An analysis of errors in english vietnamese translation of modality should made by english majors at the hcm university of social sciences and humanities problems and solu

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES LEÂ COÂNG THIEÄN AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS IN ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF MOD

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY

HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

LEÂ COÂNG THIEÄN

AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS IN ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF MODALITY “SHOULD” MADE BY ENGLISH MAJORS AT THE HCM UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL

SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

M.A THESIS IN TESOL

SUBMITTED

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MASTER DEGREE IN TESOL

Supervisor: Dr NGUYEÃN TIEÁN HUØNG

HO CHI MINH CITY-2005

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled

AN ANALYSIS OF ERRORS IN ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION

OF MODALITY “SHOULD” MADE BY ENGLISH MAJORS AT THE

HCM UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

AND HUMANITIES PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Program issued

by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree

Ho Chi Minh City, December 2005

LE CONG THIEN

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, LE CONG THIEN, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Mater’s theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, December 2005

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my great thanks to Dr Nguyen Tien Hung, who has given

me invaluable advice and guidance without which I could not have fulfilled my work

I am greatly grateful to Ms Ngo Thi Phuong Thien, and Mr Truong Hon Huy for their precious suggestions on my thesis, as well as to all the senior lecturers of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature of the Ho Chi Minh University

of Social Sciences and Humanities for their lectures

Finally, I would also like to thank the students in my classes for their willingness

to fulfill the portfolio assignments and the questionnaire

ABSTRACT

The thesis focused on analyzing the students’ errors in translating modality

“should” into Vietnamese and was written for the purpose of identifying the students’ common problems in the process of translating this modal verb, as well

as the causes of the problems And from the study findings, solutions and implications to these problems were suggested as useful contribution to the teaching and learning grammar and translation, that is, the translating of modality in general and “should” in particular

The synthesizing and analyzing methodology was used in the thesis 63 second- year students majoring in English were given an assignment as a portfolio one

consisting of 11 daily speeches with “should” from the Web Concordancer

website and textbooks Then, the data was collected and analyzed on the basis of theories on the modality used as the standard of evaluating the student’s

translations of should In addition, a questionnaire related to the students’ thought of, their habits of, and their problems of translating the modality should

was given to the students after the test so that they could express their opinions, problems, suggestions and so on

The results showed that most of the students in the study had difficulty in translating modality “should”, especially its structures, aspects and the notion of time reference and tense The problems were due to the students’ misjudgment

of the meanings of the English and Vietnamese modality, their way of learning grammar and translation, and the role of the teacher

If further research on modality is studied, and if the students are taught all the structures of modality, the students will make much progress in their English study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

1 The Concept of Problems - Errors in Translation 5

1.2 The Concept of Translation Problems 5

3.3 Modality and Aspects – Time Reference – Tenses – Moods 23

3.3.2 Tenses 24

3.3.3 Mood 25

Table 1: The Result from the test of should translation 33

Table 2: How the students appreciate the modal should 61

Table 3: Some difficulties the students have in dealing

Table 4: Causes of the difficulties with the modal should 64

Table 5: Approach to deal with the modal should 65

2 Comments on The Common Problems - Implications 66

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION RATIONALE

1 Rationale

In the second year, the students begin to study English – Vietnamese translation

at both basic and advanced levels And since almost all other subjects in the next phases are related to linguistics, literature, culture, etc., students’ good capability

of translating the source language into the target language properly is an indispensable requirement As a matter of fact, for the first two years, the students have to attend grammar courses at the university and have to acquire a good command of language skills and a good knowledge of language usage However, for several years of teaching advanced reading, British & American cultures, and, recently, translation, I have noticed that one of the difficulties many students have is that of translating modal verbs This may be caused by their lack of translation experience and by insufficient knowledge of theories of modality Perhaps, the students will have less difficulty in understanding the semantic features of the modal verbs, but they are likely to encounter the complicated English syntactic structures, and the functional grammar of modality, for modality, in addition to expressing the propositional meanings, can convey the notions of advisability, certainty or possibility, the speaker’s attitudes, expectation, criticism, and so on when used in its specific syntactic

forms, aspects and also when interpreted in a specific context In fact, many students are unable to realize the complexity of the modality, and they find it hard to transfer it from the source language into the target language So, I decided to make a thorough study on the issue in order to know the students’ common problems, causes, and from the result of my study I will be able to suggest solutions and implications to overcome these difficult problems Also, I strongly believe that the analysis of the problems could be useful for the teaching and learning of all other subjects

