A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONALVERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’SSONGS IN TERMS OF SEMANTIC ANDSYNTACTIC FEATURES

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGUNIVERSITY OF DANANG LƯƠNG VĂN NHÂN A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONAL VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S SONGS IN TERMS OF SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

LƯƠNG VĂN NHÂN

A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONAL VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S SONGS IN TERMS OF SEMANTIC AND

SYNTACTIC FEATURES

Subject Area : THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Code : 60.22.15

M.A THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Supervisor: TRƯƠNG BẠCH LÊ, Ph.D.

Danang, 2011

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the present thesis “A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH

TRANSLATIONAL VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S SONGS INTERMS OF SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES” is my own work

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree in anyother institution

Da Nang, 2011

Lương Văn Nhân

Trinh Cong Son has been the close and friendly name to many people.Sometimes, he is the CONFIDANT to share the feelings of sadness andhappiness by singing his marvelous songs whose lyrics are weaved by brilliantbut simple and meaningful words which take a lot of time to understand somephrases and sentences in more than 500 songs of this talent musician His music

is so strange! Sweet floating sadness! It insinuates the human heart to make acool and sparkling lake with holy melodies Has it got the “SONISM” whenpeople are drunk with his thinking?

+ “Cuộc đời đó có bao lâu mà hững hờ.” (Mưa hồng)

+ “Vì sao tôi sống? Vì Đất nước cần một trái tim.”

(Mỗi ngày tôi chọn một niềm vui)

More than 70 of his songs have been translated into many languages, suchas: English, French, Japanese, etc because translators love Son’s songs verymuch and want to share and introduce those songs to friends around the world.However, according to Professor Buu Y, a famous translator and a close friend ofTrinh Cong Son, right before translating Son’s songs, translators surrender.Translating is only for the sake of love for his music Many English translationalversions of Vân Mai, Trần Duy Tính, Như Quỳnh, and Khương Duy, etc orsome foreigners, such as: Richard Fuller, Patrick Gallagher, John C Schafer andJason Gibbs, etc try to convey Son’s ideas in his songs Those Englishtranslational versions only help us understand the general meaning but are toodifficult to sing like Vietnamese versions

Translating Trinh Cong Son’s songs is an attractive trend Besides that,there has not been any certain research on this problem in the light of linguistics.

My research, by standing on the point of view in Translation strategies ofNewmark, Baker and Catford to study the semantic and syntactic features of 14

songs taken from Trịnh Công Sơn – The collection of everlasting songs Music

press 1997 (Trịnh Công Sơn – Tuyển tập những bài ca không năm tháng Nxb

Âm Nhạc 1997) The research also puts forward some suggesting English

translational versions to set the implications after studying those songs

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORETICAL

2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6 2.1.1 What is translation? 6 2.1.2 What is equivalence? 8 2.1.3 Types of equivalence

2.1.4 What is literary translation?

2.1.5 Vietnam - English translation

2.2 TRANSLATION PROCEDURES/STRATEGIES AND METHODS

2.2.1 Translation procedures

2.2.2 Translation methods

2.2.3 Translation of songs

101617191925272.3 TRINH CONG SON’S BIOGRAPHY 28 2.3.1 Writings about Trinh Cong Son and his music 29

2.3.2 Translations of Trinh Cong Son’s songs 30

3.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

3.1.1 Aims

3.1.2 Objectives

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN

323232333.3 METHODS OF RESEARCH 333.4 DATA COLLECTION AND DESCRIPTION 343.5 RESEARCH PROCEDURES

3.6 SUMMARY

3435

4.1 SEMANTIC FEATURES 36 4.1.1 Translation by using omission

4.1.1.1 Full omission

4.1.1.2 Partial omission

4.1.2 Translation by using a more neutral/less expressive word

4.1.3 Translation by using a more general word

4.1.4 Translation by using expansion

4.1.5 Translation by using co-hyponym

4.1.6 Translation by paraphrase using unrelated word

4.1.7 Translation by using meronymy

3636414550535657594.2 FREQUENCY OF SEMANTIC TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 865.1 SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS 865.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATION 885.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 915.4 SAMPLE OF SUGGESTED TRANSLATIONS &

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

5.4.1 Suggested translations of songs

5.4.2 Suggestions for further study

919194

REFERENCES

CORPORA

QUYẾT ĐỊNH GIAO ĐỀ TÀI

95100

APPENDIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Adj Adjective

AP Adjective phraseAdv Adverb

AdvP Adverb phraseConj ConjunctionLink Linking

N Noun

NP Noun phrasePro Pronoun

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: The tokens and percentage of semantic strategies 60Table 4.2: The tokens and percentage of syntactic strategies 83

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1: The percentage of semantic strategies 61Chart 4.2: The percentage of syntactic strategies 84

