ABSTRACT
The concept of sexually taboo words are seen as dirty and repulsive in many societies; nevertheless, they are still explicitly presented in various media especially in literature. This research aimed to investigate the translation strategies employed in sexually taboo words of the erotic novels called the Fifty Shades trilogy and their Thai-translated versions. Sexually taboo words were classified by Allen and Burridge’s categorization (2006) and an additional framework from Yuan (2016). For the part of translation strategies, this research used the combined frameworks proposed by Diaz Cintas and Aline (2007) and Pedersen (2011). The findings showed that sexually taboo words in a group of genital organs were mostly found in the Fifty Shades trilogy whereas sexually taboo words about homosexuality, rape, and incest were absent. The results also presented that substitution was the most frequent translation strategy that Thai translators used in order to avoid the presence of sexually taboo words; conversely, compensation strategy was the least. The results can be implied that Thai culture plays an important role in determining the choice of translation. Thai translators tend to avoid using the strongly taboo words by replacing something else because it violates Thai culture where sex is embarrassing to talk about.
KEYWORDS
Translation Strategies, Sexually Taboo Words, English-Thai Translation, The Fifty Shades Trilogy