An evaluation of the vietnamese translated version of the call of the wild by nguyen cung ai and vu tuan phuong m a thesis linguisti

Therefore, the writer decides to make acomparison between the original version and the translated one to see whether thetranslators can transship both the connotative and denotative mean

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN

AN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY Nguyen

cung ai and vu tuan phuong

Đánh giá bản dịch tiếng việt của tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã” của hai dịch giả Nguyễn Cung Ái và Vũ Tuấn Phương

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN

AN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY Nguyen

cung ai and vu tuan phuong

Đánh giá bản dịch tiếng việt của tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang

dã” của dịch giả Nguyễn Cung Ái và Vũ Tuấn Phương

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Pham Thi Thanh Thuy (Ph.d)

Hanoi - 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ………

Acknowledgements ………

Table of content………

List of abbreviations………

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rational for the study………

2 Objective of the study………

3 Scope and method of the study………

3.1 Scope of the study 3.2 Method of the study 4 Organization of the study………

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Translation theory……….

1.1.1 Definition of translation ………

1.1.2 Translation methods and procedures………

1.1.2.1 Translation methods………

1.1.2.2 Translation procedures………

1.1.3 Translation equivalence………

1.1.3.1 Definition………

1.1.3.2 Types of translation equivalence………

1.2 Contrastive Analysis 1.3 Translation assessment/ evaluation……….

1.3.1 Definition………

1.3.2 Translation Quality Assessment Models………

1.3.2.1 Julianne House and her model………

1.3.2.2 Peter Newmark‘s model………

CHAPTER 2: APPLICATION OF NEWMARK’S MODEL FOR TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER 2 OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” 6 8 9 9 11 12 12 13 14 14 16 18 2.1 A brief analysis of the Source Language text ………

2.2 The translator’s purpose………

2.3 Comparing the translation with the original………

2.4 An evaluation of the translation………

2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation version in the translator‘s

v

2.4.2 An evaluation of the translation version in the critic‘s terms… 2.4.3 An evaluation of the translation version as a piece of writing,

independently of its original………

2.5 The translation’s future………

PART 3: DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND CONCLUSION REFERENCES………

Appendix A English version of the selected text ……… Appendix B Vietnamese version of the selected text………Appendix C: Evidence quoted from the original and the translated version

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LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND TABLES

Tables and diagrams

New Mark‘s methods of translation………

House‘s Revised Schema for the Analysis of ST and TT……

Table 1: A selective but representative detailed comparison of thetranslation with the original

Table 2:Evidences about translators‘ achievements in terms of wordchoice and expressions

Table 3: Evidences about translators‘ achievements in terms of usingidioms

Table 4: More evidences about translators‘ achievements in terms ofword choice and expressions

Table 5: Mistakes in Vietnamese version in terms of grammar andmeaning

Table 6: Mistakes in Vietnamese version in terms of word choice andmeaning

PART I: INTRODUCTION

5 Rational for the study

Translation is an issue which attracts more and more attention from manypeople all over the world Nowadays, in the inevitable trend of globalization and

integration, not only the professional translators but also many people working in different fields such as health care, economy, politics, etc, are concerned about the quality of translation However, in fact, to have a high-quality translation version, especially in the field of literature, is not an easy task and it involves a lot of skills fromthe translators According to the translator Thuy Toan(1993), to have a good translation version, the translator must not only love his job and literature but also be good at their mother tongue, know foreign languages, have a thorough knowledge of culture, work cautiously and be industrious at consulting From his point of view, it is clear that translation is a challenging job, which requires the translator both the knowledge of the language and the background knowledge of the culture which the literary works

belongs to Sometimes, due to lack of either of these or because of the translator‘s carelessness, the translated version may not be concise enough Even more seriously, it can transfer the wrong message that is attached in the literary works At present, in Vietnam, works of literary translations are growing rapidly , even uncontrollably in quantity for commercial purposes ; however, there has been no popular criterion for a good and valuable translated version Besides the successfully -translated masterpiecessuch as Wuthering Heights (Đồi gió hú ), Harry Porter, Noruwei no mori (Rừng Nauy), The Centaur in the Garden (Con nhân ma ̃ởtrong vườn ), there still exists ones of bad quality, for example , the Vietnamese version of ―The Da Vinci Code‖ (Mâṭma ̃Da Vinci) by translator Đo Thu Ha (Van Hoa-Thong Tin Publisher ,2006) This translation receives a lot of criticism right from publication because of the mistakes that she

should not have made in terms of vocabulary, grammar and descriptions For this reason, the minor thesis would like to focus on the evaluation of one literary translation

1

so that the readers can have better understanding of some models of translation qualityassessment initiated by some famous linguists in the world like Nida and Taber, PeterNewmark, and J House, etc.

