Luận văn substitution as a grammatical cohesive device in english narrative in comparision with its translation into vietnamese

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INFERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES NONG VAN HAI SUBSTITUTION AS A GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE DEVICE IN E

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INFERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

NONG VAN HAI

SUBSTITUTION AS A GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE

DEVICE IN ENGLISH NARRATIVE IN COMPARISON

WITH ITS TRANSLATION INTO VIETNAMESE

(Phép thể như phương tiện liên kết ngũ phap trong vantran

thuật tiếng Anh so sánh với bản dịch sang tiếng Việt)

M.A Minur programme thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15

HANOI, 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACTLTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUMES

NONG VAN HAL

SUBSTITUTION AS A GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE

DEVICE IN ENGLISH NARRATIVE IN COMPARISON

WITTLITS TRANSLATION INTO VIETNAMESE

(Phép thế như phương tiện liên kết ngữ pháp trong văn trần thuật tiếng Anh so sánh với ban dich sang tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor nrogrammc thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Cade: 60.22.15

Supervisor: Dr DUONG THI NU

TIANOI, 2011

1.2.3 Types of Cohcsiow nọ nhe seecreeocve T2

2.1 English Substitution Devices:

vì

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

‘Table 1 Type of cohesion

Table 2 Grammatical and Lexical cohesion

Table 3 Occurrences aud frequency of cohesive items of substitution in Corpus A Table 4, Occurrence and frequency of Viemamese solutions to the English

substitution device

Figure t: Reference

semiotic event From the beginning of its appearance, Discourse Analy:

tp in a variety of social science disciplines It is now a rapidly expanding field,

providing insights into various aspects of language in use and therefore of great

importance to language teaching Tn Ihe carly days, language teaching has been concemed with pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, however, it was not until

Discourse Analysis tured up thal our awareness of how to pul this knowledge into

action to gain successful communication was raised

Literature, which plays a very important role in our spiritual life, has been

greally developing as a consequence of the Ingh hving slandards As a maticr ol”

fact, there have been more and more people choosing to work in the literary field and their efforts have created so many famous works It is open to questions as to

which factors have to be taken into consideration to make a successful work How

important are those factors to the completion of a coherent and cohesive text? Added to this, the knowledge of cohesion and coherence are actually regarded as

the crucial aspecis of language usage

Cohesion is considered one of the most challenging aspects of translation, as any language has its own unique manners in which it employs cohesive devices in the creation of a cohesive text Each language has its own patlerns to convey the interrelationships between persons and events; these patterns may not be ignored in

a language if the readers understand what the translator wants to convey The topic

of cohesion has always appeared as the most useful constituent! of discourse analysis that is applied to translation English and Vietnamese have different granunars and

vocabulary structures, and it is only nalural that they pose great difficulties and

challenges for a translator to deal with, especially in the field of literature.

ba

Those reasons mentioned above are the most important ones that have encouraged the author to conduct the study entitled “Substitution as a Grammatical Cohesive Device in English Narrative in Comparison with Its Translation into Vietnamese” 1 hope that this study may help teachers and leamers of foreign language have an overall viewpoint on grammatical cohesive devices

2, AIMS OF THE STUDY

Based on the detailed classification of cohesive devices in English of Halliday and Hasan (1976), this study provides a close analysis of a particular grammatically cohesive device employed in English and its equivalence in the

Viemamese translation This paper aims to study from a quantitative and a

qualitative point of view the possible shifts of cohesion in translation in literary

texts and solutions adapted to the Vietnamese translation

Funthermore, (his study compares the lranslation strategies What, banslators use in transferring substitution from an Linglish literary text to its Vietnamese

translation This may pose preat difficulties and problems because of the difference

between the lwo languages

In order to achieve the aim of the study, some following research questions are raised

1 What are the possible shifts of cohesion within the text of translation in the field of literature?

2 What are the main problems that may occur in translation through the use

of substitution?

3 What are the possible solutions adopted in the Vietnamese translation of a

literary text?

3, SCOPL OF THE STUDY

As Discourse Analysis has a very broad scope which lms a very close

relationship with many other aspects of language study, it is impossible for the author to refer to alt of its characteristics Thus, within this study, the author just

mentions some background knowledge about Discourse Analysis as well as coherence and cohesion

Halliday and Hasan (1976) make a detailed classification of the cohesive devices in English These authors distinguish between grammatical and lexical cohesion According to them, grammatical cohesion embraces four different devices: Reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction ‘This study will only focus on analyzing how substitution is used as a device of grammatical ochesion in

