Comparing Professional Translation and Fan Translation : A User-Centered Case Study on the Manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to compare two English translations of the same Japanese comic book or manga: one made by professionals and one by fans of the text being studied. The text in question is a part of the manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, which was chosen as the material of this study due to the fact that fan translations were the only way to read the manga for much of its existence. The translations were studied from the angle of user-centered translation, an approach to translation that emphasizes the reader’s experience. The translations’ usability, or the ease with which the reader can read and enjoy the translation, was evaluated and compared using heuristic evaluation. Heuristic evaluation in user-centered translation studies involves using a list of guidelines or heuristics to thoroughly evaluate multiple different aspects that affect the usability of a translation. The secondary goal of this study was to create a modified list of heuristics for studying comic book translations. The professional translation was found to be the more usable of the two translations. The main reason for this was the fan translation’s frequent typographical errors, while other usability issues, such as mistakes in the translation’s usage of speech bubbles, also harmed its usability to a lesser extent. Additionally, some usability aspects were found to be more equal between the two translations. The modified list of heuristics was found to be effective, but it could be edited further in future studies of similar texts.