Within the limitation of the minor thesis, only some of these models will beintroduced, and then, the model of Peter Newmark will be applied in evaluating theVietnamese translated version of ―The Call of the Wild‖ by Nguyen Cung Ai and VuTuan Phuong, two great and famous Vietnamese translators to point out both thestrengths and weaknesses of translated texts in comparison with the original Also, theauthor would like to investigate the prominent equivalence types the translator hasachieved in translating this famous masterpiece so that other translators can get someexperiences from them

6 Objective of the study

This thesis mainly aims at answering the three research questions:

 How good is the Vietnamese version of ―The Call of the Wild‖

according to Newmark‘s model?

 What are the weaknesses of the translated version?

 What might be some lessons learned from the translation version?

7 Scope and method of

the study 3.1 Scope of the

study

The masterpiece ―The Call of the Wild‖ includes of seven chapters in total Due

to the limited time for this study, only Chapter Two of this short story will be chosen asthe typical analysis of the success and the shortcomings of two translators in translatingthis masterpiece from English into Vietnamese The title of this chapter is ―The Law

of Club and Fang‖ and the reason why this chapter is chosen is that the writer has hadaccess to this chapter since she was a fourth year student At that time, she had chances

to learn about this chapter in the subject ―English Literature‖, which attracts her a lot.Moreover, this is a moving chapter about the process in which the dog adapts itself to

the new harsh environment and rude owners Therefore, the writer decides to make acomparison between the original version and the translated one to see whether thetranslators can transship both the connotative and denotative meaning of the source textinto the target text or not.

a Method of the study

The goal of this study is to evaluate the quality of the translated version of

―The Call of the Wild‖ by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong To reach this goal, Idecide to have an insight into various translation quality assessment models bydifferent authors, among which Peter Newmark‘s model is chosen as the main criteriafor assessing the Vietnamese version of this masterpiece because of its strong points interms of application, that is, it is easy to follow During the assessing process,Contrastive Analysis approach will be applied to compare and evaluate the translatedversion against the original one

This assessing process will be carried out as follows First, the original text will

be read thoroughly and comprehensively, then the source text will be compared to itstranslation under the framework of NewMark‘s TQA model According to his model,there are five main steps towards TQA and the researcher is going to strictly followthem:

 Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects

 Step 2: the translator‘s interpretation of the SL text‘s purpose, his translation method and the translation‘s likely readership

 Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the

translation with the original in terms of both sematics and syntactics

 Step 4: an evaluation of the translation: - (a) in the translator‘s terms, (b) in the critic‘s terms, (c) as a piece of writing, independently of its original

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 Step 5: Where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline.

8 Organization of the study

The study contains three main parts:

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Development This part includes two chapters:

Chapter 1: Literature Review

This part will discuss different basic aspects of translation, which is compulsorybackground knowledge for any translation assessor who wishes to evaluate the quality

of translation, including definition of translation, translation methods and procedures,translation equivalence, and translation assessment

Chapter 2: Application of Newmark‘s TQA model in evaluating Chapter Two of

―The Call of the wild‖

In this chapter, Newmark‘s five- step TQA model mentioned above will be applied inassessing the Vietnamese version of chapter 2 in the works ―The Call of the Wild‖ byJack London

Finally, part 3 will deal with the discussion of the results of this study and someconclusions will be drawn

The quality of the translation text including both translators‘ strengths and weaknesses,which are based on the application of the model, will be discussed Also, someimplications and suggestions will be made for other translators, especially in the field

of literature

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 TRANSLATION THEORY

1.1.1 Definition of translation

Translation has a long history and plays an important role in linguistics as Kelly,L.G- a prominent figure in linguistic circle, once stated ―Without translation, there is

no history of the world‖ However, there have been so many different opinions of what

a translation is that it has become a controversial topic so far Within the scope of thisthesis, just some famous viewpoints around this topic of some outstanding researcherswill be mentioned to illustrate this

The first is the definition made by Newmark, a well-known researcher who hasmade a great deal of important contributions to the development of translation

According to him, “Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language‖ (Newmark, 1988a:7) This definition is quite evident and easy to

understand

Sharing a similar viewpoint, Catford (1965:20) considers translation ―The replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by an equivalent textual material in other language (target language)‖.

