UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN FINLAND PHILOSOPHICAL FACULTY
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES
English language and translation
Petri Tapani Timonen
The special language of Finnish players of Magic: The Gathering: A multifaceted approach from the perspective of translation strategies,
borrowing, and term usage
MA Thesis
February 2022
Itä-Suomen yliopisto, Filosofinen tiedekunta Humanistinen osasto
Englannin kieli ja kääntäminen
Timonen, Petri: The special language of Finnish players of Magic: The Gathering: A multifaceted approach from the perspective of translation strategies, borrowing, and term usage
Pro gradu -tutkielma, 99 sivua, 3 liitettä (20 sivua) 13.2.2022
Asiasanat: erikoiskieli, käännösstrategiat, lainaaminen, terminologia
Tutkimus tarkastelee suomalaisten Magic: The Gathering -keräilykorttipelin (MTG) pelaajien käyttämää erikoiskieltä käännösstrategioiden, lainaamisen ja termien käytön näkökulmista.
Käytetyt käännösstrategiat ja lainat tunnistetaan tutkimusmateriaalista, ja suomalaisen MTG- aiheisen verkkosivuston MtgSuomi.fi:n foorumia käytetään mittaamaan termien käyttömääriä.
Pääasiallisesti määrällisiä tutkimusmenetelmiä tuetaan myös paikoin laadullisilla menetelmillä.
Käännösstrategioiden käyttöä tutkitaan ja kategorisoidaan Chestermanin (1997) teoksen pohjalta, mutta Chestermanin järjestelmää muokataan tutkimuksen tarpeisiin. Lainaamisella tarkoitetaan tässä tutkimuksessa kaikkia prosesseja, joissa jonkin kielen elementtejä siirtyy toiseen kieleen (esim. Haspelmath 2009: 36). Betzin (1959) ja Haugenin (1950, 1956) klassiset lainaamismallit toimivat pohjana tutkimuksen lainaamiskategorisoinnille.
Tutkimuksen materiaalilla on viisi lähdettä, jotka ovat MTG:n 7th Editionin (2001) ja 8th Editionin (2003) englanninkieliset sääntökirjat, niiden viralliset suomenkieliset käännökset (2001, 2003), sekä MtgSuomi.fi foorumi. Tarkalleen ottaen materiaali koostuu kyseisten sääntökirjojen termisanastoista löytyvistä termeistä. Termit on rajattu sellaisiin, jotka ovat samat molemmissa englanninkielisissä sääntökirjoissa, mikä mahdollistaa suomenkielisten käännösten suoran vertaamisen toisiinsa. Lisäksi MtgSuomi.fi foorumilta kerätään paljon käytettyjä mutta sääntökirjoista poikkeavia termejä termilistoilla oleviin käsitteisiin.
Käytetyt käännösstrategiat jaettiin kahdeksaan kategoriaan ja lainaamiset viiteen kategoriaan.
Kategorioista löydettiin termeille yleisiä ominaisuuksia ja kaavoja. Termien käyttömäärät mitattiin MtgSuomi.fi foorumilta käyttämällä Googlen hakukoneen toimintoa, jolla etsitään materiaalia halutulta sivustolta. Tutkimuksen tulokset kertovat MTG:n suomalaisen erikoiskielen pohjautuvan hyvin vahvasti lainoihin. Suomenkielisiä käännöksiä käytetään selkeästi todennäköisemmin mitä suorempia ja mitä lähempänä pelin keskeistä sanastoa ne ovat. Käännösten vaikutus MTG:n suomalaiseen erikoiskieleen on kuitenkin äärimmäisen pieni.
University of Eastern Finland, Philosophical Faculty School of Humanities
English Language and Translation
Timonen, Petri: The special language of Finnish players of Magic: The Gathering: A multifaceted approach from the perspective of translation strategies, borrowing, and term usage
MA Thesis, 99 pages, 3 appendices (20 pages) 13 February 2022
Keywords: borrowing, special language, terminology, translation strategies
This study examines the special language used by the Finnish players of the trading card game Magic: The Gathering (MTG) from the perspectives of translation strategies, borrowing, and term usage. Instances of translation strategy use and borrowing are identified from the research material, whereas the forum of the Finnish MTG-related website MtgSuomi.fi is utilised for measuring term usage. The research methods are mostly quantitative, but the study also includes some qualitative elements.
Translation strategies are identified and categorised based on Chesterman (1997), with some modifications done to better suit the research material. Borrowing is understood in the broad sense of a general term for all processes where elements of one language become a part of another (e.g. Haspelmath 2009: 36). The classical borrowing models of Betz (1959) and Haugen (1950, 1956) are utilised as the basis for the categorisation of borrowings.
The material of this study has five sources. These are the English rulebooks for the 7th Edition (2001) and 8th Edition (2003) of MTG, the official Finnish translations of the same rulebooks (2001, 2003), and the MtgSuomi.fi forum. More specifically, the material consists of the terms included in the term glossaries of the chosen rulebooks. The term entries are limited to those where both English rulebooks use the same term, as this allows all the Finnish translations in both rulebooks to be directly compared with each other. Additionally, frequently used terms that differ from the official English and Finnish terms but are used for the same concepts are gathered from the MtgSuomi.fi forum.
Instances of translation strategy use were placed into eight categories and instances of borrowing into five categories, with common features and patterns identified in each category. The usage of each term on the MtgSuomi.fi forum was measured by using the site search function of the Google search engine. The results show that the Finnish special language of MTG is heavily based on borrowings. The official Finnish translations are more prone to be used the more direct they are and the closer they are to the core terminology of MTG. However, the effect of the Finnish translations on the special language itself is extremely minor.
Table of contents
1 Introduction ... 1
2 Language contact and change... 5
2.1 Borrowing ... 6
2.1.1 Lexical borrowing: models and definitions ... 7
2.1.2 Criticism and diverging views ... 10
2.2 Codeswitching ... 12
2.3 Reasons for lexical borrowing ... 13
3 Translation strategies ... 15
3.1 Categorisation of translation strategies ... 15
3.1.1 Syntactic strategies ... 16
3.1.2 Semantic strategies ... 17
3.1.3 Pragmatic strategies... 18
4 Terminology and special language ... 19
5 Material ... 21
5.1 Magic: The Gathering in brief ... 21
5.1.1 Cards, sets, and formats... 22
5.1.2 Rules and terminology ... 23
5.1.3 Languages ... 24
5.2 MtgSuomi.fi ... 24
5.3 Research material ... 25
6 Methods ... 28
6.1 Categorisation and core methodology of translation strategies ... 29
6.1.1 Translation strategy categories ... 29
6.1.2 Translation strategy core methodology ... 31
6.2 Categorisation and core methodology of borrowing ... 33
6.2.1 Borrowing categories ... 34
6.2.2 Borrowing core methodology ... 36
6.3 Gathering and analysing term usage data ... 38
7 Analysis ... 41
7.1 Translation strategies ... 41
7.1.1 Quantitative results of translation strategy use ... 41
7.1.2 Literal translation ... 45
7.1.3 Borrowing ... 47
7.1.4 Transposition ... 48
7.1.5 Unit shift ... 49
7.1.6 Structure change ... 52
7.1.7 Synonymy ... 53
7.1.8 Paraphrase ... 54
7.1.9 Information change ... 56
7.2 Borrowing ... 58
7.2.1 Basic numerical data of borrowings ... 58
7.2.2 Foreign loanword ... 60
7.2.3 Varying loanword ... 62
7.2.4 Assimilated loanword ... 63
7.2.5 Loanblend ... 65
7.2.6 Calque ... 66
7.3 Term usage ... 67
7.3.1 Basic numerical data of term usage ... 68
7.3.2 Term usage patterns ... 71
7.3.2 The effect of the Finnish rulebook translations on the Finnish special language of MTG76 7.4 Discussion on the results of the analysis ... 79
8 Conclusion ... 83
References... 88
APPENDIX 1: All terms in the material with usage numbers on the MtgSuomi.fi forum ... 100
APPENDIX 2: Terms in the translation strategy analysis with translation strategies utilised ... 107
APPENDIX 3: Terms in the borrowing analysis with borrowing methods utilised... 114
Abbreviations
DL donor language
RL receptor language
SL source language TL target language
ST source text
TT target text
MTG Magic: The Gathering
1 Introduction
Special languages of all types pervade the linguistic landscape of the current era, ranging from strictly structured languages of scientific disciplines to more relaxed languages of leisure activities.
