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127Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 5 (2018 11) 775-786
УДК 81.33
Creative Practices in Translation of Transmedia Projects
Evgeniya D. Malenova*
Dostoevsky Omsk State University 55a Mir a, Omsk, 644077, Russia
Received 21.01.2018, received in revised form 11.04.2018, accepted 25.04.2018
Development of new media channels gives professionals in the field of entertainment a unique opportunity to disseminate their content across different media platforms, thus providing the recipients with brand new entertainment experiences. On one hand, so-called transmedia projects allow for the creation ofprojects' universes and engagement of diverse target audiences all around the globe. On the other hand, this type ofstorytelling imposes certain challenges for translators, because the very nature of transmedia requires a special approach to translating its components. The aim of the research is to show how creative translation practices - transcreation, transadaptation, and transculturation - can be usedfor the purpose of transmedia projects' translation. The author reveals several key factors that complicate the process of translating transmedia projects and argues that creative practices can be applied effectively in an attempt to overcome saidfactors and tailor translations to the expectations of transmedia projects' creators and recipients.
Keywords: translation, transcreation, transculturation, transadaptation, transmedia, transmedia project.
DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0269. Research area: linguistics.
Introduction
Recently, entertainment content has become a very important aspect of our lives. Different professionals from the field of entertainment -filming studios, TV producers, Internet media providers, computer games' developers, and publishers - are desperate to provide their target audiences with unique and brand new cultural experiences. Trivial plots and clichés seem no longer able to attract potential recipients because their tastes for entertainment became more sophisticated than ever; thus, they crave for new
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: malenovae@mail.ru
forms of such content, for unexpected plots' twists, as well as for fresh experiences. Hence, media professionals keep searching for novel ways to interact with their consumers, designing effective tools to attract new target audiences, as well as to hold old audiences' attention to their product. One of such new technologies used for interaction with the audience and creation of new cultural experience is transmedia storytelling.
Taking into account the desire of many entertainment providers to go global and promote results of their work to other countries, the
main problem they are facing is the translation of content they generated into other languages. In their pursuit to make representatives of other cultures part of a global transmedia environment, they rely upon language professionals, who are responsible for transferring their messages and creative ideas to the target culture's audiences. We have to admit the fact that in this case traditional translation strategies are not always sufficient, and translators turn from humble mediators into co-authors of source piece of work. Very often, new forms of source material require new translation approaches, thus transmedia projects - as complex entities of entertainment content distributed across different media platforms creating a unified and manageable entertainment experience - pose a unique challenge to translators. In this case, both traditional and creative translation practices come in handy.
The phenomenon of transmedia project
The concept of transmedia is quite a new phenomenon in modern humanitarian science, which has recently captured attention of scholars and media professionals (Jenkins, 2003; 2006; 2011; Long, 2007; Dena, 2009; Pratten, 2011; Phillips, 2012; Gambarato, 2013; Kalogeras, 2014; Bernardo, 2014; etc.). Though the first to talk about transmedia was Kinder, who understood it as a special feature of media product, which allows the recipient (in Kinder's case children) to "recognize, distinguish, and combine different popular genres and their respective iconography that cut across movies, television, comic books, commercials, video games, and toys" (Kinder, 1991: 47). She also argued that transmedia (or "transmedia intertextuality" in Kinder's terms) provokes some response from the viewers, which makes them "being sutured into imaginary
identification with a fictional character and fictional space" (Kinder, 1991: 47).
Later on, Jenkins elaborated on the concept of transmedia and introduced a new term - "transmedia storytelling" - a narrative that "unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole" (Jenkins, 2006: 95). Transmedia storytelling does not mean repetition of the same message across different platforms. Introduction of a new media platform - book, comic strip, graphic novel, TV series, movie, cartoon, computer game, etc. - means an ineluctable transformation of the source message for the purpose of the same project. Jenkins argues that any transmedia story combines two conceptual categories: "radical intertextuality", understood as movement across texts or textual structures within the same media platform, and "multimodality", meaning different representations of the same character, location, idea, etc. across different media platforms. This entity constitutes a transmedia project - media product, where "integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story" (Jenkins, 2011).
