Material process in The Old man and the sea by Hemingway and its Vietnamese translated version A systematic funtional comparison= Quá trình vật chất trong bản g20150227.PDF

A Functional Comparison of Material Process in the original and Vietnamese translated extract from “The old man and the sea” by Hemingway………... Chapter IV: is concerned with the comparat

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT ……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… iv

ABBREVIATIONS……… vii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION……… 1

1.1 Rationale of the study……… 1

1.2 Aims of the study……… 2

1.3 Scope of the study……… 3

1.3.1 The theoretical framework……… 3

1.3.2 The chosen text……… 3

1.4 Methods and data of the study……… 4

1.5 Design of the study……… 4

CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……… 5

2.1 Introduction……… 5

2.2 Functional Grammar – A model of language in context ………5

2.2.1 Strata of the systemic functional model……… 6

2.2.2 Metafunctions……… 6

2.3 Transitivity system: processes, participants and circumstances……… 8

2.3.1 Three components of the process……….8

2.3.2 Types of process……… 9

2.3.3 Circumstances……… 12

CHAPTER III: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF MATERIAL PROCESS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE……… 14

3.1 The framework of the material process in English……… 14

3.1.1 The process……… 14

3.1.2 Participants in Material processes………15

3.1.3 Circumstances in Material processes………16

3.1.4 Material Processes and tense……… 17

3.1.5 Material processes and voice……… 18

3.2 The framework of the material process in Vietnamese……… 18

3.2.1 Identifying Material processes……….19

3.2.2 Material Processes and voice………20

CHAPTER IV: MATERIAL PROCESS IN THE ORIGINAL AND VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED EXTRACT FROM “THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA” BY HEMINGWAY: A

FUNCTIONAL COMPARISON……… 22

4.1 The author Hemingway and the novella “The old man and the sea”……… 22

4.1.1 Hemingway and his individual style……… 22

4.1.2 The novella “The old man and the sea”……… 23

4.2 The Vietnamese translated version by Lê Huy Bắc……… 25

4.3 A Functional Comparison of Material Process in the original and Vietnamese translated extract from “The old man and the sea” by Hemingway……… 25

4.3.1 Introduction……… 25

4.3.2 Transitivity……… 26

4.3.3 Material Processes in the original and the translation……… 27

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION……… 38

5.1 Recapitulation……… 38

5.2 Implications of the study……… 40

5.3 Suggestions for further study……… 42

REFERENCES……… 43 APPENDIX 1……….I Text 1: Analysis of the English text into clause complexes

APPENDIX 2……….IV Text 2: Analysis of Vietnamese-translated text into clause complexes

APPENDIX 3……….VII Table 2: Transitivity pattern of the English text

APPENDIX 4……….XIV Table 3: Transitivity pattern of the Vietnamese – translated text

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

Not until I had pursued Master degree of Applied Linguistics at Hanoi University of

Languages and International Studies, did I have the first chance to familiarize myself with

one of the most important schools of linguistics, which is so-called “Functional Grammar”

from Professor Hoang Van Van’s lectures This type of grammar deeply impressed me

especially when it was brought into comparison with another well-known subtype of

grammar; that is, Traditional Grammar

I got to know Traditional Grammar, through its simple grammatical rules from my first

days of the 6th grade When I studied at the university, it seemed that I was fully aware of

the notion “Traditional Grammar” Williams (2005) defined the Traditional Grammar as

“the collection of prescriptive rules and concepts about the structures of language that is

commonly taught in schools” This means that Traditional Grammar refers to ways of

analyzing words into such functions as Subject (S), Verb (V), Object (O), Complement (C)

and Adverbial (A) and analyzing sentences basing on seven major clause types: SV, SVO,

SVC, SVA, SVOO, SVOC and SVOA All of these rules are presented clearly by Quirk et

al (1985) in “A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language” All in all, this kind

of grammar takes linguistic structures as its priority; therefore, it has limitations on

interpreting the organization of a discourse As a result, Functional Grammar or Systemic

Functional Grammar was developed by the linguist Halliday in the 1960s in order to solve

the problems of discourse analysis

In fact, a functional grammar was designed to study the wording and interpret the wording

by reference to what it means (Halliday, 1994) In detail, it is particularly helpful for

explaining how language is selected and organized in particular ways for particular

socio-cultural purposes Three important variables are Field (subject matter), Tenor (roles and

relationships), and Mode (mode and medium) Other Systemic Functional Grammar terms

which people might have approached include circumstance, participant and process

Moreover, Systemic Functional Grammar is useful for explaining the structuring of

clauses, sentences, texts, discourses by analyzing their cohesive devices Among all of

these categories, what I am most interested in is types of process in general and material

process in particular since material process is a popular process in English So I have

decided to choose “material process” as the topic of my minor thesis

In addition, functional grammar has been studied by many famous linguists in the world

like M.A.K Halliday (1985, 1994), Bloor (1995), Eggins (1994) and Thompson (1996);

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among all of whom, Halliday is considered to be a vanguard grammarian because of his

great contributions In Vietnam, firstly Cao Xuân Hạo and then Hoàng Văn Vân did

researches on Vietnamese in the light of systemic functional grammar Their studies

respectively are Tiếng Việt – Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng (1991) and Ngữ pháp kinh

nghiệm của cú Tiếng Việt: mô tả theo quan điểm chức năng hệ thống (2002), in which

types of process especially material process in Vietnamese are investigated Thus, however

small my study is, I myself would like to contribute to this fledgling field by examining

material process through both English and Vietnamese using the same theoretical

framework – systemic functional linguistics

The functional comparison between material process in English and Vietnamese was

carried out by Huỳnh Thị Cẩm Nhung in 2002 However, in my opinion, the scope of this

thesis is rather broad because the analysis is not attached to any specific texts or

discourses As far as I am concerned, I have chosen to compare material process in an

extract from “The old man and the sea” by Earnest Hemingway and its Vietnamese

translated version by Lê Huy Bắc for three reasons Firstly, I find myself have a passion for

literature Secondly, in order to compare items in two languages, it is vital to show that

they are contextually equivalent Such equivalence can be best achieved by reference to

translation as “translation is the replacement of textual material in one language by

equivalent textual material in another language” (Cartford, 1965) In the end, assuming

English to be the control language and Vietnamese to be the comparative one, the

comparison will become easier and more effective if I compare the translation which is

translated by an experienced and excellent linguist and has won public recognition with the

original

From all reasons above, it is hoped that this study will provide some insights into the

understanding of the translation of material process in literature

1.2 Aims of the study

The aim of this study is to answer the following questions:

a What is material process?

b Are Material processes in the original extract from “The old man and the sea” written

by Hemingway the same as those in its Vietnamese translated version?

c What implications of translation equivalence does the study have for Vietnamese

teachers, students and translators of literary works?

