An Analysis Of Chengyu Translation Strategies Into Malay

Chengyu is a subcategory of Chinese proverbs, made up of four characters in a beautiful and poetic manner that also expresses certain meanings which are either explicit or implied. This paper discusses strategies used in the translation of chengyu into Malay. Data involved a total of 208 chengyu collected manually from the novel Jia, a great literary work produced by the national writer of China, Ba Jin, in the early 20th century and from its translation entitled Keluarga, a Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka publication (1995). The theoretical framework was eclectic, which includes the definition of translation by Larson (1984), the definition and categorization of chengyu by Wu Zhan Kun and Wang Qin as well as chengyu translation strategies by Chen Wen Bo . This study shows that translation of chengyu is dynamic in nature. It was found that the application of translation strategies were influenced by three main factors, namely the type of chengyu present in the source text, the context of the sentence where it is present as well as the similarities and differences between the thinking concepts of the source and target languages. Among the strategies detected are symbol translation, meaning translation, partial translation, omission, pragmatic translation and literal translation. In this case, the partial translation strategy by Chen can be expanded in scope to be used in the translation of chengyu where the front and back structures differ in meaning. This study also found two new strategies, the couplet strategy which involves a combination of any two strategies and also the natural equivalent strategy. Therefore, fully understanding the meanings of chengyu and applying an appropriate and effective translation strategy is crucial to ensure accuracy in reproducing the meaning while maintaining the same symbol and form in the target language.