The authors and promoters of any transmedia project must ensure that all its components are interrelated, and the links between these components are very logical, consistent, and well-defined. Bernardo argues that a true transmedia production is "a world populated with characters, which interact with one another and create conflict and intersecting plot arcs" (Bernardo, 2014). Its recipients, involved into this world at any stage using any platform, should be immersed into the story
itself; this will provide them with a positive and enjoyable entertainment experience. This world of the project - sometimes called a "project universe" - constructed with care and attention to the smallest detail, makes it possible to expand the project to new platforms; it accounts for the project's spin-offs, reboots, and variations, thus conquering the audiences around the globe. Some transmedia projects (e.g. Game of Thrones or Star Trek) create their own fictional universes, their unique mythology that keeps the recipients (in this case - viewers) engaged. People tend to stay with the project for quite a long time (e.g. British transmedia project Doctor Who that has been retaining its audience for more than 50 years); they form fandoms - communities of fans sharing their common entertainment experiences and associating themselves with the universe of a certain transmedia project (e.g. Thronies - fans of Game of Thrones, Whovians - fans of Doctor Who, Sherlockians - fans of Sherlock, etc.).
This audience's engagement factor becomes a key one for transmedia project's successful distribution. As Pratten argues, "In transmedia storytelling, engagement with each successive media heightens the audience's understanding, enjoyment, and affection for the story. To do this successfully, the embodiment of the story in each media needs to be satisfying in its own right while enjoyment from all the media should be greater than the sum of the parts" (Pratten, 2011: 2). In other words, all elements of the story, split among different media platforms, should constitute a unified and correlated entity providing the recipient with an ultimate entertainment experience.
Talking of media platforms engaged in one transmedia project, it is important to mention that the number and the types of said platforms depend only on creators' imagination and financial abilities. They may include printed materials
(books, comic strips, booklets, postcards, handouts, etc.); audiovisual materials (films, TV-series, cartoons, documentaries, computer games, smartphone apps, etc.); virtual materials (websites, social network groups, viral materials, etc.); and any other possible media platforms. For example, transmedia project associated with Sherlock BBC series includes 13 episodes, one mini-episode, documentary aftershow Sherlock: Behind the Scenes, thematic websites of different characters The Science of Deduction, The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson, Molly Hooper's Diary, Connie Prince's official site, official website BBC Sherlock, independent website Sherlockology, computer game Sherlock: The Network, Japanese Sherlock Manga (graphic novel), the official Companion to the television series The Sherlock Files, Tweeter feed, etc. This multimodal nature of transmedia projects allows their creators engage new target audiences and provides new opportunities for further projects' development.
All the above said allows us to define three key features of any transmedia project that stipulate its transmedia nature and distinguish it from other types of media products:
1. Transmedia project is a multimodal narrative that unfolds successively or simultaneously across different media platforms.
2. Implementation of transmedia project using new media platforms includes an obligatory transformation of source material and an accession of new ideas and implications, which help the creators to attract the attention of new target audiences (as opposed to cross-media projects, when the same story is narrated using different media platforms).
3. Each transmedia project creates its own "universe" that comprises different plotlines and twists bent together by the unity of characters, locations, artefacts, etc. that constitute the project informational and artistic constant, which may also be called a canon.
Transmedia project in the context of translation
The core mechanism that provides correlation of different components of a transmedia project is text derivation. Each new text (here by text we understand a polysemiotic entity, including verbal and non-verbal means of message's transfer) is based on a previous text; thus, the process of text derivation is responsible for the project's dissemination across different media platforms. Each time, when transmedia narrative unfolds on a new media platform, everything that has been created before in the frameworks of this project becomes what we may call a prototext. The New text, in other words, a metatext, accounts for development of transmedia narrative, accession of new meanings, details, and ideas. Sometimes, certain elements of the prototext become a part of the project's mythology and constitute the project's canon. However, if transmedia project is promoted globally, a new interpretive power intervenes into the dialogue of proto- and metatext - a power called the translator. In this case, the process of text derivation is performed due to translator's skills and interpretative abilities. Translator becomes a key to the project's success in a new cultural communicative environment because all messages and ideas of the project's creators pass through the translator's prism of consciousness. By virtue of a high-quality translation, a good transmedia project can gain an international fame; poor translation quality may nip the very idea of transmedia in the bud.