Along the same line, Hartman and Stork (1972:713) also gave their own

definition of translation According to them, ―Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language.‖

Besides, there were many other authors giving their opinion towards this term‘s

definition such as Marlone (1988) who believes that ―Translation is the expression in another language (or Target Language) of what has been expressed in another, Source Language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences‖ or Nida, E.A (1975:33)

5

who claims that: ―Translation consists of producing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence to the message of the source language, first in meaning and second in style‖

From these definitions, it is noticeable that although different authors havevarious ways of defining translation, there is one thing in common in their expressions,that is, they all emphasize the importance of finding the closest equivalence in meaning

by the choice of appropriate target language‘s lexical and grammatical structures,communication situation, and cultural context

1.1.2 Translation methods and procedures

To translate a text from a source language to the target language, the translatormust use some translation methods and procedures, sometimes a combination of them.According to Le Hung Tien (2006), to be successful in evaluating the translationquality, the critic must have knowledge of the basic matters of translation theory, such

as the nature of translation, translation procedure, translation methods and translationequivalence, etc Therefore, it is necessary for us to have some basic backgroundknowledge about translation methods and procedures that are often used by translators

1.1.2.1 Translation methods

In terms of translation methods, Newmark (1988) suggests eight methods of translation

as in the diagram below:

Word-for-word translationLiteral translationFaithful translationSemantic translation

AdaptationFree translationIdiomatic translationCommunicative translation

(Newmark, 1988: 45)

It is clear from this diagram that the relationship of each method with the sourcelanguage and the target language is different The position of each method (higher tolower in comparison with the source language or the target language) reflects not onlythe distance with the source language and the target language but also the features ofthe translation product created by a respective method: whether it is more alike to thesource language or the target language (Le Hung Tien, 2006) For example, word-for-word translation method creates the product characterizing the most features of sourcelanguage and adaptation give birth to a translation version which is the most alike tothe target language.

Each method can briefly explained by Newmark as follows:

Word-for-word translation: The SL word-order is preserved and words translated singly by

their most common meaning, out of context.

Literal translation: The SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL

equivalents but the lexical words are translated singly, out of context.

Faithful translation: attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original

within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures.

Semantic translation: takes more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text than faithful

translation, compromising on ‗meaning‘ where appropriate so that assonance, word-lay or repetition jars in the finished version Therefore, it is more flexible, allows for the translator‘s intuitive empathy with the original.

Adaptation: In adaptation, the themes, characters, plots are preserved, and the SL culture

is converted to the TL culture and the text is rewritten.

Free translation: is usually a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called

‗Intralingual translation‘, often prolix and pretentious, and not translation at all.

Idiomatic translation: reproduces the ‗message‘ of the original but tends to distort nuances

of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original Communicative translation: attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original

in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership.

(Newmark, 1988: 45-7)

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Among these methods, Newmark put emphasis on two methods, semantic andcommunicative translation, because from his viewpoint, ―Only semantic andcommunicative translations fulfill the two main aims of translation, which are first,accuracy and second, economy.‖(Newmark, 1988:47)

Also, in his book ―A textbook of translation‖ (1995), he also mentions othermethods including service translation, plain prose translation, information translation,cognitive translation, and academic translation

1.1.2.2 Translation procedures

Turning to translation procedures, there still exist some disagreements aboutwhat name to call this category Some authors use the term ―procedure‖ while someothers prefer the term ―techniques‖ or ―strategies‖ Whatever it is called, we canunderstand them as methods applied by translators when they formulate equivalencefor the purpose of transferring elements of meaning from the source text (ST) to thetarget text (TT) (cited by Delisle when which page)

In this thesis, I would like to use the term ―procedure‖ by Newmark (1988) Infact, different authors have different classifications of translation procedures However,

in fact, the terms used in their classfications sometimes overlap Therefore, here thewriter just wants to mention 14 translation procedures proposed by Newmark in hisbook ―A textbook of translation‖(1995) They include:

Transference: it is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text It includes transliteration

and it is somewhere called "transcription."