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION1.1 RATIONALE

Trịnh Công Sơn (1939-2001) was a song writer, musician, poet and painter

He was born in Daklak, grew up in Huế, studied in Qui Nhơn, taught school inBảo Lộc, and then finally moved to Saigon in 1965 A heavy drinker and smoker,

he died of diabetes, liver and kidney failure He wrote over 600 songs, achievinghis first hit, "Ướt mi" ["Wet Lashes"], in 1957 Joan Baez dubbed him the BobDylan of Vietnam He often wrote about the ephemeral nature of life, as in theclassic "Cát bụi" ["Sand and Dust"] The singer most associated with him isKhánh Ly, whose husky, mournful voice helped to popularize his music Theyoften performed together on South Vietnamese university campuses Morerecently, Hồng Nhung has also been celebrated for her jazzy interpretions of hissongs Trinh Cong Son’s songs are so strange, which were written by intellectuallanguage In another way, they are ‘weaved’ by the most beautiful words in thetreasure of Vietnamese language It takes years to understand some words orsentences in Trinh Cong Son’ songs, but not all of us can catch Son’s ideas, andsome seem to be so different Son himself created his own unique school ofmusic which is not only very sublime but also very sweet with simple melodies.Therefore, Son’s music is also for public, in other word, it is also for all because

it is easy to remember

Son’s songs will be immortal in people’s hearts not only in Vietnam but also

in many countries like: France, Japan and America, etc People love to sing hissongs Many of those songs have been translated into many languages, most ofthem are in English, French and Japanese with different versions For examples:

+ Biết Đâu Nguồn Cội (Unknown origin)

+ Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này (The quiet world of mine / So silent here)

+ Một Cõi Đi Về (My own lonely world / A realm of return / A place forleaving and returning)

+ Cát bụi (Dusty sand / Sand and Dust)

+ Đời gọi em biết bao lần (Life has called you many times)

+ Em đến từ nghìn xưa (You’ve come a long time)

+ Gần như niềm tuyệt vọng (Something like despair)

+ Lời buồn thánh (Sad Sunday eve)

+ Tuổi đời mênh mông (In too large life)

As an English teacher and a fan of Trinh Cong Son’s music, I find it veryinteresting to study the English translations of Son’s songs which are variouswith more than 70 English translated works by many people However, up tonow, just a few researches on the lyrics of the English translational versions havebeen found

It is clear that there are many difficulties for translators to translate TrinhCong Son’s songs into English Practically, clarifying the syntactic and semanticfeatures helps us have a clear view about Son’s songs and their Englishequivalences and find out another better way to translate Trinh Cong Son’s songswith full ideas of writer obtained

Theoretically, more than 70 of his songs were translated into English, andmany studies in the lyrics and melodies of Trinh Cong Son’s songs have done sofar However, researches on the syntactic and semantic features of English versusVietnamese versions of Trinh have not been carried out Therefore, it isnecessary to do a research on this matter to have a total view about translating

Trinh Cong Son’s songs into English “A STUDY OF THE ENGLISHTRANSLATIONAL VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S SONGS INTERMS OF SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES” has been carried outfor the reasons listed above.

1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

We hope this study will provide insights into the practice of translatingVietnamese songs into English, especially the strategies in handling theintricacies of semantic and syntactic features of great works such as those written

by Trinh Cong Son

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study deals with investigating the procedures used in translating thesemantic features of lexicon and the syntactic features of phrases and sentences

in Trinh Cong Son’s songs taken from Trịnh Công Sơn – The collection of

everlasting songs Music press 1997 (Trịnh Công Sơn – Tuyển tập những bài ca

http://www.tcs-home.org/songs-en/songs.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study will seek the answers to the following questions:

(1) How were the semantic features in Trinh Cong Son’s collection of songs

translated into English?

(2) How were the syntactic features in Trinh Cong Son’s collection of songstranslated into English?

1.5 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

+ “Source language”: is the language in which a text was originally written.

+ “Target language” is the language into which a text is translated.

+ “Semantic approach” is an approach to translation which has threefeatures:

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study will include five chapters as follows:

- Chapter 1, INTRODUCTION, concerns with the statement of theproblem, justification for the study, scope of the study and research questions.Organization of the study is also given out

- Chapter 2, LITERATURE REVIEW and BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE,deals with some previous studies related to the problem and presents theoreticalbackground of:

+ Trinh Cong Son’s biography

+ Trinh Cong Son’s music

+ Theory of translation

- Chapter 3, METHODOLOGY, consists of aims and objectives of thestudy, research design, research methodology and research procedure In

addition, data collection, data analysis as well as the reliability and validity ofthe study will be mentioned.

- Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, this chapter is divided into 2parts:

+ Section 1: The semantic features of lexicon in Trinh Cong son’s songswhen being translated from Vietnamese into English

+ Section 2: The syntactic features of phrases and sentences in Trinh CongSon’s songs when being translated from Vietnamese into English

- Chapter 5, CONCLUSION, summarizes what have been discussed inchapter 4 with some comments on the limitations of this study and makesuggestions for future studies

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1.1 What is translation?

