The aim of this thesis is to address the issue regarding successful translation of yakuwarigo, Japanese character defining register, to Czech language. This study is based on the assumption that yakuwarigo used to describe the literary character of a "jovial Osakan" is derived from an existing regional variation of Japanese language, namely the Kansai region dialect, and that the specific traits it refers to are based on historical and cultural facts of the said region. In this aspect the role defining register of "Osakan" is superimposing with the notion of social deixis, interpreted in a broader sense. This overlap thus enables to pursue the issue with the help of literature regarding translation of dialects. This thesis treats translation from a descriptive standpoint and evaluates the successfulness of existing Czech translations, defined here as the extent of transmission of comparable non-language information (i.e. social deictic meaning) present in the source language original to target language translation, by the means of an public inquiry. The final results of this thesis should be able to provide instrumental information and used as a reference in the selection process of a suitable translation strategy in the case of translating a Japanese character defining language means into Czech...

Denna studie ämnar undersöka rollspråket, det vill säga sättet fiktiva karaktärer talar på, i den japanska översättningen av Pippi Långstrump och jämföra det med den svenska källtexten. Syftet med studien är att ta reda på om rollspråk förekommer, vilken kategori det tillhör samt hur rollspråket förändrar läsarens uppfattning av karaktärerna. Studien bygger på en analys som följer Satoshi Kinsuis teorier om rollspråk. Analysen visar att det finns nyansskillnader i karaktärernas språk men huruvida de ska räknas som rollspråk eller inte är en öppen fråga. / This study intends to investigate the role language, which is the way fictional characters speak, in the Japanese translation of Pippi Longstocking and compare it to the Swedish source text. The purpose of this study is to find out if role language occurs, what category it belongs to and how the readers perception of the characters change due to the use of role language. The study is based on an analysis that follows Satoshi Kinsui's theories regarding role language. The analysis shows that there are nuances in the characters way of speaking but whether it could be valid as role language or not is an open question.

The aim of this study is to analyze whether or not the translation of shōnen manga, a subset of Japanese comics, cannot be done into English while maintaining the complete original intent and meaning of the work in its source language. This was done through a survey asking both native Japanese speakers and non-native Japanese speakers to compare panels from both the Japanese and English versions of the manga Dragon Ball, and through their responses strengthening the hypothesis that the inherent meaning between the two versions did indeed end up feeling different. The main differences cited were based partly on yakuwarigo, so-called "role language", and that there were inherent implications in the Japanese speech patterns that were not accurately conveyed in the English translation, thereby leading to some loss of context between the two versions, making the impressions of the characters differ in some areas. Hence, the results of this study accentuate that some aspects of Dragon Ball will be lost in translation.

In storytelling, one of the most important functions of dialogue is to create characterisation. Character voice is each character's unique style of speaking, which can impart explicit or implicit information about characters, such as their personality, age, or gender. Japanese language texts are known to use gendered language and role language (yakuwarigo) as a way of creating characterisation and character voice.This case study examines the English dialogue and the Japanese subtitles of four characters (Tissaia, Yennefer, Geralt, and Jaskier) from the series The Witcher. The aim was to categorize the strategies used to recreate the original character voice, to mark the differences in the character voices, and to examine their possible impact on the overall characterisations. The study concludes that the main strategy in creating character voice was gendered language and role language. Overall, the English and Japanese character voices were roughly equivalent with each other, and the used gendered language was supported by the characters’ personalities or appearance. The character Jaskier had the most differences between his English and Japanese dialogue, most likely due to the difficulties in recreating his brand of humorous tone in subtitle form.

The book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, written by the prolific author J.K.Rowling, is a popular piece of fiction that has been adapted into a film as well as severalvideogames. The book has also been translated from its original English into dozens oflanguages, including Japanese. Translations can differ from their original counterparts,especially when the languages in question differ in their syntax and cultural norms. Thesedifferences can potentially alter the original author’s intended character portrayals.This project aimed to evaluate the effect of gendered language and yakuwarigo on charactervoices in the Japanese translation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Fourcharacters – Hermione, Hagrid, Dumbledore, and McGonagall – were evaluated bymeans of their spoken dialogue in the book. The English lines of dialogue and their Japanesecounterparts were extracted from the book and analysed.The results of the dialogue-analysis show that the dialogue in the Japanese version of thebook was more gendered, and exhibited typical signs of role language. These findingswere corroborated through the use of separate questionnaires for Japanese and Englishparticipants. The questionnaires asked participants to determine the gender and role ofcharacters purely on the basis of certain lines in the book, with no external contextprovided. Japanese participants managed to identify both the gender and role of charactersmore accurately.

Yakuwarigo, or role language, is a Japanese term used to describe different typesof exaggerated spoken languages that are used in Japanese fiction. Yakuwarigo isoften assigned to a character based on, for example, the character’s personality,age, or occupation, and it can be different from how people actually speak in reallife.In the present study, the first research question intended to find out which type ofyakuwarigo was used when translating certain fantasy characters from English toJapanese. This was done by analyzing the dialogue of four characters from thenovel Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) written by Diana Wynne Jones. The aim ofthe second research question was to see if the personalities of the characters couldbe interpreted differently by the reader in the translated novel due to the use ofyakuwarigo.The results show that two witches both used a mix of onna-kotoba and otokokotoba, and additionally one of them used ojōsama-kotoba and the other obāsango. A wizard used otoko-kotoba and shōnen-go/jōshi-go, and a demon used mostlyotoko-kotoba with a hint of Edo-kotoba. The role languages seemed to fit most ofthese characters, but the demon’s personality was deemed to have changed in thetranslation.

I Japan är s.k. rollspråk, dvs. stereotypt språk kopplat till en viss typ av karaktär, vanligt i material riktat till barn, såsom barnfilmer. Trots att rollspråk som forskningsområde är relativt nytt finns ett antal studier som behandlar rollspråk i litterära översättningar, undertextningar och dubbningar till japanska. Få eller inga har dock jämfört hur rollspråket påverkar karaktäriseringen dels i undertexterna, dels i dubbningen av en och samma film. Denna uppsats analyserar japansk undertextning och dubbning av den svenska barnfilmen Du är inte klok Madicken och finner att båda versionerna använder rollspråk på ett liknande sätt för att förenkla karaktäriseringen och framhäva de kvinnliga karaktärernas femininitet genom bl.a. feminina satsfinala partiklar, pronomen, verbformer och interjektioner. / In Japan so called role language, i.e. stereotypical language associated with a certain type of character, frequently occurs in material for children such as children’s films. Role language is a fairly new area of research but despite this, there are a few studies dealing with role language in literary translation, subtitling and dubbing into Japanese. However, few or none of these examine how role language influences characterisation in the subtitles and dubbing of the same film. This thesis analyses the Japanese subtitling and dubbing of the Swedish children’s film Du är inte klok, Madicken and finds that both versions use role language in a similar way to simplify characterisation and emphasize the femininity of female characters through the use of feminine sentence-final particles, pronouns, verb forms and interjections etc.