Results

Based on the collected data, it is revealed that of all 22 chapters of Charlotte’s Web in the source text, passive voice was used in 20 chapters whereas of all 17 chapters of Peter Pan, passives were found in all chapters. When comparing the source text with the target text, the researcher found that 2 forms of passives were used in the translation. They are covert passive and overt passive with the following details that divided into each story’s analysis below.

It was found that the translator tended to use Covert passive in the target text since the percentage of covert passive is 42% (32 tokens) while overt passive is 34% (26 tokens), active is 23% (18 tokens), and omitted is 1% due to it was found only 1 token.

Examples of the passive translation in Charlotte’s Web are provided below.

1) Example of translation into covert passive sentences are shown below.

a. English: And the whole thing was owned by Fern's uncle, …

Thai: และทั้งหมดนี้เป็นของลุงของเฟิร์น

2) Example of translation into overt passive sentences are shown below.

a. English: Doctors are supposed to understand everything.

Thai: หมอมักถูกคาดหวังให้เข้าใจทุกสิ่งทุกอย่าง

3) Example of translation into active sentences are shown below.

a. English: And whenever the cat was given a fish-head to eat, …

Thai: แต่ถ้าเมื่อใดเจ้าแมวได้หัวปลามากินแล้วละก็…

As shown above, the passive sentence, “…the cat was given a fish-head to eat”, was translated to the active sentence by changing the subject-patient to the object.

4) Omitted sentence is shown below.

a. English: He was heavily armed.

Thai: In target text, this sentence was omitted.

Overt passive is divided into 3 subtypes that thuk, don, and dai-rup. The results show that the most frequently used overt passive in target text is ถูก or thuk passive 74% (19 tokens), don passive is 19% (5 tokens), and dai-rup passive is 7% (2 tokens).

To sum up, in children's literature, Charlotte's Web, the covert passive is the most frequently used technique in the Thai translated version, the dai-rup overt passive is the least frequently used technique in overt passive. However, the translator also translated the English passive sentence into the active sentence in the Thai translation while omitted was found only one sentence in the whole story. Hence, the most frequently used technique in Charlotte’s Web is covert passive while the least used is omitted.

It was found that the translator used Overt passive in the translation of target text since the percentage of overt passive is 47% (64 tokens) while the percentage of covert passive is quite similar to overt passive since it was found 46% (63 tokens), and the percentage of active is 7% (10 tokens).

Examples of the passive translation in Peter Pan are provided below.

1) Example of translation into covert passive sentences are shown below.

a. English: …, for she thought he was killed,

Thai: เพราะเธอคิดว่าเขาต้องตายแน่ ๆ

2) Example of translation into overt passive sentences are shown below.

a. English: Every morning the kennel was carried with Mr. Darling in it to a cab…

Thai: ทุกเช้า บ้านสุนัขจะถูกยกพร้อมกับมิสเตอร์ดาร์ลิงเพื่อไปขึ้นรถแท็กซี่

3) Example of translation into active sentences are shown below.

a. English: John carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter.

Thai: แม้ว่าทิงก์จะหวังให้ปีเตอร์เป็นคนถือก็ตาม

Overt passive is divided into 3 subtypes that thuk, don, and dai-rup. The results found that the most frequently used overt passive in target text is ถูก or thuk passive 77% (49 tokens), dai-rup passive 14% (9 tokens), and don passive 9% (6 tokens).

In conclusion, Peter Pan written by J. M. Barrie and translated into Thai by Sathita Songwittaya. The translator used both overt and covert passive with slightly difference of tokens found in the translated version but the most frequently used is overt passive while the least used is active which is found only 7% (10 tokens). As can be seen, the result shows that in target language of Peter Pan, there do not show any differences between using covert and overt passive.