translation equivalence of terms in quan ho bac ninh folk songs = tương đương trong dịch thuật ngữ dân ca quan họ bắc ninh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE VƯƠNG THỊ THANH NHÀN TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE OF TERMS IN QUAN HO BAC NINH

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE

VƯƠNG THỊ THANH NHÀN

TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE OF TERMS IN QUAN HO

BAC NINH FOLK SONGS

( Tương đương trong dịch thuật ngữ dân ca Quan Họ Bắc Ninh)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE

VƯƠNG THỊ THANH NHÀN

TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE OF TERMS IN QUAN HO BAC

NINH FOLK SONGS

( Tương đương trong dịch thuật ngữ dân ca Quan Họ Bắc Ninh)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lê Hùng Tiến

Hanoi - 2012

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… …ii

ABSTRACT……… ………….……….… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……….…….…… iv

LIST OF TABLES……….……… viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……… ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION………1

I Identification of the problem and rationale for the study……… 1

II Aims of the study……….….2

III Scope of the study……….……3

IV Significance of the study……… 3

V Organization of the study……… 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ………….……….5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……… 5

I Translation equivalence……… ………… 5

1 Definitions of translation ……… ………… 5

1.1 From linguistic approach……… ……….5

1.2 From cultural approach ……….……… ……… 6

2 Different theories of translation equivalence……… …….8

2.1 Concepts of “equivalent effect” in translation ……… 8

2.2 Concepts of “non-equivalence” in translation………….…… 11

3 Translation of culture-specific concepts……… ……16

3.1 Different views on culture-specific concepts……… 16

3.2 Translation strategies for culture-specific concepts………… 17

II Terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs as culture-specific concepts.24 1 Description of Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs……….… 24

1.1 Origin of Quan Ho singing ………24

1.2 Performance of Quan Ho songs ………25

1.3 Quan Ho song lyrics ……….26

1.4 Quan Ho singing outfits ………27

2 Outstanding features of Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs……… 27

2.1 From artistic aspect………27

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2.2 From cultural aspect………28

3 Quan Ho Bac Ninh terms as culture-specific concepts………29

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODS……… ………….………30

I Phase 1: Identification of QHBN terms in Vietnamese………30

1 Data collection methods………30

1.1 Document review………30

1.2 Observation ………31

1.3 Interviews ……… 31

2 Data analysis methods ………32

II Phase 2: Analysis of QHBN terms in English ………….……… ….38

1 Data collection methods……… 38

1.1 Document review………38

1.2 Observation ………39

1.3 Interviews… ……….39

2 Data analysis methods ………39

3 Phase 3: Creation of QHBN glossary ……….39

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ……… 40

I What are translation strategies for terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs? 1 Transference………45

2 Literal translation ………45

3 Reduction ………49

4 Cultural equivalent ……… 50

5 Descriptive equivalent ……….52

6 Couplets ……… 53

II What are suggested translations of terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs? ……….55

PART C: CONCLUSION ……… 60

I Summary of key findings ………60

II Limitation of the study ……….61

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III Recommendations for further studies ……….62

REFERENCES……….64 APPENDICES ………I

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

QHBN: Quan Ho Bac Ninh

SL/ ST: Source language/ source text

TL/ TT: Target language/ target text

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: QHBN terms in Vietnamese

Table 2: English equivalents of QHBN terms

Table 3: QHBN terms translated by literal translation

Table 4: QHBN terms translated by reduction

Table 5: QHBN terms translated by cultural equivalents Table 6: QHBN terms translated by descriptive equivalents Table 7: QHBN terms translated by couplets

Table 8: Glossary of key terms in QHBN folk songs

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Identification of the problem and rationales for the study

Quan Ho Bac Ninh singing was recognized as an intangible cultural heritage

of humanity at the fourth session of the UNESCO International Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage, which took place in Abu Dhabi, UAE, from September 28 to October 2, 2010 After that, Vietnam snapped into action to protect its indigenous art form In October 2011, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism claimed that Quan Ho singing had been listed as

a cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding Among the measures taken

to preserve and promote the heritage, introducing Quan Ho Bac Ninh documents in English to international friends is an indispensable part However, the translation process has encountered a number of challenges due

to the following reasons:

 As a cultural heritage of humanity, Quan Ho Bac Ninh is characterized

by its distinction in local customs, musical features and singing outfits Then the terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh are considered culture-specific concepts In translation theory, non-equivalence caused by culture-specific items has put an unanswered question and this issue calls for more researches from translators as well as theorists to figure out better solutions

 Remarkable efforts in the field have been made with the introduction of many articles and journals about Quan Ho Bac Ninh written in English However, terminological inconsistency has existed among those documents

A glossary will help to standardize the way Quan Ho terms are translated and increase the quality of products made by different translators Once the

glossary is provided, confusion among the target readership will not occur

These above grounds have encouraged the researcher to conduct a study on

“Translation Equivalence of Terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh Folk Songs”

The study is hoped to be a modest contribution to the field

II Aims of the study

The study is firstly aimed at examining the problem of non-equivalence caused by culture-specific concepts like Quan Ho Bac Ninh terms so that solutions to overcome the difficulties will be worked out Then, the study will highlight a number of strategies to deal with Quan Ho Bac Ninh terms as culture-specific items Finally, several suggested translations of key terms in Bac Ninh Quan Ho folk songs will be given

In brief, these aims can be summarized into two research questions as follows:

- What are the strategies to form equivalents of terms in Quan Ho Bac

Ninh folk songs?