2 Aims and Objectives

In this paper, basic concepts of translation problems, translation errors, sources

of errors and the theories of the modality, especially the modal verb should were

presented with an aim at analyzing common errors in English-Vietnamese translation made by the students majoring in English at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities And on the ground of the analysis of translation errors, suggestions to solve the problems were made in order to help the learners to

have a right appreciation of the modality should and be able to avoid making

mistakes in the process of translating in the future And the implications from the study could be helpful to teachers who are teaching grammar and translation

3 Scope of the Study

Modality is a large category with pairs of modal verbs like will and would, shall and should, can and could, may and might, and with single modals like must,

ought to, dare and need In this study, I mentioned only should in details The

study was applied to the students of two second year classes at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities The assignments with the most representative

structures of the modal verb should as portfolio ones were used to check the

students’ capability of English- Vietnamese translation

Chapter II: Literature Review

The chapter reviews several concepts of problems, concepts of errors, the significance of error analysis, and sources of errors In addition, this chapter also looks at several linguists’ opinions on modality, and their valuable researched work on it In the process of studying the literature review, the gap of the previous studies was realized, and the research question was made

Chapter III: Methodology

The chapter explains the methodology which mentions types, the samples, the, materials, etc This chapter also presents the methods of getting and analyzing the data

Chapter IV: Results and Discussions

The chapter presents the students’ common errors in the translating of should,

their difficulties and reasons Also, in this chapter, modality forms, aspects, specific structures, context, and concepts of translation equivalence were closely discussed again as a criterion of evaluation applied to the student’s translations

Chapter V: Conclusion

The chapter draws conclusions and suggests implications for the further study

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

2 THE CONCEPT OF PROBLEMS AND ERRORS IN TRANSLATION 1.1 The Concept of Translation Problems

The concept of translation problems is a large category which has been, up to now, controversial among linguists However, as discussing only problems with

the translation of the modality should, I would like to mention the most

fundamental concepts that teachers and learners of grammar and translation should notice

In 1994, Basil Hatim & Ian Mason [p.7] mentioned that problems the translator would have were that of the levels of equivalence between the source language and the target language Different languages, of course, have equivalence in structures, terms, meanings, etc With “formal equivalence” (closest possible match of form and content between source text and target text), the translator only needs to translate what is written and produces a certain degree of “insight into the lexical, grammatical or structural form of a source text” Basil Hatim & Ian Mason also discussed “dynamic equivalence” (principle of equivalence of effect on the reader) that helps obtain “the intended meaning of the source language speakers” in order to create effects on the target language readers

In the introduction to “A Course in the Theory of Translation [1986]” Hung also

explained that one of the translation problems was associated with “semantic and pragmatic aspects of translation” In several cases both the source language and the target language have the similarities in semantic and syntactic meanings, and thus it is easy for the translator to transfer the meanings For example, there is a straightforward word-for-word substitution between the two sentences

“Everyone should drive carefully” and, “Mọi người nên lái xe cẩn thận”

Unfortunately, this is not always the case; the translator sometimes has to rely on his competence of pragmatic translation, that is, he has to determine the meaning

of the language components through the specific context, or the specific situation, in order to produce an equivalent translation in the target language from the source language

Peter Newmark [1981: 39] indirectly mentioned the problems that the translator encounters during the translation process by explaining the methods of

“communicative translation and semantic translation” that the translator must decide on Any translator is likely to make errors if he cannot determine which method is appropriately applied to a certain text In fact, in semantic as well as in communicative translation, providing that equivalent effect is secured, the literal word-for-word translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation However, the semantic translation would be more informative, but less effective, He also stated, “Communicative translation attempts to produce

on its reader an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the

origin Semantic translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning

of the origin”, for example,

(1) A: What’s Susan’s address?

B: How should I know?

