Abstracts
Abstract
Despite growing interest in the study of translation in Thailand, relatively little has been published on contemporary Thai translation practices. This study presents a first attempt to explore legal translation into Thai, using both a purpose-built parallel corpus of international treaties translated from English into Thai, and a monolingual corpus of non-translated Thai legislation. Drawing on previous corpus-based studies concerned with general features of translation, we ask whether there is evidence of explicitation (Becher 2010a) in our translated data and whether “unique items” (Tirkkonen-Condit 2002) are underrepresented. We pursue these questions through a study of the translation of the passive voice into Thai, and focus in particular on the Thai passive markers ถูก /thùuk/, โดน /doon/, and ได้รับ /dai-rup/, which we consider unique items in Thai. The study finds that, despite some writers’ antipathy to the passive voice in Thai, most English passives are translated into Thai using the passive voice, and that in those instances where the active voice is used in the translation, there is rarely any explicitation involved, as explicit agents are rarely added in Thai. We do not find any evidence to support the hypothesis that unique items are underrepresented in translation. On the contrary, the unique items studied appear to be overrepresented in translation into Thai.
Keywords:
- legal translation,
- corpus-based translation studies,
- passive voice,
- Thai,
- English
Résumé
Malgré l’intérêt croissant pour la traductologie en Thaïlande, il n’existe que peu de publications sur les pratiques contemporaines de traduction thaïe. Cet article présente une première tentative d’exploration de la traduction juridique en thaï, en utilisant à la fois un corpus parallèle de traités internationaux traduits de l’anglais vers le thaï, et un corpus monolingue de législation thaïe non traduite. En nous appuyant sur des études de corpus antérieures portant sur les caractéristiques générales de la traduction, nous cherchons à savoir s’il existe des preuves d’explicitation (Becher 2010a) et si certains « éléments uniques » (Tirkkonen-Condit 2002) sont sous-représentés dans nos données traduites en thaï. Pour répondre à ces questions, nous étudions la traduction de la voix passive en thaï, tout en considérant les marqueurs passifs ถูก /thùuk/, โดน /doon/ et ได้รับ /dai-rup/ comme des éléments uniques en thaï. L’étude révèle que, malgré les réticences de certains auteurs à utiliser la voix passive en thaï, la plupart des passifs anglais sont traduits par un passif en thaï. En outre, dans les cas où la voix active est utilisée, il est rarement question d’explicitation. Nous ne trouvons aucune preuve à l’appui de l’hypothèse selon laquelle les éléments uniques sont sous-représentés dans la traduction. Au contraire, les éléments uniques que nous étudions semblent être surreprésentés dans la traduction en thaï.
Mots-clés :
- traduction juridique,
- traductologie de corpus,
- voix passive,
- thaï,
- anglais
Resumen
A pesar del creciente interés por el estudio de la traducción en Tailandia, se ha publicado relativamente poco sobre las prácticas contemporáneas tailandesas de traducción. Este estudio presenta un primer intento de explorar la traducción legal al tailandés, utilizando tanto un corpus paralelo de tratados internacionales traducidos del inglés al tailandés y construido específicamente para la presente investigación, como un corpus monolingüe de legislación tailandesa no traducida. Basándonos en estudios de corpus previos, relacionados con aspectos generales de traducción, exploramos si se recurre a la explicitación (Becher 2010a) y si los «elementos únicos» (Tirkkonen-Condit 2002) están subrepresentados en la traducción tailandesa. Planteamos estas preguntas a través de un estudio de la traducción de la voz pasiva al tailandés, teniendo en cuenta los marcadores pasivos tailandeses ถูก /thùuk/, โดน /doon/ y ได้รับ /dai-rup/ como aspectos que no tienen equivalente en inglés. Del estudio se desprende que, a pesar de la reticencia de algunos escritores a utilizar la voz pasiva en tailandés, la mayoría de las oraciones pasivas en inglés se traducen a dicha lengua usando esta voz, y que en los casos en que se usa voz activa, rara vez se recurre a una explicitación. No encontramos ninguna evidencia que respalde la hipótesis de que los elementos únicos estén subrepresentados en la traducción. Más bien se produce lo contrario: los elementos únicos que estudiamos parecen estar sobrerrepresentados en la traducción al tailandés.
Palabras clave:
- traducción jurídica,
- traductología basada en corpus,
- voz pasiva,
- tailandés,
- inglés
Appendices
Bibliography
- Abdelali, Ahmed, Guzman Francisco, Sajjad, Hassan, et al. (2014): The AMARA Corpus: Building Parallel Language Resources for the Educational Domain. In: Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Thierry Declerck, et al., eds. LREC 2014 Proceedings. (LREC 2014: Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, Reykjavik, 26-31 May 2014). Paris: European Language Resources Association. Visited 11 November 2017, http://www.lrecconf.org/proceedings/lrec2014/index.html.
