Ảnh hưởng của việc xác định đối tượng độc giả tới cách dịch những từ ngữ tục tĩu trong bản dịch trăng non và nhật thực của tịnh thủy

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER THE ROLE OF READERSHIP IN TRANSLATI

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC XÁC ĐỊNH ĐỐI TƯỢNG

ĐỘC GIẢ TỚI CÁCH DỊCH NHỮNG TỪ NGỮ TỤC TĨU

TRONG BẢN DỊCH TRĂNG NON VÀ NHẬT THỰC CỦA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

THE ROLE OF READERSHIP IN TRANSLATING

PROFANITIES IN YOUNG ADULT NOVELS:

TINH THUY’S TRANSLATION OF NEW MOON AND

ECLIPSE

Supervisor: Ngô Hà Thu, MCS Student: Trần Hồng Hạnh Class: QH2011.F1.E20

HANOI – 2015

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I hereby state that I: Tran Hong Hanh, QH2011.F1.E20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date

My thanks then go to Ms Tinh Thuy, the translator of New Moon and Eclipse and

many friends of mine for their contribution to my research

Finally, I would also like to thank my family for the being supportive during the time that I was conducting this research

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1 List of interviewees & their code name

Table 4.1 Frequency of Translation Strategies

Table 4.2 Table 4.2 Illustration of Compensation

Table 4.3 Illustrations of Omission

Table 4.4 Illustrations of Literal Softening

Table 4.5 Illustrations of Cultural equivalence

Table 4.6 Illustrations of Compensation

Table 4.7 Illustrations of Omission

Table 4.8 Illustrations of Literal Softening

Table 4.9 Illustrations of Cultural equivalence

as the main instruments After analyzing collected data, the final findings indicate that literal softening, compensation, cultural equivalence and omission were mainly used as

the strategies to render profanities in New Moon and Eclipse Even though the translator’s

goal while translating is to be faithful to the original version, these decisions of the translator were still partly affected by her awareness of readership About the response of readers to the translation, most of them were positive They might not expect translators

to transfer all those profanities, but they showed great appreciation to the translation that

is in YAs’ language Recommendations for further studies are provided in the last chapter

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CONTENT

Acknowledgements ……….………….i

Abstract……….…ii

List of figures and tables……… iii

List of abbreviations ……….….iv

Table of contents……… v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study… 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study……….……3

1.3 Research questions ……….….…4

1.4 Significance of the study……….….…4

1.5 Research method ……… ……… 5

1.6 Scope of the study………5

1.7 Overview of the study ……… ….………6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Translation………7

2.1.1 Definition of translation………7

2.1.2 Literary translation………8

2.2 Readership in translation ……….………8

2.2.1 Definition ……… …………8

2.2.2 The role of readership in translation………….………9

2.3 Young adult novels……… ……10

2.3.1 Definition of Young Adult………10

2.3.2 Definition of YA novels………11

2.3.3 Characteristics of YA novels………12

2.4 Profanity……… …13

2.4.1 Definition of profanity……… ………13

2.4.2 Classification of profanities………… ………14

2.5 Translating profanities in YA novels………14

2.5.1 Translating for YAs………14

2.5.2 Translating profanities in YA novels…… ………15

2.5.3 Strategies to translate profanities in YA novels….…………16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research subjects……….……18

3.2 Participants ……… ……19

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3.3 Data collection method ………21

3.4 Data collection procedures………22

3.5 Data analysis procedures……… ……23

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS

4.1 Research question 1: Strategies used by Tinh Thuy used to translate

profanities New Moon and Eclipse ………25

4.2 Research question 2: The influence of identifying targeted readership on Tinh

Thuy’s decision on the translation strategies to render profanities in New Moon

and Eclipse………31

4.3 Research question 3: The responses of the target readers to the translation of

profanities in New Moon and Eclipse………33

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

5.1 Summary of findings……….………39

5.2 Limitations of the research………40

5.3 Recommendations for further research……….…41

REFERENCES

APPENDICE

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This initial chapter explains the central problem of the study: the influence of readership on translating profanities in YA novel within the case of New Moon and Eclipse The chapter includes a statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions, and significance of the study, research method, and organization of the study

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

These recent years have witnessed the emergence of one significant literature genre- literature for Young Adult Even though it was previously neglected and

regarded as “children literature” (Cart, 2001), novels of this genre have now

become the sensation and constantly hit the bestseller lists all around the world