* Làm sao em nên biết? (Inappropriate)

Obviously, the semantic translation of the above sentence How should I know is

not effective But if the utterance “How should I know?”, for example, is put in a specific speech act situation in which A keeps asking B about Susan’s address while B is very busy with his work and has replied to B several times that he does not know it, then B’s utterance expresses his anger or irritation Therefore, the sentence can be transferred into Vietnamese as “Trời ơi! Ai mà biết được?” Bassnett [1980: 22] believed that one of the problems that the translator could encounter was the problem of selecting a target language phrase which will have

a meaning roughly similar to the source language one Bassnette has used the notion of “rough similarity” since in his opinion, exact translation is impossible For example, when translating “butter” into Vietnamese, there is a

straightforward word-for-word substitution: “Butter” – “Bơ” Both butter and bơ

describe the product made from milk However, within their separate cultural

contexts butter and bơ are not the same In Britain, butter is often bright yellow and salted while in Vietnam, bơ is yellow and unsalted Let’s look at another

example The word “heavy” can be translated into Vietnamese as “nặng” (a heavy bag) or “(biển) động” (heavy sea) or “(mưa) lớn” (heavy rain) In the

book translation studies, Bassnette also mentioned the problem of

“untranslatability” On the point of linguistics, this phenomenon takes place when there is no lexical or syntactical substitute in the target for a source language item For example,

(2) Where do you go?

So far problems of translation have been discussed by linguists who have given a great number of different or even contradictory viewpoints I suppose that the

problems in the translation of modality should from English into Vietnamese are

mostly related to syntactic, semantic and pragmatic translation equivalence and

to the capability of selecting the proper Vietnamese words to express all the meanings expressed by the English modality

2.2 The Concept of Translation Errors

In translation studies, it is generally agreed that a single, manageable set of categories for the classification of errors would be highly desirable Errors can

be classified by type such as the error of omission, addition, inversion of meaning, deviation, or modification Error can also be classified by effect of error; the error can affect a certain part of sentence (linguistic), the error can affect the main argument (semantic), or the error can affect the intention in a significant or negligible way (pragmatic)

In 2001, Hurtado Albir, A [p.10] mentioned the main questions that need to be taken into account in translation error classification as follows:

“The difference between errors relating to the source text (opposite sense, wrong sense, nonsense, addition, and suppression) and errors relating to the target text (spelling, vocabulary, syntax, coherence and cohesion)”

Furthermore, errors can be classified on a scale of more or less seriousness The most serious are pragmatic errors, followed by cultural and linguistic errors Other authors think that errors of sense related to the original text and those that affect the coherence and cohesion of the target text are the most serious How serious the error should depend on the extent to which it violates the norms of the effectiveness of the target text

Corder said errors are “systematic,” i.e likely to occur repeatedly and not recognized by the learner, and therefore reflect the student’s transitional competence Translation competence is considered to be the underlying system

of knowledge, aptitudes and skills necessary in order to be able to translate It consists of sub-competences classified as follows:

a) Extra-linguistic competence: the knowledge of the theory of translation, and bicultural knowledge

b) Communicative competence in both languages: the capability of comprehending the source language and expressing the target language

c) Transfer competence: the ability to perform the entire process of transfer from the original text to the final text, that is, comprehension, de-verbalization, interference, and selection of the most appropriate method of translation

d) Psychological competence: the ability to apply psychomotor skills in reading and writing, cognitive faculties such as memory, attention, creativity, logical thought, and psychological attitudes

Less seriously, Basil Hatim & Ian Mason (in House 1981) believed the term error may be reserved as “mistake” – “unmotivated mismatches of denotational meaning” between the source language and the target language and as

“breaches” of the target-language system

In brief, errors can be understood as the translator’s producing of the wrong sense, nonsense, improper addition or omission, etc in the target text from the source text Errors can be the translator’s breaching of the rules of effectiveness

of the target language In other words, a translation item has few errors if it follows “law of translation” As Hatim, B and Mason, I [1990: 15-16] suggested, the translation should give a complete transcript of the content of the original text Hatim and Mason (in Nida: 1964: 164) also formulated basic rules

of translation in which a piece of translation must be “making sense, conveying the spirit and manner of the original”

2.3 The Significance of Error Analysis

Douglas Brown [1980: 164] (in Corder 1967: 167) noted “A learner’s errors … are significant in [that] they provide to the researcher evidence of how language

is learned or acquired”

Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis focusing on the errors made by students It is believed that “errors used to be “flaws” that needed to be eradicated” Corder (1967) presented a completely different point of view of errors Errors are “important in and of themselves because, for learners themselves, errors are indispensable” Making errors is a method that the learner uses in order to learn, in which means the learner can test his hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning

Error analysis has theoretical and applied objects The theoretical object is to explain what and how a learner learns when he approaches a second language And the applied object serves to enable the learner “to learn more efficiently by exploiting the knowledge of his dialect for pedagogical purposes.”

