Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2008-04-06 05:53 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2008-04-06 05:53 pm
[ SECRET POST #457 ]
⌈ Secret Post #457 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 15 pages, 340 secrets from Secret Submission Post #066.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 - too big ], [ 1 - empty comment ], [ 1 - what ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: 54, 55
However, considering the fact that translations are meant to be for an English audience, I believe including honorifics reads sloppily and the only reason a lot of professional companies use them is because that is what fans have come to expect and demand, since they believe including them makes the translation 'more pure'.
Considering the fact that a majority of the fandom doesn't speak Japanese, though, and only learns it through companies catering to the English purist fanbase, I believe most of the people who religiously adhere to the rule that honorifics do not understand their role as much as they'd like to think they do.
Re: 54, 55
And the translation should be as accurate as it can be. There's no real reason why there shouldn't be any honorifics. It's important to the Japanese culture and how they communicate with each other. That's why they started it and why they kept it that way. This is before manga became a big boom as it is today. Plus a simple cultural note solves the problem anyway.
Like my example beforehand, was there any way you can translate that without using any awkward English. There is NO English equivalent to -chan or -kun without taking it out of context and making it more awkward than it should've been if you left it alone and/or beng retarded without omission. And omission is just as bad.
Plus, it's not like Japanese is the only laguage we do that in. We do that with Spanish as well. And I doubt the Japanese use more than -san translating American novels and comics and the such.
Re: 54, 55
Removing the honorifics does not remove the distinctly Japanese ideas, symbolism, and locales used in manga. The distinction can be just as easily made in the way characters address each other in terms of politeness and casualness, as I would have done in your example. The story and art itself would fill in the gaps. English, while lacking some of the levels of formality that Japanese does, has a far wider vocabulary that translators and adapters have at their disposal were they not torn between purists, pressure from above to make it 'hip' enough for their target audience, rushing to meet demand, and so on.
But, if given the time and effort, beautiful things can be done with adaptation. Take, for example, Gaiman's work on Princess Mononoke. Gaiman was able to adapt it into something that was incredibly true to the meaning of original without the pressure of keeping to the accuracy of the translation. Now, with the manga market as it is, no company has the time or money to mirror that, but there is proof that it can be done.
And I can't verify one way or another for your final point, as I keep my English comic reading in English.
Re: 54, 55
Like I said, the companies started it when they started to translate manga more accurately, the fans started to expected them in it. Case closed.
English might have a wider vocabulary, but when it comes up short to addressing people normally, it comes up short. Seriously, outside nicknames, people always used first names even with people they don't know well. The only times we're even using Mr./Miss/whatever is when we're in a professional setting or addressing someone much older than us. Hell, outside some jocks, we rarely address someone by their last names and that's because 1) it's more than one person with the same first name, 2) the first name is too plain and/or embarrassing, or 3) it's harder to say than the last name. Although more likely, a nickname would be used than that.
That's why most honorifics were deleted for the most part until companies started to translate more accurately knowing that it's a lot more accurate to leave in it because there's no clear English word for it. It does loses a factor in that it goes against a Japanese cultural factor. It's jarring to see a character going from calling one character, "Mizutani-san" in Japanese to "Ryouta" (and that it's not an accurate translation). Go read an volume of Yakitate!! Japan by Viz, and see how they translate "ossan" in English. It's extremely awkward to say in the least.
Mononoke is different because it was done in a time when most honorifics didn't exist but they did keep the Japanese names of monsters in them when they could've translated if they please.
Even English have limitation on what it can translate from a language very different from its own.
Re: 54, 55
Re: 54, 55