Giải pháp cho vấn đề bất tương đương dịch thuật anh việt ở cấp độ từ vựng trong văn bản truyền thông

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* TRỊNH THỊ NGỌC HÂN INVESTIGATING THE TRANS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRỊNH THỊ NGỌC HÂN

INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION STRATEGIES FOR

ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE NON-EQUIVALENCE

AT WORD LEVEL IN THE MEDIA TEXT

(Giải pháp cho vấn đề bất tương đương dịch thuật Anh - Việt

ở cấp độ từ vựng trong văn bản truyền thông)

MINOR MASTER THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

CODE: 8220201.01

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRỊNH THỊ NGỌC HÂN

INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION STRATEGIES FOR

ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE NON-EQUIVALENCE

AT WORD LEVEL IN THE MEDIA TEXT

(Giải pháp cho vấn đề bất tương đương dịch thuật Anh - Việt

ở cấp độ từ vựng trong văn bản truyền thông)

MINOR MASTER THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

CODE: 8220201.01 SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien

Hanoi, 2019

DECLARATION

I, Trinh Thi Ngoc Han, hereby declare that the work in this thesis is the result of my own research It is recognized that should this declaration be found to be false, disciplinary actions could be taken and penalties could be imposed in accordance with university policies and rules

Hanoi, April 2019

Trịnh Thị Ngọc Hân

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, who inspired me to conduct this research and spent his time giving me invaluable suggestions, corrections and improvement, without which I would have been, no doubt, unable to finish the thesis

I also send my gratitude to my family, who have always been supporting me during the completion of this study

I also give sincere thanks to my friends and colleagues for their great support and encouragement

Without the help of those people, this study has not been completed

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at highlighting the fact that „non-equivalence' represent a concept worth revisiting and dealing with when tackling the translation process of media text At which, many problems of translation at word level arises Some experts have proposed strategies to deal with these problems, among whom, Baker (1992, 2011 2018) is a prominent author in this expertise The purpose of this present study is, then, to reveal the strategies used in English-Vietnamese translation of media text accordingly with Baker‟s (2018) theory The Vietnamese translated data were collected from an official and copyrighted news agency of Vietnam namely Bnews (Vietnam News Agency) The source language data were collected from Reuter The findings sought to reveal how Vietnamese media text professional translators employed the strategies to deal with the problems of non-equivalence in English-Vietnamese translations The results of the study contribute to an understanding of contemporary strategies dealing with non-equivalence in translation Practical suggestions for translators and further research were also proposed

Keywords: non-equivalence, media text, target language, source language,

translation strategies

TABLES OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLES OF CONTENT iv

ABBREVIATIONS vi

TABLES OF FIGURES vii

TABLES OF APPENDIXES vii

Chapter I INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 2

1.3 Scope of the Study 3

1.4 The Significance of the Study 3

1.5 Organization of the Thesis 4

Chapter II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 5

2.1 Definition of translation 5

2.2 Equivalence in Translation 7

2.3 Non-equivalence in Translation 9

2.3.1 Non-equivalence at word level 10

2.3.2 Strategies in Non-equivalence at Word Level 14

2.4 Review of Previous Study 16

Chapter III METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 The data 20

3.2 Method 21

3.2 Research Design 21

3.3 Analytical Framework 22

Chapter IV FINDING AND DISCUSSION 26

4.1 The major problems of English-Vietnamese non-equivalence at

word level 26

4.1.1 Culture-specific concepts 26

4.1.2 The source-language is not lexicalized in the target language 27

4.1.3 The source-language word is semantically complex 28

4.1.4 The source language makes different distinction in meaning 28

4.1.5 The target language lacks a superordinate 28

4.1.6 The target-language lacks a specific term 29

4.1.7 Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective 29

4.1.8 Differences in expressive meanings 29

4.1.9 Diferences in form 30

4.1.10 The problem of differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms 30

4.1.11 The use of loan words in English source text 31

4.2 Strategies to deal with non-equivalence problems in the translation of media text 33

4.2.1 Translation by a more general word or a superordinate 33

4.2.2 Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word 35

4.2.3 Translation by cultural substitution 37

4.2.4 Translation using a loan word or a loan word plus explanation 39

4.2.5 Translation by paraphrase using a related word 41

4.2.6 Translation by paraphrase using an unrelated word 42

4.2.7 Translation by omission 44

Chapter V CONCLUSION 47

5.1 Summary 48

5.2 Implications 50

5.3 Limitations and further research 51

References 52

TABLES OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The density of problems of non-equivalence in English and Vietnamese media text 31 Figure 2: The frequency of strategies for dealing with the problem of non-equivalence in English-Vietnamese translation 45

TABLES OF APPENDIXES

Appendix 1 II Appendix 2 VII Appendix 3 XIV Appendix 4 XXV Appendix 5 XXXI

Chapter I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, aims and objectives

of the study, scope of the study, significance and the outline of the report

1.1 Rationale

Along with the tremendous development of science and technology, media texts have been enriched and soon became a big corpus in diverse fields, which is an infinite source of information This in turn has resulted in

an urgent need of translation to bridge the communication gap and make changes, in which, as Zeldin (1995, p 465) says „I see the meeting of people, bodies, thoughts, emotions, or actions as the start of change Each link created

by a meeting is like a filament, which, if they were all visible, would make the world look as though it is covered with gossamer.‟

