GAME LOCALIZATION: LEXICAL, CONTEXTUAL, GRAMMATICAL OBSTACLES AND THE STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME THEM

The given article deals with the study of game localization as a new professional sphere and a new branch in translation, as well as with the peculiarities of translators’ and localizers’ work in it, their problems, principles and strategies. The purpose, objectives and methodological basis of the study determined a set of general scientific methods and operations, namely: observation, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, taxonomy and modelling for theoretical understanding, generalization, classification and description of the structure and content of the phenomenon. Special linguistic methods were also used: descriptive, structural (distributive, contextual, transformational analysis, etc.), functional, contextual-interpretative methods. Games have gone a long way from the first and most basic kinds, involved in ritual activities many centuries ago, to the level of the modern ever-changing game industry which now makes up the biggest part in the entertainment software industry owing to its massive influence, popularity and financial success all around the world as well as in Ukraine. Localization industry, which has been developing since the middle of the XX century, contributed to this success, allowing game studios and their publishers to find their customers not only in the USA and Japan but almost everywhere. Despite its importance as one of key processes in content production, localization hasn’t been studied enough and only now is receiving the scientific attention that it deserves and the due recognition as a distinct and multifaceted branch, integrally related to and based on translation. The main localization lexical and context-grammatical obstacles were studied: proper names, in-game realia and terminology, intertextuality, variables, keys and pieces of code, spatial limitations, contextual limitations due to indirect and mediated communications, the form of presenting the assets to be localized and the tight deadlines.