The application of bleu metric to evaluate the translation quality of google translate on amazon com a case study on english vietnamese translation on beauty personal care products’ description

Since there has been little research on translating nonsense of the English-Vietnamese language pair, this research was carried out aiming to identify translation strategies that Vietnam

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

TRANSLATING NONSENSE

IN DR.SEUSS‟S CHILDREN BOOKS

Supervisor: Ngô Hà Thu, MCS Student: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh Course: QH2014.F1.E20

Hà Nội - 2018

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ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

DỊCH YẾU TỐ KHÔNG CÓ Ý NGHĨA TRONG

TRUYỆN THIẾU NHI CỦA DR SEUSS

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS Ngô Hà Thu Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh Khóa: QH2014.F1.E20

Hà Nôi - 2018

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ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh, class QH2014.F1.E20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language) 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

Hanoi, May 2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Ms Ngô Hà Thu, MCS, lecturer of Faculty of English Language Teacher Education This thesis could not be completed without her instructive supervision, careful guidance and encouragement

I also would like to show my profound gratitude to Ms Hoàng Phương

Thúy, the translator of the book There’s a Wocket in my Pocket - one of my case

studies in the research – for her time and effort to help me answer those questions related to the book and her translation

In addition, I would like to dedicate my special thanks to my classmates in QH14E20, who have always supported, and given me many useful advices My special thanks go to my teammates who have always been beside me through ups and downs

Last but not least, I cannot fully express my gratitude to my beloved family for their wholehearted support and encouragement

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ABSTRACT

Literature is always a challenging genre for translators as there are a huge number of expressions in source language that are hard to find their equivalents in target language “Nonsense literature” which includes words or expressions that often do not have meaning in source language is even stranger and perhaps, more challenging for translators to cope with Since there has been little research on translating nonsense of the English-Vietnamese language pair, this research was carried out aiming to identify translation strategies that Vietnamese translators used to deal with this problem, specifically literary nonsense at word level Two children‟s books written by Dr Seuss in English

which are There’s a Wocket in my Pocket and I can lick 30 Tigers today! and

other stories and their Vietnamese translation works namely Trong túi có cậu Tóc búi and Tớ có thể hạ gục 30 cậu hổ hôm nay! và những câu chuyện khác,

respectively were chosen as the case studies for this research Data was collected by reading and comparing the original works and translated versions and then was categorized based on a combined framework from three frameworks proposed by Baker (1992), Newmark (1988) and Lefevere (1975) for further analysis The findings indicated that there are four types of nonsense words and the translators applied 8 different translation strategies to translate nonsense items in the two books The two most common used strategies were

Rhymed translation in There is a Wocket in my Pocket and Couplet in I can lick

30 Tigers today! and other stories These findings suggest that translation

strategies were determined based on ways of word formation and the translators‟ creativity

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF FIGURES, ABBREVIATIONS v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the research problem and rationale 1

1.2 Research questions 4

1.3 Scope of the study 4

1.4 Significance of the study 4

1.5 Thesis structure 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Nonsense literature 7

2.2 Dr Seuss‟s works as a case study of nonsense literature 11

2.3 Translation of nonsense literature and Dr Seuss‟s works 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Selection of subjects 27

3.2 Research methods 28

3.3 Data collection procedure and data analysis method 28

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30

4.1 Research question 1 30

4.2 Research question 2 44

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4.3 Beyond the Data 46

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 50

5.1 Summary of the study 50

5.2 Limitations of the study 51

5.3 Suggestions for further study 52

REFERENCES 53

APPENDICES 56

APPENDIX 1 CATEGORIZATION OF TYPES OF LITERARY NONSENSE AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES 56

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LIST OF FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Types of literary nonsense 23

Figure 2: Translation strategies in 30 Tigers 45

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this first chapter, the reasons for this research to be carried out are presented Additionally, research questions, significance and scope of the research and thesis structure would be clarified

