Luận văn an evaluation of the vietnamese translated version of the call of the wild by nguyen cung ai and vu tuan phuong

TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER 2 OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” 2.1A brief analysis of the Source Language text 2.2 The translator’s purpose.... Therefore, the writer decides t

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN TIQ THU INEN

AN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY NGLYEN

CUNG AI AND VU TUAN PHUONG

Đánh giá bản dịch tiếng việt của tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dữ” của hai dịch giả Nguyễn CHng Ai và Vũ Tuân Phương

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215

TFanoi - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN TID THU TEN

IAN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED

VERSION OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY NGUYEN

CUNG AT AND VU TUAN PHUONG

Dinh giá bản dịch tiỗng việt của tác phim “Tiéng goi noi hoang

dữ" của dịch giả Nguyễn Cung Ái và VÑ Tuần Phương

MINOR M.A TIIESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 2215

Supervisor: Pham Thi Thanh Thuy (Ph.d)

Hanoi - 2012

3.1 Scope of the study

3.2 Method of the study

PART TI: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.3.2 Translation Qualily Assessment Models

1.3.2.1 Julianne House and her model

1.3.2.2 Peter Newmark’s model

TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER 2 OF “THE

CALL OF THE WILD”

2.1A brief analysis of the Source Language text

2.2 The translator’s purpose

2.3 Comparing the translation with the original

2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation version in the translator's

16 18

terms

2.4.2 An evaluation of the translation version in the crilic’s Lets

2.4.3 An evaluation of the translation version as a piece of writing,

independently of its original

Appendix A English version of the selected text

Appendix L Vietnamese version of the selected text

Appendix C: Evidence quoted from the original and the translated version

39

LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND TABLES

Tables and diagrams

New Mark's methods of translation

House’s Revised Schema lor the Analysis of ST and TT

Table 1: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the

translation with the original

Table 2:viđences about translators’ achievements in terms of word

choice and expressions

Table 3: Evidences about translators’ achievements in terms of using,

idioms

Table 4: More evidences aboul translators? achievements in terms of

word choice and expressions,

Table 5: Mistakes in Victnamese version int terms of grammar and

PART T: INTRODUCTION

5 Rational for the study

Translation is an issue which attracts move and more attention from many people all over the world Nowadays, in the inevitable trend of globalization and integration, not only the professional translators but also many people working in different Gelds such as health care, economy, polities, cle, are concerned about the quality of translation However, in fact, to have a high-quality translation version,

especially in the field of literature, is nol an easy task and it involves a lol of skills from the translators According to the translator Thuy Toan(1 993), to have a good translation version, the translator must not only love his job and literature but also be good at their mother longue, know foreign languages, have a thorough knowledge of culture, work cautiously and be industrious at consulting Krom his point of view, it is clear that translation is a challenging job, which requires the translator both the knowledge of the language and the background knowledge of the culture which the literary works belongs to Sometimes, due to lack of either of these or because of the translator’s carelessness, the translated version may not be concise enough Even more seriously, it can transfer the wrong message that is attached in the Literary works At present, in Viemam, works of literary translations are growing rapidly , even uncontrollably in quantity for commercial purposes , however, there has been no popular criterion for a good and valuable translated version Besides the successfully -translated masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights (Pai gié hut), Harry Porter, Nornwei no mori (Rừng Nauy), The Centaur in the Garden (Con nhin ma @ trong vudn ), there still exists ones of bad quality, for example, the Vietnamese version of “he Da Vinci Code” (Mật mã Da Vinci) by translator Bo Thu Ha (Van Hoa-Thong Tin Publisher 2006) This Inmslation receives a lot of criticism right from publication because of the mistakes that she should not have made in terms of vocabulary, grammar and descriptions For this

reason, (he minor thesis would like to focus on the evaluation of one literary translation

so that the readers can have better understanding of some models of translation quality

assessment initiated by some famous linguists in the world like Nida and Taber, Peter Newmark, and J House, ctc

Within the limitation of the minor thesis, only some of these models will be introduced, and then, the model of Peter Newmark will be applied in evaluating the

Vicinamese (ranslaled version of “The Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu

Tuan Phuong, two great and famous Vietnamese translators to point out both the

strengths and weaknesses of translated texts m comparison wilh the onginal Also, the

author would like to investigate the prominent equivalence types the translator has

achieved in translating this famous masterpiece so that other translators can get some

experiences from them

6 Objective of the study

This thesis mainly aims at answering the three research questions:

* How good is the Vietnamese version of “The Call of the Wild” according ta

Newinark’s model?

® What are the weaknesses of the translated version?

*® What might be some lessons learned from the translation version?