In order to find the answers to the research questions above, an attempt is made to examine

how material process is conceptualized in English and Vietnamese by synthesizing the

works of Halliday (1994) and Hoàng Văn Vân (2002)

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So as to make the comparison between the original and translated version, Halliday’s and

Hoàng Văn Vân’s theoretical framework are chosen to be the descriptive framework of my

study

Finally, basing on the findings of the study, I would like to offer some implications for

translating material process in literature into Vietnamese

1.3 Scope of the study

1.3.1 The theoretical framework

In this study, I do not have an ambition to cover all aspects of functional grammar Only

issues related to material process such as framework, elements and features are taken into

consideration

Moreover, material process is a small domain in a grammatical space which is known as

transitivity In fact, the Systemic Functional Linguistic model of language recognizes three social

functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual Among them, ideational function is divided into

experiential and logical Experiential function is realized by transitivity system As a result,

metafunctions, the grammar of experience and its representation in the transitivity system are

also examined briefly

1.3.2 The chosen text

The scope of investigation is limited to the written extract from Hemingway’s novella

“The old man and the sea” and, equivalently, its Vietnamese version which is translated

by Lê Huy Bắc The original extract is from page 88 to 94 and the translated version is

from page 64 to 70 of the whole story However, during the process of analysis, I have cut

down some unnecessary clauses so that I can analyze the text more easily As a result, the

chosen text in both languages has shrunk (from 6 to 4 pages)

The reason is that there is not enough space for a minor thesis to investigate the whole

novella of more than 125 pages An extract of only 4 pages seems to be more feasible

Furthermore, this extract is about the old man’s fierce battle with a giant marlin on the sea

So, it is supposed to contain a high density of verbs of action which are frequently the

representation of material process – process of DOING

This study is confined to an analysis at clause-level

1.4 Methods and data of the study

From these aims above, the study is carried out basing mainly on two methods: descriptive

and comparative The former concerns with the description of material process in English

and Vietnamese and the latter concerns with the comparison of the process in the two

languages

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As I have said above, the data used for the study are taken from page 88 to 94 of the source

language text and the corresponding pages in the Vietnamese version The analysis of the

source language text’s clause is based on Halliday’s theory (1994) The investigation of the

translated text is based on both Halliday’s and Hoàng Văn Vân (2002)’s theory

1.5 Design of the study

This thesis is designed in five chapters:

Chapter I: introduces rationale, aims, scope and methodology of the study

Chapter II: provides the theoretical orientations for the study: systemic functional theory

and its related issues to the topic of my thesis

Chapter III: discusses some basic notions of material process such as Actor, Goal and

Circumstance

Chapter IV: is concerned with the comparative analysis between participants, process and

circumstances of material process in English and Vietnamese

Chapter V: tries to reach the most clear-cut possible conclusions about the equivalence

between the two versions and provides some implications for translation task

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CHAPTER II THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Introduction

Material process, in reality, is considered to be a small domain in a grammatical space

which is known as TRANSITIVITY Within the scope of my study, this chapter will be

devoted to a review of the issue most relevant to the thesis’s topic; that is transitivity

system Before that, we would like to give a brief introduction of Halliday’s Functional

Grammar and three types of meaning which are closely related to transitivity system

2.2 Functional Grammar – A model of language in context

Functional grammar is a way of looking at language as “a social semiotic resource for

expressing meaning in contexts” (Halliday, 1994) It is implied that language is not “a set

of all grammatical sentences” but only makes sense when placed in context Context is

divided into two communication planes: genre (context of culture) and register (context of

situation)

Genres are “staged goal – oriented social processes in which speakers engage as members

of a culture” (Martin, 1985) They include a wide range of routinized structures from

everyday genres such as buying and selling, telling stories, gossiping, etc to the genres of

“recognizable social activity” like educational genres, literary genres, etc

Register is a semantic concept It can be defined as “a configuration of meanings that are

typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode and tenor”

(Halliday, 1985) That is to say, register constrains the meanings that are likely to be made

in situational contexts in society It is studied in terms of three contextual variables or

parameters: field, mode and tenor It can be summarized briefly from Halliday’s theory

(1994) that field refers to “what is happening” (by analyzing texts), tenor refers to “who is

taking part” (by analyzing the interaction) and mode refers to “what part the language is

playing” (by analyzing the ways messages are constructed)

Not only does Halliday put language in context, he also has an idea of language in use

when claiming that a language consists of a set of systems, each of which offers the

speaker (or writer) choice of ways of expressing meaning The form of language that

people use to express meanings is influenced by complex elements of specific situations

For example, a business letter requesting payment of a debt is likely to be very different in

format and style from a letter on a similar topic written to an old friend (Bloor, 1995)

Halliday’s grammar is both semantic and functional The former which is concerned with

meaning or language in context is represented by four strata: Context – Semantics –

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Lexicogrammar – Phonology; while the latter concerning with function or language in use

is represented by three metafunctions: experiential – textual – interpersonal

2.2.1 Strata of the systemic functional model

The following strata are set up in Systemic Functional Linguistics:

Fig 1-2 Four strata of SF Model (Teich, 1999: 13)

Phonology refers to the sound system of a language; Lexico-grammar refers to the words

and the structure of words; and Semantics refers to the systems of meaning in a language

There is a general principle that the categories of a lower stratum realize the categories of a

higher stratum (Halliday and Matthiessen, 1997) In this sense, the relation between strata

is natural

2.2.2 Metafunctions

The SFL model of language recognizes three social functions:

(i) The interpersonal function to enact relationships

(ii) The ideational function to represent experience

(iii) The textual function to organize text

(Martin & Rose, 2003: 6)

These three functions are interwoven with each other so that we can achieve all three social

functions simultaneously They are also of equal status; none is more important than any

other In detail:

(i) Ideational function: is concerned with “the speaker’s experience of the real world”

(Halliday, 1970: 143) Ideational function reflects the field parameter of register Within

the ideational, there is a subdivision into experiential and logical The experiential refers to

“propositional content encoded as processes, events, participants, and the accompanying

circumstances, etc” (Teich, 1999: 15) In other words, experiential function is realized by

