Difficulties Encountered By Translators When Translating Words Reflecting English Cuisine To Sinhala With Special Reference To The Translation Of Fifth Formers Of St Clare’s By Enid Blyton

Abstract

Translation can be defined as the act of transferring a text in one language into another language. Intra-lingual translation or translation which involves two different languages will be taken into consideration in this study. This study primarily focused on identifying the difficulties confronted by translators when translating from English to Sinhalese. In that regard, English acts as their source language and Sinhalese acts as their target language. In this study, culture specific words in the novel Fifth Formers of St Clare’s by Enid Blyton was employed as qualitative data whereas translations of those culture specific concepts/words were highlighted with the aim of identifying the difficulties encountered by translators when translating them into Sinhalese. Such difficulties and the manners in which the translators have overcome the difficulties will be observed as well. However, the research area is limited to identifying culture specific concepts related to food and difficulties translators encounter in translating them into Sinhalese. The research is intended to guide the novice translators when translating culture specific concepts that are likely to cause issues in translations.