Translating a Board Game Character's Role Instruction from Russian into English (a Case Study of The Golden Spike)

The board games industry is growing at a fast rate and new game elements, which were not yet described in academic literature, emerge. Games are developed for both internal and external markets, therefore, translation is a necessity for many of them. However, there is scarce research on the topic of translation of board games in general, and specific game elements in particular. The present paper is focused on translation of a board game character’s role instruction (CRI), an individual element that contains the description part (background of a character) and the instruction part (what a player should do). This new term is introduced due to the fact that such elements can be found in various games, but they have only narrative denominations, not scholar ones. Therefore, the aim of the study is threefold: to uncover translatological characteristics of a board game character’s role instruction as a distinct translatological type of text, to analyze translation difficulties on all levels of language and to elicit strategies for rendering of similar texts. The study examines seven samples of CRI taken from the board game The Golden Spike, originally written in Russian, and translated into English, overall, 48 elements on all levels of language were analyzed. The research contributes to Translation Studies in the following ways: expansion, specification, solution. Expansion: a new type of text is introduced into typology, moreover, the study enriches the body of research done on the topic of board games translation. Specification: identification of key features of CRI as a type of text and detailing possible difficulties on all levels of language. Solution: suggestion of strategies that are formulated as a result of the study. These findings might be valuable for practicing translators and students.