Even though communication is the primary aim and function of a translated text, Venuti (2012, p 11) states that today „we are far from thinking that translating is a simple communicative act‟ and that „a translation never communicates in an untroubled fashion because the translator negotiates the linguistic and cultural differences of the source by reducing them and supplying another set of differences drawn from the receiving situation to enable the translation to circulate there.‟

The troubles arise in the process of translation between two different written languages, which involves the changing of an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL) If translating were of only the transmission of these

concepts, it would be easy and universal and one would simply replace the English name for a concept with the Vietnamese name As Culler (1976, pp 21-22) says „If language were like this the task of learning a new language would also be much easier than it is But anyone who has attempted either of these tasks has acquired, alas, a vast amount of direct proof that languages are not nomenclatures, that the concepts of one language may differ radically from those of another … Each language articulates or organizes the world differently Languages do not simply name existing categories, they articulate their own.‟

Based on this discussion, finding the equivalence at word level from one language into another obliges translators to have a good command of knowledge

of both source language and target language This comes to the fact that any language has some certain words which more or less are different from one another, which poses the notion of non-equivalence in translation and poses difficulties for the translators and strategies for dealing with them

In her latest study, Baker (2018, p 19) has strongly remarked that equivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalence for a word which occurs in the source text The type and level of difficulty posed can vary tremendously depending on the nature of non-equivalence.‟ This requires the translator to go beyond what the average listener or reader has to do so as to reach an adequate understanding of a text

„non-1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

This present research is conducted on a descriptive and qualitative procedure that facilitates the difficulties in the mentioned areas First, the researcher carefully analyzed the difficulties relevant to the aim of the study and classify them into different categories Second, an attempt was made to

exemplify any of these difficulties from translating English media texts into Vietnamese Third, the strategies to cope with these difficulties were analyzed and discussed In so doing, this present study sought to answer the one following research question:

1 What are the problems of English-Vietnamese non-equivalence at word level in the media text?

2 What are the strategies used by the translators to solve the problems

of non‐equivalence at word level found in the media text?

1.3 Scope of the study

Given the scope of the study, this present research project focuses on investigating the strategies to cope with English – Vietnamese non-equivalence at word level However, as Baker (2018, p 16) states „It is virtually impossible to offer absolute guidelines for dealing with the various types on non-equivalence which exist among languages,‟ thus, the analysis of non-equivalence is heavily based on the concepts of common problems of non-equivalence proposed by Baker (2018) Other factors such as extra-linguistics and intra-linguistics are neglected in this study

Furthermore, due to the time and scope of this minor research project, the media text is narrowed down into five newspaper articles from two biggest news agents in Vietnamese, who usually translate global news or stories into local newsfeed

1.4 The Significance of the Study

Vietnam is a developing country that needs more and more science, technology and knowledge to integrate the Industry 4.0 and reach the level of development of the neighboring countries, as Tiến (2006) states that translation plays an important role in the development of the society Besides,

this study contributes to an understanding of the strategies to solve the English-Vietnamese non-equivalence in the media text

Moreover, this study attempts to propose useful suggestions for newspaper translators and the learners of English through newspapers Besides, this present study may help me fulfil my personal academic interest into translation and translating and solve my problems of teaching and translating in my expertise and at my institution

1.5 Organization of the thesis

This thesis consists of six chapters Following this introduction, which briefly drew attention to the basic concepts of translation, and the rise of the problems of non-equivalence in translation A focus for the research questions were subsequently investigated and guidelines for an appropriate methodology were proposed The scope of the study was also set up to narrow down the research problems and to explain the feasibility of the study

Chapter 2 reviews the extant literature and previous studies that motivates the researcher to conduct this research and generates the hypotheses

of this thesis This chapter suggests a critique that defines the concepts of translation, equivalence and non-equivalence as well as reviews the previous study on this problem

Chapter 3 describes the data collection procedures, the research design and theoretical and analytical framework of the study Key findings from analysis of the research data are presented in Chapter 4

Chapter 5 includes a detailed account and interpretation of the findings

of the study, with reference to three research questions and in relation to previous relevant research findings Chapter 6 summarizes the study findings, focuses on theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study

Chapter II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

As more and more language professionals are required to have a high level of active competence in a second or foreign language, the need for the understanding of translation increases Needless to say, translation has never been an easy task to tackle This chapter first reviews the extant literature of translation, translation equivalence and non-equivalence, the strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word level and it also presents related studies so far

Talking about the concept of translation in applied linguistics means immediately bringing up against fundamental issues such as the view about the world, the status of knowledge and cultural political, and academic practices and relationships and among different opinions in any and all of these areas (Halverson, 2010) many scholars have become interested in

translation and interpreting (Halverson, 2010; Hatim & Mason, 1990, 2013; Nida, 1964; Nida & Taber, 1982; Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995)