While older special languages are more prone to have other influences, such as the Latin found in many fields of science, in the modern times the basis of special languages is predominantly English, the current lingua franca. This is also the case for the object of this study, which is the special language of the trading card game Magic: The Gathering (hereafter abbreviated as MTG).
According to the publisher of MTG, Wizards of the Coast, the game was first released in 1993, making it the progenitor of the trading card game genre. Since then, the franchise has grown to include the digital version of MTG, Magic: The Gathering Online (2002), the more recent digital adaptation Magic: The Gathering Arena (2019), and a wide variety of other spin-offs, both digital and analogue. An article published by The Esports Observer (Mitchell 2018) notes that MTG
‘has over 35M players to date, spread across over 70 countries’.
The current basic rules and new cards of MTG are printed in 11 languages. Finnish, which is the other language besides English that is of interest for this study, is not amongst those 11
languages. However, there was a time in the history of MTG when basic rulebooks translated to a wealth of languages were included in products directed to players new to the game. In the case of Finnish, this era lasted from 1998 to 2003 (Ambrunn n.d.), with the basic rules of the Core Set Eight Edition (8thEdition in short)being the last to be translated.
The 8th Edition and the earlier 7th Edition (2001) rulebooks and their Finnish translations are utilised in this study as the entry points into the special language of MTG. The 7th Edition is translated by Susanna Paarma, while the translator of the 8th Edition rulebook is unknown. This study, nevertheless, assumes that the translations are made by two different people because of their notable differences.
The material from the two rulebooks is complemented by material and numerical data gathered from the discussion forums of MtgSuomi.fi, which is a Finnish MTG-related website offering its users an avenue for discussing the game, as well as a place to buy, sell, and trade their cards. It is the largest website dedicated to MTG in Finland, with a total of 6,711 registered users (as of 4th November 2021).
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The Finnish special language of MTG exists at the crossroads of the original English special language of MTG and the English and Finnish general languages. This meeting point of languages provides an opportunity to examine the special language from the point of view of contact linguistics, which is the field for studying phenomena resulting from language contact (Winford 2003: 5). The specific point of interest for this study from the field of contact linguistics is
borrowing. The definition of borrowing is a long-lasting debate in the field of contact linguistics. In this study, borrowing is defined as the phenomenon and process of a receptor language
incorporating elements from a donor language, while a borrowing refers to a product of a
borrowing process. The receptor language in this study is the Finnish special language of MTG and the donor language is the English special language of MTG.
However, the cross-linguistic nature of the research material is not limited to borrowing.
The two Finnish rulebooks offer an opportunity to examine the special language from the
viewpoint of translation studies. The approach chosen for examining the Finnish special language of MTG in this study is thus multifaceted. The aspect of the translations that is scrutinised is the use of various translation strategies, which Jääskeläinen (1993: 116) notes as being guidelines for a translator for approaching a translation effectively. When the translation strategies apply to specific problem situations, they are called local strategies (Chesterman 1997: 90–91), and they are the focus of the translation strategy part of this study.
The two viewpoints discussed above are linked together by the third aspect of this study, which is the examination of numerical usage data of terms in the material on the MtgSuomi.fi forum. The usage data reveals patterns related to the use of terms belonging to the different material groups in this study, which means the English and Finnish rulebooks as well as forum- specific terms. Patterns are also examined for translated terms that utilise the different translation strategies. An important aspect of this scrutinisation is to determine whether the Finnish
translations of the rulebooks have had any visible effect on the special language of MTG as used by Finnish players of the game.
Borrowing that happens in the context of special languages is a highly popular research topic contemporarily. This is exemplified by the plethora of MA theses written in the recent years at the University of Eastern Finland alone, such as Hellsten (2021), Suorsa (2021), Hyttinen (2020), and Ohtonen (2016), just to name a few. All share the language pair English–Finnish and a special language related to games or sports. Suorsa and Hyttinen also include discussion forums as sources of material, similar to this study. Translation strategies are likewise a common research
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topic. Examples of studies on the subject are those written by Peltomaa (2021), Vepsä (2020), and Sainio (2019). Although Sainio uses the language pair Japanese–English, his study shares the combination of special language and translation strategies with this study.
What makes this study unique is the multifaceted approach that combines borrowing and translation strategies, as well as the material from the official translations of MTG rulebooks used in conjunction with material from a forum of Finnish MTG players. Translation of MTG-related material is not a completely new research topic, as at least Fornazari (2020) has examined the Portuguese translations. However, at least to the present author’s knowledge, the Finnish special language of MTG is an uncharted subject apart from the present author’s (Timonen 2016) BA thesis.
The multifaceted approach is also present in the research questions of this study, with each of the three aspects having a related set of research questions. The main research questions are:
1. What are the translation strategies used for the Finnish rulebook terms and forum terms?
How does the translation strategy use differ between the 7th Edition terms, the 8th Edition terms, and the forum terms?
2. What are the borrowing methods utilised for the borrowings in the material that are used on the MtgSuomi.fi forum?
3. What are the main usage patterns of terms in the material on the forum? Do they show that the Finnish rulebook translations have affected the Finnish special language of MTG used by the forum users? If so, how?
Answers to the research questions are sought from the viewpoints of translation strategies, borrowing, and term usage. The research material of this study consists of the English and Finnish term glossaries of the 7th Edition and the 8th Edition rulebooks of MTG, as well as Finnish terms for the same concepts gathered from the MtgSuomi.fi forums. Although the material comprises terms, this study does not notably utilise theories from the field of terminology, which is the study of terms and concepts. Terminology is, however, discussed briefly to provide a background for the research material.
