The Translation of Sociological Novel: The Three Daughters of Madame Liang

Abstract

This research studies how to translate Pearl S. Buck's sociological novel "The Three Daughters of Madame Liang" from English into Thai by using a proper literary style in the target language. Various steps taken by our research are as follows: First, we do a comprehensive review of translation theories, previous research on literary styles, and other studies on Buck's works. Second, we thoroughly peruse our selected novel in order to gain an insight into the overall contents and its relevant specific contexts. We also pay attention to the author's biography as well as her opinions and objectives as reflected in her other writings, since all of them can serve as background information to better understand her motives and aims of writing this selected work. Third, we investigate and try to find out the literary style shared by contemporary Thai sociological novels written during 1950 - 1957 . Lastly, in our translation process, a discourse analysis theory has been applied in order to tackle and resolve all relevant translation problems. Having worked on this methodology, we find that in translating The Three Daughters of Madame Liang, not only did the translator have to apply the basic translation theories and discourse analysis in analyzing the problems, (s) he also has to select a suitable literary style in the target language. In such case, we suggest that the style of the contemporary genre of Thai sociological novels written during 1950 - 1957 is the most appropriate one since it can render equivalent literary effects as the source text.