Techniques of Translating “Tong” into Japanese and “Nakereba naranai” into Thai

Abstract

This study aims to examine translation techniques to convey the meaning of “Tong” and “Nakerebanaranai” through translated novels from Thai into Japanese and vice-versa. From a survey of relevant literature (Nitta, 1991; Masuoka, 2007, พรทิพย์ ภัทรนาวิก, 2515;  ไพทยา มีสัตย์, 2540), one finds that “Tong” and “Nakerebanaranai” consist of five meanings: (1) Duties and requirements, (2) Strong confidence and anticipation, (3) Obligations, requests, forbiddance, suggestions, warnings, (4) Natural outcomes or consequences, and (5) Determination. The researcher classified the meaning of “Tong” and “Nakerebanaranai” based on three translation techniques: (1) Form-based translation (word-for-word translation), (2) Equivalence, and (3) Adaptation (syntactic structures are loosely translated or completely adapted). The researcher found that “Tong” that falls in the meaning of “duties and requirements” is mostly translated with “form-based translation technique” as “duties and requirements” function is the “semantic meaning” of both words. The remaining four meanings were found to be translated with “equivalence technique” at the highest level of frequency (equivalence means any modality that is not “Nakerebanarai”, including formless modality), with the reasons being that these four meanings are “pragmatic meaning” that can be easily replaced with other more direct modalities. Moreover, Japanese is much more “context-reliant” than Thai; when the context is enough to convey meaning, formless modality is commonly found. For “Nakerebanaranai”, it was found that every meaning of it was mostly translated with “form-based translation technique”. This is probably because both words have the same “denotative meaning” and the “diversity of modalities” in Thai is not abundant.