Since Catford‟s (1965, p 1) words as „an operation performed on languages,‟ it has been criticized by Snell-Hornby (1995, p 20) for expressing too narrow a view of what translation is and for stating translation rules as „isolated and even absurdly simplistic sentences.‟ At some points in the 20th and early 21st century, cognitive processes involved in translating and interpreting, and there was a so-called theory of sense developed by Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989, 2002) However, according to Malmkjaer (2018, p 15), there is a possibility that „at least some negative views of linguistics as a foundation for the development of translation and interpreting studies were based on a desire to forge independent disciplines and a concern that the complex processes of translating and interpreting would be overlooked in the effort to relate languages to each other.‟

At the peak of modern translation studies, there comes a question as such is translation universal? This question was brought up in Malmkjaer‟s (2018) work, in which he discusses the central role of norms in descriptive translation studies as „it is norms that determine the (type and extent of) equivalence manifested by actual translations‟ (as cited in Malmkjaer, 2018, p 20) There is an explanation that norms can decide regularities in translational behavior Toury (2012, p 81) states that „norms can influence not only translation of all kinds, but also at every stage of the act‟ but on the notion of universal he confirms „a universal of translation… are young, or otherwise weak‟ (p 140) It is noted here that the universal in translation tradition as a norm, a social product is completely different from Chomskyan theory explained in Universal Grammar as principles that control the forms of

Concerning this issue, Newmark (1988, p 43) remarks if there is more

or less a universal, there is no translation problem at all That originates the terms equivalence and non-equivalence in translation, when each language has its own grammar, sentence, verb, culture and norms

2.2 Equivalence in Translation

Numerous linguistic scholars recognized the importance of seeking a proper equivalence during translation process However, the notion is undoubtedly among the most problematic and controversial areas in the field

of translation theory as Bassnett (2002, p 34) states it is „a much-used and abuse term in Translation Studies‟ This term has also been discussed from different points of view and bas been approached from various perspectives Some theorists have define translation in terms of equivalence relation (Catford, 1965; Nida & Taber, 1982; Pym, 2014)

Catford (1965, p 24) defines „equivalence is sentence-to-sentence, at another, group-to-group, at another, word-to-word.‟ The condition for translation equivalence can be as follow „Translation equivalence occurs when an SL (source language) and TL (target language) texts or items are related to (at least some of) the same relevant features of situation substance.‟ (Catford, 1965, p 50) In the meantime, Snell-Hornby (1995, p 22) denies the theoretical notion of equivalence as „an illusion of symmetry between languages.‟ However, House (1997, p 26) fights back Snell-Hornby‟s argument as „Snell-Hornby singles out one particular dictionary entry, which supports her claim that equivalence basically equals identity and promptly proceeds to dismiss equivalence as „an illustration‟ in translation studies.‟ More on this, Pym (2014) comments on Snell-Hornby‟s as not convincing

Notably, Bassnett (2002) discerns upon equivalence in a sense that it is not a search for sameness, since sameness cannot exist between two TL versions of the same text, let alone between SL and the TL

House (1997) states the notion of equivalence is the conceptual basis of translation Catford (1965, p 21) also shares “the central problem of translation practice is that of finding TL equivalents and the central task of translation theory is therefore that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence.‟

In contrast to Catford‟s (1965) formal-textual equivalence, Nida (1964,

p 166) defines it as something more dynamic:

1 Equivalence, which points toward the source language message

2 Natural, which points toward the receptor language

3 Closest, which binds the two orientations together on the basis of the highest degree of approximation

Newmark (1988, p 198) emphasizes situational equivalence and he argues that „synonymy Paraphrase and grammatical variation all of which might do the job in a given situation, but would be inaccurate.‟ This definition includes cultures, the SL writers and the TL readers, the norms of each language, the settings, traditions, and even the prejudices of the translators

From another definition of translation equivalence, Popovie (as cited in Bassnett, 2002, p 33) differentiates four types: linguistic equivalence, where the linguistic level of both SL and TL texts should be considered; paradigmatic equivalence, where such elements as grammar, or lexical equivalence; stylistic equivalence, where there should be some functional equivalence; and textual equivalence, where the syntagmatic structure of a text should be considered

Focusing on the similarity, Chesterman (1996, p 160) eases a clam that

„adequate similarity is enough-adequate for a given purpose, in a given context … anything more would be an inefficient use of recourses‟

From structural point of view, Jakobson (2012) suggests three types of translation: intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic His contribution is concerning with understanding of meaning and viewing translation as communicate model He concludes „substituting messages in one language not for separate cods but for inter messages in some other language It involves to equivalent messages in two different cods (Jakobson, 2012, 139)

In this sense, equivalence and substituting are two key words

In conclusion, it can be concluded that the notion of translation equivalence is of something troubled There are so many types, so many levels and so many approaches to translation equivalence On topping this off, Venuti (2008, p 246) sums up „A translated text should be the site where linguistic and cultural differences are somehow signaled, where a reader gets some sense of a cultural other, and resistance, a translation strategy based on

an aesthetic of discontinuity, can best signal those differences, that sense of otherness, by reminding the reader of the gains and losses in the translation process and the unbridgeable gaps between cultures.‟ In addition, he states that the meaning of text is unstable and it cannot be reproduced in another context, which arises the term of non-equivalence in translation

