Reflection of Cultural Identity in English Translations of Sinhala Literary Writings: with Special Reference to the Trilogy of Martin Wickramasinghe and its English Translation

Abstract

Preserving cultural identity is the utmost challenge in translating literary texts embedded with cultural capital. Cultural capital is untranslatable, yet it can be depicted by replacing equivalents of the target language. However, the effectiveness and applicability of equivalents that belong to a different culture are problematic. The main purpose of this research was to study how effectively cultural identity is reflected in the English translations of Sinhala Literary texts with reference to the great trilogy written by Martin Wickramasinghe. Thus, the study investigated what strategies were used by the translators to preserve and depict the cultural capital of the source texts and how effectively they are used to reflect the cultural identity. The methodological structure of the research is qualitative, and the relevant primary data was collected through the methods of desk review and interviews. Accordingly, the Sinhala and English versions of the trilogy were referred, and a comparative analysis was conducted in order to manifest the results aptly. As per the scrutinised data, borrowings, calques, hybrid compounds, equivalents, substitution, neologism, interpretation, combined methods, and deletion are the strategies used in the translation to depict culture-specific words. However, there are several limitations in the way they are used: loss of connotations, unfamiliarity, lost meaning, and meaning change, that harm the cultural identity of the source culture presented in the sourcebook. Finally, the study suggests some recommendations to overcome such limitations and cultural untranslatability.

KEYWORDS: Cultural capital, Cultural identity, Literary translations, Translation strategies