Japanese Video Game Localization : A Case Study of Sony's Sairen Series

This thesis is a comparative case study in Japanese video game localization for the video games Sairen, Sairen 2 and Sairen Nyûtoransurêshon, and English-language localized versions of the same games as published in Scandinavia and Australia/New Zealand. All games are developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and published exclusively for Playstation2 and Playstation3 consoles. The fictional world of the Sairen games draws much influence from Japanese history, as well as from popular and contemporary culture, and in doing so caters mainly to a Japanese audience. For localization, i.e. the adaptation of a product to make it accessible to users outside the original market it was intended for in the first place, this is a challenging issue. Video games are media of entertainment, and therefore localization practice must preserve the games’ effects on the players’ emotions. Further, video games are digital products that are comprised of a multitude of distinct elements, some of which are part of the game world, while others regulate the connection between the player as part of the real world and the game as digital medium. As a result, video game localization is also a practice that has to cope with the technical restrictions that are inherent to the medium. The main theory used throughout the thesis is Anthony Pym’s framework for localization studies that considers the user of the localized product as a defining part of the localization process. This concept presupposes that localization is an adaptation that is performed to make a product better suited for use during a specific reception situation. Pym also addresses the factor that certain products may resist distribution into certain reception situations because of their content, and that certain aspects of localization aim to reduce this resistance through significant alterations of the original product. While Pym developed his ideas with mainly regular software in mind, they can also be adapted well to study video games from a localization angle. Since modern video games are highly complex entities that often switch between interactive and non-interactive modes, Pym’s ideas are adapted throughout the thesis to suit the particular elements being studied. Instances analyzed in this thesis include menu screens, video clips, in-game action and websites. The main research questions focus on how the games’ rules influence localization, and how the games’ fictional domain influences localization. Because there are so many peculiarities inherent to the medium of the video game, other theories are introduced as well to complement the research at hand. These include Lawrence Venuti’s discussions of foreiginizing and domesticating translation methods for literary translation, and Jesper Juul’s definition of games. Additionally, knowledge gathered from interviews with video game localization professionals in Japan during September and October 2009 is also utilized for this study. Apart from answering the aforementioned research questions, one of this thesis’ aims is to enrich the still rather small field of game localization studies, and the study of Japanese video games in particular, one of Japan’s most successful cultural exports.

Haptiisit ja hapteemit : tapaustutkimus kuurosokean henkilön kosketukseen perustuvan kommunikaation kehityksestä

Haptices and haptemes: A case study of developmental process in touch-based communication of acquired deafblind people This research is the first systematic, longitudinal process and development description of communication using touch and body with an acquired deafblind person. The research consists of observational and analysed written and video materials mainly from two informants´ experiences during period of 14 years. The research describes the adaptation of Social-Haptic methods between a couple, and other informants´ experiences, which have been collated from biographies and through giving national and international courses. When the hearing and sight deteriorates due to having an acquired deafblind condition, communication consists of multi-systematic and adaptive methods. A person`s expressive language, spoken or Sign Language, usually remains unchanged, but the methods of receiving information could change many times during a person s lifetime. Haptices are made from haptemes that determines which regulations are analysed. When defining haptemes the definition, classification and varied meanings of touch were discovered. Haptices include sharing a personal body space, meaning of touch-contact, context and using different communication channels. Communication distances are classified as exact distance, estimated distance and touch distance. Physical distance can be termed as very long, long, medium or very close. Social body space includes the body areas involved in sending and receiving haptices and applying different types of contacts. One or two hands can produce messages by using different hand shapes and orientations. This research classifies how the body can be identified into different areas such as body orientation, varied body postures, body position levels, social actions and which side of the body is used. Spatial body space includes environmental and situational elements. Haptemes of movements are recognised as the direction of movements, change of directions on the body, directions between people, pressure, speed, frequency, size, length, duration, pause, change of rhythm, shape, macro and micro movements. Haptices share multidimensional meanings and emotions. Research describes haptices in different situations enhancing sensory information and functioning also as an independent language. Haptices includes social-haptic confirmation system, social quick messages, body drawing, contact to the people and the environment, guiding and sharing art experiences through movements. Five stages of emotional differentiation were identified as very light, light, medium, heavy and very heavy touch. Haptices give the possibility to share different art, hobby and game experiences. A new communication system development based on the analysis of the research data is classified into different phases. These are experimental initiation, social deconstruction, developing the description of Social-Haptic communication and generalisation of the theory as well as finding and conceptualising the haptices and haptemes. The use and description of haptices is a social innovation, which illustrates the adaptive function of the body and perceptual senses that can be taught to a third party. Keywords: deafblindness, hapteme, haptic, haptices, movement, social-haptic communication, social-haptic confirmation system, tactile, touch

The Soviet Union, Finland and the Cold War : The Finnish Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956-1959

