Comment on "Censorship" ☠️
turdas@suppo.fi 2 weeks agoYes, and part of the job of a translator is to make sure that this fact is clear to the reader of the translation. “Pedophile” is virtually never a socially acceptable moniker in English whereas sometimes in Japanese “lolicon” is. Therefore it cannot be translated directly. This isn’t particularly unusual; Japanese is a very contextual language, so even beyond cultural differences there are lots of words that require a different translation in different contexts.
For this specific scene the translation could well be fine (I imagine it’s probably a gag scene where the other character gets flustered and rejects the accusation), but there are circumstances where a different translation is required.
edible_funk@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Except the context is just that pedophilia is much less stigmatized. It still means pedophile it just doesn’t carry the social consequences because it’s more socially acceptable. It doesn’t mean something that can’t be expressed in english. It’s not complicated. Saying someone is perving on little girls would be less impactful than calling them a pedophile but it means the same thing.
turdas@suppo.fi 2 weeks ago
Yeah, and to someone who doesn’t know that context, using the word “pedophile” is going to make the line sound very different from what it does in the original language and culture.
Part of the job of a translator is to…
edible_funk@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean, not really? It means the same thing, it’s just not as stigmatized. That doesn’t make it suddenly not pedophilia. It’s still pedophilia, just nobody cares.
turdas@suppo.fi 2 weeks ago
Damn, you really don’t get it.
“Pedophile” is a very loaded word in English, arguably one of the most loaded words in the language. Calling someone a pedophile in English is tantamount to saying that they should be shunned and behind bars or at least on a list. Doing so without evidence can get you charged for defamation (and acquitted, but only if you’re rich enough—but I digress).
ロリコン in Japanese is substantially less loaded. Therefore “pedophile” is not universally the accurate translation; in some circumstances it’s more accurate to use an euphemism, or the loanword “lolicon” which is pretty well established in English at this point.
This has nothing to do with condoning or condemning pedophilia, by the way. And even if it did, then I’d argue that, if anything, using “pedophile” in a mild and casual context, like how “lolicon” is sometimes used, serves to reduce the stigma rather than maintain it. Though that’s a discussion I have no interest in getting into right now.