According to Peter Newmark [1984: 53]

“Those who can, translate Those who cannot, teach translation theory, learning from their mistakes.”

I strongly believe that error analysis is of great significance in the teaching and learning of translation since the analyzing of errors is crucial for establishing appropriate remedial measures for the student when he/ she carries out the work

In addition, learning from errors can encourage self-assessment, and therefore the student is aware of the kinds of errors he makes, their causes and how to avoid them

Obviously, with the theoretical function, errors and error analysis assist teachers and learners to be aware of the methodology of the language translation With the applied function, they are essential as guidelines on the remedial measures during the translation process

3 SOURCE OF ERRORS

4.1 Interlingual Errors

Douglas Brown [1980: 173] believed that interlingual errors are related to

“negative interlingual transfer” (from the native language) They are caused by the interference which happens when a structure in the second language manifests some degree of difference from, and some degree of similarity with the equivalent structure in the learner’s first language Thus, the translation of the source language into the target language is sometimes influenced by the impacts of the translator’s native language

Jack C Richard [1995:19] (in Corder, 1971) reported interlingual errors are

“those attributed to the native language […] There are interlingual errors when the learner’s L1 habits (patterns, systems or rules) interfere or prevent him/her,

to some extent, from acquiring the patterns and rules of the second language” Interference is the negative influence of the mother language on the performance of the target language learner

Thus, interlingual errors result from language transfer It’s the influence of the mother tongue on the process of transferring the source language (i.e Vietnamese) to the target language (i.e English)

(4) Mặc dù Jack không khỏe, nhưng anh ấy vẫn đến lớp

* Even though Jack wasn’t feeling good, but he went to class

Even though Jack wasn’t feeling good, he went to class

Interlingual errors are mostly made when the Vietnamese students translate a Vietnamese sentence into English However, in this thesis, since I just focus on the English-Vietnamese translation, I will not discuss interlingual errors in details

4.2 Intralingual Errors

Douglas Brown [1980: 173] also stated that intralingual errors are those due to the language being learned, independent of the native language According to Richards [1970: 6] they are “items produced by the learner which reflect not the structure of the mother tongue, but generalizations based on partial exposure to the target language” The learner tries to “derive the rules behind the data to which he/she has been exposed, and may develop hypotheses that correspond neither to the mother tongue nor to the target language”

For example,

(5) Remember to send me a post card – Yes, I will

“Nhớ gửi bưu thiệp cho chị nhé.” – “Dạ, em hứa là em sẽ gửi cho chị mà.”

In this case if the learner is not aware of the meaning of WILL as a promise in the source language, he/ she may translate it into “sẽ”, which is improper

*“Nhớ gửi bưu thiệp cho Chị nhé” – “Vâng, em sẽ.”

Nguyen Tien Hung illustrated the intralingual errors clearly in his book “A Course in the Theory of Translation” I would like to extract some of the most typical illustrations as follows:

(6) Out came the chaise- in went the horses – on sprang the boys – in got the travellers (Charles Dickens, Pichwick Papers)

For the above example, if the students do not realize that in English inversion is employed to convey the additional meaning of rapidity of movement, they could translate (6) into:

“Xe ngựa kéo ra, mấy con ngựa được dẫn tới, mấy chú bé nhảy lên mình các con ngựa, đám lữ khách trèo lên xe.”

