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Article published In:
Game Localisation
Edited by Xiaochun Zhang and Samuel Strong
[The Journal of Internationalization and Localization 4:2] 2017
► pp. 100–119

Translating literature into playability

The case of Dante’s Inferno

| Roma Tre University

From the perspective of Game Localisation (O’Hagan and Mangiron 2013, Bernal-Merino 2015), this paper examines the translation of Dante’s Inferno (Electronic Arts 2010) from English into Italian. Parallel excerpts from in-game dialogues are compared in order to analyse the relationship between the source and the target texts, while exploring the influence Dante’s masterpiece exerts on the Italian localisation. The objective is to show that, when a game is based on the target culture literature, the latter seems to constrain translation to ensure a successful local impact. As findings suggest, by means of quotations together with lexical, syntactic and stylistic choices, the Italian game is more literarily expressive than its English source, thus providing players with a multimedia interactive Dantesque experience.

Keywords: literature, video games, remediation, game localisation, translation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dante’s inferno
  • 3.Remediation: From epic poem into action game
  • 4. Dante’s Inferno intralinguistic and intertextual engagement
  • 5.Literature and game localisation
  • 6.On the Italian localisation of Dante’s Inferno
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 26 January 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jial.00005.pet
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