English vietnamese translation of idioms and proverbs relating to animals in cultural domain

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION FALCUTY OF LINGUISTICS AND CULTURES OF ENGLISH SPEAKING CO

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

FALCUTY OF LINGUISTICS AND CULTURES OF ENGLISH SPEAKING

COUNTRIES

GRADUATION PAPER

ENGLISH – VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF IDIOMS AND PROVERBS RELATING TO ANIMALS IN CULTURAL DOMAIN

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Cam Linh, MA Student: Phi Hai Yen

Year of enrolment: QH2009.F.1.E25

HANOI - 2013

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOA NGÔN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HÓA CÁC NƯỚC NÓI TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

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ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Phí Hải Yến, class QH2009.F.1.E25, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the University 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

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Cam Linh, who has supported me with her enthusiasm, patience and professional knowledge for the accomplishment of my thesis Her stimulating suggestions and critical comments would be considerably helpful to me

In addition to, I am much obliged to the University of Languages and International Studies – the Faculty of English Teacher Education, which has equipped a full source of precious reference That would be the great support as I have virtually exploited and used the material effectively for my thesis

Last but not least, I owe profound indebtedness to my parents for supporting me throughout all my studies at University and my friends, who always stand by me and encourage me no matter what happens

Once again, I would like to express my deepest thank to all these people Without their help, I would not have been able to complete this research

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ABSTRACT

It cannot be denied that language and culture have a mutual interaction and close connection with each other The characteristics of a culture is presented via a language, and vice versa, a language is also a vital component of a culture, especially in the globalized world in which cross-cultural and bilingual issues become popular and the translation becomes necessary There exists the culture-bounded terms which are, as a result, playing an important part in translation studies If the culture-related issues in translation are solved, the gap of cultural differences between countries, such as Vietnam and the English-speaking world, would be shortened Among such culture-bound terms, proverbs and idioms have been considered the most attributive factor of language in a culture In addition, animal connotations play significant roles

This study aims at reckoning the similarities and differences of the animal connotations in the proverbs, idioms between the Vietnamese culture and English- speaking countries’ cultures A further goal of the research is to figure out the most appropriate procedures applied in translating such culture-bounded terms Fulfilling the goals of the study, there are three main steps that the researcher followed: first, cultural correspondence of each proverb and idiom between the two cultures was defined, second, the strategies applied in translating the proverbs and idioms were examined, and finally the similarities and differences between the two cultures were shown for the better understanding of the translation of cultural terms

From the results of the study, there would be a close look at not only the translation of proverbs and idioms but also the similar and different concepts of the two cultures That would be a helpful reference for next generations of researchers in both fields of translation and culture

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACCEPTANCE……… …i

ACKNOLEDGEMENT……… … …ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

LIST OF TABLES ……….……… vi

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

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Organization of the paper: 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Translation 2.1.1 Definition of translation 5

2.1.2 Translation procedures and translation methods 7

2.1.3 Cultural Equivalence 10

2.2 Definition of other key terms 11

2.2.1 Definition of proverbs and idioms 11

2.2.2 Definition of cultural domains 12

2.2.3 Cultural correspondence 13

2.2.3.1 Absolute correspondence 13

2.2.3.2 Partial correspondence 14

2.2.3.3 No correspondence 14

2.2.4 Connotation 14

2.3 Relationship among language, culture and translation 15

2.4 Previous related studies 16 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

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3.1 Qualitative approach 17

3.2 Sampling 17

3.3 Data collection instruments 18

3.4 Data collection procedure 18

3.5 Data analysis procedures 18

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Absolute correspondence 20

4.1.1 Findings 20

4.1.2 Discussion 24

4.2 Partial correspondence 26

4.2.1 Findings 26

4.2.2 Discussion 30

4.3 No correspondence 31

4.3.1 Findings 31

4.3.2 Discussion 35

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of findings 36

5.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 37

REFERENCES……….… 39

APPENDICES……… … 41

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

Translation is commonly known as the bridge not only of source language and target one but also of the two cultures in which the languages reflect to some extents

