言語処理学会 第30回年次大会 発表論文集（2024年3月）

Stability of Translation Across Sound Effect Type:
Focusing on Onomatopoeia in Japanese Shonen Manga
Todd Hooper
Mariko Takahashi
Faculty of International Studies, Setsunan University{hooper.todd.james, mariko.takahashi}@ilc.setsunan.ac.jp

This paper investigates whether giongo and gitaigo inJapanese shonen manga retain their type (sound words/

The term onomatopoeia is used interchangeably with theterm sound effects in this paper.
As sound effects are heavily utilized in comics,
especially in modern Japanese manga (Forceville et al.,descriptive words) when they are translated into English.
Three manga representing different genres of shonen
manga were selected, and sound effects were manually
extracted from the original Japanese version and theEnglish translated version, compiling a database of 1000
instances of onomatopoeia. Statistical analysis indicated2017; Guynes, 2014; Natsume, 1997/2022), studies haveanalyzed their features and functions from various
perspectives (e.g., Augereau, et al., 2018; Baek et al.,2022; Pratha et al., 2016). For instance, Pratha et al.
(2016) analyzed and compared the representation ofsound effects in American comics and Japanese mangathat giongo tended to retain their type, whereas gitaigo
were often translated into sound words. Qualitative
analysis then showed that context affected the translationof sound effects. The findings indicate that translation of
onomatopoeia varies depending on their type.

statistically. Regarding the lexical features of soundeffects, the study indicated that onomatopoeic soundeffects (equivalent of sound words in our study) were by
far more common than descriptive sound effects(descriptive words) in American comics. As for Japanesemanga, shonen manga contained more giongo compared

AbstractManga constitute a large portion of the graphic novel
market in the United States, and their popularity anddemand have been steadily increasing (Hibbs, 2022,2023). Therefore, the translation of manga plays a vitalto shojo manga. They then claimed that the distribution ofdifferent types of sound effects is one of the features thatcharacterizes each genre of comics.
Translators and researchers have pointed out that it ischallenging to translate Japanese onomatopoeia into otherlanguages, such as English (Bartashova & Sichinskiy,role in this market. One challenging aspect of this is thetranslation of sound effects. The term sound effect has
traditionally been used to describe texts, primarily
onomatopoeia, that appear in panels to add meaning to thescenes being depicted. Japanese is a language rich withonomatopoeia (Maeda et al., 2015), and they, with their

2014; Inose, 2007; Petersen, 2009; Sasamoto, 2021).
Therefore, many strategies for translation have beendevised. For example, Sell and Pasfield-Neofitou (2016),
based on the classification by Kearns (2009) observed that
there were primarily four linguistic strategies adopted intranslating Japanese sound effects: equivalence, coinage,unique meanings and creative usages, have a significant
presence in Japanese manga (Inose, 2010). According toUnser-Schutz (2010), in reference to comics and manga,“[o]nomatopoeia are text which are written directly on thebackground, usually by hand in a graphic style” (p. 33).
There are two subcategories of onomatopoeia, giongo anddescriptive strategies, and omission. As part of a larger
study, they analyzed sound effects related to silence anddemonstrated how each linguistic strategy for translation
was utilized in translating them into English. The study
found that translation into sound words and spoken words
were two subcategories of equivalence/coinage strategies

gitaigo; the former refers to audible sound effects, while
the latter refers to the representation of the state of objects.

and that English translation tended to express audible
sounds even when the original Japanese word referred to

1 Introduction and Background― 110 ―

This work is licensed by the author(s) under CC BY 4.0(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

a state. The study also showed that a descriptive strategy
was preferred when translating sound effects related toquietness of the action and that omission was infrequent.
This paper will examine the translation of three shonen
manga to find out whether giongo and gitaigo retain theirclassified into sound words and descriptive words, and thecorrespondence between the original Japanese soundeffect type was noted. The definition of sound words was
the same as giongo, and the definition of descriptive
words was the same as gitaigo. As English sound effects

type (sound words/descriptive words) when translated
into English.

could be classified into sound words and descriptivewords, they were categorized based on the word itself.
There was a small number of Japanese sound effects thatwere translated into spoken words in English, and they
were classified accordingly. The classification wasconducted by one of the authors, and the other researcher

2 Methodology
2-1 Materials
Three shonen manga were chosen as materials, aiming
to collect approximately 1000 instances of onomatopoeia.
The following manga were selected based on their recent
and expected popularity in the US market (Hibbs, 2022,2023): My Hero Academia (僕のヒーローアカデミア)(Horikoshi, 2014, 2015), Spy x Family (Spy × Family)(Endo, 2019, 2020), and The Elusive Samurai (逃げ上手checked the classification.の若君 ) (Matsui, 2021, 2022). These manga represent(Samurai), 362 in My Hero Academia (Hero) and 380 inSpy x Family (Spy). In each manga, a diverse range of
onomatopoeia was used; there were 191 different
onomatopoeia in Samurai, 275 in Hero, and 285 in Spy.
This meant that only a limited number of sound effects
occurred repeatedly in each manga. In fact, the only

three different genres within shonen manga, diversifying
the onomatopoeia collected for the study.

