Abstract
The localization of a long-lasting and often updated Trading Card Game (TCG) such as Magic: The Gathering (USA, 2003-present) requires specific and detailed translation for consistency, while following certain policies. A parallel, bilingual corpus was created to observe technical constraints and localization policies pertaining to its translation into Brazilian Portuguese. The text of 249 cards in each language was extracted, aligned, and analyzed using Wordsmith 3.0 and Notepad++, with theoretical support of a translation description model (Lambert and Van Gorp) adapted for the genre. Macro and micro analyses both resulted in a translation product that is linguistically adequate to the target system, but not acceptable in the target cultural system. Also, some sections of the product require less rigidity in relation to the game rules and could benefit from transcreation.
Highlights
How are card games localized? due to Non-Disclosure Agreements, most of the localization teams are unable to provide data for academic research; only the published product can be analyzed to derive their practices
Trading Card Games (TCGs) have limited text and translation must reflect game rules followed by players
This paper reports on an investigation of translation practices in a previously translated and released TCG using a corpus with a view to deriving its translation policies
Summary
How are card games localized? due to Non-Disclosure Agreements, most of the localization teams are unable to provide data for academic research; only the published product can be analyzed to derive their practices. Lambert and Van Gorp claim that such dichotomy between adequateness and acceptability is subjective and translations do not tend to be completely coherent in relation to either This analysis does not list mere differences between source and target, as it follows assumptions that guide corpus-based research in translation studies (Olohan), finding probable and typical features in the MTG translation and interpreting outliers, and understanding the translation practices in the context of Trading Card Games as a genre, with its particular “discourse, text, and rhetorical purpose” (30). Analytical Procedures Macrostructure features of the translated cards were collected and analyzed to observe how the game was identified as a translation, how translators and localizers received credit, and its recognition as a translated text in relation to “linguistic interference, neologisms, sociocultural features” (Lambert and Van Gorp, 206), as well as its metatext This first-level analysis provided insight on the translation practices adopted for MTG, and parts of the corpus were selected for further micro analysis.
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