From the Soviet point of view the actual substance of Soviet-Finnish relations in the second half of 1950s clearly differed from the contemporary and later public image, based on friendship and confidence rhetoric. As the polarization between the right and the left became more underlined in Finland in the latter half of the 1950s, the criticism towards the Soviet Union became stronger, and the USSR feared that this development would have influence on Finnish foreign policy. From the Soviet point of view, the security commitments of FCMA-treaty needed additional guarantees through control of Finnish domestic politics and economic relations, especially during international crises. In relation to Scandinavia, Finland was, from the Soviet point of view, the model country of friendship or neutrality policy. The influence of the Second Berlin Crisis or the Soviet-Finnish Night Frost Crisis in 1958-1959 to Soviet policy towards Scandinavia needs to be observed from this point of view. The Soviet Union used Finland as a tool, in agreement with Finnish highest political leadership, for weakening of the NATO membership of Norway and Denmark, and for maintaining Swedish non-alliance. The Finnish interest to EFTA membership in the summer of 1959, at the same time with the Scandinavian countries, seems to have caused a panic reaction in the USSR, as the Soviets feared that these economic arrangements would reverse the political advantages the country had received in Finland after the Night Frost Crisis. Together with history of events, this study observes the interaction of practical interests and ideologies, both in individuals and in decision-making organizations. The necessary social and ideological reforms in the Soviet Union after 1956 had influence both on the legitimacy of the regime, and led to contradictions in the argumentation of Soviet foreign policy. This was observed both in the own camp as well as in the West. Also, in Finland a breakthrough took place in the late 1950's: as the so-called counter reaction lost to the K-line, "a special relationship" developed with the Soviet Union. As a consequence of the Night Frost Crisis the Soviet relationship became a factor decisively defining the limits of domestic politics in Finland, a part of Finnish domestic political argumentation. Understood from this basis, finlandization is not, even from the viewpoint of international relations, a special case, but a domestic political culture formed by the relationship between a dominant state, a superpower, and a subordinate state, Finland.

Dynamics of Finnish starlings in 1951-2005 : from monitoring to population modelling

Farmland bird species have been declining in Europe. Many declines have coincided with general intensification of farming practices. In Finland, replacement of mixed farming, including rotational pastures, with specialized cultivation has been one of the most drastic changes from the 1960s to the 1990s. This kind of habitat deterioration limits the persistence of populations, as has been previously indicated from local populations. Integrated population monitoring, which gathers species-specific information of population size and demography, can be used to assess the response of a population to environment changes also at a large spatial scale. I targeted my analysis at the Finnish starling (Sturnus vulgaris). Starlings are common breeders in farmland habitats, but severe declines of local populations have been reported from Finland in the 1970s and 1980s and later from other parts of Europe. Habitat deterioration (replacement of pasture and grassland habitats with specialized cultivation areas) limits reproductive success of the species. I analysed regional population data in order to exemplify the importance of agricultural change to bird population dynamics. I used nestling ringing and nest-card data from 1951 to 2005 in order to quantify population trends and per capita reproductive success within several geographical regions (south/north and west/east aspects). I used matrix modelling, acknowledging age-specific survival and fecundity parameters and density-dependence, to model population dynamics. Finnish starlings declined by 80% from the end of the 1960s up to the end of the 1980s. The observed patterns and the model indicated that the population decline was due to the decline of the carrying capacity of farmland habitats. The decline was most severe in north Finland where populations largely become extinct. However, habitat deterioration was most severe in the southern breeding areas. The deteriorations in habitat quality decreased reproduction, which finally caused the decline. I suggest that poorly-productive northern populations have been partly maintained by immigration from the highly-productive southern populations. As the southern populations declined, ceasing emigration caused the population extinction in north. This phenomenon was explained with source sink population dynamics, which I structured and verified on the basis of a spatially explicit simulation model. I found that southern Finnish starling population exhibits ten-year cyclic regularity, a phenomenon that can be explained with delayed density-dependence in reproduction.

Migration-Development Nexus in the Malawian Health Sector: European Union Blue Card – circular migration for development?

The European Union has agreed on implementing the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) principle in all policy sectors that are likely to have a direct impact on developing countries. This is in order to take account of and support the EU development cooperation objectives and the achievement of the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. The common EU migration policy and the newly introduced EU Blue Card directive present an example of the implementation of the principle in practice: the directive is not only designed to respond to the occurring EU labour demand by attracting highly skilled third-country professionals, but is also intended to contribute to the development objectives of the migrant-sending developing countries, primarily through the tool of circular migration and the consequent skills transfers. My objective in this study is to assess such twofold role of the EU Blue Card and to explore the idea that migration could be harnessed for the benefit of development in conformity with the notion that the two form a positive nexus. Seeing that the EU Blue Card fails to differentiate the most vulnerable countries and sectors from those that are in a better position to take advantage of the global migration flows, the developmental consequences of the directive must be accounted for even in the most severe settings. Accordingly, my intention is to question whether circular migration, as claimed, could address the problem of brain drain in the Malawian health sector, which has witnessed an excessive outflow of its professionals to the UK during the past decade. In order to assess the applicability, likelihood and relevance of circular migration and consequent skills transfers for development in the Malawian context, a field study of a total of 23 interviews with local health professionals was carried out in autumn 2010. The selected approach not only allows me to introduce a developing country perspective to the on-going discussion at the EU level, but also enables me to assess the development dimension of the EU Blue Card and the intended PCD principle through a local lens. Thus these interviews and local viewpoints are at the very heart of this study. Based on my findings from the field, the propensity of the EU Blue Card to result in circular migration and to address the persisting South-North migratory flows as well as the relevance of skills transfers can be called to question. This is as due to the bias in its twofold role the directive overlooks the importance of the sending country circumstances, which are known to determine any developmental outcomes of migration, and assumes that circular migration alone could bring about immediate benefits. Without initial emphasis on local conditions, however, positive outcomes for vulnerable countries such as Malawi are ever more distant. Indeed it seems as if the EU internal interests in migration policy forbid the fulfilment of the PCD principle and diminish the attempt to harness migration for development to bare rhetoric.