Translation Strategies in the Chinese and Indonesian Translations of English Christmas Carols

Abstract

This paper analyzed the translations of three English Christmas carols of Silent Night, Away In A Manger, and The First Noel, as the most popular carols that have been translated into many languages, adopted from the hymnal book by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The English versions were compared with their Chinese and Indonesian translations. The analysis was performed by classifying the stanzas individually based on Guerra (2012) fifteen translation strategies. Identification of equivalence as the most common strategy in the Chinese translation could be because of numerous “unnatural” English expressions in Chinese language and culture, whereas for the Indonesian translation, omission was the most common strategy, which helped to retain completeness, or the overall meaning of the stanzas, or completeness. Omission was also used to leave out redundant or insensible information throughout the translated carols in both languages and contributed to successful maintenance the original rhythm and rhyme in the translation of the three carols. Findings of this study could be further validated by analysing more Christmas carols in Chinese and Indonesian Languages, and other languages. Researchers could also look precisely into the cultural elements that could potentially affect this type of translation.