A Study on Translation Strategies for Technology and Environmental Terms in Chinese–Thai News

Kullayanee Kittopakarnkit; Xinyi  Liu

Authors

Kullayanee Kittopakarnkit Zhejiang Yuexiu University, China
Xinyi Liu Zhejiang Yuexiu University, China

Keywords:

Technology terms, Environmental terms, Chinese–Thai news, Translation strategies

Abstract

This study is a qualitative research investigating translation strategies for technology and environmental terms from Chinese into Thai. The study analyzed 50 bilingual Chinese-Thai news articles (2020-2025) from CRI Thai and CATTI resources, comprising 68 technology terms and 89 environmental terms. Newmark’s (1988) translation theory framework was employed for analysis. The results indicate that strategies differ according to term type. For technology terms, literal translation was the most frequently used strategy (47.06%), followed by multiple-method translation (27.94%), free translation (17.65%), and transliteration (7.35%). For environmental terms, literal translation dominated (79.78%), followed by multiple-method translation (14.60%), while free translation (2.25%) and transliteration (3.37%) were comparatively rare. These findings suggest that environmental terms often have structures that are more directly translatable than technology terms. Overall, the choice of translation strategies depends significantly on the nature of the content and the complexity level of terms in each field. This highlights that strategy selection is influenced by content characteristics, term universality, and communicative context. The findings provide practical guidance for translators and media practitioners to enhance the quality of Chinese-Thai news translation and cross-languagecommunication.

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