After the introduction, the focus of this study first shifts to discussing the theoretical background. Section 2 examines the phenomena of language contact and change, with an
emphasis on borrowing. In Section 3, the focus is on translation strategies, while Section 4 offers a brief overview on terminology and special language. With the theoretical background examined,
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Section 5 discusses MTG in general and the sources of the research material, i.e. the MtgSuomi.fi website and the relevant MTG rulebooks. The section also presents the research material of this study. In Section 6, the focus becomes the core methodology utilised in the analysis, with the categorisation systems used for terms explained as well. Section 7 comprises the three parts of the analysis, in the order of translation strategies, borrowing, and term usage, as well as a discussion section for the results. Finally, Section 8 summarises this study and presents possible further research avenues.
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2 Language contact and change
In speech, interference is like sand carried by a stream; in language, it is the sedimented sand deposited on the bottom of a lake. The two phases of
interference should be distinguished. In speech, it occurs anew in the utterances of the bilingual speaker as a result of his personal knowledge of the other tongue. In language, we find interference phenomena which, having frequently occurred in the speech of bilinguals, have become habitualized and established. Their use is no longer dependent on bilingualism. (Weinreich 1968: 11)
Although hidden under his preferred term interference, this elegant citation from Weinreich’s (1968) magnum opus Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems continues to this day to serve as a fine introduction to the two closely linked language contact phenomena of codeswitching and borrowing. The basic distinction made here is that codeswitching appears solely in speech (or other forms of communication), while borrowing affects the language itself. This theoretical
background section is dedicated to expanding on these concepts, and others related to them, from the point of view of the field of contact linguistics, the study of language contact.
According to Winford (2003: 5), the aim of contact linguistics is to study ‘the varied situations of contact between languages, the phenomena that result, and the interaction of linguistic and external ecological factors in shaping these outcomes’. This implies that when languages come into contact, change is to be expected. Of course, despite Winford’s definition, it is hardly accurate to assert that languages affect each other by themselves; the change always stems from the actions of active agents, i.e. the speakers. As can be inferred from Weinreich’s (1968: 11) words, bilingualism is a definite driving force in contact-induced change and
codeswitching. Bilingual is used here to refer to people ‘speaking at least two languages’, as per Myers-Scotton (2006: 2). In the context of this study, it is assumed that all writers on the forums of MtgSuomi.fi are bilinguals who are capable of communication in both Finnish and English. This will be discussed in more detail in Section 5.2.
When languages come together through their speakers, change can result in either only one language or both. Changes that have been determined as having happened due to language contact always need to have a proven origin, or in Thomason’s (2010: 32) words, ‘a specific
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contact situation’. Haspelmath (2009: 37) notes three term pairs that have been used for the language that provides the material and/or pattern and the language that changes:
donor/receptor, source/borrowing, and model/replica. This study utilises donor/receptor language, hereafter abbreviated as DL and RL.
Heath (1984: 368) speaks on the difficulties of distinguishing borrowing and codeswitching by noting that ‘despite many valiant attempts to standardize these terms, there seems to be an intrinsic squishiness in these categories’. His statement also perfectly encapsulates the imbroglio that is the terminology of the whole field, alongside the fact that even ‘contact linguistics’ itself has been utilised in a variety of ways (see e.g. Myers-Scotton 2002: 4). Nonetheless, two main intertwining components can be identified behind the terminological disorientation in the field.
First, there are a lot more terms than there are concepts, and second, the terms are being used differently by different scholars. These factors can lead to confusion due to overlapping terms, as will be exemplified in the following sections, which hold a more in-depth examination of some of the essential terminology of the field.
2.1 Borrowing
Borrowing is a term with a long history: according to Haspelmath (2009: 37), it has appeared in linguistics since at least the 18th century. Although being the historically most significant and widespread term, borrowing has also been criticised as early as 1950 by Haugen (p. 211) for being an inaccurate metaphor: nothing is lost or expected back. Such alternative terms as copying (Johanson 2002: 8) and replication (Matras 2009: 146) have been proposed, but borrowing is used in this study, as it is the classical term and universally understood, even if not defined in the exact same way by all scholars. In modern contact linguistics, the term has been used for language contact phenomena ranging from general to highly specific.
In its broadest definition, borrowing encompasses all instances of both contact-induced change and codeswitching. This was the case of Haugen’s (1950: 212) definition of borrowing as
‘the attempted reproduction in one language of patterns previously found in another’. However, the subsequent rise of codeswitching as a major object of research in contact linguistics meant that such a definition quickly became outdated.
Despite Haugen’s definition, his article focuses mostly on borrowing that happens in the lexicon. This is called lexical borrowing and it is the subset of borrowing that is most relevant to
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this study. The following subsection examines categorisation models of lexical borrowing, starting from the classical models of modern contact linguistics.
2.1.1 Lexical borrowing: models and definitions
The basis of many of the classical ideas and, especially, terminology of borrowing was laid in the studies of Betz (1936, 1949, 1959). According to Onysko (2007: 12), Betz coined the German terminology for the categorisation of lexical borrowing in his studies on the Latin influences on German vocabulary, and this terminology was then subsequently adapted into English. Figure 1 exhibits Duckworth’s (1977: 40) English translation of Betz’s categorisation model, as
reconstructed by Onysko (2007: 13):
Figure 1. The Betz model of loan influences (1959)
Betz’s division of loan influences to direct and indirect is the first thing to note in the model. Onysko (2007: 13–14) explains this division to be based on whether a borrowing shows similarity on the level of word form to the DL word (direct loan influence) or not (indirect loan influence). This premise has, in one way or another, been a recurring debate on a conceptual and terminological level since its conception, as will be demonstrated throughout this section and the following Section 2.1.2.
Loan Influences
Direct Loan Influences
Loanword
Foreign Word
Assimilated Loanword
Indirect Loan Influences
Loan Coinage
Loan Formation
Loan Translation
Loan Rendition
Loan Creation
Loan Meaning
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The following examination of the loan influence categories is based on Grzega (2003), who in turn uses Duckworth’s (1977) expanded version of Betz’s model as the basis. Nonetheless, the categories discussed here remain functionally identical and include examples from both Betz and Duckworth.
The category of direct loan influences is comprised of loanwords, which share formal similarity between the DL and RL. They can be further divided into foreign words and assimilated loanwords based on whether they have been integrated into the RL or not. The terms used
interchangeably in this study for such integration are assimilation and adaptation. An example of a foreign word is English café from French café (Grzega 2003: 26), which retains the French
pronunciation and spelling. On the other hand, an assimilated loanword is English music (ibid.), which, according to Lexico.com, came to English from Old French musique.
The other half of the model, the indirect loan influences, holds a much larger variety of borrowing methods. They are connected by sharing no link on the level of word form to their DL counterparts. This is one reason why some scholars oppose including them, or some of them, as a part of the borrowing phenomenon. The indirect loan influences consist of loan coinages, which are divided into the categories of loan formation and loan meaning. Loan formation is further divided into loan translation, loan rendition, and loan creation.
This examination begins with the loan formations. The first of these, loan translation (or calque) (Grzega 2003: 26–27), encompasses borrowings where each element of the DL item is translated literally. The borrowings in this category comprise of multiple elements, in other words they are multi-word items such as compounds or idioms. An example that Grzega (ibid.) provides is American Spanish manzana de Adán from English Adam’s apple.