There are many definitions of translation The simplest way is the transfer

of text from the language A into language B However, going through the time,this understanding has begun to become wider and deeper depending on theposition of researchers Often, though not by any means always, it is renderingthe meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intendedthe text Common sense tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to beable to say something as well in one language as in another On the other hand, itmay be complicated, artificial and fraudulent

Translation was mainly discussed in terms of the conflict between free andliteral translation, and the contradiction between its inherent impossibility and itsabsolute necessity A translator must be either an interpreter or a rhetorician Agood translation is one in which the merit of the original works is so completelytransfused into another language as to be as distinctly apprehended and asstrongly felt by a native of a country to which that language belongs as it is bythose who speak the language of original work Recommending literaltranslation of syntax as well as words, it was said that the sentence is a wallblocking out the language of the origin, whilst word for word translation is thearcade

Before, people thought that translation is the replacement of a textual

material in one language (source language – SL) by equivalent textual material

in another language (target language – TL) The equivalent here is the

grammatical factors between the SL and the TL Therefore, at the time with thisview the grammatical equivalent became one of the criteria for assessing thequality of a translation

Later, according to Newmark (1980) [17, p7], “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” So, the textual material now changes into the message – more communicative.

Basing on the translation theory on transformational generative grammar,the translators need to “go beyond” explicit text structures and should considerthe text as a mere comparison of corresponding structures This leads to anotherimportant awareness the language is really a generative device, which helps thetranslators take shape in their mind the technique for analyzing the text This isnot only a technique used in decoding the source text but also the procedure forchoosing the suitable corresponding structures in the target language

In addition, translation is a term covers on three distinguishable meanings.That is “translating”, the process (to translate), the activity rather than thetangible object “A translation” is the product of the process of translating (e.g.the translated text), and the “translation”, the abstract concept whichencompasses both the process of translating and the product of that process [1,p13]

Furthermore, translation is also a communication bridge of two languages.Obviously, language is various and different from country to country as the

sameness cannot exist between two languages

Danica Seleskovitch (2009) [7], a brilliant interpreter and writer, has said:

“Everything said in one language can be expressed in another one - on condition

that the two languages belong to cultures that have reached a comparable degree of development” The condition she makes is false and misleading.

Translation is an instrument of education as well as of truth precisely because ithas to reach readers whose cultural and educational level is different from, andoften “lower” or earlier, than, that of the readers of the origin Beside that,translation has been instrumental in transmitting culture, sometimes underunequal conditions responsible for distorted and biased translations, ever sincecountries and languages have been in contact with each other

As a means of communication, translation is used for multilingual notices,which have at least appeared increasingly conspicuously in public places; forinstructions issued by exporting companies; for tourist publicity, where it is toooften produced from the native into the “foreign” language by natives as a matter

of national pride; for official documents, such as treaties and contracts; forreports, papers, articles, correspondence, textbook to convey information, adviceand recommendations for every branch of knowledge As a technique forlearning foreign languages, translation is a two-edged instrument: it has thespecial purpose for demonstrating the learner’s knowledge of the foreignlanguage, either as a form of control or to exercise his intelligence in order todevelop his competence

2.1.2 What is equivalence?

Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) [28] view equivalence-oriented translation as aprocedure which replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst usingcompletely different wording They also suggest that, if this procedure is applied

during the translation process, it can maintain the stylistic impact of the SL text

in the TL text According to them, equivalence is therefore the ideal methodwhen the translator has to deal with proverbs, idioms, clichés, nominal oradjectival phrases and the onomatopoeia of animal sounds With regard to equivalent expressions between language pairs, Vinay andDarbelnet claim that they are acceptable as long as they are listed in a bilingualdictionary as full equivalents However, later they note that glossaries andcollections of idiomatic expressions can never be exhaustive They conclude bysaying that the need for creating equivalences arises from the situation, and it is

in the situation of the SL text that translators have to look for a solution Indeed,they argue that even if the semantic equivalent of an expression in the SL text isquoted in a dictionary or a glossary, it is not enough, and it does not guarantee asuccessful translation

Roman Jakobson's (1959) [12] study of equivalence gave new impetus tothe theoretical analysis of translation since he introduced the notion of'equivalence in difference' On the basis of his semiotic approach to language andhis aphorism 'there is no signatum without signum' [12, p232], he suggests threekinds of translation:

• Intralingual (within one language, i.e rewording or paraphrase)

• Interlingual (between two languages)

• Intersemiotic (between sign systems)

Jakobson claims that, in the case of interlingual translation, the translatormakes use of synonyms in order to get the ST message across This means that ininterlingual translations there is no full equivalence between code units.According to his theory, translation involves two equivalent messages in two

different codes Jakobson goes on to say that from a grammatical point of viewlanguages may differ from one another to a greater or lesser degree, but this doesnot mean that a translation cannot be possible, in other words, that the translatormay face the problem of not finding a translation equivalent He acknowledgesthat whenever there is deficiency, terminology may be qualified and amplified byloanwords or loan-translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and finally, bycircumlocutions Jakobson provides a number of examples by comparing Englishand Russian language structures and explains that in such cases where there is no

a literal equivalent for a particular ST word or sentence, then it is up to thetranslator to choose the most suitable way to render it in the TT

