CSEAS Fall Lecture Series: Kanjana Thepboriruk

Assistant Professor, Thai language

Northern Illinois University

Title: "Between the Lines: Identity and Belonging in the Thai Translation of Letter for Black Lives"

Campus Life 100

This study examines the ways in which the team of volunteer Thai language translators navigated their own identities, the collaborative translation process, and the linguistic and cultural challenges of producing the 2020 Thai Letters for Black Lives. Thai was one of fifty-two languages used for translating the 2020 version. The discussion focusses on the ways that translators’ identities and stance informed the translation process, translation choices, and the end product. In particular, the study focuses on how the translators perform their identities, especially Thainess, during the metalinguistic discussions that were essential to the translation task and translation process. The findings contribute to and widen our understanding of Thainess and what it means to be Thai in diaspora.

Dr. Kanjana Hubik Thepboriruk is a linguist and historian. Her research investigates the notion of “Thainess” as it manifests and is understood, defined, performed, regulated, and transmitted in Thai communities in Thailand and in the United States, both in the past and in the present. She is proud to be a pioneer of Thai as a Heritage Language Research and Thai American Studies. Her historical research focuses on the creation of “Thainess” as part of the nation-building scheme during the first Phibunsongkhram era (1938 – 1944) when Siam suddenly became Thailand and Siamese subjects suddenly became Thai citizens. Her linguistic research examines the roles Thai language has or does not have in the daily lives and lived experiences of Thais in the U.S. diaspora, including documenting the structures of the Thai being used and transmitted to US-born Thais as a heritage language.