Polysemiotic, derivative, and multiplatform nature of transmedia project stipulates a plurality of factors that may become a spoke in translator's wheel. Let us have a closer look at them.
1. Hermeneutical factor
Translator's perception of a transmedia project differs fundamentally from the regular recipient's one. The latter is concerned with
getting an entertainment experience, rather than with analyzing the content and recreating its links with different prototexts. The translator's task is to define the in-depth connections between prototexts and source metatext and construct a target metatext according to the same derivation rules and patterns as were used by the creator of the original production. It is also important for translators not only to recognize prototextual or canonic indexes - words, names, ideas, and other inclusions and references that flag the presence of a prototext and provide the link between the project's elements - but also to make the recipients recognize and interpret these indexes themselves. This ability to see prototextual inclusions in metatext's tissue can be called transmedia competence.
A good example of a transmedia competence of translators is an episode from the motion picture An Adventure in Space and Time, being a part of BBC's transmedia project Doctor Who. The main character of the film is a British actor William Hartnell, who portrayed the original incarnation of the project's main character, the Doctor. At the end of the film, Hartnell (brilliantly played by David Bradley) finds out that the show producers have taken a decision to replace him by introducing an iconic concept of the Doctor's regeneration (when the other actor steps in to play the same part). Hartnell gets so emotionally attached to the part that he breaks into tears and says to his wife he does not want to leave the show by saying "I don't want to go". Fans of the show know that this is an iconic catchphrase that was said by the 10th Doctor (played by David Tennant) before his final regeneration. This phrase has been repeated in other seasons of the show, in Doctor Who Magazine, a special printed periodical devoted to the project, and on other media platforms. For the first time, it was literary translated into Russian as "Я не хочу уходить", and translators working with An Adventure in Space and Time used the same variant of
translation. Thus, the link between the canonic prototext and metatext of the film was maintained, and the episode, being quite emotional by itself, gained a new, deeper meaning.
2. Technological factor
Involvement of different media platforms under transmedia project's "umbrella" makes translators dependent on technological issues of the localization process. If the project in question includes audiovisual components (films, TV-series, cartoons, trailers, etc.), translators are tied with general constraints depending on type of audiovisual translation to be used (subtitling, dubbing, recast, voice-over, etc.), customer's requirements and style guides (banned words, rating issued to audiovisual productions, etc.), demands of voice actors, producers, and studios. In case of translating the content for gaming platforms, we may face other constraints connected with peculiarities of game localization process, etc. Taking into consideration this factor, translators sometimes have to sacrifice transmedia component in favor of technological constraints. On one hand, it may reduce project's artistic value and prompt outrage among the fans, but on the other hand, it is important to guarantee the recipients a comfortable viewership, when they are able to read subtitles, watch well lip-synched film, or enjoy playing the computer game without difficulty.
For example, Russian localizers ignored some prototextual indexes used by creators of BBC Sherlock transmedia project either because of lack of their transmedia competence or due to technical constraints. The content of this transmedia project, as it was mentioned before, is disseminated across a number of different media platforms, though there is one main source of prototext: stories and novels about adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the novel A Study in Scarlet, Dr Watson comes to London from the Second Anglo-Afghan War
and meets his former colleague in the Criterion Bar. The pilot episode of the series was filmed in the bar itself, which is located in Regent Circle, Piccadilly, London. Although in episode 1, season 1, Dr Watson meets Mike Stamford in the park, because the location was unavailable by the time. Nevertheless, the series' creators were able to stick to the canon by giving both characters paper cups with the word CRITERION on them. In the Russian version of the series, this canon reference was not localized at all.