2-2 Extraction of data
Sound effects were extracted from the original Japaneseversion and the English translated version of the threemanga. For each manga, all the sound effects written
outside of the bubbles were manually input in an Excel
file, with the Japanese onomatopoeia and the English
translation noted side by side. Spoken words in theoriginal Japanese version were not included in the data. In

3 Results and Analysis
3.1 Quantitative Analysis
In total, 1000 instances of onomatopoeia wereidentified in the three manga: 258 in The Elusive Samuraionomatopoeia which appeared five instances or more
were ka!, za!, da!, ba!, in Samurai, ooo, su, dokun, ba! inHero, and gaan, gacha, ba! in Spy (! refers to a contractedsound).
Table 1. Distribution of Giongo and Gitaigo

total, 1000 instances of onomatopoeia were identified in
the three manga.

2-3 Classification of data
Each Japanese onomatopoeia was first classified into
giongo and gitaigo based on the context in which thesound effect appeared. Giongo was defined as
representation of sounds, and gitaigo was defined as
description of state or action. As Japanese onomatopoeia
can have multiple meanings (e.g., Yamaguchi, 2015),
context was utilized as an additional criterion forclassification. Following these criteria, the authors of thisAs mentioned above, the original Japanese soundeffects were classified into giongo and gitaigo, and there
were 386 giongo and 614 gitaigo in the data (see Table 1

paper independently classified the data. After the initialclassification, discussion sessions were held with a third
researcher to resolve any disagreement in theclassification. Each English sound effect was thenfor the breakdown). In all the manga, gitaigo appeared
more frequently than giongo. A chi-square test showedthat the distribution of giongo and gitaigo did not differ
significantly across the three books (χ²=5.5266, df=2,― 111 ―This work is licensed by the author(s) under CC BY 4.0(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

p=0.06). This confirmed that these three manga wererepresentative samples for analyzing onomatopoeia in
today’s shonen manga.
Among the 386 instances of giongo, 333 (86.3%) weretranslated into sound words, 47 (12.2%) were translated

however, chi-square tests between each pair of mangawith the Bonferroni correction indicated that none of thedifferences reached the significant level. This indicatedthat giongo tended to retain its sound effect type whentranslated into English regardless of the manga. On theinto descriptive words, and 6 (1.6%) were translated into
spoken words. There were 614 instances of gitaigo, and
302 (49.2%) were translated into sound words, 308(50.2%) were translated into descriptive words, and 4(0.7%) were translated into spoken words. As spokenwords were not classified as onomatopoeia in English,

other hand, some differences were observed regarding thetranslation of gitaigo across the three manga (χ²=30.32,df=2, p=0.00, Cramer’s V=0.22). Chi-square tests with theBonferroni correction showed that there were significant
differences between Samurai and Hero (χ²=26.18, df=1,p=0.00, φ=0.27) and Spy and Hero (χ²=14.29, df=1,

this category was eliminated from further quantitative
analysis. Table 2 and Table 3 provide a summary of thetypes of English translation for giongo and gitaigo. As thetables show, over 90% of the giongo in the data weretranslated into sound words, while only around 50% of thegitaigo were translated into descriptive words.

p=0.00, φ=0.18). The effect sizes were not large enoughto fully support the findings, but the results indicated that
Hero in comparison to Samurai and Spy tended to retain
its original sound effect type in the English translation
version.