TRANSITIVITY system These issues of transitivity which are the focus of my study will

be discussed further in one section below The logical refers to “some general organizing

relations expressed”, for instance, paratactic versus hypotactic organization The following

example is an illustration for the experiential and logical analysis of a clause:

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experiential Sensor Pro: Mental Phenomenon Sayer Pro: verbal

(ii) Interpersonal function: is reflected by the parameter of tenor and “serves to establish

and maintain social relations” (Halliday, 1970: 143) This means that language is used to

enable us to participate in communicative acts with other people, to take on roles and to

express and understand feelings, attitude and judgments (Bloor, 1995: 9) One of its major

grammatical systems is MOOD – the grammaticalization of speech function (Halliday &

Matthiessen, 1997: 13) Mood expresses the choice of roles that the speaker may adopt for

himself and assign to his hearer in the speech situation From this perspective, a clause

consists of two components: Mood and Residue The Mood which is made up of the

Subject (a nominal group) and Finite (part of a verbal group) carries “the burden of the

clause as an interactive event” (Halliday, 1994: 72) The Residue accommodates the

remainder of the clause, namely predicator, complement and adjunct Below is an analysis

of a clause in terms of interpersonal function:

Subject Finite Predicator Complement Adjunct

(iii) Textual function: “enables the speaker or writer to construct texts” (Halliday, 1970:

143) It is related to establishing coherence and cohesion in texts It is realized by the

system of THEME Theme is the starting point of the utterance or “point of departure” and

the rest of the clause is referred to as Rheme The Theme position lets the reader or listener

know what the clause is going to be about Theme may be a nominal group, a prepositional

phrase, an adverbial group or even a clause It can be unmarked (the one that conflates with

the subject in the sentence) or marked (the one that can be a constituent functioning as

complement, adjunct, predicate) We need to distinguish topical, textual and interpersonal

theme which relates to three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual It can be

said that topical theme always represents what the clause is about (Bloor, 1995: 77) To

put it another way, the topical theme is always realized by one of the following elements:

Subject, Predicator, Complement or Circumstantial Adjunct In a conversation, when

people use expressions like oh, well, etc, to be about to continue an idea or refute an

argument, it is indicated that textual theme is being used Moreover, when speakers address

listeners directly by using a name or a term, they can be said to be using an interpersonal

theme Here is an example showing the analysis of textual function:

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Textual Theme Interpersonal Theme Topical Theme Rheme

In brief, all three metafunctions are systemically and structurally simultaneous in general

Bloor (1995) explained that this is because the ideational function is realized by certain

aspects of the grammar, the interpersonal function is also realized by other aspects and yet

others realize the textual function In particular, Mood (interpersonal), Transitivity

(ideational) and Theme (textual) operate simultaneously as three simultaneous layers

within the structure of the clause (see Figure 1-3) Also, the relationship of these three

metafunctions is called “metafunctional resonance” by Halliday (1994) (see also Hoang

Van Van, 2002)

Metafunction System In the

open glade

the wild rabbits

danced with their

Fig 1-3 The simultaneous metafunctions in the structure of the clause

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 1997: 15)

In the following section, the clauses with experiential meaning and its realization in the

transitivity system will be carefully discussed

2.3 Transitivity system: processes, participants and circumstances

2.3.1 Three components of the process

Bloor (1995: 107) said that “language is a means of representing worlds, perceived or

imagined” There is also an indisputable fact language enables people to represent their

experience of persons, objects, qualities, relations, etc of the external and internal world

through categories such as goings-on (verbs), involving things (nouns) and the associated

conditions like time, place, manner (adverbs) It is pointed out by Halliday (1994: 107) that

a process is composed of three components which provide the framework of reference for

interpreting our experience of what goes on; those are:

(i) the process itself;

(ii) participants in the process;

(iii) circumstances associated with the process

The interpretation of a process can be noted as in the table below

Fig 1-4 Typical functions of group and phrase classes (Halliday, 1994: 109)

The table indicates that the interpretation of processes lies behind the grammatical word

classes The process is realized by the verbal group in the clause and is the central

component of the message from the experiential perspective Every clause normally

includes at least one participant, which is typically expressed by a nominal group One

participant is usually Subject and others will be Complements Nevertheless, in some

cases, participants are absent in the clause as in an imperative Circumstances which

incorporate adjuncts or adverbials are normally realized by adverbial groups or

prepositional phrases Because they reflect the background of the clause, they can be

optional or obligatory in specific situations An example is given in figure 1-5:

participant process participant circumstance circumstance

nominal group verbal group nominal group adverbial group prepositional phrase

Fig 1-5 Clause as process, participants and circumstances (Halliday, 1994: 109)

In reality, the concepts of process, participants and circumstances are too general to

explain the grammar of the clause Consequently, we need to use more specific terms

which all derive from these three general categories, for various types of process being

represented Different types of process will be explored in the following sections

2.3.2 Types of process

In English, there are three main types of process including material, mental and relational

Three other less important types are behavioral process (on the border line between

material and mental process), verbal process (on the border line between mental and

relational process) and then existential process (on the border line between relational and

material process) Process types (except for Material process will be discussed in chapter

III) are summarized in the figure below and will be clarified one by one after that

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Fig 1-6 The grammar of experience: types of process in English (Halliday, 1994: 108)

2.3.2.1 Mental process

Mental process is a process of cognition, perception and affection It always involves one

participant who is human who can senses, thinks, or perceives Mental processes tend to be

realized through the use of verbs like think, know, feel, smell, hear, see, want, like, hate,

please, repel, admire, enjoy, fear, frighten In this type of process, the Subject is labeled

SENSOR (who experiences the process) and the Complement is labeled PHENOMENON

(what is experienced) But this is not always the case especially in passive counterparts of

some clauses

Sensor Process: Mental Phenomenon

Phenomenon Process: Mental Sensor

We should be aware that the Sensor must be a human or at least animate creature (except

in metaphorical uses) since only animate beings (human and animals) can think or feel

Phenomenon may be animate or inanimate

Especially, there are numerous examples of a full clause as Phenomenon, usually involving

the verb “see” or “know”

He could not see that the fish was circling

Sensor Process: Mental Phenomenon

2.3.2.2 Relational process

These are the processes of being They are typically realized by the verb “be” or some

copular verbs; for instance, seem, become, appear or other verbs such as have, own,

possess Relational process is sub-classified into 2 categories: attribute and identifying

process

When the relational process is in the attribute mode, it has an ATTRIBUTE and a

CARRIER of the attribution, the process is locally focused on the verb “be” or some

copular verbs as in the example below:

Carrier Process: Relational Attribute

Carrier Process: Relational Attribute

In identifying mode, the participant roles are respectively IDENTIFIER and

IDENTIFYING (one identifies the other):

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Identified Process: Relational Identifier

What makes attribute mode different from identifying mode is that Attribute cannot switch

role with Carrier whereas Identifier can do with Identifying

2.3.2.3 Verbal process

Speaking is not only a kind of action but also a verbalization of thoughts That is to say, it

shares the features of both material and mental process So a new category of process has

been made up, namely Verbal process The potential participant roles are: SAYER (doer of

the process), RECEIRVER (addressee of the speech), TARGET (the object of the talk),

and VERBIAGE (what is said in form of a nominal group or an embedded clause) The

roles of receiver, target and verbiage can be omitted in some circumstances The primary

clause containing the verbal process is the projecting clause and the secondary clause is a

projected clause

The company’s letter says kind things to my aunt

Sayer Process: Verbal Projected clause

2.3.2.4 Behavioral process

Behavioral process construes philosophical or psychological behavior like breathing,

coughing, smiling, dreaming and staring This is a grey area between material and mental

process In this type of process, only one participant is normally required which is given

the title of BEHAVER Sometimes, there is another participant known as BEHAVIOR

The following example can be a candidate for this process:

Behaver Process: Behavioral Behavior

2.3.2.5 Existential process

This process represents that something exists or happens Like behavioral process, it has

only one participant, the EXISTENT This type of process has two main forms of

grammatical realization:

(i) With a copular verb and an empty there as Subject

Process: Existential Existent Circumstance

(ii) With a copular verb, the Existent as Subject and usually a Circumstantial Adjunct

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Existent Process: Existential Circumstance

2.3.3 Circumstances

In this section, the third component of the clause as representation will be touched on,

Circumstance Circumstance, as the name suggests, is concerned with such matters as

settings, temporal, physical, manner in which the process is implemented, and the people

or other entities accompanying the process All of these things are realized by adverbial

groups or prepositional phrases According to Halliday (1994: 151), there are 9 main types

of circumstantial elements:

3 Manner means, quality, comparison

5 Contingency condition, concession, default

6 Accompaniment comitation, addition

8 Matter

9 Angle

SUMMARY

In conclusion, Hallidayan grammar is the grammar for analysis so I have spent the whole

of this chapter discussing theoretical background in which material process is identified

First, language can be described basing on three lines of meaning: ideational, interpersonal

and textual The chapter also goes through the transitivity system with its three general

components in all 6 types of processes: process, participant and circumstance Among the

3 major and 3 minor processes, material process is one of the processes with high

frequency of occurrence in English and Vietnamese Before carrying out a survey of

material process in my chosen texts, the next chapter will give an insight into the

theoretical framework of material process in English and Vietnamese

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CHAPTER III THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF MATERIAL PROCESS IN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE

This chapter aims at re-examining configurations of material process in English and

Vietnamese based on Halliday’s (1994) and Hoàng Văn Vân’s (2002) theory

3.1 The framework of the material process in English

3.1.1 The process

Material processes, according to Halliday (1994), involve outer experience They express

the notion that someone does something and can be probed by asking “What did X do?” In

the example “The lion sprang”, we can ask in this way: “What did the lion do?” In the

witnesses’ point of view, the process is not one of “doing” but one of “happening”, so we

can also probe like this “What happened?” All in all, material processes construe doings

and happenings – including actions, activities, and events

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In Thomas and Meriel’s (1995) view, material process involves “doing words” This

means that material process is typically realized by the grammatical category of verbal

group and these verbs often refer to concrete or physical actions

As Halliday and Matthiessen (1997: 17) claimed, a material process is characterized by

particular structural configurations, such as

(i) Actor + Process

(ii) Actor + Process + Goal

(iii) Actor + Process + Range

(iv) Actor + Process + Recipient + Goal

(v) Actor + Process + Goal + Recipient

(vi) Actor + Process + Beneficiary + Goal

(vii) Actor + Process + Goal + Beneficiary

For instance:

(i) [Actor:] The policeman [Process:] ran

(ii) [Actor:] The policeman [Process:] hunted [Goal:] the demonstrator

(iii) [Actor:] He [Process:] climbed [Range:] the mountain

(iv) [Actor:] The judge [Process:] gave [Recipient:] the demonstrator [Goal:] a legal

document

(v) [Actor:] I [Process:] gave [Goal:] a ring [Recipient:] to her

(vi) [Actor:] He [Process:] painted [Beneficiary:] John [Goal:] a picture

(vii) [Actor:] He [Process:] painted [Goal:] a picture [Beneficiary:] for him

3.1.2 Participants in Material processes

3.1.2.1 Actor and Goal

Actor and Goal are the two most frequent participants in material processes They are also

called direct participants The Actor is the performer of the action; for example, Jerry

explicitly performs the action described by the Process returned We therefore label Jerry

as Actor as in:

Half an hour later Jerry returned

Circumstance Actor Process: Material

The Actor may be elliptical in the case of passive clauses:

Goal Process: Material Circumstance

Or many clauses with the same Subject:

Actor Pro: Mat Goal Actor [Jerry] Pro: Mat Goal

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The Goal is what undergoes the action In traditional grammar, it often plays the role of

Direct Object There can only one Goal per clause

Actor Process: Material Goal

3.1.2.2 Recipient and Beneficiary

The third participant (in the Indirect Object position) is the one who receives the Goal

This participant is called the Recipient

Actor Process: Material Recipient Goal

When we rephrase the Recipient as a Prepositional Object, the preposition “to” must be

used “I will give your paper to you”

If the participant is not someone who receives the Goal; rather, it is someone for whose

benefit the action is carried out The term Beneficiary is used to describe this participant

Actor Process: Material Beneficiary Goal

Unlike Recipient, the preposition “for” must be used when we want to rephrase the

Beneficiary as a Prepositional Object: “I’ll find some paper for you”

3.1.2.3 Range (versus Goal)

The Range is the element that specifies the range or scope of the process The range either

expresses the domain over which the process takes place or expresses the process itself

Ranges are similar to Goals in that they are mapped onto the Direct Object in active

clauses and the Subject in passive clauses, for example:

and

and

If the participant is a Range, the probing question “What did X do to Y?” cannot be used

whereas a Goal can Obviously, it does not seem to quite right to say “What did Jim do to

a bath?” The argument is that a bath is not so much the recipient of the action, hence we

label it Range Meanwhile, the probing question “What did Jim do to the money?” is