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- What are the suggested equivalents of terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk

songs?

III Scope of the study

Within the limitation of time and reference materials, the study will address the problem of non-equivalence rather than stretching efforts in other differnt aspects of translation equivalence In addition, the researcher will not focus

on all the terms used in Quan Ho singing documents Only some key terms

related to the following points will be discussed:

- Quan Ho singing origin and social practice (with major focus on

several customs)

- Quan Ho singing forms

- Quan Ho singing tunes

- Quan Ho singing techniques

- Quan Ho singing outfits

IV Significance of the study

Once being completed, the study will serve as one of the initial small-scale researches on the non-equivalence in translation of Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk terms with different strategies to cope with the problem

When the findings of the study are revealed, there might be several implications for those working on translating Quan Ho singing documents to take them into consideration The glossary of key terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs will certainly be an effective supporting tool for those who take interest in this type of music and want to introduce it to international friends

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The proposed study is also expected to be a practical guide and benefit future researchers in related fields There might be opening doors to other aspects of translation that need to be explored

V Organization of the study

The study is divided into three main parts:

Part A - Introduction identifies the central problem and introduces major

objectives of the study which are shown in the two research questions The

scope and significance of the study are also stated Part B – Development is covered by three chapters Chapter 1 – Literature review presents a review of relevant researches associated with the problem addressed Chapter 2 –

Research methods describes the research methods used for data collection and

analysis Chapter 3 – Findings and discussion contains an analysis of the data and presentation of the results Part C - Conclusion offers a summary of the

study's findings, implications for practice, and recommendations for future

research

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Part B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter explores the present state of knowledge regarding the topic under discussion A critical review of major works on translation will be given An investigation of several key concepts including “translation”, “equivalence”

vs “non-equivalence”, “culture-specific items”, “translation strategies”,

“Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs” will be provided so that the research gap could be clearly identified, creating reasonable grounds for the study

I Translation equivalence

1 Definitions of translation

1.1 From linguistic approach

It has been long taken for granted that translation deals only with language Cultural perspective, however, has not yet been brought into discussion The first definition presented by Catford (1965: 20) refers to translation as the

“replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language” Yet, it is still vague in terms of the type of

equivalence Culture was not taken into account

Next, Nida and Taber (1969) explain the process of translating as follows: Translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style

In the definitions of translation during 1960s-1970s, some similarities have been found:

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 there is a change of expression from one language to the other

 the meaning and message are rendered in the TL

 the translator has an obligation to seek for the closest equivalent in the TL Yet, there is no indication that culture is placed emphasis on

The inclusion of cultural perspective in the definition of translation unfortunately does not continue The later ones keep on not touching this matter For example, "translation involves the rendering of a source language (SL) text into the target language (TL) so as to ensure that the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and the structure of the SL will be preserved as closely as possible, but not so closely that the TL structure will be seriously distorted (McGuire, 1980: 2)

Newmark‟s definition about translation was introduced in 1981, with major focus on linguistic aspect: "translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language"

By nature, it is understood that the translation should be done to every language However, as the content addresses all walks of life and culture plays an important role in human life, culture, therefore, should be considered

1.2 From cultural approach

Other definitions are meant to explain the experts' view on translation theory

to be applied in the translation of all types of material, including scientific or technical texts which are not deeply embedded in any culture Thus, it can be momentarily hypothesized that cultural consideration must be taken if the material to translate is related to culture

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According to Snell-Hornby (1988: 39), however, the exclusion of cultural aspect from the discussion of translation theory is due to the view of the traditional approach in linguistics which draws a sharp dividing-line between language and "extralinguistic reality" (culture, situation, etc.) The contemporary approach, according to her, sees language as an integral part of

culture

In 1964, Nida discussed the problems of correspondence in translation, conferred equal importance to both linguistic and cultural differences between the SL and the TL and concluded that differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure It is further explained that parallels in culture often provide a common understanding despite significant formal shifts in the translation According to him cultural implications for translation are thus of significant importance as well as lexical concerns

In his discussion of translation theory, Toury (1978) considers translation as

“a kind of activity which inevitably involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions” As this statement implies, translators are permanently faced with the problem of how to treat the cultural aspects implicit in a ST and of finding the most appropriate technique of successfully conveying these aspects in the TL

Another theorist, Tudor in 1989 views translation as “the process of conveying messages across linguistic and cultural barriers Venuti (1995) claims that the aim of translation is to bring back a culture as the same, the recognizable, even the familiar with the source one

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2 Different theories of translation equivalence

2.1 “Equivalent effect” in translation

The notion of equivalence held sway as a key issue in translation throughout the 1970s and beyond Thus, Chesterman (1989) notes that “equivalence is obviously a central concept in translation theory” while Bassnett (1991) devotes a section to “problems of equivalence” in the chapter entitled “central issues” of translation studies A lot of theories on translation equivalence have been elaborated in the past fifty years This study will look at several major works of Eugene Nida, Peter Newmark and Werner Koller

Nida‟s theory of translation developed from his own practical work since 1940s when he was translating the Bible, with the two core books: “Toward a science of translating” (1964) and “The theory and Practice of translation”

