A study on the influence of linguistic and socio cultural factors on martha collins’ translation of black stars by ngô tự lập

The researcher pointed out the modifications in the translated poems in English in comparison with the Vietnamese original version on the linguistic facet then studied the underlying fac

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRỊNH MINH XUÂN

A STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC AND SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS ON MARTHA COLLINS’ TRANSLATION OF “BLACK STARS” BY NGÔ TỰ LẬP

Nghiên cứu tác động của các nhân tố ngôn ngữ và văn hóa – xã hội đối với bản dịch tiếng Anh tập thơ “Những vì sao đen” của Ngô Tự Lập do

Martha Collins thực hiện

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201

Hanoi – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRỊNH MINH XUÂN

A STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC AND SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS ON MARTHA COLLINS’ TRANSLATION OF “BLACK STARS” BY NGÔ TỰ LẬP

Nghiên cứu tác động của các nhân tố ngôn ngữ và văn hóa – xã hội đối với bản dịch tiếng Anh tập thơ “Những vì sao đen” của Ngô Tự Lập do

Martha Collins thực hiện

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn

Hanoi – 2016

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled "A study on the influence of linguistic and

socio-cultural factors on Martha Collins’ translation of “Black stars" by Ngô Tự Lập” is

my own study in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi

Hanoi, 2016

Trịnh Minh Xuân

My sincere thanks also go to Dr Ngô Tự Lập, the author of the book under investigation of this research, who helps me build up a solid theoretical background on contemporary literary and poetry translation through many interviews I am especially grateful to his support throughout the research for the intense explanation on matters I met

on studying the book

Furthermore, I am indebted to many of the teachers in Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi for their useful lessons from which I developed a good research method and generated meaningful ideas for my study

Finally, I would like to show my profound gratitude to all members of my family and all my colleagues with their endless support in various ways Without their encouragement, I would not have been able to accomplish the study

ABSTRACT

Literary translation, particularly poetic translation, plays an undeniably important role in globalization process; however, how to produce good poetic translation involves many factors in consideration This thesis aims at discovering some factors affecting Ngô

Tự Lâp‘s ―Black Stars” translation by Martha Collins and the author Due to the limit of

the study, this paper only focuses on linguistic and socio-cultural aspects that might have

led to the modifications in “Black Stars” translation About 120 verses from 30 poems

collected from the book are categorized and analyzed in qualitative approach The researcher pointed out the modifications in the translated poems in English (in comparison with the Vietnamese original version) on the linguistic facet then studied the underlying factors influencing those modifications The findings indicate that in order to have good poetic translation, the translators have put many factors into consideration, among which linguistic and socio-cultural factors were the most typical In terms of linguistic group, these factors include syntactic, lexical and stylistic factors; whereas, in terms of socio-cultural group, they are factors relating to regional history, geography, living customs and readers‘ perception

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of abbreviations vii

PART A - INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale……… 1

2 Aims of the study……… 2

3 Research questions……… 2

4 Scope of the study……… 3

5 Methodology of the study……… 3

6 Organization of the study……… 3

PART B - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER1: LITERATURE REVIEW……… 5

I Definitions of translation……… 5

II Poetic translation……… 6

III Translation modifications……… 7

III.1 Research of Vinay and Darbelnet……… 7

III.2 Research of Nida……… 8

III.3 Research of Newmark……… … 8

IV Linguistic and Socio-cultural factors affecting modifications in translation.… 9 IV.1 Linguistic elements……… 9

IV.1.1 Syntactic factors……… 10

IV.1.2 Lexical factors.……… 11

IV.1.3 Context factors……… 12

IV.1.4 Stylistic factors……… 12

IV.2 Socio-cultural elements……… 13

V Related researches……… 14

V.1 Study of Pham Thu Giang (2010)……… 14

V.2 Study of Lubis (2009)……… 15

V.3 Study of Johnson (2006)……… 15

V.4 Study of Burgos (2007)……… 16

V.5 Study of Gou (2007)……… 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY……… 18

I Data corpus……… 18

II Research methods……… 19

II 1 Data collection procedure……… 19

II 2 Data analysis procedure……… 20

II 3 Analytical framework……… 21

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS……… 23

I Modifications in ―Black stars‖ translation……… 23

I.1 Syntactic modifications……… 23

I.1.1 Changes in grammatical word classes……… 23

I.1.2 Changes in sentence structures……… 24

I.2 Lexical modifications……… 26

I.2.1 Word addition……… 26

I.2.2 Word subtraction……… 27

I.2.3 Different meaning word generating……… 27

I.2.4 Untranslated words……… 28

I.3 Stylistic modifications……… 29

I.3.1 Reduplicative words……… 29

I.3.2 Metaphor……… 30

II Factors influencing translation……… 31

II 1 Linguistic factors……… 31

II.1.1 Syntactic factors……….… 31

II.1.2 Lexical factors……… 37

II.1.3 Linguistic context……… 43

II.1.4 Stylistic factors……… 46

II 2 Socio-cultural factors……… 49

II.2.1 Geographic differences……… 50

II.2.2 Historical differences……… 52

II.2.3 Custom differences……… 53

II.2.4 Perception differences……… 55

PART C - CONCLUSION 1 Summaries of main findings……… 57

2 Implications……… 58

3 Limitations of the study……… 59

4 Suggestions for further study……… 59

REFERENCES……… 60

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SL Source language SLT Source language text