(Picket, 2014) With the first YA novel “Seventeenth Summer” published in

1942, the history of YA literature is considered relatively new compared with other genres (Strickland, 2013) As a consequence, in many countries, YA novels have not yet caught on as the choice of authors and publishing houses, leading to a shortage

of reading materials from domestic writers for adolescents For example, in Vietnam, the number of YA novels written by domestic authors falls far behind the demand of the targeted readers (Quyen, 2009) To deal with this situation, many publishing houses have started translating and publishing foreign YA novels to satisfy readers’ need In Vietnam, some bookstores, translated novels dominate the top shelves and sometimes, far outnumbering ones written by Vietnamese authors (Quang, 2014) The growing numbers and success of these novels have attracted attention from experts, yet, little research has written about YA works in translation (Jensen, 2014)

Despite its modest quantity, studies on the translation of YA novels cover a wide range of aspects, from translators’ translating process to readers’ reception Miskin (2011) examined the translator’s role in the success of a YA novel by reviewing and analyzing the translations of a batch of YA novels that won Batchelder awards

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Ismawati (2013) studied the translation procedures that translator applied to translate cultural words in YA novel Kobelová (2010) focused on the problems of equivalence and the importance of style in translating YA fiction Yet, many aspects including the translation of profanities in YA novels need to be shed more light on The reasons why profanity translation in YA novel has not been studied lies in the lack of attention on profanities in literature In fact, the majority of the works on profanity translation belongs to the screen translation field For instance, Fernández (2006), although fascinated with the translation process of English swear into

Spanish, used the film South Park as a study case This research provides a detailed

analysis on the use of swears in both cultures as well as explanation for translator’s intervention in the translation of swears However, since screen and literary translation are different in many ways, the findings of the research on one field can

be quite inadequate to be the reference for the study of the other field As a result, even such significant finding, translating profanities in fiction is still an undiscovered territory that needs more exploration A reason to explain for the “cold shoulder” researchers have given to profanities in literature is literature is commonly

considered as unpopular choice adolescents for leisure compared to music, film,

video games or television (Irwin, 2003) Thus, exposure to profanities in YA literature seems to be less dangerous than in other well-liked media

Translating profanities in fiction itself is challenging enough for translators, translating them for a specific group of readers, especially one with many unique traits like young adults, is at a whole new level To explain why translating profanities is such a hard task for translator, Pantelejeva (2009) suggested that the job of translator are not just translating the words but also making them suitable for

a target audience that lives in a different society and culture She also names some strategies that translators used to deal with the sensitive words in two Young Adult novels This work, despite being thorough in answering questions about the translation process of sensitive words, did not cover all sides of the problem The

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response or opinion of readers should also be taken into consideration by translators

As identifying and profiling the novels’ readership is one of many pre-translating responsibilities (Newmark, 1988), it would be wrong if translators only focus on being culturally correct and ignore their readers’ preferences A profound insight into readers’ mind would be useful and essential to figure out the appropriate strategies dealing with profanities in Young Adult novels

Twilight Saga is one of iconic YA novels of this decade with millions book sold

With the boost of the success of its movies, the influence of the series has reached all over the world (Sawer & Mendick, 2010) Vietnam is one of the countries that are caught in this Twilight storm The second and third book of this series occupied the first two spots in the best seller list in Vietnam in 2009 (Thuy, 2010) In addition, just like most novels of this genre, the Saga also contains many profanities In fact,

according to Dailymail, the two middle books of the saga, New Moon and Eclipse,

recently have received warning from parents for having too many profanities that are obscene or vulgar (“Bad language”, 2012 ) Thus, for these important features,

Eclipse and New Moon from this Twilight Saga make an ideal case of this study

All the above reasons inspired the researcher to conduct a study on “The role of readership in translating profanities in Young Adult novels: A study on Tinh

Thuy’s translation of New Moon and Eclipse”

1.2 Aims of the study

This paper examined the profanities in the second and the third books of Twilight Saga to find out the translator’s strategies to translate those words into Vietnamese

for target readers Moreover, the thesis also sought to figure out readers’ opinion and preference in the translation of these words and compared them with the translator’s ideas and speculation about target readers’

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Overall, through analyzing those features, the researcher aimed at the relation between readership and translator’s pattern of choices in translating profanities, if any, in Young Adult novels

1.3 Research questions

Question 1: What were the strategies that Tinh Thuy used to translate

profanities in New Moon and Eclipse?