(1969) co-authored with Taber Basing on Chomsky‟s work on syntactic

structure which formed the theory of generative-transformational grammar in

1957 and 1965, Nida generated the two basic types of equivalence: formal

equivalence and dynamic equivalence

 Formal equivalence “focuses on the message itself in both form

and content” and “the message in the receptor language should match

as closely as possible the different elements in the source language” Thus, this type is keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts strong influence in determining accuracy and correctness

 Dynamic equivalence: is based on what Nida calls “the principle

of equivalent effect” where the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same at that which existed between the original receptors and the message” (Nida, 1964: 159) The message has to be tailored to the receptor‟s linguistic needs and cultural

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expectation and “aims at complete naturalness of expression” Indeed,

he defines the goal of dynamic translation as seeking “the closest

natural equivalent to the source-language message”

The two types of equivalence by Nida are crucial in introducing a based (or reader-based) orientation to translation theory However, the principle of equivalence is heavily criticized for a number of reasons Lefevere (1993) claims that equivalence is still overly concerned with the word level, while Van De Broeck (1978) and Larose (1989) considers equivalent effect to be impossible (how is the “effect” to be measured and on whom? how can a text possibly have the same response in two different cultures?)

receptor-In his books of “Approaches to Translation (1981) and “A textbook of Translation” (1988), Newmark departs from Nida‟s receptor-oriented line, claiming that the success of equivalent effect is “illusory” and “the gap between emphasis on source language and target language will remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice” (1981: 38) He suggests narrowing the gap by replacing the old terms with “semantic translation” and

“communicative translation” in which the former aims at rendering as closely

as “the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original” while the latter attempts to

“produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original” (1981: 39)

However, Newmark has been criticized for his strong prescriptivism, and the language of his evaluations still bears traces of what he himself calls the “pre-linguistics era” of translation studies: translations are “smooth” or “awkward”,

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while translation itself is an “art” (if semantic) or a “craft”(if communicative” Nonetheless, a large number of examples in Newmark‟s work provide ample guidance and advice for the trainee and many of the questions he tackles are

of important practical relevance to translation

Important work on equivalence is also carried out by Werner Koller in his

“Research into the science of translation” (1979) where he differentiates the two terms “correspondence” and “equivalence” Correspondence falls within the field of contrastive linguistics which compares two language systems and describes contrastively differences and similarities Equivalence, on the other hand, relates to equivalent items in specific ST- TT pairs and contexts Koller points out that while knowledge of correspondences is indicative of competence in the foreign language, it is knowledge and ability in equivalence that are indicative of competence in translation However, the question still remains as to what exactly has to be “equivalent” In attempt to answer the question, Koller goes on to describe 5 types of equivalence:

 Denotative equivalence: related to equivalence of the

extralinguistic content of a text

 Connotative equivalence: related to the lexical choices,

especially between near synonyms

 Text-normative equivalence: related to text types, with different

kinds of text behaving in different ways

 Pragmatic equivalence: oriented towards the receiver of the text

or message

 Formal equivalence: related to the form and aesthetics of the text,

includes word plays and the individual stylistic features of the ST

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2.2 “Non-equivalence” in translation

The concept of Equivalence has had its share of criticism and challenges If equivalence is considered the essence of translation, the next question is what about cases of non-equivalence in translation? Snell-Hornby (1988) criticized the concept of equivalence by comparing the meaning of the word

„„equivalence‟‟ in English and German, which she considered as equivalent‟‟ The meaning of this term, she claimed „„oscillates in the fuzziness of common language between two things: „„of similar significance‟‟

„„non-or „„virtually the same thing‟‟ Equivalence itself is not equivalent

In a paper by Varadi T and Kiss G., under the title „„Equivalence and equivalence in Parallel Corpora,‟‟ the authors discussed how an aligned parallel corpus can be used to investigate the consistency of translation equivalence across the two languages in a parallel corpus The particular issues addressed are the bi-directionality of translation equivalence, the coverage of multi-word units, and the amount of implicit knowledge presupposed on the part of the user in interpreting the data Non-equivalence

Non-is a fact among languages

As Baker (1992) puts it, the difficulty and problem in translating from one language into another is posed by the concept of non-equivalence, or lack of equivalence This problem appears at all language levels starting from the word level up till the textual level Baker discusses various equivalence problems and their possible solutions at word, above word, grammatical, textual, and pragmatic levels She takes a bottom-up approach for pedagogical reasons Baker proceeds with her equivalence discussion from word to further

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upward levels She claims „„translators must not underestimate the cumulative effect of thematic choices on the way we interpret text‟‟ Baker also acknowledges the fact that there are translation problems caused by non-equivalence She outlines some common types of non-equivalence at word level which pose difficulties for the translator due to “culture-specific concepts”; differences in physical or interpersonal perspective; differences in expressive meaning; difference in form; differences in frequency and purpose

of using specific forms; the use of loan words in the source text or because the source language concept is not lexicalized in the target language, the source language word is semantically complex; the source and the target languages make different distinctions in meaning; the target language lacks a super-ordinate; the target language lacks a specific term (hyponym) Then she proposes several strategies to deal with specific cases

