RENDERING THE MEANING OF CULTURAL TERMS FROM THAI INTO ENGLISH IN THE BOOK “THAILAND’S INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE 2023”

Abstract

This research aims to: 1) Categorize types of cultural terms, and 2) Examine the strategies used to render the meanings of cultural terms from Thai to English in the bilingual book Thailand’s Intangible Cultural Heritage 2023. This book compiles knowledge and wisdom that have been recognized and officially listed as 18 items of national intangible cultural heritage. This is qualitative research that employed Newmark’s concepts of cultural terms and Baker’s strategies for conveying meaning. The findings reveal that, among the 484 cultural terms analyzed, five categories were identified: Ecology (20 words), Social (126 words), Material (205 words), Organization (124 words), and Gesture (9 words). Six translation strategies, based on Baker’s translation strategies, were employed to convey meaning: 1) Translation using loanwords or loanwords with explanations (184 words, 38.01%), 2) Translation through paraphrasing using related words (148 words, 30.57%), 3) Translation using a more general term (58 words, 11.98%), 4) Translation using a cultural equivalent (47 words, 9.71%), 5) Translation through paraphrasing using unrelated words (29 words, 5.99%), and 6) Omission (18 words, 3.71%). This study shows that rendering the meanings of cultural terms from Thai into English requires a variety of strategies to ensure that the translation renders fully, accurately, and equivalently with the original text.