TL Target language TLT Target language text

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Translation used to be considered an inter-language transfer of meaning Many earlier definitions demonstrate this, using source language and target language as their technical terms Moreover, translation theories strictly confined themselves within the sphere of linguistics For many years the popular trend in the translation circles had been perfect faithfulness to the original both in content and form and it had been regarded as the iron criterion as if from the holy Bible for translators to observe The godly status and the impossible idealistic belief were not altered until new thoughts arose with the respect of consideration of target readers, the unavoidable translator‘s subjectivity and the purpose and function of translations This thesis, starting to look from new angles such as the accommodation to target cultural conventions, the translator's consciousness of linguistic and cultural adaptations to make it easy for readers to understand translated works without too much pain and effort

Translation of poetry was, and still is by some, believed as impossibility for any unfaithful elements would have been taken as failure, be it content or form The arguments include linguistic elements and cultural elements Most importantly the myth of untranslatability looks upon poetry as beauty itself which is untouchable for once it is touched it is destroyed But as translation of poetry has never been stagnant though sometimes vigorous and sometimes not, there is strong evidence in both translation history and present day practice that poetry translation, a literary form as distinguished from fiction, drama, and prose, is translatable Poetry itself serves a purpose, be it an illusive matter or not, and aesthetics can be reproduced in another language and culture if accommodation is made

“Black Stars” is a collection of poems originally in Vietnamese by Ngô Tự Lập,

who can be seen as a master of both the Source Language (his mother tongue- Vietnamese) and the Target Language (English) The book was published in 2013, also the first time introduced to the public, both in Vietnamese and English, after a long period of co-operating between the author and an American native poet Martha Collins It consists of 42 poems divided into 3 sections mostly talking about the author‘s inner world, his memories and dreams

There were several reasons why the researcher decided to study this bilingual poem collection for her research Firstly, it was proved to be good poetry in translation (the book was nominated for PEN International Prize in the United States 2014 in Poetry in translation category) Secondly, the close co-operation during the translating process between the author and the translator, who is also a poet and writer in the target language, guarantees the faithfulness of the translation as well as the soundness of the modifications made For all of these advantages, it serves well the purposes of studying on the linguistic and socio-cultural factors affecting literary translation, especially poetry translation It also proves that poetry translation can be both faithful and aesthetic with regards to the target readers‘ features, among which the most important are linguistic and socio-cultural factors

2 Aims of the study

This research was carried out to serve the following aims:

- To find out the linguistic modifications made in the English translation “Black stars”

conducted by Martha Collins and the author Ngô Tự Lập from the Vietnamese original

“Những vì sao đen” poetry collection

- To identify the factors influencing the process of translating which brings about those modifications

2 What are the factors influencing those modifications?

The answers will help readers realize some modifications made in the Vietnamese -

English translation process of the bilingual poetry collection book “Black stars” and their

underlying reasons The study may also help sharpen the translators‘ awareness to put in consideration some outstanding differences between the nature of English and Vietnamese languages in use as well as the socio-cultural distinctive features of the two countries so that they can learn to produce readers-friendly poetry translation in TL with the highest respect to the original meanings and beauty of the work in the SL

4 Scope of the study

- Pointing out linguistic and socio-cultural stamps on the language uses in the poetry translation

- The bilingual book of Ngô Tự Lâp‘s “Những vì sao đen” -“Black Stars” poetry

collection co-translated by Martha Collins and the author is under investigation

5 Methods of the study

- This study used the qualitative method

Qualitative method investigates the why and how of the changes and adaptation, not just what, where, when Firstly, it was employed in comparing the translated poems with

their Vietnamese original version to find out the modifications made on the linguistic facet, evaluating and categorizing them into smaller categories Secondly, the researcher employed qualitative approach to categorize the factors influencing the above-mentioned modifications with intense reasoning and many interviews and mailing with both the author

of the original poems and the translators of ―Black stars‖

- Data was collected by means of descriptive analysis and statistic

6 Organization of the study

This research consists of 3 parts: INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT, AND

CONCLUSION

Part A: INTRODUCTION

This part allows the readers to get the general idea of what the thesis is about It provides the rationale for the study, aims of the study, the research questions, the scope, the method and the organization of the study

Part B: DEVELOPMENT

This is the focus of the study which is divided into 3 chapters

Chapter 1: Literature Review

Chapter I briefly introduces some necessary theoretical points from different

backgrounds The author begins by reviewing different views of translation theories with the focus on poetry translation Following that a review of the elements to consider in translation in general and more specifically in poetry translation, among which the focuses are on the linguistic elements, elements of American culture, language use, interrelationship between language and culture and how they interact and affect each other

Chapter 2: Methodology

This part focuses on a detailed depiction of the methodology applied in the research paper, the size and characteristics of the research subject altogether with research instruments, data collection procedure as well as data analysis procedure are put into description and justification

Chapter 3: Data analysis

Chapter III is the main part of the study This chapter provides discussion on the

modifications made in the selected book in terms of changes in grammar, choice of vocabulary The author is particularly interested in analyzing linguistic and socio-cultural factors which influence the translation process

Part C: CONCLUSION

Part C: Conclusion recapitulates the main ideas and findings of the study; draws

out some important implications for Vietnamese-English translators, presents limitations of the study and lastly, suggests some ideas for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

I Definitions of translation

Translation has been defined in many ways by different writers in the field, depending on how they view language and translation According to Wills in Choliludin (2007: 3), translation is a procedure which leads from a written source language text (SLT)

to an optimally equivalent target language text (TLT) and requires the syntactic, semantic, stylistic and text pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text Besides, Nida and Taber (1982: 12) say that translating consists in the reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, firstly in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style Both definitions above imply that translation involves two languages- the source language and the target- or receptor language, and that

an act of translating is an act of reproducing the meaning of the SLT into that of the TLT

