Abstract:
Translation is a form of cross-cultural interaction in addition to the information
exchange process. Due to the cultural similarities and differences between source
and target languages, cultural aspects are the first thing to look at in translation.
Cultural differences between the source and target languages have proven to be a
difficult nut for translators to crack due to the cultural gap or the lack of
equivalence between them. Employing the appropriate translation techniques
helps bridge this cultural lacuna. Translation theorists, Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1813/1992) and Lawrence Venuti (1995) both proposed two translation methods
namely Domestication and Foreignization which are ideal for culture-specific
translation as they provide both linguistic and cultural guidance simultaneously.
Based on this fact, the present qualitative study aims to determine the degree to
which the translators used domestication and foreignization techniques to
accurately translate Sinhalese culture-specific elements that appeared in the
novels, Gamperaliya (1944), Kaliyugaya (1957), and Yuganthaya (1949) into
English. Additionally, the study explores different culture-specific areas in the
source texts, subcategories of domestication and foreignization as well as other
different strategies used in accordance with Aixelá's (1996) translation
procedures in the selected samples. For the purpose of classifying the data, the
researcher employed Peter Newmark’s classification of culture-specific elements
(2010). Collected and classified data is later analyzed as per the content-analysis
method. Since this is a work in progress, the conclusions can only be drawn from
the data that has already been gathered and examined. The findings indicate that
limited universalization, naturalization, and deletion have been widely employed
under domestication, whereas orthographic adaptation, linguistic (non-cultural)
translation, synonymy, and extra-textual gloss have been frequently used under
foreignization.
In conclusion, domestication and foreignization have been
combined in all three target texts, with a preference for foreignization.