- Aroonmanakun, Wirote (2007): Creating the Thai National Corpus. In: Montira Rato and Raquel A. G. Reyes, eds. Gender and Sexuality in Modernising Southeast Asia, 16th-20th Centuries. Manusaya. 13:4-17.
- Aroonmanakun, Wirote, Tansiri, Kachen, and Nittayanuparp, Pairit (2009): Thai National Corpus: A Progress Report. In: Hammam Riza and Virach Sornlertlamvanich, eds. Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Asian Language Resources. (ACL-IJCNLP 2009: The 7th Workshop on Asian Language Resources, Singapore, 6-7 August 2009). Stroudsburg: Association for Computational Linguistics, 153-160.
- Becher, Viktor (2010a): Towards a More Rigorous Treatment of the Explicitation Hypothesis in Translation Studies. trans-kom. 3(1):1-25.
- Becher, Viktor (2010b): Abandoning the Notion of ‘Translation-Inherent’ Explicitation: Against a Dogma of Translation Studies. Across Languages and Cultures. 11(1):1-28.
- Biel, Łucja (2010): Corpus-Based Studies of Legal Language for Translation Purposes: Methodological and Practical Potential. In: Carmen Heine and Jan Engberg, eds. Reconceptualizing LSP. Online proceedings of the XVII European LSP Symposium 2009. (XVII European Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes, Aarhus, 17-21 August 2009). Aarhus: Aarhus School of Business (Aarhus University). Visited 3 November 2017, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/74a8/ee84fb30d6e5593fba1fa0d1cb02cc3f9030.pdf.
- Biel, Łucja (2014): Lost in the Eurofog: The Textual Fit of Translated Law. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
- Bisang, Walter (2017): Grammaticalization. In: Mark Aronoff, ed. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Visited 11 November 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.103.
- Cao, Deborah (2007): Translating Law. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
- Cappelle, Bert (2012): English is less rich in manner-of-motion verbs when translated from French. Across Languages and Cultures. 13(2):173-195.
- Chesterman, Andrew (2004): Beyond the Particular. In: Anna Mauranen and Pekka Kujamäki, eds. Translation Universals: Do They Exist? Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 33-49.
- Chesterman, Andrew (2007): What is a unique item? In: Yves Gambier, Miriam Schlesinger, and Radegundis Stolze, eds. Doubts and Directions in Translation Studies. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 3-13.
- Christodouloupoulos, Christos and Steedman, Mark (2015): A massively parallel corpus: the Bible in 100 languages. Language Resources and Evaluation. 49(2):375-395.
- Dullion, Valérie (2000): Du document à l’instrument: les fonctions de la traduction des lois. In: La traduction juridique: Histoire, théorie(s) et pratique. (Colloque international “La traduction juridique: Histoire, théorie(s) et pratique,” Geneva, 17-19 February 2000). Bern: Association suisse des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes, 233-253.
- Faber, Dorrit and Hjort-Pedersen, Mette (2009a): Manifestations of Interference Processes in Legal Translation. In: Susanne Göpferich, Arnt Lykke Jakobsen, and Inger Mees, eds. Behind the Mind: Methods, Models and Results in Translation Process Research. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur, 107-124.
- Faber, Dorrit and Hjort-Pedersen, Mette (2009b): Translation Preferences in Legal Translation: Lawyers and Professional Translators Compared. In: Inger Mees, Fabio Alves, and Susanne Göpferich, eds. Methodology, Technology and Innovation in Translation Process Research: A Tribute to Arnt Lykke Jakobsen. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur, 339-357.
- Faber, Dorrit and Hjort-Pedersen, Mette (2013): Expectancy and Professional Norms in Legal Translation: A Study of Explicitation and Implicitation Preferences. Fachsprache. 35(1-2):42-62.
- Garzone, Giuliana (2000): Legal Translation and Functionalist Approaches: A Contradiction in Terms? In: La traduction juridique: Histoire, théorie(s) et pratique. (Colloque international “La traduction juridique: Histoire, théorie(s) et pratique,” Geneva, 17-19 February 2000). Bern: Association suisse des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes, 395-414.
- Hjort-Pederson, Mette and Faber Dorrit (2010): Explicitation and implicitation in legal translation: A process study of trainee translators. Meta. 2(55):237-250.