Catford (1965: 20) states that translation may be defined as the replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language) Similar definition is also mentioned by Larson (1984: 3) He says that translation consists of translating the meaning of the SL into the receptor language This is done by going from the form of the first language to the form of a second language by way of semantic structure It is meaning which is being transferred and must

be held constant, only the form changes

Translation work, in its present form, dates back more than a thousand years in Vietnam and in Western countries The ever-lasting practice of translation itself manifests the translatability of languages Vietnamese tradition and culture is founded on untranslatability This may sound like a paradox, if one thinks of the long tradition in the culture, or if you just ponder the very word tradition Tradition, from Latin tradere (‗hand over'), implies a process of communication, transmission, and transference that necessarily allows for the transformation, whether in terms of ―losses‖ or ―gains,‖ usually associated with what we consensually mean by translation To translate is not to say the same thing in another tongue, but to make manifest a different thing

II Poetic translation

The 20th century can be considered the very developed period of literary translation and the poetry translation took a lot of attention with many different ideas Translator Hoàng Hưng claims ―Poetry can be no way translated because poetry itself is the art of language, it sticks to the linguistic features of the source language, if we transfer it into

another language, the poem is half destroyed‖

"Traduttore - traditore" (Translator – traitor), says the well-known Italian phrase

―Poetry is what gets lost in translation‖, Robert Frost says Translation of poetry was, and still is by some, believed as impossibility for any unfaithful elements would have been taken as failure, be it content or form Poetry itself serves a purpose, be it an illusive matter

or not, and aesthetics can be reproduced in another language and culture if accommodation

is made It would be highly likely that the target readers would obtain rather similar if not the same aesthetic pleasure reading the translation as would the source readers reading the original poem

In Vietnam, the poetry translation is not a new profession The ancient Viet scholars considered the Chinese poems translating a noble recreation in their free time Why was it a recreation but not a work? Recall Chinese was one of the major languages in those days, especially among highly educated people, the translation was not the need of bringing the works to the readers (or listeners) but more like a recreating a new poem in Viet language

Many translators in contemporary and modern Vietnam literature have made and are making outstanding contributions to the literary and poetry exchanges between Vietnam and the West through their diligent and painstaking work Phan Ngọc for instance, has translated several works from Latin, Russian, French and English into Vietnamese, the

most important being the Shakespeare, War and peace, Oliver Twist Ngô Tự Lập, the

author and co-translator of “Black Stars”, is another example to have introduced Vietnamese readers many masterpieces in Rusian, English and French such as - "Chiếc bát

mang hình thế giới" by Werner Lambersy from French, "Xứ sở của nước và thạch sùng" by

Jean-Michel Maulpoix Foreigners include Arthur Waley, Herbert Giles, Witter Bynner, W.J.B Fletcher, James Legg, Amy Lowell, etc

III Translation modifications

Translation modification refers to the linguistic changes that are carried in terms of translator‘s objective affecting the whole text These changes include both the semantic and morphological alterations

III.1 Research of Vinay and Darbelnet

Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) propose seven modifications operating on three level of style: Lexis, distribution and message These modifications are: Borrowing, transposition, calque, modulation, literal translation and equivalence

- Borrowing refers to words taken directly from another language Generally, borrowings enter a language through translation work, and just as with false friends (false cognates), the translator should strive to look for the equivalent in the TL that convey the meaning of the SL more advantageous

- Calque is used when a foreign word or phrase is translated and incorporated into

another language It is a special type of borrowing, consisting of borrowing an expression

from the SL and the translating literally each element( for example, nowadays people use

words and phrases like “phần cứng”, “phần mềm”, “hotline”, “live show” etc everyday

while they never existed in Vietnamese dictionary years ago)

- Literal translation means the direct transfer of the SL into the TL in a grammatically and idiomatically proper way This modification is used when it is possible

to transpose the source language message (SLM) element by element into the TL and obtain a text that is idiomatic

- Transposition replaces words from one grammatical word class with another without changing the meaning of the message For example, a verb is translated with a noun, a noun with an adjective, etc

- Modulation is a shift in point of view, changing the point of view without changing the meaning of the message Vinay and Darbelnet identify different types of modulation, some of which are abstract for concrete, cause for effect, means for result, a part for the whole and geographical change

- Equivalence accounts for the same situation using a completely different phrase It generally refers to the same common accepted and used equivalents of idioms, proverbs, idiomatic expression and lexicalized terms

- Adaptation refers to a shift in cultural environment, for instance, to express the message using a different situation, translators have to adapt a SL situation when it does not exist in the TL or would be considered inappropriate in the target culture

III.2 Research of Nida

Nida (1964) proposes three types of modifications: additions, subtractions and alterations They are used (1) to adjust the form of the message to the characteristics of the structure of the target language, (2) to produce semantically equivalent structure, (3) to generate appropriate stylistic equivalences and (4) to produce an equivalent communication effect

- Additions: A translator makes an addition when he needs to clarify an elliptic expression, to avoid ambiguity in the target language, to change a grammatical category, to amplify implicit elements or to add connectors

- Subtraction refers to the omission of words or phrases if they are not essential to the meaning or impact of the text

- Alterations are changes made because of incompatibilities between thw two languages due to structural differences between the two languages such as changes in word order, grammatical categories and semantic misfits, especially with idiomatic expressions

III.3 Research of Newmark

Newmark (1988) contributes a large number of strategies affecting the micro- units

- Cultural equivalent: It means replacing a cultural word in the source language with

a target language one However, ―they are not accurate‖

- Functional equivalent: It requires the use of a cultural-neutral word

- Descriptive equivalent: in this modification, the meaning of the source language text is explained in several words

- Componential analysis: It means ―comparing an source language word with a target language word which has a similar meaning but is not an obvious one-to-one

equivalent, by demonstrating first their common and then their different sense components.‖

