Translating forms of address in Usman Awang's selected plays: constructing the Malay identity for English readership

Abstract

Form of address is rather a complex sociolinguistics aspect in a communication process hence translating it poses a challenge to translators. Translating forms of address requires thorough understanding of the social and cultural contexts of both the source and target languages. The choice of naming and addressing in a communication depends on a few factors in hand, for instance, the intimacy between speaker and addressee and the projection of power between the speaker and addressee. Using certain forms of address in a communication depicts the social structure developed by the language users (Wardhaugh 1998). This paper aims to analyse the translation of Usman Awang's plays, 'Visitors to Kenny Hill' and 'Uda and Dara', and how the forms of address are transcended into English, thus projecting the Malay identity for the English readership. Therefore, this paper hopes to examine how language is used in portraying nationhood in translated Malay literary text.