Onomatopoesi : översättning av onomatopoetiska uttryck i manga

Författare

Alvin Smajic

Summary, in English

Words that are used for mimicking sounds are called onomatopoeia. These
words are extremely common in the Japanese language. In fact, they are so
common that they are used even in formal situations. In Japanese, onomatopoetic expressions are often used as adverbs and can, as such, be used to explain how someone is laughing. By putting the onomatopoetic expression gera-gera, often along with the particle to, before the verb warau (laugh) it will look like this:

Gera-gera to warau (to guffaw)

Onomatopoetic expressions are commonly used in comics, often as sound effects such as pow or bang. Japanese comics, also known as manga, does however differ a little bit from Western comics when it comes to the usage of onomatopoetic expressions. This is because they utilize onomatopoetic
expressions in a few other ways than what Western comics do. It is for an
example common that they are used for setting a mood. Shiin is often, in a
comical way, used for expressing silence. The number of sound effects is also vastly greater as even such a simple ”event” as a character getting up from a chair can have a sound effect. When translated into Swedish, the translators are often forced to use their imagination even more than when translating dialogue, especially when it comes to sound effects. But sometimes simple romanization works fine.

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