- Synonymy: It is a near target language equivalent

- Through-translation: It is the literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations and components of compounds

- Shifts or transposition: It involves a change in the grammar from source language

to target language, for instance, change from singular to plural, the change required when a specific source language structure does not exist in the target language, change of an source language verb to a target language word, change of a source language noun group to a target noun and so forth

- Modulation: It occurs when the translator reproduces the message of the original text in the target language text in conformity with the current norms of the target language, since the source language and the target language may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective

- Recognized translation: It occurs when the translators normally uses the official or the generally accepted translation of any institution term

- Compensation: It occurs when loss of meaning in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part

- Paraphrase: in this modification, the meaning of the word is explained Here the explanation is much more detailed than that of descriptive equivalent

IV Linguistic and Socio-cultural factors affecting modifications in translation

IV.1 Linguistic elements

Linguistic factors exert a direct and crucial influence upon the process of translating Levy (1967: 58) (as quoted in Wilss, 2001: 124) argues that the translator frequently finds himself in a conflict-and-decision-marked situation during the translation process, a situation which becomes all the more difficult to master, the more complex the textual segment to be translated is in terms of syntax, lexicals and stylistics Each of the linguistic factors syntactic, lexical, textual and sytistics can interfere with translation It can safely be assumed that interlingual differences constitute a main source of translation difficulties

IV.1.1 Syntactic factors

Levy argues that the difference is directly reflected in the way people think, in their syntactic organization, and unavoidably comes up in the process of inter-lingual transference

Originating from Old English, which, as a typical synthetic language, was highly inflected, Modern English syntax is still characterized by a degree of inflection English inflections are concerned with gender, number, case, tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, part of speech and degree of comparison In contrast, Vietnamese is a typical analytic language, characterized by non-inflection, frequent use of function words and functional manipulation of word order, through which various syntactic and semantic relations are expressed Thus, whereas an English word can, through inflection, express several grammatical meanings, Vietnamese, as a non-inflected language, has to form such grammatical meanings essentially by lexical means When translating another language into English, inflections often lead to misinterpretation and mistranslation since syntactic norms tend to influence the translator‘s judgment about how to deal with changes in inflection

Interestingly, when translating, the translator has to go through a converse process: first recognizing the grammatical meanings expressed or implied in the lexical expressions, and then reorganizing these relations according to English syntactic norms With the use of inflections, English sentence tend to have strict and compact syntactic structures In addition, there are a wealth of conjunctions, prepositions and a developed system of pro-forms, which can incorporate and interconnect a number of clauses through subordination into a complex long sentence The structure of such a sentence, often likened to a tree, is termed hypotaxis and is characterized by formalized relations in which words, phrases, and clauses are closely connected

Pham Thu Giang (2010) has asserted in her M.A thesis A study on the

Vietnamese-English translation strategies in the series of bilingual handbooks “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” published by the Thế Giới Publisher that in translating

between English and Vietnamese, the translator has to take the trouble to interpret and then reconstruct the SL structure on the basis of TL syntactic norms When translating Vietnamese into English, many English connective devices will be added and their functions will often replace lexical means

Differences in word order between English and Vietnamese can also be seen in interrogative structures, but these normally present few difficulties because the transfer becomes more or less automatic, as is the case with other structures involving conventional grammatical inversion However, it must be noted that although reordering in translation is often necessary, it is also dangerous in terms of thematic prominence (see 1.5 for more discussion) When part of the sentence meaning, or thematic meaning in Leech‘s term (1983: 19), is dependent on the order, a random change to the order will lead to the loss of that meaning or thematic prominence

IV.1.2 Lexical factors

Pham Thu Giang (2010) stated that the marked lexical differences between English and Vietnamese present significant difficulties for translators

The snowballing mode naturally makes many English words polysemous and hence more context-dependent, while the practice of double-syllabling makes Vietnamese words monosemantic and hence much less context-dependent Seen in this light, it is not surprising that a ―familiar‖ English word can express a totally unexpected meaning when used in a particular context An English word can vary in meaning drastically according to context, verbal relation, time, place, participants, topic, mode, media, etc

The differences in lexical context-dependence between English and Vietnamese doubtlessly present difficulties for translators Common sense dictates that the more polysemous a word is, the more ambiguous, indeterminate, and hence context-dependent its meaning Therefore, when translating from English into Vietnamese, the translator must attach great importance to context and try to make the polysemous words unambiguous with the help of the contextual clues Many mistranslations are the result of neglecting, ignoring or misjudging the context in which a word is used

Another closely related problem is the difference in semantic range between English and Vietnamese Predictably, the semantic range of a ―snowballed‖ English word

is much wider than that of a ―double-syllabled‖ Vietnamese word composed of two or more semantically independent morphemes, the interaction of which largely stabilizes the meaning and makes it less context-dependent (cf Liu 1991: 418-420; Tan 1990: 128-139; Nida 1979:15-20)

IV.1.3 Context factors

Meetham & Hudson (1969) indicate that text cannot exist out of context By context what is meant is the entire environment in which the word or sentence is expressed

or stated So a translator has to go into the background of the text to understand the text Thus translator first de-contextualizes the original text and re-contextualizes it for the target text This forms a good contextualized translation While seeking the context of a text there may be two categories of factors that may influence the meaning of the text- linguistic context or the situational context

Linguistic context cites the linguistic factors influencing the meaning of the text Any word in the text is not present in isolation but interacts with other words in the text and with the whole text at large This interaction among words determines their meaning rather than its isolated meaning For example the use of word ‗press‘ in these sentences is affected by the context A) press my shirt B) I work in a press C) press the button

