Các chiến lược áp dụng trong dịch lời bài hát nhạc trẻ từ tiếng việt sang tiếng anh

In this paper entitled “STRATEGIES IN TRANSLATING VIETNAMESE TEENAGER SONGS INTO ENGLISH”, Vietnamese and English versions of song lyrics were compared and analysed based on Newmark’s

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

STRATEGIES IN TRANSLATING VIETNAMESE

TEENAGER SONGS INTO ENGLISH

Supervisor: Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn Student: Bùi Thị Mai Hương

Course: QH2011.F1.E19

HANOI – 2015

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG DỊCH LỜI BÀI HÁT NHẠC TRẺ TỪ TIẾNG VIỆT SANG

TIẾNG ANH

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn Sinh viên: Bùi Thị Mai Hương

Khóa: QH2011.F1.E19

ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Bui Thi Mai Huong, QH2011.F1.E19, 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

Hanoi, 2015

Bui Thi Mai Huong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, for her precious guidance, valuable advice as well as her inspriration which were the decisive factors assisting me in finishing the paper on the right track

My sincere thanks also go to my foreign interviewees whose great kindness provided me with useful ideas and information to complete my paper

I am also grateful to my friends whose helpful advice and comments are always beside me whenever needed

Last but not least, I truly appreciate the support and care from my family and my friends from the beginning to the end of the research

ABSTRACT

As music became a thriving industry around the world, the translation of song lyrics among languages acts as a stimulating tool for the development of the industry Following this global trend, Vietnamese translators have also made remarkable efforts to create English translated versions of Vietnamese songs However, the number of translated songs, especially teenager songs, remains limited while no standard has been established to assess these translations, therefore hindering the translated songs from appropriate recognition of

audiences In this paper entitled “STRATEGIES IN TRANSLATING

VIETNAMESE TEENAGER SONGS INTO ENGLISH”, Vietnamese and

English versions of song lyrics were compared and analysed based on Newmark’s theory of translation methods and procedures and Koller’s theory of formal equivalence in order to identify strategies frequently employed in the Vietnamese – English translation of teenager songs and their equivalent effect Eight Vietnamese teenager songs were chosen on purpose as the subjects of the research Strategies were acknowledged and then sorted out into adaptation and semantic translation methods While analysing songs translated by applying semantic translation method, the researcher pointed out three subclasses of this method which are omission, addition and paraphrase

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I

ABSTRACT II

TABLE OF CONTENT III

LIST OF FIGURES VI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VII

CHAPTER 1 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Research aims and research questions 3

1.3 The significance of the research 3

1.4 The methods of the research 3

1.5 The structure of the research 4

CHAPTER 2 5

2.1 Theoretical background 5

2.1.1 Song 5

2.1.2 Translation 6

2.2 Translation methods and procedures 7

2.2.1 Translation methods 7

2.2.2 Translation procedures 8

2.2.3 Translation of songs 9

CHAPTER 3 14

3.1 Design of the study 14

3.2 Phase one 14

3.2.1 Sample selection 14

3.2.2 Data collection procedures 15

3.2.3 Data analysis procedures 16

3.3 Phase two 17

3.3.1 Sample selection 17

3.3.2 Data collection procedures 17

3.3.3 Data analysis procedures 18

CHAPTER 4 19

4.1 Research question 1: What strategies are applied in translating Vietnamese teenager songs into English? 19

4.1.1 Adaptation 19

4.1.2 Semantic translation 23

4.2 Research question 2: To what extent do the translations of those songs achieve equivalent effect? 31

CHAPTER 5 34

5.1 Summary of the research 34

5.2 Limitations of the research 35

5.3 Suggestions for further research 35

REFERENCES 36

APPENDICES 38

APPENDIX 1 38

APPENDIX 2 48

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1 The percentage of most commonly used strategies 31

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SL: Source language

TL: Target language

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the problem and rationale, the aims and methods, the scope, and the significance of the whole paper Most importantly, the research questions are identified to serve as a guideline for the study

1.1 Rationale

Music is always an important part of human’s lives It cheers people up, connects strange people, inspires people’s thoughts and improves people’s health Similarly, language also plays an essential role in every aspect of people’s lives It functions as an effective way of communication, by which people share their thoughts and feelings, express their desires and raise others’ spirit When music and language combine, songs are born and carry all of those values Like creating any piece of art, composing a song is a really challenging work The artist has to deal with both melodies and lyrics, making them meaningful, harmonised and ear-catching To bring those beautiful art pieces to the world, however, the work of translators in conveying their message from the original language into another one is even much more demanding Unlike song writers producing art freely, song translators create their arts by reproducing the existing works, which presents numerous difficulties