As a result, translating is dealing with both a cover of language and the cultural content inside As Claire (in 1998) assumed that words are communicably uttered by people to express facts, ideas and events as well as attitudes, beliefs, viewpoints of the authors These factors are component parts of culture From this assumption, it is referred that language of a nation is virtually in close relation with its culture; the language is one aspect of culture and reflects the culture

One of the most typical elements of the implication of culture in language is the use of proverbs and idioms used frequently and enormously in everyday conversation, writing in every context (Hien, 2006, 3) They could express the speakers/writers' ideas in the precise but profound way The animal is so close to the human that it is used in proverbs and idiom with the connotative meanings to give the truth, advices or imply the maxim of humanity In other word, proverbs and idioms are the typical culture-bound terms which do not have literal meanings but contain cultural connotations There are a great number of English and Vietnamese animal-related proverbs and idioms Therefore, due to the differences between the two cultures, in translation practice, it is necessary for translators to know not only the literal meanings but also the understanding of a culture of the language they are dealing with It is not, indeed, a simple task to convey a message from a language to another as concisely, naturally and beautifully as possible

Indeed, for those reasons above, there are certain translation difficulties imposed to translators relating to Culture since according to Nida (in 2001):

"The meaning of culturally marked words is often difficult to grasp without some cultural knowledge and poses translation problems, particularly when the words are associated with cultural domains"

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In the University of Languages and International studies, with the research target of animal-related proverbs and idioms, nevertheless, there are many prior studies on English into Vietnamese translation with deep analysis and further findings Hence, it's essential to take cultural domains into consideration and find out the most suitable translation procedures to tackle these imposed difficulties As an attempt to examine this under-researched topic, the researcher has decided to conduct

a replication of Razieh's study of cultural connotations of animals in translation: proverbs, idioms, sayings (English- Persian) in 2012 This research is to acknowledge the findings of Razieh's to develop further and then apply in the context of English-Vietnamese translation of animal-related proverbs and idioms concerning the cultural domains of Vietnam and other English-speaking counties

As proverbs and idioms are used a lot, in the translation practice, translators might deal with them regularly Language reflects its culture, so the understanding of both source language (SL) and target language (TL) and finding the proper equivalent to a given proverb or an idiom are still huge obstacles For all reasons above, doing a research on this area, apart from the main aim of figuring out the translation procedures for animal- related proverbs and idioms, the researcher hopes

to define the similarities and differences in the ways of thinking between English culture and Vietnamese culture through the analysis of animal-related proverbs and idioms translation

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

Firstly, the study aims at defining the similarities and differences of connotations of animal-related proverbs and idioms between the two cultures of English and Vietnamese society Next, there will be a close look at the type of correspondence that each proverb or idiom belongs to That means how much proverbs or idioms in English and Vietnamese are similar in terms of meaning Finally, from the defined similarities and differences, a detailed analysis of the

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translation procedures will be given to choose the most suitable one for each type of proverbs and idioms about animals

To fulfill the given aims, the research tries to answer the following questions:

1 What are similarities and differences of connotations of animal-related proverbs and idioms between the English-speaking and Vietnamese culture?

2 What are the type of correspondences of the English - Vietnamese translation

of animal-related proverbs and idioms?

3 What are translation procedures for each type of English - Vietnamese translation of animal-related proverbs and idioms?

