The shortcomings on rhetorical beauty of the four-syllable compound words’ mistranslations in the children’s fiction WaenKaew series’ Chinese version. เสน่ห์ของคำซ้อนสี่คำในวรรณกรรมเยาวชนบทพระราชนิพนธ์ ชุด “แว่นแก้ว” ที่หายไปในฉบับพากย์จีน

Abstract

This research paper is focused on the shortcomings of mistranslations of four-syllable compound words in the Chinese translation of children’s fiction WaenKaew series from the perspective of Thai literature criticism. The research reveals that due to the translator's failure to conduct comprehensive research on the author's writing style before conducting the translation and possibly insufficient in-depth exploration of the characteristic’s expression of four-syllable compound words in the Thai language, as well as translated version of fiction did not go through editing by an editor who has expertise in  the field of Chinese-Thai languages and cultures before its public release. As the result, there are certain shortcomings on rhetorical beauty of four-syllable compound words in the Chinese translation. The mistranslations can be categorized into three levels, and with the degree of mistranslation ranking from low to high as follows: 1) Level Three Mistranslation: The Chinese translation's wording may not match the rhetorical beauty of the Thai original words, but the meaning expressed aligns with the original text.  2) Level Two Mistranslation: The Chinese translation’s use the wrong wording, and the meaning does not align with the Thai original text. 3) Level One Mistranslation: The Chinese translation directly omit  four-syllable compound words from the Thai original text.