2.3 Non-equivalence in Translation

It is likely that scholars agree that standards of translation rely on equivalence and non-equivalence and other associated judgement criteria (Baker, 2009) In this sense, non-equivalence is a central attention in translations studies and the concept of non-equivalence has had its share of

both criticism and challenge Baker (2018) puts it that there are various equivalence problems, and these problems occur at different levels of translation such as word, grammar or text Thus, the factors affecting the choice of a suitable equivalent in a given context may be „strictly linguistic‟, may be „extra-linguistic‟ and that „It is imposable to offer absolute guidelines for dealing with the various types of non-equivalence which exist among languages‟ (Baker, 2018, p 16)

non-2.3.1 Non-equivalence at word level

In the same work, Baker (2018, p.19) defines „non-equivalence at word level means that the TL has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the ST.‟ In which, he establishes eleven different problems of non-equivalence at word level

(1) Culture-specific concepts As Kramsch (2003) claims that nature, culture and language have the inter-relationship, thus, the source word may express a concept which is totally ignorant to the target culture Baker (2018, p 20) states that this may well relate to a religious belief,

a social custom, or a type of food For example, in Vietnamese we have

„nem‟ as a food but there is no such term in English

(2) The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language (Baker, 2018, p.20) This happens when the source language word may have a wider range of concepts which is known in the target culture but simply not lexicalized For example, the word „bon appetit‟ in French

or „chúc ngon miệng‟ in Vietnamese is easy to understand, but English has no ready equivalent for it Instead, people in the UK often say

„Enjoy your meal‟ or more recently people may say „good appetite‟ but this phrase is found to be strange or incomprehensible when the phrase

(3) The source-language is semantically complex (Baker, 2018, p 20) This case is a rather complex problem in translation, as Bolinger and Sears (1986, as cited in Baker, 2018, p 20) put it that „words do not have to be morphologically complex to be semantically complex.‟ But

in other words, the word can be a single morpheme and, in their development, languages automatically assign a complex set of meanings to the word For example, I n Vietnamese, the word „thương‟

is too complex to translate into one word in English and vice versa In which, „thương‟ is defined as „có tình cảm gắn bó và thường tỏ ra săn sóc‟ (Phê, 2018)

(4) The source and target languages make different distinctions in meaning (Baker, 2018, p 20) This happens when the target language may have more or fewer distinctions in a concept than the source language For example, in Vietnamese we have different terms for „bamboo‟ in English such as „luồng, lứa, bương, tre, sậy…‟

(5) The Target language lacks a superordinate (Baker, 2018, p 21) It is when the target language may have specific words but there is not a

general word to head the semantic field Take the word facilities in

English, meaning „any equipment, building, services, etc that are provided for a particular activity or purpose‟ (Hornby, 2015, p 545) It does not have a ready equivalent in Vietnamese, however, it does have many specific words and expressions which can be a part or thought of

as a type of facilities, for example thiết bị, cơ sở vật chất… On

discussing British Sign Language, Brennan (1999, as cited in Baker,

2018, p 21):

An ongoing problem for interpreter is that the speaker often uses

an English generic term for which British Sign Language (BSL)

has no direct equivalent: the opposite problem is that BSL is frequently much more specific than English Some examples of generic English terms … include: touch, hit, murder, assault, hold While the English word hit does not specify how someone was hit (for example with the flat hand, the fist, the back of the hand etc.) or where someone was hit (on the face, head, legs, back, etc.), a sighed version of hit would typically be quite specific in relation to how and where

(6) The target language lacks a specific term (hyponym) (Baker, 2018, p 21) As Baker (2018, p 21) says „languages tend to have general words (superordinate) but lack specific ones (hyponym), since each language makes only those distinctions in meaning which seem relevant to its

particular environment.‟ For example, under house, English has a large

number of hyponyms which have no equivalents in Vietnamese such as

bungalow, croft, chalet, lodge, mansion, manor, villa, hall…

(7) Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective (Baker, 2018, p 21) Physical perspective may be of more importance in one language

than it is in another Take come/go, take/bring in English Interpersonal

perspective may include the relationship between participants in

discourse Take she in English, we have a variety of terms to denote

„she‟ such as cô ấy, chị ấy, bạn gái ấy, thím ấy, mợ ấy, etc

(8) Differences in expressive meaning (Baker, 2018, p 22) This is a difficult concept to acquire for, and the translator has to have a sense of sensitivity

to some extent to capture the expressive meaning of words In that case, the translator can add some evaluative element by means of a modifier or adverb or by building it in somewhere else in the text Baker (2018, p.23) adds „this is often the case with items which relate to sensitive issues, such

as religion, politics and sex Take homosexual for example, it does not

really project a pejorative idea in English, however, in Vietnamese

translation as đồng giới can be an assault or criticism

(9) Differences in form As Baker (2018, p 22) puts it „there is often no equivalent in the target language for a particular form in the source text Certain suffixes and prefixes which convey propositional and other types of meaning in English often have no direct equivalents in other languages.‟ This use of suffixes in English are very creative, which may convey expressive meaning and may be more difficult to translate Baker (2018, p 23) cites an exciting example as „One advertisement for the chocolate Toblerone which appeared in many outlets in the mid-1990s showed three chocolate triangles against a larger image of the three pyramids in Egypt, with the caption „Ancient Tobleronism?‟ appearing next to the pyramids Here, the -ism ending evokes spirituality (as in Buddhism) and, possibly, tradition – the kind we associate with established schools of thought that have large numbers

of loyal followers, such as Marx ism, Existential ism and so on Eating Toblerone is thus likened to a spiritual experience; at the same time, the making of the chocolate, as well as eating it, are presented as part of a tradition, with a long and stable history.‟