1.3 Significance of the study

This study is expected to be a reference on translation for translators as well as for researchers who have specific interest in this topic or even some readers who might hope to learn more about the cultural domains between English and Vietnamese via translation analysis There has been a pile of previous researches with positive results which has the same research subjects Therefore, basing on the findings of comparison and translation procedure analysis, the researcher will see how much the orientation and findings of those studied can be applicable for the context of English- Vietnamese translation in culture domains The methodology as well as findings of this study might be a good source of reference for the next generation of translators in which the cultural-relating issues of English- Vietnamese

translation of proverbs and idioms relating to animals will be further solved

1.4 Scope of the study

Although cultural - related issues of translation are enormous, proverbs and idioms translation has been chosen to be the outstanding one showing most clearly the cultural factors To be specific, among many metaphorical images contained in proverbs and idioms, animals are also the most frequent used, the best reflective and

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familiar to human life It is clear that the translation of proverbs and idioms about animals is the main target of this study

1.5 Organization of the paper

The rest of the study is as following:

Chapter 2 (Literature review) constructs a theoretical background of the related

terms like translation, proverb, idiom, culture, connotation, equivalent, and correspondence, as well as a summary of related studies on the similar research subject: proverbs and idiom about animals

Chapter 3 (Methodology) describes qualitative method that the study follows

including sampling, data (proverbs and idioms) collection and data (proverbs and idioms) analysis

Chapter 4 (Findings and discussion) answers the research questions from the

gathered data in order to draw the results: which procedures can be applied, and the cultural comparison between the Vietnamese and English-speaking cultures

Chapter 5 (Conclusion) summarizes discussed issues about translation of English

proverbs and idioms in cultural domain and then mentions the shortcomings of the study as well as recommendations for the future investigations

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 2 provides a theoretical background related to the research topic which is theoretical basic for collecting and analyzing data in the whole study To begin with, the key definitions of the main subjects like translation, culture, proverbs and idioms are clarified Besides, the translation procedures and methods are also given After that, there is a close look at the relationship between translation and culture to further consolidate the significant interaction of these two research subjects Related studies on this field are reviewed at last in order to identify the gaps and determine the right direction for this research

2.1 Translation

2.1.1 Definition of translation

Translation has appeared for a so long time Translation studies, hence, have a

long history in which a great number of definitions of translation have been given out

by many experts and researchers for the contribution to the development of this field There are a number of translation definitions and it is difficult to find out an undisputed definition of translation Each conception of an expert has its own point belonging to different aspects of the translation study

First and foremost, in the simplest way, according to the definition of translation in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, "translation is a process of changing something from written or spoken form into another language"

To be specific, in the seminal paper “On linguistic aspects of translation” of Jakobson, the Czech structuralist (Munday, 2001), there are three distinguished categories of translation:

1 Intralingual translation – translation, which can involve rewording or paraphrasing within the same language;

2 Interlingual translation – translation from one language to another;

However, it might be insufficient without mentioning the product of the translation, the afterward result of translating process According to Munday in 2001, there are several meanings of the term “translation”, not only the process (the act of producing the translation) but also the product of translation The main purpose of translating any kind of ST is to produce the high quality of TT in which the three basic requirements for a good translation are fulfilled- naturalness, accuracy, and beauty In Hatim and Munday (2004:3), “the first of these two senses relates to translation as process, the second to the product” (Sari, 2009); that means the term translation can be understood in two distinct perspectives: process and product

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2.1.2 Translation procedures and translation methods

Like every other human action, translation process requires the suitable methods or procedures for each text of any type Basing on the text types (poems, songs, political articles, etc.) or translator’s special aims, choosing the most appropriate translation methods may significantly contribute to the high quality of the TT compared to the ST The purposes of methods/ procedures should meet the typical features of the text types For example, Faithful translation can be used for translating authoritative texts; Semantic translation for religious or legal texts; and Adaptation – the freest form of translation for poems or songs and so on In the

“Basics of translation” in 2010 of the Aalborg University, it is stated that “The purpose of translation methods and procedures – and of translating itself – is to achieve the maximal equivalence or equivalent effect” Equivalent effect, as same

as maximal equivalence, is also explained to refer to the target text having the same effect on the target text reader as the source text has on the source text reader Here are the translation methods that Peter Newmark puts it in the form of a flattened V diagram:

SL emphasis TL emphasis

Word-for-word translation Adaptation

Literal translation Free translation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