There seems to be some similarity between Vinay and Darbelnet's theory oftranslation procedures and Jakobson's theory of translation Both theories stressthe fact that, whenever a linguistic approach is no longer suitable to carry out atranslation, the translator can rely on other procedures such as loan-translations,neologisms and the like Both theories recognize the limitations of a linguistictheory and argue that a translation can never be impossible since there areseveral methods that the translator can choose The role of the translator as theperson who decides how to carry out the translation is emphasized in boththeories Both Vinay and Darbelnet as well as Jakobson conceive the translationtask as something which can always be carried out from one language to another,regardless of the cultural or grammatical differences between ST and TT

Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence,

namely formal equivalence - which in the second edition by Nida and Taber (1969/1982) [20] is referred to as formal correspondence - and dynamic

equivalence Formal correspondence 'focuses attention on the message itself, in

both form and content', unlike dynamic equivalence which is based upon 'theprinciple of equivalent effect' [20, p159] In the second edition (1982) or theirwork, the two theorists provide a more detailed explanation of each type ofequivalence

2.1.3 Types of equivalence

Formal correspondence consists of a TL item which represents the closestequivalent of a SL word or phrase Nida and Taber make it clear that there arenot always formal equivalents between language pairs They, therefore, suggestthat these formal equivalents should be used wherever possible if the translationaims at achieving formal rather than dynamic equivalence The use of formalequivalents might at times have serious implications in the TT since thetranslation will not be easily understood by the target audience Nida and Taberthemselves assert that, typically, formal correspondence distorts the grammaticaland stylistic patterns of the receptor language, and hence distorts the message, so

as to cause the receptor to misunderstand or to labor unduly hard

Dynamic equivalence is defined as a translation principle according towhich a translator seeks to translate the meaning of the original in such a waythat the TL wording will trigger the same impact on the TC audience as theoriginal wording did upon the ST audience They argue: ‘Frequently, the form ofthe original text is changed; but as long as the change follows the rules of backtransformation in the source language, of contextual consistency in the transfer,and of transformation in the receptor language, the message is preserved and thetranslation is faithful' [20, p200]

One can easily see that Nida is in favor of the application of dynamicequivalence, as a more effective translation procedure This is perfectly

understandable if we take into account the context of the situation in which Nidawas dealing with the translation phenomenon, that is to say, his translation of theBible Thus, the product of the translation process, that is the text in the TL, musthave the same impact on the different readers it was addressing Only in Nidaand Taber's edition is it clearly stated that dynamic equivalence in translation isfar more than mere correct communication of information

Despite using a linguistic approach to translation, Nida is much moreinterested in the message of the text or, in other words, in its semantic quality Hetherefore strives to make sure that this message remains clear in the target text Catford's (1965) [5] approach to translation equivalence clearly differs fromthat adopted by Nida since Catford had a preference for a more linguistic-basedapproach to translation and this approach is based on the linguistic work of Firthand Halliday His main contribution in the field of translation theory is theintroduction of the concepts of types and shifts of translation Catford proposedvery broad types of translation in terms of three criteria:

 The extent of translation (full translation vs partial translation);

 The grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established

(rank-bound translation vs unbounded translation);

 The levels of language involved in translation (total

translation vs restricted translation).

In rank-bound translation an equivalent is sought in the TL for each word,

or for each morpheme encountered in the ST In unbounded

translation equivalences are not tied to a particular rank, and we may

additionally find equivalences at sentence, clause and other levels Catford finds

five of these ranks or levels in both English and French, while in the Caucasianlanguage Kabardian there are apparently only four

Thus, a formal correspondence could be said to exist between English and

French if relations between ranks have approximately the same configuration inboth languages, as Catford claims they do

One of the problems with formal correspondence is that, despite being auseful tool to employ in comparative linguistics, it seems that it is not reallyrelevant in terms of assessing translation equivalence between ST and TT Forthis reason we now turn to Catford's other dimension of correspondence, namely

textual equivalence which occurs when any TL text or portion of text is observed

on a particular occasion to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text

He implements this by a process of commutation, whereby 'a competentbilingual informant or translator' is consulted on the translation of varioussentences whose ST items are changed in order to observe what changes if anyoccur in the TL text as a consequence

House (1977) [9] is in favour of semantic and pragmatic equivalence andargues that ST and TT should match one another in function House suggests that

it is possible to characterize the function of a text by determining the situational

dimensions of the ST In fact, according to her theory, every text is in itself is

placed within a particular situation which has to be correctly identified and takeninto account by the translator After the ST analysis, House is in a position toevaluate a translation; if the ST and the TT differ substantially on situationalfeatures, then they are not functionally equivalent, and the translation is not of ahigh quality In fact, she acknowledges that a translation text should not only

match its source text in function, but employ equivalent situational-dimensionalmeans to achieve that function

Central to House's discussion is the concept of overt and covert translations.