1.1 Statement of research problem and rationale

Literary translation has flourished more than ever thanks to globalization which has enabled dynamic exchanges between cultures; never has it been this easy for general Vietnamese readers to read and understand and feel, say, an American work of literature despite their improving English proficiency levels This, however, implies big challenges facing literary translators who are required

to render not only the messages the author of the source wishes to convey but also the means the author employs to deliver such message As a major genre of literature, children‟s literature makes it even more complicated for translators as it

is a type of literature for which content “is limited by children‟s experience and understanding” (Kiefer, Hepler & Hickman, 2007, p 5) To make it more complicated, Karen Jones (2008) identified that the reading materials for children

often share the traits of being non-sense, creative, rhymed, and humorous This

implies the relations between children‟s books, poetry and what is termed

“nonsense literature” which is eventually an intriguing genre in children‟s literature

“Nonsense literature” or sometimes referred to as “literary nonsense” is a broad categorization of literature that balances elements that make sense with some that do not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning According to Srničková (2015), “[n]onsense writers do not create fantasy worlds, but rather insert unmotivated events and bizarre characters into familiar and conventional settings, or vice versa This is essentially what makes

Theodore Seuss Geisel (1904 – 1991) was a German-American author who produced a huge number of literary works; however, perhaps his most successful field was children‟s literature in poetry genre as he was authoring more than 60 children‟s books under the name Dr Seuss According to research conducted by Publishers Weekly in 2001, some of the best selling Dr Seuss‟s books are Green

Eggs and Ham (1960), The Cat in the Hat (1957) and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) The New York Times stated that the number of readers of

Dr Seuss‟s books was beyond millions Dr Seuss was famous for exploiting nonsense words, phrases and structure, making them rhyme so that the stories would sound poetic and easy for the young readers to remember As Dotzel (2007) said, literary nonsense is a type of fiction in which a whole new world is created

by the authors through the manipulation of language; Dr Seuss‟s poems can be seen as a typical example of this genre Also, according to Vendula Srničková (ibid), literary nonsense was not given enough attention in translation study Not much academic literature deals specifically with the translation of nonsense as well as on translation strategies that can be applied to translate nonsense prose

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Furthermore, translators do not pay much attention to this kind of genre as normally nonsense words do not appear frequently in a literary work According to Kratochvilová (2001), “all basic features and operations of the genre can be preserved in the target texts, provided the translator is aware of them” (p.43) That

is to say only when nonsense items are recognized by in-depth analysis of the text can they be translated properly and thoroughly

In 2016, the Alpha Books JSC introduced an ambitious project which is translating several famous books by Dr Seuss which mostly target at children at the age of 5 who start to learn a language This is the first time such masterpieces

of Dr Seuss have been translated into Vietnamese Some books are bilingual; others are printed in Vietnamese only The 5 first Dr Seuss‟s books which were

published by Alpha Books are Fox in Socks, Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Hams,

The Cat in the Hat, McElligot’s pool, I can lick 30 tigers today! and other stories

The books in general were well-received as some creditable online newspapers, such as Vietnamnet and Vnexpress, reported on the publication of those books at that time Several translators were invited to work on the collections, which makes the scene even more exciting because different translators usually have different approaches in coping with nonsense language The researcher did want to examine all of the translations; yet given time and resources, the researcher decided to focus on two translators who appears to have translated the most books by Dr

Seuss in this project and two books which are I can lick 30 tigers today! and other

stories and There is a Wocket in my Pocket The former was published in April

2016 and translated by Hà Hương Giang; the latter in August 2017 and by Hoàng Phương Thúy

translatability of nonsense literature

This study purports to address the following question:

1 What are the translation strategies the translators used when translating nonsense poems in Dr Seuss‟s poems and published by Alpha Books Publishing House?

2 What are the most common used strategies?

1.3 Scope of the study

The research focuses on two books, namely I can lick 30 tigers today! and

other stories and There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, which were translated by Hà

Hương Giang and Hoàng Phương Thúy, respectively I can lick 30 tigers today!

and other stories, hereafter 30 tigers for short originally published in 1969 is 63

page long; its translation is entitled Tớ có thể hạ gục 30 cậu hổ hôm nay! và những

câu chuyện khác There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, hereafter Wocket for short

originally published in 1974 is 24 pages long; its translation is entitled Trong túi

có cậu tóc búi The researcher decided to analyze the entire two books as they are

not too long Also, given that these two books were translated by different translators, the researcher expected to see potential patterns in using words or in handling structures of translators when dealing with nonsense words of Dr Seuss