English narralive and ils translated vorsion into Victnamese

4, METHODS OF THE STUDY

To carry out this study, two litorary corpora wore used They were identified

as Corpus A and Corpus B The former was composed of the original texts written

in English entilled “pride and prejudice” and it was made up of 121.728 words

‘The latter consisted of 141.370 words which was the Vietnamese translated version

of those very same texts The literary text was chosen for analysis because it is a

famous literary work of Jane Austen Added to this, T have read both the orginal and the Vietnamese translated version for several times and find this story very interesting to make an analysis Both corpora have a digital format and are available on the internet Detailed information about the translations was not available

In the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted for analysis And the analysis was conducted in the following steps

- Mirstly, make an identification in corpus A of the substitution devices

employed in English based one the classification theory of Halliday and Hasan The

identification of such items was camed oul wilh the help of a concordance

Ww

programme named Antcone 3

- Then, locate the equivalent linguistic expressions in Corpus B

- Finally, discuss and analyze the solutions adopted in the Vietnamese

translation.

5 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

This study is divided into three main parts

Part A is he introduction which inchudes rationale, aim, scope, method and design

of the study

Then Part B is the development which consists of 2 chapters in which chapler one is about the theoretical background of the study and chapter two is the analysis of substitution as the device of grammatical cohesion in English narrative in

comparison with ils Viclwamese translated version

Part C is the conclusion which describes a sumunary of the present study with some interesting findings

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CIIAPTER }: TIIEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Discourse

1.1.1 The Concept of Discourse

There are different ways of understanding and defining discowse Halliday (1985) defines “Discourse is a multidimensional process” According to Crystal (1992) discourse is seen as “a continuous stretch of language larger than a

sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or

narrative” Cook (1989) has a similar perspective of discourse; he considers discourse as “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive” In olhcr words, as Brown and Yule stale, discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by speakers (and writers) of the

language

Since its introduction to modem science the term “discourse” has taken various, sometimes very broad, meanings In order to specify which of the numerous scnscs is analyzed in the following dissertation it has to be defined Originally the word “discourse” comes from Latin “discursu’” which denoted

“conversation, speech” Thus understood, however, discourse refers to too wide an area of human life, therefore only discourse from the vantage point of linguistics, and especially applied linguistics, is explained here

There is no agreement atong Hnguists as Lo Lhe usc of the term discourse in

that some use it in reference to texts, while others claim it denotes speech which is for instance illustrated by the following definition: "Discourse: a continuous stretch

of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, offen consliluting a coherent

unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative” (Crystal 1992:25) On the other

hand, being aware of the differences between kinds of discourses indicates the unity

of communicative intentions as a vital element of each of them Consequently she

suggests using terms ‘text! and ‘discours almost interchangeably belokening the former refers to the linguistic product, while the latter implies the entire dynamics

of the processes According to Cook (1994:7) novels, as well as short conversations

oF groans might be cqually rightfully named discourses

Seven criteria which have to be fulfilled to qualify either a written or a

spoken text as a discourse have been suggested by Beaugrande (1980) These

imelude:

«Cohesion - grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence essential

for ils inlerprelation,

* Coherence - the order of statements relates one another by sense

+ Intentionality - the message has to be conveyed deliberately and

consciously,

* Acceptability - indicates that the communicative product needs to be

satisfactory in that the audience approves it;

+ Informativeness - some new information has lo be incluced in the discourse, + Situationality - circumstances in which the remark is made are important;

+ Intertextuality - reference ta the world outside the text or the interpreters’

achernala,

Nowadays, however, not all of the above mentioned criteria are perceived as cqually important in discourse studies, therefore some of them are valid only in

certain methods of the research (Beaugrande 1980: 49)

1.1 Spoken and written discourse

Talking and writing represent different modes of expressing linguistics aneanings As staled by Halliday (1985) “Speaking docs not show clearly sentence

and paragraph boundarics or signal the move into direct quotation while writing leaves out the prosodic and paralinguistic contribution” While written discourse cơmpriao complele senlences with subordination, rich lexis and frequent modifications via adjectives and adverbs, spoken contains incomplete sentences Although spoken and written discourses share the communicative functions, they serve various fimetions The former is concerned with interact ional use and the

latter with the transactional use (Brown and Yule, 1983: 13)

By comparison, writing language is under no temporal, spatial pressure The

wriler has lime lo choose lexical ilems, check words and structures to make

necessary correction which is primarily concerned with the transactional use Spoken language, as stated by Brown and Yule (1983), is the kind of language which is produced under some temporal, spaliat pressure with the speaker's monitoring of what it is that he has just said, determining his current phrase and

simultaneously planning his next utterance and which is primarily concemed with the interactional use

‘There are three prominent features that oan apply to distinguish written and spoken discourse