7 Scope and method of the study

3.1 Scope of the study

The masterpiece “The Call of the Wild” includes of seven chaplers in total Due

to the limited time for this study, only Chapter Two of this short story will be chosen as the typical analysis of the success and the shortcomings of two translators in translating

this masterpiece from English into Vietnamese The title of this chapter is “The Law of

Club and Hang” and the reason why this chapter is chosen is that the writer has had

access to this chapter since she was a fourth year student At that time, she had chances

to learn aboul this chaplor im the subject “English Tatcrature”, whieh attracts her a lol

Moreover, this is a moving chapter about the process in which the dog adapts itself to

the new harsh environment and rude owners Therefore, the writer decides to make a comparison between the original version and the translated one to see whether the

translators can transship both the comotative and denotative meaning of the source text

into the target text or not

a Method of the study

The goal of this study is to evaluate the quality of the translated version of “The

Call of the Wild” by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vin Tuan Phuong To reach this goal, I

decide lo have an imsighl inion various translation qualily assessment models by

different authors, among which Peter Newmark’s model is chosen as the main criteria for assessing the Vietnamese version of this masterpiece because of its strang points in

terms of application, that is, if is casy to follow During the assessing process,

Contrastive Analysis approach will be applied to compare and evaluate the translated version against the original one

This assessing process will be carried out as follows Furst, the original text will

be read thoroughly and comprehensively, then the source text will be compared to its

translation under the framework of NewMark’s TQA madel According to his model,

there are five main steps towards ‘'QA and the researcher is going to strictly follow

them:

¥ Step 1: A brief analysis of the ST text, streasing ils imlention and its funelional aspects

v Step 2: the translator's interpretation of the ST text’s purpose, his translation

method and the translation’s likely readership

¥ Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with

ihe original in Lerms of both sematics and syntactics

Y Step 4: an evaluation of the translation: - (a) in the translator’s terms, (b) in the

critic’s terms, (c) as a piece of writing, independently of its original

Y Step 5 Where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in

the target language culture or discipline

8 Orguniz.ation of the study

‘The study contains three main parts:

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Development This part includes two chaplers

Chapter 1: Literature Review

This parl will discuss different basic aspecis of Iranslation, which is compulsory

background knowledge for any translation assessor who wishes to evaluate the quality

of translation, including definition of translation, translation methads and procedures, translation equivalence, and {ranslation assGSSHICHI,

Chapter 2: Application of Newmark’s ‘QA model in evaluating Chapter ‘'wo of

“The Call of the wild”

In this chapter, Newmark’s five- step TQA model mentioned above will be applied in assessing the Vietnamese version of chapter 2 in the works “The Call of the Wild” by

Jack London

Finally, part 3 will deal with the discussion of the results of this study and some

conclusions will be drawn

The qualily of the translation text including both translators” strengths and weaknesses,

which ate based on the application of the model, will be discussed Also, some implications and suggestions will be made for other translators, especially in the field

of literature.

PART TI: DEVELOPMENT

CIIAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 TRANSLATION THEORY

1.1.1 Definition of translation

Translation has a long history and plays an important role in linguistics as Kelly,

1.G- a prominent figure in linguistic circle, once staled “Without translation, (here is

no history of the world” However, there have been so many different opinions of what

a translation is thal iUhas become a controversial topic se far Within the scope of this

thesis, just some famous viewpoints around this topic of some outstanding researchers

will be mentioned to illustrate this

The first is the definition made by Newmark, a well-known researcher who lias

made a great deal of important contributions to the development of translation

According to him, “Transfation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written

message and statement in one language by the same message and‘or statement in

another language” (Newmark, 1988a:7) This definition is quite evident and easy to

understand

Sharing a similar viewpoint, Catford (1965:20) considers translation “Yhe

replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by an equivalent jextual material in other language (target language)”

Along the same line, Hartman and Stork (1972:713) also gave their own

definition of translation According to them, “Translation is the replacement of a

representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a

second language.”

Bosides, there were many other authors giving their opinion Lowards this torm’s

definition such as Marlone (1988) who believes that “Jranslation is the expression in

another language (or Target Language) of what has been expressed in another, Source

Language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences” or Nida, F.A (1975:33)

who claims that: “Yrunslation consists of producing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence to the message of the source language, first in meaning and second in style”

Vrom these definitions, it is noticeable that although different authors have various ways of defining translation, there is one thing in comman in their expressions, that is, they all crmphasive the importance of finding the closest equivalence in meaning

by the choice of appropriate target language’s lexical and grammatical structures,

commurocalion silualion, and cultural context

1.1.2 Translation methods and procedures

To translate a text from a source language to the target language, the translator

must use some translation methods and procedures, someliines 2 combination of them According to Le Hung ‘Tien (2006), to be successful in evaluating the translation quality, the critic must have knowledge of the basic matters of translation theory such

as the nature of translation, translation procedure, translation methods and translation equivalence, etc Therefore, it is necessary for us to have some basic background Jmowledge about translation methods and procedures that are often used by translators 1.1.2.1 Translation methods