Hervey and Higgins (1995) believe that the principle that a translation should have an equivalence relationship with the source language text is problematic For supporting their idea, they say that there are three main reasons that an exact equivalence or effect is difficult to achieve Firstly, it is impossible for a text to have constant interpretations even for the same person on two occasions Before one could objectively assess textual effects, one would need

to have referred to a rather detailed and exact theory of psychological effect, a theory capable, among other things, of giving an account of the aesthetic sensations that are often important in response to a text Secondly, translation

is a matter of subjective interpretation of translators of the source language text Thus, producing an objective effect on the target text readers, which is the same as that on the source text readers is an unrealistic expectation Thirdly, it may not be possible for translators to determine how audiences respond to the source text when it was first produced

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Another scholar M Mehrach (1997) also considers equivalence "an impossible aim in translation" He supports his saying by the idea that no two languages share the same linguistic structures, social or, cultural aspects Instead, he proposes the use of the term 'adequacy' for the 'appropriate' translation, that is," a translation that has achieved the required optimal level

of interlanguage communication under certain given conditions."

Jacobson (2000) asserts that “all cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable in any existing language”, but there is “ordinarily no full equivalence between code units” According to Jakobson, the translator therefore works mostly in messages, not single code units

Different forms of non-equivalence can be found in several typologies of equivalence proposed by Catford (1965), Kade (1968), Monia Bayar (2007)

under various terms such as “untranslatability”, “nil-equivalence”

“null-equivalence”, “zero-equivalence”

Catford (1965) distinguishes two kinds of untranslatability, that is, linguistic untranslatability and cultural untranslatability

 Linguistic untranslatability, occurs when there is no lexical or

syntactical substitute in the target language for a source language item

 Cultural untranslatability is due to the absence in the target

language culture of a relevant situational feature for the source text

Kade (1968) and other translators (Arntz 1993, Hann 1992) on lexical equivalence, in particular in the area of terminology, combine the qualitative

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distinctions with a quantitative aspect that categories equivalence relationships according to following types:

 One–to–one equivalence; when a single expression in the TL for a

single SL expression is used

 One–to–many equivalence; when more than one TL expression for a

single SL expression is used

 One–to–part–of–one equivalence; when a TL expression covers part

of a concept designated by a single SL expression

 Null equivalence or nil equivalence when there is no TL expression

for an SL expression

According to Monia Bayar (2007), equivalence consists of seven degrees Each degree has specific characteristics that distinguish them from each other which are explained in the following:

 Optimum translation: "the closest equivalence degree attainable,

given the circumstances, the linguistic and extra linguistic resources actually available to the translator." In other words, a TT may reach the optimal degree when it preserves the ' super ordinate goal' of the

ST

 Near – optimum translation: refers to the case where the ST super

ordinate goal and sub-goals are cohesively and coherently rendered

to the TT, but do not reach the readability of the optimal degree from a textual point of view

 Partial translation: occurs when the ST is partially rendered to the

TT, that is, the translator partially translates the text's superordinate goal According to her statement, in this type, it should be stated that

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the readability and correctness of the TT do not mean its preservation of the ST, because the TT might be read fluently, without conveying the ST goal

 Weaker and stronger translation: by using Monia Bayar's words,

some translations are called weaker translations because they reproduce the ST goals in' weaken terms' if compared to original, whereas, others are named strong versions for their use of stronger terms in their rendition of ST goals

 Poor translation: in poor translation, readability is the core of the

problem Poor translation occurs when the translators are unable to transfer the ST goals into a readable TT and in an obvious way that helps the reader grasp them easily

 Mistranslation: in mistranslation the TT neither is readable nor

keeps the super-ordinate goal of the ST

 Zero equivalence or translation: zero equivalence occurs when there

is no one –to one equivalent between the ST and the TT According

to Bayar, this happens when the translator deals with texts that contain many culturally bound words or expressions

In general, equivalence in translation can be measured by degrees that range from optimal equivalence to zero equivalence These degrees might be measured by the levels of nearness or distance from the ST 'superordinate goal' While optimal equivalence is considered as the highest level in equivalence, or the most nearest degree from the ST, zero equivalence is related to the lowest degree of equivalence or the most distant degree from the

ST goal

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One of the explanations for the problem of non-equivalence is due to specific concepts The study will take a closer look at the nature of those items

culture-3 Translation of culture-specific concepts

3.1 Different views on culture-specific concepts

It is not always clear which words and expressions should be considered culture-specific items, even in the literature of translation several names exist

for these items: realia, culture-specific concepts, culturally bound items, etc Vlahov and Florin (1980) (cited by Tellinger 2003) speak of realia and

categorize these items as follows: 1) geographical (geographic formations,

man-made geographical objects, flora and fauna that is special to a certain

place); 2) ethnographic (food and drink, clothing, places of living, furniture, pots, vehicles, names of occupations and tools); 3) art and culture (music and

dance, musical instruments, feasts, games, rituals and their characters); 4)

ethnic (names of people, nicknames); 5) socio-political

(administrative-territorial units, offices and representatives, ranks, military realia)

Newmark (1988) introduced 'cultural word' which the readership is unlikely

to understand and the translation strategies for this kind of concept depend on the particular text-type, requirements of the readership and client and importance of the cultural word in the text He classifies cultural words into 5

groups: ecology: flora, fauna, hills, winds, plains; material culture: food,

clothes, houses and towns, transport; social culture: work and leisure;

organizations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts: political and

administrative, religious, artistic; gestures and habits

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Baker (1992) refers to such cultural words as concepts which are “unknown in the target culture” Those can be "abstract or concrete, may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, or even a type of food." Baker then, calls

such concepts 'culture-specific items' Nord uses the term 'cultureme' to refer

to these items He defines cultureme as "a cultural phenomenon that is present

in culture X but not present (in the same way) in culture Y" (Nord 1997: 34)