Context can either be immediate or remote Immediate context refers to the words

or sentences that make the context evident then and there through the whole text Remote context pertains to existence of word or sentence somewhere else It may refer to author using the word somewhere else or there may be special reasons to use that word or phrase

Context also refers to the factors of situation and circumstances influencing the meaning of a text These factors are little harder to be recognized than linguistic ones The situational factors may pertain to the facial expressions, gestures and stances at micro level and the social, political and economical milieu and the culture at large Conventions and the whole value system differ from one culture and society to another What is ‗right‘ and what is ‘wrong‘ differs Ideologies may also be a factor to refer to the context

Language therefore should be considered a part of culture and understood in its context Translator must be giving over the top stress to understand the context so as to produce a good contextualized translation

IV.1.4 Stylistic factors

Stylistics applies linguistics to literature in the hope of arriving at analyses which are more broadly based, rigorous and objective, (Hatim & Mason,1990: 133)

Stylistics can be evaluative (i.e judge the literary worth on stylistic criteria), but more commonly attempts to simply analyze and describe the workings of texts which have already been selected as noteworthy on other grounds Stylistic excellence — intelligence,

originality, density and variety of verbal devices — play their part in literature, but aesthetics has long recognized that other aspects are equally important: fidelity to experience, emotional shaping, significant content Stylistics may well be popular because

it regards literature as simply part of language and therefore (neglecting the aesthetic dimension) without a privileged status, which allows the literary canon to be replaced by one more politically or sociologically acceptable Because form is important in poetry, and stylistics has the largest armoury of analytical weapons Moreover, stylistics need not be reductive and simplistic There is no need to embrace Jacobson's theory that poetry is characterized by the projection of the paradigmatic axis onto the syntagmatic one Nor accepting Bradford's theory of a double spiral: literature has too richly varied a history to

be fitted into such a straitjacket Stylistics suggests why certain devices are effective, but does not offer recipes, any more than theories of musical harmony explains away the gifts

of individual composers To the Stylistic critic, however, style means simply how something is expressed, which can be studied in all language, aesthetic and non-aesthetic

IV.2 Socio-cultural elements

Cultures that are relatively homogeneous tend to see their own way of doing things

as ‗naturally', the only way, which just as naturally becomes the ‗best' way when confronted with other ways When such cultures themselves take over elements from outside, they will, once again, naturalize them without too many qualms and too many restrictions In translation, once documents (including literary works) are translated into another language, the translations then take the place of the originals They function as the originals in the culture to the extent that the originals disappear behind the translations The less evaluative the text is, the less need there will be for its structure to be modified in translation Conversely, the more evaluative the text is, the more scope there may be for modification (ibid: 187)

The less culture-bound (treaties, declarations, resolutions, and other similar documents) a text is, the less need there will be for its structure to be modified in translation Conversely, the more culture-bound a text is, the more scope there may be for modification

According to Roman & Morris (2002), four main socio-cultural factors influencing translation are: geographical differences, historical differences, custom differences and perception differences

- Historical elements: Roman & Morris indicates there are numerous examples in

translation that exhibit historical elements deeply rooted in the languages Idioms and legends always provide ready support in this respect Once an idiom or fixed expressions has been recognized, we need to decide how to translate it into the target language Translation from Vietnamese into English exhibits the same problem

- Geographic elements: People of one geographical location is different from that

of another, translation of geographical terms is where another problem is encountered Recognition and familiarity of the geography is of immense help to bring about the readers' association, thus making comprehension easier On the contrary, without a sense of geography, the readers have only their imagination in their power to employ

- Custom elements (tradition elements): Translation cannot be separated from

tradition Similar to geographic elements, people born in different places will belong to different traditional areas, therefore, without knowledge of tradition from other country, readers can have difficulty in understanding its language

- Perception elements: translators who were born in different country and culture

will perceive a situation or texts differently, thus, this may affect their language and their style of translation

V Related researches

V.1 Study of Pham Thu Giang (2010)

In A study on the Vietnamese-English translation strategies in the series of

bilingual handbooks “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” published by the Thế Giới Publisher, Pham Thu Giang indicates that there are two main changes in most

bilingual handbooks: modified literal translation and change in grammar There are four alterations in grammatical changes, including changes in order of word group, changes in grammatical word class, modulation and changes in sentence structure

The contribution of this theory in this research is also for the enrichment of the understanding of linguistic modification in literature translation and its underlying factors resulting in such alterations elaborated by Pham Thu Giang (2010) as a theoretical framework of translation strategy in the process of transferring the meaning from Vietnamese into English

In this study, Pham also suggests that there are at least three strategies employed by the translators, they are: (i) translating without interruption for as long as possible, (ii)

correcting surface errors immediately, (iii) leaving the monitoring for qualitative or stylistic errors in the text to the revision stage This global strategy refers to the general plan that must be conducted by the translators The first plan is to complete the translation without any interruption This plan is to provide the initial draft of the translation The second plan refers to the identification and classification of the translation problem for correction This is conducted to do the transition quality to assess the translation equivalence Any factor which spoils the equivalence must be corrected The third plan refers to the editing, revising, and proof-reading for the last draft of the translation in reference with the translation accuracy, acceptability, and readability for the reason of a wider readership

V.2 Study of Lubis (2009)

This research was conducted for two main purposes The first purpose was to explore the translation problem in translating the Text of Mangupa, a Universitas Sumatera Utara Mandailingness cultural text into English The second purpose is to maintain and introduce the highly valuable traditional ceremony which is only known by the Mandailingness to other societies The research design is categorized to a descriptive qualitative type The object of the study is a written text of Mangupa consisting of 22 paragraphs and 37 verses The research method used in this research is meaning-based translation method The findings of the research indicate that there are more differences than similarities in linguistic structures such as affixation, compounding, reduplication, clipping, system of pronoun, structure of phrase etc They also indicate that Mandailingnese society and English society differ greatly in some cultural aspects such as religion, belief, family, marriage, types of society, etc

