Abstract
One aspect of language appropriation is the inclusion of foreign words in an English text with the aim of highlighting certain aspects of a culture. This results in a text in which the dominant language, English, is interspersed with foreign words. In the context of translation studies, this phenomenon raises the question of how these foreign words are dealt with when the text is translated. This paper aims to examine this issue by analysing the translation into Malay of foreign words in the English novel by Khaled Hosseini entitled A Thousand Splendid Suns . More specifically, the aim is to determine the translation procedures and the translation strategy used. Foreign words in the English text are first identified and then mapped to their translations in the Malay text. Using Pedersen’s (2011) taxonomy of strategies in rendering cultural references, the word pairs are analysed in order to determine the translation procedures used. The analysis reveals a total of 174 foreign words in Hosseini’s English novel. The mapping of these foreign words to their target language equivalents shows that the procedure used most frequently is retention. In addition, the procedures of retention and specification make up approximately 70 per cent of the procedures used. This in turn points to the adoption of a source-oriented strategy in translating the text. The findings suggest that the translator places priority on faithfulness to the source text; however, measures are also taken by the translator to ensure the comprehensibility of the translation for the target readers. DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2017-1701-10
Highlights
Translation is the transfer of messages in one language to another language
Are the foreign words translated into the target language or are they retained in the translation in their foreign form? This paper aims to ISSN: 1675-8021
The analysis reveals the use of three types of substitution: i. the substitution of the foreign word with the same or a similar word which is already an accepted word in Malay, ii. the substitution of the foreign word with its meaning in Malay, and iii. the substitution of the foreign word with a word in Malay which carries a different meaning from the meaning of the foreign word
Summary
Translation is the transfer of messages in one language to another language This process involves a text which is written in one language and the transfer of messages in this text into another language. Rohinton Mistry and Chinua Achebe, for example, depict the lives of people living in India and Africa respectively, but use English in their own unique way as a medium of expression. In doing so, these writers appropriate the English language for their own purposes. What is produced as a result of this process of language appropriation is a text which is written predominantly in English but is interspersed with foreign words
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