Naturalization: it adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal

morphology of the TL.

Cultural equivalent: it means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one however,

"they are not accurate"

Functional equivalent: it requires the use of a culture-neutral word.

Descriptive equivalent: in this procedure the meaning of the SLT is explained in several

words.

Componential analysis: it means "comparing an SL word with a TL word which has a similar

meaning but is not an obvious one-to-one equivalent, by demonstrating first their common and then their differing sense components."

Synonymy: it is a "near TL equivalent." Here economy trumps accuracy.

Through-translation: it is the literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations and components of compounds It can also be called: calque or loan translation

Shifts or transpositions: it involves a change in the grammar from SL to TL, for instance, (i)

change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TL word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth.

Modulation: it occurs when the translator reproduces the message of the original text in the

TL text in conformity with the current norms of the TL, since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective.

Recognized translation: it occurs when the translator "normally uses the official or the

generally accepted translation of any institutional term."

Compensation: it occurs when loss of meaning in one part of a sentence is compensated in

another part.

Paraphrase: in this procedure the meaning of the CBT is explained Here the explanation is

much more detailed than that of descriptive equivalent.

Couplets: it occurs when the translator combines two different procedures.

―A textbook of translation‖(1995)

As can be seen, in this classification, each procedure is distinguished quiteclearly from each other However, in real situation of translating a text, it is essential touse a combination of them flexibly

1.1.3 Translation equivalence

1.1.3.1 Definition

Translation equivalence is the key concept of translation theory and it is also themain criterion in assessing the quality of a translation In the past, translationequivalence was simply defined as the similarities and the differences between two

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linguistic units of two language systems; however, nowadays, due to the swiftdevelopment of linguistics and other related sciences, this definition has become moreand more complicated As a result, different authors give different concepts towards

this term Newmark (1995: 48) states: ―The overriding purpose of any translation should be to achieve „equivalent effect‟, i.e to produce the same effect (or one as close as possible) on the readership of translation as was obtained on the readership of the original‖.

Baker has another way to define this term by pointing out three levels oftranslation equivalence basing on the linguistic forms, that is, equivalence at wordlevel, sentence level and text level To be more concrete, she explores the notion ofnon-equivalence at different levels and in relation to the translation process includingnon-equivalence at word level, non-equivalence above word level, grammaticalequivalence, textual equivalence and pragmatic equivalence

Adding to this various list of translation equivalence, Andrew Chesterman

(1989: 100), in "Readings in Translation Theories" describes that there are "various categories of equivalence that have been proposed in the literature of translation theory: content equivalence (often also: content invariance), stylistic equivalence, formal equivalence, functional equivalence, textural equivalence, communicative

equivalence, pragmatic equivalence".

From the view point of Julianne House (1977: 25), meaning equivalence is the

most essential in translation: "The essence of translation lies in the preservation of

'meaning' across two different languages".

As can be seen, ―translation equivalence‖ is still a complex and controversialconcept Personally, I am in favor of Ivir‘s expression of translation equivalence :

“Equivalence is…relative and not absolute,…it emerges from the context of situation

as defined by the interplay of (many different factors) and has no existence outside that context, and in particular it is not stipulated in advance by an algorithm for the

conversion of linguistic units of L1 into linguistic units of L2” (Ivir, 1996:155) To have

better understanding of this term, it is necessary to have a look at how translationequivalence is classified into different types

1.1.3.2 Types of translation equivalence

Similar to the case of ―translation equivalence definition‖, at present, there aremany diverse ways of classifying types of ―translation equivalence‖, among whichfour popular classifications can be identified as follows: Quantity-based, form-based,meaning-based, and function-based equivalence Basing on quantitative approach(quantity-based), Munday (2001) suggests five types of translation equivalence: One-to-one equivalence, one-to-many equivalence, many- to-one equivalence, one-to-part-of-one equivalence, nil equivalence From this categorization, it is noticeable thatMunday mainly focused on the quantity of equivalence rather than meaningequivalence Baker (1992) who is in favor of form-based equivalence classifiestranslation equivalence into equivalence at word level (number, gender, tense) andabove word level and textual equivalence (equivalence between a SL text and a TL text

in terms of information and cohesion) On the contrary, Nida (1964), who supportsfunction-based equivalence, distinguishes formal equivalence and dynamic translation

as basic orientations According to him, formal equivalence is achieved when the SLand TL words have the closest possible match of form and content and dynamicequivalence is achieved when the SL and TL words have the same effect on theireffective readers

As seen above, each author has his/her own reasons for classifying differenttypes of translation equivalence However, with respect to three basic factors intranslating: the nature of the message, the purpose of the author and the translator andthe type of audience, the kind of equivalence by Koller(1979) can be considered asatisfactory approach Basing on text meaning, Koller (1979) classified equivalence intranslation into five catagories as follows:

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 Denotative equivalence: the SL and the TL words refer to the same thing in the real

world.

