The Problems Encountered by the Translators in Translating Cultural Words Depicted in the novels “Gamperaliya” and “Viragaya

Abstract

This research focuses on the problems encountered by the translators in translating cultural words depicted in the novels “Gamperaliya” and “Viragaya”. Accordingly, the researcher attempts to find the answer for the research problem “What are the problems faced by the translators in translating cultural words in “Gamperaliya” and “Viragaya”? There, the Source Texts were subjected to a close scanning process and thus identified the cultural words. It was followed by identifying the translated versions of those cultural words in the Target Texts. They were categorized based on the categorizations of Peter Newmark and Espindola, and thus conducted a qualitative content analysis using comparative research methodology. Accordingly, it was found that the translators faced problems such as encountering unfamiliar cultural words, finding the meanings of such unfamiliar cultural words, finding equivalents, collecting information to explain the cultural word in the text, translating religious terms, receiving the support of a subject expert or a native, translating proper names and deciding the most suitable procedure of translation among several strategies. The present research revealed that the culture creates a complex hurdle for the translators in Literary Translation.