1.4 Significance of the study

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First of all, given Vietnamese literary translation context, there have been few researches and articles concerning translating literary nonsense Thus, studying the translatability of nonsense literature hopefully will become useful resource for Vietnamese translation industry

Moreover, this research will serve as a reference for translators who are working in Vietnamese translation industry as translating children‟s literature is always a promising field As literary nonsense is not discussed widely among translators, this study may be a useful source for translators in general or for those who are going to enter children‟s book translation industry

Additionally, students at English language translation and interpreting faculty, who are going to become real translators and interpreters also benefit from this research They will have a better knowledge of a children‟s books translation industry and a quite new concept in translation which is literary nonsense translation and common strategies used to translate these items This study may somehow raise their interest and orient them to their future career

Finally, teachers who are teaching translation to students can use this research as reference as well as teaching materials They may consider add children‟s books and literary nonsense translation to the syllabus to help students understand more about this industry

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In this chapter, key definitions of the study will be explained; previous studies on translation of literary nonsense and poetry and its translatability will also be discussed

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter includes the description of research samples and sampling method, data collection method and data analysis method

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

Research findings and discussion on the translatability of literary nonsense will be presented in this chapter

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This chapter includes summary of the research, implication of the findings and limitation of the study

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will set the theoretical background for the whole research The concept of literary nonsense, Dr Seuss’s literary works and translation of nonsense and Dr Seuss’s works are stated clearly

2.1 Nonsense literature

2.1.1 Definition of nonsense literature

According to Oxford Dictionary, nonsense is “spoken or written words that have no meaning or make no sense” However, Anna Barton (2015) said that it is quite hard to define literary nonsense in absolute terms Literary nonsense can be traced back to the mid-19th century and is thought to be originated from Edward

Lear and Lewis Caroll with Alice in wonderland and Jabberwocky However, as

Noel Malcolm (1998) mentioned, literary nonsense genre appeared 250 years earlier with the publication of nonsense poets written by Sir John Hoskyns and John Taylor in the 17th century Literary nonsense was considered as a combination of two artistic sources which are the older source - oral folk tradition and the newer source – intellectual absurdities The first source includes games,

songs, dramas, and rhymes, such as the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle or the literary figure Mother Goose The second source is applied in the intellectual absurdities of court poets, scholars, and intellectuals of various kinds Today's literary nonsense is a combination of both sources Specifically, the 20th century authors who are well-known for this kind of genre are Dr Seuss with a series of children‟s poems full of nonsense words and Roald Dahl with his short stories using nonsense as a literary device

By definition, nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any

other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning Many poets, songwriters, novelists used nonsense in their work so as to create a sense of humor or simply to give birth to novelty works Many explanations of literary nonsense have been

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proposed by previous scholars both in terms of language and meaning Kratochvilová (ibid) puts it, “literary nonsense does not appeal to our dreamlike imagination, but to our linguistic imagination” (p.55) In his comment, besides discussing literary nonsense in textual context, Kratochvilová mentioned the term

“linguistic imagination” which referred to the cognitive ability of readers Similarly, Lerer (2008) concludes, “nonsense is more than play, it takes us to the limits of expression” (p.208) In this acknowledgement, linguistic aspect of nonsense literature is also discussed The above definitions all mean that when reading a literature work, specifically, a nonsense literature work, readers‟ imagination of language will be activated and it will put them into a new sphere of language or even a new world Nonsense literature is “more than play” which means it is not only for fun but it also stimulates readers‟ linguistic ability Srničková (ibid) provides a quite contradictory idea that nonsense writers do not create fantasy world but they just add some unfamiliar words and characters to the normal ones That is why Anna Barton (2015) said that it is quite hard to define literary nonsense in absolute terms However, this research applies the definition proposed by Edward Lear in which nonsense “is not a vacuity of sense; it is a parody of sense, and that is the sense of it” (“The Music of Poetry”) Dr Seuss in his books for children used nonsense items mainly as a way to make fun of language so that children can learn a language more comfortably Considering nonsense literature in this research, it is more about linguistic aspect rather than cultural ones