1 Density: the density is the information volume presented Evidently, written language is dense while spoken language is sparse

k2 Complexity of grammar: in spoken language grammar is nol so important,

but information For written language, it is important to maintain enough

information, appropriate grammatical structures as well as rational

organization of sentences

3 Grammatical metaphor: Written language presents rather few different verbs, whereas spoken language uses more verbs

These above characteristics are inherent in spoken and wrilten language in

whatever types of discourse Written texts can be read out and heard such as letters,

stories, novels, contracts, reports, speeches Moreover, spoken discourse such as

lecttrcs, lcssons, infcrvicws, conversations and so on can also be reserved in the

establish and maintain personal reference, and highlight certain events above others

This facilitates a more natural flow of information that represents normal communication The assessment of narrative discourse has received notable

allention in the specch-language literature The study of discourse in individuals

with compromised brain function offers a method for testing the interaction of the

multiple cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and organization that

involved in the production of discourse

Narrative discourse typically contains characteristics of cohesion Cohesion

is a semantic concept; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within a passage, spoken or wrillon, and define il as a passage Glosser (1993: 191) noles that discourse cohesion occurs via linguistic devices that index interconnections of multiple segments of the discourse Mare specifically, cohesion occurs in narrative discourse via the use of cohesive markers, which are words that direct the listener to information found outside individual sentences Therefore, cohesion is a semantic relationship between an element in the passage and same other element that is

crucial {0 ifs translation The cohesive marker creates a Ge with Lhe information found outside the sentence and establishes a meaning relationship across sentences

within the passage

Halliday and Hasan (1976) proposed ä methodology [or cohesion analysis and noted that the basic concept employed in analyzing cohesion of a passage is that

of the cohesive tie The tie includes the cohesive element in addition to that which is

presupposed by the cohesive clement, Five categories of cohesive clements or

markers were dofined by Halliday and Hasan: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical markers or general nouns Reference consists of personal, demonstrative, and comparative pronouns (eg Ux motorbike belongs lo her) Substitution is a relation in the wording rather than meaning Substitutions are alternate words used in the place of a repetition of a particular item (e.g., Our television is broken We need 10 buy a new one) Ellipsis is the omission of an item (eg, Did you hear the uews? No, ouly the weather) Conjunetions are cohesive indirectly as they express certain meanings that presuppose the presence of other

discourse components

1.1.4 Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is a primarily linguistic study examining the usc of

language by its native population whose major concern is investigating language

functions along with its forms, produced both orally and in writing Moreover,

identification of linguislie qualities of various genres, vilal [or their reeogrition and interpretation, together with cultural and social aspects which support its comprehension, is the domain of discourse analysis To put it in another way, the branch of applicd linguistics dealing with the examination of disvourse allempls lo find patterns in communicative products as well as and their correlation with the circumstances in which they occur, which are not explainable at the grammatical level (Carter 1993: 23)

Discourse analysis is a branch of linguistics that studies language use in relation to social factars that influence our daily interactions It deals with the way

people use language in its appropriale context F.c, in certain ways to have certain

affects; In order to construct versions of their expressions according to Yule

(1996:83): “when it is restricted to linguistic issue, discourse analysis focuses on the

record (spoken and wrillen) of the process by which language is uscd in some contexts to express intention.” The focus of discourse is any form of written or a

spoken language such #8 conversalion, dialog, arlicles, books and so on Discourse

analysis is often described as “language in use” by means; the way of understanding

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sooial imteraction, and hơw written and spoken texts arc used in a specific contexts

to make meanings “It tends to focus specifically on aspects of what is unsaid or unwritien (yet communicated) within the discourse being analyzed” (Yule, 1987.84), So discourse analysis is all what people perceive or think about any given topic

1.2 Cohe:

m 1.2.1 The concept of cohesion

The concept of cohesion is closely commected with text Tis defined as the grammatical and lexical relationship between different elements of a text

According to Yule (1996), a text is usually considered 1o have a certain structure

which depends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of single sentence Some among those factors are described in terms of cohesion, or

the lies and connection which exist within a Lext

Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) also define cohesion in a similar way: "Ihe concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within a text, and that defines it as a text" They also point out that echesion often occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another

Baker (1992) relates cohesion to the study of textual equivalence defiming it

as “the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations which provide links between various parts of a text” The important role af cohesion is to build up senicnces in any given text This comos through the linking of different parts of a

text to each other so that it gives a structure to a text It helps in hanging sentences together in a logical way, for having a right meaning So, cohesion has a relation

with (he broader concep! of coherence

1.2.2 Coheston vs Coherence

The distinction between cohesion and colicrencc bas uol always becn clarified partly because both terms come from the same verb cohere wluch means

11

sticking together In fact, cohesion is the network of different kinds of fonnal relations that provide links between or among various parts of a text, and is expressed partly through the grammar and parlly through the vocabulary Coherence, in contrast, can be understood as the quality of being meaningful and unified As for Numan (1993), coherence is "the feeling that sequences of sentences

or ullerances seem La hang together”

