Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu

Translation of perceptual descriptors such as the perceived affective quality attributes in the soundscape standard (ISO/TS 12913–2:2018) is an inherently intricate task, especially if the target language is used in multiple countries. Despite geographical proximity and a shared language of Bahasa M...

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Main Authors: Lam, Bhan, Chieng, Julia, Watcharasupat, Karn N., Ooi, Kenneth, Ong, Zhen-Ting, Hong, Joo Young, Gan, Woon-Seng
Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163904
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1639042024-06-25T07:41:00Z Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu Lam, Bhan Chieng, Julia Watcharasupat, Karn N. Ooi, Kenneth Ong, Zhen-Ting Hong, Joo Young Gan, Woon-Seng School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Engineering Soundscapes Translation Psychoacoustics Bahasa Melayu Circumplex Translation of perceptual descriptors such as the perceived affective quality attributes in the soundscape standard (ISO/TS 12913–2:2018) is an inherently intricate task, especially if the target language is used in multiple countries. Despite geographical proximity and a shared language of Bahasa Melayu (Standard Malay), differences in culture and language education policies between Singapore and Malaysia could invoke peculiarities in the affective appraisal of sounds. To generate provisional translations of the eight perceived affective attributes — eventful, vibrant, pleasant, calm, uneventful, monotonous, annoying, and chaotic — into Bahasa Melayu that is applicable in both Singapore and Malaysia, a binational expert-led approach supplemented by a quantitative evaluation framework was adopted. A set of preliminary translation candidates were developed via a four-stage process, firstly by a qualified translator, which was then vetted by linguistics experts, followed by examination via an experiential evaluation, and finally reviewed by the core research team. A total of 66 participants were then recruited cross-nationally to quantitatively evaluate the preliminary translation candidates. Of the eight attributes, cross-national differences were observed only in the translation of annoying. For instance, menjengkelkan was found to be significantly less understood in Singapore than in Malaysia, as well as less understandable than membingitkan within Singapore. Results of the quantitative evaluation also revealed the imperfect nature of foreign language translations for perceptual descriptors, which suggests a possibility for exploring corrective measures. Ministry of National Development (MND) National Research Foundation (NRF) Submitted/Accepted version This work was supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, and Ministry of National Development, Singapore under the Cities of Tomorrow R&D Program (CoT Award: COT-V4-2020–1), and the Google Cloud Research Credits program (GCP205559654). 2022-12-21T07:19:23Z 2022-12-21T07:19:23Z 2022 Journal Article Lam, B., Chieng, J., Watcharasupat, K. N., Ooi, K., Ong, Z., Hong, J. Y. & Gan, W. (2022). Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu. Applied Acoustics, 199, 108976-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2022.108976 0003-682X https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163904 10.1016/j.apacoust.2022.108976 2-s2.0-85137172085 199 108976 en COT-V4-2020-1 Applied Acoustics 10.21979/N9/0NE37R © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This paper was published in Applied Acoustics and is made available with permission of Elsevier Ltd. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Engineering
Soundscapes
Translation
Psychoacoustics
Bahasa Melayu
Circumplex
spellingShingle Engineering
Soundscapes
Translation
Psychoacoustics
Bahasa Melayu
Circumplex
Lam, Bhan
Chieng, Julia
Watcharasupat, Karn N.
Ooi, Kenneth
Ong, Zhen-Ting
Hong, Joo Young
Gan, Woon-Seng
Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu
description Translation of perceptual descriptors such as the perceived affective quality attributes in the soundscape standard (ISO/TS 12913–2:2018) is an inherently intricate task, especially if the target language is used in multiple countries. Despite geographical proximity and a shared language of Bahasa Melayu (Standard Malay), differences in culture and language education policies between Singapore and Malaysia could invoke peculiarities in the affective appraisal of sounds. To generate provisional translations of the eight perceived affective attributes — eventful, vibrant, pleasant, calm, uneventful, monotonous, annoying, and chaotic — into Bahasa Melayu that is applicable in both Singapore and Malaysia, a binational expert-led approach supplemented by a quantitative evaluation framework was adopted. A set of preliminary translation candidates were developed via a four-stage process, firstly by a qualified translator, which was then vetted by linguistics experts, followed by examination via an experiential evaluation, and finally reviewed by the core research team. A total of 66 participants were then recruited cross-nationally to quantitatively evaluate the preliminary translation candidates. Of the eight attributes, cross-national differences were observed only in the translation of annoying. For instance, menjengkelkan was found to be significantly less understood in Singapore than in Malaysia, as well as less understandable than membingitkan within Singapore. Results of the quantitative evaluation also revealed the imperfect nature of foreign language translations for perceptual descriptors, which suggests a possibility for exploring corrective measures.
author2 School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
author_facet School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Lam, Bhan
Chieng, Julia
Watcharasupat, Karn N.
Ooi, Kenneth
Ong, Zhen-Ting
Hong, Joo Young
Gan, Woon-Seng
format Article
author Lam, Bhan
Chieng, Julia
Watcharasupat, Karn N.
Ooi, Kenneth
Ong, Zhen-Ting
Hong, Joo Young
Gan, Woon-Seng
author_sort Lam, Bhan
title Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu
title_short Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu
title_full Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu
title_fullStr Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu
title_full_unstemmed Crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to Bahasa Melayu
title_sort crossing the linguistic causeway: a binational approach for translating soundscape attributes to bahasa melayu
publishDate 2022
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163904
_version_ 1814047359699517440