Below are some definite translation methods which stand out for a translator’s choice and an easy adaptability to his task, achieving the optimum effects and influence on the translation in accordance to its purposes

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 Word-for-word translation: This is also called inter-linear translation

with the TL immediately below the SL words The SL word-order is preserved and words are translated by their most common meaning

 Literal translation: The SL grammatical constructions are converted to

their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly out of context

 Faithful translation: This attempts to reproduce the precise contextual

meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures and it tries to be faithful to the author’s intentions

 Semantic translation: It may translate less important cultural words and

small concessions to the readership and allows the translator to easily render the TL naturally and adaptably

 Adaption: This is mainly used for plays (comedies), regarded as the freest

form of translation and poetry, the themes, characters are often preserved and the text

is rewritten, the SL culture is converted to TL culture

 Free translation: It reproduces the matter without the manner, or the

content without the form of the original

 Idiomatic translation: It reproduces the messages of the original but tends

to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialism and idiom where this do not exist in the original

 Communicative translation: It attempts to render the exact contextual

meaning of the original in a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership

In spite of sharing the same purpose in the translation process, the translation methods and translation procedures are distinguished noticeably by Newmark (1988b that “While translation methods relate to whole texts, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language” Corresponding with the research

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subjects of this topic – the proverbs and idioms, the translation procedures are specially focused and employed to analyze the research participants in the data analysis section In the Ordudari’s study on Translation procedures, strategies and methods, he mentioned the two procedures, the Technical procedures and the Organizational procedures as depicted by Nida (1964)

I Technical procedures:

A Analysis of the source and target languages;

B A thorough study of the source language text before making attempts translate it;

C Making judgments of the semantic and syntactic approximations (pp 241-45)

II Organizational procedures:

Constant reevaluation of the attempt made; contrasting it with the existing available translations of the same text done by other translators, and checking the text's communicative effectiveness by asking the target language readers to evaluate its accuracy and effectiveness and studying their reactions (pp 246-47)

And Graedler (2000:3) quoted forth procedures of translating culture-specific concepts:

1 Making up a new word

2 Explaining the meaning of the SL expression in lieu of translating it

3 Preserving the SL term intact

4 Opting for a word in the TL which seems similar to or has the same "relevance" as the SL term

Differently, here are the basic procedures among a huge bunch of Newmark’s (1988b) that the researcher chose to apply in the data analysis section:

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

 Naturalization: it adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology of the TL (Newmark, 1988b:82)

 Cultural equivalent: it means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one however, "they are not accurate" (Newmark, 1988b:83)

 Modulation: it occurs when the translator reproduces the message of the original text in the TL text in conformity with the current norms of the TL, since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective (Newmark, 1988b:88)

 Couplets: it occurs when the translator combines two different procedures (Newmark, 1988b:91)

2.1.3 Cultural Equivalence

Besides translation methods, in the translation studies, the term Equivalence plays the vital role in the translation practice Especially, in the globalization world, the cross-cultural communication leads to the cultural factor’s imposition on the language, and also the translation afterward There are also much attempts which have been made to define equivalence; however, but there still exist controversies and debates around the issue Generally, in the simple way, equivalence can be understood as the relationship between a source text and a target text to determine one text is the translation of another Without considering the equivalence in use, the translation cannot be successful

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It is clear above that the Newmark’s procedures are perfectly and popularly applied for all types of text in translation, including whatever culture-bound terms or proverbs or idioms Nevertheless, culture-bound terms are not like the other normal words because it contains not only the information which can be read from the language cover, but also the cultural traits implied via images used in each proverb and idiom Therefore, for the sake of having a deep and sound analysis and conclusion about translation methods used for culture-specific proverbs and idioms, there should be an additional translation concept That is equivalence which is defined as an equal in meaning of a word in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary In translation generally and in translation of proverbs and idioms particularly, regarded as the cultural attributors, culture-bound term itself contains the specific conception about values, beliefs, habits or stories in a certain area or country which might be unfamiliar to others’ As a result, there might be the number of English proverbs and idioms having no absolute identification/ exact meaning in Vietnamese That means an equivalence of translation can be unidentified from SL to

