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Bahasa Cina Bahasa Melayu: Kebolehterjemahan Budaya by Goh Sang Seong. Pulau Pinang: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2012, ix + 226 pp.
Studies on the translation of English to Malay have received considerable attention from Southeast Asian scholars. Among others, Asmah (1979), Ainon (1991), Tham (1990) published lengthy discussions on the subject. In comparison, studies on the translation of Mandarin to Malay are less robust. This book provides a timely explanation on techniques of translating linguistic- specific terms and cultural-specific references in Chinese into Malay.
The title of the book may be glossed as Cultural Translatability from Mandarin to Malay. The book is divided into four chapters preceded by a preface and a list containing abbreviations and symbols found in the text. There are two lists complementing the discussion at the end of the text, namely a bibliographic record and an index of terms and surnames.
Against the belief that direct translation of cultural references from one language to another is impossible due to the semantic and syntactic discrepancies of two distinct speech communities, the author illustrates that mediating culture between languages is possible by adopting sound techniques of translation. The relevant strategies in mapping cultural-specific references in Mandarin (tonal language) to Malay (agglutinating language) are indeed the strength of this book.
In the first chapter, the author surveys the development of translation from Mandarin to Malay in Malaysia. Mandarin-to-Malay translation had begun since 1889 and interestingly enough, the Malay variety...