Students with no translation experience

“casual register” of the source texts does not seem to affect the readability of the translation nor are there apparent translation errors in the translation. A lot of the original English terms or Finnish spoken language versions of the original English terms are visible in the translation, but this is justified by the translator due to the target audience of the translation.

assignment did contain the contact information of author for cases where the translator needs to ask advice regarding the translation or the study in general. No contact was made towards author regarding the translation comment template.

Strategic competence analysis based on the translation

Despite not filling out the translation comment template, translator 6 did provide their full translation, which can be analyzed. Overall, it seems translator 6 used the strategy of mostly leaving the special language terms untranslated or using the Finnish spoken language version of the English term. Examples of such decisions were using the form drafti for the term draft, ulti for ultimate and gänkki for gank. Examples of untranslated terms were terms like Baron and bruiser.

Translator 6 also used omission in cases like the terms lane, dive and siege where sentences containing these terms in the source text were modified to not use the term in the translation.

The translation contained a factual error possibly due to the omission strategy where in the first paragraph the sentence A new draft strategy that focused on securing strong solo laners for Nisqy and Licorice was translated as Uusi drafti-strategia, jossa soolopelaajille Nisqylle ja Licoricelle pyrittiin hankkimaan hyvät puitteet. The translation is incorrect as the term solo laners refers to the in-game characters that were selected for the players Nisqy and Licorice and not to the players themselves like the translation implies.

Overall, the translation is fairly easy to read and the omission of some terms like lane that was frequently used in the source text lessens the amount of special language terms that “pop out”

of the text. Whether the strategy of omission is suitable for a text that aims to describe a set of games of League of Legends to the game’s fans and players is a conversation that this study does not take part in. Despite the translator having no formal translation experience the text contains only one severe translation error.

4.1.3.2 Translator 7

Below is a table showing the self-reported information of translator 7 from the translation comment.

Translator number

Translator’s years of studying

translation

Translator’s level of familiarity with League of Legends

Translator’s level of familiarity with e-sports in general

Time spent on translation

7 0 3 2 ~2h

Strategic competence analysis based on the translation comment

Global translation strategy

Translator 7 wrote that they used a global strategy of domestication in their translation. They also claim to have used modulation, adaptation and borrowing, which tell that the translator had some prior knowledge or did information gathering on the topic of translation strategies.

The translator, however, did not specify the reasons for using these strategies.

Local level translation strategies

Translator 7 provided a multitude of examples of micro level translation decisions concerning special language terms in their translation comment. The first of these was Kled’s ultimate, which they translated into Kledin ultimate-kyky. The second example was solo laner, which was translated into yksilösuoriutuja. The next example was dive, which they translated into koukku. Another example was the sentence A see-hero, kill-hero kind of mentality, which translator 7 translated into “näe pelaaja kukista pelaaja” –mentaliteetti. The last example provided was the term bruiser, which was translated into voimanpesä.

Identifying and solving translation problems

Translator 7 noted that the largest difficulty in the translation process was the special language vocabulary used in the source text as a whole. Examples provided were dive, bruiser and C9’s comp. Translator 7 also provided examples of other expressions they had difficulties with like: in TL’s face, pull the trigger on engages, split and strength in numbers.

The easiest part of the translation process

When asked to provide an example of the easiest parts of the translation, translator 7 noted that the easiest part of the translation for them was “the relatively easy syntax”.

Strategic competence analysis based on the translation

Translation 7 reads very fluently overall. The translator’s strategy of domestication is apparent in the translation, as there are only a few cases across the whole text where the original English words were left untranslated. Most of these cases were the word Baron, which was italicized in the translation. Other cases where at least a part of the English term remained were bottom lane and Kled’s ultimate. Bottom lane was partially translated into its Finnish spoken language orthography form bottilinja and Kled’s ultimate was given the addition of the Finnish word for ability, kyky ending up with the form Kledin ultimate -kyky.

The overall strategy of domestication used by translator 7 which, while making it easy to read for Finnish readers and containing creative expressions like voimanpesä and yksilösuoriutuja, is not very functional in the context of the translation assignment. In their effort to domesticate as much as possible in the translation, translator 7 made some decisions that could be seen as relatively large errors. For example, the translation of dive into koukku does not convey the meaning of the original term. The term dive refers to one or more players attacking an enemy player under the enemy turret, while the Finnish word koukku implies players going around an enemy and attacking them from the side or from behind. Another problematic decision in translation 7 is using the translation yksilösuoriutuja for the term solo laner. The term solo laner refers to player characters that are played in the middle and top lane of the League of Legends map. While the translation yksilösuoriutuja conveys the meaning of something that functions well solo, it does not immediately make the connection to the player characters like the original term. Another erroneous translation was translating finessed plays into hiottuja taktiikoita, as finessed plays refers to skillful actions performed by a player or players on moment-to-moment bais, while hiottuja taktiikoita implies practice and pre-planning.

Translator 7, despite some errors, managed to solve the translation problems that they had listed. Terms that gave them trouble like split and C9’s comp were translated into kausi and C9:n kokoonpano that function very well in the translation. Other decisions were not as functional. For example, the expression listed as a difficulty by the translation, pull the trigger on engages, was solved by omitting it from the translation. However, due to this omission the meaning of the whole sentence was changed. The original sentence they again were repeatedly faster to fights and faster to pull the trigger on engages was translated into he olivat jälleen kerran valmiimpia taisteluihin ja niiden voittamiseen. The translation fails to convey the message of the original sentence that describes C9’s ability to start fights faster and the ability to decide to engage the enemy faster than their opponent.