V.3 Study of Johnson (2006)

The research is to examine some particular problems in Indonesian language for translators, whether translating from Indonesian to English or English to Indonesian The method used in this research is a type of multifaceted approach It is used to enable the translation to be viewed in much the same way as the kinds of demands it places on the translator who needs constantly to be aware of the author-reader, source-target culture, syntax, semantics, semiotics, even geography and politics The method uses metaphor and illustration to describe theoretical process of translation which is justified in the same way that imagery is justified in the same way that imagery is justified in literature The method

also uses artificial distinction which is often made between interpretation and translation,

so translation acquires flexibility and a deeper ethical structure The method also uses a symbolic approach which may be used by the translator by involving the perception of modules within text, identified with symbols that can facilitate the process of translation The data used in this research is a set of corpus showing the history of Indonesian words which can readily affect their meanings and the history of English words which may affect the choice of the terms The research proves difficult to demonstrate any particular effect

of the history or layer of the meaning or the choice of terminology in translation It seems that once the Indonesian term has been understood, the translation that will emerge will not particularly be bound by reference to the history of English terminology It is concluded that the research hypotheses may be reduced to an observation that the derivation of the Indonesian term is important in fully understanding the scope of meaning of the terms

V.4 Study of Burgos (2007)

The focus of this research is on the significance of the dynamic equivalence in the translation of the Mexican cultural text The research objective includes: 1 To emphasize the important of the dynamic equivalence when facing cultural problem; 2 To identify the characteristics of the Mexican culture based on two text related to a period of time on the history of Mexico and Gastronomy on the common element that are exclusively grounded

on them, that are almost impossible to translate; 3 To determine the effectiveness of the dynamic equivalence for avoiding cultural problem in the translation process Theoretical framework used in this study is “Translation is the ability to mediate between culture, to explain one to another, mixed loyalties, the push and the pull of the source and target culture (Robinson, 1997: 222); Culture is the way of life and its manifestation that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression (Newmark, 1988: 94); Culture is knowledge in which a person learns by direct instruction

or watching (Hudson, 1996); The relationship between language and culture is that the structure of language determines the way in which the speakers of the language view the world Different speakers will experience the world differently at the same level in which the languages they speak differ structurally

V.5 Study of Gou (2007)

The focus of this research is the translation of explicitation from Chinese into English The problem of the study is that some types of explicitation should be adopted in

Chinese-English translation in order to meet the need of the readers, the language and the function of the TL Theoretical framework used in this research includes the concept which states that explicitation or explicitness means to make something implied explicit and clear, or to explain something; explicitation is a phenomenon in which the TL states the ST information in a more explicit form of the original (Shuttleworth & Cowie, 1997: 55); Explicitation is one of the universal translation, which research has been done on it (Baker, 1998) The method used in this research is the comparison between the Chinese chapter titles of Hong Lou Meng and their three English versions Hong Lou Meng is one of the masterpieces of Chinese ―Zhang Hui‖ novels which are a special form in ancient Chinese literature Chapter title have vivid, colorful, rhythmic feature and artistic value, so special attention is paid to the choice of words and sentence pattern The original and the three translations are taken from the corpus made by Yanshan University, China The data of the research are the paratactic Chinese into hypotactic English The findings show that translator use explicitation in the translation of paratactic Chinese into hypotactic English

to explain meaning to the target reader (Shuttleworth & Cowie, 1997: 55) There are three types of explicitation within the text, they are: 1 Explicitation of implied subject; 2 Explicitation of cohesion and coherence; 3 Explicitation of grammatical meaning The reason why explicitation is done in the translation is to meet the need of the target reader; and to show the unity of the form and meaning of the ST; to reach the goal of the translation

All the theories and studies mentioned above will form a steady background from which the author will investigate thoroughly translating modifications and the factors

affecting the translating process of the Vietnamese poetry ―Những vì sao đen” by Ngô Tự Lập into the English version ―Black Stars” by Martha Collins and himself However, all

the above theories just mention the most common factors supposed to be applied to all pairs

of languages in the world Moreover, most of the researches found focus on the translation from English to other languages in certain books or in certain academic or technological field in stead of poetic area In this paper, the author expects to dig deep into the case of Vietnamese-English translation in Black Stars poetic collection The research also focuses

on two modifying groups including linguistic and socio-cultural factors which are supposed

to be the most outstanding influencing factors in this poetic translation

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

I Data corpus

The author of the original poems, Ngô Tự Lập and the American writer Martha Collins worked together to bring us a valuable bilingual book First published in the United States, the book was the collection of some previously published poems as well as new ones It was organized in chronologic order of Ngô Tự Lập‘s memories: from a young man reflecting on the village childhood in the war, a mature traveler absorbing and reflecting on

the contemporary global life, to a seasoned “Men with big eyes” who had seen a great deal, and who can help us see, as we travel a “Road on the Earth” Firstly, the book was

valuable for the highly valued poems themselves which reflect beautiful flows of thoughts and feelings, and new concepts of space and time, light and darkness It also introduces the American readers a wide range of stories about memories of war, ―utilize traditional imagery that reflects Vietnamese culture and landscape, in a style that is quite evocative and sometimes gently surreal‖; the lands where he had once traveled, lived or studied Thirdly, translators, especially translators in the field of literature, or poetry more specifically, benefit a great deal from the book because the translating process always involves a lot of border-crossing which was successfully overcome in the translating process of the book with the close cooperation between the author and an American writer

