A study of equivalents in translation and strategies to deal with non – equivalents at word level based on the bilingual selected short stories “ the last leaf” by o’ henry

THESIS A STUDY OF EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATION AND STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH NON – EQUIVALENTS AT WORD LEVEL BASED ON THE BILINGUAL SELECTED SHORT STORIES “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’ HENRY N

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY OF EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATION AND STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH NON –

EQUIVALENTS AT WORD LEVEL BASED ON THE

BILINGUAL SELECTED SHORT STORIES

“THE LAST LEAF” BY O’ HENRY

( Nghiên cứu tương đương trong dịch thuật và các chiến lược giải quyết các hiện tượng không tương đương ở cấp độ từ dựa trên tập truyện ngắn chọn lọc song ngữ “Chiếc lá cuối cùng” của O’ Henry)

LÊ MINH TRANG

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY OF EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATION AND STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH NON –

EQUIVALENTS AT WORD LEVEL BASED ON THE

BILINGUAL SELECTED SHORT STORIES

“THE LAST LEAF” BY O’ HENRY

( Nghiên cứu tương đương trong dịch thuật và các chiến lược giải quyết các hiện tượng không tương đương ở cấp độ từ dựa trên tập truyện ngắn chọn lọc song ngữ “Chiếc lá cuối cùng” của O’ Henry)

LÊ MINH TRANG

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN ĐĂNG SỬU

Hanoi - 2020

Le Minh Trang

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Đăng Sửu

Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor,

Mr Nguyen Dang Suu, Assoc Prof of HaNoi University of business and technology This thesis could have probably not completed without his patient, enthusiastic and instructive supervision and encouragement

I also would like to show my profound gratitude to all of the lecturers in Ha Noi Open University for tirelessly devoting time and efforts to enrich, broaden and deepen my knowledge over the past four years My special thanks go as well to Ha Noi Open University for giving me the opportunity and permission to implement this thesis

Besides, I am deeply indebted to my beloved family for their wholehearted support and encouragement

Finally, I cannot fully express my gratitude to all the people whose direct and indirect support assisted me to accomplish my thesis in time

ABSTRACT

This study primarily investigates the problem of non-equivalence at word level

in translation between English and Vietnamese based on the bilingual selected short stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry

The paper aims at, first and foremost, presenting rationale, background knowledge and different approaches relate to non-equivalence before contrasting some typical conceptual and lexical semantic fields to prove that there is a considerable linguistic gap between English and Vietnamese Then the study will propose a classification of non-equivalence based on Mona Baker’s theory Eventually, the study also suggests several effective strategies to deal with non- equivalence at word level in translation

BCE.: Before the Common Era

CE.: Common Era

CA.: Contrastive linguistics analysis

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 4.1: Baker’s taxonomy of non-equivalence at word level (1992) 26 Table 4 2: Selected categories and examples about Cultural Concepts 28 Table 4.3: Individualism Index Values among nations (as adapted from Hofstede ,

2000 ) 29 Table 4.4: Non-equivalents at word level in the selected short stories “ The last leaf”

by O’ Henry and their translated versions 40 Figure 4.1: Factors involving translation process 51

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1

1.2.1 The aim of the study 1

1.2.2 The objectives of the study 1

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 2

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Structure of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Overview of Previous studies 4

2.1.1.Overview of Domestic studies 4

2.1.2.Overview of Foreign studies 4

2.2 Overview of Translation 7

2.2.1 Definitions of translation 7

2.2.2 Principles of translation 8

2.2.3 Equivalence in translation 14

2.3 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Research orientations 18

3.1.1 Research approaches 18

3.1.2 Research questions 18

3.1.3 Research setting 19

3.1.4 Principles/ criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 19

3.2 Research methods 19

3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods 19

3.2.2 Data collection techniques 20

3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 20

3.3 Summary 20

CHAPTER 4: EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATION AND STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH NON – EQUIVALENTS AT WORD LEVEL BASED ON THE BILINGUAL SELECTED SHORT STORIES “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’ HENRY 22

4.1 Equivalents and non- equivalents at word level 22

4.1.4 Equivalents at word level 22

4.1.2 Non-equivalence at word level 24

4.2 Classification of non – equivalence at word level 27

4.2.1 No equivalent words between 2 languages, especially culture- specific concepts The source language word expresses a concept totally unknown in target language 27

4.2.2 Concepts are known but no equivalent words in TL The source language concept is not lexicalized in the target language 31

4.2.3 The target language lacks a superordinate It may have a specific word but no general word 32

4.2.4 The target language lacks a hyponym 33

4.2.5 Differences in expressive meaning 35

4.2.6 Differences in physical and interpersonal perspective 36

4.3 Equivalents and non-equivalents at words level in the selected short story “The last leaf” by O’Henry and the Vietnamese translated version 36

4.3.1 At-word-level equivalence in the selected short story “The last leaf” by O’Henry and the Vietnamese translated version 36