Actor Pro: Material Range

Actor Pro: Material Goal

A bath was taken by Jim

Range Pro: Material Actor

The money was taken by Jim

Goal Pro: Material Actor

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acceptable when the money is labeled Goal In a nutshell, Goals are considered to be

highly affected material participants while Ranges are non-affected material participants

3.1.3 Circumstances in Material processes

According to Matthiessen (1989: 208), circumstance is understood as the resource for

expanding the process; phenomena are represented as attendant on (rather than involved

with) the process Circumstances are typically realized by adverbial groups, prepositional

phrases, or even nominal groups They are less closely associated with the process and are

not usually inherent in it

According to Hoang Van Van (2002: 142), some kinds of circumstance are used more

frequently than others in certain type of process He also explained that circumstances of

location are more typical of material processes than other types Within the scope of my

thesis, only the kinds of circumstances frequently occurring in material process type are

mentioned as follows (with circumstantial elements relevant to questions to which the

circumstances provide answers)

Subcategory Probe Location at what point? in September;

as fast as possible; like a top

means

quality comparison

by what means?

how?

what like?

Table 1: Types of circumstance in material processes

(Extracted from Martin, Matthiessen & Painter, 1997)

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3.1.4 Material Processes and Tense

In general, English processes are often located by absolute tense and relative tense

Absolute tense essentially locates a process in time relative to the here and now Relative

tense further locates the process relative to the absolute tense (Lock, 1996)

In particular, English Material processes is distinguished with other types by checking the

unmarked tense selection used When referring to action processes going on now, at the

moment of speaking or writing, the normal tense choice is present continuous

(present-in-present) rather than the simple present, as in “The cat’s waving its tail” rather than “The

cat waves its tail”

Verbs in any narratives are usually action process verbs In the simplest kind of narrative,

simple past may be the only tense form used In more sophisticated narratives, the other

past tenses are typically used to flesh out the narrative with processes tangential to the

main narrative, the relative tense locating them before or simultaneous to a point in the

story line Thus the past perfect (past-in-past) and the past continuous (present-in-past) are

also used For example, in “He had put to sea”, the absolute tense is past and the relative

tense is also past This represents past in the past In other words, the process is located at a

time before a time in the past

3.1.5 Material processes and Voice

In a transitivity pattern, if there is Actor only, the verb is intransitive and active in voice If

both there are two participants – Actor and Goal, the verb is transitive and may be either

active or passive In this case, the item which is Complement in the active is Subject in the

corresponding passive, but the items retain the same roles of Actor or Goal regardless of

voice:

Active:

Subject Finite Predicate Complement Actor Process: Material Goal

Passive:

In some cases we have 3 participants: Actor, Beneficiary and Goal Beneficiary is usually

the Indirect Object complement, but in passive it is often the subject:

Active:

The door was opened by Jerry

Subject Finite Predicate Adjunct Goal Process: Material Actor

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Subject Finite Predicate Complement (Oi) Complement (Od)

Passive:

Subject Finite Predicate Complement Adjunct

Beneficiary Process: Material Goal Actor

3.2 The framework of the material process in Vietnamese

Theoretical framework of material process in Vietnamese has been developed further from

Halliday’s theory and in very fine detail by Hoàng Văn Vân in 2000 On the one hand, he

has acquired Halliday’s basic notions such as its definition and its various configurations

He established a definition of the material process that “A material process is one that

typically represents some kind of physical actions or happening in the external world”

Added to this, it is typically realized by the structure Actor + Process: material+ (Goal)

Detailed configurations of the material process are the same as those in English which have

been mentioned in Section 3.1.1 On the other hand, he has suggested some criteria for

identifying Vietnamese material processes

3.2.1 Identifying Material processes

Material process in Vietnamese may be distinguished by the following recognition criteria:

3.2.1.1 Number and nature of participants

Like English, material process in Vietnamese may involve one participant – Actor or two

participants – Actor and Goal as in:

Actor is the entity that does the deed; it is typically realized as a nominal; and the nominal

can either be animate or inanimate Goal is the entity to which the process is extended It

can be realized either as an animate nominal or as an inanimate nominal

Another participant is called Range Look at this example:

Actor Pro: Mat Range

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Here, cờ/ chess is not an autonomous entity and cannot exist independently of the process

chơi/ played There is no such thing as “cờ” other than the act of playing it Range is a

distinct function from that of Goal Unlike Goal, Range is typically realized by an

inanimate nominal We often come across leo núi/ climbed the mountain, chơi ghi ta/ play

guitar etc., but not chơi người/ play a person, nhảy bạn/ dance a friend etc Moreover,

Range has the characteristics of both a participant which is realized by a nominal group

(đàn ghi ta/ guitar) and a circumstance which is realized by the preposition + nominal

complex (qua hàng rào/ over the fence) Last but not least, the conflation of Range with

Subject in Vietnamese is much rarer than that of Goal

One more participant is Beneficiary which can be broadly defined as “the one for whom or

to whom the process is said to take place” Like Range, Beneficiary may be realized either

as a participant or as a circumstance as in the following examples:

Actor Pro: Mat Beneficiary (participant) Goal

Actor Pro: Mat Goal Beneficiary (circumstance)

The participant can also play the function of Recipient in material processes Recipient is

“one that goods are given to” It can occur naturally without the preposition cho/ to:

3.2.1.2 Strong collocation of the process with Co-verb of Direction

This concerns the strong collocational tie between verbs of action and directional proverbs

such as đi (off, away), lại (back), lên (up), xuống (down) etc In Vietnamese, this tie is so

strong that it can be regarded as a criterion for identifying material processes and

distinguishing them from other process types For example:

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3.2.1.3 The Probe

The third recognition criterion for material processes has to do with the ways they can be

probed From the perspective of doing, a material process can be probed by asking X đã

làm gì Y? (What did X do to Y?), and from the perspective of happening, it can be probed

by asking Y làm sao thế? or Cái gì xảy ra với Y thế? (What happened to Y?) Thus, a

material process such as Hắn đánh Tuyết (He beat Tuyet) can be probed by asking either