(10) Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms This happens when a particular form does have a ready equivalent in the target language, but there may be a difference in the frequency with which it is used or the purpose for which it is used

(11) The use of loan words in the source text This is a complicated process, once the translator borrows a loan word, he or she may not predict or control its development or additional meanings it might (not) take

To sum up, it seems unlikely to deal with all these problems of equivalence at the same time, but „it is important first of all to assess its significance and implications in a given context (Baker, 2018, p 24) A translator‟s job is to try, as much as possible, to convey the meaning of key words and to bear in mind the similarity or the near-equivalence

non-2.3.2 Strategies in Non-equivalence at Word Level

In translation studies, many scholars have used the term translation strategies widely Kearns (2009, p 282) connotes the term „strategy‟ as „a teleological course of action undertaken to achieve a particular goal in an optimal way.‟ Meanwhile, Venuti (2001, p 240) defines „Strategies of translation involve the basic tasks of choosing the foreign text to be translated and developing a method to translate it.‟ Also on this issue, Lorscher (1991, p

76 as cited in Scmmell, 2018, p 48) focuses on the procedure as potentially conscious during translation process, he defines „A translation strategy is a potentially conscious procedure for the solution of a problem which an individual is faced with when translating a text segment from one language into another.‟ Riccardi (1998, p 172) has connected creativity with translation strategies, he states „the interpreter applies different strategies to cope with his/her task Strategies are both language-specific and language-independent

in constant interplay during the reception and production of the text This interpreting performance will be creative.‟ In this sense, he also focuses on the language as being both specific and independent

Palmer (1981, p 21) pays attention to the role of the translator as a professional to deal with the problem of non-equivalence: „The words of a language often reflect not so much the reality of the world, but the interests of the people who speak it.‟ This view is agreed with by Baker‟s (2018, p 24)

and Baker lists out eight strategies professional translators should use for dealing with non-equivalence at word level

(1) Translation by a more general word (superordinate) (Baker, 2018, p 25) This strategy is the commonest to deal with many types of non-equivalence, especially in the area of propositional meaning and in given semantic field

(2) Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word (Baker, 2018, p 27) This strategy is useful when the target language does not have the right word to the source language

(3) Translation by cultural substitution Baker (2018, p 30) puts it „this strategy involves replacing a culture-specific item or expression with a target language item which does not have the same propositional meaning but is likely to have a similar impact on the target reader, for instance by evoking a similar context in the target language.‟

(4) Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation This strategy is particularly common in dealing with culture-specific items, modern concepts and buzzwords (Baker, 2018, p 34)

(5) Translation by paraphrase using a related word As Baker (2018, p 38) puts it „this strategy tends to be used when the concept expressed by the source item is lexicalized in the target language but in a different form and when the frequency with which a certain form is used in the source text is significantly higher than would be natural in the target language.‟

(6) Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words (Baker, 2018, p 40) This strategy seems most useful when the paraphrase may be based on modifying a superordinate or simply on unpacking the meaning of the source item

(7) Translation by omission Baker (2019, p 43) states „this strategy may sound rather drastic, but in fact, it does not harm to omit translating a word or expression in some contexts.‟

(8) Translation by illustration (Baker, 2018, p 45) It is most useful when there is a lack of equivalent in the target language referring to a physical entity or restrictions on space and when the text has to remain short

In conclusion, thought on both local and global translation strategies has been discussed in the development of translation studies since the 1990s (Kearns, 2009) or in his work, Venuti (2001) so calls it domesticating strategies and foreignizing strategies To top this off, Chesterman (2016, p 86) proposes that „strategies are ways in which translators seek to react to norms, … to try to conform to them, … not necessarily to achieve maximum equivalence, but simply to arrive at the best version they can think of, what they regard as the optimal translation.‟

2.4 Review of Previous Study

Leonardi (2000) introduces Baker‟s (2018) theory as “an extremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence” (p 7) As appraised in Leonardi‟s (2000) paper, Baker (2018) has provided “a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be defined” The author particularly compliments levels of Baker‟s approach as “putting together the linguistic and the communicative approach” and agrees that in a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element to be taken into consideration by the translator

Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek (2005) accommodates the readers with a considerably comprehensive analysis on Baker‟s theory on non-equivalence

at word level before attempting to address specific problematic words and expressions between English and Polish The paper strongly corroborates Baker‟s theory by working on every problems and strategies of non- equivalence at word level and rationally provides the pros and cons of each All in all, the pertinence of Baker‟s theory has been critically recognized As

a brief introduction, the following table will present common problems of non-equivalence at word level as specified by Baker (2018)