 Connotative equivalence: In addition to denotative value, source and target language words should also produce the same communicative values in the mind of native

speakers of the two languages.

 Text-normative equivalence: The SL and the TL words are used in the same or similar context in their respective languages.

 Pragmatic equivalence: With readership orientation, the SL and TL words have the same effect on their respective readers.

 Formal equivalence: In this type of equivalence, source and target language have the same formal aesthetic features, orthographic or phonological features.

In brief, this classification can be used as basic criteria to assess the equivalence of the

translation version in comparison with the original.

1.2 Contrastive Analysis

As mentioned above, to evaluate the quality of a translation version, it isnecessary to find out any similarities and differences between it and the original.Because of this, it is essential to understand contrastive analysis According to James(1980), the history of contrastive analysis (CA) starts with Lado‘s Linguistics acrosscultures (1957) In his book, Lado stated that ―those elements which are similar to thelearner‘s native language will be simple for him, and those elements that are differentwill be difficult‖ (Lado, 1957) James also believed that two earlier books on thelinguistic integration of immigrants to the USA- Weinreich (1953) and Haugen (1956)gave Lado his impetus James (1980:3) gave a provisional definition of CA as ―CA is

a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e., contrastive, not comparative)two-valued typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), andfounded on the assumption that languages can be compared‖ He considered CA asinter-language study and applied linguistics

In short, contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a pair of languages toidentify their similarities and differences

1.3 Translation assessment/ evaluation

1.3.1 Definition

In fact, this term has many other alternative names such as ―Translation qualityassessment‖ as in the study of Malcolm Williams (2009), or ―Translation criticism‖ inthe book ―A textbook of translation‖ by Newmark(1995) or ―Translation evaluation‖

by Julianne House Here are some ways of defining this term by some famous

researchers According to Hatim and Mason, ―The assessment of translator performance is an activity which, despite being widespread, is under-researched and under-discussed‖ (Hatim and Mason 1997:199, cited in Williams, 2001) From this

definition, it can be seen that Hatim and Mason have not given a concrete definition of

―translation assessment‖ but mainly emphasize the fact of assessing translation text atthat time and the necessity of paying more attention to assess translation text seriouslyand more critically

Newmark (1995) also gives his own definition, however, similar to Hatim andMason, his focus is not really on what translation assessment actually is but rather on

the importance of translation evaluation as followed: "Translation criticism is an essential link between translation theory and its practice." (Newmark, p184)

Among famous researchers, Malcolm William‘s definition can be said to bemuch clearer He defines the term ―Translation Quality Assessment‖ (TQA) in severalaspects:

― TQA is a type of evaluation‖

―TQA can be quantitative or qualitative: it can be based on mathematical/ statistical measurement (as in the case of most academic instruments) or on reader response, interviews and questionnaires (e.g Nida)‖

―TQA‖ can be diagnostic (determining areas for improvement at the outset of a course of study), formative (measuring progress and giving feedback during a course of study) or summative (measuring the results of learning)‖

After all, he comes to a conclusion that ―Whether our focus is on products, performance or competence, we are essentially trying to determine degrees of

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goodness when we perform TQA The approach can be prescriptive, assessing translation against criteria of aesthetic effect, usability, and intrinsic compliance with standards of target language correctness and fidelity.”

