Application of Skopos Theory in Evaluation of Readability and Cohesion in English to Malay Translation of Four Selected Children Fables

Abstract

Past studies on children’s literary translation suggest that there is still a debate on whether children’s literature should be source text oriented or transfer the purpose of the translation in the target text, while in children’s literary translation, faithfulness to the author is often deemed problematic. The Skopos theory was adopted into this study to discover the outcome in translating the “purpose” in children’s literary text. In this descriptive qualitative study, four stories were selected from English and Malay collections of children’s fables and were analyzed taking paragraphs as the unit of translation. The strategies used in the translation of English children’s fables to Malay were explored using Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1995) translation procedures. The cohesion of the translated text was then analyzed using Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesive devices. The results showed that 33 translation procedures under the oblique method were used to translate the English fables into Malay and 58 cohesive devices were found in the English fables. These findings, discussed in relation to the Skopos theory and readability, revealed that the translation procedures used resulted in a cohesive translation, thus increasing readability of the stories towards for the target text receiver, i.e., children.