Question 2: How does the stage of identifying readership affect Tinh Thuy’s

decision on the strategies to translate profanities in New Moon and Eclipse?

Question 3: What are the responses of the target readers to the translation of

these profanities?

1.4 Significance of the study

Each age group has a different perception on profanities and the use of it To teenagers, cursing is not just a way of expressing their frustration but also an action that makes them look more mature (Roberts, 2006) And to adult in general and parents in particular, using profanities is not a thing that teenagers should not do This difference in views of two generations put any translator in tough spot of choosing whether to translate these profanities or not Even when the translator decides to do so, how much literal he/she is willing to translate also puts the translator in a dilemma With this thesis, the researcher aimed at helping translators

to find answers for these outstanding questions

In addition, although profanities and translating those words have been the subjects of research, little has looked in to translating profanities in novels for specific groups of readers In addition, in most of the studies, it was investigated under only one side’s point of view, mostly translators’; few studies include points

of view of both parties Adopting latter approaches and focuses on the relation between readership and translator’s strategies to translate profanities in Young Adult

First, New Moon and Eclipse were read thoroughly to spot profanities within

their contexts and to compare against their translations These profanities are identified by based on their features proposes by Anderson and Trudgill (1990, p 53) Each profanity and their translation were sorted based on their translation strategies These strategies include compensation, literal translation, softening, omission and cultural equivalence Through analyzing the frequency of each translation strategy, the researcher could gain more knowledge on the relationship between the translator’s awareness of the targeted readers and her decision while translating profanities

Next, the researcher interviewed the translator and conducted a survey of the readers on how they respond to the translation of profanities The participants were selected based on the knowledge that the researcher gained through a set of questionnaire to guarantee the objectiveness of the procedure The results of this contributes greatly to the final finding on how would readers react to different ways

of translating profanities

1.6 Scope of the study

The research chose to study New Moon and Eclipse from a famous Young

Adult novel-Twilight Saga The Vietnamese translations of Tinh Thuy were then

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selected for analysis as first; they were published by a Tre Publishing House, which

is a prestigious publication and second, they are the only officially recognized translation

Although the English and Vietnamese versions of the series were studied, only some aspects of the translation were mentioned and analyzed by the researcher

As stated in the title, the paper focuses on readership and its influence on the decision of translator when translating profanities However, given that the number

of readers of Twilight Saga is high and might belong to different demographics, the

researcher only chose its main target readers which are young adults who are from

13 to 25 year old to study

Readership has a tremendous influence on the translation process but in this paper, the researcher selected one area which is translator’s lexical choice

Therefore, only profanities that appear in the second and third books of Twilight Saga and their translation were studied closely

1.7 Overview of the study

This paper has five chapters:

Chapter I: introduces the study examining the influence of readership on

translating profanities in YA novel within the case of New Moon and Eclipse The

chapter includes a statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions, and significance of the study, research method, and organization of the

study

Chapter II: includes definitions of key terms such as YA novels and

profanities and some theories and results of research related to these key concepts

Chapter III: explains in detail the methodology which has been utilized

through describing research’s object, participants, instrument, the data collection and analysis methods and procedures

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Chapter IV: presents the findings of the study after analyzing the data

Chapter V: summarizes the findings, discusses implications and offers

recommendations for further researchers

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter includes definitions of key terms such as YA novels and profanities and some theories and results of research related to these key concepts

2.1 Translation

2.1.1 Definition of translation

According to many scholars, translation can be considered one of the most significant jobs in modern society as it serves as a bridge to link countries to countries and culture to culture

Latishev (1988) suggested that translation is a form of communication:

“Translation is a type of language mediation, socially serving to approximate a mediated bilingual communication by fullness, effectiveness and naturalness to a common monolingual communication” (p.160) In another words, Latishev’s theory

implied that translation’s role is conveying the messages in a complete, effective and natural way

Different from Latishev’s views, Newmark (1981, p.8) stated that translation

is not just “communication” but “a craft” According to Newmark, this craft consists

of “the attempt to replace a written message and statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language” Generally, to him, translation

is a complicated process that required various skills of the translators, which is conveying the meaning of the original text and the author’s intention from one language to another Even though there are differences between two perspectives, a

striking similarity can still be seen: “translation is the transposition of a text written

in a source language in to a target language” (Weber, 1984, p.3)