2.1.2 Characteristics of nonsense literature

Nonsense literature is described as coming from the older source - the oral folk tradition This implies an outstanding characteristic of nonsense literature

may be abundant rhyme and rhythm This feature can be found in Edward Lear,

Lewis Caroll and more recently is Dr Seuss‟s poems - in which nonsense words

ones may also be used to boost children‟s imagination As in Alice in wonderland,

the author used quite a lot of familiar animals such as the White Rabbit and also the strange one such as the Mad Hatter

Also from the definition, it can be inferred that nonsense literature has the

characteristic of intellectual absurdities in that many words, phrases and

structures are strange, creative and do not have meaning in real life These

words, phrases can easily be found in famous nonsense works written by the aforementioned authors Some special examples can be found in a famous Dr

Seuss‟s poem Wocket Reading the title only, it can be figured out that the word

“wocket” has no meaning in real life

Moreover, it can be clearly seen that the characteristics of nonsense literature are much similar to those of children‟s literature According to Karen

Jones (2008), the reading materials for children often share the traits of being

non-sense, creative, rhymed, and humorous In this acknowledgement, she mentioned

both characteristics of nonsense literature that have been discussed above Therefore, nonsense literature can be considered as a sub-genre of children‟s literature and it should bear most of the characters of children‟s literature Peter Hunt (as cited in Rudvin and Orlati, 2006, p.162) mentioned some characteristics

of children‟s literature, mostly on the language used namely child-orientedness,

simplicity, easy structures, narrow range of grammatical and lexical patterns, simple lexis and register, standard set of phrases, words from everyday life, repetition, short text and sentences Ivana Bobulová et al (ibid) also comments

that the language used in children books must base on real children’s speech – in

order to make the books easy to understand These two ideas both refer to

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children as the target reader so both the language and content of the works have to fit the understanding of children As the two books mainly focus on linguistic aspect of literary nonsense, they must ensure simplicity in the use of language by using short and simple structure and repetition of those phrases and structures In many of his poems, Dr Seuss uses sentences with only four or five words, they may not even be full sentences but just phrases and these are repeated many times

in his poems Take the poem The Foot Book (1968) as a particular example:

Feet in the morning Feet at night Left foot Left foot Left foot

Ivana Bobulová et al (ibid) also points out one outstanding characteristic of

children‟s literature which is the genre often has nonsense, fantasy, and

imagination – as children‟s plays (being the most natural activity for them) are

based on fantasy and imagination, they are reflected in children‟s books as well Sharing this point of view, Kratochvilová (ibid) believes that “literary nonsense does not appeal to our dreamlike imagination, but to our linguistic imagination” (p.55) Obviously, imagination is also a unique characteristic of children‟s literature Children have vivid imaginations and creative visualization usually come quite naturally to them That is why in children‟s literature, the author tend

to include details and events that can provoke children‟s cognitive ability while reading Literary nonsense also has that characteristics as the made-up words and phrases along with unusual images may effectively boost children imagination especially in terms of linguistic imagination

In conclusion, literary nonsense could be date back to folklore literature and intellectual writing The combination of the styles of both genres shaped the

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characteristics of nonsense literature in modern days and apparently, many of

which shared with children‟s literature The two outstanding ones are “simplicity”

with the use of a large number of simple phrases, structures and rhyme and

“imagination” with abundant pictures and new words That is why many

children‟s literary works use literary nonsense as a literary device to attract children‟s attention

2.2 Dr Seuss‟s works as a case study of nonsense literature

2.2.1 Dr Seuss

Dr Seuss is the pen name of Theodore Seuss Geisel (1904 – 1991), who was a German-American author, political cartoonist, poet, animator, book publisher and artist At the age of 18, he became the editor in chief of his college – Dartmouth College‟s humour magazine and used the pseudonym “Seuss” from then on Dr Seuss produced a huge number of literary works; specifically, he published over 60 books during his career However, perhaps his most successful

field was children‟s literature He published his first children's book, “And to

Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street", under the name of Dr Seuss in

1937 This book was rejected 27 times before it was published by Vanguard Press

A breakthrough in Geisel's career came when, in response to a 1954 LIFE

magazine article that criticized children's reading levels, Houghton Mifflin and Random House asked him to write a children's primer using 220 vocabulary

words The resulting book The Cat in the Hat, which was published in 1957, was a

milestone to mark his continuous success in children literature field From then on,

he pursued his career as an author of children‟s books Many of his books were the most popular children‟s books of all time, which were being sold over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death

