Finnish Plays in Hong Kong Translation

Authors

• Chapman Chen University of Joensuu

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61200/mikael.129791

Abstract

Few Finnish plays have been exported to China. As a result, even fewer Finnish dramas have been translated into Hong Kong Cantonese. The objective of this article is to analyze the management of culture-specific items in translating Finnish plays into Hong Kong Cantonese. The theoretical backdrop for this article includes Javier Aixelá's (1996) culture-specific items; Sirkku Aaltonen's (2000) finding that translated drama reflects the ideology of the target culture more than that of the source culture; Gideon Toury's (1980) norm notion; and Even-Zohar's (1990) polysystem. I argue that, since Finnish culture is particularly unfamiliar to the Hong Kong audience, when the translator's approach of "naturalization" is largely adopted for rendering into the Hong Kong language the culture-specific items in Finnish plays, they are more acceptable to the HK audience.

The scope of the article includes culture-specific items -- proper names, socio-political concepts, religious references, idioms/slang, and everyday life objects -- in Chapman Chen's translations (2005a, 2007, 2009a) of Aleksis Kivi's Kullervo, Laura Ruohonen's Olga, and Reko Lundán's Unnecessary People -- the only TTs available. Acceptability of Chen‟s translation of Olga has been tested by sending a questionnaire to 30 participants in a scenography workshop based on the translated play. The study will show how choice of translation strategy for introducing a lesser known European drama to a populous Asian culture determines the effect it has on the target culture. The study will also shed light on Euro-Sino cultural differences.