4.3.2 At-word-level non-equivalence 39

4.4 Strategies to tackle non-equivalence at word level in the selected short stories

“The last leaf” by O’Henry 45

4.4.1 Translation by a more specific word (hyponym) 45

4.4.2 Translation by a more general word (superordinate) 46

4.4.3 Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word 47

4.4.4 Translation by cultural substitution 48

4.4.5 Translation by paraphrasing 49

4.4.6 Translation by omission 50

4.5 Implications for teaching translationto Vietnamese learners of English 50

4.6 Summary 53

CHAPTER 5 : CONCLUSION 53

5.1 Recapitulation 53

5.2 Concluding remarks 54

5.3 Limitations of the research 54

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 54

REFERENCES 1

APPENDICES 5

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Along with the increasing development of technology and science, books and articles have been written by specialists in all fields People need those books but not all of them are able to understand the books, which are written in language that they

do not know That is the reason why we need translation However, translation has never been an easy task, but truly an art which requires great efforts and proficiency

of translators In some specific context, English learners, even professional interpreters find it tough to translate some words from English into Vietnamese because of non-equivalence at word level between English and Vietnamese There may be text in target language that seems unnatural because the translator wanted to keep the meaning but as a result, the translation seems unnatural and confuses the readers Therefore, strategies to translate non-equivalence at word level from English into Vietnamese which help translators translate more effectively from English into Vietnamese are very important The material translated is being extended, from science books to other subjects, including literature People are also interested in literary works, which are translated into Vietnamese They have enjoyed them a lot From the awareness of this significance, researcher decides to choose this topic for the thesis as the research matter In the study the writer will deal with equivalence and present the strategies to solve the non‐equivalence at word level found in the selected short stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry and their Vietnamese- translated versions

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 The aim of the study

The aim of this study is helping the Vietnamese better understand the equivalence and non-equivalence at word level and the strategies to deal with non – equivalence at word level in translation

1.2.2 The objectives of the study

To achieve the above aim, the following objectives of the study must be realized:

- Identifying the equivalents and non-equivalents at word level in translation

in general and based on the bilingual selected short stories ‘The last leaf’ by O’ Henry, in particular;

- Finding out the strategies to deal with non-equivalents at word level based

on the bilingual selected short stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry;

- Giving some suggested implications for teaching equivalence and equivalence at word level in translation to Vietnamese students of English effectively

non-1.3 Research questions

The study must answer the following research questions:

1 What are the equivalents and non-equivalents at word level in translation based on the billingual selected short stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry?

2 What are the strategies to deal with non – equivalence at word level used in the translation from English into Vietnamese in the bilingual selected short stories

“The last leaf” by O’ Henry?

3 What are some suggested implications for teaching translation to Vietnamese students of English effectively?

1.4 Methods of the study

The main methods of the study are the descriptive , qualitative, quantitative and comparative in combination with data collection and data analysis techniques Descriptive research method is used to describe equivalence and non - equivalence

in translation based on the fact or reality It also describes the population and the evidence of the data systemically, factually, and accurately All the data are collected from the bilingual selected short stories“ The last leaf” by O’ Henry They will, then,

be analyzed and categorized for the research

1.5 Scope of the study

Both equivalence and non – equivalence at word level are taken into consideration, which is the focus of the study since word is the basic unit of meaning in linguistics In view of the complexity of non-equivalence and the limited space of this paper, the author will have to confine the discussion only to non-equivalence at word level instead of the full treatment of non-equivalence at various levels, such as at

syntactic or even textual one The data of this research are collected from the bilingual selected stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry

1.6 Significance of the study

The strategies used by the translators to solve the problems of non‐ equivalence at word level found in “ The last leaf” will be carefully examined in the hope that it would be useful for students of English Moreover, this study is hoped

to provide a better knowledge of strategies to deal with non-equivalence to those who are learning English and who are doing translation

1.7 Structure of the study

The thesis is divided into 5 chapters:

Chapter One, Introduction provides the rationale, aims and objectives as

well as research questions, methods, scope, significance and the structure of the study

Chapter Two, Literature review, gives the reviews of the previous domestic

and foreign studies relating to the research matter, provides some different points of view concerning the concept of translation, equivalents and non-equivalents at word level and choosing the suitable viewpoint of the theory for the thesis

Chapter Three, Methodology, will give major methods and supporting

methods, research setting, instruments, data collection and data analysis techniques

Chapter Four, Findings and discussions, three research questions will be

answered in this chapter

Chapter Five : Conclusion

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Overview of Previous studies

2.1.1.Overview of Domestic studies

Usually a study is based on the other study, which can be used for a measuring rod in the next study Studies about non - equivalence in translation had been done

by Vietnamese students Some studies about equivalence in translation were done by Pham Thanh Binh ( 2010 ), Pham Thi Luong Giang ( 2010 ), Kustanti (2006), Ghadi (2009), Irmawati (2003), Nugroho (2008), Giménez (2005)

Phạm Thị Lương Giang ( 2010 ) did a study about idioms This study purposes

to identify the non – equivalence when translating idioms The research proposal focuses on general view of translation, non- equivalence in translation of idioms Besides, researcher gives techniques to deal with non-equivalence in translating English idioms into Vietnamese

Pham Thanh Binh ( 2010 ) did a study about strategies to deal with non – equivalence at word level The objective of the study is to find out the strategies to deal with non – equivalence at word level The study aims at not only stressing the significance of equivalence in translation process, as well as, raising reader’s awareness on the matter of non-equivalence but also providing a set of strategies which can solve almost all problems founded in English –Vietnamese situation Moreover, the study also introduces some useful exercises for reader’s further practicing and researching

2.1.2.Overview of Foreign studies

Kustanti (2006) did a study that is entitled Equivalence at Word Level in the

J.K Rowling’s Novel Entitled “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” The

purpose of this study is to analyze what strategies are used by a professional translator

in creating grammatical equivalence and to classify the sentences in the novel into their strategies.The suggestion which is presented by Kustanti (2006) is that the translator not only has to find the acceptable word and sentences but also find the equivalence word or sentences which convey the same message that is intended by

the author by understanding various problems in translation in each level, so that she can choose the nearest equivalent word and sentence in target language

Ghadi (2009) has written a particular interesting study analyzing equivalence

at word level in the English technical text and the translations in Persian After reviewing some of the important theories on equivalence, he has chosen Baker’s

theory as the foundation to study the use of strategies by expert and non-expert

From the original dental text book (in English), 120 significant words were drawn by systematic random sampling procedure The original English dental book consists of