Susan-McGuire Bassnett (1991) argued that the message is not the only element that needs to be transferred from SL to TL She claims that the structures of

It can be concluded that translation is a process of transferring texts from the

SL to the TL When translating, the most significant element is the message, the overall meaning of the text The style and structure of the text should also need to be paid attention to since it would contribute greatly to the quality of the translators’ final product

2.1.2 Literary translation

Regarded as one subcategory of translation, literary translation is applied on literary texts of all genres of literature, including drama, prose, and poetry Although each genre of literature possesses different forms and content, there are still some common characteristics which differentiate literature from other kinds of writing

(Guerin, 1979) The first trait that characterizes literature is its ambiguity As

literature can be subjective, its meaning might changes depended on one’s own interpretation Another characteristic is that literary texts are placeless and timeless

It is hard to oppose the view that masterpieces endure across the time and hold the same value in any place in the world Given its characteristics, according to Okeke (1995), translate literary texts can be a challenging tasks because the translators have

to master the language and be sensitive to art

When translating a literary text, a translator has to respect every feature by considering all syntactic, stylistic and aesthetic elements of the text (Newmark,

1988, p.1) Therefore, recognizing all significant characteristics of the literary text would support the translators greatly in fulfilling their task

2.2 Readership in translation

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2.2.1 Definition

In a society, there are many different groups of people with totally different characteristics, life styles, age, social class and personal preference that co-exist Therefore, before starting translating, translators should always take these elements into consideration

It is known in the translation studies field that Eugene Nida was the first linguist to introduce the concept of “readership” Previously, readership was generally a synonym of translation and readership was mistaken as a vague, imaginary person (Munday, 2001, p.20) With his theory of dynamic equivalence, Nida (1968, p.160) presented the idea that translators should not only pay attention

to transferring the ST to the TT, but also to communicating with its readers

After Nida’s idea, the interaction between translators and readers started receiving recognition and being seen in a different light Gradually, readership

became a decisive factor in translation process: “Translators are always translating for their readers, they are always acting in a dialogic relationship with the author of the original, publishers, and, above all, the future readers of the translation“

(Oittinen, 2002, p.12)

2.2.2 The role of readership in translation

Nida is not the only scholar to recognize the significance of readership; many have done and continued studying its role in translation process On the role of target readership in translation, Reiss and Vermeer (1984, p.101) claimed that adequate knowledge of the intended target group enables translator to choose the correct translation strategies Agreeing with Reiss and Vermeer’s conclusion, Nord (2005, p.11) added that translators can establish the function of the text and fulfill the clients’ needs better if they have more detailed information about the TT addressees Thus, it is recommended by many experts that translators should pay proper attention to the target readership of the TT

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However, determining how much attention should be paid to readers of TT is not a simple job According to Newmark (1988, p.13), translators have to

“characterize the readership of the original and then of the translation” in the ST

analysis process Newmark also stated that knowledge about the level of education,

the class, age and sex of ST readership can be gained by evaluating “the variety of language used in the original” (p.13) Although Newmark emphasized how the full

understanding of target readership can benefit translators in terms of choosing a proper tone and degree of formality for the text, he suggested that translators of

“poems or any work written primarily as self-expression” only need to care little

about its readership”(p.13) On the other hand, some experts believe that readers play an enormous role in the success of a translation Nida and Taber (1982, p.1) supported this view by arguing that the correctness of a translation is hugely

determined by “the extent to which the average reader for which a translation is intended will be likely to understand it correctly" Their view is also similar to Weber’s that considers it is translators’ responsibility to translate in the way “that can be easily understood by the reader” (1983, p.3) Since the 80s of the 20thcentury, the status and role of readers in translation process have been highlighted, influencing the translators’ decision-making process

Generally, the role of readership is increasingly acknowledged by linguistics and translators worldwide As a result, having readers in mind has become a common practice in the translators training and professionally translation

2.3 Young adult novels

2.3.1 Definition of Young Adult

Pinpointing the exact definition of Young Adult can be quite difficult as there

is no fixed range for the age of adult and the term “young” is quite subjective However, there have been many attempts to identify the term “young adult”