Currently when music industry has developed so rapidly around the world, Vietnamese musicians have also composed countless beautiful songs with sweet melodies and meaningful lyrics Nevertheless, these songs just stop at being known within the country without being popular to the global population It may result from the fact that music industry has not been integrated well with translation industry due to enormous challenges translators may encounter in song translation To be particular, in translating a song or text meant to be sung, apart from the considerations that are common to other kinds of translation, being cultural references, untranslatability of certain notions, linguistic differences between the source and the target language, the translator also has to pay

attention to aspects peculiar to songs, namely rhyme, syllabication, melodic stress as well as poetic and artistic values Most of the time, peculiar differences between the source and the target language make the task really puzzling Different word stressing patterns limit the word choice to words that can comply with the melody of the song Lexical problems occur frequently For instance, in source language, there is an abundance of short and catchy words to say something, while in the other language the directly translated words are too long and cumbersome The original song may employ a play on words, idioms or might even introduce neologisms, and incorrect words for artistic effects In every case, the drive to render meaning faithfully and the drive to preserve rhythm, melody, and beat seem forever to mutually oppose each other In the words of Schleiermacher (1813), "How often […] does one find fidelity to rhythm and melody caught in irreconcilable conflict with fidelity to dialectic and grammar." All too often, the translator faced with this daunting dilemma ultimately makes a choice to favor one at the expense of the other and slips into what Schleiermacher called "a pertinacious one-sidedness."

As a future translator and music lover, the researcher finds it interesting and meaningful to study the English translations of Vietnamese songs, specifically teenager ones Additionally, because of their typical features, Vietnamese teenager songs may seriously challenge translators in conveying both their semantic and aesthetical beauties into English

In fact, there are several Vietnamese teenager songs translated into English; nevertheless, researches on comparing and evaluating the quality as well as equivalent effect of their English versions versus Vietnamese originals have not been carried out Therefore, it is necessary to study on this matter to provide a clear view about translating Vietnamese teenager songs into English, particularly common strategies used by translators in that process and their effectiveness The

current research entitled “STRATEGIES IN TRANSLATING VIETNAMESE

TEENAGER SONGS INTO ENGLISH” is being carried out for the reasons

1.2 Research aims and research questions

The research aims at two main points The first one is to find out strategies commonly utilised by translators in their effort to translate teenager songs from Vietnamese to English The research will measure the consistency and efficiency

of those strategies by investigating the matter and manner equivalence and naturalness of translations of some particular Vietnamese teenager songs in comparison with the original songs The second target of the research is to form a basis of appropriate Vietnamese – English song translation strategies

More specifically, the research is intended to address the following questions:

1 What strategies are applied in translating Vietnamese teenager songs into English?

2 To what extent do the translations of those songs achieve equivalent effect?

1.3 The significance of the research

The research is expected to provide readers with insights into the practice of translating Vietnamese songs into English in which the strategies employed by translators in handling the intricacies of semantic and aesthetical features of teenager songs will be brought to the light and their efficiency will also be evaluated Besides contributing to translation theory and give students a brief understanding of Vietnamese – English translation of teenager songs, the research is also intended to stimulate further studies on the topic

1.4 The methods of the research

Sampling

Main research samples are Em trong mắt tôi (How I see you), Bụi phấn (Chalk dust), Chênh vênh, Vầng trăng khóc (The moon cries), Bài học đầu tiên (The first lesson), Đường lên đỉnh núi (Road to the mount) and Mái trường mến yêu (Loving school)

Data collection procedures

Data were collected mainly in the blog http://baihatdich.blogspot.com Both Vietnamese and English versions of each song’s lyric were collected

so that comparison between target text and source text can be made

Data analysis procedures

To answer the research questions stated above, data analysis was carried out with descriptive methodology, assisted with certain instruments Textual analysis was applied to identify and compare semantic features of lexicon and syntactic features of phrases and sentences of the two language versions

Some interviews with selected foreigners were also conducted to evaluate the equivalent effect achieved by those songs