In terms of translation methods, Newmark (1988) suggests eight methods of translation

as int the diagram below

Word-for-word translation Adaptation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

(Newinark, 1988: 45)

It is clear from this diagram that the relationship of each method with the source language and the target language is different The position of each method (higher to lower in comparison with the source language or the target language) reflects not only the distance with the source language and the target language but also the features of the translation product created by a respective method: whether it is more alike to the source language or the target language (Le Hung Tien, 2006) For example, word-for- word translation method creates the product characterizing the most features of source

language and adaptalion give birth to a translation version which is Ihe most alike to

the target language

Each method can briefly explained by Newmark as follows

Word for word translation: The SI word-order is preserved and words translated singly by

(heir most common meaning, out of coniext

Literal translation; The SL gramuvatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL

equivalents tm the lexical words are translated singly, ont af context

Faithful (ranslation: allempls Lo reproduce the precise conextual meaning of the original

within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures

Semantic translation: takes more account of the aesthetic vahie of the SL text than faithtul traslalion, compromising om ‘meaning’ where appropriale so Lal asgoremcc, word-lay or

repetition jars in the finished version Thercfore, it ir more flexible, allows for the translatox’s

inhuitive empathy with the original

Adaptation: In adaptation, the themes, characters, plots are preserved, amd the SL culture is converted tothe TL culture and the text is rewritten

Free translation: is usmally a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called

“Intralingual translation’, often protix and pretentions, and not translation at all

Idiomatic transtalion: reproduces the “message” of the original but tends to dislorl nuances of meaning by preferting, colloquiatisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original

Communicative transtatian: attempts to render the exact contextual meaning, of the original

in such a way that both contend and language are readily acceplable and comprehensible to the

reader:

(Newmark, 1988: 45-7)

Among these methods, Newmark put emphasis on two methods, semantic and communicative translation, because from his viewpoint, “Only semantic and communicative translations fulfill the two main aims of translation, which are first, accuracy and second, economy.”(Newmark, 1988:47)

Also, in his book “A textbook of translation” (1995), he also mentions other methods including service translation, plain prose translation, information translahon, cognitive translation, and academic translation

1.1.2.2 Translation procedures

Turing to translation procedures, there still oxist some disagroements about what name to call this category Some authors use the term “procedure” while some others prefer the term “lechniques” or “stralegics” Whatever il is called, we can understand them as methods applied by translators when they formulate equivalence for the purpose of transferring elements of meaning from the source text (ST) to the target text (TT) (cited by Delisle when which page)

In this thesis, I would like to use the term “procedure” by Newmark (1988) In fact, different authors have different classifications of translation procedures However,

in fact, the terms used in their classfications sometimes overlap Therefore, here the writer just wants to mention 14 translation procedures proposed by Newmark in his bouk “A textbook of translation"(1 995) They include

Transference: it is Uw process of uansfering a SL word to a TL txt 1 includes

transliteration and it is somewhere called “transcription.”

Naturalization: it adapts the SI word first to the normal pronnnciation, then to the normal,

morphology of the ‘I'L

Cultural equivalent: it means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one however,

"they are not accurate"

Functional cquivwent; it requires the use of a culturc-ucutral word

Descriptive equivalent: in this procedure the meaning of the SLT is explained in scveral words,

Componential analysts: it means "comparing an SL word with a TL word which has a similar mearung but is not an obvious one-to-one equivalent, by demonstrating first their common and then their differing sense componente."

Synonymy: il is a "near ‘TL equivalent." Hore ecomomy trumps accuracy

Through-translation: it is the literal tanslation of common coliocations, names of organizations and components of compounds It can also be called: calqne or loan translation Shifts or transpositions: it involves a change in the grammar from SI to TI., for instance, (1) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb toa TL word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and eo forth,

Modulation: it occurs when the translator reproduces the suexsage of tbe original text in the

TL text in conformity with the current norms of the TL since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective

Recognized translation: it occurs when the translator “normally uses the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term."

