Translation Strategies of Red Song Titles from Chinese into Thai

Abstract

This research had three objectives: (1) to collect 200 original Chinese Red Song (红歌) titles from the book Jingdian Hongge 200 Shou (经典红歌 200 首); (2) to analyze the translation of these song titles from Chinese into Thai; and (3) to examine the translation strategies employed, using Newmark's (1988) theoretical framework of eight strategies. The 200 Red Song titles were categorized into seven thematic groups. The findings revealed that seven of the eight strategies were applied, with Free Translation being the only strategy not observed. The titles were classified into three groups according to the number of strategies used per title: (1) 62 titles employing one strategy, (2) 144 titles employing two strategies, and (3) 6 titles employing three strategies. The most frequently applied strategies were Faithful Translation and Communicative Translation. This tendency reflects the fact that Red Song titles are deeply rooted in Chinese history, ideology, and culture; preserving the original meaning enables readers to accurately grasp the intended message and emotional tone of the source text, minimizes political and cultural misinterpretation, and aligns with the translation principle of conveying the original meaning in its entirety.