Gambier also identifies those items through the term 'culture-specific

references' and asserts that they connote different aspects of life: such as

education, politics, history, art, institutions, legal systems, units of measurement, place names, foods and drinks, sports and national pastimes, as experienced in different countries and nations of the world (Gambier 2004: 159)

As Álvarez and Vidal (1996) point out, everything in a language is a product

of a particular culture, beginning with language itself, it is difficult to define exactly what can be classified in a text as culture-specific One broad

definition of what might be termed „culture-specific items’ could be every

feature in a ST which presents a problem for the translator because there is an intercultural gap between the SL and the TL Such a gap is found where an item in the ST does not exist in the TL culture, or the TL has no word for that item

3.2 Translation strategies for culture-specific concepts

In Larson‟s opinions about translation of culture-specific concepts we can find some similarities with Newmark's point of views which are mentioned above His classification for translation of culture-specific concepts is as follows:

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 Equivalence by modifying a generic word: This strategy is helpful to

analyze the source word to discover its generic component functions

of the words in its context

 Equivalence by modifying a loan word: This strategy is used to

translate names of people, geographical areas, etc

 Equivalence by cultural substitute: This strategy can be applied

when the source language lexical items can be translated by using the words for things or events which are not exactly the same but occur in the receptor language (Larson 1984, p 170)

According to Newmark (1988) two translation procedures are normally used

for translation of cultural words: first transference which usually in literary

texts offers local colour and atmosphere Although transference is brief and concise, it blocks comprehension, it emphasizes the culture and excludes the

message and does not communicate The other procedure is componential

analysis, the most accurate translation procedure in Newmark's point of view

which excludes the culture and highlights the message It has also some shortcomings It is not economical and has not the pragmatic impact of the original He also believes that in translation of novels, cultural words are often transferred from SL to TL to attract the reader (p.96) In the classification of translation procedures, he also refers to these two procedures and also some other procedures for translation of culture-specific concepts and define them

as a following way:

 Transference (loan word, transcription) is the process of

transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation procedure The following are normally transferred: names of all living and most dead people; geographical and topographical names including newly

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independent countries; names of periodicals and newspapers; titles

of as yet untranslated literary works, plays, films; names of private companies and institutions; names of public or nationalised institutions, unless they have recognised translations; street names, addresses, etc

 Naturalization: This procedure succeeds transference and adapts the

SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL

 Cultural equivalent: This is an approximate translation where a SL

cultural word is translated by a TL cultural word The translations can be used in general texts, publicity and propaganda, as well as for brief explanation to readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture They have a greater pragmatic impact than culturally neutral terms Occasionally, they may be purely functionally, hardly descriptively, equivalents

 Functional equivalent: This common procedure, applied to cultural

words, requires the use of a culture-free word, sometimes with a new specific term; it therefore neutralises or generalises the SL word This procedure, which is a cultural componential analysis, is the most accurate way of translating i.e deculturalising a cultural word

 Descriptive equivalent: In translation, description sometimes has to

be weighed against function The translator explains the function or description of SL terms so it usually results in long wording

 Synonymy: This procedure is used for a SL word where there is no

clear one-to-one equivalent, and the word is not important in the text,

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in particular for adjectives or adverbs of quality A synonym is only

appropriate where literal translation is not possible and because the word is not important enough for componential analysis But unnecessary use of synonyms is a mark of many poor translations

 Through translation: The literal translation of common collocations,

names of organisations, the com-ponents of compounds and perhaps phrases is known as caique or loan translation The most obvious examples of through-translations are the names of international organisations which often consist of universal words which may be transparent for English and Romance languages Normally, through-translations should be used only when they are already recognised terms

 Shift or transpositions: A “shift” (Catford's term) or “transposition”

(Vinay and Darbelnet) is a translation procedure involving a change

in the grammar from SL to TL

 Modulation: Vinay and Darbelnet coined the term 'modulation' to

define la variation through a change of viewpoint, perspective and category of thought Modulation procedures include “positive for double negative”, 'part for the whole', abstract for concrete, cause

for effect; one part for another; reversal of terms, active for passive;

space for time, intervals and limits; change of symbols

 Recognized translation: Translators should normally use the official

or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term

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 Translation label: This is a provisional translation, usually of a new

institutional term, which should be made in inverted commas, which can later be discreetly withdrawn

 Compensation: This is said to occur when loss of meaning,

sound-effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part, or in a contiguous sentence

 Reduction and expansion: These are rather imprecise translation

procedures, which translators practise intuitively in some cases However, for each there is at least one shift which they may like to bear in mind, particularly in poorly written texts

 Paraphrase: This is an amplification or explanation of the meaning

of a segment of the text It is used in an anonymous text when it is poorly written, or has important implications and omissions

 Couplets: Couplets, triplets, quadruplets combine two, three or four

of the above-mentioned procedures respectively for dealing with a single problem They are particularly common for cultural words, if transference is combined with a functional or a cultural equivalent You can describe them as two or more bites at one cherry

