The Translation of Foreign Characters’ yakuwarigo in Japanese manga

Japanese is a language known for its uses of four different scripts, having several different personal pronouns, copulas and sentence ending particles. By using and combining the above in speech and text, one can change the impression the listener or reader gets. This is the foundation of yakuwarigo, or role language. This thesis investigates the translation of one of the many role languages that exist within Japanese manga; foreigners’ role language. It analyses the Japanese speech, though bubbles and exclamations of 4 foreign characters from 4 separate manga and compares it to the official English translations. Previous research has already established certain tendencies when painting the picture of a foreign character in Japanese media, both visually and linguistically. Likewise, the translation of yakuwarigo overall has been researched and proven difficult. What happens when you attempt to translate a foreign character’s role language into English? Are there any translation problems that might be unique to this specific role language? How do translators approach these problems? This study finds that while all examined characters speak with marked Japanese, none of the translators use the same approach to translate these. Nearly all English words that appeared in the Japanese manga has been kept in the English translation, thus the translation loses the impact those words had in the source text.