Strategies of Cross-cultural Translation from Thai into English in Period Series: A Case Study of I Feel You Linger in the Air

Abstract

Background and Aims: This study aimed to explore strategies of cross-cultural translation in Thailand's boy's love period drama series called “I Feel You Linger in the Air” (2023). The translation techniques used to render Thai cultural meaning through dialogues in various contexts play an important role in enlightening international audiences' understanding.

Methodology: The investigation focused on 5 cultural words proposed by Nida (1964) and 8 translation strategies proposed by Newmark (1995) rendered from Thai to English in the characters’ dialogues.

Results: According to the theoretical framework proposed by Nida (1964), the findings showed that 37 cultural terms were classified and respectively used as appertaining to social culture (35.13%), linguistic culture (32.44%), material culture (21.62%), religious culture (8.10%) and ecology (2.71%). Based on the conceptual framework related to translation strategies proposed by Newmark (1995), the result revealed that 6 translation principles utilized respectively consist of cultural equivalent (35.13%), transference (21.62%), literal translation (13.51%), classification (10.82%) and paraphrasing (10.82%) and deletion (8.10%). On the contrary, the techniques of neutralization and accepted standard translation were not found.

Conclusion: This study is expected to consider that it can be beneficially applied to cross-cultural translation in related contexts and used in testing students’ understanding to evaluate translation efficiency.