Hắn đã làm gì Tuyết? (What did he do to Tuyet?) or Cái gì xảy ra với Tuyết thế? (What

happened to Tuyet?) However, neither the “do to” nor the “happen to” questions seems to

be an appropriate for the clause without Goal like Hắn đến (He came) For such a material

clause, an appropriate probe would be a simple “do” question

3.2.2 Material Processes and Voice

As mentioned in Section 3.2.1.1, a material process may involve one participant, Actor, or

two participants, Actor and Goal The traditional grammar claims that an intransitive

clause has one participant, Actor, and a transitive clause has two, Actor and Goal Thus,

the transitive clause has two possible patterns: active and passive When the clause is

passive, the passive particle “được” precedes the Actor and the obligatory participant is

Goal, not Actor

particle Cuong open

Mat

SUMMARY

In short, I have provided an investigation into material process in English and Vietnamese

with the emphasis on its structure The framework of material process in English which is

based on Halliday’s functional grammar (1994) will be taken as control parameter to

compare with that in Vietnamese which is described by Hoang Van Van (2002)

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CHAPTER IV MATERIAL PROCESS IN THE ORIGINAL AND VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED

EXTRACT FROM “THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA” BY HEMINGWAY: A

FUNCTIONAL COMPARISON 4.1 The author Hemingway and the novella “The old man and the sea”

4.1.1 Hemingway and his individual style

Earnest Hemingway was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois His father is a doctor and his mother

is an opera singer When small, he showed an aptitude for music; however, his love for nature as

well as his activeness made him become close to journeys for fishing and hunting He started his

career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen Before becoming

a serious writer, he had been a soldier who joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army

in the First World War He was wounded in his leg when coming back to the United States

Then, “A Farewell to Arms” (1929) was written basing on the experience of an American

ambulance officer's disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter

Also, Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the

background for his most ambitious novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940)

Among his later works, the most outstanding is the short novel, “The Old Man and the

Sea” (1952), the story of an old fisherman's journey, his long and lonely struggle with a

fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat

He died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2, 1961, of a self-inflicted gunshot

wound

Hemingway is a representative of a “Lost Generation” who finds themselves victims of

the First World War and suffers from the destruction of dignity together with the feeling of

moral and intellectual emptiness Therefore, it is strongly believed that Hemingway's style

was fundamentally shaped in reaction to his experience of world war

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In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his mastery of the art

of narrative” in “The Old Man and the Sea”, and for the influence that he has exerted on

contemporary style

His Iceberg Principle not only is particularly effective in his short stories but also has

caused a revolution in literature In detail, the principle which guides most of his writings

is “the facts float above water; the supporting structure and symbolism operate

out-of-sight” (Baker, 1972) He explained his iceberg theory of fiction writing that by omitting

certain parts of a story, a writer actually strengthens that story The writer must be

conscious of these omissions and be writing true enough in order for the reader to sense the

omitted parts When the reader senses the omitted parts, a greater perception and

understanding for the story can be achieved

The facts are usually conveyed by his liking for clarity and simplicity despite “the

widespread preference for the polished style among contemporaries” (Galperin, 1971:

280) His sentences are usually short, containing the most basic syntactic structures of S-V

or S-V-O In addition, according to Levin (1961), Hemingway’s vocabulary consists of

relatively few short words like the frequent use of concrete nouns and verbs of movements

of bodies and the limited use of adjectives and adverbs All these things help to bring about

the clear and easy understanding of the story’s development

In addition, together with William Faulkner, Hemingway is considered to be the founder of

American modern prose when he fathered the school of “Minimalism” which is also

known as the “theory of omission” (Bắc, 2001) Its leading principles are “sparing of

words and sparing of emotion” Hemingway tried to eliminate everything unnecessary to

conveying experience to the reader so that after he has read something it will become part

of his experience and seem actually to have happened This “theory of omission”, to put it

in other words, the art of ellipsis, or leaving things out, indeed is the great virtue of

Hemingway’s best short stories, which allows the readers to imagine the storyline in their

own way and become co-authors In this aspect, Hemingway’s prose can be said to be

influenced by his newspaper writing style His works touch the heart and mind of a wide

range of readers and let them discover the implied messages

4.1.2 The novella “The old man and the sea”

“The old man and the sea” written by Earnest Hemingway is about Santiago, an old Cuban

fisherman, who has gone eighty four days without taking a fish However, he still strongly

believes that he will catch a big fish and be worthy of his glorious youth On the 85th

journey to the sea, Santiago hooks a marlin five feet longer than his skiff The man has to

struggle against it for three days only to loose it to sharks on the way home Back to the

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harbor with only the long, white spinal of the big fish, Santiago still thinks he is not the

loser and plans for the next fishing journeys

“The old man and the sea” could have been over a thousand pages long and had every

character in the village in it and all the processes of the way they made their living In fact,

it is written as one text without breaks and consists of only 125 pages with the total of 4

main characters (Santiago, Manolin, the marlin and the sea); so the page numbers are used

to keep track of our divisions

Pages 1-28: The conversation between the old man (Santiago) and the boy (Manolin) when

Santiago prepared to go out to sea and Manolin asked him to return to his service on his

boat but the old man refused

Pages 28-41: Santiago left the shore early in the morning and hoped there might be a stray

of a big fish which the bird had seen

Pages 41-63: Santiago noticed a bite on his line and tried to bring the marlin up to the

surface; but the fish swam steadily out to sea He cut the line to avoid distraction from the

marlin and then spoke to the small bird landing on his boat

Pages 63-95: Santiago threw the line out again He was amazed by its size when the fish

leapt out of the water The marlin continued to circle, coming closer and when it was next

to the skiff, Santiago drove his harpoon into its chest

Pages 95-end: Having killed the marlin, Santiago struggled against sharks arriving at the

skiff In the night, when the man came back to land, the sharks returned and gnawed on the

marlin’s bones Tomorrow afternoon, a female tourist saw the skeleton while the old man

was sleeping and dreaming about lions

The novella is typical of Hemingway’s individual writing style: the short factual sentences

and the declarative nature of the words Despite the simplicity on the surface level, the

short novel contains a lot of symbolic factors The author is conscious of the limitations of

the first person method and the advantages of the third person method because of the fact

that the first person expresses a great intimacy and it makes the novel be rounded by the

narrator’s own personal experience; however, in the third person, the omniscient narrator’s

voice is no longer heard so we become oblivious of the narrator and concentrate on the

action Added to this, it is an old man catching a fish but it is also a great artist in the act of

actually writing about the struggle The old fisherman is clearly an idealization of

Hemingway himself who thinks in the style of the novelist attempting to land a great work

Contemplating the big fish, Santiago is even closer to Hemingway – literary artist – alone

with his quest for being far out beyond all traps and treacheries Santiago’s ordeal, first in