The translating process was described by Martha Collins as ―usually, Lap would create a rough English version of a poem, while I would use my limited Vietnamese and several Vietnamese-English dictionaries to create a word-for-word ―trot‖, at the same time listening to both the order and the rhythm of the Vietnamese words Informed by this process, I would work with his version until I had a draft that satisfied me, which I would then send to him, usually with questions-and so forth, until we both were happy.‖ This, on one side should tell how much effort was made by the translators to keep the English translation of the poems closest to their original; on the other side also reflects how difficult the border crossing was, and that the modification, or changes are essential to bring the poems to the readers in American society and culture

Selection of subjects

In order to conduct this study, the researcher has investigated both Vietnamese and English versions of the poems in the book The research subjects in this study have been chosen under the procedure of information-oriented sampling, as opposed to random

sampling Through the 42 poems of the book which were divided into 3 sections: The Universe and I, Night Flight, Road on the Earth, the researcher has remarked over 120 differences between the English translation and the Vietnamese original version which were then studied under 2 main categories of influencing factors This size of the samples could somehow be considered eligible enough for the researcher to carry out a reliable study

II Research methods

To conduct the study, the researcher has employed qualitative method The method has offered the researcher valid data and a proper framework for analysis

Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts Qualitative researcher aims to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior The qualitative method investigates the

why and how of the linguistic and socio-cultural factors‘ influences on the translation, not

just what, where, when

In this research, the qualitative method was employed through out all the research process - first in comparing the translated poems with their Vietnamese original version to find out the modifications made on the linguistic facet A descriptive listing of noteworthy and typical examples of modifications in the book was carried out These data were then evaluated and categorized into smaller categories basing on linguistic norms of both the SL and TL for later analysis During the data analysis process, the researcher once again employed qualitative approach to categorize the factors influencing the above-mentioned modifications with intense reasoning and many interviews and mailing with both the author

of the original poems and the translators of “Black stars”

II 1 Data collection procedure

The data collection procedure has been divided into two successive phases

Phase 1:

This phase has concentrated mainly on reading 42 poems of Ngô Tự Lập‘s “Black

Stars” which were doubled in number because the book is bilingual On the left page is

Vietnamese original version of each poem, and the page on the right is the translation in English To be more specific, the researcher has spent a lot of time reading, comparing then

paying special attention to the phenomena where there are remarkable differences between the 2 versions

Phase 2:

After reading carefully, the researcher has taken notes all the phenomena in consideration, consulted both the author and the translator about some vague phenomena, then built the framework to categorize them into main 2 separate domains Simultaneously, prominent examples of each domain have been noted down to exemplify the researcher‘s later analysis

II 2 Data analysis procedure

First, the researcher has studied every translated poem in comparison with the original Vietnamese version to investigate the modifications were made These modifications were seen on linguistic surface and then divided into smaller categories The researcher then analyzed the data and studied the reasons that influenced on the translators‘ decision to make those modifications in translating process These reasons were found to consist of 2 main groups of factors: linguistic or socio-cultural problems

The data analysis procedure is illustrated in the tables of analytical framework below

II 3 Analytical framework

Linguistic factors

Socio-cultural factors

Historical differences

Perception differences

Geographic differences

Custom differences Linguistic

context

Syntactic

modifications

Stylistic modifications

Sentence

merged

Sentence split

Lexical modifications

Word addition

Word subtraction

Different meaning word generating

Untranslated words

Reduplicative words

Metaphor

Table footnote:

Topic-Comment structure in Vietnamese sentences

Grammatical word class changes The tense of the predicate

Insufficient English equivalents

Subtracting words from the original

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

I Modifications in “Black stars” translation

According to Robert Frost, ―Poetry is what gets lost in translation‖ This statement could be true because there is no one-to-one equivalent when comparing two languages, and if we only expect the complete faithfulness from a translation, we obviously have to

sacrifice poetry beauty, and vice versa “Black stars” translators, however, did not seem to

share this point of view They worked together to find out the best way to bring about good poetry works in target language and simultaneously maintain the poems‘ original meanings which the poet aims to convey Obviously, modification is undeniable in translating this poems collection Through investigation, the researcher remarked two main modification groups found in this translation: syntactic modifications and lexical modifications

I.1 Syntactic modifications

I.1.1 Changes in grammatical word classes

In ―Black Stars” translation, some literal translations of certain words do not

accord with natural usage in the target language or the translator just wants to produce a smoother flow of words, she needs to make changes in word class A grammatical item is replaced with another grammatical item, for example, a noun may be translated with an adjective, a verb with a noun, an adverb with an adjective, and a noun with an adverb and

so on The following examples illustrate the transposition of a noun with a verb, a verb with a preposition, an adjective with a verb and a verb with an adjective respectively

I still hear you moan In this example, the noun

phrase tiếng rên rỉ in the

SL is translated into the verb moan in TL

I.1.2 Changes in sentence structures

In Black Star translation, the translator sometimes merged several sentences, usually two, to create a complete sentence or split one sentence into two others without changing the meaning

I.1.2.1 Sentence merged

Sentence merge is a good choice to avoid producing choppy sentences which are not recommended in English written language Besides, the translator combines sentences

in his or her effort to achieve conciseness strongly recommended in the target language In Black Star translation, Collin created this modification several times, one of the most typical example is demonstrated as follows:

Like heat suffused with the odor of sweat

Darkness quietly

honors my faithful smile

There are three poetic sentences in the original text, however, the first sentence and the third one are combined in the translation to make the poem smoother

Example 2:

