TRANSLATING JAPANESE ONOMATOPOEIA AND MIMETIC EXPRESSIONS IN MANGA INTO SPANISH AND ENGLISH
Dr. HIROKO INOSE (Lecturer, Department of Japanese, Dalarna University, Sweden)
Onomatopoeic and mimetic expressions are widely used in almost all levels of Japanese language, giving it a richness of the expression. However, due to their elaborated sound symbolic system, those expressions are a challenge for Japanese language students and translators. The present paper focuses on those expressions used in manga, or Japanese comics, and their translation into Spanish and English. Maison Ikkoku, a famous work by Rumiko Takahashi, is used as the main corpus.
In the first 3 chapters which were used as the corpus, more than 140 cases of using onomatopoeias and mimetic words were found. As for the techniques used to translate them, 9 were identified in both English and Spanish versions, though they do not coincide with each other. The present paper categorizes and analyses those techniques, and discuss their effectiveness.
The study shows that the use of these expressions in original Japanese manga differs from their use in more traditional style texts, such as Japanese novels. This, by itself, is not surprising since manga has drawings as well as texts to transmit messages. However, the different use of these expressions in this genre seems to have lead to the adoption of different techniques of translation as well. In the translation of manga the translators use a series of more dynamic and original techniques compared to the techniques used to translate these expressions in novels, such as neologism or use of the third language.
2011.
1st TRANSLATA International Conference “Translation and Interpreting Research – Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”, Universität Innsbruck, 12-14 May 2011, Innsbruck, Austria