In an overt translation the TT audience is not directly addressed and there istherefore no need at all to attempt to recreate a second original since an overttranslation must overtly be a translation By covert translation, on the other hand,

is meant the production of a text which is functionally equivalent to the ST.House also argues that in this type of translation the ST is not specificallyaddressed to a TC audience

House's theory of equivalence in translation seems to be much more flexiblethan Catford's In fact, she gives authentic examples, uses complete texts and,more importantly, she relates linguistic features to the context of both source andtarget text

New adjectives have been assigned to the notion of equivalence(grammatical, textual, pragmatic equivalence, and several others) and made theirappearance in the plethora of recent works in this field An extremely interestingdiscussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker (1992) [2] whoseems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept ofequivalence can be defined She explores the notion of equivalence at differentlevels, in relation to the translation process, including all different aspects oftranslation and hence putting together the linguistic and the communicativeapproach She distinguishes between:

• Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, whentranslating from one language into another Baker acknowledges that, in abottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element

to be taken into consideration by the translator In fact, when the translator startsanalyzing the ST s/he looks at the words as single units in order to find a direct

'equivalent' term in the TL Baker gives a definition of the term word since it

should be remembered that a single word can sometimes be assigned differentmeanings in different languages and might be regarded as being a more complex

unit or morpheme This means that the translator should pay attention to a

number of factors when considering a single word, such as number, gender andtense

• Grammatical equivalence, when referring to the diversity of grammaticalcategories across languages She notes that grammatical rules may vary acrosslanguages and this may pose some problems in terms of finding a directcorrespondence in the TL In fact, she claims that different grammaticalstructures in the SL and TL may cause remarkable changes in the way theinformation or message is carried across These changes may induce thetranslator either to add or to omit information in the TT because of the lack ofparticular grammatical devices in the TL itself Amongst these grammaticaldevices which might cause problems in translation Baker focuses on number,tense and aspects, voice, person and gender

• Textual equivalence, when referring to the equivalence between a SL textand a TL text in terms of information and cohesion Texture is a very importantfeature in translation since it provides useful guidelines for the comprehensionand analysis of the ST which can help the translator in his or her attempt toproduce a cohesive and coherent text for the TC audience in a specific context It

is up to the translator to decide whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties aswell as the coherence of the SL text His or her decision will be guided by three

main factors, that is, the target audience, the purpose of the translation and thetext type.

• Pragmatic equivalence, when referring to implicatures and strategies ofavoidance during the translation process Implicature is not about what isexplicitly said but what is implied Therefore, the translator needs to work outimplied meanings in translation in order to get the ST message across The role

of the translator is to recreate the author's intention in another culture in such away that enables the TC reader to understand it clearly

Popovic (1970) [22], in his definition of translation equivalence,distinguishes four types:

- Linguistic equivalence: where there is homogeneity on the linguistic level

of both SL and TL texts, i.e word for word translation

- Paradigmatic equivalence: where there is equivalence of “the elements of

a paradigmatic expressive axis”, i.e element of grammar, which Popovic sees asbeing a higher category than lexical equivalence

- Stylistic (translational) equivalence: where there is “functional

equivalence of elements in both original and translation aiming at an expressiveidentity with an invariant of identical meaning

- Textual (syntagmatic) equivalence: where there id equivalence of the

syntagmatic structuring of a text, i.e equivalence of form and shape

2.1.4 What is literary translation?

According to Professor Rainer Schulte (1980) [24], literary translationbridges the delicate emotional connections between cultures and languages andfurthers the understanding of human beings across national borders In the act ofliterary translation the soul of another culture becomes transparent, and the

translator recreates the refined sensibilities of foreign countries and their peoplethrough the linguistic, musical, rhythmic, and visual possibilities of the newlanguage.

A literary translation is the translation of literature such as novels, plays andpoems The translation of literary works is considered by many one of thehighest forms of translation as it involves so much more than simply translatingtext A literary translator must be capable of also translating feelings, culturalnuances, humour and other subtle elements of a piece of work

A rather interesting approach to literary translation comes from MichelRiffaterre (1992) [25, p204-217] He separates literary and non-literary use oflanguage by saying that literature is different because i) it semioticicizes thediscursive features e.g lexical selection is made morphophonemically as well assemantically, ii) it substitutes semiosis for mimesis which gives literary languageits indirection, and iii) it has “the textuality” that integrates semantic components

of the verbal sequence (the ones open to linear decoding)-a theoretically ended sequence-into one closed, finite semiotic, system" that is , the parts of aliterary texts are vitally linked to the whole of the text and the text is more or lessself contained Hence the literary translation should "reflect or imitate thesedifferences" He considers a literary text as an artifact and it contains the signals,which mark it as an artifact Translation should also imitate or reflect thesemarkers

open-The traditional discussion of the problems of literary translation considersfinding equivalents not just for lexis, syntax or concepts, but also for featureslike style, genre, figurative language, historical stylistic dimensions,polyvalence, connotations as well as denotations, cultural items and culture-

specific concepts and values The choices made by the translators like thedecision whether to retain stylistic features of the source language text orwhether to retain the historical stylistic dimension of the original become all themore important in the case of literary translation For instance, whether totranslate Chaucer into old Marathi or contemporary is very important In the case

of translating poetry, it is vital for a translator to decide whether the verse should

be translated into verse, or into free verse or into prose

2.1.5 Vietnamese – English translation

Translation has so far been an interesting topic for study all over the world

In fact, translation with the problems in translating has been dealt with by manyfamous linguists in both English and Vietnamese The study of translationoriginated in Roma, and its duty is to translate the works of literatures at thattime It was also mentioned the role of context, grammar and pragmatics intranslation Generally, his work mainly studied the translation on the aspects oftheory