The Young Adult Library Services Association firstly used the term in 1960s

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to represent people in the 12- 18 age range (Cart, 2001) Since then, the concept and

its meaning have gradually changed with time Goodreads, a website of Amazon

that has more than 12 million members, specified the age range of YAs as from 13

to 21 It can be seen that the term “Young Adult” no longer limits to people in their

teen but it has expanded to people in their early twenties as well Cart, the former president of the Association, shared a similar view and states that the age for young adult novel can even be extended to age 25 when, he explains, human brains reach maturity (Cart, 2001) Explaining why there are many opinions on this one term, Le Phuong Lien, Head of the Children’s literature at Kim Dong publishing house, said that since people grow up in different environment and their experiences, the age range of young adult is not fixed (Anh, 2011)

Despite all debates over the age of YAs, many psychologists have conducted studies and agreed on many certain significant and distinctive characteristics of YAs In one of his research on adolescents’ psychology, Havighurst (1972) described the phrase as a time when adolescents prepare for the lifetime ahead of them According to Havighurst, in this stage, YAs try to become independent from parents, start accepting and proud of their roles in the society as well as their physical feature and form and develop their set of values and an ethical system, etc

In other words, YAs are at vital stage where they search for their identity

Overall, the term “YA” is determined by both physical and mental maturity of

a person, making it quite hard to identify correctly Nevertheless, it is save to

conclude that “YA” refers to a transitory phrase of human’s life when a person

realizes it’s time for them to say goodbye to their childhood and start taking their

first steps on the road towards adulthood (Nilsen & Donelson, 2001)

2.3.2 Definition of YA novels

The term Young Adult novel, which can be used interchangeably with many other names, for instance ‘Literature for Adolescence’, ‘YA Fiction’ and ‘Teen

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Novels’, is broadly defined as the material written, published and marketed for

people age twelve and up (Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association, 2011) The genre can also be defined as ‘anything that readers between the approximate ages of 12 to 18 would choose to read’ (Nilsen & Donelson, 2001) These two definitions agree that the readership should be at least 12 years of age and more importantly, that the content is intentionally developed to suit the interest of young adult readers

Knowles and Nakmjaer (1995) described the genre as a type of reading

material that created to satisfy the demand of “readers [who are] too old for children’s stories and not yet ready for ‘adult’ literature” (p.142) This might be a

reasonable definition of the term as it concludes the most basic characteristics and position of YA novels among other kinds

2.3.3 Characteristics of YA novels

Since it was first emerged, YA novels have been often mistaken as children literature (Cart, 2001) As time passed by, this perception has gradually been corrected because people have realized that YA novel is a distinctive genre, different from other literary genres

The first difference between this type of novel with others such as Adult and Children one is the subject they discussed According to Lamb (2001), YA novels

can deal with “intense and serious subject” as people from this age group have

“high tolerance for ambivalence in both character and plot” (pp 24-25) For instance, situations such as “sex, death, family tensions, social class, teenage violence and race relations” (Knowles & Malmkjaer, 1996, p.142) might never

appear in children literature but can be featured in novels of this genre In addition, the main character is also a factor that sets YA novels apart from other literature genres (Bronzo & Simpson, 1995) They concluded that YA novels always center on

a likeable young adult protagonist who readers can identify with These characters

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are likely to face events or problems that related to the life of young adults By creating those characters and situations, YA novels can provide readers with what they want about themselves in books

With the rapid growth in recent years, YA novels have eventually found their place in literary field, separating themselves from other kinds of literature

association gradually became uncommon and nowadays, the word is generally

defined as a “vulgar or irreverent action, speech, etc” (Collin English Dictionary,

n.d.) According to Hughes, profanities, in America, “fall under the board category

of swearing” In fact, “profanity” is synonymous with various broad terms such as

“cursing, dirty, profane” and “swearing” (Andersson & Trudgill, 1990)

A profanity, or swearing, is considered a common feature of human communication in most societies and cultures Asher (1994) defined swearing, or

profanities, as words aiming at a person or object to “invoke damnation, misfortune

or degradation” (pp 4512-13) Profanities usually relates to “personal and bodily

functions, sex or religion” (Fernandez, 2006) In most cases, profanities are used to express strong feeling and emotion such as anger or frustration towards a person or

an object In most countries, profanities are regarded as the “most obvious forms of bad language”, therefore, inappropriate in the most contexts (Andersson & Trudgill,

1990, p.14)

