TRANSLATION STRATEGIES FOR RENDERING THAI FOOD NAMES INTO ENGLISH IN THE DOCUMENTARY SERIES “THE HIDDEN GEM”

Abstract

This research on translation strategies for rendering Thai food names into English in the documentary series “The Hidden Gem” aims to 1) Study the strategies used in translating Thai food names into English and 2) Study the trends in selecting translation strategies as guidelines for translating food terms. This qualitative research uses the concepts of strategies for translating cultural terms as the analytical framework. Food names in the said documentary series were collected from the HBO Max channel, across 12 episodes, obtaining a sample of 123 items through purposive sampling. The findings reveal that translation by paraphrase using related words was the most frequently used strategy (29.27%), followed by the use of loan words or loan words with explanation (24.39%), translation by more general words (16.26%), translation by paraphrase using unrelated words (12.20%), omission (11.38%), and cultural substitution (6.50%). These findings indicate that rendering Thai food names in this documentary series relies mostly on paraphrasing and using loan words with explanation because they help the audience understand the appearance or ingredients of the food. As for the strategies of using more general words and omission, they tend to be related to the surrounding context in the program's content, which facilitates the audience to understand the meaning in itself. Thus, it can be said that translating documentary media is not a word-for-word process but one that requires consideration of cultural specificity, international recognition, and the roles of the food names as minor elements of the scene, which enable translators to select suitable strategies for conveying meaning.