TL as Jakobson points out (1959/2000) that “there is ordinary no full equivalence between code-units”, given by Munday (2001)

Referred from the nature of an equivalence, there should be a rule for dealing that issues In the study of Leonardi, it is stated that according to Vinay and Darbelnet, equivalence-oriented translation as a procedure which “replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different wording” To be clearer, equivalence is to express the same idea in a different way

2.2 Definition of other key terms

2.2.1 Definition of proverbs and idioms

Proverbs and idioms which considerably reflect the culture are both the frequent-used in almost languages, including English and Vietnamese culture They are common, however, not simple in terms of structures and usages due to their own

A proverb is a short saying or sentence that is generally known by many people The saying usually contains words of wisdom, truth or morality that are based on common sense or practical experience It is often a description of a basic rule of conduct that all people generally follow or should follow Proverbs can be found in all languages

2.2.2 Definition of cultural domains

Culture is the system of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people It refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving

There are several ways to define a cultural domain (Lounsbury, 1964; Spradley 1979; Weller & Romney, 1988) A good starting point is: a set of items that are all of the same type For example, "animals" is a domain The members of the domain of animals are all the animals people are aware of, such as dogs, cats, horses, lions, tigers, etc Implicit in the notion, however, is also the idea that membership in the domain is not solely determined by the individual respondent, but that it exists

"out there" either in the language, in the culture or in reality Hence, the set of colors that a given respondent likes to wear is not what we mean by a cultural domain

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A cultural domain is a collection of items that in some sense go together or are the same kind of things It covers any sort of things relating to culture within a culture

2.2.3 Cultural correspondence

The cultural correspondence is "the absolute identification of an SL cultural term with another in the TL, both in function and description"(p.1) defined by Ghazala (2001) and quoted by Razieh in his study of cultural connotations of animals

in translation According to Nida (1964), in general sense, the total impact of a translation may be reasonably close to the original text, but the identity of a corresponding symbol cannot be matched Particularly, in the context of this study, the same animal may have the same, partly similar or even different attribute and connotative meaning in two cultures of English and Vietnamese As a replication of Razieh's study, the researcher is also subject to divide the cultural correspondence of animal proverbs and idioms between the English and Vietnamese into the three main categorizations which will act as a criteria for analyzing and classifying the collected

data: absolute correspondence, the partial correspondence, and no correspondence The sub-categories will help to determine how much the

Vietnamese equivalent is similar or close to the English proverbs and idioms

2.2.3.1 Absolute correspondence

The animal images used in the proverbs, and idioms of SL are identical in that

of TL no matter how much different the cultures are That means at that time the connotation of animal is widely understood and perceived by the people in both cultures or even all over the world In more simple way, both the SL and TL use one single animal concept in a particular proverb, idiom, and saying Indeed that animal word has the same connotative meaning in both cultures, as the result, the English proverbs and idioms containing these identical animals can be transferred completely

in terms of content or form

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2.2.3.2 Partial correspondence

It is clear that the cultural gap between two countries has exposed the inequivalence of the connotative meaning of an animal word between SL and TL However, a certain animal word in SL can be corresponding to a different one in TL

In other word, the animal word used in the SL is different from the animal word used

in the TL although they have the same connotative meaning

2.2.3.3 No correspondence

Nevertheless, the difference between the cultures sometimes even leads to not only the inequivalent connotation of an animal word but also the absence of the animal- relating concept of SL in the TL and vice versa Therefore, the same animal words used in a proverb or idiom with its meaning in each language may be unknown

or even meaningless in the other

According to Razieh, this difference arises from the different cultural environment and different impressions English and Persian, English and Vietnamese

in this context, people get from animals in each culture In general, the cultural connotation of one animal in one language might be completely different from the same animal in another language