Every culture has its own set of profanities, so the exact characteristic of those words can be listed fully This is the reason why the line between profanities

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and others acts or words is ill defined As an attempt to characterize profanities, Andersson and Trudgill (1990, p 53) came up with three following features:

- Profanities refer to something that is taboo and/or stigmatized in the culture;

- Profanities should not be interpreted literally;

- Profanities can be used to express strong emotions and attitudes

However, profanities also have its positive and significant meaning in the

societies Lakoff (2004, pp.242) asserted that “profanities serve as a condensed symbol of the expression of emotion in talk, and the right to “cuss” is a sign of the right to express emotion” In other words, using profanities sometimes can be an act

of showing freedom and rights to vent out one’s own emotion

2.4.2 Classification of profanities

Although there are countless words and expression that considered profanities, not all of them have the same meaning and degree of offensiveness Some words are even regarded as a part of daily conversation in some countries, whereas some type are so intense that they are prohibited to use For example, in some American broadcast television, severe profanities are censored There have been many attempts to classify profanities Andersson and Trudgill (1992, p.60-61) put profanities into four categories based on their uses These four categories are expletive, abusive, humorous, and auxiliary

- Abusive: abusive words are directed towards others They insult and

offence others by cursing or calling them bad names You bastard! is one

example of this type

- Expletive: profanities in this are used to express emotions These words

do not aim at any certain person or object Some examples are Hell! and Shit!

- Humorous: profanities of this kind occur in jokes or are used

for humorous intent

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- Auxiliary: in this group using swearwords is like a way of speaking

Some examples from this type of profanity are this fucking X

2.5 Translating profanities in YA novels

2.5.1 Translating for YAs

The process of translating a text for different audience can be similar The most prominent difference between translating for YAs and other groups is obviously the target readership As stated in the previous part, literature has great impact on the character development and well being of YAs; hence, it is understandable to conclude that the task of translating novels for YAs is extremely important Consequently, to fulfill this task successfully, translators have to satisfy many criteria

Translating for YAs or for any other audience has to firstly, be faithful to the

ST, if not, the product would lose all its value Being unfaithful is equal to simply publish books written in translator’s own words (Roy- Seifert, 2004)

Secondly, knowing one’s target audience is recommended but letting it consume all translators’ thought and control their decision is a different story If the translators become obsessed with making the text educational and suitable for YAs, the story would lose its appeal and become an uninteresting and pedagogical book (Roy-Seifert, 2004)

In summary, translating for YAs, just like translating for any group of readers, requires respect for the ST and knowledge of the characteristics of the targeted audience

2.5.2 Translating profanities in YA novels

Since every culture and every generation has different perception on swear words, leading to different evaluation on the appropriateness of using profanities in

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various situation, those profanities is sometimes distorted when being translated into foreign languages Schwarz (2003) further explained this by emphasizing that some cultural terms and expressions do not have their true equivalents in the other languages

Translators of Young Adult novels often have to carry many responsibilities

as through translating young adults’ reading material, they contribute greatly to the personality shaping of future generations Toury (1995) asserted that the role of translator appointed by the societies is to translate in a way that fit to the community’s standard This means the work of translators might be affected and under the influence of culture and its standard As the result, when translating for young generation such as YAs, profanities and other controversial issues might be altered or even omitted by the translators In conclusion, because of cultural standard and expectation, translators sometimes can translate all profanities in YA novels,

which make the novel “to be conventional, even conservative in some cultures”

(Puurtinen, 1998, p.159)

2.5.3 Strategies to translate profanities in YA novels

Because of the variation of meaning and level of offensiveness in profanities

in different cultures, translating offensive language can be a tough enterprise Up to now, there has not been any comprehensive model or list of strategies that is introduced to translate profanities in general, let alone those in YA novels After conducting a review, the researcher realized some popular translation strategies

suggested by the theorists, including compensation, literal translation, softening, omission and cultural equivalence (Newmark, 1995; Munday, 2004; Baker, 1992;

Vinay, 1995; Hatim, 2001)

Literal translation

Literal translation, also called word-for-word translation, refers to the action

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of translating ST straightforward in to TT As Newmark suggest that when using this strategy, words might become out of context as it was translated one by one (1995) In another word, it is effective only when the sentence is simple and each word has primary meaning

Compensation

Munday explained the strategy as follow: when the words cannot be

translated literally, translators have to use compensation strategy to “minimize the losses in translation and at the same time, achieve a compensatory translation gain”

