Birds of a Feather Or a Family of Typhoons: The Translation of Realia in the English Version of the Manga Lucky Star

Abstract

This thesis examines the ways realia have been translated in the official English release of the Japanese comic book Lucky Star Volume 1. The primary goal of this thesis is to categorize the different translation strategies employed when translating realia throughout the volume. A further aim of the thesis is to find out whether further information, such as the global translation strategy and the ideal reader, can be inferred from concentrating solely on realia. During my research, I relied primarily on Ritva Leppihalme’s 2001 article Translation Strategies for Realia. The research data this thesis uses is all of the instances of realia in both the Japanese and the English versions of Lucky Star Volume 1; I gathered them by reading through both language versions several times and comparing them. I hypothesized that the translation would be one of almost completely foreignizing nature, yet it proved to also have differing levels of domestication throughout the book. The thesis made it clear that it is possible to infer many aspects of the ideal reader through analyzing only realia translation. However, I could not decipher a global translation strategy from the realia alone; either the translator did not employ a clear, conscious global strategy, or global strategies need further translational elements to be deduced.