2.2.4 Connotation

According to the Dictionary.com, “connotation” means the secondary meaning

of a word beside the explicit meaning, for example “home” is defined connotatively

as “a place of warmth, comfort and affection.” Applying this term into this study’s research subject, connotation of an animal word is the link between habits, particular features of such animal and the people’s mind which carries the associative meaning This is the key terms in the analysis of the English proverbs and idioms

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2.3 Relationship among language, culture and translation

The relationship among the three familiar factors: language, culture and translation has been a popular issue throughout the ages which attracts a large numbers of experts to study on Salehi, in 2012, took the Lambert sayings to prove for his statement about the relation of language and culture that “The heavy stress on language as an aspect of cultural identity is of course not new at all” After all attempts to define such a close relationship, it is generally believed that culture has been reflected completely via language within the same speaking community and it is the translation that transfer all traits of culture to another languages for the whole world community Especially, the relationship among those three is increasingly obvious nowadays in the era of blooming globalization Nothing can, therefore, deny the existence of their invisible intimate link

Language, along with human’s history, has admitted to be the most powerful tool for people not only to communicate or express their feelings, attitudes, ideas, beliefs, but also, importantly, to pass the traditions and customs of a certain area to the next generation orally in the past This was also admitted by Hongwei (1999) that

“Language is as a portrait of culture Language mirrors other parts of culture, supports them, spreads them, and helps them to develop others” as mentioned by Salehi (2012) All these factors that the language carries belong to culture As a result, it can be seen clearly a close and converse connection between the language and the culture

Translation has developed for a long time which fulfills the human’s needs of globalization This means thanks to this useful tool, people worldwide can access to the culture of each other which contained in the cover of language Indeed, that is the mutual link among language, culture and translation in which both language and translation together reflect the culture but in different contexts

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2.4 Previous related studies

Considered the significant topic of interest like animal-related proverbs and idioms, there have been a good source of prior studies conducted that could be further exploited In this research, the researcher would like to acknowledge the orientation and findings of those previous studies in order to develop and adjust to be applicable for this research's target: English- Vietnamese translation of proverbs and idioms relating to animals In the Razieh's study, a number of English proverbs and idioms relating to animals have been given out together with the corresponding translation in Persian All of them have been analyzed in terms of meaning and then compared in each culture (English culture and Persian culture) in which the similarities and differences of each proverb and idiom have also been figured out clearly As a result, basing on the analysis of given proverbs and idioms, Razieh presents the appropriate translation procedure for each type of English- Persian correspondence After analyzing carefully the theoretical background of research problems (translation and culture domains as well as proverbs and idioms about animals), the researcher was led to a comprehensive and thorough study conducted

by Razieh on the translation of cultural connotation of animal-related proverbs and idioms in English and Persian It is realized that if the findings of this study are applied in English-Vietnamese translation, there would be a good contribution to a translation job in Vietnam Therefore, the researcher would like to replicate this study with the cultural domains of English and Vietnamese and the selected samples as the English proverbs and idioms as well as their equivalences in Vietnamese

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the methodology will be presented which includes the qualitative approach, the sampling, the data (English proverbs and idioms) collection and the analysis of those collected proverbs and idioms including the analysis of the cultural difference

3.1 Qualitative approach

This study follows the qualitative approach in which the analysis content of the subjects: English proverbs and idioms about animals has been investigated Besides, this research has been developed on the base of Razieh's study on cultural connotations of animals in translation: proverbs, idioms, sayings (English- Persian) which also use the qualitative method but it is adjusted to be adapted in the context of English- Vietnamese translation

As the target of the study is the translation of proverbs and idioms about animals, the population will be the English animal-related proverbs and idioms with their corresponding equivalences For the sake of analyzing the cultural features of the samples (including distinguishing similarities and differences in cultural connotations of proverbs and idioms), the research is intended to divide the population into three groups: absolute correspondence (group 1), the partial correspondence (group 2), and no correspondence (group 3)