In fact, in Vietnamese the same meaning cannot convey by inversion Therefore,

in order to achieve adequate translation, lexical means must be used as

“Ngay lập tức cỗ xe ngựa được kéo ra, và rồi chỉ thoáng một cái các chú ngựa được dẫn tới, và rồi thoắt một cái các chú bé dẫn đường nhẩy phốc lên mình các con ngựa, và rồi liền ngay sau đó đám lữ khách vội vã trèo lên cỗ xe.” (Hung, p.11)

Another example:

(7) With the fog rolling away and the sun shining out of the sky of icy blue the travelers started on the last leg of their climb (Trevanian)

For example 7, Hung [1986: 16] also suggested the replacement of sentence types to avoid intralingual errors He said, “A simple sentence with an absolute participle or nominative absolute construction can be rendered by a subordinated complete sentence.”

“Khi mây mù đã tan đi, và mặt trời chiếu sáng trên bầu trời giá lạnh, những người leo núi mới bắt đầu tiếp tục chặng đường cuối cùng của cuộc hành trình của họ.”

Once again, if the students cannot realize this technique, they could produce an inappropriate translation like:

“Với sương mù đang cuốn trôi đi, và mặt trời đang chiếu sáng ”

Look at another illustration of his

(8) She glanced at Brenton, where he sat on a chair across her

I think the students can mistake the word “where” for the adverb of place in a an adjective clause and then translate it into “nơi mà”

“Cô liếc nhìn Brenton, nơi mà anh ấy ngồi trên ghế đối diện.”

In the case, “where” does not function as an adverb of place, but a word qualifying the sitter, so (8) must be translated as

“Nàng liếc nhìn Brenton, chàng trai ngồi ở ghế đối diện với nàng.”

Hung [1986: 22] also said that different collocability often required lexical and grammatical transformation in translation

(9) the most controversial Prime Minister

“Vị thủ tướng luôn đưa ra những ý kiên bất đồng nhất”

* “Vị thủ tướng hay tranh luận nhiều nhất.”

In addition, intralingual errors can be made during the process of translating if the translators do not understand the notions of “concretization” (a word with broad vague meanings will be concretized and translated by a word of full meaning) and “generalization” (a source-language word of concrete meaning is rendered by target-language word of a general meaning) (p.32 & 33)

(10) The rain came in torrents (came = poured)

“Mưa đổ xuống như trút nước.”

(11) “Are you out of your mind?” I asked her (asked = cried)

Tôi kêu lên: “Em bị mất trí rồi sao vậy?”

(12) “Father” she screamed, “the diamond is gone.” (gone = lost)

Nàng kêu thét lên: “Cha ơi, chiếc nhẫn hột xoàn đã bị mất rồi.”

Obviously, the word “came”, “asked”, and “gone” cannot be appropriately translated as “đến”, “hỏi” and “đi” In fact, the words “came”, “asked”, and

“gone” must be concretized in order to convey the specific meanings in each specific situation

(13) Since the shooting of Robert Kennedy five days ago about 90 Americans have been shot dead (The Guardian, 1968)”

“Kể từ sau vụ ám sát tổng thống Rô-bớt Ken-nơ-di cho đến nay tuy chỉ mới có năm ngày, ấy vậy mà đã có gần 90 người Mỹ đã bị xử bắn rồi.” Naturally, if the word “shooting” is “concretized”as “việc bắn”, the translation does not sound reasonable, for it sounds like that fact that Robert Kennedy was someone else, i.e criminal, but not the president of the United States

According to Hung, in several cases, words can be desemantized in translation

(14) If the Prime Minister’s speech made a few new points, it was states manlike And if it was stronger in terms of planned policy than of achieved results, this is often the case with political oratory (The Times, 1965)

The students could translate the word “the case” into “trường hợp” if they do not realize that the desemantized word “the case” is used as a prop-word and thus not rendered by a word equivalent in translation

Therefore, (14) can be translated as follows:

Nếu như bài diễn văn của ông thủ tướng chỉ có một vài điều mới lạ, thì đó mới thực là bài diễn văn mang tính cách của một chính khách Và nếu như trong bài có đề cập mạnh mẽ về chính sách trong tương lai hơn là kết quả của những thành tựu đã đạt được, thì điều này là tài hùng biện của người làm nghề chính trị (Hung, p.32)

“A relative free valency in the English language accounts for the free use of the so-called transferred epithet in which logical and syntactical modifications do not coincide.” (Hung, p.22)

(15) I sat down to a very meditative breakfast (M.West)

