Markup View

Author: Rognik

Sep 6th 2012 at 4:48:55 AM

^^It sort of is BilingualBonus, except the reward you get is usually not worth the price of bilingualism. When this trope is in effect, untranslated dialog is used either as a GettingCrapPastTheRadar, a quick way of establishing nationality, or just something done to ShowTheirWork. BilingualBonus is when knowing what a word means gives you this extra joke or foreshadowing about the story or characters. For instance, Belle from BeautyAndTheBeast could be one because "belle" means beautiful in French.

^That doesn't give enough detail. You have a trope called NoSubtitles, and they will either call it PeopleSitOnChairs or include every example of a work that was brought over without adding in translations. The current title, while wordy, makes it clear what the purpose of the trope is at a glance, even if unwieldy. I say bite the bullet for now, and keep thinking up clever names on how to express this trope.

*LostInTranslation is heavy handed in this, but it works for the movie's story. When two Americans are stuck in Japan for different reason, and can't speak the native language, they start to feel very isolated, especially in a culture so foreign to the West. Having characters speak in Japanese without offering any subtitles emphasizes the isolation both of them feel, and how alien it could be in that world without anyone around to communicate with.

That last example just reminded me: cases where there are no subtitles, but a translator is provided, is not this trope. That is more conservation of detail, where we don't want the same information going out twice or in two different manners, and having the viewer somehow miss some details.