An Analysis of Strategies Used in Translating Chinese Period Drama (古装) Titles into Thai กลวิธีการแปลชื่อละครโทรทัศน์จีนแนวย้อนยุค (古装) เป็นภาษาไทย

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the language structures used in the translation of Chinese period drama titles, covering dramas broadcasted in Thailand between 1990 - 2019, to compare the meaning of Chinese period drama’s original titles with the broadcasted ones as well as to study the evolution in strategies of translating them in different periods of time. The researcher uses the qualitative research strategy in gathering information, then processes and analyzes the result by applying Skopos Theory and Christiane Nord’s concept of title translation. In analyzing 379 Chinese dramas’ titles, the researcher has found that various strategies were used to translate titles of dramas from Chinese into Thai. The most common strategy is partial literal translation with addition of Thai words. The second and third most common strategies are renaming titles with no relation to original ones, and renaming titles based on original meaning respectively. However, the preference of translating strategies change with the time. The most popular strategy used in 1990-1999 is partial literal translation with additional of Thai words (41.94%) but later in 2000 -2009 the most frequently used translating strategy is renaming

titles with no relation to original ones (32.18%) and in 2010-2019 partial literal translation with additional Thai words became the most frequently used method again (36.02%). Due to these several techniques of translation, the meaning of original titles and broadcasted ones could be unchanged, somewhat similar or even different. The research shows that the mostly used technique is the one of preserving similar meaning (59.10%).