When software structure meets translation: material mediation in English-Chinese game localisation
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Video game translation depends on both word choice and the software files that assemble text for players. These files can contain hidden instructions that insert changing values, apply colour or formatting, and identify keyboard input. Although research has described technical constraints and cultural adaptation, corpus-scale evidence about the relation between these instructions and target-language wording remains limited. This study asks which file-encoded functions remain stable across English and Chinese resources and how Chinese grammar and interface wording reorganise their visible expression. The dataset contains 60,685 aligned records from OpenTTD , The Battle for Wesnoth and 0 A.D. . Language-version branches were analysed separately, documented contamination was corrected, and strings were classified by communicative function. A technical marker was defined as an embedded instruction such as a variable, formatting command or input cue. Marker sequences were compared alongside close English-Chinese analysis. Two coders independently classified a stratified sample of 450 records; agreement was assessed and disagreements were adjudicated. All 708 records with an omitted marker were also checked individually in the relevant game builds. After 140 records containing English-specific grammatical instructions were excluded, 7,108 of 7,818 marker-bearing records (90.92%) retained either the same sequence or the same ordered functional pattern. Ordered marker correspondence was high, while selected cases showed Chinese reformulation of interface actions, grammar and naming. Together, the results document how software structure can remain continuous when visible language changes. They support material mediation, understood here as the way software files organise the connection between executable functions and translated wording, and distinguish textual comparison, human coding and build testing as separate forms of evidence.