24 chapters and from each chapter 5 words were randomly drawn to come up with

120 words.The result of Ghadi study is very useful since it strongly show the frequency of use for each strategies introduced by Baker Accordingly, translating by

a general term, the use of loan word and loan word plus explanation are the leading strategies applied by both the expert and non- expert Unfortunately, the author did not provide the reason or explanation for this preference and why the other strategies are less used

Irmawati (2003) did a study about grammatical equivalence in The Indonesian

Translation of J K Rowlings novel, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”

This study purposes to identify the grammatical equivalence, which includes number, person and gender, tense and aspects, and voice as well as to see whether the translated sentences can be justified with the Indonesian structure

There are some conclusions given by Irmawati (2003) The first conclusion is that with regard to number, grammatical equivalence can be achieved through translating from the source language (SL) singular into the target language (TL) singular or plural, and SL plural into TL singular or plural The second conclusion is that with regard to person and gender, grammatical equivalence can be achieved by translation from SL first person singular into TL first person singular familiar or non familiar, SL first person plural into TL first person plural inclusive or exclusive, SL second person singular into TL second person singular familiar or non familiar, SL second person plural into TL second person plural familiar or non familiar, SL third person singular male into TL third person singular neuter, SL third person singular

female into TL third person singular neuter, SL third person singular neuter into TL third person singular person neuter by restating the name or the thing, SL third person plural into TL third person plural , SL reflexive pronouns into TL reflexive pronouns,

SL indefinite pronouns into TL indefinite pronouns, SL possessive adjectives into TL pronouns or possessive clitics The third conclusion is that with regard to tense and aspects, grammatical equivalence can be achieved through translating from SL past into TL present or TL past by giving temporal determiners and adverbs of time, and from SL non past into TL non past The last but not least, with regard to voice, grammatical equivalence can be achieved through translation from SL active into TL active or passive and SL passive into TL passive

There is a suggestion suggested by Irmawati (2003), that is that translators should pay attention to such grammatical categories as number, person and gender, tense and aspect, and voice in English and Indonesian so that he/she can find the closest equivalence

Nugroho (2008) did a study entitled An Analysis of Translation Strategies In

Indonesia-English of Thesis Abstracts (The Case Study of Arts-Education of Post Graduate Program of Semarang State University in The Academic Year of 2003- 2008) The objectives of the study are to find out the strategies used in the translation

from Indonesian into English of 2003 – 2008 postgraduate thesis abstract of Art education Department students of Semarang State University and to classify determine and count the dominant strategies used by translators in the translation

Nugroho’s conclusion after doing his study is that the translators used appropriate strategies in translating thesis abstract so the words, which have different meanings, do not have a significant impact to the readers The study also finds that the strategy of translation by a loan word has a dominant occurrence and the less occurrence is translation by a more neutral or less expressive word and translation by paraphrase using related words

In the article “Translation-Strategies Use: A Classroom-Based Examination of

Baker’s Taxonomy”, Giménez (2005) explores the use of strategies by

undergraduate The study evaluates student’s translation from English to Spanish

An experiment was conducted among 160 third-year students of English Studies who supposed to be at upper-intermediate or advanced level of English Those students were provided a prior instruction about basic concepts on equivalence and Mona Baker’s categories as well as a variety of strategies to solve non-equivalence

2.2 Overview of Translation

Though translation is no longer a strange terminology in daily life, there is hardly any agreement on its definition A great number of books and articles have been written about this debatable subject Each author or expert tried to prove his statement to be true That is why “What is translation?” is still a big question in linguistic area In the study, the researcher has no ambition to my own definition of translation ; the researcher just pick up and support one of revealed concepts of translation which is considered the most suitable to the study

2.2.1 Definitions of translation

Though translation is no longer a strange terminology in daily life, there is hardly any agreement on its definition A great number of books and articles have been written about this debatable subject Each author or expert tried to prove his statement to be true That is why “What is translation?” is still a big question in linguistic area In the study, the researcher has no ambition to my own definition of translation ; the researcher just pick up and support one of revealed concepts of translation which is considered the most suitable to the study

According to Catford (1965) “Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language(TL).”

Hartmann & Stock (1972) states, “ Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of another equivalent text

in a second language.”

Dubois (1973) contends, “ Translation is the expression in another language (or TL) of what has been expressed in another (SL), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies.”

Nida & Taber (1974) states that translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural aquivalent of the source language massage, first

in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style

Wilss (1982) says that translation is a procedure which leads from a written

SL text to an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic semantic,stylistic and text pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text

Hatim & Mason (1990) presents, “ Translating is a communicative process which takes place within a social context.”

Bell (1991) contends, “ Translating is the transformation of a text originally in one language into an equivalent text in a different language retaining as far as possible, the content of the message, and the formal features and the roles of the original text.”

According to Jeremy Munday’s opinion (2001), the term translation has several meanings: it can refer to general subject field, the product (the text that has been translated) or the process (the act of producing the translation- translating) The process of translation between two different written languages involves the translator changing an original written text (source text-ST) in the original verbal language (source language- SL) into a written text (target text –TT) in a different verbal language (target language-TL)

meaning can be “transposed-changed the position” For example:

“The real Vietnam war ended in 1975, everything about it since then has become a war story…”

“ He made the bed” : the meaning of the sentence must be made clear whether

he put the sheets, blanket and pillow in neat order on the bed or he as a carpenter made the new bed

The translator should ask himself:

if the meaning of the original text is clear, if not where the uncertainty lies

if any words are loaded, that is, if there are any underlying implications (“Correct me if

I am wrong…” suggests “I know I am right”!)

if the dictionary meaning of a particular word is the most suitable one

if anything in the translation sounds unnatural or forced

As we have seen that one form may express a variety of meanings and on the other hand, one meaning can be expressed in a great number of forms For example,

“Is this seat taken?”; “Is there anyone sitting here?”; “May I sit here?” all have the same meaning: the speaker is indicating a desire to sit in a certain seat