3. Workflow organization factor
This factor seems to be directly connected with the previous one, though here we need to talk about translation's consistency, both internal one, within the same media platform (this is what Jenkins called "radical intertextuality"), and external one, meaning consistency across different media platforms ("multimodality" in Jenkins' terms). It happens very often that different vendors localize different elements of one transmedia project. Each vendor creates its own team of translators, who sometimes are not familiar with the work done by their predecessors. In this case, both internal and external consistency of the translation may suffer because incorrect or new translation of canonic names, catchphrases, locations, etc. usually provokes a storm of protest among the fans. It is especially true for translations of top TV-series, when localizers change each season, or when there is an alternative studio (or studios), delivering their own variants of translated audiovisual productions.
A good example is the translation of TV-series Game of Thrones based on a series of fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. Fans of the books were happy to watch them filmed, first as a cross-media project, and later as a transmedia one. However, when two seasons of the series were translated into Russian, fans found many discrepancies in the translation
of prototextual indexes. For example, some names of the main characters were translated differently, such as the nickname of Daenerys Targaryen - Stormborn - was first translated as Бурерожденная ('storm' meaning any type of a strong wind), in the second season she became Шторморожденная ('storm' meaning strong wind on the sea). The same thing happened to the name of the nation living behind the ice wall and called White Walkers - in the first season it was translated as Белые ходоки (literary translation), though in the next season they were called Белые бродяги (White Tramps).
Such inconsistency of translation may take place even within one production localized by means of one platform, and translated by the same team. For example, in the first season of revived BBC's Doctor Who the "race" of the Doctor - Time Lord - was first translated as Повелитель времени (Lord of time), but in the seventh episode of the same season (translated by the same vendor) he became Властелин времени (Master of time). Probably, this inconsistency inside one element of the project can be explained by the absence of glossary, translators' negligence, poor editor's work, etc. Whatever reason it is, such inconsistency in translation may ruin the recipient's entertainment experience, especially if he or she has high transmedia competence.
4. Legislative factor
This factor is connected with the concept of authorship, which sometimes prevents transmedia projects' creators (especially those who decide to construct their project around some prototext that exists and functions independently) from using this prototext or translating it the same way it has been translated before. Very often, they demand new translations, even when this prototext is well known to the members of the target audience or has become a part of its culture. This factor can also act as a trigger for fandom's discontent;
people may start blaming translators for their mistakes or lack of research.
Sometimes the legislative factor influences translation of transmedia projects in quite an unexpected way. Take, for example, film adaptation of a series of children graphic novels Captain Underpants by American author and illustrator Dav Pilkey. This series, including 12 books and 3 spin-offs, was transferred to another media platform by DreamWorks Animation studio in 2017. The studio made an animated screen adaptation of these novels, which was translated into Russian, though there was a special requirement to provide new translations of several lines and references. For example, in the very beginning of the film we encounter a phrase "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!" This is a famous line, which refers to the Broadway musical It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman (1966) and in the consciousness of fans is tightly connected with the comic book character called Superman. This phrase entered Russian culture in the following form: "Это птица! (sometimes, with '?') Это самолёт! Это Супермен". However, the film provider's representatives asked to be mindful of any copyright issues and to create new translations of the phrase. As a result, the following Russian variant was localized: "Смотрите! В небе! Это баклан! Это дирижабль!" ("Look! Up in the sky! It's a gannet! It's a zeppelin!"). In this case, translators had to be more creative and tailored up the variant, in which original context was transformed, though the recipients with a sufficient level of transmedia competence will be able to piece this line with the original prototext and an intertextual reference to Superman productions.
5. Cultural factor
Translation is an intercultural transfer; hence, it is logical to assume that cultural factor can become a crucial one in the process of transmedia projects' translation. As Lefevre and Bassnet argued, we should focus not upon some
formal comparison of source and target texts in a translation vacuum, but on "text embedded in its network of both source, and target cultural signs" (Lefevre, Bassnet, 1998: 123). This insight of taking into consideration the cultural contexts has changed the attitude towards translators: instead of being "background extras", they became key actors in the context of transcultural transmedia discourse, co-authors of transmedia productions. This is especially true for the cases of "deep" localizations of transmedia projects when the story fully emerges into the target culture; therefore, translators have to make changes that are even more drastic in order to bring up the story closer to the target audience.
