Adventures in Mistranslation – BCM320

dainafuller

For my digital artefact, I wanted to translate a piece of Japanese. As someone with very little experience ever learning another language and having zero knowledge about the Japanese language before I began this project I found it very difficult. I challenged myself to translate this page without the help of the internet, only using books to help me. After I finished I compared the results to Google Translates’ version, and then to the official translation.

As outlined in a previous post Ellis describes many different types of autoethnography, but for my project, I decided on having a ‘layered account’ that would ‘focus on the author’s experience alongside data, abstract analysis, and relevant literature.’ As you see in my video, all three versions of the final translation varied and varied quite a lot in some cases. I decided to do a bit of research about Google Translation, I found a

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Akira – BCM320

dainafuller

Another early morning another Japanese film, well at least this one is in color. This week we watched Akira (1988), another film with subtle tones about the atomic bombing on Japanese culture. Despite my lack of experience with Asian media, I have actually seen Ghost in the Shell (1995) (the original, not the Scarlett Johansson one), so immediately I started comparing it in my head; the stunning visuals, the cyberpunk elements, and the philosophical questioning of humanity. In Ellis’ article on Autoethnography (2011), he states that ‘Autoethnography…expands and opens a wider lens on the world’, and also the idea of ‘epiphanies’ which are ‘remembered moments perceived to have significantly impacted the trajectory of a person’s life.’ While I wouldn’t call watching Ghost in the Shell having a significant impact on my life, but it did change the way I viewed Akira.

Autoethnography “introduce unique ways of thinking and feeling…

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Here Be Monsters – BCM320

dainafuller

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Of course, the first thing I want to do in the morning is live-tweeting a black-and-white, old as hell, Japanese film, so that is what I was doing Thursday morning. If you haven’t heard of Godzilla, or Gojira if you wanna be completely accurate, you might have been living deep in the ocean undisturbed from nuclear testing, but I have indeed heard of this larger than life monster. But I had never seen the original movie or any of the 30 odd sequels, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the cultural impact this film has had in the 64 years since its release.

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I think the only ‘kaiju‘ film I’ve ever seen was Pacific Rim back in 2013, and while it was a fun watch I didn’t stick around for the sequel. But Gojira had a different feel to it, maybe it…

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