1.5 The structure of the research

The rest of the research consists of the following chapters

Chapter 2 – Literature Review – introduces the most relevant theoretical background knowledge on translation, translation methods and procedures, song translation and equivalence effect

Chapter 3 – Methodology – provides a detailed description of the methods utilised to conduct the research

Chapter 4 – Findings and Discussion – presents the analysis and comparison of the translated lyrics and original ones of sample songs, thereby indicating strategies used in these songs translation and their equivalence effect Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summaries major findings, limitations of the research and suggestions for further study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter demonstrates a conceptual framework of previous studies pertaining to definition of translation, translation methods and procedures, typical features of song translation and the significance and matter of equivalence effect

2.1 Theoretical background

2.1.1 Song

 Definition

Song, according to Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary, is “a short piece

of music with words that people sing” Similarly, as defined by Duong (2000) and Nguyen (2001), “song is a text to be sung with melody and musical rhythm.”

To improve the understanding about song, Nguyen (2001) added: “Music is a form of art; therefore, the text needs to have a literary value, in both form and content.”

Although these definitions were given from different times and by different people, they all indicate the existence of two parts in a song: music and words They are, in all cases, the integral parts of a song and have close relationship with each other

 Characteristics

As mentioned above, each song is characterised by two different languages: the music language and the word language In songs, the word language is embedded in the music language to make it more concrete, enabling all people, including those without the basic knowledge of music to perceive the content of the song

As Duong (2000) stated, the song wording process is always determined by three main rules: linguistic rules, poetic rules and musical rules, of which musical rules are the most essential However, he also claimed that we cannot only focus

on the musical rules and disclaim the effects of the other rules; otherwise, the song will be no longer a song in nature but just a means of vocalising melody

According to the dictionary compiled by Hartman and Stock (1972), the term ‘translation’ can be defined as the replacement of a representation of a text

in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language Translation is, in Larson’s (1984) view, studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analysing it in order to determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using lexicon and grammatical structure which are appropriate in the receptor language and its cultural context

Nida stated that translation consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source language message, firstly in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style

The above definitions are different in expression but all of them share the similar content: Translation is the transference of a text from one language to another in which the message and style of the original text are conveyed as accurately as possible in target language This accurate or nearest-accurate conveyance is perceived as equivalence

2.2 Translation methods and procedures

2.2.1 Translation methods

The following are the different translation methods proposed by Newmark (1988):

- Word-for-word translation: preserve the SL word order and translate the

words singly by their most common meanings, out of context

- Literal translation: convert the SL grammatical constructions to their

nearest equivalents, but again translate the lexical words singly, out of context

- Faithful translation: produce the precise contextual meaning of the

original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures

- Semantic translation: differ from “faithful translation” only in as far as it

must take more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text

- Adaptation: the freest form of translation, and is used mainly for plays

(comedies) and poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture is converted to the TL culture and the text is rewritten

- Free translation: produce the TL text without the style, form, or content of

the original

- Idiomatic translation: reproduces the “message” of the original but tends

to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialism and idioms where these

do not exist in the original

- Communicative translation: render the exact contextual meaning of the

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

In fact, among these eight translation methods proposed by Newmark, literal translation and adaptation are the ones applied most commonly for linguistic purposes or in translation of literature, especially song lyric.The reason

is that these methods give their focus on the meaning, message and aesthetic values in the translation of the original text into target language Therefore, the

grammatical structure of the text can be changed as well as the creativity of the translator as the reproducer of the text is acceptable and sometimes necessary

2.2.2 Translation procedures

Newmark (1988) mentioned the difference between translation methods and translation procedures He wrote that, “While translation methods relate to whole text, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language” (p 81) He referred to the following procedures of translation:

- Transference: the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text

- Through translation (Loan translation/ Calque): the literal translation of

common collocations, names of organisations, the components of compounds and perhaps phrases

- Naturalization: the adaptation of a SL word first to normal pronunciation,

then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL

- Cultural equivalent: the translation of a SL cultural word to a TL cultural

word

- Functional equivalent: requiring the use of a cultural-free word,

sometimes with a new specific term

- Descriptive equivalent: translating a cultural SL term by explaining it in

several words

- Synonymy: this procedure is a “near TL equivalent” Here economy

precedes accuracy

- Reduction and Expansion: these are imprecise translation procedures,

applied in some cases, particularly in poorly written texts

- Paraphrase: an amplification or explanation of the meaning of a segment

of the text

- Compensation: this procedure occurs when loss of meaning in one part of

a sentence is compensated in another part

- Shifts (Transposition): involving a change in the grammar from SL to TL

- Modulation: involving a change in viewpoint, perspective and very often

in category of thought

- Componential analysis: the splitting up of a lexical unit into its sense

components, often one-to-two, -three or –four translations

- Recognized translation: this procedure occurs when the translator

“normally uses the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term.”