In the article “Translation-Strategies Use: A Classroom-Based Examination of Baker‟s Taxonomy”, Aguado-Gimenez and Perez-Paredes (2005) explore the use of strategies by undergraduate The study evaluates student‟s translation from English to Spanish An experiment was conducted among 160 third-year students of English Studies who supposed

to be at upper-intermediate or advanced level of English Those students were provided a prior instruction about basic concepts on equivalence and Baker‟s (2018) categories as well as a variety of strategies to solve non-equivalence

Aguado-Gimenez and Perez-Paredes (2005) notes that translation using a related word; translation by paraphrase using unrelated words and translation by omission seem to be favoured by Spanish native speakers According to the study, Spanish students did not use strategies such as translation by a more general word and translation by cultural substitution while their English classmates did not use the following strategies: translation using a loan word or a loan word plus an explanation, and translation by cultural substitution It was concluded that all the students failed to use cultural substitution Regarding the failure of the students, the author explains that the students at that level of translation training are not qualified enough to master the use of given strategies though they tried to

apply provided strategies when exposing to difficult situations Above all, the study reaffirms the accuracy and pertinence of Baker‟s strategy taxonomy

In Vietnamese context, Giang (2010) studies into Vietnamese-English translation strategies, data were collected from a series of bilingual books The study employs Vinay and Darbelnet‟s (1995) procedures of translation and Giang (2010) concludes that „five strategies deal with lexical treatment: using words of more general meaning, descriptive equivalents, addition, subtraction and using different words or phrases‟ (Giang, 2010, p 47)

In another study, Anh (2011) studies difficulties and strategies in English-Vietnamese translation of advertising slogans She concludes that there are six types of strategies namely: adding lexical feature, omitting lexical feature, adapting lexical meaning, adding in sentence structure, omitting in sentence structure and adapting in sentence structure Commenting on the difficulties, Anh (2011) says that there is some unability

to preserve nuance meaning of SL slogan, unstanslatability of puns and neologism and culture barrier

In summary, Baker‟s (2018) categories of non-equivalence at word level and strategies to address the problem has been corroborated and strongly recognized by many linguistic theorists and researchers Its application is not restricted only in the profession of translation but also in university training thanks to its soundness and comprehensibility As observed in English Department of Industrial University, Hanoi, senior students also share the weakness in dealing with non- equivalence, especially at word level in English – Vietnamese translation Under this circumstance, this study will take Baker‟s (2018) taxonomy of non-equivalence at word level and strategies

as the basement of analysis It is the fact that almost all of the previous study dedicated to analyse the non-equivalence of English and some other frequently used languages such as Spanish, German, Chinese, and Arabic etc

It is noteworthy that, in this paper, Baker‟s (2018) theory will be applied in such a way that truly reflexes the problem of English-Vietnamese translation, which has not been deeply explored

Chapter III METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, section 1 presents the data of the present research project Section 2 depicts the methods used in this study Section 3 describes the research design to show how this project was carried out Section 4 discusses ways in which the findings were analyzed and achieved

3.1 The data

The media text is produced in media, whether it is a television, a book,

a poster, a popular song, the latest fashion show, etc A media text is defined

as the name implies, as an instance of mediated communication and it may include: written language; spoken language, non-verbal language or visual language (Burton, 2005) However, due to the scope and this minor study, media text is narrowed down to be newspaper articles

The data were gathered from the Vietnam News Agency (VNA), a governmental agency, and this agency is the state run responsible for publishing official information and documents Especially, in the World News Department, there is a system of 40 news bureaus, such as AFP, Reuters, AP, Xinhua, Yonhap, Kyodo News, etc., in the five continents who are in cooperation with VNA to upload world and regional news daily or periodically It is also the only agency whose all world news is copyrighted (Lợi, 2015)

There are five official websites broadcasting worldwide includes news.vnanet.vn for Vietnamese-language news, en.vietnamplus.vn for English-language news, cn.vietnamplus.vn for Chinese-language news, fr.vietnamplus.vn for French-language news, and es.vietnamplus.vn for

Spanish-language news However, this present study only collects data from bnews.vn, a part of Vietnam News Agency for analysis Besides, it is needed

to rescope this research on analyzing the strategies for dealing with equivalence problems in the translation of English (news) into Vietnamese (news) and not vice versa

non-The data collection was carried out in six months from September 2018

to February 2019 The data collection procedure are as follows: Step one – go

to bnews.vn or its copyrighted alternative domain vietnamplus.vn for news with source-cited as „Theo Reuters.‟ Step two – go to reuters.com and search for the news using the keywords in the Vietnamese data In so doing, the total five Vietnamese articles popped up and were gathered for analysis as well as five source Reuters English articles were collected for analysis, comparation and contrast

3.2 Method

This paper used the descriptive and qualitative method of writing and quantitative description of the data It is qualitative in nature because it depends heavily on the researcher‟s own interpretation of translation texts Qualitative methods (Creswell, 2013) offers the opportunities to gain insight into the data during the analysis process Descriptive and contrastive methods were to adapted in this study to have in-depth data analysis and to compare and contrast the strategies used for dealing with non-equivalence problems (Given, 2008)

3.2 Research Design

The function of a research design is to ensure that the study is feasible and logic and as unambiguously as possible The first step was to identify the

research problem clearly and justify its selection, as well as explain the motivation to conduct this present study inductively