In Vietnam, there has been a growing concern about the quality ofVietnamese–English translations Some have been called by prestigioustranslators as “disasters of the translation art” Indeed, the practice of translation

is not only a craft, but also a science and an art, which needs to be constantlyimproved with a view to bringing the Vietnamese mass culture to new heights.Particularly, English is the language of billions of documents available in allfields, academic or popular Therefore, it is hardly surprising that many scholarsand lecturers teaching translation at universities have spared no efforts to work

on the frequently seen types of mistakes in English – Vietnamese translation aswell as techniques translators may employ to avoid them However, the field of

study in Vietnam began comparatively recently and the number of publishedworks remains modest While some researches have focused on the basic theory

of translation, other work has sought to show different examples of translationtechniques or provide sample translations

Much of the work published for internal circulation in universitiesemphasizes the former aspect, which is the theoretical basis of translation

Prominent publications of this type (in Vietnam) include Interpreting and

Translation Course Book (Bùi Tiến Bảo & Đặng Xuân Thu, 1999) [3], Theory of Translation (Huỳnh Trung Tín & Nguyễn Ngọc Tuyền, n.d.) [10] and some

scattered academic essays found on the Internet Different from internationalbooks on the theory of translation, these publications are closely related to theEnglish – Vietnamese translation Written by experienced translators who havespent years practicing translation as a profession and working with studentslearning translation skills, the books concentrate on addressing the maintheoretical issues encountered by translation learners in Vietnam This can be asolid basis to start any further research on the practice of translation in Vietnam.For instance, in Interpreting and Translation Theory, the authors have mentionedthe basic process of translation with the four-level approach

Another trend of coping with translation issues in Vietnam is to figure outwhat are the weaknesses lingering in translation work and suggest specifictechniques to help translators avoid repeating frequently made mistakes This

kind of approach can be seen in Hướng dẫn kĩ thuật dịch Anh – Việt (English –

Vietnamese Translation Techniques) (2005) by Nguyễn Quốc Hùng [19] and Lê

Văn Sự’s Translation and Grammar (2003) [15] Both books are practical and

useful for readers as translation learners if they are to develop their translation

skills and ability to deal with thorny situations The authors base their arguments

on verified studies by well-known scholars over the world and their scope ofstudy is broad

2.2 TRANSLATION PROCEDURES AND METHODS

2.2.1 Translation procedures

The translating procedures, as depicted by Nida and Taber (1969/1982) are

as follows:

I Technical procedures:

• analysis of the source and target languages;

• a thorough study of the source language text before making attemptstranslate it;

• Making judgments of the semantic and syntactic approximations

II Organizational procedures:

Constant reevaluation of the attempt made; contrasting it with the existingavailable translations of the same text done by other translators, and checking thetext's communicative effectiveness by asking the target language readers toevaluate its accuracy and effectiveness and studying their reactions

Krings (1986:18) [13] defines translation strategy as "translator's potentiallyconscious plans for solving concrete translation problems in the framework of aconcrete translation task," and Seguinot (1989) [26] believes that there are atleast three global strategies employed by the translators: (i) translating withoutinterruption for as long as possible; (ii) correcting surface errors immediately;(iii) leaving the monitoring for qualitative or stylistic errors in the text to therevision stage

Moreover, Loescher (1991) [14, p8] defines translation strategy as "apotentially conscious procedure for solving a problem faced in translating a text,

or any segment of it." As it is stated in this definition, the notion ofconsciousness is significant in distinguishing strategies which are used by thelearners or translators In this regard, Cohen (1998) [6, p4] asserts that "theelement of consciousness is what distinguishes strategies from these processesthat are not strategic."

Furthermore, Bell (1998) [1, p188] differentiates between global (thosedealing with whole texts) and local (those dealing with text segments) strategiesand confirms that this distinction results from various kinds of translationproblems

Venuti (1998) [27, p240] indicates that translation strategies "involve thebasic tasks of choosing the foreign text to be translated and developing a method

to translate it." He employs the concepts of domesticating and foreignizing torefer to translation strategies

Jaaskelainen (1999) [11, p71] considers strategy as, "a series ofcompetencies, a set of steps or processes that favor the acquisition, storage,and/or utilization of information." He maintains that strategies are "heuristic andflexible in nature, and their adoption implies a decision influenced byamendments in the translator's objectives."