- Translation label: an approximate equivalent, sometimes proposed as a

collocation in inverted commas, which may later be accepted

- Couplets: combining two of the above-mentioned procedures for dealing

with a single problem

- Notes: additional information in a translation

The terms “strategy” and “procedure” have not been distinguished clearly

by any translation scholars In this research, the researcher stands on the point of view of Kearns (2009) in Routledge Encyclopedia or Translation studies, edited

by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha He stated that those two terms could be used interchangeably to describe the ways of translating units smaller than text From this point onwards, in this study, the term “strategy” is used

2.2.3 Translation of songs

According to Low (2006), in art songs, the source texts often have intrinsic complexity and literary value as poetry, and the words generally receive greater respect than in other types of song For those songs that most depend for their effect on verbal comprehension, good translations are particularly important With a sung text, rhymes usually observe the syllable count of the original This

is a translation designed to fit the music and to be performed with it Besides, a translation has given priority to matching the music, it will be too inaccurate structurally and semantically to help the singer in untangling the source text He also pointed that a line-by-line approach is unduly restrictive: it means that some

of the normal tools of competent translators – tools such as transposition, modulation, paraphrase, compensation in place – are rendered unavailable, totally or partially In the case of song texts, the typical reader of translations is often a music lover rather than a poetry buff, and maybe ill equipped for teasing meaning out of an opaque text Therefore considerations of purpose should affect the translators' handling of cultural and contextual details With a singable original text, making singable translations is a difficult task One is subject to huge, multiple constraints imposed by the pre-existing music, because one cannot ignore the rhythms, the note values, the phrasings or the stresses of the music – even phrasings and pitch levels may have to be considered and to reduce the number of short vowel sounds and the clustering of consonants Ideally, the new version must sound as if the music had been fitted to it, even though it was actually composed to fit the original It is not surprising, then, that many of these versions are too badly done to be usable, many are so marred by forced rhymes and unnatural language that performers simply cannot sing them with conviction The devising of this kind of singable text presents the translator with fascinating challenges The translator is judged on five events: singability, sense, naturalness, rhythm, and rhyme

Some of the special difficulties of song translation are explained by Hurtado (2001) as follows, “The linguistic and musical codes are blended, and, therefore, the translator needs to subordinate the translation of the linguistic code to the musical rhythm and to the tonal groups, and establish a synchrony between the text and the music” (our translation) (p.92)

Haupt (1957) stated that there are two types of popular lyric-song translations: (1) “those which completely change the original text”; and (2)

“others which try to reproduce the source text and only make minimal changes necessitated by musical constraints” (p.228)

In brief, song translation is undoubtedly a challenging job to any translator, even the most competent ones A translator, in the process of translating a song lyric from one language into another language, needs to take five aspects as singability, sense, naturalness, rhythm, and rhyme into serious consideration In fact, the two most frequently used strategies of the translator in this translation field are either recreating a new version of a song lyric based on the original one

or reproducing the source lyric with few changes within musical constraints

2.3 Equivalence and Equivalence effect

The concept of equivalence can be said to hold a central position in translation studies Nevertheless, it has been a rather controversial one, causing many heated debates among translators as to its nature, definition and applicability

Jakobson (1959), when addressing the thorny problem of equivalence in meaning between words in different languages, stressed the fact that “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-units” (p 114) He cited the example

of “cheese” in English by saying that it is not identical to the Russian “syr” – the concept of cottage cheese not being included in the latter Jakobson does not propose that translation is impossible but rather pinpoints the differences in the structure and terminology of languages

According to Nida (1964), there are formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence In particular, in the former one, the target text resembles very much the source text in both form and content whereas in the latter one an effort is made to convey the source text in the target text as naturally as possible In his work, Nida gave paramount importance to the notion of “naturalness” He claimed that the main aim of “equivalent effect” is to achieve "the closest natural equivalent to the source language" (Nida, 1964, p.166) Actually, “naturalness”

as a basic key-word in Nida's theory relies on the adaptation of grammar, cultural

references and lexicon of the ST It can be argued that Nida privileges the preservation of the text meaning on its style, since it allows the translator to create the same equivalent effects