The second step taken in the process of writing of this research was gathering the related sources about this aspect deductively Besides, this step was also to concentrate on related previous works that were done by the other researchers whether finding difficulties or practical strategies to deal with non-equivalence issues At this point, the research hypotheses were clearly and explicitly specified

The third step was to describe the data (O‟Dwyer, 2004) which will be necessary for an adequate testing of the thesis hypotheses and explain how the data were to be gathered And the last step was to describe the methods of analysis to be applied to the data in connection with the research questions

3.3 Analytical Framework

Among approaches dealing with problems of non-equivalence at word level, Baker (2018) was the most outstanding theorist tackling this problem Her definition of word is the basic unit to be considered in meaning of a translation text Commenting on her theory Halliday, Matthiessen, and Matthiessen (2014, p 29) claims „meanings are realized by wordings‟

The major theoretical framework of this research has been chosen from

Baker‟s (2018) In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation Moreover,

this paper especially concentrates on the first chapter, Equivalence at Word Level (Baker, 2018, p 10-52), which discusses those obstacles and difficulties at word level, that prevent translators to find the appropriate equivalents Also, the strategies to cope with these difficulties have mentioned clearly and exemplified

As a brief framework, the following table will present common problems of non-equivalence at word level as specified by Baker (2018):

1 Culture - specific 7 Differences in physical or

interpersonal perspective

2 The source language concept is not

lexicalized in the target language

4 The source and target language make

different distinctions in meaning

10 Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms

5 The target language lacks a

Table 1: Non-Equivalence at word level

The following table represents the strategies used by professional translators proposed by Baker (2018) and this is used as a framework to find out the frequencies of these translation strategies to deal with the problems of non-equivalence at word level:

1 Translations by a more general

word (superordinate)

5 Translation by paraphrase using a related word

2 Translation by a more

neutral/less expressive word

6 Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words

or loan word plus explanation

Table 2: Strategies dealing with non-equivalence problems by professionals

Coding Process

The coding process was carried out manually and the codes are blanketed () in English data and square-blanketed [] in Vietnamese data to show the strategies used

The following table describes the codes for non-equivalence at word level:

6 (6) Lack of a specific term

7 (7) Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective

8 (8) Differences in expressive meaning

10 (10) Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms

11 (11) The use of loan words in the source text

Table 3: Table for coding non-equivaelnce at word level

This present table presents the codes for strategies for dealing with equivalence problems at word level:

1 [1] Translation by a more general word (superordinate)

2 [2] Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word

3 [3] Translation by cultural substitution

4 [4] Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation

5 [5] Translation by paraphrase using a related word

6 [6] Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words

7 [7] Translation by omission

8 [8] Translation by illustration

Table 4: Table for coding strategies dealing with non-equivalence at word

level

According to Saldana (2009, p 8), „coding is a cyclical act.‟ Thus, in this

thesis, the coding was conducted in cycles to ensure the reliability of the

research findings And coding cycle is as follows:

Filters, highlights

Mannual coding Catergorizing

Generating themes

Chapter IV

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter represents the findings of the research and the findings are

discussed in connection with the research questions and in contrast with

4.1.1 Culture-specific concepts

First and foremost, culture-specific concepts are defined as „the source language word many express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture The concept in question can be abstract or concrete; it may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, or even a type of food‟ (Baker, 2018, p 19) The first obvious problem is the translation of proper names When we read

or speak of a name in English, it is normal but in Vietnamese, we pay a great deal of attention to how to address him or her as well as his or her social status Such cases are found frequently in the translation of English to Vietnamese; for example, Trump, Kim, Putin, Rex Tillerson and so on

The second problem may go directly to the translation of personal pronouns and their formations, such as positive adjectives, object pronouns

or possessive pronouns For example, in the case of the media text

„Commentary: Five moments that defined 2018‟ (Apps, 2018) (See Appendix 2):

Trump upset many in his own administration with the warmth of his

meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin

In Vietnamese translation, it is difficult to understand when it is not the administration of a single person or official but the national administration, the administration of the collective Or in another case (See Appendix 2):

Google, whose chief executive Sundar Pichai became the latest tech chief summoned before Congress, faces a mutiny from some workers on

multiple topics, including his dealings with the U.S and Chinese

governments Amazon founder Jeff Bezos faces mounting criticism over working conditions and low tax payments (Apps, 2018)

In English culture, Apps (2018) can say „his dealings‟ referring directly

to Sundar Pchai‟s responsibility but in the same Vietnamese context, it should

be the company‟s responsibility or the collective in general

Thirdly, when it belongs to a social custom, an idiom or proverb, there may be no direct equivalence in Vietnamese That is the case of „a roller coaster year‟ (Apps, 2018) to describe a year with a lot of going up and down Another example of an abstract English concept which is notoriously difficult

to translate into Vietnamese is non-ideology or non-partisan (Apps, 2018) In

total, there are fifteen cases of culture-specific terms in the data

4.1.2 The source-language is not lexicalized in the target language This is

understood as the English word may express a concept which is known in Vietnamese culture but simply not lexicalized Baker (2018, p 20) gives an

example of the word standard in English to mean „ordinary, not extra‟ but it

is not lexicalized in Arabic This problem is obvious in English media texts

such as high profile, cherry-red, hurtling, cave rescue diver, mutiny,

establishment-based and so on There are as many as 137 cases of English

terms which are not lexicalized in Vietnamese in the data (See Appendixes)