Compensation: it occurs when loss of meaning in one past of a sentence is compensated in

anolher part

Paraphrase: in this procedure the meaning of the CBT is explained Here the explanation is much more detailed than that of descriptive equivalent

Couplets: it occurs when the translator combines two different procedures

“A textbook of translation”(1995)

As can be seen, in this classification, each procedure is distinguished quite clearly from each other However, in real situation of translating a text, it is essential to use a combination of them flexibly

1.1.3 Translation equivalence

1.1.3.1 Definition

Translation equivalence is the key concept of anslation theory and iLis also the main criterion in assessing the quality of a translation In the past, translation equivalence was simply defined as the similaritics and the differences between two

linguistic units of two language systems; however, nowadays, due to the swift development of linguistics and other related sciences, this definition has become more and more complicated, As a result, different authors give different concepts towards this term Newmark (1995: 48) states: “he overriding purpose of any translation should be ta achieve ‘equivalent effect’, i.e to produce the same affect (ar one as close

as possible) on the readership of translation as was oblained on the readership of the original”

Baker has another way

to define this term by pointing oul three levels of

translation equivalence basing, on the linguistic forms, that is, cquivalenee at word

level, sentence level and text level To be more concrete, she explores the notion of

non-equivalenee al different levels and in relation to the translation process including non-equivalence at word level, non-equivalence above word level, grammatical equivalence, textual equivalence and pragmatic equivalence

Adding to this various list of translation equivalence, Andrew Chesterman

(1989: 100), in "Readings in Translation Theories" desoribes that there are "various

categories of equivalence that have been proposed in the literature of translation

theory: content equivalence (often also: content invariance), stylistic equivalence,

formal equivalence, functional equivalence, textural equivalence, communicative

equivalence, pragmatic: equivalence"

From the view point of Julianne House (1977; 25), meaning equivalence is the

most essential in translation: "The essence of translation lies in the preservation of

‘meaning! across two different languages"

As can be seen, “translation equivalence” is still a complex and controversial concep Personally, Tam in favor of Tvir’s oxpression ol translation equivalence

“tiquivalence is relative and not absolute, it emerges from the context of situation

as defined by the interplay of (many different factors} and has no existence outside that

context, and in particular it ix not stipulated in advance by an algorithm for the

10

conversion of linguistic units of LI into linguistic units of L2” (twit, 1996.55) To have better understanding of this term, it is necessary to have a look at how translation equivalence is classified into different types:

1.1.3.2 Types of translation equivalence

Similar to the case of “translation equivalence definition”, at present, there are

meaning-based, and funetion-based equivalence Basing on quantilalive approach

(quantity-based}, Munday (2001) suggests five types of translation equivalence: Ono-

to-one equivalence, one-to-many equivalence, many- to-one equivalence, one-to-part-

of-one equivalence, nil equivalence From this categorization, it is noticeable that Munday mainly focused on the quantity of equivalence rather than meaning

equivalence Raker (1992) who is in favor of form-based equivalence classifies

translation equivalence into equivalence at word level (number, gender, tense) and above word level and textual equivalence (equivalence between a SL text anda ‘I'L text

in terms of information and cohesion) On the contrary, Nida (1964), who supports

function-based equivalence, distinguishes formal equivalence and dynamic translation

as basic orientations Accarding to him, formal equivalence is achieved when the SL

and TL words have the closest possible match of form and content and dynamic equivalence is achieved when the SL and i'L words have the same effect on their effective readers

As scen above, cach author has bis/her own reasons for classifyimg different,

types of translation equivalence Ilowever, with respect to three basic factors in

translating: the nalure of the message, the purpose of the author and the translalor and

the type of audience, the kind of equivalence by Koller(1979) can be considered a

satisfactory approach Basing on text meaning, Koller (1979) classified equivalence in

translation into five catagories as follows

11

>_ Denotative equivalence: the SL and the TL words refer to the same thing in the real world

> Connotative equivalence: In addition to denotative value, source and target Janguage words should alzo produce the same communicative values in the mind of native speakers of the two languages

> Text-normative equivalence: The SL and the TL words are used in the same or similar

context in their respective languages

> Pragmatic equivalence: With readership orientation, the ST and TT words have the same effect on their respective readers

» Formal equivalence: In this type of equivalence, source and target langnage have the same formal azs(hetic features, olhographic or phonological [zalures

In brief, this classification can be used as basic criteria Lo assess the equivalence of the

translation version in comparison with the original

1.2 Contraslive Analysis

As mentioned above, to evaluate the quality of a translation version, it is

necessary to find out any similarities and differences between it and the original

Because of this, it is essential to understand contrastive analysis According to lames (1980), the history of contrastive analysis (CA) starts with Lado’s Linguistics across

cultures (1987) Tn his book, Lado stated that “those elements which are similar to the

learner's native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are different

will be difficult” (Lado, 1957) Fames also believed that two earlier books on the

linguistic integration of immigrants to the USA- Weinreich (1953) and Haugen (1956)

gave Lado his impetus James (1980:3) gave a provisional definition of CA as “CA is a

linguistic enterprise aimed at producing, inverted (i.e, contrastive, not comparative) two-valued typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared” Ile considered CA as

inter-language study and applied linguistics

In short, contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a pair of languages to

identify their similarities and differences

1.3 Translation assexsment/ evaluation

12

1.3.1 Definition

In fact, this term has many other altemnative names such as “Translation quality

agsessment” as in the study of Malcolm Williams (2009), or “Translation criticism” in

the book “A textbook of translation” by Newmark(1995) or “‘Iranslation evaluation”

by Juliarme House Here are some ways of defining this term by some famous

researchers According 1o Halim and Mason, “The uysessment of translator performance is an activity which, despite heing widespread, is under-researched and

under-discussed” (Halim and Masom 1997:199, cited in Williams, 2001) From ths

definition, it cau be scen that Hatim and Mason have not given a concrete definition of