Với một dáng điệu trầm ngâm, tôi ngồi xuống ăn sáng

Logically the adjective “meditative” refers to the subject of the sentence whereas syntactically it is attached to the prepositional object This unusual attachment converts it into a transferred epithet The collocation “bữa ăn sáng trầm tư” or “bữa ăn sáng trầm ngâm” is hardly possible in the Vietnamese language

The typical illustrations mentioned above indicate that intralingual errors result from faulty or partial learning of English If the students have learned English inadequately, they are likely to make errors in translation

3 MODALITY

From syntax to prosody, modality has attracted many linguists The different ways in which different languages allow the speakers to insert themselves into their discourse, expressing their desires or opinions have become a common subject of study

3.1 Definitions and the Meaning of Modality

Palmer [2001:1] said modality was related to the “status of proposition that describes the event” Propositional modality expresses various types of desire, will or capacity, and event modality gives different information about the truth of

a proposition, that is, the relationship between “Realis and Irrealis”

David Crystal [1995:212] defined that modal verbs conveyed a range of judgments about the likelihood of events; they function only as auxiliary verbs, expressing the meanings which are much “less definable”, focused and independent than those of lexical verbs

In an article, Thanh, To Minh [2003: 164] (in Bybee and Fleischman [1995: 2] reported “modality as the semantic domain pertaining to elements of meaning that languages express” Modality expresses “semantic nuances”, jussive, desiderative, intentive, hypothetical, potential, obligative, dubitative, hortatory, exclaimative, etc

According to Angela Downing and Philip Locke [1992:382], modality can be regarded as “a semantic category” conveying such notions as possibility, probability, necessity, volition, obligation, and permission Furthermore, the modality expresses the meaning of wish, regret, doubt and desire, and temporal notions such as usuality

(14) Will you sign this for me? [Willingness]

In very general terms, modality may be considered to express a “relation with reality” Modality is related to the meaning field between realis extreme and irrealis one

3.2 Classifications

According to Roderick A Jacobs [1995: 225] modality can be divided into two major semantic categories: “action modality” and “belief modalities” Modals in terms of belief modality convey the speaker’s “belief about the likelihood” of some past, present or future situations while action modals express the “granting, the denial of permission” or indicate the “imposition of an obligation”

(16) You must now go to the barracks office [Action modality]

(17) The plumber may come this afternoon [Belief modality]

Lynn M Berk [1999: 130] said modality in English sentences was usually divided into two types – Epistemic and Deontic

3.2.1 Epistemic Modality

Epistemic modality encompasses all the ways in which speakers indicate their degree of commitment to the truth of a given proposition It allows speakers to indicate that they are certain about something, unsure about it, or deem it impossible, etc Among the most common sources of epistemic modality in

English are the modal auxiliaries can, could, should, will, may, must, and, ought

to

When Tom says, (18) “That might be Mary inside,” he is expressing doubt

When Tom says, (19) “That should be Mary inside,” he communicates greater certainty

When Tom says, (20) “That must be Mary inside,” he is indicating that the evidence is overwhelming; maybe no one except Mary is allowed to stay

in that room

Epistemic modals express the speaker’s judgments about the factual status of the proposition; they convey meanings that range from slight possibility to absolute certainty; speculative, assumptive or deductive

(23) I’ll scream if you come closer [Threat]

In general, The English language has two main types of modality: “Propositional modality and Event modality” [Palmer: p 8- 9]

The propositional modality consists of the epistemic and evidential systems; the former conveys the speaker’s judgments about the factual status of the proposition, whereas the latter indicates the evidence the speaker has for its factual status

(24) Kate must be at home [Epistemic]

(A judgment based on the observation that she is not in her office.)