1.3.2 Translation Quality Assessment Models

There are many different approaches to TQA and TQA models However, in thisthesis, I just want to mention the latter which will be the direct basis for evaluating thetranslated version of the masterpiece ―The Call of the wild‖ The concept ―Models ofTQA‖ is not new because it has been initiated by many authors such as Wilss (1974)Koller (1974) or Reiss (1974) However, according to Le Hung Tien (2006), the modelssuggested by Koller, Wilss and Reiss, in spite of being very potential, lack concretesteps to be applied in reality Peter Newmark (1995) and Julianne House(1997) are twooutstanding researchers who create their own models to repair these shortcomings ofthe previous authors Therefore, we will have deeper insight into their models

1.3.2.1 Julianne House and her model

In fact, this model was first designed in the mid-seventies (House 1977,2d.ed.1981) and recently revisited (House 1997) The original functional-pragmaticmodel of translation was based on a set of ―situational dimensions‖ including threedimensions of ―language user‖, which are her/his temporal, geographical and socialprovenance and five dimensions of ―language use‖, for instance, on the text‘s topicand social activity and on the interaction of, and relationship between author andrecipients in terms of social role relationship, social attitude, degree of participantinvolvement and orality.‖ (House, 1977)

In the revisited model, she gives a clearer scheme for analyzing and comparingoriginal and translation texts as follows:

Individual textual function

A Scheme for Analyzing and Comparing Original and Translation Texts (House, 1997: 108)

In this model, in order to thoroughly categorize a text‘s function and thelanguage required, House introduces the category Genre Genre here is defined as ―asocially established category characterized in terms of occurrence of use, source and acommunicative purpose or any combination of these‖ (p:107) In general, theapplication of her new model enables us to examine a text on four different levels:Function, Register and Language

According to Le Hung Tien (2006), the model of TQA has a clear linguisticallytheoretical base and concrete, detailed steps However, this model also requireslinguistic knowledge and high occupational skills of the critics and the criticism mainly

15

aims at researching languages and translation Therefore, this model has not beenapplied widely and just at experimental level in translation studies Therefore, we willhave a look at anther model of TQA by Peter Newmark.

1.3.2.2 Peter Newmark’s model

Newmark (1988) gives his own model of TQA called ―comprehensivecriticism of a translation‖ including five obvious steps:

Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects

Step 2: The translator‘s interpretation of the SL text‘s purpose, his translation method and the translation‘s likely readership

Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original Step 4: An evaluation of the translation: - (a) in the translator‘s terms, (b) in the critic‘s terms, (c) assess the translation as a piece of writing, independently of its original.

Step 5: Where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline.

Each step above is also made very clear in his book: ―A textbook of

translation‖ (1995)

In the first step, the critic has to try to point out the author‘s purpose of writinghis work, what attitude he takes towards the topic, what type of readers that the literarywork aims at, and finally what type it is

In the second step, the critic has to review whether the translator has omittedany section of the original text and whether it affects the message that the authorwishes to express Moreover, it is important to find out if any text is over-translated and

to what extent the cultural meaning of the original text has been changed or transferred

to the TL culture

The third step is the heart of the critique In this step, the critic has to choose themost selective and representative examples of the achievements and weaknesses of thetranslated version in comparison with the original text Then he has to group themunder general heads such as the title, the structure, or cultural words… After that, it is

16

essential to analyze how the translator has solved the particular problems of the SLtext.

In the fourth step, the critic will evaluate the referential and pragmatic accuracy

of the translation at three levels: first by the translator‘s standards, second by thecritic‘s standards, and last as a piece of writing, independently of its original In thefirst two criteria, besides evaluating the achievements of the translation, the critic has

to find out if there is any semantic deficits in the translation and what are the causes ofthis In the last criteria, he has to assess whether the translated version is written in anatural manner, that is, neat, elegant and agreeable or not

In the last step, especially in the case of literary works such as a poem, a story

or a novel, it is essential to assess the work's potential importance within the targetlanguage‘s literature by asking such questions as:―Does it have any influence on thetarget language‘s literature and culture?‖ ―If yes, what are the future of this translatedtext?‖

Again, according to Le Hung Tien(2006), although this model is not as clear andwell theoretically based as in the case of House‘s model, it has many strong points interms of application This is due to the fact that these steps are initiated from thepractical experiences of the translators Moreover, it reflects the problems and theconcerns of the translators in the translation process; therefore, it is easy to be carriedout

For this reason, in this thesis, the writer decides to apply Newmark‘s model inassessing the quality of the translated version of Chapter Two in ―The Call of theWild‖

CHAPTER 2: APPLICATION OF NEWMARK’S MODEL FOR TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER 2 OF “THE CALL

OF THE WILD”