Dr Seuss died on September 24, 1991, at the age of 87, in La Jolla, California

where he wrote many famous pieces such as If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton

Hears a Who! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How

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the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960) Dr Seuss

left a huge treasure of masterpieces for young readers up until now

2.2.2 Characteristics of Dr Seuss‟s children books

Dr Seuss was an outstanding author in children‟s literature though this genre is usually “limited by children‟s experience and understanding” which makes it a hard nut to crack (Kiefer, Hepler & Hickman, 2007, p 5) What makes

Dr Seuss‟s works, mostly poems, so fun and entertaining is his unique writing style As written in the site of Dr Seuss called “A Hatful of Seuss” where all information about Dr Seuss is presented, there are four main characteristics of Dr Seuss‟s works

The first feature of Dr Seuss‟s children books is that they have a lot of rhyme Most of Dr Seuss‟ works were written using simple end rhymes that make his

stories sound more pleasing to the ears For example, a book called One Fish,

Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) has the following line:

“From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”

Dr Seuss used this same kind of rhyming throughout most of his stories, making the lines a lot less boring than ordinary sentences

Another feature that makes Dr Seuss‟s books so alluring to children is that

it has a special rhythm The term rhythm is used to describe a specific pattern of sounds Dr Seuss‟s used different stress of sounds to make his poems sound more interesting and catchy to children Dr Seuss wrote with a special rhythm called

“trisyllabic meter,” which means that every third syllable of his stories is more

stressed than the others For example, read these lines from Yertle the Turtle and

Other Stories (1958):

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“And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he

Is King of the Mud That is all he can see

It can be clearly noticed that when reading out loud, readers will put more emphasis on the bolded parts of the word Using this type of rhythm makes his books much more fun to read as they sound more like songs than stories

Another characteristic of Dr Seuss‟s books is that they are full of new, imaginative creatures and words In almost all of Dr Seuss‟ stories, it can be easily seen that there are many made-up words and creatures Even though his characters are eccentric and his words are outrageous (like "boom-pahs" and "Schloppity-Schlopp"), they make his stories much more exciting

Last but not least, in Dr Seuss‟s books, there always funny pictures which were all drawn by Dr Seuss himself He drew his characters and backgrounds with a distinctive style The figures that he draws are often more rounded and droopier than things appear in real life The colors and style of the illustrations add

to the fun in the funny language of his stories

From the above characteristics and examples of Dr Seuss‟s children books,

it can be clearly seen that Dr Seuss is a master in composing fascinating poems for children His works are not much about the content but the language use as they are supposed to be children-targeted Those poems are rich in vocabulary, especially those made-up words and creatures which are known as literary nonsense items Dr Seuss once said “I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.” (Goodreads, 2018) That is why these items more or less appear in almost all of his work, which makes his works unique and enjoyable

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2.3 Translation of nonsense literature and Dr Seuss‟s works

The translatability of literary nonsense genre is still an open-to-question problem According to Srničková (ibid), literary nonsense was not given enough attention in translation study Specifically, in the Vietnamese translation industry there has not been any significant research on literary nonsense Srničková also noted that translating nonsense was the most challenging task in the translation process and “the translation of nonsense requires a high level of mastery of both the source and target languages, in order to be able to perceive all of the features

of nonsense in the text and translate them adequately” (p.7) That is another reason why not many works of literary nonsense genre are translated into other languages

Given all the above discussions and the characteristics of Dr Seuss‟s

children books, this research only focuses on literary nonsense at word level

Although there is no concrete fixed framework of translation strategies for literary nonsense, the researcher has realized significant connections between lexical nonsense and several linguistic phenomena including neologism, non-equivalence

at word level and lexical elements of poems Accordingly, the researcher expected

to apply existing frameworks to translate the aforementioned linguistic phenomena

to identify the strategies used in the two case studies Specifically, they are Newmark (1988)‟s strategies to translate neologism, Baker (1992)‟s strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word level, and finally Levefere (1975)‟s poetry translation framework

2.3.1 Neologisms and Newmark‟s strategies

In his research, Newmark (1988) defined neologisms as newly coined lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense Cabré (1999) also state that “a unit is a neologism if it has arisen recently, if it is not in dictionaries,

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if it exhibits signs of formal instability (e.g morphological, graphic, phonetic) or semantic instability and if speakers perceive it as a new unit.” (p.206) From the above definitions, it can be seen that nonsense items and neologisms share one common characteristic is that it is new and may not appear in official dictionaries

Newmark (1988) proposed 12 types of neologisms; however, just four of

which were likely to appear in Dr Seuss‟s nonsense, namely new coinage, derived

words, collocations and eponyms As a result, the researcher would only discuss

these four types of nonsense in the following part For more analysis of the others, please read more from page 140 to page 148 in “A text book of translation” by Newmark (1988)

2.3.1.1 New coinages

It is well known hypothesis that there is no such thing as a brand new word;

if a word does not derive from various morphemes then it is more or less phonaesthetic or synaesthetic Contrary to that popular belief, Newmark (ibid) pointed out that many words can hardly be related to meaningful sounds, specifically dialect words (p.142) Some examples he mentioned are the internationalism “quark” and the computer term “byte” Nowadays, the main new coinages are brand or trade names Coinage is understood as the word formation process in which a new word is created either deliberately or accidentally without using the other word formation processes and often seemingly from nothing

In Dr Seuss‟s books, there are quite many terms that can be considered

new coinage One striking example can be seen in the title There is a Wocket in my

Pocket The word “wocket” here was created to rhyme with the word “pocket” in

the verse and have no actual meaning at all Or in one of his poems called Too

Many Daves, there are a lot of names which are new coinage such as “Hoos Foos”,

“Snimm”, “Putt Putt” and so on

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2.3.1.2 Derived words

Derived words are words that use ancient Greek and Latin phrases with suffixes such as -ismo, -ismus, -ja, etc., naturalized to match the appropriate language According to Newmark (ibid), now this word-forming procedure is used mainly to designate scientific and technological rather than culture terms and normally they have naturalized suffixes

2.3.1.3 Collocations

New collocations (noun compounds) or (adjective plus noun) are particularly common in the social sciences and in computer language In Newmark (ibid) textbook, he gave out some specific cases of collocation, for example, “lead time,” a term for the time between design and production or between ordering and delivery of a product, has to be translated in context; “acid rain,” unfortunately a universal phenomenon, is likely to be literally translated everywhere, since it is

“transparent” These terms should be translated according to context

2.3.1.4 Eponyms

Eponyms are any word derived from a proper name (including toponyms)

It is not challenging to translate eponyms that directly refer to the person; but if they refer to the referent's ideas or qualities, the translator may have to add explanations When derived from objects, eponyms are usually brand names, and

can be transferred only when they are equally well known and accepted in the TL

Newmark also mentioned different translation procedures for neologisms

translation namely transference (with inverted commas), TL neologisms, TL derived word, naturalization, recognized TL translation, functional term, descriptive term, literal translation, translation procedure combinations

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(couplets, etc.), through translation (calque, and internationalism) Given the

similarity in nature between neologism and nonsense literature at word level, such procedures are expected to be applicable in translating literary nonsense

Transference

It is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation procedure The word then becomes a loan word

According to Newmark, the names of SL objects, inventions, devices, processes to

be imported into the TL community should be creatively, preferably

“authoritatively”, translated, if they are neologisms, although brand names have to

be transferred (p.81)

In translation, there must be some words in the source language that do not have direct equivalents in the target language which are called non-equivalence at word level This term is quite similar to nonsense words as they are both new and

do not appear in the dictionary so there is no fixed equivalence when translating into other languages

TL neologism (with composites)

Using TL neologism means that when translating creating a brand new word in TL, just like neologism in SL For example, the word “muggle” in Harry Potter series, Lý Lan translated it into “máu bùn” which is a brand new word in Vietnamese that Lý Lan created to describe those witches who have no power

TL derived words

This translation strategy is to use TL derived words to translate neologism

in SL text

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Naturalisation

This procedure is used to adapt the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL

In Dr Seuss‟s 30 Tigers, specifically in The Glunk that got thunk there is one

example of this translation strategy

ST: You have a Schnutz I know you have.

(The Glunk that got Thunk)

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Translation procedures combination (couplet, etc.)

This is the combination of two or more translation procedures that is used

to deal with a single problem

Through translation

It is the literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations and components of compounds It can also be called: calque or loan translation For example “European Union” is translated into “Liên hiệp châu Âu”, this is called through translation

Internationalism

This translation strategy means using TL word which is widely known and used internationally

2.3.2 Non-equivalence and Baker‟s strategies

In translation, there must be some words in the source language that do not have direct equivalents in the target language which are called non-equivalence at word level This term is quite similar to nonsense words as they are both new and

do not appear in the dictionary so there is no fixed equivalence when translating into other languages

According to Baker (1992), non-equivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text (p.21) Baker introduced eight strategies used by professional translators to

translate non-equivalence items which are translating by a more general word (superordinate), translating by a more neutral/less expensive word, translation by substitution, translating by using a loan word plus explanation,

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translating by using paraphrase, translating by omission, translating by illustration

Translation by a more general word (superordinate)

This is one of the most common strategies to deal with many types of equivalence in translation Baker believes that it works appropriately in most language

non-Translation by a more neutral/less expensive word

This strategy is a strategy in the semantic field of structure Translators use this strategy to avoid misunderstanding and obtain high naturalness in TL translation

Translation by a cultural substitution

This strategy is used to replace a culture-specific item or expression in SL text with a TL item that have the same impact on the target reader This makes the translated text more comprehensible and familiar to the readers

Translation by using a loan word or loan with plus explanation

This strategy is particular useful to deal with culture-specific items, new and modern concepts Translator can use loan word with explanation the first time one new item appear in the text, and then that word can be repeated many times in

TL versions without being afraid readers have difficulty in understanding that term

Translation by illustration

When SL text refers to a physical entity which requires lengthy text in TL

to explain and may distort the meaning as well as the intention of the author in that specific sentence, this strategy is employed Illustration is an option that can convey the meaning of the entity and it also gives readers a specific and lively image of that object

2.3.3 Poetry translation and Lefevere‟s strategies

Dr Seuss‟s works are mainly in poetry genre so poetry translation framework can be applied in translating Dr Seuss‟s children‟s books Poetry translation is quite perplexing as to ensure the aesthetic value of poetry; translators have to deal with a large number of aspects As Mathews (1966) (as cited in Wilss, 2001) said that to translate a poem whole is to compose another poem Jacobson (1966) (as cited in Wilss, 2001) concludes that poetry by definition is untranslatable and only creative transposition is possible (p.238) That is why poetry is believed by many to be untranslatable However, Holmes (1970) believes that while the translation of a poem is never equal to the original, any text including a poetic one has many interpretations and therefore many possible

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translations In agreement with this idea, Lefevere (1975) proposed 7 strategies to deal with poetry translation His framework covers all the poetic features: formal and contextual Lefevere views poetry as a unified context in which the form, content and aesthetic issues are closely related to each other but each have their own special value Below is a list of his comprehensive strategies:

Phonemic translation: reproducing the source language sound in the target

language

Literal translation: word for word translation

Metrical Translation: reproducing the source language meter

Verse to Prose Translation: Distorting the sense, communicative values

and syntax of source text

Rhymed Translation: transferring the rhyme of the original poem into

target language

Blank/free verse translation: finding just the proper equivalents in the

target language with a proper semantic result

Interpretation: version and imitation Version occurs when the absence of

source language text is retained and the form is changed Imitation occurs when the translator produces the poem of his own

2.3.4 Nonsense words in 30 Tigers and Wocket and a suggested

translation framework

As mentioned in 2.3.1, nonsense items can be referred to neologism as they did not appear in dictionaries or exist in real life and the researcher decided to apply Newmark‟s 12 types of neologism to categorize nonsense words

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In the two chosen books, the researcher can pick out 54 nonsense items

Among those 12 types of neologism, new coinage, derived words, eponyms and collocations are four types that are found in Dr Seuss‟s children books and new coinages takes up the biggest proportion For detailed classification, please see

Figure 1: Types of literary nonsense

As can be seen in the chart, 77% of nonsense items in Dr Seuss‟s books are

new coinages, 19% are eponyms and 2% are collocations and the remaining 2%

are derived words That is to say, Dr Seuss had such distinct language ability that

he invented his own words and though having no sense, these words are extremely amusing

In the book Wocket, there are 31 nonsense items; all are new coinages

Moreover, each nonsense word is paired up with a meaningful word, suffix of which is similar to that of the nonsense word For example:

Eg.1

Did you

ever have the feeling

The book 30 Tigers includes 3 small stories but only 2 of them, King Looie

Katz and The Glunk that got Thunk, include nonsense items at word level There

are 23 nonsense items in total which belongs to 4 categories: new coinages,

eponyms, collocations and derived words It can be seen that types of nonsense

items in this book are more diverse compared to the book Wocket New coinages

in 30 Tigers are created in different ways from Wocket: instead of having similar

suffix, the nonsense words here need contextualizing to guess their meanings

Below are some examples of nonsense in 30 Tigers:

Eg.3

A thing my sister likes to do

Some evenings after suppers

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Is sit upstairs in her small room

And use her Thinker-Upper

(The glunk that got thunk) Eg.4

And since that day on Katzen-stein,

All cats have been more grown-up

They‟re all more demo-catic

Because each cat holds his own up

(King Looie Katz)

The two nonsense words in the two above examples “Thinker-Upper” and

“demo-catic” are not created to follow any rhyme and rhythm rule In terms of the word “demo-catic”, “demo-” is a prefix which has Greek origin and its meaning is

“people”; “-ic” is a familiar suffix in English which means “relating to”, so the

“catic” part can be understood as relating to cat In this case, it can be seen that

“demo-catic” is a derived word Furthermore, “demo-catic” was invented because

it sounds like a meaningful word in English which is “democratic” and its meaning in this story is also quite the same as “democratic” “Thinker-Upper” was created by combining a meaningful word “think” and a common suffix “er” and then adding “Upper” “Thinker” in this context can be related to the meaning of the word “think” so “Thinker-Upper” here can be generally understood as a rich imagination However, both “demo-catic” and “Thinker-Upper” had to be put in the surrounding context of the stories to be fully comprehended; if they appeared singly out of context, they could not be able to be translated

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From the categorization above, the researcher proposed a framework of strategies that based on the three frameworks suggested by Newmark, Baker and Lefevere to ensure comprehensive and accurate analysis

The researcher‟s proposed framework is as followed:

1 Rhymed translation (Lefevere)

2 Phonemic translation (Lefevere)

3 Translating by substitution (Baker)

4 Translation by paraphrasing (Baker)

5 Naturalisation (Newmark)

6 Recognised TL translation (Newmark)

7 Couplet (Newmark)

8 Others

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to present the methodology used in this research Research samples of the paper would be thoroughly described in this chapter Moreover, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure would also be mentioned

3.1 Selection of subjects

As mentioned in previous chapters, two famous books of Dr Seuss and their Vietnamese translated versions would be employed in this research

The first book, There is a Wocket in my Pocket is a short children‟s rhyming book

written by Dr Seuss and published by Random House in 1974 The story is about

a little boy talking about strange creatures living around his house Each of those imaginary creature has a nonsense name rhymes with its hiding place, as in the title Readers can see amusing illustrations of them in each page of the book The

Vietnamese translated version of There is a Wocket in My Pocket named Trong

TÚI có cậu TÓC BÚI (Tóc Búi) This book was translated by Hoàng Phương Thúy

and was published in August 2017 by Alphabooks JSC The design of the translated version is exactly the same as the original one, from the cover, the pages

to the font size of the letters

The second sample of the research is I can lick 30 tigers today! and other

stories which is also a children‟s story book by Dr Seuss and first published in

1969 In this book, Dr Seuss tells three rhyming tales featuring the extended

family of The Cat in the Hat The title story I can lick 30 tigers today! tells a story

about The Cat in the Hat‟s son, who claims that he can win 30 tigers However in the end he fights no tigers at all by making excuse after excuse to disqualify all the tigers In other story, his daughter gets a bit carried away by her imagination in

The Glunk That Got Thunk And in the last story of the series, we look back at one

of the Cat‟s ancestors for a tale about tails in King Looie Katz This last story is

also a warning against hierarchical society advocating self-reliance This book was