- Inhongsa, Kanokwanwalai, Louie, Meagan, and Ruangjaroon, Sugunya (2016): Is there a middle construction in Thai? In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Culture, Art, Language, and Literature in the Mekong Basin (I-CALL: 2016). (I-CALL2016: The International Conference on Culture, Art, Language, and Literature in the Mekong Basin, Nongkhai, 20-21 July 2016). Kantharawichai: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Mahasarakham University), 206-221.
- Iwasaki, Shoichi (1998): Causative and benefactive constructions in Thai. In: Shobhana L. Chellian and William J. D. Reuse, eds. Papers from the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society: 1995. (SEALS V: Fifth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, Tucson, 19-21 May 1995). Tempe: Program for Southeast Asian Studies (Arizona State University), 201-210.
- Iwasaki, Shoichi and Ingkaphirom, Preeya (2005): A Reference Grammar of Thai. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kawtrakul, Asanee, Suktarachan, Mukda, Varasai, Patcharee, et al. (2002): A State of the Art of Thai Language Resources and Thai Language behavior analysis and modeling. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Asian Language Resources and International Standardization. (COLING-02: The 3rd Workshop on Asian Language Resources and International Standardization, Taipei, 24 August-1 September 2002). Vol. 12. Stroudsburg: Association for Computational Linguistics, 1-8.
- Keenan, Edward (1985): Passive in the world’s languages. In: Timothy Shopen, ed. Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Clause Structure. Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 243-281.
- Keenan, Edward and Dryer, Matthew (1985/2007): Passive in the world’s languages. In: Timothy Shopen, ed. Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Vol. I. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 325-361.
- Kraivixien, Thanin (2012): Thai legal language. Bangkok: Thammasat Press.
- Krogsgaard Vesterager, Anja (2017): Explicitation in legal translation – a study of Spanish-into-Danish translation of judgments. JoSTrans. 27(1):104-123.
- Kullavanijava, Pranee (1974): Transitive Verb in Thai. Doctoral dissertation, unpublished. Hawaii: University of Hawaii.
- Laviosa, Sara (2002): Corpus-Based Translation Studies: Theory, Findings, Applications. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
- Loock, Rudy (2016): La traductologie de corpus. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
- Loos, Tamara (1999): Subject Siam: Family, Law, and Colonial Modernity in Thailand. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
- Olohan, Maeve (2004): Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies. London/New York: Routledge.
- Olohan, Maeve and Baker Mona (2000): Reporting that in Translated English: Evidence for Subliminal Processes of Explicitation? Across Languages and Cultures. 1(2):141-158.
- Palmer, David (2000/2010): Text Preprocessing. In: Nitin Indurkhya and Fred J. Damerau, eds. Handbook of Natural Language Processing. 2nd ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 9-30.
- Pápai, Vilma (2004): Explicitation. A universal of translated text? In: Anna Mauranen and Pekka Kujamäki, eds. Translation Universals: Do They Exist? Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 143-164.
- Patpong, Pattama (2006): A Systemic Functional Interpretation of Thai Grammar: An Exploration of Thai Narrative Discourse. Doctoral dissertation, unpublished. Sydney: Macquarie University.
- Prasithrathsint, Amara (1988): Change in the passive constructions in Standard Thai from 1802 to 1982. Language Sciences. 10(2):363-393.
- Prasithrathsint, Amara (2003): A typological approach to the passive in Thai. Manusya: Journal of Humanities. (6):1-17.
- Prasithrathsint, Amara (2006): Development of the thùuk passive marker in Thai. In: Werner Abraham and Larisa Leisiö, eds. Passivization and Typology: Form and Function. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 115-131.
- Saldanha, Gabriela (2008): Explicitation Revisited: Bringing the Reader into the Picture. trans-kom. 1(1):20-35.
- Sornlertlamvanich, Virach, Charoenporn, Thatsanee, and Isahara, Hitoshi (1999): ORCHID: Thai Part-of-Speech Tagged Corpus. Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan. 20(3):189-198.
- Sudmuk, Cholthicha (2003): The thuuk construction in Thai. In: Miriam Butt and Tracy HollowayKing, eds. The Proceedings of the LFG’03 Conference:University at Albany, State University of New York. (LFG03: 8th International Lexical Functional Grammar Conference, Saratoga Springs, 16-18 July 2003). Stanford: CSLI Publication, 402-423.
- Teich, Elke (2003): Cross-linguistic Variation in System and Text. A Method for the Investigation of Translations and Comparable Texts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Tirkkonen-Condit, Sonja (2002): Translationese – a myth or an empirical fact? Target. 14(2):207-220.
- Tirkkonen-Condit, Sonja (2004): Unique Items – Over- or Under-represented in Translated Language? In: Anna Mauranen and Pekka Kujamäki, eds. Translation Universals: Do they Exist? Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 177-184.
10.7202/044237ar