This chapter will present the application of Newmark‘TQA model to assess thequality of the target text To be more specific, a source text profile will be analyzedbasing on five steps which are mentioned above Step 3 and step 4 will be paid moreattention because they are the most important parts of translation assessment according

to New Mark Finally, a statement of quality can be drawn from such findings underNew Mark‘s framework

2.1 Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects

Although ―The Call of the wild‖ is just a short story, it is considered JackLondon‘s most popular work as well as the masterpiece of his so-called ―earlyperiod‖ Written as a frontier story about the gold rush, the story was first published infour installments in ―The Saturday Evening Post‖ Then in 1903, Macmillan publishedthe story in book format

This story tells about the process of returning to primitivism of Buck- a dog,who lives in comfort on an estate in California but then is kidnapped and shipped to theKlondyke He becomes leader of a sledge-team and, after some hair-raising adventures,finally abandons human civilization and runs wild with the wolves

Because the main character of this story is Buck- a dog, it is often classified aschildren‘s literature; therefore, the primary readership is children However, because ofthe maturity of its subject matter, it is a worth-reading masterpiece for the olderaudiences as well In brief, the readers that this story aims at are people of all ages whoare interested in foreign literature, especially works by Jack London

During this story, Jack London always keeps an affectionate attitude towards theanimals and he demonstrates a deep understanding of their psychology and behavior

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He supposes that only by real and limitless compassion towards the animals, canhumans tame them, even the fiercest one Through the story about animals, he alsoattaches his philosophy about an indispensible war against savage exploitation in thedevelopment of human society.

The translated version of this story is printed in the collection of short stories

―Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã‖ by Jack London, translated directly by three translatorsManh Chuong, Nguyen Cong Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong from the original version in thebook ―The Call of the Wild‖ published by Heinemann Educational Books Ltd,London in The New Windmill series

The Vietnamese story collection also includes of other short stories by JackLondon among which ―The Call of the Wild‖ is translated by two co-translatorsNguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong ―The Law of Club and Fang‖ is the secondchapter about Buck‘s process of adapting itself to a new violent and harsh environmentwhere only the club and fang has the supreme power

The primary theme of the story is about survival and a return to primitivism.According to the American literature scholar, Donald Pizer, the theme of this shortstory is very clear and allegorical : ―the strong, the shrewd, and the cunning shallprevail when…life is bestial‖ (Pizer, 1983:110) In addition, he believes London added

a Christian theme of love and redemption, as is shown by Buck's refusal to revert toviolence until after the death of Thornton—to whom he is loyal and whom he loves.(Pizer, 1983, 109-110)

Writing in the "Introduction" to the Modern Library edition of The Call of the Wild, E L Doctorow says the theme is based Darwin's concept of survival of thefittest London shows that the veneer of civilization is thin and fragile, writesDoctorow, and in the story exposes the brutality at the core of humanity and the easewith which humans revert to a state of primitivism The struggle for life in the natural

world is somewhat the same as the struggle between man and man in the capitalsociety.

In terms of genre or type, this short story is considered an animal fiction Also inthe view of Donald Pizer, the enduring appeal of the story is that it is a combination of

allegory, parable, and fable In fact, this is true because Jack London attributedthoughts and insights to Buck to mimic human traits Thanks to that, he is able toreflect the brutality and violence of human society at that time

2.2 Step 2: the translator’s interpretation of the SL text’s purpose, his translation method and the translation’s likely readership

Comparing the translated version with the original of the masterpiece ―TheCall of the Wild‖, it is easy to recognize that two translators Nguyen Cong Ai and VuTuan Phuong do not omit any section of the source text The seven chapters in theorigin are still kept with equivalent meaning in Vietnamese version

The language used in the translated version, in general, follows the language use

in the original version closely Most of the writer‘s ideas are transferred into the secondlanguage fully and successfully Some idioms or difficult structures and vocabulary aretranslated into Vietnamese creatively and easy to understand However, sometimes thetranslator adds or cuts details in the original version, which causes some problems.This will be discussed later in this thesis

The cultural elements in the target language text are maintained and clarified,including geographical words

2.3 Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original

In this step, the researcher has been carefully chosen the most representativeexamples from the original and the translated version, from which comparison will bemade to demonstrate the success as well as the shortcomings of the latter Only some

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examples will be shown in the first part of the table as follows and to see the whole

table for details, it is essential to see appendix C

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7

8

22

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Table 1: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original