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his struggle with the big fish, and then in fighting against the sharks is associated with

Hemingway by a longing or nostalgia for faith which is a Christian allegory

For all the things above, “The old man and the sea” is praised as being Hemingway’s best

work

4.2 The Vietnamese translated version by Lê Huy Bắc

The translation by Lê Huy Bắc which is published by Literature Publishing House in 2000

consists of 92 pages Similar to the original, it is translated as one text without being

divided into chapters

There are numerous translations of “The old man and the sea” from the 1950s up to now

The translation by Lê Huy Bắc is chosen for comparison in this research for two reasons

Firstly, the translator Lê Huy Bắc received PhD degree in Literature in 1998 He has so

much experience in teaching American Literature at his university as well as studying and

translating Hemingway’s works His published books (both translated and written) are

more than 100; the most typical ones among them are: (1) Ernest Hemingway – núi băng

và hiệp sĩ, NXB Giáo dục (1999); (2) Tác phẩm Ernest Hemingway truyện ngắn và tiểu

thuyết, NXB Giáo dục (1999); (3) Phê bình lí luận văn học Anh – Mĩ (tập1), NXB Giáo dục

(2004) and (4) Chân dung các nhà văn thế giới, NXB Giáo dục (2005)

Secondly, Lê Huy Bắc’s translation is said by many critics to contain fewer deviations

from the original in comparison with 5 other translations by Mặc Đỗ (1954), Huy Phương

(1962), Bảo Sơn (1964), Mạc Mạc (1973) and Ngụy Mộng Huyền (1999) His translation

sounds flat, which shows his understanding of Hemingway’s writing style that implied

messages sometimes are not necessarily revealed In the meantime, in other translations,

adjectives and adverbs are added so that the translations can become more natural to the

Vietnamese readership, which makes the author’s implications become clear Therefore,

the author’s purpose to let the readers provoke their imagination cannot be achieved

4.3 A Functional Comparison of Material Process in the original and Vietnamese

translated extract from “The old man and the sea” by Hemingway

4.3.1 Introduction

As we have said in Chapter I, we do not intend to investigate material process in English

and Vietnamese in general Only material process in the original and Vietnamese

translation of the text extracted from “The old man and the sea” by Hemingway will be

taken into consideration The chosen text is included in the third part (Pages 63-95) of four

parts of the whole story It detail, it is from page 90 to 94 in the source-language text and

from page 64 to 70 in the target-language text

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The English text consists of 145 clauses which make up 61 clause complexes The

Vietnamese translation consists of 159 clauses which make up 63 clause complexes To

answer the second research question in Section 1.2 “Are Material processes in the original

extract from “The old man and the sea” by Hemingway the same as those in its

Vietnamese translated version by Lê Huy Bắc?” this chapter aims at discovering whether

such categories as the number, configurations, voice and tense of material processes in the

translation are equivalent to those in the original text The configurations of material

processes will be demonstrated by analyzing the use of participants (including Actor and

Goal) and circumstances However, before that, we would like to give an overview of

transitivity in our chosen texts

4.3.2 Transitivity

We made an analysis of 145 English clauses of the original text and its equivalent 159

clauses in Vietnamese translated version in terms of transitivity system The tables below

show the distribution of the process types in both texts:

Type Material Mental Relational Verbal Behavioral Existential

Table 4: Transitivity in English text

Type Material Mental Relational Verbal Behavioral Existential

Table 5: Transitivity in Vietnamese text

When we look at transitivity, we have, as we might expect, mainly material, relational and

mental processes The clear preponderance of material processes (70.32% - 71.69%)

reflects the main purpose of the text, which is to present the old man’s fierce struggle

against the giant marlin on the third day This will be further explained in the next section

In English text, the second highest percentage lies in relational process (16.12%) This

indicates that the focus of the text is the descriptions of the battle and two main characters

on the sea With the attribute relational clauses dominating the relational category, the text

is more descriptive than just concerned with identifying The readers; therefore, are given a

clear and objective view of the drama taking place on the limitless expanses of waters

What ranks third in the number of occurrence in English text is mental process (15%) All

mental processes are used to depict the old man’s cognition, perception and affection

because he is the only human agent in the text

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The occurrence frequency of relational and mental process in English extract is reversible

in its Vietnamese translation (21% mental and 19% relational); however, their functions in

the whole texts stay the same

Of the remaining 3-4%, it is verbal process; behavioral process and existential process

does not appear in both texts The occurrence of verbal process helps us find out that

Hemingway makes a skilful use of interior monologues The fact that the old man is all

alone on the sea explains his desire to hear human voice and to have some company on his

skiff Hence, he talks aloud to himself as if he was having a partner However, only one

neutral introducing word “say” is used in all verbal clauses Hemingway’s choice of words

is aiming at lessening the role of story teller, which makes the audience to be directly

exposed to the reality rather than an illusion of reality Thus, the text receivers can

reconstruct the text in their mind imaginatively

To sum up, because of the fact that material process outweighs 5 other process types and it

is also the emphasis of our study, it will first of all be attended to as a prerequisite for

objectives that this chapter is aimed at

4.3.3 Material Processes in the original and the translation

4.3.3.1 The number of material processes

As mentioned in Section 4.3.2, the percentage of material processes accounts for 70.32%

and 71.69% in English and Vietnamese text respectively, which implies two things: (i) they

predominate other process types; (ii) material processes in the source text are relatively

equivalent to those in the target text

The reasons why the number of occurrence of the material process in the translation is more

than that in the original (116 times in Vietnamese and 111 times in English) are:

 Some adverbial phrases in English are transferred into material clauses in Vietnamese

For example, the adverbial phrase “in a swinging motion” of clause (14) was turned

into the material clause “lắc người” in clause (16)

 The translator sometimes added a new material clause which does not appear in the

original This is the case of clause (29) in:

(28) ׀׀׀ “Mình phải dốc sức ra (29) ׀׀ mà thu lại”

(25) ׀׀׀ “I must hold all I can”

 A new material clause was made up in the translation from a noun in the original For

instance, the noun “pulling” in clause (15) “tried to do the pulling” made up the

material clause (18) in “(17) dốc hết lực của cả cơ thể, của chân trụ ra (18) mà kéo”

All the things above are explained from the cultural aspect that redundancy is highly used

in Vietnamese (Quang, 2000) The high usage of redundancy is expressed through the

addition of action processes to the Vietnamese translated version Quang (2000) also states

that more verbs are used in an analytic language like Vietnamese

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4.3.3.2 Configurations of material processes

