Browsing by Author "Siriwardhana, K.K.V.V.L."

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Challenges Faced by Translators in Translating Idioms from English to Sinhala
(Proceedings of the Undergraduate Research Symposium (HUG 2019), Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Siriwardhana, K.K.V.V.L.
Many linguistic professionals mention that idioms are the most difficult phrases to translate. Moreover, most importantly, the meaning of these peculiar phrases cannot be predicted by the literary definitions without alternating the meaning. Sinhala has a variety of idioms that are widely used to communicate in different ways. Therefore, many of Sinhala translators try to omit such idioms or use inequivalents in their translations to avoid meaningless expressions and maintain the contextual meaning of the text. The major objective of this research was to investigate those challenges faced by Sinhala translators. The data relevant to the study was critically analyzed in two major ways: interviewing resource persons of the subject area and referring books related to this subject area. According to findings of the research, challenges of translating idioms could be classified into few categories. Accordingly, the relevant categories investigate whether idioms could be translated directly while retaining the original text and whether these idioms can be translated parallelly as the first and second changers respectively. The identified third challenge was, whether it is possible to define the general idea conveyed by the original text. Furthermore, solutions for the above challenges will be discussed. Eventually, this research will pave the path to translating idioms aptly sans any difficulty.
A study on translating cultural terms from Sinhala to English with special reference to the 1st Cultural Category introduced by Peter Newmark
(Proceedings of the Undergraduate Research Symposium (HUG 2019), Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya. Sri Lanka, 2019) Siriwardhana, K.K.V.V.L.; Wanniarachchi, W.S.N.; Ranathunge, S.S.
Cultural issues may arise from differences between cultural references, such as names of food, clothes and cultural connotations, in general. Peter Newmark introduced five cultural categories in his book“A TextBook of Translation", which are perfectly applicable during the process of translating cultural terms. Accordingly, ecology is different from other cultural categories because it is free from political and commercial factors. The Sinhala language has a vast variety of ecological terms compared to the English language. Therefore it generates a wider capacity for misinterpretations and misunderstandings. This has become one of the most critical and common issues that translators face regularly. The objective of this research was to find out the ecological terms used in Sri Lanka and the difficulties found by Sinhala translators while translating those terms from Sinhala to English. Required data consisted of primary and secondary data. Primary data were analyzed through questionnaires and paper articles. Secondary data were collected through Sinhala to English translated novels. Furthermore, it was found that there are few ways of translating these ecological terms successfully and that to accomplish that task, the translator should have a good knowledge of both source and target language cultures. Eventually, this research will pave a path for translating cultural terms successfully.