“translation assessment” but mainly emphasize the fact of assessing translation text at

that, lime and the necessity of paying more aticntion to assess translation text seriously

and more critically

Newmark (1995) also gives his own definition, however, similar to Tatim and

Mason, his focus is not really on what translation assessment actually is but rather on

the importance of translation evaluation as followed: Translation criticism is an

essential link between translation theory and its practice." (Newmark, p184)

Among famous researchers, Malcolm William’s defimition can be said to be

much clearer He defines the term “Translation Quality Assessment” (TQA) in several

aspncelx

* TỌA Ís 8 Lype 0ƒ cvaluationi"

“TQA can be quantitative or qualitative: it can be based on mathematical’ statistical

measurement (as in the case of most academic instruments) or on reader response, interviews

and questiormaires (e.g Nida)”

“TQA” can be diagnostic (determining areas for improvement at the outset of a course of study), formative (measuring progress and giving feedback during a course of study) or suinmative (measuring lhe resully 0Í icarning}”

After all, he comes to a conclusion that “Whether our focus is on products,

performance or compelence, we are exsentially irying tn determine degrees of

13

goodness when we perform IQA the approach can be prescriptive, assessing translation against criteria of aesthetic effect, usability, and mtrinsic compliance with standards of target language correctness and fidelity.”

13.2 Translation Quality Assessment Models

There are many different approaches to TQA and TQA models However, in

this thesis, T just want io mention the latter which will be the direct basts for evaluating

the translated version of the masterpiece “The Call of the wild” The concept “Models

of TQA” is nol new because il bas been iniliated by many authors such as Wilss (1974)

Koller (1974) or Reiss (1974) However, according to Le Hung Tien (2006), the models suggested by Koller, Wilss and Reiss, in spite of being very potential, lack

conerele steps to be applicd in realily Peter Newmark (1995) and Julianne House(1997) are two outstanding researchers who oreate their own models to repair these shortcomings of the previous authors Therefore, we will have deeper insight into

their models

1.3.2.1 Julianne House and her mode!

In fact, this model was first designed in the mid-seventies (House 1977,

2d.ed.1981} and recently revisited (House 1997) ‘The original functional-pragmatic

model of translation was based on a set of “situational dimensions” including three

dimensions of “language user”, which are her/his temporal, geographical and social provenance and five dimensions of “language use”, for instance, on the text's topic and

social activity and on the interaction of, and relationship between author and recipients

in terms of social role relationship, social attitude, degroc of participant involvement

and orality.” (House, 1977)

In the revisited model, she gives a clearer scheme for analyzing and comparing

original and translation texts as follows:

14

Individual textual function

Subject Participant relalionsiip + medinm

(simple/complex) + social role relationship

+ social attitude

1.anguage/text

A Scheme lor Auulyzing and Comparing Original und Transtation Texts (House, 1997: 108)

Tn this model, m order to thoroughly calegorize a text?s funclion and the

language required, House introduces the category Geme Genre here 1s defined as “a socially established category characterized in terms of occurrence of use, source and a communucalive purpose or any combination of these” (p:107) In general, the

application of her new model enables us to examine a text on four different levels

Function, Register and Language

According to Le Hung Tien (2006), the model of TQA has a clear linguistically theoretical base and concrete, detailed steps However, this model also requires

linguistic knowledge and high occupational skills of the critics and the criticism mainly

15

aims at researching languages and translation Therefore, this model has not been appled wiđely and just at axperimental level in translation studies Therefore, we will have a look at anther model of TQA by Peter Newmark

1.3.2.2 Peter Newmark’s model

Newmark (1988) gives his own model of TQA called “comprehensive criticism

of a Iranslalion” including five obvious sieps:

Step 1: A bricf analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects

Step 2: The translator's interpretation of the ST text's prirpose, his translation method and the translation’s tikely readership

Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original

Step 4: An evaluation of the translation: - (a) in the translator's terms, (b) in the critic's terms,

(©) assess the translation as a piece of wriling, independently of ils original

Sup 5: Where appropriate, ax assessiment of the likely place of the Wanstalion in the Largel

Janguage culture or discipline

Fach slap above is also made very clear im bis book: “A texilnok of translation”

(1995),

In the first step, the critic has to try to point out the author’s purpose of writing

his work, what attitude he takes towards the topic, what lype of readers hal the literary work aims at, and finally what type it is