Close to loan translation is loan rendition (Grzega 2003: 27), where only some element of the DL item is translated, like in German Wolkenkratzer (literally ‘clouds scraper’) from English skyscraper. Here, the first part of the compound word is replaced with a different RL word (Wolken, which means ‘cloud’ instead of ‘sky’) and the second part is translated literally.
Lastly, loan creation (ibid.) refers to the process of coining a word that is independent of the DL word. Betz’s example for this is English brandy from French cognac. However, as Grzega (2003: 29–30) notes, this example is not valid, as cognac is a variety of brandy and the origin for the word brandy in English is presumably Dutch brandewijn. Onysko (2007: 30) presents
Duckworth’s (1977: 52) example of German Nietenhose (literally ‘rivet pants’) from English jeans
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as an actual loan creation. Although the words are not formally related at all, it can be assumed that the creation of the word Nietenhose was conceptually sparked by the existence of jeans.
The final category of the indirect loan influences (Grzega 2003: 27) is loan meaning, where the meaning of a DL word is transferred to a word already present in the RL. The transfer of the meaning of English mouse, when referring to the computer device, to German Maus is an example of loan meaning (ibid.).
After the work of Betz, the most influential writings on borrowing came from Haugen (e.g.
1950, 1953, 1956), who extensively studied the effect of English on American Norwegian, the dialects of Norwegian used in the United States. Haugen’s (1950) original categorisation of lexical borrowing coincides partly with Betz’s, but there is some terminological difference and the inclusion of a third major category, loanblends. Haugen (1950: 214) defines loanblends as hybrids that use both DL and RL elements. For example, in the Pennsylvania German compound word bockabuch ‘pocket book’, the first part bocka is a loan from English ‘pocket’, while the second part is German buch ‘book’ (Haugen 1950: 219).
A few years later, Haugen (1956) described revisions to his model, particularly to what he called loanshifts, a parallel to Betz’s indirect loan influences. Most importantly, Haugen (1956:
764) divided his loan extensions (Betz’s loan meaning) further based on the link between the DL and RL words. On one hand, in synonymous extensions the link is semantic. Thus, American
Portuguese correr ‘run’ began to also mean ‘run for office’ instead of only the physical activity, due to the multiple meanings of English run. On the other hand, the trigger for borrowing in
homonymous extensions is a formal similarity, as when American Norwegian brand ‘fire’ borrowed the meaning of English bran to also mean the husks of cereal grains.
In more recent times, the definition of borrowing has varied between more broad or narrow senses. Those who use the broadest definition (e.g. Aikhenvald 2007: 4; Haspelmath 2009:
36) regard borrowing as a general term for all processes where elements of one language become a part of another. This makes it basically Haugen’s (1950: 212) definition as ‘the attempted
reproduction in one language of patterns previously found in another’ but without codeswitching being included.
In a vein similar to Betz’s direct and indirect loan influences, borrowing in its broad sense is often divided into two subcategories. Haspelmath (2009: 38) speaks of material and structural borrowing, while Sakel (2007: 15) uses the term pair matter and pattern. The first term of each pair denotes borrowing of material such as word forms (e.g. loanword), while the second includes
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borrowing of patterns related to, for example, grammar, word order, and semantic meaning (e.g.
loan meaning). Thus, lexical borrowings are present in both categories, but structural/pattern borrowing includes contact-induced change phenomena from all areas of language.
2.1.2 Criticism and diverging views
The classical models of Betz and Haugen, however, have also been criticised. Scholars such as Onysko (2007) consider loanwords to be the only type of lexical contact-induced change that can be distinguished as borrowing. Onysko (2007: 21) postulates that meaning cannot be borrowed without form, and thus everything in Betz’s category of indirect loan influences should be disassociated from loanwords.
Onysko (2007: 31) identifies two processes which he separates from borrowing. First, he dismisses Betz’s loan meaning as interference that is caused by similar forms in the DL and RL words. Onysko’s (2007: 19) example is French réaliser and German realisieren ‘to bring about, to concretize’, both of which have also acquired the meaning ‘to become aware of’ from English realize. He attributes this to the fact that ‘word formal similarity can cause interference in a multilingual speaker, who might transfer the semanteme [a minimal distinctive unit of meaning (Lexico.com)] of the English term onto its French or German associate’, thus enforcing his view that form and meaning are interrelated. He does not, however, address Haugen’s synonymous loan extensions (e.g. English ‘run for office’ -> American Portuguese ‘correr’ discussed in Section 2.1.1), where the link is purely semantic.
The second process concerns Betz’s loan formations (loan translation, loan rendition, loan creation). According to Onysko (2007: 22–30), these are constructions conceptually inspired by DL words, but generally made using RL inherent elements. Later, Onysko (2007: 58) also includes Haugen’s loanblends in this category due to them not being ‘the result of direct lexical transfer (borrowing) but […] based on lexical creation by means of partial translation’.
Myers-Scotton (2002: 235) is also against including loan meaning as lexical borrowing.
However, unlike Onysko, Myers-Scotton (2006: 218–219) does count loan translation and loanblends to be a part of it. It should be noted here that Myers-Scotton’s loan translation also includes what Betz called loan rendition, as she uses Wolkenkratzer as an example.
As for loan meaning, Myers-Scotton (2002: 235) places it as a part of the phenomenon of convergence, which she defines as follows:
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Convergence is speech by bilinguals that has all the surface-level forms from one language, but with part of the abstract lexical structure that underlies the surface- level patterns coming from another language (or languages). (Myers-Scotton 2006:
271)
Myers-Scotton (2002, 2006) discusses convergence occurring in different parts of language and presents examples of it in areas such as word order, gender markings, and use of personal pronouns. However, the extension of the semantic scope of a word in the manner defined by Betz and Haugen is completely absent from these writings, apart from the almost throwaway mention of it being included in convergence.
Many of Myers-Scotton’s examples come from Clyne (2003: 79), who uses convergence as a ‘general term to denote making languages more similar to each other’. Thus, for Clyne (2003:
105), Italian pronunciazone being used instead of the standard pronuncia after the model of English pronunciation and Spanish pronunciación is an example of convergence, although most scholars would certainly count it as either lexical borrowing or codeswitching.
Thomason (2001: 89) is critical of using convergence in the broader senses of either Clyne or Myers-Scotton, as the ‘very broad definition would make almost every contact-induced change a case of convergence’. Thomason (2001: 89–90) notes that the term is more often used in two different contexts. The first relates to situations where all of the languages that are in contact change to become more similar, and the second is in ‘Sprachbund situations, in which the sources of the various areal features are all too often impossible to determine’. Sprachbund refers to a linguistic area, where multiple languages affect each other, as in the Balkan area (Winford 2003:
13).
The stance taken in this study is in favour of the classical models and terminology. While Onysko’s views on the differences of the processes between Betz’s direct and indirect loan
influences are acknowledged, the present author considers borrowing a suitable umbrella term for its position as the most universally used term for the phenomenon, especially as the field of contact linguistics is already terminologically fragmented enough. For the same reasons, convergence is understood here in the sense used by Thomason. The term is thus not further utilised in this study, as only the Finnish special language of MTG has been subjected to change in the contact situation with the English special language.