(25) He is said to be extremely rich [Evidential]

The event modality includes Deontic and Dynamic The former relates to obligation or permission (from an external source) and the latter is connected to ability or willingness (from the individual concerned)

(26) The girl may/ can leave now [Deontic/ Permission]

(27) Mary can speak French [Dynamic/ Ability]

3.3 Modality and Aspects – Time Reference – Tenses – Moods

3.3.1 Aspect – Time Reference

Aspect gives a clear description to the internal time structure of an event Progress aspect refers an event to an activity in progress, whereas perfect aspect presents it as a completed activity However, when aspect is combined with a modal, this combination creates the additional information

Palmer [2001: 33] mentioned the complex interactions between modality and other grammatical phenomena, that is, “perfect aspect” Look, for instance, at

the following sentences with the modal verb should

(28) Driver should not take this road

(29) He should not have invested too much money in one company

In the first example, should is interpreted into the speaker’s belief that the taking

of the road is advisable, whereas the second example conveys the finished event

in the past that was not supposed to take place while the advisability interpretation is still valid (in reality, he invested too much money in that company)

3.3.2 Tenses

According to Roderick A Jacobs “modals don’t have tense” [1995: 220] For example, in

(30) “When Tom arrives, he might help you.”

the time of the help follows the time of Tom’s future arrival Thus might is not

used to show the past time Therefore, in order to refer to past time reference of

an event, perfect aspect is added after the modal as in

(31) He should have booked the table

Lẽ ra anh ấy nên / phải đặt bàn trước (đó)

Palmer [p.33] said the past tense forms existed in English, but he emphasized,

“It is not possible to use past tense forms of these modals to indicate a past judgment by the speaker.”

The proposition can be in the past, but the modality (the judgment) cannot

3.3.3 Mood

According to Geoffrey Finch [2000: 103], mood or modality is a feature displayed by verb phrases It refers specifically to the way in which the verb expresses the attitude of the addresser towards the factual content of what is being communicated, i.e whether it is being asserted, questioned, demanded or wished for

The grammatical category of mood relates to the “speaker’s attitude” to the event Meanings associated with mood are conveyed by the modal verbs which realize deontic meanings and epistemic ones such as “ability”, “permission”,

“volition”, “certainty”, “possibility”, “probability” and their opposites

(32) He can type [Ability]

(34) They will look after your dog [Volition]

According to Howard Jackson (p.23), mood indicates the speaker’s manner of doing things and is more related to his “interlocutor than to the action or event itself” Mood can be expressed through the use of “declarative, interrogative and

imperative clauses” The choice of mood can reflect “the attitude of the speaker

to the addressee”

(35) Close all the windows [Imperative mood]

(36) Would you please close all the windows? [Interrogative mood] (37) You should close all the windows [Declarative mood]

3.4 Modal Verb Should

Should shares most of the characteristics of modality like the other modal verbs

Semantically, the modal verb should literally conveys the notion of advisability,

suggestion, obligation or recommendation (deontic category) However, in each

specific syntactic structure, or context, should must be understood by means of

syntax – the study of the relationships between linguistic forms, or pragmatics – the study of the relationship between linguistic forms and the user of those

forms Should conveys its specific meanings such as criticism, regret, unlikelihood, annoyance, and so on For example, in

(38) It was foolish of me not to book the ticket for the concert I should have done it

the phrase like it was foolish helps the translator to recognize the special meaning of should in some extent Unfortunately, the hinting phrases are not

always used in the sentences, so what is necessary for the translator is to be

aware of all the structures of should

In English, the modality can be expressed by both grammatical means (i.e by modal verbs) and lexical means (i.e by adverbs), whereas in Vietnamese by lexical ones However, such Vietnamese modality words like “nên” or “phải”

cannot convey all the meanings of the modality should And thus, adverbs, or

interjections are used to express the meanings

(39) “Where is Mary?” “How should I know? Stop asking me about her.”

“Mary đâu?” “Trời ạ, ai mà biết Đừng có hỏi tôi về cô ta nữa.”

“Mary đâu?” “Trời ạ, làm sao mà tôi biết Đừng có hỏi tôi về cô ta nữa.” Vietnamese adverbs and interjections such as “sao mà lẽ ra, phải chi, lỡ mà, làm sao mà lại, thật là ” can be proper terms to be applied to express subtle modal meanings in English sentences conveying the speaker’s feelings, attitude, etc

4 Gap and Research Question

So far modality has been studied by many linguists Palmer [p.101 – 103] presented modal verbs in other languages, and mostly compared the modality between English and German, English and French, or English and Spanish And many linguists have accepted that each language has its own means to convey

modality In 2000, in the book - Vietnamese Functional Grammar, Cao Xuan Hao

[2000: 58] discussed modality in Vietnamese in a general sense In his opinion, modality is concerned the relationship between “realis” and “irrealis,