 Notes, additions, gloss: The additional information a translator may

have to add to his version is normally cultural (accounting for difference between SL and TL culture), technical (relating to the topic) or linguistic (explaining wayward use of words), and is dependent on the requirement of his, as opposed to the original, readership

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Baker (1992) also proposes strategies for dealing with non-equivalence at word level These strategies are arranged hierarchically from general to specific:

 Translation by a more general word (superordinate): it is used in

the area of propositional meaning and works well since the hierarchical structure of semantic fields is not language-specific

 Translation by a more neutral/ less expressive word: the strategy

can help avoid conveying dissatisfaction, embarrassment or confusion

 Translation by cultural substitution: this involves replacing a

culture-specific item or expression with a target-language item which does not have the same propositional meaning but is likely to have a similar impact on the target reader

 Translation using a loan word or loan words plus explanation: this

is particularly common in dealing with culture-specific items, modern concepts and buzz words Following the loan word with an explanation is very useful when the word in question is repeated several times in the text

 Translation by paraphrase using a related word: This strategy is

used when the concept expressed by the source item is lexicalized in the target language but in a different form, and when the frequency with which a certain form is used in the source text is significantly higher than would be natural in the target language

 Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words: If the concept

expressed by the source item is not lexicalized at all in the target

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language, the paraphrase strategy can still be used in some contexts This strategy helps to reach a high level of precision in specifying the propositional meaning However, paraphrase does not have the status of a lexical item and therefore cannot convey expressive, evoked or any other associated meanings

 Translation by omission: If the meaning conveyed by a particular

item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text

to justify distracting the reader with lengthy explanations, translators can and often do simply omit translating the word or expression in question

 Translation by illustration: This is a useful option if the word which

lacks an equivalent in the target language refers to a physical entity which can be illustrated

Kussmaul (1995) stated that “there are various possibilities for dealing with cultural implications We can drop cultural allusions or references, we can replace them by target culture material and we can also make implied information more explicit” (p 72) He also argued that “when translating into distant cultures we must be even more aware of the fact that there may have

to be modifications and changes of the original text.” (Kussmaul 1995, p 75)

Hariyanto (1997) studied further the appropriate procedures used to translate culturally-bound sentences, words, and expressions which are embedded in Javanese culture into English using the novel translation as a case The result shows that to translate culturally-bound words or expressions, the translator

used addition, componential analysis, cultural equivalent, descriptive

equivalent, literal translation ,modulation, recognized translation, reduction, synonymy, transference, deletion, and combination

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Katan (1999) writes about lexical gaps and conceptual gaps, although no

distinction is made between the two, and suggests three solutions: (1)

borrowing or adaptation, (2) omission and (3) creating one’s own expression

Tellinger (2003: 58-60) reviews some of the definitions of culture-specific items After examining two literary translations, he concludes that there are two opposing methods The first is transcription and transliteration to keep the feeling of strangeness in the target text The second is when translators try to

substitute the realia with target language analogues

Klaudy (2003) mentions generalisation (the SL unit of a more specific meaning is replaced by a TL unit of a more general meaning; circumlocutions

(that is explanation, the use of many words to say something that could be

said in one word or in a few words); additions (new meaningful elements, that

cannot be found in the original, appear in the translation to supply background

knowledge for the TL readers; and omission (lexical omission means

dropping meaningful lexical elements of the SL text)

It is known that a perfect translation of culturally-bound texts is impossible The translation focusing on the purpose of writing the source language text is, however, always possible Whether we translate them or not, and the chosen technique depends on their importance and function in the given text

II Terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs as culture-specific concepts

1 Description of Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs

1.1 Origin of Quan Ho singing

Quan Họ Bắc Ninh folk songs are alternating response songs between male and female singers There is no consensus on their historical origin By comparing Quan họ lyrics with the development of the Vietnamese language, some claim that Quan họ songs developed in the middle of the 18th century

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The owners of Quan họ songs are the Việt peasants in villages who mainly practice wet rice cultivation

Quan ho ̣ folk songs exist in a cultural environment with their own social

customs, the friendship among villages Out of the 44 traditional Quan họ villages in Bắc Ninh province, there are 33 pairs of friendship villages, making up nearly 80% of the total The friendship customs are distinctive from those in the locations in the Red River delta, in that they are linked to a folklore performance

1.2 Performance of Quan Ho songs

Quan họ singing has main types: hát thờ (singing at rituals), hát hội (singing

at festivals), hát thi lấy giải (singing for prizes), hát canh (the singing at a host‟s house) The singing at a host‟s house has three phases including giọng

Lề lối (standard tune), giọng Vặt (variety tune) and giọng Giã bạn (farewell

tune) types

Quan họ is sung in pairs with one person singing the leading tune and another sings a secondary part, but the two tunes should be in perfect harmony at the same timbre There are four singing techniques that scholars and communities identify as the specific features which are restrained, resonant, ringing, and bouncing Quan họ singing not only requires round voices, clear words, smooth, graceful, and resonant singing with many techniques such as vibrating, modulating, slurring, but also bouncing notes The bouncing technique, while it

shares some common traits with chèo theatre and ca trù singing, has distinctive

elements that cannot be confused with any other style

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Quan ho ̣ folk songs are always performed voluntarily in groups of men or

women Each group usually has four to six people who are named by order such as “Second Sister,” “Third Sister,” or “Second Brother”, “Third Brother”