During the process of analysis, we found out two main configurations of material processes

when participants (Actor and Goal) are present, which mark the analogy between the two

texts They are:

(i) Actor + Process + (Circumstance)

(ii) Actor + Process + Goal + (Circumstances)

In the first type of clause, there can only be an Actor, which is followed by a material

process The source text consists of 36 clauses and the target text consists of 38 clauses of

this type (See Appendix 4 & 5) Clauses with the single participant Actor are normally

known as intransitive clauses in which Actors directly involves in actions

The third clause type begins with an Actor, which is followed by a material process, which

is in turn followed by a Goal Among 111 English material processes, there are 33 clauses

containing both the Actor and the Goal Of 116 Vietnamese material processes, Actors and

Goals appear in only 23 clauses (See Appendix 4 & 5) Clauses with two participants –

Actors and Goals – are normally known as transitive clauses in which the Actor directly

involves in the action and the Goal is affected by the action

* The use of Actors

Actors – performers of actions in clause type (i) and (iii) – share the same features They

are dominantly two main characters: the old man (Santiago) and the marlin The actions,

hence, mainly fall into two motifs – the old man-oriented and the marlin-oriented

The Actors are mostly animate which include: the old man/ he/ lão/ ông lão (repeatedly),

the marlin/ the fish/he/ con cá/ nó (repeatedly) Also, in other clauses we find inanimate or

abstract entities such as the sun/ mặt trời, the line/sợi dây, his old legs and shoulders/đôi

chân già nua và vai lão, his tail/ cái đuôi, etc The statistical data of animate and inanimate

Actors are in the tables below:

The old man

The marlin

From the tables above, it is clear that the old man plays a central role with approximately

44 and 50 percentages of occurrences in the English and Vietnamese text; the marlin is

only a cooperative character with lower percentages of occurrences, averagely 35%, in

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both texts The high frequency of the old man’s occurrence is shown by the fact that he

appeared from the very first beginning to the end of the texts with the image of a man

actively struggling against a giant marlin The marlin appeared intermittently with its three

times circling around the man’s boat The magnitude of the fish only becomes the most

awesome at the end of the text when it jumped high out of the water as the harpoon was

killing him

What is more, in Vietnamese translated version, the translator tried to remain the flexibility

of the Actor as personal pronouns in the original; that is, the same Actors are sometimes

referred to by different forms and also the same item refers to different Actors For

example, the old man (27, 61, 66, 104, 139) is substituted by he (43, 55, 68, 110, 147), the

fish (6, 40, 56, 59) by he (30, 48, 60, 81) or con cá (3, 6, 35, 57) by nó (30, 46, 58, 76) But

in some cases, he does not always refer to the old man (59); he also substitutes for the fish

(36):

(59) ׀׀׀ Then he put more on (60) ׀׀ and rubbed the back of his neck…

(36) ׀׀׀ He is hitting the wire leader with his spear…

However, the target text is not analogous to the source text with the translation of Actors

as personal pronouns The third person “he” which substitutes for the old man will be put

emphasis because it predominates over other personal pronouns in the original text

In the English text, with the use of the third person he to replace the old man, the

character’s age, the author’s feelings and attitude towards his character are not provided,

except for the gender This feature is typical of Hemingway’s style – lack of emotive

coloring His selection of the third person aims at limiting narrator’s voice and concentrate

on the action That is to say, the readers themselves can construct in their imagination the

images of the character; then they can be involved in the story as co-authors

Meanwhile, in Vietnamese, choosing one appropriate word in the target language replacing

“he” in the source language depends much on the context and the author’s attitude In the

case of this Vietnamese text, Lê Huy Bắc chose the word lão to be the substitution for

“he” The word “lão” itself is a kind of addressing form that is originated from an

adjective It is able to define age, gender and plight of the character – an old miserable

male person As far as I am concerned, it seems that the author implicitly shows his great

sympathy for the man In reality, the old man has experienced 84 days without catching

any fish Almost every one in his village thinks his days have been over and feels sorry for

him Added to this, the translator used “lão” as a mark of respect for the Cuban fisherman

because of his bravery He struggled not merely against the marlin but against pride which

was ultimately overcome

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In brief, the deviation in translating the third person is resulted in by the typical

expressiveness of Vietnamese personal pronouns The selection of lão shows that the

translator tried to keep the tone as flat and cold as possible As a result, although Bắc’s

emotive personal pronouns have not processed the properties of the origin, his way of

translation is still considered to be acceptable in Vietnamese cultural context

* The use of Goals

Material processes in the English and Vietnamese text have a second participant called the

Goal as in clause type (ii) It is obvious from the analysis that Goals in the Vietnamese text

occur less frequently (23 times) than those in the English text (33 times), which makes the

translation deviate from the original This claim is proved by the fact that some Goals in

the original are transferred into Circumstances in the translation For example, the Goals

the back of his neck (60), the wire (36) become Circumstances of Spatial Location lên đầu

(61) and vào đoạn dây thép đáy (39) The reason for this is claimed by Quang (2000) that

Vietnamese tends to be subjective in their way of using the language In other words, the

position of the subject is paid much attention to

From a literary view, both the source text and the target text have a large proportion of

Goals as concrete nouns such as his shoulders and head (12)/ vai và đầu (13), his head

(53)/ đầu (53), line (82)/ sợi dây (81), another circle (98)/ vòng nữa (103) etc., instead of

adding any adjectives before them They account for 67.34% and 63.42% in the original

and translated text respectively There is no change when concrete nouns are translated into

Vietnamese These claims imply two things: (i) it indicates Hemingway’s individual style,

which is explained by his liking for clarity and simplicity; (ii) the translator seems to have

a thorough knowledge of a tendency among Anglicists (who speak English as their mother

tongue) “descriptive rather than evaluative in their statements” (Quang, 2000); thus Bắc’s

translation is relatively satisfactory to some extent

* Addition and Omission of Actors and Goals

* Omission of Actors and Goals

In fact, there is an existence of Actor in most of material processes However, in some

cases, Actor does not necessarily exist in a material clause That is the case of an

action-oriented narrative in which one sentence consists of many clauses and the Subject (Actor)

is omitted in the clauses that follow The English and Vietnamese version has this feature

in common For instance, three successive processes of action are used to describe the

event when the old man tried all his best to kill the fish with his harpoon:

(135) …and he leaned on it, - (143) … lão tì người lên,