A Study On The Video Games Translation Localization From The Perspective Of Functionalist Skopos Theory

With the rapid development of the Internet and the emergence of various large-scale game events,e-sports games are becoming more and more popular with the public and China is also considered to be the e-sports market with strong influence and great development potential in the world.In the process of introducing a large number of excellent games into China,successful localization is an important prerequisite to ensure its smooth entry into the Chinese market.Game localization includes language and cultural localization for games,hardware and software vendor localization,legal localization,and localization of graphics and music.Among them,as an important carrier for transmitting information,language plays an indispensable role in game localization.Game text has extremely distinctive characteristics.Unlike the translation of traditional text types,game text translation pays more attention to the subject status of the target reader and its adaptability in the target market.When translating such texts,translators need to adopt flexible translation strategies on the basis of conveying source text information and boldly break through conventions when necessary in order to achieve the purpose of catering to the player and target market.However,domestic research on game localization is still at an immature stage,and research on localized translation is still rare.Today,e-sports games have sprung up in China,and the quality of language translation directly reflects the level of player acceptance of the game and affects the game experience to a certain extent.Therefore,it can be seen that the localized translation study of video games is of great significance to translation studies and the development of the video game industry.Taking into account the characteristics of game text translation and based on the functionalists Skopos theory,this study takes quantitative and qualitative analysis methods to study the translation strategies of the champions' names and titles in the game League of Legends and answers the following questions:1.What are the language features of name and title translation in LOL?2.What translation strategies are mainly used in the translation of champion names and titlesin LOL?3.What are the influential factors that affect name and title translation of LOL and how they influence the translation?By answering these questions,this study draws the following conclusions.First,the title translation in the game has the following two characteristics: first,the four-character pattern is frequently used,which is consistent with the Chinese habits;second,the translation focuses on the choice of words and character selection,and a number of Chinese elements have also been applied to translation many times.Second,the game translation includes five strategies: transliteration,literal translation,liberal translation,transcreation,and back translation.The application of the game strategy has been adjusted according to different text materials,and the translation is flexible.Third,the factors that affect the translation of champion names and titles in the game can be summarized as the following five points: the background story,Chinese culture,the image of champion,the battle information,and the relationship between different champions.These factors have more or less affected the translation and the choice of words in the translation process.By collating the data,it can be concluded that,in the translation of champion names,transliteration is the dominant strategy.Its frequency of use accounts for 97.3% of the total,and the number of literal translation and transcreation is very few.However,it is worth noting that the transliteration in the game is not that simple.The word selection in it is extremely cautious which is as close as possible to the features of the champion or to cater to Chinese culture.In title translation,transcreation is a more effective translation strategy.Through the combination of literal translation and liberal translation,transcreation appeared 73 times in the interpretation of titles,accounting for 49.32% of the total.Among them,the creativity of translation is mainly reflected in the full consideration of the target culture and the background story of the champions,which achieved the purpose of game translation to take players and target markets as the main body.However,there are also some problems in the translations,and the quality of translation still has room for improvement.The results of this paper should help to clarify the guiding role of functionalist Skopos theory in game localization,summarize feasible translation strategies and provide some reference for translation development in this field.