Each language has its own distinctive forms for representing the meaning Therefore, in translation the same meaning may have to be expressed in another language by a very different form To translate the form of one language literally according to the corresponding form in another language would often change the meaning or at least result in a form which is unnatural in the second language Meaning must, therefore, have priority over the form in translation It is meaning which is to be carried over from the source language to the target language, not the linguistic forms In addition, a literal translation (word-for-word translation) does not communicate the meaning of the source text It is generally no more than a string of words intended to help someone read a text in its original language It is unnatural and hard to understand, and may even quite meaningless, or give a wrong meaning

in the target language It can hardly be called a translation The goal of a translator should be to produce a target language text (a translation ) which is idiomatic; that is one translation which has the same meaning as the source language but is expressed

in the natural form of the target language The meaning, not the form is retained

2.2.2.2 Form

Dealing with the form means referring to the lexicon and grammar of one language The ordering of words and ideas in the translation should match the original

as closely as possible This is particularly important in translating legal documents, guarantees, contracts, etc…

Translation is basically a change of form (lexicon and grammar) When we speak of the form of a language, we are refering to the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs etc., which are spoken or written These forms are referred to

as the surface structure of a language It is the structural part of language which is actually seen in print or heard in speech In translation, the form of the source language is replaced by the form of the target language

It’s obvious that translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language into the target language This is realized by going from the form of the first language to the form of a second by way of semantic structure It is meaning which

is being transferred and must be held constant Only the form changes The form from which the translation is made will be called the source language and the form into which it is to be changed will be called the target language Translation, then, consists

of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation and cultural

context of the source language text, analyzing it in order to determine its meaning,

after that reconstruct this same meaning using lexicon and grammatical structure which are proper in the target language and its cultural context

Let us look at one example that we are translating a Vietnamese sentence into English:

Mấy năm qua công cuộc đổi mới trên mặt trận kinh tế của đất nước ta đã mở

ra mạnh mẽ

Over the past few years, the economic innovation of our

Qua mấy năm, kinh tế đổi mới của chúng ta

country has ushered drastically

đất nước đã mở ra mạnh mẽ

It is undoubted that the given example consists of some changes in form: order

of Vietnamese words(SL) in a sentence is different from that of English (TL) The Vietnamese form consists of the verb form ‘mở ra: has ushered’, noun forms,

(đổimới:innovation,đấtnước:country, năm:years); adjective form (kinhtế:economic); adverb form(mạnhmẽ:drastically)

The fact shows that persons who know both the SL and the TL well can often make the transfer from one form to the other very quickly, without thinking about the semantic structure overtly

+ In most languages there is a meaning component of plurality as suffix ‘S’ in English This suffix often occurs in the grammar on the nouns or verbs or both.Whereas it does not occur in Vietnamese It is expressed in terms of lexicon

Books in the library have been kept carefully

Những quyển sách trong thư viện được giữ gìn cẩn thận

+ The same meaning component can be expressed in several surface structure

lexical items There is the word ‘Sheep’ in English However, the words Lamb, ram and ewe also occur and include the meaning Sheep But these words get the additional meaning components which are young (in lamb), adult and male (in ram), and adult and female (in ewe)

+ It should be noted that one form can be used to convey alternative

meanings.Since most words have more than one meaning: the primary meaning which ussually comes to mind when the word is said in isolation, and the secondary

meanings- the additional meanings which a word has in context with other words

We take the verb ‘run’ in Englishas an example We can say the boy runs Runs here

is in its primary meaning We can also say the car runs, the river runs and her nose

runs Runs in the given sentences are in its secondary meanings It should be borne

in mind that the same grammatical pattern may express several different meanings

We just take the English phrase ‘my house’ for example, it may mean “the house I live in”, “the house I built”, “the house I own”, “the house I rent,”or“the house for which I drew up the plans” Only the larger context can determine the particular meaning

+ The whole sentence may also have several functions A question form may

be used for a nonquestion For example, the question “John, why don’t you go to the

concert?” takes the form of a question, and may be asking for information in some

context, but it is often used with the meaning of a command (or suggestion) rather than a real question

Just for words have primary and secondary meanings, grammatical markers have their primary function and often have other secondary functions Let us take preposition ON for illustration

Jane found a book on the table. quyển sách ở trên bàn

Jane found a book on English -quyển sách về tiếng Anh

Jane found a book on Thursday quyển sách vào ngày thứ năm

Jane found a book on sale đem ra bán

Or

Michael was sitting by the riverside : by in this sentence signals that the

riverside is the location

The thief was arrested by a police: by in this case signals the meaning that

police is the agent of the action

2.2.2.3 Register

The term register is used in the same way as ‘style’ in the field of language

learning and teaching It is used to refer to all types of situational variation and sometimes also to refer to socially-conditioned variation

Languages often differ greatly in the levels of formality in a given context To resolve these differences, the translator must distinguish between formal/informal or fixed expressions and personal expressions, in which the writer or speaker sets the tone The translator should also consider:

if any expression in the SL would sound too formal/ informal, cold/ warm, personal/ impersonal…if translated literally.For example,

Expressing anger:

The slight figure of maria appeared in the doorway, her eyes flashing,

‘You are late, you are late, you are 23 minutes late.’ Or

‘Don’t you tell me to calm down You’d like me to be a drudge, wouldn’t you,

to be a slave, to keep silent while you go out drinking and chasing girls all the nights?’…

Expressing formal style,

Would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?

Would you open the door for me, please?

For example: That girl teacher is looking very charming ********

Cô giáo ấy thì trông rất duyên/ đang trông rất duyên

Quả táo này ăn rất ngon

This apple eats very well literal / word-for-word translation

Hôm qua đã khai mạc hội chợ thương mại quốc tế tại Hà Nội

Yesterday opened the world trade Fair in Hanoi literal translation

Would you mind my smoking in here? formal asking for permission The translator must find out what the intention of the speaker or writer is (to persuade/dissuade, apologize / criticizeif this comes true in translation.)