12 2.2 Codeswitching
The phenomenon of codeswitching (or code-switching/code switching) was brought to the center stage in the study of language contact by Weinreich in 1953, although the term itself did not exist yet. Incidentally, according to MacSwan (2014: 2), the first printed instance of the term came from Vogt (1954) in his review of Weinreich’s book. As codeswitching is not the focus of this study, it will not be scrutinised here to the extent of borrowing. However, its basics will be presented due to its close link to both borrowing and the material of this study.
What, then, is the relationship between codeswitching and borrowing? Similar to
borrowing, codeswitching has been defined in many different ways and varying terminology has been used (see e.g. Clyne 2003: 70–73). At its most basic, Myers-Scotton (2006: 239) defines it as
‘the use of two language varieties in the same conversation’. From this, a basic distinction can be made between the two phenomena: with codeswitching the focus is on how multiple languages (or dialects) become intertwined in communication, whereas borrowing examines the changes that occur on the level of the languages themselves.
In practice, however, the distinction is not always quite that clear. Haspelmath (2009: 40) notes that difficulties arise especially ‘when an utterance consists of just a single word from one language and all other words are from the other language’, and the single item could thus either be a codeswitch or a loanword. Two criteria have most often been employed to help identify such items: frequency and integration (or adaptation/assimilation) (Clyne 2003: 73).
Myers-Scotton (1993: 163) postulates that the same procedures govern both switches and loanwords, and thus the frequency of occurrence in a corpus should be used as the defining criterion. Furthermore, Myers-Scotton (1993: 182) advocates the notion that codeswitching and borrowing form a continuum where ‘C[ode]S[witched] forms may become B[orrowed] forms through an increase in their frequency and their adoption by monolinguals; nothing more is required’.
On the other hand, when integration is used as the main criterion, it is based on the view that loanwords are generally subject to integration (e.g. morphological, phonological, syntactic) into the RL, whereas switches are not (see e.g. Onysko 2003: 36; Haspelmath 2009: 41). The major proponent for this view is Poplack (e.g. 1980; Sankoff et al. 1990), who disagrees with Myers- Scotton and states that ‘borrowing, whether nonce or established, is a phenomenon of language mixture distinct from code-switching’ (Poplack 2018: 9).
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Poplack’s (2018: 7) nonce borrowings are DL words that occur only once in a corpus and show integration into the RL, thus being comparable to Myers-Scotton’s low-frequency switches.
This study chooses not to take a stance on this long-lasting debate. However, it does acknowledge that the loanwords used by Finnish players on the MtgSuomi.fi forum started out as
codeswitches/nonce borrowings. When, for example, the first player indicated an action with the utterance blokkaan tällä ‘I will block with this’, he formed a codeswitch, in accordance with the Finnish rules of word-formation and inflection. However, as soon as the codeswitch spread inside the community and even became, de facto, the term to use, it became a borrowing in the players’
special language.
2.3 Reasons for lexical borrowing
As Haspelmath (2009: 46) notes, explaining the reasoning for lexical borrowing, and language change in general, is not an easy task (see e.g. Grzega [2003: 23–24] for a list of motivational factors proposed by different scholars). The following discussion is based on the division of
borrowings into what Myers-Scotton (1993: 168–169) calls cultural and core borrowings. The term pair necessary and luxury borrowing has also been used (Onysko 2003: 37) for the same concepts.
Cultural borrowings consist of words that denote concepts that are new to the RL (Myers- Scotton 1993: 169). It should be stressed here, as Haspelmath (2009: 46) does, that although they have also been called necessary borrowings or ‘loanwords by necessity’, borrowing is never an actual necessity, as all languages possess internal methods and material for coining new words.
Instead, Haspelmath (2009: 47) posits that for cultural borrowings, the main motivation is simply convenience and efficiency, at least ‘in situations of reasonably widespread bilingualism’.
On the other hand, Myers-Scotton (1993: 169) defines core borrowings as items that
already had equivalents in the RL when they were borrowed. For core borrowings, the most widely mentioned motivation is the notion of prestige of the DL when compared to the RL. Myers-Scotton (2002: 238–239) notes several types of prestige, including cultural and socioeconomic, and
presents the oft-cited example of the period of Norman rule of England, when the higher status of French resulted in a plethora of borrowings being introduced into English. Haspelmath, rightfully, goes further and gives prestige a significant role in language change as a whole:
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The way we talk (or write) is not only determined by the ideas we want to get across, but also by the impression we want to convey on others, and by the kind of social identity that we want to be associated with. (Haspelmath 2009: 48)
In relation to this study, Leppänen and Nikula (2007: 356) report on Finnish–English
bilingual settings that support Haspelmath’s notion of social identity. These contact situations take place in communities, often on the Internet, that possess a ‘variety of local motivations, such as membership of a particular group […] or engagement with leisure time activities which, at some level, have an English-language element’. The Finnish players of MTG certainly also form such a group, with the local gaming groups coming together on the MtgSuomi.fi forum.
To summarise Section 2 and define how the main concepts discussed within it are utilised in this study, the logical starting point is the concept of borrowing. As the specific point of interest for this study from the field of contact linguistics, borrowing is understood in the broad sense used by Aikhenvald (2007: 4) and Haspelmath (2009: 36), which makes it an umbrella term for all
processes where elements of one language become a part of another. Nevertheless, the focus is on lexical borrowing, i.e. in this case the borrowing of lexical items from the English special language of MTG to the Finnish special language of MTG. The approach chosen for the analysis of borrowings is presented in Section 6.2. The classical models of borrowing by Betz (1959) and Haugen (1950, 1956) are used as the basis, but the analysis utilises a modified categorisation system, which is described in Section 6.2.1.
The other phenomenon of contact linguistics discussed in Section 2 is codeswitching. The distinction made between codeswitching and borrowing is that the former refers to the use of multiple languages in the same discussion, whereas the latter is a language interaction that results in changes to one or more of the languages involved. Thus, the present author considers the loanwords from the MtgSuomi.fi forum that are part of the material of this study to have started out as codeswitches in the communication of Finnish players, but then subsequently become borrowings as they were integrated for common use in the community. Nonetheless,
codeswitching is included in the theoretical background solely for its close link to borrowing, and it is not included in the analysis itself.
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3 Translation strategies
In this section, the focus shifts to another field where languages come into contact with each other, which is translation. Translation is defined in this study as the conveying of the sense of written words or text from one language to another. The text to be translated is called the source text (ST) and its translation the target text (TT), while the languages used are called the source language (SL) and the target language (TL), respectively (see e.g. Chesterman 1997: 8; Hervey &
Higgins 2002: 6). The specific focus is on translation strategies, with the topic first being discussed in a general sense, followed by a more thorough examination of the categorisation of translation strategies utilised in this study, based on Chesterman (1997).
As a broad starting point, Jääskeläinen (1993: 116) defines translation strategies as ‘a set of (loosely formulated) rules or principles which a translator uses to reach the goals determined by the translating situation in the most effective way’. These can be divided into two levels of strategies: global and local (or macro and micro [e.g. Cragie & Pattison 2018: 64]). Global
strategies work on a more general level, affecting how a translator should initially best approach the whole text. Cragie and Pattison (2018: 64) note that, among others, ‘the subject matter, language, style and cultural content of the ST’ influence the use of these strategies.