(2004, p.31) He stated that with this strategy, the effect of the word can be preserved but in a different place

Literal Softening

Some scholar find softening the meaning of the word and expression is a reasonable way to deal with profanities In this strategy, translators try to replace the word with another one that is less intense or unpleasant and at the same time, stay faithful to the content and form of the original (Vinay, 1995; Hatim, 2001)

Omission

In this option, translators simply omit translating the word or expression in

the ST Baker claims that "a translator may decide to omit or replace whole stretches of texts which violate the reader's expectations of how a taboo subject should be handled - if at all - in order to avoid giving offence." (Baker, 1992, p.234)

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter details the methodology which has been utilized to achieve the objectives of the research It gives out thorough explanations of reasons for choosing the participants and data collection and analysis methods and procedures and describes the way of getting results through them

3.1 Research subjects

The novels focused on in this study are New Moon and Eclipse, the second

and third books of Twilight Saga These books were translated by Tinh Thuy and published respectively in 2008 and 2009 by Tre Publishing House Both Tinh Thuy and Tre Publishing House are respectable names in the book market, making them one of the reasons for this choice of novels The other reasons are the researcher’s interest, the novels’ popularity and above all, the use of swearing words in these two novels which have been the topic of recent controversy (“Bad language”, 2012)

The main subject of the study is the influence of readership on translator’s decision in translating profanity However, in order to gain data to examine this subject, two minor subjects had to be studied first These two subjects are the translation strategies that Tinh Thuy used to translate profanities and translator’s awareness of readership

To tackle the former subject, the researcher extracted all swearwords and

their translation from the original version of New Moon and Eclipse as well as their

Vietnamese translations The total number of profanities is 43 These profanities were identified based on the characteristics in 2.4 The researcher chose to isolate

and study all profanities in New Moon and Eclipse, instead of just focusing on some

certain chapter, because these samples would make great data for the qualitative analysis in the following stage However, these profanities were not the subject of this stage It was how these profanities have been translated or omitted that the researcher focused on

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The latter subject is Tinh Thuy’s awareness of target readership Knowledge

of this subject was gained by analyzing data collected from interview with the translator As listed in 2.5, each translation strategy has different characteristics and

is utilized in different situations Therefore, the translator’s choice of strategy/ies might not be random and without thinking carefully The researcher listened to the interview closely to identify words and phrases that shows translator’s preference, her consideration for target readers and how those two factors affected the translation These words and phrase were written in a table for analyzing

3.2 Participants

This research investigated deeply into the translator’s awareness of target readers and how this awareness affects her decision as well as readers’ response to her translation of profanities Therefore, to accomplish these objectives, the researcher asked two groups of participants to take part in the study: the translator and the readers All participants were informed that the contents of their answers are absolutely anonymous, allowing them to give honest and sincere responses

The first group is the translator of The Twilight Saga, Tinh Thuy This

participant was interviewed about her idea of readership of the series and various other areas related to translating profanities in YA novels Tinh Thuy is a well-

known translator in YA novels genre She has translated fours books of the Twilight Saga and several other YA novels such as I Am Number Four Therefore, with her

sharing her experiences and opinions, the researcher expected that the quality of the study would be improved

The second group is the readers The researcher selected the participants for the study based on the following relevant qualities: from 13 to 25 years old and have interest in taking part in the study Since participants had to read several extracts

from New Moon and Eclipse to make comment on how they prefer the translator to

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translate those profanities, participants had to have basic knowledge of English This criterion is determined by participants’ average English grade at school (8 and higher) or their IELTS or other official tests’ score (5 and higher with IELTs score) With those whose vocabulary on English profanity is limited, the researcher explained to them their meanings and their uses before the interview Due to time constraint, only 12 people were chosen for this paper to gain in-depth discussions Before choosing participants, the researcher gave questionnaires to various people who were interested in the topic Then, these 12 chosen interviewees were selected

by the researcher based on their answers in the questionnaire The researcher tried to choose participants with different opinions to enrich the data for analysis Since these participants were interested in the study, the researcher could work with them closely to hear their opinion on the subject of the research

In this paper, the researcher used letter from A to L to name these interviewees to keep their identities unrevealed See Table 3.1 below for the list of interviewees