For example:

Why don’t we go to the movie tonight? suggestion

Would you, please, have another cup of coffee? invitation

2.2.2.4 Source language influence

One of the most frequent criticism of translation is that ‘it doesn’t sound natural’ This is because the translator’s thoughts and choice of words are too strongly moulded by the original text A good way of shaking off the source language influence is to set the text aside and translate a few sentences aloud, from memory This will suggest natural pattern of thought in the first language, which may not come

to mind when the eye is fixed on the SL text

- …”Chẳng nói chẳng rằng, ba dang tay bợp tai cho nó một cái đánh ‘bốp’ Con bé loạng choạng ngã xuống vũng nước bẩn, nước mắt nó ứa ra, chắc là đau lắm Con rang chạy lại níu tay ba, nhưng không kịp…”

… “Without a word you (held out your hand and) boxed her ear with a ‘pop’

The little girl staggered before falling down into the pool of filthy water Tears started

to her eyes, possibly because of acute pain I tried to get to the place to prevent you, but( it was too late) I failed

“The mosquitoes’ eggs go through four changes, until finally the small mosquitoes appear…”

…Trứng muỗi phát triển qua bốn thời kỳ/ giai đoạn rồi mới nở thành muỗi con

2.2.2.5 Style and clarity

The translator should not change the style of the original But if the text is sloppily written, or full of tedious repetitions, the translator may, for the reader’s sake, correct the defects For example :

… “Phía Nhật Bản hoan nghênh cải cách kinh tế của Việt Nam đạt kết quả tốt.”

… “The Japanese delegation acclaimed the success of Vietnamese economic reform

2.2.2.6 Idioms

Idiomatic expressions are notoriously untranslatable These include similes, metaphors, proverbs and sayings, jargons, slang, and colloquialisms, and phrasal verbs If the expressions cannot be directly translated, try any of the following:

- retain the original word, in inverted comas: ‘….’

- retain the original expression, with a literal explanation in brackets: Indian

summer(dry, hazy weather in late autumn)

- use a close equivalent : talk of the devil = ‘the wolf at the door’ (literally)

- use a non-idiomatic or plain prose translation.The golden rule is: if the idiom

does not work in the L1, do not force it into the translation

2.2.3 Equivalence in translation

In this point of equivalence in translation, we will discuss about the definition

of equivalence by some professionals and experts They are Jakobson, Nida (1982) and Mona Baker (2000)

The comparison of texts in different languages inevitably involves a theory

of equivalence Equivalence can be said to be the central issue in translation although its definition, relevance, and applicability within the field of translation theory have caused heated controversy, and many different theories of the concept of equivalence have been elaborated within this field in the past fifty years

According to Jakobson’s theory, 'translation involves two equivalent messages

in two different codes' (ibid.:233) This theory is essentially based on his semiotic approach to translation according to which the translator has to recode the ST message first and then s/he has to transmit it into an equivalent message for the TC

Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence, namely formal equivalence—which in the second edition by Nida and Taber (1982) is referred to as formal correspondence — and dynamic equivalence Formal correspondence is quality of translation in which the features of the form of the source text have been mechanically reproduced in the receptor language Typically, formal correspondence distorts the grammatical and stylistic patterns of the receptor language, and hence distorts the message, so as to cause the receptor to misunderstand

or to labor unduly hard Dynamic equivalence is defined as quality of a translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported into the receptor language that the response of the receptor is essentially like that of the general receptors Frequently the form of the original text is changed but as long as the change follows the rules of back transformation in the source language, of contextual consistency in the transfer, and of transformation in the receptor language, the message is preserved and the translation is faithful

Baker (2010) defined four kinds of equivalents The first types of equivalences stated by Baker (2000) are equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, when translating from one language into another Baker acknowledges that, in

a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element to

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

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

be remembered that a single word can sometimes be assigned different meanings

in different languages and might be regarded as being a more complex unit or

morpheme This means that the translator should pay attention to a number of factors

when considering a single word, such as number, gender and tense (ibid.:11-12) The second type of equivalence defined by Baker (1992) is grammatical equivalence

Grammatical equivalence occurs when referring to the diversity of grammatical categories across languages She notes that grammatical rules may vary across languages and this may pose some problems in terms of finding a direct correspondence in the TL In fact, she claims that different grammatical structures in the SL and TL may cause remarkable changes in the way the information or message

is carried across These changes may induce the translator either to add or to omit information in the TT because of the lack of particular grammatical devices in the TL itself Amongst these grammatical devices, which might cause problems in translation, Baker focuses on number, tense and aspects, voice, person and gender The third type of equivalence by Baker (1992) is textual equivalence This equivalence will exist when referring to the equivalence between a SL text and a TL text in terms of information and cohesion Texture is a very important feature in translation since it provides useful guidelines for the comprehension and analysis of the ST, which can help the translator in his or her attempt to produce a cohesive and coherent text for the TC audience in a specific context It is up to the translator to decide whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties as well as the coherence of the SL text His

or her decision will be guided by three main factors, that is, the target audience, the purpose of the translation and the text type The last equivalence defined by Baker (2000) is pragmatic equivalence, when referring to implicatures and strategies of avoidance during the translation process Implicature is not about what is explicitly said but what is implied Therefore, the translator needs to work out implied meanings

in translation in order to get the ST message across The role of the translator is to recreate the author's intention in another culture in such a way that enables the TC reader to understand it clearly

From the explanation above, we know that every professional translator has his/her own perspective about equivalence Even Mona Baker (1992) divided equivalence into four types; they are equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, grammatical equivalence, textual equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence

2.3 Summary

In all, Chapter 2 has presented the background of Translation At first place, Some previous studies have been described in detail Second, The definitions of translation, the concepts and the history of the translation studies are provided minutely Third, The principles of translation has been introduced briefly Afterward, The methods of translation in using translation are fully presented with detailed analysis Last, The equivalence in translation has been mentioned with some point of views of professionals and experts The results play as the background for the realizations and recommendation in the next chapter

Descriptive research method describes situations They do not make accurate predictions, and they do not determine cause and effect Descriptive is an important method used in this thesis It helps to show the lexicology, culture and semantics of non – equivalents at word level found in “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry

The quantitative is used when all the data are collected from the bilingual selected short stories “The last leaf” by O’ Henry They will, then, be analyzed and categorized for the research

3.1.2 Research questions

The study must answer the following research questions:

1 What are the equivalents and non-equivalents at word level in translation based on the billingual selected short stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry?

2 What are the strategies to deal with non – equivalence at word level used in the translation from English into Vietnamese in the bilingual selected short stories

“The last leaf” by O’ Henry?

3 What are some suggested implications for teaching translation to Vietnamese students of English effectively?

3.1.3 Research setting

The meanings of expressions, in accordance with their syntactic and semantic features, are described and interpreted with means of descriptive method and a powerful source of dictionaries, novels, stories and internet

In order to obtain the above-said aims, the study is carried out basically through the descriptive and qualitative methods The descriptive method is employed

to give in depth and detailed description of the syntactic and semantic features of non – equivalents at word level The work starts with a review of existing study results

on non – equivalents at word level to provide a better understanding of the topic and then examples based on “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry are provided to illustrate the

description

3.1.4 Principles/ criteria for intended data collection and data analysis

The data used in the study is collected from dictionaries: English – English dictionary, English – Vietnamese dictionary, English – Vietnamese novels, stories and the internet

After reading the materials collected, the study focus on the non – equivalents

at word level based on “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry, they are categorized into three main aspects: lexicology, culture and semantic one

The quantitative is used when all the data are collected from the bilingual selected short stories “The last leaf” by O’ Henry They will, then, be analyzed and categorized for the description and completion of the research

Comparative method is used to carry out the comparison of all the data both in English and Vietnamese so as to find out the equivalents and non-equivalents between English and Vietnamese data collected from the billingual short selected story

3.2.1.2 Supporting methods: The data collection technique and data analysis

technique are used to describe and classify all the data collected for the result of the study

3.2.2 Data collection techniques

The data collection is the most important step in any research This procedure consists of two main stages

Firstly, a large number of non – equivalents words were collected in order to make the corpus of this thesis

Secondly, statistics on the number of the non – equivalents words

3.2.3 Data analysis techniques

In this study, we choose the most interesting and noticeable one which can clearly illustrate syntactic and semantic features of the non – equivalents at word level found in “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry

After collecting 34 examples of non – equivalents at word level, we categorize them into lexical, cultural and semantic features After that the finding and discussions are carried out in order to state the strategies to deal with non – equivalents at word level

3.3 Summary

To sum up, this chapter gives an overview of how to carry out the research It has two main parts The first one is research-governing orientations which present research questions need to be dealt with in the study, state the physical, social, and cultural site in which the research will be conducted, also include when and where the research is planned to conduct Two main research approaches are qualitative and quantitative methods also mentioned in this part Moreover, this section also shows criteria in collecting data The second part is research methods which present major methods and supporting methods used in the study In addition, techniques in collecting and analyzing data will be illustrated in this part

This study uses four main methods, they are descriptive, contrasitive, quantitative and qualitative to point out the lexicology, culture and semantic features

of the non- equivalents at word level based on the selected short stories “ The last leaf” by O’ Henry in the following chapter

CHAPTER 4: EQUIVALENTS IN TRANSLATION AND STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH NON – EQUIVALENTS AT WORD LEVEL BASED ON THE BILINGUAL SELECTED SHORT STORIES “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’

HENRY

Given the inspiring fact that translation of literary works in general and short stories in particular has been given more attention these days, it is of importance to establish whether or not the equivalence is obtained between the two versions and to what extent in what aspect they are equivalent

It should be remarked that the materials for this study include the short story

“The last leaf” by O’Henry(1907) in English and the Vietnamese translation by Ngo Vinh Vien (1983) In the light of classification of translation non-equivalence made

by Baker (1992), the paper aims at analyzing the classification of non-equivalence in this short story via a comparison between two corpora to see to what extent the selected short story is equivalent and what difficulties faced during translators’ processing the original texts Standing on the viewpoint of Baker (1992) on translation equivalence, this part gives an insight into this phenomenon between the two versions of “The last leaf” Some types in her classification, however, are absent

in the translated version Therefore, the paper centers only on the present types available between the two versions

4.1 Equivalents and non- equivalents at word level

4.1.4 Equivalents at word level

Baker (1992) follows a hierarchy of discussion on translation equivalence, the first level of which is equivalence at word level She first mentions different types of word meaning, differences in choosing certain meanings amongst different languages, and then suitable solutions in the case that there is no word in the target language (TL) to express the same meaning as the source language (SL) word are suggested

Semantically defined, word meaning is constituted from the meanings of its grammatical and lexical elements For example, the word “redoes” has its lexical

meaning of “doing again” and grammatical meaning of “verb used for third person singular subject” However, in the scope of this study, the researcher will content herself with lexical meaning only

According to Baker (1992:12), lexical meaning of a word “may be thought of

as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system” and the “personality” it acquires through usage within that system Meaning can be classified in different ways, but according to Cruse (1998), there are four main types of meaning in words and utterances: propositional meaning, expressive meaning, presupposed meaning, and evoked meaning

