1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THU GIANG A STUDY ON THE VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN THE SERIES OF BILINGUAL HANDBOOKS "VIETNAMESE CULTURE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS" PUBLISHED BY THE THẾ GIỚI PUBLISHER Nghiên cứu phương pháp dịch Việt – Anh sách song ngữ “Những câu hỏi thường gặp văn hóa Việt Nam” Nhà xuất Thế Giới ấn hành M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 602215 Hanoi - 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THU GIANG A STUDY ON THE VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN THE SERIES OF BILINGUAL HANDBOOKS "VIETNAMESE CULTURE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS" PUBLISHED BY THE THẾ GIỚI PUBLISHER Nghiên cứu phương pháp dịch Việt – Anh sách song ngữ “Những câu hỏi thường gặp văn hóa Việt Nam” Nhà xuất Thế Giới ấn hành M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 602215 Supervisor: Dr Trần Xuân Điệp Hanoi - 2010 TABLES OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgement i Abstract ii Table of contents iii List of abbreviations v Part I - Introduction Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methodology of the study Organization of the study Part II - Development Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definitions of translation 1.2 Translation methods and strategies 1.2.1 Translation methods 1.2.2 Translation strategies 1.3 Foreign language translation 11 1.4 Translation of cultural texts 11 Chapter 2: VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION STRATEGIES 13 USED IN THE BILINGUAL HANDBOOKS 2.1 Modified literal translation 13 2.2 Changes in grammar 15 2.2.1 Changes in the order of word groups 15 2.2.2 Changes of grammatical word class 17 2.2.3 Modulation 18 2.2.4 Sentences split or merged 19 2.3 Choice of vocabulary 21 2.3.1 Using words of more general meaning 21 2.3.2 Descriptive equivalents 22 2.3.3 Addition 23 2.3.4 Subtraction 25 2.3.5 Using different words or phrases 26 2.4 Translating culture-bound terms, names and titles, and poems 28 2.4.1 Translating culture-bound terms 28 2.4.2 Translating names and titles 30 2.4.3 Translating poems 31 2.5 Some opinions on expressive richness of the translations 32 2.5.1 Relevant equivalents 32 2.5.2 Poorer equivalents 33 2.5.3 Richer equivalents 33 2.6 Some opinions on language style of the translations 34 2.6.1 Formality 34 2.6.2 Conciseness 35 2.6.3 Clarity 37 Part III - Conclusion 39 Recapitulation 39 Implications 40 Limitations of the study 41 Suggestions for further study 42 REFERENCES APPENDIX LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SL Source language SLT Source language text TL Target language TLT Target language text PT "Popular Theatre" WC "Wedding Customs" SF "Spring Festival in Northern Việt Nam" PART I - INTRODUCTION Rationale In a globalized world, translation has played an indispensable role in facilitating international exchanges and cooperation in various fields, one of the most important of which is culture because culture is the background of every human communication There have been a large number of studies on translation methods and strategies but many of which just focus on general techniques supposed to be applied to all pairs of languages in the world and few works are concerned with specific problems in certain pairs of language, especially those related to culture Even within one pair of languages, first language translators and foreign language translators encounter different challenges While the first language translator can depend much on their long-built habitual use of the target languages, the second language translators often work with more awareness than feeling, more analysis and reasoning than intuition Therefore, to some extent, foreign language translators are more interested in translations strategies which help them their work rationally For those reasons, the study on the translation strategies in the series of VietnameseEnglish handbooks “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” published by the Thế Giới Publisher has been carried out from the perspective of a Vietnamese student The books cover different cultural aspects of Vietnam, therefore demonstrating many interesting translation strategies in use, especially those to deal with culture-specific terms The study is expected to offer practical advice for Vietnamese-English translators with detailed and thorough analysis of the strategies used in the set of the books Aims of the study The study is carried out with the following aims: - Finding out common strategies used in some books of the series "Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions." - Taking a close look at expressive power and writing styles of the translations to understand the reasons hidden in the translators' use of certain strategies - Drawing out some possible implications of the study results for Vietnamese-English translators 10 Scope of the study More than twenty handbooks on “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” have been released so far The set of the books prominently features Vietnamese culture with different aspects such as arts, festivals, customs, and architecture and so on Yet, within the limit of the research, the paper is not supposed to cover the whole series of the books The three small books chosen are “Popular Theatre” (Chèo), “Spring Festivals in Northern Việt Nam” and “Wedding Customs” which are all edited by Hữu Ngọc and Lady Borton and published by Thế Giới Publisher in 2008 Strategy is a broad term which may refer to global strategies (those dealing with whole texts) and local strategies (those dealing with text segments) (Bell, 1998) However, within the limit of the minor thesis, the author would like to focus on local strategies which are specific activities affecting micro-units of the text Translation procedures studied by Vinay, Darbelnet, New Mark, Nida are the main source of reference for the author to carry out her research scientifically Studies by other experts would also be considered when necessary It is certainly hard for the author to mention a great number of differences between Vietnamese and English in her analysis The author would not study the alteration in the transfer process related to basic grammatical differences such as the order of nouns and adjectives, the possessions, the verb tenses and so on Her main concern is the strategies which translators, especially learners or novice translators may not be aware of in their work, such as omission, addition, alteration and so on Methodology of the study 4.1 Research question The main research question raised in the paper is: What translation strategies were used in the three selected book of the series "Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions" published by the Gioi Publisher? The answer to the question will help readers to realize some common Vietnamese-English translation strategies used in the bilingual handbooks “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” The study may also help sharpen the translators’ awareness of some outstanding differences between the nature of English and Vietnamese languages in use so that they can learn to produce natural-looking texts in their translation 11 4.2 Methods Data corpus: Cultural scholar Huu Ngoc and American writer Lady Borton work together to bring us the series of bilingual handbooks on Vietnamese culture The set of books provide the readers with basic knowledge of the Vietnamese culture such as the Tet holiday, water puppetry, Hue cuisine and so on The pocket-sized books are designed for readers of different backgrounds Firstly, the books are a valuable reference for foreigners who are interested in the Vietnamese culture The books also offer useful practice for English native speakers who want to study Vietnamese Thirdly, tourist guides and officials of foreign affairs benefit a great deal from the books in their business Besides, the books are useful for English teachers and students with interesting contents and comparatively simple language The three books, “Popular Theatre”, “Spring Festivals in Northern Việt Nam” and “Wedding customs”, were chosen with careful thoughts Chèo, an authentically Vietnamese theatre form, festival and wedding customs are the themes which may involve many culture-specific terms, conceptions, idioms or allusions which pose considerable challenges for the translators Therefore, the researcher would discover more helpful strategies to deal with culture-related problems which remain very controversial in the area of translation The "Popular Theatre" covering 99 pages tells stories about chèo with six main parts: background, popular plays, artists, music, chèo villages, and future development The "Wedding Customs" with 83 pages discusses different customs, from the past to present, from the North to the South and some emerging issues in modern wedding rites The thickest handbook "Spring Festivals in Northern Việt Nam" with 133 pages describes many famous spring festivals, some of which belong to minority groups such as Tày and Thái peoples Over 300 sentence pairs were collected from the three selected handbooks to examine how and why the strategies are used to produce comprehensible and acceptable target language texts Data analysis: A mechanical listing of noteworthy and typical examples of translations in the books which, together, cover a wide range of strategies is done first The author does not solely depend on the methods and strategies already studied by many researchers presented in the literature She tries to seek more specific techniques employed by the translators and 12 discover their particular challenges, especially those related to culture-bound terms, and how they overcome their challenges The author attempts to reason the use of the strategies and, in a few cases, adds some evaluation on the results or the effectiveness of the translations Finally, the author draws a conclusion on the strategies in Vietnamese-English translation of the books and then gives some suggestions for translators and further studies This study is carried out by the combination of the following methods: - Deductive and inductive methods Deductive method is the important method used in this research The author makes the description and interpretation of the strategies used in the translations based on the studies by some famous linguists, translators and other researchers contributing to the field However, the author also needs inductive method to arrive at necessary conclusions about common strategies used and the reasons beneath - Qualitative and quantitative methods This study is much more qualitative than quantitative in nature because it heavily depends on the author's own interpretation of translation examples Qualitative method offers the opportunity to gain insight into the translators' decision-making during their transfer process, thus seeking out the "why" Quantitative method is sometimes used to add necessary details and figures to the findings - Descriptive and contrastive methods: Descriptive is the main method of this study A detailed description of the translation versions would help the readers acquire profound understanding of the translation strategies For many cases, the author needs to explain the differences between English and Vietnamese to clarify the translators' intention hidden in their decision-making process In other words, the contrastive method helps to explain the effectiveness of the strategies utilized Organization of the study Part I is the Introduction which allows the readers to get the general idea of what the thesis is about It provides the rationale for the study, aims of the study, the scope, the method and the organization of the study Part II is the Development, which consist of three chapters Chapter I briefly introduces some necessary theoretical points from different backgrounds The author begins by reviewing different views of translation theories with the focus on translation strategies Following that a review of foreign language translation and translation of cultural texts is undertaken 13 Chapter II is the main part of the study This chapter provides discussion on the use of translation strategies in the three selected books in terms of modified literal translation, changes in grammar, choice of vocabulary The author is particularly interested in translations of culture-bound terms, names and titles This part is ended with some evaluations on the meaning transfer including expressive richness and writing style in the target language Part III is Conclusion which recapitulates the main ideas and findings of the study; draws out some important implications for Vietnamese-English translators, presents limitations of the study and lastly, suggests some ideas for further research ... QUESTIONS" PUBLISHED BY THE THẾ GIỚI PUBLISHER Nghiên cứu phương pháp dịch Việt – Anh sách song ngữ “Những câu hỏi thường gặp văn hóa Việt Nam” Nhà xuất Thế Giới ấn hành M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS... Theatre” (Chèo), “Spring Festivals in Northern Việt Nam” and “Wedding Customs” which are all edited by Hữu Ngọc and Lady Borton and published by Thế Giới Publisher in 2008 Strategy is a broad term... VietnameseEnglish handbooks “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” published by the Thế Giới Publisher has been carried out from the perspective of a Vietnamese student The books cover