Translanguaging in Singapore literature and its implications for the tension between translating for local and translocal audiences: a case study of the English to Chinese translation of Malay sketches

• Main Author: Woo, Ying Teng
• Other Authors: Sim Wai Chew
• Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Literature
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168390
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As readers in the current globalisation era come from increasingly diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, this study aims to examine how translanguaging in multilingual literature is translated for the duality of local and translocal readership. Different representations of translanguaging in the original anglophone literature Malay Sketches and its Chinese translation are analyzed using the textual data analysis method. This study adds value to existing studies on the translation of literary multilingualism by substituting the conventional language ideology perspective with a translanguaging lens to examine how literary multilingualism is translated for the duality of local and translocal readership. The main argument of this study is that when a tension exists between translating for local and translocal readers, various factors such as the translator’s agency, social contexts, and translation norms result in ST translanguaging (in Singapore literature) being pushed towards language homogenisation and language standardisation in the TT. This study concludes that the asymmetry in translanguaging in the ST and TT results in differing reader reception cohorts, and the inclination towards language homogenisation and language standardisation actually diverges from the increased tolerance for multilingualism and linguistic hybridity in the Sinophone regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China.