On the other hand, Jääskeläinen (1993: 116) posits that local strategies refer to ‘specific activities in relation to the translator’s problem-solving and decision-making’. As Chesterman (1997: 90–91) points out, they are utilised in situations where the question is ‘how to translate this structure / this idea / this item’. Chesterman’s categorisation of translation strategies concerns specifically these local strategies and they are the focus of the following section of this study.
3.1 Categorisation of translation strategies
Before delving into the categorisation proper, Chesterman discusses the reasoning behind the use of local strategies, the need to change something:
"Change something" could be informally glossed as follows: if you are not satisfied with the target version that comes immediately to mind — because it seems ungrammatical, or semantically odd, or pragmatically weak, or whatever — then change something in it. (Chesterman 1997: 92)
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The categorisation model thus serves as a list of different types of changes a translator can make when faced with translation problems.
Chesterman’s (1997: 92–112) model consists of 30 categories which are divided between
‘three primary groups of strategy: mainly syntactic/grammatical (coded as G), mainly semantic (S) and mainly pragmatic (Pr)’, with 10 categories in each. This study, however, limits itself to
describing only the 11 categories of which reasonably clear instances can be found in its material.
The categories examined include five syntactic, four semantic, and two pragmatic strategies.
Chesterman’s definitions for these strategies are discussed in the following subsections 3.1.1 through 3.1.3, with examples from the material of this study.
3.1.1 Syntactic strategies
Syntactic strategies are mainly syntactic in nature and primarily manipulate form. The material of this study includes instances from five of Chesterman’s syntactic strategies: literal translation, loan, calque, transposition, unit shift, and phrase structure change.
Chesterman (1997: 94) defines literal translation, in his own words ‘loosely’, as a
translation that adheres as closely as possible to the ST while still being grammatically correct in the TL. He also notes that ‘for some theorists (such as Newmark, and also Vinay and Darbelnet), this strategy has the status of a default value’, meaning that it is something to be deviated from only if it does not work. A clear example from the material is the translation of the noun ability as kyky.
The second strategy discussed in this study is loan, calque (Chesterman 1997: 94–95), which combines the use of loanwords and calques (or loan translations) into one strategy.
Loanwords and calques were defined in relation to language contact and change in Section 2.1.1, but in a translation context this basically means either inserting adapted or unadapted SL words into a TT (loanword) or translating multi-word items directly word for word (calque). An
unambiguous calque from the material is golden rule -> kultainen sääntö. An example of a
loanword is stack -> stäkki, which shows multiple typical Finnish patterns for adapting loanwords.
These are discussed thoroughly in Section 6.2.2.
Chesterman’s (1997: 95) transposition strategy denotes a change from one word-class, for example noun or verb, to another. In addition to straightforward examples such as the translation of the verb destroy to the noun tuhoaminen (“destroying/destruction”), the material of this study also includes a number of English source terms with no explicit word-class, for example attack,
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block, and draw. The criteria for analysing such terms are discussed in the Methods section and particularly Section 6.1.2.
A unit shift ‘occurs when a ST unit is translated as a different unit in the TT’ (Chesterman 1997: 95–96). The units are morpheme, word, phrase, clause, sentence, and paragraph. An example of a word to phrase unit shift is controller -> hallitseva pelaaja (“controlling player”).
Finally, the last syntactic strategy to be examined is phrase structure change, which, according to Chesterman (1997: 96), is characterised by ‘changes at the level of the phrase, including number, definiteness and modification in the noun phrase, and person, tense and mood in the verb phrase’. A change from singular to plural is present in the term paying life ->
elämäpisteillä maksaminen (“paying with life points”). In a general language sense, it also exhibits a change from non-countable to countable. However, this does not occur in the context of the special language of Finnish MTG players. This is discussed in more detail as a part of the analysis in Section 7.1.6.
3.1.2 Semantic strategies
Chesterman’s semantic strategies are mainly semantic in nature and manipulate meaning. The four strategies included in this discussion are synonymy, antonymy, paraphrase, and trope change.
Synonymy is a strategy where, according to Chesterman (1997: 102), the translator chooses to use a synonym or a near-synonym instead of the most direct or ‘obvious’ translation.
An example of synonymy is discard -> poistaa (‘remove’).
Chesterman’s (ibid.) antonymy is a strategy where ‘the translator selects an antonym and combines this with a negation element’. In the example found in the material, nonbasic land ->
erikoismaa (‘special land’), the situation is reversed, with the negation element removed.
According to Chesterman (1997: 104), the use of the paraphrase strategy ‘results in a TT version that can be described as loose, free, in some contexts even undertranslated’. He notes that the strategy is typical for the translation of idioms without corresponding ones in the TL. In the translation local enchantment -> kohdistettu lumous (‘targeted enchantment’), the first constituent of the TT describes a different aspect of the specified enchantment type than the ST.
The final semantic strategy is trope change, which covers the different ways of translating figurative expressions (Chesterman 1997: 105–107). The strategy can be divided into three main subclasses, which are 1) retaining the figurative element, 2) retaining a sense of figurativeness but, for example, changing the trope used to a different one, or 3) dropping the figurative element
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altogether. Additionally, Chesterman (1997: 106) includes here the use of a trope in the TT where one was not used in the ST. The figurative element is dropped in the example library -> pakka (‘deck [of cards]’).
3.1.3 Pragmatic strategies
Finally, the pragmatic strategies are about conveying information and they manipulate the message itself. This discussion includes the strategies of information change and explicitness change.
Information change is defined by Chesterman (1997: 109–110) as ‘either the addition of new (non-inferrable) information […] which is not present in the ST, or the omission of ST information’. What is omitted cannot subsequently be inferred from the TT. An example of
addition is instant -> välitön loitsu (‘instant spell’), where the translation adds the information that instant is a type of spell. On the other hand, in beginning of combat step -> taistelun aloittaminen (‘beginning [of] combat’), the final constituent of the multi-word item is left out.
Close to information change is explicitness change, which covers making the TT more explicit (explicitation) or implicit (implicitation) than the ST. This means either adding something explicitly when in the ST it is only implicit or leaving out something that ‘the readers can be reasonably expected to infer’ (Chesterman 1997: 109). The border between explicitness change and information change is fuzzy, but the present author considers zone -> pelivyöhyke (‘game zone’) to be an example of explicitation, although it is still somewhat dependant on the level of knowledge about games the reader of the term list possesses.
Section 6.1 in the Methodology section is dedicated to discussing how Chesterman’s translation strategies are utilised in this study. In Section 6.1.1, the focus in on the categorisation system, which uses Chesterman’s strategy categories described above, but is modified to suit the needs of this study. This is followed in Section 6.1.2 by a discussion about the core methodology utilised in analysing the use of translation strategies identified in the material.
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4 Terminology and special language
This third and final major theoretical section discusses two closely related subjects, which are the field of terminology and the concept of special language. This discussion, however, is limited to basic definitions and a brief historical overview. This is because this study is not a terminological study per se, and therefore no theory of terminology is applied to the analysis itself. The main purpose of this section is thus to provide a background for the research material.
