A translation and transliteration of Thai tourist attraction names into Chinese

Abstract

This study draws on a framework of proper name translation and transliteration was developed by Peter Newmark and Chinese proper name translation and transliteration developed by Korsak Thamcharoenkit. The objectives of this study are: 1) to study a translation of Thai tourist attraction names to Chinese and 2) to study a transliteration of Thai tourist attraction names to Chinese. From the procedure of data collection, 980 Thai tourist attraction names and 1,072 Chinese tourist attraction names were collected. Some Thai tourist attraction names were differently translated and transliterated. The result reveals that 459 Chinese tourist attraction names were used a translation method and 613 names were used a transliteration method. A translation method can be classified to five submethods, that is: 1) whole translation (275 names) 2) omission (72 names) 3) expansion (4 names) 4) addition (22 names) and 5) new naming (86 names). Moreover, a transliteration method can be classified to five sub-methods, that is: 1) whole transliteration (33 names) 2) whole transliteration and translation of generic noun (424 names) 3) partial transliteration and translation of generic noun (15 names) 4) half transliteration-half translation and translation of generic noun (125 names) and 5) special transliteration (16 names). It was found that some Chinese names which used transliteration method were influenced from Chinese dialect such as Teochew. Furthermore, it was found that there is a variety of translation and transliteration which can be divided into three kinds: 1) names which are differently translated or transliterated (74 names) 2) names which are similarly translated or transliterated (7 names) and 3) a variety of generic noun used in translation and transliteration (38 words).;