Abstract:

This qualitative study examines the translation processes involved in translating five kinds of documents – informative-cum-operative, political, legal, literary, and technical – by interviewing five experienced translators in Malaysia. The five interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed, and then matched against the translation processes proposed by Dolet (1997 [1540]), Nord (1991, 2002), Vinay and Darbelnet (2004 [1958]), Nida (1964), Newmark (1988), Vermeer (2004 [1989]), Bell (1991), and Darwish (2003). The findings show that the translators generally followed Darwish’s (2003) translation process and Nida’s formal and dynamic equivalence orientations, and that one of them used all of the five principles first identified by Dolet in the sixteenth century. All the interviewees agreed that they must be knowledgeable in the content that they are translating, be proficient in both languages they are working with, and know the cultures of both the source language (SL) speakers and the target language (TL) speakers in order to translate competently and naturally in the given context. They all agreed with Venuti’s ‘domestication’ approach (Venuti 1998, 2008; both discussed in Munday 2012: 218–225) and agreed with applying the skopos theory to ensure that their target readers are satisfied with their translation.

Author: Kulwindr Kaur a/p Gurdial Singh, Kais Amir Khadim