3.2 Qualitative Analysis

Table 2. Translation of Giongo

Examining the giongo and gitaigo that were translated
into spoken words provides some insight into why they
were translated in this way. In many of these cases, thecontext differed in some way from other instances wherethese giongo and gitaigo appeared. Four examples will be
discussed to highlight this point.
One type of context that can affect the translation ofsound effects is emotional context. In Hero, the giongo
AAAAAA ( あ あ あ あ あ あ ) was translated into thespoken word YEAHHHH, an informal way of saying yes.
However, this giongo was translated into the sound words

Table 3. Translation of Gitaigo

AAAA, AAAAAAAA, and WAAHH in other instanceswhere it appeared. In these cases, characters were making
sounds that expressed internal conflict or a sense of panic.
However, in the case where it was translated into
YEAHHHH, the sound effect was used to express thenoise created by a cheering crowd. It is possible that theA chi-square test confirmed that giongo were translated
into the same sound effect type, that is, sound words, at atranslator used sound words when expressing negative
emotions but opted for a spoken word when expressing
positive emotions.
Another example of this appears in Hero when thegiongo WAA... (わああ ...) is translated as the spoken
word WHOA..., a word that means to stop or slow down,

significantly higher rate than gitaigo (χ²=163.77, df=1,p=0.00, φ=0.41). There seemed to be differences among
the three manga in terms of the translation tendency ofgiongo (χ²=7.0193, df=2, p=0.03, Cramer’s V=0.14);

but which is also used when expressing amazement. In
other instances where this giongo appeared, it wastranslated as WAAAH!, WAHHH, and WAHHHH, soundwords that resemble the original Japanese sound effect. In― 112 ―This work is licensed by the author(s) under CC BY 4.0(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

these cases, the sound words expressed panicked ornegative emotions. In the panel where WHOA... is used,a person is expressing amazement or admiration for what
they see. Therefore, it is possible that emotional context
could affect how a sound effect is translated, with soundonomatopoeia are repeated in each manga. This meansthat translators must be flexible when encountering
creative usages of onomatopoeia. This is especially true
when translating gitaigo as the analysis indicated that only
half of the gitaigo retained their type in the English

effects linked to negative emotions being translated assounds while sound effects linked to positive emotions
being translated differently.
Another type of context that can affect the translationof sound effects is whether internal or external reactions
are being expressed. In one scene in Spy, the gitaigo

version. This means that there are many instances wheregitaigo are not easily translated into descriptive words. On
the other hand, giongo tend to retain their type whentranslated. This may be due to the tradition of using soundwords in American comics to represent audible sounds.
Another approach to translating sound effects is toGAAN (ガーン) is translated into the name of anothercharacter in the scene, “Anya?” In other instances, thisgitaigo is translated as SHOCK or GAAH when
expressing a character’s reaction, or as JOLT or TWITCH
when emphasizing the movement of the character’s bodywhen they react. In all these instances, characters react totranslate giongo and gitaigo into spoken words. Theseinstances were examined in the qualitative analysissection. The analysis shows that context can affect thetranslation of sound effects: negative or positive emotions,internal or external reactions, and the context derived
from the speech around the sound effect.

something another person said, so the reaction is internal.
In the case where the gitaigo is translated as a spoken
word, it is a reaction to what someone has done. In thiscase, a child (Anya) stops holding hands and suddenly
runs away, and the mother figure responds by calling her
name. This seems to show that the mother figure is more

5. Conclusion
In conclusion, onomatopoeia in Japanese shonen
manga are translated into English in different ways
depending on whether they are giongo or gitaigo. Giongo

worried about the feelings of the child rather than merely
experiencing her own feelings. Therefore, the reaction isexternal rather than internal.
Finally, the translations of sound effects can beaffected by the context set by the text that appears in wordballoons. In one scene in Spy, the gitaigo PI! (ぴっ) is

tend to be translated into sound words in English,
therefore retaining their type. Gitaigo, on the other hand,
are translated into both sound and descriptive words,indicating that their type is less stable in translation.
Drawing on the qualitative analysis of the sound effects
translated into spoken words, it may be of interest to re-translated into the spoken word TEN-HUT, an expression
used to call soldiers to attention. In other cases where thisgitaigo is used, it is translated into sound words such as
SHUP and FWIP when referring to movement or into
BEEP when referring to machinery. However, in thisscene, a family is getting ready for a school interview. The

examine the translation of gitaigo and the effect that
context may have on whether they are translated intosound words or descriptive words. This may lead to abetter understanding of how gitaigo are translated into
English.

father starts the scene by saying “The decisive battle isupon us.” Then as each family member is addressed, theystand to attention. In using TEN-HUT, the translator
draws on the expression “decisive battle.” Therefore, thetext in word balloons can affect the way that sound effects
are translated.

Acknowledgment
The authors of the paper would like to thank Dr. Hiroshi
Funamoto for providing assistance in classifying Japanese
onomatopoeia and for offering insightful comments on theresearch process.

4. Discussion
The study confirms that a wide variety of sound effects
is used in Japanese manga and that only a few― 113 ―

This work is licensed by the author(s) under CC BY 4.0(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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