on both occasions. It is not clear in the TT what he is detecting.
〈立体知覚〉〈生命感知〉are both game terminology
1.9 五十歩以内に動物も人間もいない。 There's no animals nor human
within 50 steps. Literal translation No information how far a step is in neither text.
1.10 千歩以内には二十個ほどの緑の点があるが、
青い点も赤い点もない。
There's about 20 green points within 1000 steps, but no blue nor red points.
Literal translation
Different coloured points is game terminology. (Usually on a mini- map)
1.11 それはいいのだが、緑の点の光が非常に弱い
。
That's good and all, but the green
points are extremely dim. Literal translation
1.12 試しに感度を上げてみると、少しはっきり映
るようになった。
When he tried to raise the sensitivity a bit, it was suddenly
shown clearly.
Literal translation
MI. The translator have
misunderstood that the 少し since it's not about the "raise the
sensitivity " but it is part of the previously mentioned coloured points. Those are what is shown "a bit more clearly"
1.13 こんなことは今までになかった。 This never happened before. Literal translation Grammatical error. This "has "
never happened before
1.14 おもむろに上半身を起こし、そのまますうっ
と 立ち上がった。
He abruptly raised his upper body and stood up.
Literal translation omission
In the TT, the すうっとpart is entirely missing. It could be either of two things in this case, either that he stood up "straight" or that he he stood "quietly".
1.15 森のなかだ。 It's inside a forest. Literal translation
1.16 いったいどうしてこんな所にいるのだろう。
Why is he in such a place. Literal translation
1.17 〈黒穴〉に飛び込んだことは、はっきりと覚
えている。
He remembers clearly when he
jumped into the <Black Hole>. Literal translation
MT. The ST clearly indicates that it is not "when " but "that " he jumped into the Black Hole.
1.18 穴のなかを落ちてゆく途中で気を失った。 Then he lost consciousness while
falling inside the hole. Literal translation "Then" in the start of the sentence is not necessary.
1.19 そして今 ここにいる。 And then he found himself here. Literal translation
1.20 つまりここは、〈黒穴〉の先の世界なのだ。 In other words, this is the world at
the end of the <Black Hole>. Literal translation
1.21 だが、みわたすかぎり木々と山々が広がって
おり、上には果てしない空がある。
However, trees and mountains spread out as far as his eyes can see, with endless sky above.
Literal translation
It is previously mentioned that he only have one eye, hence it should say eye here, not eyes .
1.22 どうみても、穴のなかの世界のようではない
。
It doesn't look like a world inside a
hole no matter how you slice it. Literal translation
1.23 ぐるりと体を回転させながら、残された右目
でじっくりと周囲を観察する。
He observes the surroundings with his remaining right eye while slowly turning around.
Literal translation
MI. Here the word じっくりis not apart of 体を回転(turning around), but it is apart of
観察する(observation).
じっくり also has the meaning of doing it not only slowely, but carefully, thoroughly which also is lost in the TT.
1.24 生えている木や草の形が、みおぼえのないも
のばかりだ。
He's never seen the shapes of the
leaves and grass here. Literal translation
MT. みおぼえ is loosly translated here as "seen" but the actual meaning of the word is
"remembrance; recollection;
recognition ".
1.25
レカンは世界中のいろんな国を旅してきたが
、その旅の記憶に照らしてみても、この森の 木や草は異質だ。
Lecan has traveled all over the places around the world, yet the trees and grass in this forest are something that don't exist in his memories of his travels.
Literal translation
MT. いろんな国 got translated here as "all over the places". The actual meaning of the word is "various countries".
In the TT, "something that don't exist in his memories of his travels."
is quite the weird sentence since a memory don't "exist", or the notion that memories exists is not normally used in English
1.26 体調はきわめて良好だ。 His physical condition is
extremely well. Literal translation
1.27 空気もうまい。 The air is nice too. Literal translation
1.28
だが、その空気の匂いも、どこかしら これ まで 知っていた空気とちがうような気がす る。
But he feels that this air is nothing
like any air he knows. Literal translation
MT. Here, どこかしら became
"Nothing like " in the TT. It is too strong since the meaning is closer to
"Somehow". So he feels like the air is somehow different…
1.29 レカンの鋭敏な感覚のすべてが、ここがみし らぬ異世界であると告げている。
All of Leican's keen senses signal that he's in an unknown foreign world.
Literal translation Modulation
Mispelling of the MC's name.
Grammatical error. Since all of his senses "signals".
"Unknown" and "Foreign" do have the same connotation, although
"Foreign" also has "Strange" in it aswell, so it is weird that he used them together. The word 異世界 is translated here as "foreign" which is a MT since it is parallel or alternative world.
The TT modulated that he is "in"
an unknown world while the ST says that this "is" an unknown world.
1.30
〈生命感知〉の範囲を移動させて、さらに 広い範囲を探ってみたが、赤い点は表示され ない。
He enlarged the range of <Life Detection> to try to search wider, but no red point is displayed.
Literal translation Omission
The first part of the sentence in the ST tells us that he "範囲を移動"
which means "to move the
range/sphere " which is completely omitted in the TT. Other than omitting the first part of the sentence, it is word for word translation.
1.31 近くに人間はいないということだ。 Which means there's no human
nearby. Literal translation
1.32 つまりボウドがいない。 In other word, Boudo isn't here. Literal translation
1.33 ひどく離れた場所に落ちてしまったようだ。 Looks like he fell in an awfully far
place. Literal translation Grammatical error. Awfully far
"away" place.
1.34 （いや……もしかすると） --No... Perhaps. Literal translation