Tn the sceond step, the critic has Lo review whether the translator bas omitted

any section of the original text and whether it affects the message that the author wishes to express Moreover, it is important to find out if any text is over-translated and to what extent the cultural moaning of the original tcxt has been changed or

transferred to the TL culture

The third step is the heart of the oritique In this step, the otitic has to choose the most selective and representative examples of the achievements and weaknesses of the translated version in comparison with the original text Then he has to group them

under general heads such as the title, the structure, or cultural words After that, it is

16

essential to analyze how the translator has solved the particular problems of the SL

text

In the fourth stop, the critic will cvaluate the referential and pragmatic accuracy

of the translation at three levels: first by the translator’s standards, second by the critic’s standards, and last as a piece of writing, independently of its original In the

first Iwe criteria, besides evaluating the achievements of the Iranslation, the crilic has

to find out if there is any semantic deficits in the translation and what are the causes of

this Tn the last criteria, he has to assess whether the translated version is written ima

natural manner, that is, neat, clegant and agreeable or not

In the last step, especially in the case of literary works such as a poem, a story

or a novel, it is casential to assess the work's potertial imporlimce wilbin the target

language’s literature by asking such questions as:“Does it have any influence on the target language’s literature and culture?” “If yes, what are the future of this translated

text?”

Again, according to Le Ilung Tien(2006), although this model is not as clear and

well theoretically hased as in the case of House's model, it has many strong points in

terms of application ‘his is due to the fact that these steps are initiated from the practical experiences of the translators Moreover, it reflects the problems and the

concerns of (he translators in the Iranslation process; therefore, il is casy Lo be carried out,

For this reason, in this thesis, the writer decides to apply Newmark’s model in

assessing the quality of the translated version of Chapter Two im “The Call of the

Wild”

1

CHAPTER 2: APPLICATION OF NEWMARK’S MODEL FOR TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CIAPTER 2 OF “TIE CALL

OF THE WILD”

‘his chapter will present the application of Newmark’ IQA model to assess the

quality of the target text To be more specific, a source text profile will be analyzed

basing on five sleps which are menlioned above Step 3 and slep 4 will be paid more

attention because they are the most important parts of translation assessment according

to New Mark Finally, a statement of quality can be drawn from such findings under

New Mark’s framework

2.1 Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional

aspects

Although “he Call of the wild” is just a short story, it is considered Jack London’s mest popular work as well as the masterpiece of his so-called “early period” Written as a frontier story about the gold rush, the story was first published in four installments in “The Saturday Evening Post” Then in 1903, Macmillan published the

story in book format

‘his story tells about the process of returning to primitivism of Buck- a dog, who lives in comfort on an estate in California but then is kidnapped and shipped to the Klondyke He becomes leader of a sledge-icam and, aller some hair-raising adventures,

finally abandons human civilization and runs wild with the wolves

Because the main character of this story is Puck- a dog, it 1s often classified as

children’s literature; therefore, the primary readership is children However, because of the maturity of its subject matter, it is a worth-reading masterpiece for the older audiences as well Tn brief, the rcadors {hal this story aims at are people of all ages who are interested in foreign literature, especially works by Jack London

During this story, Jack London always keeps an affectionate attitude towards the

animals and he demunstrates a deep understanding of their psychology and behavior

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He supposes that only by real and limitless compassion towards the animals, can humans tame them, even the fiercest one Through the story about animals, he also attaches his philosophy about an indispensible war against savage exploitation in the development of human society

The translated version of this story is printed in the collection of short stories

“Tiếng gọi nơi hoang đã” by Jack London, Inanslated directly by tree translators Marih Chuong, Nguyen Cong Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong from the original version in the book

“The Call of the Wild” published by Heinemann Rducational Books Td, London in The New Windmill scrics

The Vietnamese story collection also includes of other short stories by Jack London among which “The Call of the Wild” is banslated by two co-iranslators Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu ‘fuan Phuong “Lhe Law of Club and Fang” is the second chapter about Buok’s process of adapting itself to a new violent and harsh environment where only the club and fang has the supreme power

The primary theme of the story is about survival and a retum to primitivism According to the American literature scholar, Donald Pizer, the theme of this short story is very clear and allegorical : “the strong, the shrewd, and the cunning shall prevail when life is bestial” (Pizer, 1983:110) In addition, he believes London added

a Christian theme of love and redemplion, as is shown by Buck's refusal to revert to violence until after the death of Thomton to whom he is loyal and whom he toves.(Pizer, 1983, 109-110)

Whiting in the "Introduction" to the Modern Library edition of The Call of the Wild, U L Doctorow says the theme is based Darwin's concept of survival of the fies Tondon shows that ihe vencer of civilivation is thin and fragile, writes Doctorow, and in the story exposes the brutality at the core of humanity and the ease

with which humans revert to a state of primitivism The struggle for life in the natural