A good example is Russian component of a global transmedia project Everybody Loves Raymond, a TV-series Воронины ('Voronins' is a surname of the family, which sounds similar to 'Barons' - the surname of the original series' protagonists). The protagonist of the source series is Raymond Barone, a sportswriter who lives with his wife and three kids in Long Island. His main problem is his relatives, who live across the street and frequently come to visit his place, annoying his wife Debora. In the Russian version, the protagonist - Konstantin Voronin - is also a sportswriter, but he lives in a block of flats in Moscow. His parents own an apartment next door and come to his place through the common balcony, annoying the protagonist's wife Vera. For some seasons Воронины copycats Everybody Loves Raymond's plot, later this story gets its own development, however the protagonist lives in a reality, which is very comprehensible for Russian viewers: jokes are adapted, locations look very familiar, and there are many references to Soviet and Russian films, in which the actors have starred before.
It is not intended to suggest that the research covers all factors influencing the work of transmedia project's translators. Although, even
these examples show that sometimes transmedia projects require a creative approach to their translation; so let us expand upon three main creative practices and their application in the context of translating transmedia.
Transmedia and the level of translator's creativity
Usually, creative practices in translation are associated with the concept of transcreation, which consists of two notions -translation and recreation. However, existing definitions of this term compromise its first part, because transcreation is understood as an extremely narrow area of activities including only creative adaptations of marketing, sales, and advertising content in the target culture. Donkor contradistinguishes translation from transcreation stating that the latter involves much more creativity than straight translation because "transcreation is all about translating ideas and concepts" (Donkor, 2015). According to Ray and Kelly, transcreation is to be applied when translation is not enough, when "either the direct translation is adapted, or when content is completely rewritten in the local language to reflect the original message" (Ray, Kelly, 2010: 2).
Translation scholars have their own attitude towards the correlation of the concepts of translation and transcreation. According to Di Giovanni, the term transcreation is closely interrelated with the creative translation techniques used for translating Indian sacred texts from Sanskrit: "This process [transcreation] allowed for a number of even radical changes to the original texts, which went well beyond the concept of "translation proper" as it was and is still perceived within translation studies. The transcreated text had to be entirely fluent and, most importantly, it had to be fully understandable to its target audience" (Di Giovanni, 2008: 33).
Vieira also supports the idea that transcreation is one of the translation strategies, which "demythicizes the ideology of fidelity" (Vieira, 1999: 110). By using creative translation practices, we can create a text, which will resonate with the recipient's demands and expectations. In modern global communication context, translation has taken a "transcreational turn" and is seen as a tool of transferring ideas and images into other cultures, rather than "word-forword" rendering of target texts. As Katan argues, in this new reality translators may enjoy their "low-risk faithful translation or interpretation", or they can "step into the role of transcreator, which would allow them to take advantage of an already assigned professional recognition of their creative role, and which would authorize them to take account of the impact of cultural distance when translating" (Katan, 2016).
As it was highlighted earlier, in the case of transmedia projects' translation creativity proves to be necessary and prerequisite; sometimes it even becomes the only choice for the translator. Different scholars (Bernal-Merino, 2006; Sandrini, 2008; Shaler, 2013; Pedersen, 2014; Chaume, 2016 etc.) have different attitude towards defining creative practices used for the purpose of translation; for that reason this research goes an extra mile to classify creativity in translation into different creative translation practices and to define, whether they may be applied for translation of transmedia projects.
Personal experience in translation and constant observation of translation results delivered by other language professionals provide an opportunity to identify three main categories of creative practices applied in translation: transcreation, transadaptation, and transculturation. All these three categories are based upon one principle - creative processing of the original text used when other, more faithful translation strategies, lead to no satisfactory
result. The intensity of transformation the source text undergoes in the process of translation and extent of "creative interference" into original context make it possible to categorize creative practices into the types mentioned.