4.1.3 The source-language word is semantically complex It is the case

when the target language may have to paraphrase or explain the concept or use another non-equivalent concept For example, the concept „plague‟ as in

„his firm plagued by its own stream of scandals and political headwinds‟ (Apps, 2018) or „embroiled‟ as in „he was embroiled in a high profile spat

with a British cave rescue diver‟ (Apps, 2018) Other cases are as such:

clogged, traditional path (See Appendix 3) or contagion, unfair (See

Appendix 4) There are as many as twenty-one cases of semantically complex

English words

4.1.4 The source language makes different distinction in meaning This

problem happens both in the source language English and the target language Vietnamese when translating from English to Vietnamese and this is a fairly

common problem in the two languages For example, the pair seize vs tịch

thu (See Appendix 1), lurked vs có, knew vs che giấu sự thật, assigned vs điều đến, disclose vs tiết lộ (See Appendix 1), summoned vs điều trần, dealings vs quan hệ (See Appendix 3) and other 35 cases which can be well

found in the data

4.1.5 The target language lacks a superordinate This problem happens

when there may be a hyponym in Vietnamese but no general word to express the semantic field There are seven cases in the data For example, the case of

the word industry as in:

By industry, construction and engineering was among the weakest with

its subindex at 45, the lowest since 2012 (See Appendix 4)

In this case, the word industry means by the means of sectors of industry and

there is no such concept in Vietnamese There are other four cases in the data

4.1.6 The target-language lacks a specific term This problem happens in

Vietnamese mostly with technical concepts and there are 32 cases found in

the data For example, manager, spat, roadster, underground, gathering,

collocated, CEO, vehicle, Singapore-based, implications, outflow, tariff (See

Appendixes)

4.1.7 Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective This problem is

defined as „physical perspective may be of more importance in one language than it is in another‟ (Baker, 2018, p 21) There are four cases found in the

data, such as touted, sent, tour, creating This problem needs more

explanation when in English there is nothing much to do with these words but when attention is taken against where or who involved in the discourse (tenor)

For example, touted was translated as được cho sẽ là which means that people thought that (Phê, 2018) but touted means he was persuaded that (Hornby, 2015) In the case of sent:

„Elon Musk‟s Falcon Heavy rocket blasted into space from Florida and

sent a cherry red Tesla roadster hurling toward Mars‟ (Apps, 2018)

(See Appendix 3)

And in Vietnamese translation:

Tỷ phú Elon Musk, đã thành công trong tham vọng phóng tên lửa

Falcon Heavy từ bang Florida, mang theo chiếc xe điện mui trần Tesla

của ông lên sao Hỏa (See Appendix 3)

In the target language, sent takes an active role as the rocket „sent‟ a roadster into Mars but in Vietnamese, mang theo means to be taken along with

4.1.8 Differences in expressive meanings This happens when there may be

a Vietnamese word which has the same proportional meaning as the English

word, but it may have a different expressive meaning There are thirty-nine cases of expressive meaning found in the data For example, the translation

pairs: finished power vs phấn rôm, raw talc vs bột tan thô, said vs tiết lộ,

speaking vs chia sẻ, reveal vs công bố

4.1.9 Differences in form This problem happens when there is no

equivalence in Vietnamese for a particular form in English because English has certain suffixes and prefixes which convey propositional and other types

of meaning (Baker, 2018) There are nine cases of this problem in the data

For example, columnist, dismembered, expertise, historically, producers,

exporters, its, ours

The case of ours in the article „Fast and serious: Vietnam‟s domestic car

manufacturer bets big‟ (Pearson, 2018) (See Appendix 3):

“That gives us the ability to move very, very quickly and to come out

with a vehicle that is 100 percent ours and looks like no other vehicles

that are on the road today,” Deluca said

There may be no direct equivalence to this case This problem often happens

in the translation of English to Vietnamese because English belongs to fusional or inflected language family and there are a lot of suffixes and prefixes, which makes it difficult to find a perfect equivalence into an isolating language family as such of Vietnamese with a very low morpheme per word ratio and no inflectional morphology to express different forms in English

4.1.10 The problem of differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms This happens regularly in the translation of English into

Vietnamese when a particular form does not have a ready equivalence in the

target language and there are eight cases of the continuous -ing form in

English for binding clauses and this form is not explicit in Vietnamese

4.1.11 The use of loan words in English source text

The use of a loan word may cause a special problem in translation because it can be used to a „prestige value‟ or „add an air of sophistication to the text or its subject matter‟ (Baker, 2018, p 23) The use of a loan word may add an effect of beautifulness or elegance, which is often hard to convey in the

translation Baker (2018) also brings up the term false friends to describe

„words or expression which have the same forms in two or more languages but convey a different meaning‟ (p 24) However, for some reason or another, there are no cases of loan words in the English media text There is a case of a technical term asbestos borrowed from Latin but it has become an English

word for three or four centuries

Figure 1: The density of problems of non-equivalence in English and

Vietnamese media text

14

137

21 42

Problems of English-Vietnamese Non-Equivalence in Media Text