Representing Chinese Malaysians Culture in the Street Food Through the Chinese-English Translation Techniques

Abstract

Street foods refer to the ready-to-eat foods and beverages prepared or sold by vendors or hawkers especially in the streets or hawker centers. Though food-related items are often culture-specific, fewer have discussed the cultural representation behind the translation of street food. This paper aims to identify the prevailing translation techniques used in translating Chinese street food names and to examine how culture is represented through these translation techniques. Penang is selected as the research setting in this qualitative case study. Three types of food - rice dishes, noodle dishes and other staple foods such as dumplings, rice porridge and dim sum are collected. The sample size is 405 street food names in pair of English translation versions. The taxonomy of translation techniques is based on Marco’s (2019) translation techniques on food-related items. The results revealed a source-oriented tendency. It is found that literal translation and transliteration with source linguistic structure, dialect pronunciation and Chinese pinyin preserve source culture. The techniques neutralization and amplification clarify the ingredients, cooking methods of the food, representing a respect to Malaysian local culture. The techniques omission and cultural adaptation bring the food more familiar to English culture, representing the hospitality to the consumers.