‘The concept of cohesion refers to relations of meaning that exist withm the text, and that defines it as a text Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some

element in the discourse dependent on thal of another

Cohesion is the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations which

Tink various paris of a lexi These relalions or lies organize and, to some extent, create a text, for instance, by requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions

by reference to other words and expressions in the surrounding sentences and

paragraphs Cohesion is a surface relation and il connects together the actual words

and expressions that we can see or hear

Ualliday and Llasan (1976) identify five main cohesive devices in English: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion

Hig American Life Inc pays the mortgage on each property from its own

funds until the morgage is paid in Cull The Company’s principals have made

personal guarantees covering all debt and no debt is cross-collateralized among the properties and partnerships

Roading this example, we can understand that there is a link between

‘American Life Inc." and ‘the Company”

Coherence, on the other hand, is defined as the relationships of various ideas

in a text that are linked together to create a meaningful discourse According to Nunan (1993) coherence is “the feeling that sequences of sentences or utterances

seems to hang together and make sense In short, coherence means the relationships

that Hmk the mecanings oŸ ufteranccs Im a điscoursc or cŸ thể senfcnccs in a text

‘These links may be based on the speakers’ shared knowledge

Fig The aviation business includes handling aircrafts and passengers, offering security check, services of security guard, fire fighting and other ground services

Tn the above example, there is a conceptual relationship among the aviation business and other terms in the text

Though cohesion and coherence, in essence, is different from each other,

they are closely lmked together They represent the very esserilial elements thal

make a text or discourse coherent and that make coherent text or discourse different from random sentences or utterances Cohesion is mainly used to embody ovherence by a system of cuhesive devices Aveordingly, cohesion and coherence help consolidate the text as a complete and unified linguistics unit beyond the

largest syntactic unit of sentence

1.2.3 Types of Cohesion

According to Halliday and Iasan (1976), the classification of cohesion is based on the linguistic fon, The lype of cohesion depends cilher on semantic relation in the linguistic system or on lexico-grammatical relations In other words, the cohesive relation can be interpreted as being either lexico-grammatical in nature

or semantic, It can be made clearer in the following description:

Nature of cohesive relation ‘Type of cohesion

Relatedness of reference collocation

Semantic connection Reference; lexical reieration, Conjunction

Reference, substitution and cllipsis arc clearly granunatival; lexical cohesion,

as the name implies, lexical Conjunction is on the borderline of grammatical and

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the lexical: the sct of conjunctive exprossions Involve lexical selectio However, it

is better to put it in the group of grammatical cohesion as it is mainly grammatical

wilh a lexical component inside Consequently, we can refer to grammatical

cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:

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cxamples, the author attempts to go into detail with cach type with a view to giving

an overall background of grammatical cohesion

Reference

To begin with, in the view of Ialliday and Iasan (1976:32), reference is a semartic relation and "siec the relationship is on the semantic level, the reference item is in no way constrained to match the grammatical class of the item it refers

tot

The two authors also đísimgunsh sinahonal and lextual reference very

elewly by contrasting exophora (or exophoric reference) and endephora (Le, endophoric reference) as follows:

(Source: Halliday and Hasan, 1976:33}

They then conchide hal reference items may be exopheric or endophorie; and if endophoric, they may be anaphoric or cataphoric ‘these two authors also indicate: "There are items in every language which have the property of reference"

Tn English, those ilems belong to anaphoric and alaphorie reference, The firal

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consists of items which point the readers or listeners backwards to a previously mentioned entity, process or state of affairs ‘lhe second, on the other hand, points the readers or listeners forward further ilo the text im order to idenlily elements to:

which the reference items refer

To take an example, let us look at the opening lines of a famous English novel, Jude the Obscure The author, Thomas Hardy, shows dilTerenl types of

reference at work:

The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everyhody seemed sorry The

miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to carry

his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle

providing of quite sufficient size for the departing teacher's effects

Tn this example, there are both anaphoric aril exophoric reference The followings are detailed analysis of such types of reference

+ Anaphoric Reference:

Tn the first sense, kim in “lent bir the small white tilted carl” is the

schooimaster introduced earlier, His destination is the schoolmaster’s and such a

links back to che cart in the previous sentence; therefore, all the expressions “han,

his destination, such a” ave referred to as anaphoric reference

+ Exophoric Reference:

The novel opens with "the schoolmaster" leaving “the village" We have no

information about which schoclmaster and which village that the writer is referring,

to In this case, the author expects us to share a world with him, independent of the

text, with typical villages and their populations (everybody), their schoolmaster and

miller ‘these ones are exophoric reference

Now consider the following example of reference with the pronoun "she":

Although she w

all tired, my sister managed fo go to school

in this particular text, neither anaphoric nor exophoric reference supplies the identity of "she", we have to read on, and are given the identity in the following part

of the sentenec “She” here is cataphoric reference.