I read a lot of translated Light Novels. I’ve noticed in the ones with less effort put in that their is few if any dialogue tags to let you know who is speaking. This can be confusing when you have a group of four or five characters. I’m assuming these translations are more direct with less editing.
Does Japanese literature not have dialogue tags? Why not?
2 comments
I haven’t really read translated novels, but not having “dialogue tags” in East Asian fiction is pretty common (for both “literature” and the light stuff).
And I don’t feel it’s confusing. Maybe once in a while if characters have a group conversation and I’m not really invested in the work.
I think that means that there are enough clues in the language and writing for people to use to distinguish speakers. (Otherwise, they would have done something about it.)
There are a lot more clues built in to the language itself as to who is talking in Japanese (formalities, how characters refer to each other, and other speech patterns) that make dialogue tags a lot less common in Japanese since they just aren’t necessary. In translation, a good translator will add dialogue tags in the English if it’s not clear, and a good editor will catch whatever the translator missed. Though anything machine translated obviously won’t be able to catch those and a poor translator won’t bother.