3.2 Sampling

Simple Random sampling will be employed in which 60 English proverbs and idioms about animals will be chosen on purpose to be samples These 60 samples would not be chose freely as the researcher intends to give the considerably overall analysis on various connotation of different kinds of animals contained in the proverbs and idioms They are classified into three groups of the population: the absolute correspondence, the partial correspondence, and no correspondence All are

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analyzed in terms of connotative meaning and the cultural root reasoning in order to define the proper translation procedures for each group

3.3 Data collection instruments

An observation of documents and artifacts has been employed as a data collection instruments After an observation, the researcher will have input data for the analysis of the outcomes

3.4 Data collection procedure

The researcher plans to make an attempt to answer the research questions from

a qualitative approach Therefore, the data will be taken from English and Vietnamese well-known and reliable sources of idioms and proverbs which are, including: English: Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, Cambridge Idioms

Dictionary or online English articles, learning English websites like today.com

A list of proverbs and idioms about animals after being collected, classified and added the appropriate meanings in Vietnamese are observed and analyzed carefully by the researcher in order to find out the cultural features of each Based on that analysis, translation procedures will be defined

3.5 Data analysis procedures

For a qualitative method, a content analysis will be applied in which the data (the observation results of English proverbs and idioms on animals and its Vietnamese correspondences) must be classified specifically into three groups as mentioned before and the thick description (including describing and interpreting the behavior of the research's samples) is also involved To be specific, after being added the equivalent as translated by the researcher, both English and Vietnamese versions

of proverbs and idioms are compared and contrasted to have an analysis of

19 similarities or differences between two culture connotations so that the translation procedures for each type of proverbs and idioms can be determined

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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Absolute correspondence (Table 1)

Procedures

Analysis on similarities and differences

1 Crocodile tears

Nước mắt của cá sấu

Nước mắt cá sấu

Literal translation

The negative image of crocodile exists in both English and Vietnamese culture Therefore, mentioning such a cruel and aggressive animal, the people’s mind of both have the perspective of scare which cannot evoke their sympathy

2 Like a frog in a well

Như con ếch ở trong

giếng

Ếch ngồi đáy giếng

Literal translation

The image of the silly but arrogant frog in the well which cannot know the beautiful and the world outside is popular in both cultures It is used to describe the lack-of-understanding people

3 As closed as an oyster Câm như hến We rarely hear the sound

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Đóng như con hến

Literal translation

of an oyster This is widely perceived by all people to say about the people who do not say much and somehow reliable

4 Every dog is valiant

at his own door

Mỗi con chó đều dữ

khi ở nhà của nó

Chó cậy gần nhà

Literal translation

Any one not only animal but also people seem more aggressive and reckless in their living area However, this seems

to have negative meaning which is same in the two countries

5 Even the worm has

When a usually meek person or group of people becomes angry

Duck sometimes has the negative connotative meaning which is similar

in many countries’ cultures That is a person who is stupid or have difficulty in learning and understanding This proverb is well-known in

22

both two countries

in sheep's clothing

Con sói trong quần

áo con cừu

Sói đội lốt cừu

Literal translation

This is about a bad guy trying to act as an innocent or naive person This is same in the two countries about the image

of a wolf which is known

to be cruel and cunning and a sheep which is gentle with no threat

8 Kill two birds with

one stone

Giết hai con chim

bằng một hòn đá

Một mũi tên trúng hai con chim

Literal translation

You succeed in doing two things at the same time The connotative meaning

of shooting a bird is familiar to both languages

9 Like cat and dog

Như chó và mèo

Như chó với mèo

Literal translation

Two people who fight or argue like cat and dog frequently have violent arguments, even though they are fond of each other That is like the case of cat and dog which are all domestic pets They virtually live together in a house but they always have