Departing from Nida's receptor-oriented line, Newmark (1981) felt that the success of equivalent effect is “illusory” and that “the conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target language will always remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice” (p.38) Newmark suggested narrowing the gap by replacing the old terms with those of semantic and communicative translation which resemble Nida’s formal and dynamic equivalence respectively However, Newmark (1981) distanced himself from the full principle of equivalent effect because effect “is in-operant if the text is out of target language space and time” (p.69)

Koller (1979: 176-91, quoted by Munday, 2001) devoted a large part of his research to the examination of the relation between ‘equivalence’ and

‘correspondence’ For the former examines the equivalent items in both the ST and the TT and it is based on De Saussure's parameter of ‘langue’, while the latter can be related to contrastive analysis, as a field of comparative linguistics and is based on the De Saussure's ‘parole’ In an effort to answer the question of what is equivalent to what, Koller (1979) developed five different types of equivalence: (a) denotative equivalence involving the extralinguistic content of a text, (b) connotative equivalence relating to lexical choices, (c) text-normative equivalence relating to text-types, (d) pragmatic equivalence involving the receiver of the text or message, and, finally, (e) formal equivalence relating to the form and aesthetics of the text (p.186-191)

The concept of equivalence has been of particular concern to translation scholars Despite various distinguish expressions, equivalence in general is meant

to indicate that source text and target text share some kind of “sameness” or

“correspondence” The question is as to the kind and degree of sameness which gave birth to different kinds of equivalence In the study, the researcher does not

use it as a framework for the evaluation of the translation of song lyric, particularly the research’s selected samples, focusing on the aesthetical characteristics of song lyrics or formal equivalence, as proposed by Koller, in the song translation In addition, three among five events that a song translation is judged as stated by Low (2006) namely singability, sense and naturalness are also used as the framework for assessing the translations’ equivalent effect in this research

Chapter summary

In this chapter, an overview of song and translation has been provided Song can be perceived as a short piece of music with words that people sing and characterised by music language and word language Translation is the process of conveying as accurately as possible the meaning and aesthetics effects of the source text into the target one A brief introduction of translation strategies including eight methods and seventeen procedures of translation proposed by Peter Newmark also has been offered At the end of the chapter, theories about equivalence and equivalence effect are discussed to form a foundation for assessing the translation of Vietnamese songs chosen as research samples

CHAPTER 3 METHODLOGY

The chapter is devoted to the presentation of the methodology of the research This includes the research approach, the sample selection, the methods and the procedures of data collection and data analysis

3.1 Design of the study

As mentioned above, the research ultimately sought to explore the strategies employed by translators in translating Vietnamese teenager song lyric into English and their equivalence effect Because of this nature, it is necessary to investigate both translated song lyrics and song audiences with sound knowledge

of language Hence, the study was divided into two phases Phase one dealt with song lyrics in order to make general description of the strategies applied in translating song lyrics Meanwhile, in phase two, a number of song audiences were interviewed, aiming to provide a rough evaluation of the strategies’ equivalence effect Therefore, two different instruments were used in the two phases to collect data so that different research questions can be answered

chosen as the subjects to be investigated in the research for two reasons

Firstly, the Vietnamese versions of these songs have won widespread popularity among Vietnamese teenagers The songs “Em trong mắt tôi” (written

by Nguyễn Đức Cường) and “Chênh vênh” (written by Lê Cát Trọng Lý) earned

Vietnamese Songs Contest hosted by Vietnam Television Performed at the end

of the quiz show “Đường lên đỉnh Olympia”, also a successful product of Vietnam Television, the song “Đường lên đỉnh núi” has become popular among teenagers since its very first performance The songs “Bụi phấn”, “Bài học đầu tiên” and “Mái trường mến yêu” are listed among the most popular Vietnamese teenager songs in the 20th century Associated with the success of both the musician Nguyễn Văn Chung and the two singers Nhật Tinh Anh and Khánh Ngọc, the song “Vầng trăng khóc” is also known as a great hit in 2007

