This study analyzed the translation patterns of proper nouns in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, and My Hero Academia from both linguistic and visual perspectives based on a multimodal approach. The results revealed that transliteration...
This study analyzed the translation patterns of proper nouns in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, and My Hero Academia from both linguistic and visual perspectives based on a multimodal approach. The results revealed that transliteration and loanword expressions were frequently employed in the translation of character names, place names, and special attack names in order to preserve the worldview and settings of the original works. At the same time, translation strategies that considered the readability and natural comprehension of target language (TL) readers were also actively adopted.
From the visual perspective, elements such as image modification, onomatopoeia and mimetic words, typefaces, and numerical expressions were found to function not merely as supplementary devices but as important translation elements that convey the atmosphere and dramatic effects of the works. In particular, translators tended to adopt meaning-oriented translation strategies that enabled TL readers to understand the content intuitively while maintaining the visual characteristics of the original works.
These findings suggest that manga translation is not simply a text-based translation process, but rather a multimodal translation process in which linguistic and visual elements interact with one another. Therefore, future studies on manga translation should integrate textual and visual elements in their analyses, and further research should expand to various manga genres as well as multimodal contents such as animation, webtoons, and games. This study is significant in that it demonstrates the potential for expanding not only manga translation studies but also multimodal translation studies as a whole.