Browsing by Author "Nanayakkara, A."

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Pragmatic Application Of Back Translation As A Corrective Strategy To The Mistakes In Literary Translation: A Study With Reference To Agatha Christie’s Short Story Collection-The Thirteen Problems
(Proceedings of the Undergraduate Research Symposium (HUG 2018), Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Nanayakkara, A.; Nagodawithana, A.; Weerasiri, T.
Literary translation is a genre of literary form in which a work written in one language is re-created in another. Many translators believe that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to translate works of literature. Due to this complication, mistakes are inevitable. Based on the assumption that reconverting a translated text back into its original language and comparing it with the source text might be an approach to determine such mistakes, this study focuses on the applicability of back translation into literary translation. In the course, extracts from the short story collection “The Thirteen Problems” by Agatha Christie were given to students reading for Translation Studies at University of Kelaniya to be translated into Sinhalese. Said translations were back translated into English. The source text and the back translated text were compared thereupon to discern how they differ from one another. After analysing the gathered data, the differences identified between the texts could be categorized as the mistakes of literal translation, exaggerated meaning, over dependence on machine aided translation (MAT), miscomprehended context, cultural differences and over confidence of the translator. Thus, it was identified as a comprehensive technique to re-create a novel text rather credible, accurate and loyal to the source text by the pragmatic application of back translation as a corrective strategy to the aforesaid mistakes.
Sinhala Weapons and Armor: Adaptation in Response to European Style Warfare
(University of Kelaniya, 2005) Weerakkody, P.; Nanayakkara, A.
The study examines the Weapons and Armor used by respectively the Sinhalese and the Portuguese forces during the 16th and 17th Centuries. The paper posits that the weapons of both combatants evolved in response to each other taking into account also developments abroad. The study is primarily based on observation and comparison of specimens in museums, private collections and illustrations from temple art, contemporary European art and literature. By the time Portuguese arrived in Sri Lanka the European armies had phased out the heavy armor used by the knights and were beginning to adopt the somewhat lighter “cuirassier” armor which was used in Sri Lanka at the earlier part of the Portuguese wars. With the arrival of the Portuguese the Sinhala armies were faced with a heavier armored opponent who increasingly relied more on the newly emerging firearms of the period. The emergence of hand held fire arms during the early 16th century was changing the face of warfare through out the world. The adaptation of the gun by the Sinhalese and their proficiency in both use and manufacture of firearms forced the Europeans to re-adopt and played a role in the demise of heavy armor in the battlefield. (It is more probable that the Sinhalese first adopted the gun from the Arabs than the Europeans. It is likely that there were more than one school of gun manufacture in Sri Lanka.) The existence of molded shaped Sinhala spearheads with post apical grooving and arrow points with hardened tips suggest design adaptations which are more suited to the function as armor piercing weapons. The need for such weapons arose out the use of heavy armor during the 16th century and it is highly probable that these adaptations originated during this period. Several new weapons including the “Patisthana” spear, “Kasthana” sword “Ath-thuwakku /Bondikula hand guns and the “Kodithuwakku” Grass hopper canon was added to the Sinhala armory during this era. The Study also looks at the evidence for the use of body armor by the Sinhalese.
A Study on the Difficulties of Subtitling from English to Sinhalese
(International Postgraduate Research Conference 2019, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Nanayakkara, A.
Subtitling is the process of translating spoken dialogues into written text on the screen. Subtitling consists of the production of snippets of written text to be superimposed on visual footage near the bottom of the frame while an audiovisual text is projected. Subtitle translation for screen is considered to be difficult due to certain limitations such as dialogue speed, screen width and text length. This study aims to analyse the difficulties bound with subtitle translation and the strategies that are employed to overcome them with reference to the language transfer from English to Sinhalese. A qualitative methodology is employed in carrying out the research where the English source script and the translated Sinhalese script of the movie “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” is compared. Through the analysis of the gathered data, it could be identified that the difficulties that occur in subtitle translation can be divided into two categories; linguistic and cultural. As far as the linguistic difficulties that are evident in subtitling are concerned, lengthy and complex sentences which have the components of the sentence (subject, verb and object) distributed among several video frames for longer time durations and short and simple sentences which have semantically deeper meanings that cannot be conveyed in Sinhalese through a sentence with an equivalent length within the respective time duration make the task of subtitle translation challenging. As far as the cultural difficulties that are evident in subtitling are concerned, translating the cultural terms related to the fantasy wizarding world including the terms that are related to ecology, material and social culture, gestures, customs and concepts appear to be challenging to translate. It could be observed that the translator has employed several strategies in overcoming the above challenges of translation. The lengthy sentences are translated phrase by phrase sticking to the source language sentence structure; SVO, disregarding the target language sentence structure; SOV to keep up with the dialogue speed. This measure, which has been successful in most instances, at times sound unnatural in Sinhalese as well. The meanings of short sentences with deeper semantical value that cannot be described in a sentence with an equivalent length in Sinhalese are generalized in order to make them fit in with the time duration of the source utterance. This measure delivers a rather distant sense of source idea in Sinhalese without being completely unfaithful to the Source. As for the strategies of rendering culture bound terms, new Sinhalese equivalent terms are created for specific cultural items. For the terms that are too difficult to be recreated in Sinhalese, the original English term is used with additional descriptive subtitles presented within brackets in a different colour as a measure to make the ideas closer to the audience. By following the above strategies, the linguistic and cultural difficulties that had occurred during the process of subtitle translation are adequately addressed
A Study on Translating Idioms from English to Sinhalese
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Nanayakkara, A.; Nagodawithana, A.; Madhusanka, C.
Every language has its peculiar turns of expression. The peculiar uses of particular words and phrases which have become stereotyped by usage are known as the idioms of a language. It is generally agreed that idiomatic phrases cannot be translated literally from one language to another without altering the meaning, if not making the expression completely meaningless. Hence many of the translators tend to omit idiomatic expressions while translating. This study is an examination on the translation of idioms from English to Sinhalese. In the course, publications on idioms were evaluated as the primary source. The knowledge garnered have been further analysed by questionnaires given to students reading Translation Studies at the University of Kelaniya. After analysing the data gathered, it could be perceived that idioms could be classified in to several groups. Immense is the influence of environment and culture of a palticular linguistic race or nation in the above classification of idioms. Hence this phenomenon can be attributed to intercultural and inter-linguistic relationship in human activity. Accordingly idioms could be classified in to three prominent categories. The first category of idioms could be translated directly while retaining the sense of the original whereas the second category of idioms could be translated with a parallel idiom; most telling equivalents. Absence of a parallel idiom was identified as the third category where the only possible solution is to explain the general idea conveyed by the original expression. Thus, if the idioms are inapplicable to first and second categories, advancing ahead with paraphrasing, slanguage, simplified words and phrases is rather befitting in translation and is regarded as the most comprehensive strategy.