Taking into account the process and product of translation, Jaaskelainendivides strategies into two major categories: some strategies relate to whathappens to texts, while other strategies relate to what happens in the process.Product-related strategies, as Jaaskelainen writes, involve the basic tasks ofchoosing the SL text and developing a method to translate it However, she

maintains that process-related strategies "are a set of (loosely formulated) rules

or principles which a translator uses to reach the goals determined by thetranslating situation" Moreover, Jaaskelainen divides this into two types, namely

global strategies and local strategies: "global strategies refer to general

principles and modes of action and local strategies refer to specific activities in relation to the translator's problem-solving and decision-making."

The following are the different translation procedures that Newmark, one ofthe most popular translation scholars, (1988) [18] proposed:

text It includes transliteration and is the same as what Harvey (2005) [8, p5]named “transcription”

pronunciation, then to the normal morphology of the TL

with TL one However, “they are not accurate.”

word

cultural-based translation (CBT) is explained in several words

TL word which has a similar meaning but is not an obvious one-to-oneequivalent, by demonstrating first their common and then their differing sensecomponents.”

accuracy

- Through-translation: it is the literal translation of common

collocations, names of organizations and components of compounds It can becalled: claque or loan translation

reflects the grammatical change that occurs in translation from SL to TL According to Newmark, it involves a change in the grammar form SL to TL,

for instance, (i) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when aspecific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TLword, (iv) change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth

reproduces the message of the original text in the SL text in conformity with thecurrent norms of the TL, since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms

of perspective

uses the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term.”

sentence is compensated in another part

explained Here the explanation is much more detailed than that of descriptiveequivalent

procedures

Another popular translation scholar whose work on translation practice iswidely adopted is Mona Baker (1992) [16], pointed out 8 strategies for dealingwith non-equivalence at word level

- Translation by a more general word (superordinate): this is one of the

commonest strategies for dealing with many types of non-equivalence,particularly in the area of propositional meaning It works equally well in most,

if not all, languages, since the hierarchical structure of semantic fields is notlanguage-specific

- Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word: this is also one of the

commonest ways to set the equivalence between two or more languages by using

a word or phrase to get the general meaning

- Translation by cultural substitution: This strategy involves replacing a

culture-specific item or expression with a target-language item which does nothave the same propositional meaning but is likely to have a similar impact on thetarget reader

- Translation by using a loan word or loan word plus explanation: this

strategy is particularly common in dealing with culture-specific items, modernconcepts, and buzz words Following the loan word with an explanation is veryuseful when the word in questions repeated several times in the text Onceexplained the loan word then can be used on its own; the reader can understand itand it is not distracted by further lengthy explanation

- Translation by paraphrase using a related word: this strategy tends to be

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

- Translation by paraphrase using unrelated word: if the concept

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

paraphrase strategy can still be used in some contexts Instead of a related word,the paraphrased may be based on modifying the superordinate or simply onunpacking the meaning of the source item, particularly if the item in questionsemantically complex.

- Translation by omission: this strategy may sound rather drastic, but in

fact it does no harm to omit translating a word or expression in some contexts Ifthe meaning convey by a particular item or expression is not vital enough to thedevelopment of the text to justify distracting the reader with lengthyexplanations, translators can and often do simply omit translating the word orexpression in question

- Translate 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 beillustrated, particularly if there are restrictions on space and if the text has toremain short, concise, and to the point

At the syntactic level, Catford (1965) [5], another well-known translationstudies scholar suggests examining “shifts”, he defines them as departures fromformal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL Catford

argues that there are two main types of translation shifts, namely level shifts,

where the SL item at one linguistic level (e.g grammar) has a TL equivalent at a

different level (e.g lexis), and category shifts which are divided into four types:

structure of the ST and that of the TT;

 Class-shifts, when a SL item is translated with a TL item which

belongs to a different grammatical class, i.e a verb may be translated with anoun;

 Unit-shifts, which involve changes in rank;

which approximately correspond formally as to their constitution, but whentranslation involves selection of a non-corresponding term in the TL system Forinstance, when the SL singular becomes a TL plural

Catford was very much criticized for his linguistic theory of translation.One of the most scathing criticisms came from Snell-Hornby (1988), who arguedthat Catford's definition of textual equivalence is circular, his theory's reliance onbilingual informants hopelessly inadequate, and his example sentences isolatedand even absurdly simplistic She considers the concept of equivalence intranslation as being an illusion She asserts that the translation process cannotsimply be reduced to a linguistic exercise, as claimed by Catford for instance,since there are also other factors, such as textual, cultural and situational aspects,which should be taken into consideration when translating In other words, shedoes not believe that linguistics is the only discipline which enables people tocarry out a translation, since translating involves different cultures and differentsituations at the same time and they do not always match from one language toanother

2.2.2 Translation methods

Newmark (1988b) [18, p81] mentions the difference between translation

methods and translation procedures He writes that, “While translation methods

relate to whole text, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language.” He refers to the following methods of translation:

- Word-for-word translation: in which the SL word order is

preserved and the words translated singly by their most common meanings, out

of context

converted to their nearest equivalents, but the lexical words are again translatedsingly, out of context

meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures

only in as far as it must take more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text

mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usuallypreserved, the SL culture is converted to the TL culture and the text is rewritten

or content of the original

but tends to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialism and idiomswhere these do not exist in the original

contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and languageare readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership

The terms “strategy” and “procedure” have not been distinguished clearly

by any translation scholars In this research, we stand on the point of view of

John Kearns (2009) in Routledge Encyclopedia or Translation studies, edited by

Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha He stated that those two terms can be used

interchangeably to describe the ways of translating units smaller than text From

this point onwards, in this study, we use the term “strategy”.

