Translation Strategies Of Cultural Images In Game Translation

In the context of globalization, game culture as a new expression of the emerging literary form, is gaining more and more attention from scholars. The booming international market has promoted an increase of multi-language versions of games, which brings the need for localization and a higher standard for the quality of translation. In game translation, cultural default will cause the loss of cultural significance and weaken the essence of game culture, and thereby be less entertaining and interesting for the consumers. By summarizing the cultural images, analyzing strategies in various situations and adopting appropriate means to make compensation, the gap between the source language and the target language can be bridged, thus enhancing the comprehension of the target readers.As one of the important sections of localization, game translation determines its quality to some extent. This report studied the translation of the game The Elder Scrolls5:Skyrim, aiming at the preservation of cultural images through translation. In order to reduce the loss during the transmission of cultural images and improve the effect of game localization, this report puts forward different strategies for various situations. Based on previous scholarship and case analysis, the author attempts to put forward the following strategies for game translation. First, adaption should be applied for effective communication in the target language, and foreignization is an important means to retain the cultural connotations of the source language with the premise that the transmission of the main information is not affected. Second, when alternative cultural images can be found in the target language, literal translation or replacement can be chosen as translation strategies. When there is no equivalent image in the target language, paraphrase or omission could be adopted to ensure the efficacy of translation.