(Trời cao

Dù đôi lúc

Từ chiếc ghi đông

Though now and then I dive

There are three poetic sentences in both the

muddy road

original and translation However, the first sentence and some parts of the third one are combined in the translation

Until the Loiret

Is no different from other rivers

The 2 verses in original version are combined in the translation

I.1.2.2 Sentence split

In Black Stars translation, division of one sentence into two is necessary mostly when the equivalent sentence may be too long Noticeably, when the translator needs to explain some cultural terms unfamiliar to the target audience, which obviously lengthens the original sentence, he or she has to split the source language sentence into two

The division actually offers the translator opportunities to clarify and improve the expressive power of the message in the target language This type of modification is illustrated in the example below:

action stumble along of

main subject in the sentence

I.2 Lexical modifications

The most problematic and time-consuming aspect of poetic translation is achieving

an accurate lexical rendering The marked differences between English and Vietnamese in

this aspect present significant difficulties for translators of “Black Stars” poetry collection

As a result, Martha Collins and Ngô Tự Lập have created various modifications to deal with this issue These changes are word addition, word subtraction and different meaning word generation

I.2.1 Word addition

One of the typical characteristics of poetry is vagueness, especially Vietnamese poetry as the Vietnamese language gives poets many good opportunities to ―play‖ with words and let the readers interact in interpreting the poems This, however, causes even more difficulties to poetry translation Therefore, instead of transferring only the linguistic surface content, translators sometimes choose to make meanings clearer for the target language‘s readers by adding more words into the translation Through the

investigation in the poetry of “Black Stars”, we acquired linguistic signals which are

transferred and added as below:

Có phải sinh năm 1962?

The Universe and I Two illusory lands

Were both born in

1962?

Both is an addition

which is used to emphasize the appearance of two

metaphors the Univer and

I - two illusory lands

Thời gian Hay kỉ niệm núi đồi

Now I raise my eyes

Dim with the red dust of time

Or is it the dust of remembered

mountains?

The addition the dust is

used in two continuous verses to emphasize the ongoing characteristic of

time as dust of time is a

popular collocation in English

I.2.2 Word subtraction

Subtraction is another popular modification in interpreting process of “Black

Stars” collection Subtraction means omitting words from the original, which plays an

important role in creating aesthetics, communicative effectiveness and natural translation The basic feature of literature is diversity, therefore, in order to keep its aesthetics, polysemy and nature, subtraction in translation is sometimes necessary despite disobeying target language‘s syntax

In both examples, words in original version, including

trải nong quây cót and

understandable to readers

I.2.3 Different meaning word generating

Creating brand-new word whose meaning is different from the original appears

several times in “Black Star” translation It is the most challenging task because it requires

the translator thorough understanding of original semantics and syntax of 2 different languages (source language and target language) as well as the contexts of the poems However, this modification also creates uniqueness to this poetry translation Some examples are illustrated as follows:

translation because of many reasons under socio-cultural influence which will be analyzed in the following parts

The situation is similar

with the example above

I.2.4 Untranslated words

In “Black Stars” translation, many words are kept unchanged when interpreted into

English version instead of being explained or generalized Typical examples are shown below

phập xuống

When sweat thó blades cut

In both examples, the translator decided to keep the original words

analyzed in the next parts

I.3 Stylistic modifications

I.3.1 Reduplicative words

Reduplication appears many times in Ngô Tự Lập poetry, which causes difficulties for translators, even when one of them was himself Mostly, the substitution in translation weakens or strengthens the onomatopoeia and iconicity of duplicative words However, there are still some nearly absolute equivalents used to describe the reduplicative To be more specific, some examples are analyzed as follows:

Long lanh đâu đây

Time is still there

this example, long lanh is

omitted from the verse, which makes the sentence lose the iconicity of the original

mùa cũ

I have run and run

through the leaves of that distant time

Reduplicative miên man

translation, run and run

also means running

nonstop and being unaware

of everything The translator was successful of interpreting this verse because the interpretation not only effectively transmits the semantics of the source text but also creatively build up an equivalent reduplicative

run and run, which makes

the target text more attractive and meaningful

comparisons most emotively In the original ―Những vì sao đen”, Ngô Tự Lập uses

metaphor as an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics There are some examples:

Rơi như những trái

dừa xanh xuống đất

mềm

Những trái dừa xanh cả dưới mồ

line was not translated in the translation, this makes it lose its function as a metaphor

On guns and plows,

millions of diligent stars

Vì sao was translated into stars while it eventually refers to hands of brave

and hard working

Vietnamese people The

translation only reflect the explicit meanings of the original, it does not express the hidden semantics of the

source text

II Factors influencing translation

II 1 Linguistic factors

Levy (1967: 58) (as quoted in Wilss, 2001: 124) thinks that the translator frequently finds himself in a conflict-and-decision-marked situation during the translation process, a situation which becomes all the more difficult to master, the more complex the textual segment to be translated is in terms of syntax, semantics and stylistics As a result, these three factors are main linguistic components that create modification in poetic translation

II.1.1 Syntactic factors

English and Vietnamese belong to different language families and systems This difference directly reflects the way people think, in their syntactic organization, and unavoidably comes up in the process of inter-lingual transference

Modern English syntax is characterized by a degree of inflection In contrast, Vietnamese is a typical analytic language, characterized by non-inflection, frequent use of function words and functional manipulation of word order, through which various syntactic and semantic relations are expressed

With the use of inflections, English sentence tend to have strict and compact syntactic structures In addition, there are a wealth of conjunctions, prepositions and a developed system of pro-forms, which can incorporate and interconnect a number of clauses through subordination into a complex long sentence The structure of such a sentence, often likened to a tree, is termed hypo taxis and is characterized by formalized