2.2.3 Translations of songs

According to Peter Low (2006) [21], in art songs, the source texts oftenhave intrinsic complexity and literary value as poetry, and the words generallyreceive greater respect than in other types of song For those songs that mostdepend for their effect on verbal comprehension, good translations are

particularly important With a sung text, rhymes usually observe the syllable

count of the original This is a translation designed to fit the music and to beperformed with it Besides, a translation has given priority to matching themusic, it will be too inaccurate structurally and semantically to help the singer inuntangling the source text He also pointed that a line-by-line approach is undulyrestrictive: it means that some of the normal tools of competent translators toolssuch as transposition, modulation, paraphrase, compensation in place arerendered unavailable, totally or partially In the case of song texts, the typicalreader of translations is often a music lover rather than a poetry buff, and maybeill equipped for teasing meaning out of an opaque text Therefore considerations

of purpose should affect the translators' handling of cultural and contextual

details With a singable translation, making singable translations is a difficult

task One is subject to huge, multiple constraints imposed by the preexistingmusic, because one cannot ignore the rhythms, the note values, the phrasings orthe stresses of the music even phrasings and pitch levels may have to beconsidered and to reduce the number of short vowel sounds and the clustering ofconsonants Ideally, the new version must sound as if the music had been fitted

to it, even though it was actually composed to fit the original It is not surprising,

then, that many of these versions are too badly done to be usable, many are somarred by forced rhymes and unnatural language that performers simply cannot

sing them with conviction The argument in favor of singable translations points

out that most songs were intended to communicate verbally as well as musically.The devising of this kind of singable text presents the translator with fascinatingchallenges The translator is judged on five events: singability, sense,naturalness, rhythm, and rhyme

The song translator cannot and need not give precise equivalents for everydetail of the original text; he must and can translate what is essential to themusic It is very strictly confined in regard to rhythm and declamation: he mustfit the music exactly But he need not and indeed, if he wishes to preserve therhyme scheme and, at the same time, use idiomatic, understandable English, hecannot parallel the precise meaning of every line He may ignore details whichare not reflected in the music and hence have no effect in the song Thus he is atonce more restricted and freer than the translator of poetry as such

2.3 TRINH CONG SON’S BIOGRAPHY

Trịnh Công Sơn (1939-2001) was a song writer, musician, poet and painter

He was born in Daklak, grew up in Huế, studied in Qui Nhơn, taught school inBảo Lộc, then finally moved to Saigon in 1965 A heavy drinker and smoker, hedied of diabetes, liver and kidney failure He wrote over 600 songs, achieving hisfirst hit, "Ướt mi" ["Wet Lashes"], in 1957 Joan Baez dubbed him the BobDylan of Vietnam He often wrote about the ephemeral nature of life, as in theclassic "Cát bụi" ["Sand and Dust"] The singer most associated with him isKhánh Ly, whose husky, mournful voice helped to popularize his music Theyoften performed together on South Vietnamese university campuses More

recently, Hồng Nhung has also been celebrated for her jazzy interpretions of hissongs Trinh Cong Son’s songs are so strange, which were written by intellectuallanguage In another way, they are ‘weaved’ by the most beautiful words in thetreasure of Vietnamese language It takes years to understand some words orsentences in Trinh Cong Son’ songs, but not all of us can catch Son’s ideas, andsome seem to be so different Son himself created his own unique school ofmusic which is not only very sublime but also very sweet with simple melodies.Therefore, Son’s music is also for public, in other word, it is also for all because

it is easy to remember

2.3.1 Writings about Trinh Cong Son and his music

Trinh Cong Son’s music has been the subject of many studies from normalpeople who write because of love saving for Son to linguists to clarify anddiscover his school of music, his ways of using language and melodies and histhoughts in the lyrics, not only in Vietnam but also in many other countries, such

as America, Japan, France, etc Yoshii Michiko, a Japanese lady, studied TrinhCong Son music by doing her Master degree in French at Paris University in

1991 on the topic Chansons anti-guerre de Trinh Cong Son [62] Beside that,

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thúy, who is now the lecturer of Quy Nhon University, wrote

about Trinh Cong Son in her Master thesis in 2006 with the topic “Thân phận

Con người và Tình yêu trong ca từ Trịnh Công Sơn” [44] Trinh Cong Son’

music seems to be the unlimited treasure to do research Nguyễn Thị ThanhHuyền studied the hyponym syntax on Son’s lyrics in her Master degree of

Literature Science, in Ho Chi Minh city 2009 by the topic “Mô hình ẩn dụ cấu

trúc trên cứ liệu ca từ Trịnh Công Sơn” [46] Nearly a month after Trinh Cong

Son’s death, many writings, and books about him were published Trịnh Công