A Study of Conveying Thai Serial Verb Constructions with the Word /?au/ into English: Case Study of Many Lives

Abstract

This article aims to study how Thai serial verb constructions with the verb /?au/, which describe sequential actions, are translated into English. The data used in this research is from the Thai short stories and their English version entitled Many Lives. The research question is to see if the sequential actions in the source text are also shown in the translated version. If they are, what are the methods used to keep the meaning of the Thai serial verb constructions? If the translator fails to do so, what are the methods that she used in her translation?

The study found that out of 82 serial verb constructions with /?au/ showing sequential actions, only 9 English sentences convey the same meaning as the original text. The remaining 73 do not convey any sequential actions. The various translation methods that the translator used to convey the meanings of Thai serial verb constructions appropriately in English resulted from the application of the interpretive theory and can be explained through the principles of thinking for speaking.