The English Localization of Chinese Wuxia Games: The Case of Tale of Wuxia

Jie Zhang; Malini Ganapathy; Mohamed Abdou Moindjie

doi:10.47405/mjssh.v10i7.3499

Jie Zhang School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
Malini Ganapathy School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
Mohamed Abdou Moindjie School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47405/mjssh.v10i7.3499

Keywords: Chinese wuxia games, Cultural adaptation, Domestication, Transcreation, Video game localization

Abstract

This article explores the approaches to localizing Chinese wuxia video games into English via a comprehensive analysis of the English localization of Tale of Wuxia from three dimensions: technical, linguistic, and cultural. To this end, a corpus containing in-game screenshots captured from the two versions of the actual game was built by the researcher. The data was qualitatively and descriptively analyzed to present findings and implications. It was revealed that the English localization of the game was unsuccessful in the following three dimensions. Technical issues involved text overflow and mishandled variables. Linguistic issues were mainly reflected in substandard translation of character names, culture-specific items, and martial moves, and style inconsistency. We highlighted and discussed cultural adaptation as well with in-game examples. By advocating domestication as the primary localization strategy, this paper proposes translation techniques such as transcreation, paraphrasing, and omission for localizing common components in Chinese wuxia games. This study is hoped to contribute to current research on the English localization of Chinese wuxia games and provide a reference for Chinese wuxia game developers and localizers.

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