As a starting point, Sager provides a definition for terminology:
Terminology is the study of and the field of activity concerned with the collection, description, processing and presentation of terms, i.e. lexical items belonging to specialised areas of usage of one or more languages. (Sager 1990: 2)
In the context of this study, the lexical items that constitute the material are thus terms.
Additionally, the special language of MTG is one of the ‘specialised areas of usage’, which therefore refers to special languages.
Kastberg (2018: 29–30) defines special language (also specialised language, language for special purposes, or language for specific purposes, the latter two often abbreviated as LSP) as the languages used for communicating the specialised, domain-specific knowledge of, for example, trades, professions, and disciplines. Picht and Draskau (1985: 11) note four characteristics that special languages share:
• a monofunctional character, which means they are used only for communicating knowledge of their specific domain,
• a restricted number of users, only a subsection of the whole language community,
• generally voluntary acquisition by the users,
• they can appear and disappear without endangering the general language and the language community as a whole.
According to Kastberg (2018: 28), the foundations for modern research of special
languages were laid in the early 20th century. However, as Cabré (1999: 1) notes, the naming and organisation of scientific concepts was done systematically much earlier, for example in the 18th
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century by zoologist Linné, and already in the 19th century it became apparent that scientists needed ‘a set of rules for formulating terms for their respective disciplines’.
Modern terminology emerged in the 1930s with the work of Wüster, who considered it ‘a tool that should be used as effectively as possible to eliminate ambiguity from scientific and technical communication’ (Cabré 1999: 5). Thus, the focus of early terminology was on the systematisation and standardisation of the methods for forming and processing terms and it was narrowed to certain domains such as science and technology. The effect of this early direction is still seen in 1985 in Picht and Draskau’s definition of special language:
LSP is a formalized and codified variety of language, used for special purposes and in a legitimate context – that is to say, with the function of communicating
information of a specialist nature at any level – at the highest level of complexity, between initiate experts, and, at lower levels of complexity, with the aim of informing or initiating other interested parties, in the most economic, precise and unambiguous terms possible. (Picht and Draskau 1985: 3)
With such a definition, the subject matter of this study would not be considered a special language at all. Even when setting aside the earlier requirement for specific domains and the
‘legitimate context’, the special languages of most hobbies can hardly be seen as formalised and codified when compared to, for example, any scientific discipline. As for the ‘most economic, precise and unambiguous terms possible’, a suitable example comes from the present author’s BA thesis (Timonen 2016), in which recipients to a questionnaire provided 66 different (Finnish spoken language) ways of referring to the MTG card type creature.
However, as could be noted from Kastberg’s (2018: 29–30) definition, the present-day views on what counts as special language have widened to include domains other than science and technology. This had led to domains such as sports (e.g. Lavric et al. 2008) and video games (e.g. Ensslin 2012) becoming popular research subjects. Pettini’s (2016) article on the translation of the special language terminology of a football video game serves as a fine example on how the field has broadened from its origins.
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5 Material
The material section of this study first discusses MTG, starting with an overview of what the game is and its basics before delving into the terminology and language aspects that are most relevant to this study. This is followed by an introduction of the Finnish MTG-dedicated website
MtgSuomi.fi, and finally an overview of the research material and specific term lists used in this study.
Throughout Section 5.1 and its subsections, certain words and phrases have been both bolded and italicised. These markings are used to indicate terms that are a part of the research material of this study.
5.1 Magic: The Gathering in brief
MTG is a trading card game designed by Richard Garfield and first published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993, when it became the first product to ‘combine randomized, collectible cards with deck-construction and interactive gameplay’ (MTG Wiki). In the almost three decades since its release, MTG has grown into a multimedia franchise that includes a vast variety of digital and analogue products. As the original game, and the original source of the special language, this study concentrates on the physical card game.
The following citation from the Magic: The Gathering Basic Rulebook (Tabak 2013: 4) offers a quick overview of the game:
The Magic: The Gathering game is a strategy game played by two or more players, each of whom has a customized deck of Magic cards. Over the course of the game, each player will take turns playing cards such as lands (which enable you to play your other cards), creatures, sorceries, and other spells. Each player starts at 20 life.
When you reduce your opponent to 0 life by attacking with creatures and playing spells, you win! [emphasis in original]
To expand on the information provided in the citation, the basic idea of the game is that each player constructs a deck, with generally a minimum of either 40, 60, or 100 cards, and attempts to reduce the opponent’s life to zero to win the game. There are also other, more
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situational ways to win the game, the most frequent of which is reducing the number of cards in the opponent’s library (the term for the deck during the game) to zero, as drawing a card from an empty library results in a game loss.
The gameplay of MTG is based on the interaction between its different card types. At the period of interest for this study, these were artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, and sorcery. The card types can be further sub-divided into permanent cards (artifact, creature, enchantment, and land), which stay in the game after they have been played, and cards with a one-shot effect (instant and sorcery), which happens when they are played, and the card is then usually put away.
The basic property of lands is that they provide the players with mana which is used to play the other types of cards, and therefore few decks are able to function without including any of them. Artifacts, which represent magical gadgets and constructions, and enchantments, which are magical incantations that have continuous effects, are permanent cards with a wide variety of different functions. They can be either standalone cards or be attached to other permanents to provide them with either positive or negative attributes.
The unique quality of creature cards is that they can attack and block. An attacking creature typically reduces the opposing player’s life total, unless that player chooses to block it with a creature s/he controls. All creature cards have two highly prominent numerical values.
These are power, which denotes the amount of damage the creature deals to a player or another creature when it attacks or blocks, and toughness, which denotes the amount of damage the creature can be dealt to before it is put into the graveyard (the discard pile).
The two card types with one-shot effects, sorcery and instant, have only one major difference. Sorcery cards, like all of the permanent cards, can normally only be played during a certain phase of a player’s own turn. Instant cards, however, can be played at almost any time, even in response to another card that has just been played. Thus, an effect possible for instants but not sorceries is countering a card, which is the term used for effects that completely negate a card that has been played. Examples of effects shared by both card types are dealing damage to players or creatures and drawing cards from a library.
5.1.1 Cards, sets, and formats
The ways to obtain MTG cards, in a fashion similar to non-playable trading cards like ice hockey or football cards, are to either buy sealed products, typically booster packs, buy opened products
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from the second-hand market, or trade with other players or collectors. The cards are printed in sets (257 as of April 2021), each with their own names and unique, different-sized card pools.
Some sets are sold only in pre-constructed boxes that always have the same cards, but the default way throughout the history of MTG has been that the large core and expansion sets are distributed in booster packs that contain a set number of randomised cards.
According to Scryfall, an MTG card database, the current (as of 21st April 2021) total number of unique cards printed is 21,619. For people aiming to master the game, this sheer volume of cards can prove to be a considerable hurdle even before delving into the rules and terminology that make the game function. To limit this information overflow, MTG is divided into different formats of play. The main division is into limited, where players open booster packs and construct a deck on the spot, and constructed, where decks are prepared beforehand. This means that the vast majority of cards only see play in the limited format, where players are forced to put even the objectively ‘bad’ cards into use to complete their decks.