Transcreation can be defined as a strategy of creative rethinking of a source text segment (shot, subtitle, dialogue, scene, comic's panel, etc.) with subsequent generation of a new target text segment in conformity with given polysemiotic context, taking into consideration the characteristics of communicative situation, technical constraints and anticipated recipients' response. In some cases, the changes made in the process of transcreation can be so radical and unexpected, that the translator becomes a coauthor of a transmedia production.
In the process of translating transmedia projects, transcreation comes in handy, when the source segment includes culture-specific references, charactonyms, and other challenging elements. In this case, there is a good reason to use creativity and to find a balance between the source and the target cultures. For example, in Captain Underpants animated film, telling about two teenagers bullied by a ghastly principal for drawing comic strips about Captain Underpants, all teachers' names are charactonyms ironically reflecting their traits of character and subjects they are teaching. The first intention of the studio was to create new names in the target language different from those that were used in the books, so evil Professor Poopypants became Профессор Пукерштайн ([Pukerstein], a hybrid referring to Russian 'пукать' (to fart) and 'Эйнштейн' (Einstein)), Doctor Diaper became Доктор Подгузняк (literary translation of 'diaper' plus an inflexional suffix -няк, typical for some Russian and Ukrainian surnames), Buttcheeks von Stinkelsberg - Пукфрид Фон Вонючиц ([Pukfrid von Vonuchitz], another hybrid of the root 'пук' (fart) with the last part of German
name 'Зигфрид'(Siegfried) plus a German-style surname referring to the verb 'вонять' (to stink)), etc. Later on, the decision was made to market this animated picture as a transmedia project, so some names were changed back to the ones, used in the original prototext. As a result, some good translation decisions were declined, and transcribed versions on teachers' names were used in the final voiceover (e.g. Mr Morty Fyde -Мистер Монти Файд instead of transcreated 'Мистер Рохли' (Mister Wimpy)). On the other hand, the studio approved all other transcreated names. Translators together with a bilingual approver made their best to recreate these names in the form that, on one hand, reflected the nature of toilet-style humor, which dominates in the film; on the other hand, they tried to make these names sound appropriate, to give a chance to the project's life, to ensure its potential dissemination across other media platforms in Russia, and to attract and engage the target audience.
Sometimes the strategy of transcreation is enough to make a transmedia production successful in a foreign market, thus studios and producers do not go any further. However, sometimes they want to make the project immerse deeper into the target culture, so they need to use other creative translation practices, for the purpose of this research called transadaptation and transculturation.
Transadaptation works on the principle of transcreation, though here the transmedia product in question undergoes change that is more drastic. In the course of transadaptation, translators work together with technical staff, because they transcreate not only words but also some visual components (characters, signs, pictures, etc.). By using the strategy of transadaptation the translator changes verbal, audial, and visual codes to incorporate them into transmedia project's environment. All characters of a transmedia project stay inside their transmedia universe,
though some elements of this environment are modified. It is the specificity of a target audience's perception of some objects, concepts or ideas that triggers such modifications.
During transadaptation of Russian animated film Smeshariki. Nachalo (its international version is called 'Kikoriki. Team Invincible'), a part of a huge Russian transmedia project including cartoon series, books, computer games, etc., translators had to change the opening part of the film. It begins with a very neatly animated landscape; we can hear beautiful music, see nice butterflies and ladybirds, and at last, camera shows little houses, where all main characters live. Russian children, who are very well aware of this project's universe and know all the characters, will identify these houses without any difficulty. However, foreign viewers who know nothing about the setting and the characters may find such a long opening boring. That is why translators decided to add some new text, an introduction to Kikoriki transmedia universe, explaining the setting and giving viewers the idea of what is going to happen next.