“possibility” or “impossibility” and “certainty” or “uncertainty” In Vietnamese,

he explained, the meanings of modality are subtly expressed by various lexical means, that is, by modality words “có thể, nên, phải” or /and adverbs like “chắc chắn là = certainly”, “có thể là = it’s possible” and so on He also presented a wide variety of modality words in Vietnamese, for example “đúng là, hẳn, chắc chắn là, tôi tin chắc là, là cái chắc ” (Certainty), “không biết chừng, có thể là, có lẽ, dường như, nghe đâu, hình như ” (Possibility), “nhỡ như, lỡ mà ” (Probability), “lẽ ra, phải chi ” (Regret) And recently, To Minh Thanh, a senior lecturer at the HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities, has

introduced her study on the modal can in English and Vietnamese with the title

Comparing Expressions Using The English Modal CAN With Those Using The Vietnamese Modal CÓ THỂ She focused on the modal verb Can and its

alternative forms, and the modal shades of meaning they convey She also

suggested ways to translate these modal expressions into Vietnamese

As for the modal verb should, in order to understand the core meanings and its modality, should must be studied on all respects – semantics, syntax, pragmatics

However, to the best of my knowledge, the concentration on the translation of

the modality should has not been thoroughly studied and discussed I suppose this

can be the reason why most of the students at the University of Social Sciences

and Humanities have difficulties in understanding the modality should, and

therefore find it hard to properly translate it into Vietnamese

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

The study was designed in order to have a general look at the students’

understanding of the modality should, and then to find out their habits of and

difficulties in translating it The analysis of the study results and comments on the students’ problems and solutions to the problems were made for the sake of teaching and learning the translation of modal verbs in general, and SHOULD in particular The study was implemented on the synthesizing and analyzing methodology

1 Population

The population of the study consisted of the students majoring English in the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City Participants in the study were 2nd year students attending Translation courses during the 2nd semester of year 2005, and two translation classes chosen at random consisted of 63 students

2 Materials

The materials in the study were composed of two items: one was a portfolio

assignment with 11 daily speeches consisting of the modal verb should from the

Web Concordancer website and textbooks as Reading 2 Cambridge, Reading 3 Cambridge, Progress to Proficiency which are being used at the university, and

so on, and the other was one questionnaire designed to ask for the students’

opinions of modality, causes of the problems of translating should, suggestions

for improvement, etc

3 Procedures

First of all, theories related to the thesis were carefully studied; the concepts of translation errors, translation problems, the significance of error analysis and the sources of errors Then, several linguists’ theories on the modality were used as the standard background of evaluating the student’s work of translation of

should

Then came the process of collecting the data which consists of two parts explained as follows:

3.1 Portfolio Assignment

During the translation course, the students were once given the assignment of the

sentences representing the structures of should so that they could try their best to

fulfill the task And for the next meeting of the class, before given back the assignment papers, the students were handed a questionnaires to answer and were encouraged to write down their opinions, suggestions, etc at will After the students had finished the questionnaire, the correction of the assignment was given to them so that they could perform the self-assessment and realize the errors they had made, which could be useful for their process of learning the

modality should, and could avoid making mistakes in the future

3.2 The Survey - Questionnaire

The participants were asked to answer the questionnaire which was related to the students’ thought of, their habits of, and their problems of translating the

modality should The data from the sentences of translation produced by the

students were collected and analyzed on the basis of the meanings of modality

should suggested by linguists such as Palmer, Angela Downing, Philip Locke,

Douglas Brown, and so on In this way, the students’ output was evaluated accurately and objectively And from what the data showed, the conclusions, and suggestions were made The results of the study could be useful for the teaching and the learning of the translation in general, and the translation of modality in particular

3.3 Data Analysis

After the assignment papers and the questionnaires were collected, the data was analyzed on the basis of the evaluation criterion discussed above in the literature review The results of the students’ papers were sub-classified into 3 categories – A good translation, an unaccepted translation and an accepted translation with insufficiency in meaning to some extent The good translations were those that were translated adequately, that is, the target language must convey the source text’s syntax, semantics, effects and the speaker’s propositions The unaccepted translations were those that were translated completely incorrectly (the translations the students produced without realizing the epistemic or deonic