Ailin Li
Thesis Title (PhD)
RELOADING HERSTORIES: A MULTIMODAL CASE STUDY ON SHIFTED FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN VIDEO GAME LOCALISATION
My project explores the intersection of gender studies, audiovisual translation and game studies. Current female players have accounted for almost half of the global gaming audience (Stojanovic, 2023), which catalyzes various game products featuring non-patriarchal narratives to challenge the androcentric gaming tradition. Meanwhile, throughout the last two decades, game localisation has entered the spotlight of academic discussion more frequently for its economic and cultural impact on the global circulation of digital entertainment products. Among all the cultural elements taken into consideration in the localisation and transcreation process, gender remains a significant yet understudied topic. This study is therefore aimed to look into the unique way gender narratives get reshaped in localisation of interactive video games.
With Tomb Raider, one of the earliest digital games with the female controllable avatar, as the studied case, this study will compare the characterization of the female protagonist in its original version with that in its Mandarin version. Utilizing corpora and a multimodal framework, it will pay attention to how localisation strategies in the verbal, visual and vocal aspects modify the female narrative and portrayal in video games. Methodologically, it is expected to offer applicable models for the analysis of video game localisation, whose constraints differ from other audiovisual products given its special narrative threads largely controlled by the audience. It also seeks to interact with the gaming community and point out future directions for game studies in the international context.