“Fourth Brother,” and so on If the size of a group reaches seven or eight people, then they are divided into “older” and “younger siblings” named as the “Third Younger Brother” or “Fourth Older Sister”

1.3 Quan Ho song lyrics

Quan ho ̣ folk songs have 213 different melody variations and more than 400 song lyrics A song lyric includes two parts: the principal text is the core of the song, containing its base lyrics; the secondary text includes words that are

added to the melodies, such as i hi, ư hư, a ha, and so on

Quan họ folk songs are mainly composed using folk verses (ca dao) and

poems This art requires the additional sounds and words to the principal sounds and main lyrics in order to make the songs fluid, make them flexible, reinforce their musical features

Lyrics of Quan họ songs are derived from folk verses of the Việt, mostly 6 syllable and 8 syllable verses, modified 6 syllable and 8 syllable verses, 4 syllable or mixed 4 syllable verses The lyrics are perfectly polished in poetic and standard language The lyrics express people‟s emotional states in metaphorical language: longing and sadness experienced upon separation, and the happiness of the meeting of lovers, though artists may not marry each other according to social customs

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1.4 Quan Ho singing outfits

In performance, the outfits of Quan họ are distinctive : The female costume

includes nón thúng quai thao (the large round Quan họ hat) and a scarf for

wrapping the hair, camisole, tunic, skirt, and scarves tied about the waist The male costume includes a turban, umbrella, a shirt or robe including undershirts and long tunics with five pieces, trousers, and slippers The male umbrellas and female hats are symbols that embody beliefs of the ancient Việt such as lingam (phallus) and yoni (clitoris) worship These beliefs express the ancient views of the Việt on nature

For hundreds of years, Quan họ songs have existed, expressing the spirit and awareness of the Việt in the region about the nature and society, and the songs are also the means for local people to perceive themselves and distinguish themselves from the Việt in other regions Thus, the songs are preserved and promoted by Quan họ artists

2 Outstanding features of Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs

2.1 From artistic aspect

In terms of arts, Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs can be seen as:

 A heritage with highly artistic values

Quan Ho folk songs have historically developed from a period of defined texts with simple melodies to the more recent structure in which the music has gone beyond the strict control of verse and tune to allow a free singing style that lets the singer to adopt his/ her artistic individuality

 A line between folklore and scholarly work

With the advanced development of arts in the area of music as in the song texts, and the capacities of singers, Quan Ho songs are characterized by

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folklore Peasants for their own pleasure and leisure have created the genre The songs exist in the folk environment to server spiritual needs of laborers and have been handled down orally in the folk tradition

Quan Ho songs have reached their artistic peak in composition as well as performance with the shape of several models, principles of performing arts in addition to behavioral aspects However, Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs have yet to reach the position of a professional art It is the art of “self-composing and self-performing”, as claimed by Hong Thao (1977)

 High skill and firm spirit

Quan Ho singers know very well the products of their community and their own identities of the songs They can spot the “Quan Ho voice” and make distinction between the ancient Quan Ho songs and the new Quan Ho songs They are also skilled in adapting and homogenizing the songs of other genres and from other locations, which then results in a development into their own capital with their unique nuances

 A champion on text development

Quan Ho genre is rare in that it occupies the record of the texts and melodies Even in dozens of villages and with limited population, Quan Ho Bac Ninh has a huge number of more than 200 original melodies, not including their varieties

2.2 From cultural aspect

In terms of culture, experts view Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs as:

 A living, elegant and artistic style

It is said that attending Quan Ho activities, people can feel embedded in the beauty The vivid beauty comes from costumes, areca nut and betel pieces; from the cup of tea and the deeply sentimental songs; from the smooth

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melodies and from each singer‟s manner, gesture, elegant and modest behaviors

 A typical cultural form

This cultural form is associated with the ability of singers to catch and improvise quickly even with music, the use of the verses in literature ways, the singing instead of speaking and the specific use of personal pronouns

 A multidimensional convergence center

Quan Ho songs in Bac Ninh is not only a local point but a convergence center There is an intersection of different field such as history, ethnology, literature and fine art

3 Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk song terms as culture-specific concepts

As explained by Eniko (2010), culture-specific items are “lexical units that refer to everyday life, art, culture, traditions, customs, natural environment that are strongly linked to a group of people” With the outstanding features described above, Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs represent things that exist in Vietnamese culture but seem not to appear in other cultures Thus, such denoted items as “tục ngủ bọn”, “nhà chứa”, “ông Trùm, bà Trùm”, “liền anh, liền chị”, etc will be totally foreign to some Westerners since they are items that do not have any lexicalized forms in their languages It is known that a perfect translation for culturally-bound concepts like terms in Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs are impossible The problem of non-equivalence then poses great challenges to translators of this field It requires a variety of techniques

or strategies that can produce the most effective translations This study is an attempt to fill the research gap

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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODS

This chapter outlines a variety of methods used in the study The research was conducted in three main phases Then the methods and procedures of data collection and analysis will be discussed in three separate sections

I Phase 1: Identification of QHBN terms in Vietnamese

1 Data collection methods

1.1 Document review

In order to get insightful understanding about Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs and identify key terms in the field, the researcher scrutinized several books written by Quan Ho experts including:

- “Hát Quan Họ” (1937) by Minh Trúc

- “Quan Họ - Nguồn gốc và quá trình phát triển” (1978) by Đặng Văn

Lung, Trần Linh Quý, Hồng Thao

- “Dân ca Quan Họ” (1997) by Hồng Thao

- “Một số vấn đề về văn hóa Quan Họ” (2000) by Lê Danh Khiêm

- “Văn hiến Kinh Bắc” (2002) by Trần Đình Luyện (Chief editor)

- “Vùng văn hóa Quan Họ” (2006) by the Institute of Culture and

Information and Bac Ninh Department of Culture and Information

- “Không gian văn hóa Quan Họ Bắc Ninh – bảo tồn và phát huy” (2006)

by Bac Ninh Department of Culture and Information

- “Về miền Quan Họ” (2010) by Nguyễn Đăng Túc (chief editor), Lê

Danh Khiêm, Nguyễn Xuân Trung, Lê Thị Chung, Lưu Quang Lâm

- “Dân ca Quan Họ: Lời ca và bình giải” (2010) by Lê Danh Khiêm

(Chief editor), Hoắc Công Huynh

- “Không gian văn hóa Quan Họ” (2011) by Lê Danh Khiêm (Chief

editor), Lê Thị Chung, Hoắc Công Huynh

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After reading through the core books on Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs, the researcher make a draft of glossary on QHBN key terms in Vietnamese with general description and explanation for each according to certain groups: origin and activities of Quan Ho; musical features of Quan Ho; outfits of Quan Ho

1.2 Observation

In an attempt to firgure out musical features of Quan Ho and outfits of Quan

Ho singers, nothing but the researcher‟s eyes and ears would be the best tool With major focus on “seeing” and “hearing”, observation provides the opportunity to document activities, behavior and physical aspects without having to depend on people‟s willingness and ability to respond to questions Therefore, observation of Quan Ho singers‟ performance on stages as well as

in videos was made

In order to clarify the terms on origins and activities of Quan Ho villages (“ngủ bọn”, “nhà chứa”, “hát canh”, etc) or outfits of Quan Ho singers (“khăn xếp”, “áo the”, “quần nghiêm ống sớ trúc bâu”, “váy lưỡi trai bảy bức” etc), the researcher joined several social events held in Quan Ho villages such as Lim festival (Hội Lim), Diem village festival (Hội làng Diềm), Kinh Duong Vuong festival (hội Kinh Dương Vương), But Thap festival (hội Chùa Bút Tháp) in January, February and March (lunar calendar) A number of videos and audios officially included in the National Candidature File for Inscription

on Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs were taken for the observation accompanied with detailed reports

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1.3 Interviews

For the purpose of crosschecking the terms taken from written documents, the researcher carried out informal interviews with Quan Ho experts and Quan

Ho artists All of them are now living in Bac Ninh province

 Interviews with Quan Ho experts

Semi-structured interviews with two Quan Ho experts were implemented to check the accuracy of several terms with different variations in spelling, for example, “Quần nghiêm ống sớ chúc bâu” or “Quần nghiêm ống sớ trúc bâu”,

“Ô lục soạn” or “Ô lục xoan” Tape recorder and notes played as useful aiding tools during the interviews

 Interviews with Quan Ho artists

Being well-known for its distinctive musical features, some singing techniques of Quan Ho Bac Ninh (“vang”, “rền”, “nền”, “nảy” or “giọng dẫn”,

“giọng luồn”) can‟t be observed through their performance on stages or tin videos Therefore, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 2 pairs of Quan

Ho artists (both male and female pairs) were conducted for nearly half an hour As video recorder was used during the interviews, the researcher could pay sufficient attention to singers‟ performance and drew a clear picture of how the singing techniques were presented

2 Data analysis methods

2.1 Data from document review and observation

During the synthesis of data taken from written documents and personal notes

of the researcher, different types of highlighters were used to identify and group relevant information in particular themes For example, yellow highlighters for details about Quan Ho musical features, blue ones for Quan

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Ho singing outfits, etc Then key points were summarized and presented under the form of table with computer-aided tools

2.2 Data from interviews

The qualitative process of interview data analysis is an inductive one, in

which the data is examined from a "bottom-up" approach (Creswell, 2005)

Answers from informants were first transcribed into condense summaries and then categorized according to selected themes in the table from earlier analysis of document review data

The product of phase 1 is presented in the following table:

Đặc điểm Thuật ngữ Giải thích thuật ngữ

Nguồn gốc & Hình

thức sinh hoạt

(Tục) ngủ bọn Bọn Quan Họ Nhà chứa

-Nhà chứa: “nhà để chứa Bo ̣n Quan ho ̣” ; nơi hô ̣i ho ̣p, tâ ̣p luyê ̣n, nơi “ngủ bo ̣n” của Bọn Qu an Họ và lớp đàn em học nghề chơi, nơi đón tiếp Quan H ọ bạn, nơi tổ chức hát canh

- Mỗi bọn Quan Họ có 1 Nhà chứa riêng

- Bọn QH: do các Liền Anh , Liền Chi ̣ đă ̣t

ra để chỉ tổ chức cơ sở của QH (Bọn: chỉ

1 tập thể đồng chất – cùng giới tính)

- Ngủ bọn: Các bọn QH sau khi tập luyện nhiều ta ̣i nhà chứa , quá khuya phải nghỉ lại