Strategies for Translating Compound Nouns from English to Thai in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"

Abstract

This article aims to study the translation strategies of English compound nouns into Thai in the literature “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” by analyzing the compound nouns found in the original English text, written by J. K. Rowling, and their meanings in the Thai translation, translated by Ngampun Vejjajiva.

The study found a total of 2,315 compound nouns in the English literature. In translating these English compound nouns into Thai, it was found eight types of the target language, with the three most common types being 1) noun phrases (55.25%), 2) compound nouns (28.77%), and 3) single words (6.22%), respectively. Regarding the translation strategies of English compound nouns into Thai, the translator employed a total of 20 translation strategies. The three most commonly used the translation strategies were 1) translation by replacing with phrases or sentences that exist in the culture of target language (28.21%), 2) translation by creating new compound words in Thai by using literally translation (13.61%) and 3) translation by using words that are well-known in Thai (12.01%), respectively.