One more creative practice used in translation - transculturation - deals with the utmost immersion of a transmedia production into the target culture. Ortiz introduced the term itself in the middle of the 20th century, meaning "the result of the extremely complex transmutation of cultures" (Ortiz, 1995: 98). In the context of translating transmedia, by transculturation we mean a full conversion of the transmedia production into the target culture creative product, which does not ultimately match the source production and at some point starts living its own life in its own cultural environment. The iconic example of transculturation is the reinvention of American Spider-Man comic book for the Indian market, described by Humphrey and colleagues (Humphrey et al., 2011: 42). Indian Spider-Man is a boy named Pavitr Prabhakar, who lives in
Mumbai and fights crimes swinging from the Gateway of India. The idea of a young man who loves his family and fights his archenemies resonates with Indian culture, thus this character was not just borrowed from the source transmedia narrative, he was rather blended with Indian culture and started living his own life. His superhero costume has also undergone changes: instead of tights, he is wearing a sarong and oriental pointed shoes. This is a very essence of transculturation, which distinguishes it from the other two creative practices - by using this strategy, we can construct a new galaxy in a transmedia universe in conformity with the laws of the target culture.
Conclusions
It is quite clear that new ways of presenting entertainment content to the recipients require new approaches for translating this content. There is no doubt that translation practices described can be applied successfully to other types of source material, including literary translation, audiovisual translation, and others, which imply the creative approach to the source content. Although, transmedia projects, due to their specificity, pose a major challenge for translators and become a vast research area for scholars. The very nature of transmedia storytelling, on one hand, puts translator into some sort of a "cage" constructed of technological, legal, and other factors that superimpose certain constraints on the translation process. On the other hand, these very factors give the translator an indubitable
degree of freedom to implement his or her creative abilities and talents.
Transcreation, transadaptation, and transculturation present ultimate tools for dealing with multimodal nature of transmedia projects; they make it possible to disseminate transmedia narratives across global media platforms. It is the creativity of a translator that attracts the attention of target audiences with different cultural backgrounds; although maintaining the project's universe and establishing a global canon are still the main objectives. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that application of creative practices in transmedia projects' translation is one of many possibilities to convey the meaning of a source text. Translators' task is to strike the right balance between creativity and faithfulness to the original, keep within the allowed limits of source's transformation and sometimes suppress the urge to be creative and sophisticated. Let us not forget that the main purpose of any transmedia project is to provide the recipients with unique and brand new cultural experiences, rather than to express oneself. On the other hand, cut and dry, unemotional translation may scare away the audience and ruin the idea of transmedia story's global dissemination. Wise, reasonable, and appropriate application of creative translation practices will be a key to achieving the utmost translation result and to presenting the audiences around the globe with the unique possibility to enjoy global transmedia stories narrated in their own languages.
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Креативные практики в переводе трансмедийных проектов
Е.Д. Малёнова
Омский государственный университет им. Ф.М. Достоевского Россия, 644077, Омск, пр. Мира, 55а
Развитие новых медийных технологий предоставляет профессионалам в сфере развлечений уникальную возможность распространения своей продукции с использованием различных медийных платформ, предлагая реципиентам получить новый опыт взаимодействия с развлекательным контентом. С одной стороны, так называемые трансмедийные проекты позволяют создавать тематические вселенные и привлекать к взаимодействию представителей различных целевых аудиторий по всему миру. С другой стороны, такой тип подачи контента ставит новые задачи перед переводчиками, так как сама природа трансмедийности обуславливает необходимость искать особые подходы к переводу такого рода проектов. Данное исследование ставит своей целью продемонстрировать, как креативные переводческие практики - транскреация, трансадаптация и транскультурация - могут применяться при переводе трансмедийных проектов. Автор выявляет несколько ключевых факторов, осложняющих процесс перевода трансмедийных проектов, и наглядно демонстрирует, каким образом применение креативных практик позволяет справиться с указанными трудностями и предложить варианты перевода, соответствующие ожиданиям создателей трансмедийных проектов и их реципиентов.
Ключевые слова: перевод, транскреация, трансадаптация, транскультурация, трансмедиа, трансмедийный проект.
Научная специальность: 10.02.00 - лингвистика.