Propositional meaning is defined as the relation between that meaning and what it refers to or describes in a real or imaginary world; it provides the ground on which a judgment for an utterance is true or false For example, the propositional meaning of book” is a set of printed or electronic papers that is informative or expressive and serves the needs of information In this regard, an “inaccurate” translation is often due to the problematic propositional meaning

On the contrary, expressive meaning cannot receive either true or false judgment The reason for this is because it is related to speaker’s feelings or beliefs rather than to what words and utterances refer to (Baker, 1992) An illustration for this is the two words “tired” and “exhausted”, with the latter expressing being extremely tired and sweated Obviously, the two words are similar in its propositional meaning “tiredness”, but different in its expressive meaning Interestingly, these two words are both English and to some extent synonymic to each other, and the naturally coming both English and to some extent synonymic to each other, and the naturally coming question is how about the case between words from different languages The same case does occur, actually For instance, even though sharing the same propositional meaning- being well-known, “famous” in English differs from

“fameux” in French in that the former is neutral in English while the latter potentially evaluative and derogatory (une femme fameuse means “a woman of ill repute” (Baker, 1992) The mention of this meaning remains noted to any translators

The third group of meaning is presupposed meaning It comes from the restrictions on a preceding or following word or lexical unit Two subtypes of restrictions are selectional restrictions and collocational restrictions For example, for selectional restrictions, the pre-restriction expected for the word “studious” is a human subject restriction, the pre-restriction expected for the word “studious” is a human subject while that for the “geometrical” is inanimate The happening of violation of these restrictions is in the case of figurative meaning (metaphor or personalization) For collocational restrictions, for the meaning “trà đặc", English people will prefer the word “dense” to precede tea, instead of saying “heavy tea”

The fourth, evoked meaning, derives from dialect and register variation Dialect is a variety of language which has “currency within a specific community or group of speakers” For example, geographically, there are British English and

American English, like, temporally, there are verily and really

Register is a variety of language that is supposed by language users to be appropriate to a specific situation Let’s see the following example:

In a discourse between a mother and her son, it is unusual for her to state something like “I wonder if you could ”; the favored one would be otherwise very different However, the above sample statement will be accepted in such cases as patient-doctor and speaker-audience discourses

4.1.2 Non-equivalence at word level

Among many approaches introduced above, Mona Baker was the most outstanding theorist dramatically focusing on equivalence at word level since, as being claimed by her, word is the basic unit to be considered in meaning of translation text Her analysis on word level is particularly clear, easy to comprehend

It is undeniable that Mona Baker’s theory on non-equivalence at word level is universally supported by a great number of famous linguistic scholars and researchers Firstly, Haliday (1985) strongly stresses the importance of seeking for equivalence at word level by the famous saying “meanings are realized through words, and without a theory of wordings, there is no way of making explicit one’s

interpretation of the meaning of the text” (p.17) Additionally, in the book To Mean

or Not to Mean, the theorist Monia Bayar (2007) also appreciates the significance of

word level equivalence by affirming that equivalence “designates an area of

correspondence ranging around the word” (p.163) She even involves the roles of lower units such as the phoneme or the morpheme

Roger T Bell (1991) is another notable researcher to mention equivalence at word level She also figures out that there is no word equivalence among languages since even in the same language there is no absolute synonym between words Newmark (1991) agrees “it is impossible to expect perfect translation equivalence between SL word and its TL correspondent” (p.100) He emphasizes that between the two words that are deemed to be correspondents, one always covers more ground

in meaning than the other, leading to the problem of non-equivalence at word level

In addition, Catford (1996) is another famous researcher who stresses on the equivalence at word level He started with categorized translation regarding three perspectives: the extent of translation (full translation versus partial translation); the grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established (rank bound translation vs unbounded translation); the levels of language involved in translation (total translation vs restricted translation) Carford notes that in rank-bound translation an equivalent is sought in the TL for each word, or for each morpheme encountered in the ST

It is noteworthy that Vanessa Leonardi (2000) introduces Baker’s theory as

“an extremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence” (p 7) As

appraised in Leonardi’s paper, Baker has provided “a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be defined” The author particularly compliments levels of Baker’s approach as “putting together the linguistic and the communicative approach” and agrees that in a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element to be taken into consideration by the translator

Particularly, in his study, namely Translation Equivalence and Different

Theories, Ghadi (n.d.) strongly focuses on Mona Baker non equivalence at word level

and take it as the basic theory before addressing the word non-equivalence between

English and Persian In his writing, non- equivalence at word level of Baker is thoroughly introduced and analyzed relative to other approaches as a way to confirm the validity and soundness of the theory

Last but not least, Magdalena, P M (2005) accommodates the readers with a considerably comprehensive analysis on Baker’s theory on non-equivalence at word level before attempting to address specific problematic words and expressions between English and Polish The paper strongly corroborates Baker’s theory by working on every problems and strategies of non- equivalence at word level and rationally provides the pros and cons of each All in all, the pertinence of Baker’s theory has been critically recognized As a brief introduction, the following table will present common problems of non-equivalence at word level as specified by Mona Baker

Non - Equivalence At Word Level

1 Culture - specific concepts 7 Differences in physical or

interpersonal perspective

2 The source language concept is not

lexicalized in the target language

8 Differences in expressive meaning

3 The source language word is

semantically complex

9 Differences in from

4 The source and target language make

different distinctions in meaning

10 Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms

5 The target language lacks a

4.2 Classification of non – equivalence at word level

4.2.1 No equivalent words between 2 languages, especially culture- specific concepts The source language word expresses a concept totally unknown in target language

It is obviously difficult for one to translate a word in English into Vietnamese and vice versus once it does not exist in the target language It is a Herculean task for a translator when he has to transfer a concept that people of TL has never heard about Cultural concept is not the only but the most common case in which a translator is likely to introduce an exotic concept to people of TL

