VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH EVALUATING THE VIETNAMESE VERSION OF THE BOOK ‘CHICKEN SOUP FOR MOTHER AND DAUGHTER SOUL’ BY JACK CANDFIELD AND MARK VICTOR HASEN USING JULLIANE HOUSE’S MODEL (Đánh giá chất lượng dịch Tiếng Việt tác phẩm “Chicken Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul” áp dụng mơ hình Julliane House) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi - 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH EVALUATING THE VIETNAMESE VERSION OF THE BOOK ‘CHICKEN SOUP FOR MOTHER AND DAUGHTER SOUL’ BY JACK CANDFIELD AND MARK VICTOR HASEN USING JULLIANE HOUSE’S MODEL (Đánh giá chất lượng dịch Tiếng Việt tác phẩm “Chicken Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul” áp dụng mơ hình Julliane House) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr LÊ HÙNG TIẾN Hanoi - 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations vi List of figures vii A INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study Significance of the study Scope and objectives of the study 3.1 Scope of the study 3.2 Research questions Research methods Organization of the study B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW Translation theory 1.1 Definitions of translation 1.2 Translation methods and strategies 1.3 Translation equivalence 10 1.4 Translation quality assessment 13 Literary translation 15 2.1 Characteristics of literary translation 16 2.2 Challenges in literary translation 17 Introduction about the book 18 CHAPTER APPLICATION OF HOUSE’S MODEL FOR TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT 21 iv Presentation of the model 21 1.1 An overview of the model 21 1.2 Operation of the model 22 Application of the model 26 2.1 Analysis of the source texts 26 2.2 Statement of function 32 CHAPTER DISCUSSION 34 Comparison of Target Text and Source Text 34 1.1 Medium 34 1.2 Participation 37 1.3 Social role relationship 37 1.4 Social attitude 38 1.5 Overtly erroneous errors 39 Statement of quality 41 C CONCLUSION Conclusion 42 Implications for translating English literary works into Vietnamese 43 Suggestions for further research 44 REFERENCES 45 APPENDICES I – XI APPENDIX I Placing of clauses and expressions of purpose and time before the main clauses I APPENDIX II Use of parenthetical and appositional structures III APPENDIX III Spoken language signals or interjections V APPENDIX IV Presence of connectors VI APPENDIX V Presence of reference VII APPENDIX VI Repeated structures IX APPENDIX VII Noun and noun phrases are translated into clauses XI v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SL: Source Language TL: Target Language ST: Source Text TT: Translation Text vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Translation Process Page Figure 2: A Scheme for Analyzing and Comparing Original and Translation Texts Page 24 vii A INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study In the trend of globalization and integration, people are more frequent to read books and documents written in a foreign language because that helps them to understand and be more familiar with the thoughts, traditions, principles and actions of the people from the culture Therefore, translation is regarded as a significant key interlinking people from all cultures in the world In Vietnam, more and more foreign books and documents are translated into Vietnamese However, Vietnamese readers not always have chance to approach translations of good quality and that a translation is considered good still draws much discussion Each translation theorists has his or her own founded criteria for translation quality assessment Among distinguished scholars of this field is Julian House who is a German linguist, with her model for translation quality assessment Many famous English books have been translated into Vietnamese „Chicken Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul‟ by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield is one of them Being translated into Vietnamese, the series of the book are popular to a number of Vietnamese readers Nevertheless, as mentioned above, translating a foreign text and making it acceptable by the target language readers is not easy due to the fact that each language has its own unique features and peculiarities and literary book translation calls for stringent and high quality standards Therefore, an assessment of the Vietnamese version of this book is thus desirable Significance of the study The results of the study will be used as suggestions and references to analyze and evaluate the quality of other literary translated works Also, the research results will be used as guidelines for conducting further research in translation and in other related fields Besides, the study will also propose some suggestions concerning the translation of English literary works into Vietnamese Scope and objectives of the study 3.1 Scope of the study The book series „Chicken Soup for the Soul‟ consists of almost 200 titles in print and a study of the whole book series is therefore beyond the scope of this paper So, the study will analyze volume of the series which is entitled “Mother and Daughter Soul” translated by Ngoc Diep and Vi Thao Nguyen 3.2 Research questions The study aims at finding answers to two questions: How good is the translation according to House‟s model? What are the remaining problems of the translation? Research methods The paper aims at assessing the quality of the Vietnamese translation of the book „Chicken Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul‟ by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield To achieve that aim, a set of criteria for assessment is essential House‟s model is chosen to apply in this study because of comprehensive set of parameters for assessing functional and pragmatic equivalence of the translation text Applying House‟s model, the researcher follows the chronological steps in translation quality assessment suggested by House Firstly, a source text (ST) is selected, and then a register analysis is done to get the source text profile based in the eight situational dimensions A statement of function of the ST will be made after that Next, a profile of the translation text will be come up with and compared with the ST‟s to find out mismatches before a statement of quality can be drawn about the target text (TT) Organization of the study The study contains three chapters: Chapter – Literature Review In this first chapter, some related concepts of translation theory and typical models of translation quality assessment are introduced Also, the chapter discusses characteristics and challenges of literary translation Chapter – Application of House‟s model for translation quality assessment In this chapter, House‟s model for translation quality assessment will first be presented and then applied to analyze and decide the ST profile as well as statement of function with ideational and interpersonal meaning Chapter – Discussion of results and implications In the third chapter, the researcher will apply Julliane House‟s model to analyze and compare the English ST and the Vietnamese translation one and then draw the statement of quality B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I – LITERATURE REVIEW Translation theory 1.1 Definitions of translation To translate is understood as to express the meaning of speech or writing in a different language However, in translation studies, things are not that simple Theorists approached translation studies differently and they proposed various definitions of translation Catford (1965:20) defined translation as “the replacement of textual material in one language (source language – SL) by equivalent textual in another language (target language – TL)” (Catford, 1965) Also basing on the concept of equivalence, Nida and Taber (1982) suggested that “translation consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the SL message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style” (Nida and Taber 1982) The definitions are not limited only on Catford and Nida and Taber‟s point of view There are several definitions stated by some experts Discussing three aspects of meaning which are semantic, pragmatic and textual, House (1977:29) introduced a tentative definition of translation “Translation is the replacement of text in the SL by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the TL” and these are only written texts Similarly, Wilss (1982) focused on written text and he considered translation a procedure which leads from a written SL text to an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, semantic, stylistic, and text pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text In Bell‟s definition (1991), three aspects of translations are also mentioned He defined that translating is the transformation of a text originally in one language into an equivalent text in a different language retaining, as far as possible, the context of message, the formal features and the roles of the original text ... DAUGHTER SOUL? ?? BY JACK CANDFIELD AND MARK VICTOR HASEN USING JULLIANE HOUSE’S MODEL (Đánh giá chất lượng dịch Tiếng Việt tác phẩm ? ?Chicken Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul? ?? áp dụng mơ hình Julliane. .. books have been translated into Vietnamese ? ?Chicken Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul? ?? by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield is one of them Being translated into Vietnamese, the series of the. .. Scope and objectives of the study 3.1 Scope of the study The book series ? ?Chicken Soup for the Soul? ?? consists of almost 200 titles in print and a study of the whole book series is therefore beyond