5.1.2 Rules and terminology
The full rules of MTG, called the comprehensive rules and found on the Wizards of the Coast website, are 250 pages long and filled with specialised terminology, with the glossary alone going for 43 pages. Luckily for players, and especially those who are just getting started, the document is
‘NOT meant to be read beginning to end; instead it's meant to be consulted when specific rules questions come into play’ (Wizards of the Coast [emphasis in original]). Of course, not even the comprehensive rules have all the answers all the time, thanks to the golden rule of MTG. It states that whenever the text on a card contradicts the rules, the text on the card is the one to be followed.
While the basic rules have certainly evolved since 1993, the most visible changes to the game come from the constant addition of new mechanics. These can be divided into keyword abilities and keyword actions, both of which consist of words that are used as substitutes for longer rules texts, and ability words, which link together cards that have similar functionality. As an example of the proliferation of mechanics, creature cards in the first MTG set, Limited Edition Alpha, had six keyword abilities (first strike, flying, landwalk, protection, trample, and banding), while they currently (as of 30th April 2021) number at 143.
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In the beginning, MTG was only available in English, but French, German, and Italian cards were printed for the Revised Edition as early as 1994. Cards and the official rules of MTG are currently printed in 11 languages, with the latest addition being Russian for the Ninth Edition in 2005.
However, what is available in languages other than English is still limited to mostly the cards of the core and expansion sets, and only the basic rules have translations on the official website.
Finnish is not among the 11 languages, and due to its minor status, highly unlikely to become included in the future. However, some MTG sets had products, aimed at people new to the game, that included basic rulebooks translated into languages other than the currently supported ones. In the case of Finnish, these sets were the Portal Second Age and Starter 2000 starter sets and the Sixth Edition, Seventh Edition, and Eighth edition core sets, published between 1998–2003.
5.2 MtgSuomi.fi
MtgSuomi.fi (Vaihdetaan.net until 2012) is the largest Finnish MTG-related website, with a current (as of 4th November 2021) total number of 6,711 registered users. The website is a forum with four main sections: Kauppapaikka ‘Marketplace’, Kortit ja pakat ‘Cards and decks’, Muu MTG
‘Other MTG-related’, and Muuta ‘Other’ (translations by present author). However, although they are shown under Kauppapaikka, the user-submitted lists of cards they wish to trade, buy, or sell are kept separate from the discussion area of the forum. MtgSuomi.fi also has its own official IRC channel and Discord server.
The forum contains slightly over 150,000 posts, with the oldest ones posted in 2004.
Nevertheless, the activity on the forum, at least when the criterion is the number of posts, has seen a steady decline starting from the early 2010s. This is in accordance with the general trend of forums folding under the pressure from social media (see eg. Schimkowsky 2020). The advent of the Discord server in 2018, which has offered a new avenue for discussion, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has severely hurt the tournament scene of the physical game, are recent events that have attributed to a major decline in user activity on the forum.
As noted in Section 2, in this study it is assumed that the forum users are bilinguals capable of communication in both Finnish and English. The English skills of Finnish people are generally on a high level on the global scale, which is shown for example on the EF English Proficiency Index. In
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2021, Finland is listed on the highest of five possible ranks and on the ninth position overall. Data more specific for the purposes of this study comes from the present author’s BA thesis (Timonen 2016). On a questionnaire posted on the forum, the recipients were among other things asked to give estimates for their English skills. The lowest estimate on a scale of 1–5 was 3, and the average for all the recipients was approximately 4.5.
5.3 Research material
The research material of this study has four sources: the Finnish Seventh Edition rulebook, which also includes all of the English terms, the English and Finnish Eighth Edition rulebooks, and the MtgSuomi.fi forum. The rulebooks were chosen from the five with Finnish translations based on a process of elimination. First, Portal Second Age and Starter 2000 were dismissed as their rulebooks are simplified for new players. Second, as the Sixth Edition and Seventh Edition rulebooks have the same translator and translations, it was natural to choose only one of them. The final choice was Seventh Edition, as Sixth Edition both includes a significant number of terms that are not found in the Eight Edition and is missing many that are. The more compact, but still official, names 7th Edition and 8th Edition are used hereafter for the two editions used in this study.
According to Ambrunn (n.d.), the 7th Edition was released in 2001 and the 8th Edition in 2003. Physical rulebooks of both editions were originally included in starter sets aimed at new players, but they were also digitally available for a time on the official website of Wizards of the Coast, until being removed in favour of newer rulebooks. The Finnish 7th Edition rulebook names the Finnish translator as Susanna Paarma. However, in the 8th Edition, the name of the translator is not given. The significant differences between the translations, nevertheless, lead the present author to assume that the rulebooks are translated by two different people. To avoid an
asymmetrical and potentially confusing situation, the translators are referred to in the analysis by the two editions, i.e. as the 7th Edition translator and the 8th Edition translator.
The core of the research material consists of the terms found in the glossaries of the chosen rulebooks. The criteria for inclusion are that the terms must have the same English source term in both the 7th Edition and 8th Edition rulebooks, as well as their own term entries in both the English and Finnish rulebooks. Additionally, the few entries that include multiple terms (e.g.
Respond, In response) or special symbols are disregarded. Despite their formal uniqueness, these terms utilise the same common translation strategies and borrowing methods that are found in
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the rest of the material. As such, their inclusion would only bring unnecessary complexity without providing anything substantial to the aims of this study. All in all, these criteria are met by 153 English source terms and 211 Finnish terms.
The material from the rulebooks is complemented by terms used for the same concepts by the Finnish MTG players on the MtgSuomi.fi forum. These are based on the present author’s experience with the game and visiting the forum, as well as the answers provided by forum users for the present author’s BA thesis (Timonen 2016), which also examined MTG terminology.
Before describing the material further, a brief discussion on research ethics is in order. As Kytölä (2013: 69–70) notes, communicative material found online is a grey area when it comes to assessing what is public or private. Opinions range from considering them ethically as any other form of human interaction, i.e. with the need to ask for consent before using the material, to thinking they are fair game for study without any such regards. The nature of this study leads to adopting the latter of the two stances: Although this part of the material comes from an online discussion forum, it consists only of MTG-related terms removed from their communicative contexts. As such, there is no risk of any forum users being identified or negatively affected.
Additionally, MtgSuomi.fi is public in the sense that it is an open forum, which means that it can be freely read by anyone without registering as a member.
For a forum-specific term to be included in the material, it must pass two criteria. First, it must be used more frequently on the forum than the corresponding English source term, and second, it must be the most frequently used forum-specific term for the concept, as some
concepts have several forum-specific terms that would pass the first criterion. There are 54 terms that pass these criteria, and the search process for them is discussed in detail in Section 6.3.
The full term list in this study thus comprises 418 terms. However, different parts of the analysis utilise term lists that are modified to suit the focus of the section. In addition to the three main sections of the analysis having their own main term lists, some subsections utilise lists that only show instances of a certain type or that are otherwise limited in scope. These limited term lists are always presented and discussed before they are examined in the analysis.
The term usage analysis in Section 7.3 is the only part that uses the full 418-term list. For the other two parts, which are translation strategies and borrowing, the lists are modified to suit their focus. The translation strategy term list includes all 211 Finnish rulebook terms, but the source terms and forum-specific terms need to pass certain criteria. The forum-specific terms are examined first, as they directly influence the number of source terms included in the analysis. Of