Table 3.1: List of interviewees

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3.3.1 Document analysis

Since the first step of studying the influence of readership on translating profanities is to gain more knowledge about Tinh Thuy’s translation in general and her strategies to translate profanities in particular, the researcher chose document observation as a first method Two observation schemes were used for answering the first research question which related to translation strategies applied by Tinh Thuy

The first table was used to put all profanities and their translations in New Moon and Eclipse These profanities are identified based on their characteristics

given in 2.4 of the study

The second table was created to find out which strategies were applied by the translator to deal with profanities of each type These strategies include compensation, literal translation, softening, omission and cultural equivalence In this table, profanities and their translations were classified

3.3.2 Questionnaire

The questionnaire is used for gaining knowledge on readers’ opinion and not their reasons for their view, it contains mostly MCQs and has three parts The first part focuses on readers’ opinion on profanities in YA novels The second part asks readers how they would like these profanities to be translated to Vietnamese The

last part centers on Tinh Thuy’s translation of profanities in New Moon and Eclipse

The questionnaire was also utilized to help the researcher design the interview guide for following in-depth interviews with each participant In summary, this instrument played important role in the finding of the third research question which related to readers’ response

3.3.3 Interview

There were two groups of interviewees The first one is the translator With this interviewee, a structured interview was conducted A list of 3 main open-ended

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questions and several bullet points that help guiding translator’s answers were complied and sent to the translator The topic of these questions were related to the translator’s awareness of the readership, her opinion on profanities and censorship in

YA novels as well as her choice of translation strategies

The second group is the readers With each participant, the researchers made

an exclusive set of question for him/her based on her answer in the questionnaire However, all of these questions were created within the guidance of the interview guide In this interview, the researcher mostly asked participants about their opinion

on the translation of Tinh Thuy

3.4 Data collection procedures

The procedure of data collection consists of three main stages:

Stage 2:

In this stage, the researcher interviewed the translator with the set of questions that related to translating profanities, identifying target readers and the influence of the latter on the former one These interviews were conducted online and through email Therefore, the answers of the translator were in a written form The researcher saved this email as material for analyzing

Stage 3:

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After successfully choosing participants for the interview, the researcher made appointment for in-depth interviews Some possible questions and follow-up questions were also drafted based on participants’ answers in the questionnaires to make sure the researcher have enough material for the study

3.5 Data analysis procedures

The analysis was done through several stages

Stage 3:

This stage concerned with readers’ reception or response The data collected from in- depth interviews with readers was analyzed in this stage The results of this stage were then compared with the results of Stage 2 to conclude what assessment each translation might receive from readers

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CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS

This chapter presents the findings of the study after analyzing the data

4.1 Research question 1: What were the strategies used by Tinh Thuy to translate

profanities in New Moon and Eclipse?

The following section analyses data collected from the English and Vietnamese

version of New Moon and Eclipse for the discovery of what strategies Tinh Thuy

used to render profanities in these two books

Translators can employ many different types of strategies to deal with profanities As mentioned above, compensation, literal translation, softening, cultural equivalence as well as omission can be used A thorough analysis of profanity translation revealed that translator Tinh Thuy employed four out of those five strategies These include literal softening, compensation, cultural equivalence and omission Frequency of translation strategies applied in translation is reflected

Table 4.2 Illustration of Compensation

Extract 1

“Hell, yes!” He grinned “We can find some

other way to pick a fight with this Demetri.”

Trời ơi, tôi ủng hộ Bella chứ còn sao nữa! – Anh cười toe toét làm cho khóe miệng kéo xếch tới tận mang tai – Tôi vẫn có thể tìm được cách khác để đấu một trận với tay Demetri này

In this illustration, the word “hell” is an interjection used to express speaker’s

joy and certainty However, in Vietnamese, the interjection that conveys both speaker’s emotion and agreement like this does not exist Nguyen (2003) asserted that based on their functions, there are only three types of interjection in Vietnamese

including ones are used that to call someone (ê, này, etc.), to response to request (vâng, dạ,etc.) and to express feeling (than ôi, hỡi ôi, etc.) As a result, the meaning

of that sentence would be distorted if the translator just closely translated the phrase

“hell, yes” as “Trời ơi/ Ôi, tôi đồng ý” In this case, Tinh Thuy applied compensation strategy to be faithful to the original version By adding “chứ còn gì nữa”, meaning

“of course”, the speaker’s agreement can be stated, making this sentence’s meaning