(See more in Appendix C)

2.4 Step 4: an evaluation of the translation

2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation in the translator’s terms

The researcher is going to assess the Vietnamese version of ―The Call of theWild‖ basing on the analysis of the evidences compared above Both the success aswell as the weaknesses of the translated version will be pointed out clearly

First of all, the success that the translators have achieved in their translation is asfollows

In general, basing on Koller(1995)‘s classfication of translation equivalence asmentioned in literature review, two translators have been very successful in achievingboth both denotative and connotative equivalence in their translation version

In terms of syntactics, it is can be said that two translators have been verysuccessful in transfering some English structures into Vietnamese structures flexiblyand naturally It can be seen in examples 2, 4, 13, 27, 37, 47, 49, 54, 58, 61, 67, 72,73

(See detail examples in Appendix C)

One case in point is example 4: ―There was imperative need to be constantlyalert‖ Normally, according to word order in English structure, this sentence can betranslated into: ―có một nhu cầu bắt buộc là phải thường xuyên cảnh giác‖ However,

it would sound awkward to Vietnamese readers because in Vietnamese, they rarely usestructure ―there is‖ in such a case In this situation, two translators have been veryexcellent in translating it into ―Thường xuyên cảnh giác là một nhu cầu bắt buộc‖

Another example that should be taken into account is example 30: ―He had one

peculiarity which Buck was unlucky enough to discover He did not like to be

approached on his blind side” In English, passive structures are frequently used;

however, Vietnamse language seems to follow the opposite tendency Active voice

tends to be more natural and clearer Thanks to their thorough understanding of this

difference between grammar of two languages, two translators have translated this

sentence into: ―Lão có một tính đặc biệt , thâṭkhông may màBấc đa ̃phát hiêṇ ra : lão

không thích kẻnào sán đến gần bên măt mùcủa lão ‖ instead of ―…lão không

thích bị sán đến gần bên mặt mù của lão”

Besides the achievements in terms of syntactics, the translation version is also

very successful in terms of semantics This is clearly reflected in word choice and

expressions This phenomenon can be seen in a lot of examples in Chapter Two Within

this thesis, the researcher just take some examples for analysis in the table below:

Table 2:Evidences about translators’ achievements in terms of word choice and expressions.

In examples 76 and 77, the translators have not only maintained denotative

meaning but also transferred connotative meaning very well, especially connotation of

evaluation In the story, all the dogs are personified with different characteristics For each

dog, Jack London always attaches his evaluation of them through the way he describes

them and two translators flexibly transferred those attitudes into Vietnamese As the new

dog here, Sol-leks, is old, the translators use the pronoun ―lão‖ to describe him, and other

expressions such as ―chinh chiến‖, ―rực lên dấu hiệu của sự can đảm‖ show that the dog

is an experienced one and other dogs should feel respect for him On the other hand, for

Buck, the main character of this story as well as a young dog, Jack London always keeps a

tender and loving attitude towards him Therefore, in this case, it can be recognized that no

word is better than the translators‘ word: ―cu cậu‖ to call him Moreover, the Vietnamese

expression ―khảnh ăn‖, and ―xông đến cướp‖ are used successfully here to emphasize the

contradiction between Buck and his brutal friends

Besides, thanks to their knowledge of Vietnamese culture, two translators

also utilised many equivalent Vietnamese idioms and phrases, which made the

translation version very smooth and natural:

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Table 3: Evidences about translators’ achievements in terms of using idioms

As can be seen from this table, in the translated version, the phrases ―like a flash‖,

―metallic‖, ―a bitter and deathless hatred‖, ―inoffensive‖, ―vital ambition‖ arerespectivly translated into ―nhanh như chớp‖, ―chói như tiếng kim loại‖, ―ghét cay ghét

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đắng‖, ―lành như đất‖, ―một ham muốn mang tính chất sinh tử‖ Those phrases have

almost the same denotative meaning, but the usage of Vietnamese idioms make the

story more vivid Although the translated version is a bit longer than the original, it

seems to be clearer in terms of meaning and the translators‘s excellent word choice

also reflects the plentifulness and variety of Vietnamese vocabulary

Besides these, it is undeniable that two translators always attach the original text

to its context and have good knowledge of the abundance of Vietnamese language

when translating For this reason, many English words and expressions are translated

concisely and naturally: