The lovely complex of domestication and foreignization:A case study of the manga Love ★ Com's translation

Abstract

This study brings forth issues that can arise in the translation from Japanese to English. With a focus on specific cultural values that exist in the Japanese language, namely dialect and politeness will be covered in the present study. To do this research, the romance and comedy manga (Japanese comic) called Love★ Com was utilized, mainly because it was rife with dialect. Furthermore, the story itself takes place in a high school, thus, different levels of politeness in the Japanese language would undoubtedly appear. From the manga's dialogue examples are chosen and analyzed through Lawrence Venuti's theory about domestication and foreignization and then deem if Love★ Com's translation falls under the moniker of domestication or foreignization. Whereas a domesticated translation aims to read fluently in the target language, a foreignized translation is the opposite. It aims to retain the foreignness that exist in the source language, in this study's case that would mainly be dialect or politeness. Results showed that Love★ Com's translation was domesticated through and through. None of the cultural values that exists in the Japanese source text carried over in the translation to English, with the exception of honorific suffixes. The result also went slightly against previous research that had mentioned that manga translations as of late favors the approach of foreignization. Therefore, more research on this subject is needed.