Not surprisingly, no matter how excellent a translator can be in terms of both linguistic and cultural backgrounds, there are always concepts that cannot be translated from one language to another This phenomenon has been defined as

“cultural untranslatability” by a great number of international researchers and scholars

It is noteworthy that “cultural untranslatability” is likely to happen due to so many differences between Western and Oriental culture, in general, and English and Vietnamese culture, in particular In addition, geographical features, history, and development level of two nations contains many distinctive points generating certain concepts that cannot be translated in a way that Vietnamese people can easily comprehend Culture is something which cannot be conveyed through words All of these lead to the loss of meaning in translation process

When comparing English and Vietnamese, it is quite easy to figure out many cultural terms that are absent in the other Some non-equivalent cultural categories which are considered hurdles by many inexpert are listed in table 4.3 as a quick review Each category is supported with several examples In fact, there are many other categories in cultural field that can confuse a translator when seeking for an absolute equivalence

Categories English Vietnamese

Continental breakfast Vegemite

Pizza Sandwich

Bánh trôi Bánh tét Bánh ướt Bún thang Chè kho

House and furniture Manor

Chủ Tịch Ủy Ban Hành Pháp Trung Ương,

Bí Thư Thành Ủy

Drag Queens

Nghề Bán Cháo Phổi, Quân tử

Traditional practices Muckup Day,

New Year’s Resolution

Tết Hàn Thực Cây Nêu Câu Đối

Wife Swapping;

Sợ Vợ Chữ hiếu Tiết Hạnh

Table 4 2: Selected categories and examples about Cultural Concepts

Vu (2007) takes the cultural difference between Western and Oriental society and among nations as the root of linguistic untransbility Tropical monsoon climate, complex geographical position, and long traditional water rice agriculture are the elements creating Vietnamese culture Therefore, words related to rice processing

(gieo mạ, làm cỏ, gầu giai, gầu sòng, bón thúc, bón đón đòng, xay, giã, giần, sàng,

thúng, mủng, nong, nia, sọt, gạo tẻ, nếp cam, tám xoan, tấm, cám, trấu; bánh đa, bánh đúc, bánh chưng, bánh dầy, bánh giò, bánh khúc, bánh cốm…); marriage

procedure (dạm ngõ, ăn hỏi, thách cưới, nộp cheo…), beliefs and religions (đình,

chùa, miếu, am, phủ, điện thờ, bàn thờ, ngai, bài vị, mẫu thoải, chúa thượng ngàn…)

are very popular to Vietnamese but quite exotic to foreigners

Another typical cultural difference between English and Vietnamese is individualism In some cultures, individualism is seen as a blessing and a source of well-being; in others, it is seen as alienating In his publication, Hofstede exhibits 'Individualism Index Values (IDV) for 50 countries and three regions, but due to the limited space, this paper will extract a part of it

Country IDV Country IDV

USA 91 Philippines 32

Australia 90 Malaysia 26

Great Britain 89 Hong Kong 25

Canada 80 Chile 23

Netherlands 80 West Africa 20

New Zealand 79 Singapore 20

Italy 76 Thailand 20

Brazil 38 Equador 8

Arab countries 38 Guatemala 6

Table 4.3: Individualism Index Values among nations (as adapted from

Hofstede , 2000 )

This table does not provide Vietnam’s index, however, other Southeast Asia’s index can reveal a meaningful interpretation The IDVs for Southeast Asia nations are far lower than the average, and the United States, Australia and Great Britain have

a high degree of individualism

That explains why a normal word i.e “privacy” which is used with high frequency in English might cause big trouble when being translated into Vietnamese

In western countries where individualism is a social common value, personal privacy

is of prime importance In English, the word “privacy” describes the right to keep their personal matters and relationships secret (Cambridge Advance Learner Dictionary, 2008) In other words, a personal life, business, and document, information must be respected and not interfered Unfortunately, in Vietnamese there is no concept which directly denotes this since in Oriental culture, collectivism

is strongly appreciated

Political regime is one of the lexical sets that include a great number of

incongruous pairs The word “Speaker” extracted from the title “Speaker of the

House” in British or the United State Houses is translated as “Chủ Tịch Hạ Viện” in Vietnamese The Speaker is a leadership position in the majority party and actively works to set that party's legislative agenda When translated as “Chủ Tịch” in Vietnamese, the word “Speaker” is misunderstood as occupying the strongest power

of the House and he/she is the one to make the final decisions Nevertheless, in many nations, especially those with the Westminster system of government, the position of speaker, modeled after the Speaker of the British House of Commons, is ideally scrupulously politically neutral In other word, the Speaker is the person to negotiate and manage the House’s debate

Another case in Ethical Issues field is the word “ tiết hạnh” which indicate the

morality, the faithfulness of a wife to her husband even though he is alive or not In Vietnamese this word does not only refer to the sexual relationship but also the honesty and morality of a woman, which cannot be conveyed through the word

“chastity” in English Since the day couples make the religious vow, according to Confucianism, the women must be totally loyal to their husband and even cannot build up or express desire to others A spinster who has never been married cannot have sexual relationship with anyone to protect their virgin and their reputation

In Vietnamese, the word “hiếu” refer to the responsibility of children to their

parents even when they are alive or pass away As a young child, one must obey one's parents When they are old, one must take care of them After they pass away, one must honor their memory by worshipping them At all times, a child should be grateful to his or her parents for raising and teaching them Generally speaking, it not only the responsibility but also the way of caring and showing loves to one’s parents especially when their parents are getting old It is hard to find a relevant word

to describe this concept in English The reason is that western culture emphasizes the children independence right in the early age, so that when people are mature, their relationship with parents is not as close as those in Oriental society It is nothing wrong when elderly people in Western nations lives in nursering homes but it is