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world 1s somewhat the same as the struggle between man and man in the capital

society

In terms of genre or type, this short story is considered an animal fiction Also

in the view of Donald Pizer, the enduring appeal of the story is that it is a combination

of allegory, parable, and fable In fact, this is tue because Jack Londan attributed thoughls and insights to Buck lo mimic human traits Thanks to that, he is able lo reflect the brutality and violence of human society at that time

2.2 Step 2: the translator’s interpretation of the SL text’s purpose, his translation method and the translation’s likely readership

Comparing the translated version with the original of the masterpiece “The Call

of the Wild”, it is easy to recognize Khai Lo translators Nguyen Cong Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong do not omit any section of the source text ‘Ihe seven chapters in the origin are still kept with equivalent meaning in Vietnamese version

The language used in the translated version, in general, follows the language use

in the original version closely Most of the writer’s ideas are transferred into the second language fully and successfully Some idioms or difficult structures and vocabulary are translated into Vietnamese creatively and easy to understand, However, sometimes the translator adds or cuts details in the original version, which causes some problems This will be discussed lalor in this thesis

‘The cultural elements in the target language text are maintained and clarified, including geographical words

2.3 Step 3: A selective hut representative detailed comparison af the translation with the original

Tn this step, the rescarcher has been carefully chosen the most representative examples from the original and the translated version, from which comparison will be made ta demonstrate the success as well as the shortcomings of the latter Only same

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examples will be shown in the fust part of the table as follows and to see the whole table for details, it is essential to see appendix C

1Title [15 The law of club and fang 137 Luật của rủ củi và răng nanh

2 15 Tivery hour was ñlled wih|l37 Nóbigâysủngsốt , kimh

3 15 He had been suddenly jerked |137 Bac ddtngat bi hatmanh 7a

from the heart of civilization khôi trung tâm của những and flung into the heart of vậi nguyên thúy,

things primordial

4 15 There was unperalive need ta [138 Thường xuyên cảnh giác là

be constantly alert, tor these một nha cầu bắt buée , boi vi

dogs and men were not cho va nguéi é day không

town dogs and men They déumanrg , ching khéng

were savages, all of them, tuân theo một luat 1é gi ngoai

whe knew ne law bul the law luật của rủi củi và rằng ranh

of club and fang

experience: else he would nat

have lived to profit by it kinh nghiệm mà nó rút ra

bay cho kẻ khác , chữ nêu ko phải như vậy thì nó đã chẳng còn tổn tại đế mà vận dụng

những kính nghiệm Ấy cho

bản thân nó sau này,

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6 15 They were camped near the [138 Đoànngườivachú đồng

log store, where she, in her trại gần kho chứa gỗ Tại kho

friendly — way, — made này, cô nắng Cơ lí theo thôi advances to a husky dog the quen thân thiện của mình sản size of a full-growm wolf, lại đảnh bạn với mét con though not half so large as chó Ét -ki-mô to bằng một

không bằng một mủa voc dang cia Co li

7 15 There was no warning, only [138 Khéng có đấu hiệu báo trước

a leap in like a flash, a nao ca, chỉ có một bước nhay metallic clip of teeth, 2 leap vào nhanh như chớp , một

out equally swift, and tiếng răng đập vào nhau Curly’s face was ripped open choi nbur tiéng kim loại —,

nhanh như chớp, vả thế là

mặt Cơ lí bị rách toạc ra từ

mắt dén ham

8 16 Curly rushed her antagonist, [139 Cơlilaovàodôithủ Con

who struck again and leaped

aside He met her next rush with his chest, im a peculiar fashion, that tumbled her off her feet vật này lại đớp một cái rồi

vọt ra tội bên: một cách đặc biệt, làm cho Co li ngã

9 Tế She wever regained them 139 Gali khang cin bao gic

đứng dậy được nữa

10 16 ‘This was what the on-|139 Vì chùh đóláđiể umà bấy

looking huskies had waited súc vật đứng nhìn kia đã chờ đọc đợi

'Table 1: À sdecHve bú reqesenfative detalfed comnarlsan af rhe translatlan with the ariginal

(See more in Appendix C) 2.4 Step 4: an evaluation of the translation

2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation in the translator’s terms

The researcher is going to assess the Vietnamese version of “The Call of the Wild” basing on the analysis of the evidences compared above Both the success as well as the weaknesses of the translated version will be pointed out clearly

First of all, the success that the translators have achieved in their translation is as follows

In general, basing on Koller(1995)’s classfication of wranslation equivalence as

menkioned in lileralure review, lwo translators have been very successful in achieving,

both both denctative and connotative equivalence in their translation version

In terms of syntactics it is can be said that two translators have been very successful in transfering some English structures into Vietnamese structures flexibly and naturally It can be seen in examples 2, 4, 13, 27, 37, 47, 49, 54, 58, 61, 67, 72,73 (See detail examples in Appendix C)

One case in point is example 4: “There was imperative need to be constantly alert” Normally, according to word order in linglish structure, this sentence can be

translated into: “ed mt hu cau bat bude 1a phai thong xuyén canh giac” However, i

would sound awkward to Vietnamese readers because in Vietnamese, they rarely use structure “there is” in such a case In this situation, two translators have been very

excellent in translating il into “Thudng xuyên cảnh giác là một nhu cầu bất buộc”

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Another example that should be taken into account is example 30: “He had one peculiarity which Buck was unlucky enough to discover Ie did not like to be approached on his blind side” In English, passive structures arc frequently used; however, Vietnamse language seems to follow the opposite tendency Active voice tends to be more natural and clearer Thanks to their thorough understanding of this difference between grannnar of two languages, two Lranslators have translaled this

sentence inte: “Lão có một tính đặc biệt , thật không may mà Bắc đã phải hiện ra: lão không thích kế nào sàn đến gần hên mặt mù của lão ” instead of“ lăn không thích

bị sản dến gần bên mặt mù của lão”

Besides the achievements in terms of syntactics, the translation version is also very successfil in lorms of semantics This

clearly reflected m word choice art

expressions This phenomenon can be seen in a lot of examples in Chapter ‘Iwo Within this thesis, the researcher just take some examples for analysis in the table below:

76 18 | By evening Perraut secured [142 Pen tối hôm ấy, Dêrôn kiểm

another dog, an old husky, được thêm một con chỏ nữa,

long and lean and gaunt, with một lão chó Èf-kiamô già,

a batile-scarred face and a mình đài, gẫy guốc, có về dữ single eye which flashed a ton, với bộ mặt có những

warning of prowess that vất seo chinh chién, va chi commancled respect còn một con mất độc nhất

trong đó rực lên dẫu biện của sự can đảm, khiến kẻ khác phải kính né

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robbed him of his unfinished điến cướp luôn ca phan cửa

'Table 2:Evidences about translafnrs' achievemenis in terms of ward choice and expressions

In examples 76 and 77, the translators have not only maintained denotative meaning bul also transferred connolative meaning very well,

specially commotation of

evaluation In the story, all the dogs are personified with different characteristics For each dog, Jack London always attaches his evaluation of them through the way he

describes hem and lwo translators Mexibly transferred those altitudes into Victnamesc

As the new dog here, Sol-leks, is old, the translators use the pronoun “ldo” to describe him, and other expressions such as “chin chiến”, “rực lên đâu hiệu của sự can dam”

show that the dog is an experienced one and other dogs should feel respect for him On the other hand, for Buck, the main character of this story as well as a young dog, Jack

London always keeps a lender and loving attitude towards him Therefore, im this case,

it can be recognized that no word is better than the translators’ word: “cu cau” to call

him Moreover, the Vietnamese expression “khanh an”, and “xéng dén cudp” are used

successfully here lo emphasize the contradiction between Buek and his brutal (friends

Besides, thanks to their knowledge of Vietnamese culture, two translators also utilised many equivalent Vietnamese idioms and phrases, which made the

translation version very smooth and natural,

7 15 There was no waming only [138 Khéng cd dau hiéu bao trade

a leap in like a Mash, a nao ca, chi vé mét bước nhảy

metallic clip of teeth, a leap vào nhanh như chớp , một

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ouL equally swill, and Curly’s face was ripped open from eye to jaw

tiếng răng đập vào nhưau chai

như tiếng kim loại, mỗi một

bước nhảy ra cũng nhanh

17 16 Spilz ran out his longue and [140 Kia Xpit lai the lướia mã

laugh again, and from that cười Kế từ luc ay , Bắc mãi

with # bitter and deathless XpíL hatred

28 18 So terrible was hịs|l42 Trông điện mạo của nỏ đến

appearance that Spits was phát khiắp làm cho Xpit

forced to forego disciplining buộc phải thôi không con him; but to cover his own đảm ghép nó vào khuôn vào

đïscomiiure he tumed upơn phép gì nữa Nhưng đề gỡ lại the inoffensive and wailing thể diện Xpit lại quay sang

hay kêu ran kia

34 18 one other and even more cach of them possessed | 143 moi ga déu co mot ham

mang tinh chất còn sinh tử hơn nhiều

'Table 3: Evidences aboul Iranstsdors' achievernens lai terms of using idioms

As can be seen from this table in the translated version, the phrases “like a Mash”, “metallic”, “a biller aud deathless hatred”, “inollensive”, “vital ambition” are

respectivly translated into “nhanh nhu chép”, “choi nhu tiéng kim loại”, “ghét cay ghét

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