Secondly, these songs’ English-translated versions are official, provided in

a reliable blog supported by the Young Translators Foundation after a comprehensive assessment process Information about the translators and translation completion date are also given clearly in the blog Especially, the translation of the song “Chênh vênh” and “Em trong mắt tôi” was performed by their original authors Therefore, the research on these subjects will ensure reliability and acquire practical significance

3.2.2 Data collection procedures

Data collection procedure was divided into two steps, based mainly on document observation and textual analysis methods:

Step 1: Collecting Vietnamese and English lyrics of sample songs

The very initial and essential step of this research was collecting song lyrics Among various Vietnamese teenager songs, the researcher selected eight songs with the above-mentioned reasons All lyrics of these songs in both Vietnamese and English were found in the blog http://baihatdich.blogspot.com

This is a project officially dated October 10th 2010, succeeding the scientific research titled "Translation of music in Vietnam and the establishment of initial databank of Vietnamese - English and English - Vietnamese song lyrics" It was conducted by student Phan Tuan Quoc, supervised by MSc Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc, and criticised by Dr Le Hoang Dung, all from Ho Chi Minh University of

Social Sciences and Humanities The research won the first prize at university level

The researcher collected these lyrics by copying directly the lyric of each song in Vietnamese and English respectively from the blog and then pasting them into Microsoft Word

The list would be enclosed in Appendices

Step 2: Identifying strategies applied in Vietnamese – English translation of teenager song lyrics

In this step, the researcher printed out the list of song lyrics and highlighted phrases and sentences which contain translation strategies as discussed in Chapter 2

3.2.3 Data analysis procedures

After the phase of data collection, the data acquired in the study consisted

of Vietnamese lyrics and their English translations

With captured data, translated and original versions of the sample songs were compared and contrasted to discover the similarities and differences between the two versions

After describing and contrasting data, the researcher found out the strategies used by translators in the translation of Vietnamese teenager songs She then made a calculation in which all strategies detected in samples were listed with their frequency of being utilised The calculation was based on the ratio of the total appearing times of one strategy to that of all strategies detected Thus, the answer to the first research question about strategies commonly applied in the Vietnamese – English translation of teenager song lyrics was given The results were displayed by a pie chart with the percentage of being used of common strategies afterwards

3.3.2 Data collection procedures

The data collection procedure basically consisted of two main steps, which were presented as follows:

Step 1: Preparation

At the phase, the interview questions were first drafted out, including both open-ended and close-ended questions Participants were asked about lyrics’ singability and naturalness as well as their understanding the songs’ messages or overall meanings By asking those questions, the researcher aimed to check if audiences in target language comprehended and were able to sing along to original sound beats, thereby evaluating the equivalent effect of translations Next, people meeting the selection criteria were contacted to request for their participation Here, the objective of the study and the guaranteed confidentiality

of their participation in the research were mentioned Afterwards, the draft of interview questions was sent to participants in advance for the purpose of necessary correction All lyrics and records of selected songs were also sent to them so that they had time to study the samples and consider their answers carefully Not until the interview questions were approved by participants did the researcher arrange the interview schedules

Step 2: Conducting the interviews

Semi-structured interviews were conducted online via Skype During the interview process, apart from the designed questions, some additional ones were also asked to obtain further information and improve the clarity when necessary Besides, for the convenience of later revision of the data, all the interviews were recorded in Microsoft Word with the permission of the informants

3.3.3 Data analysis procedures

In order to analyse collected data, the transcripts of interviews were studied for several times in order to interpret the emerging themes relating to researched issue

Next, the data were coded and integrated into different themes of translations’ singability, sense and naturalness and presented systematically in order to answer the research question

Then, the data of different cases were compared to each other and to the literature review in order to find out similarities and differences The data were analysed and discussed in accordance with the research question

Chapter summary

In brief, the research was conducted in two phases to answer each research question respectively In phase one, eight Vietnamese teenager songs were chosen purposively Then, all data collected from analysing both Vietnamese and English lyrics of chosen songs were categorised and analysed to find out strategies commonly used by translators in translating Vietnamese teenager song lyrics into English In phase two, people fulfilling the criteria were interviewed with prepared questions, both closed and open-ended ones The interviews were recorded and then studied to look for emerging themes The results of the research will be presented and discussed in Chapter 4 with charts as illustrations

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

On the basis of Newmark’s theory of translation methods and procedures, the researcher examined the semantic features of words and phrases in the nine English translational versions of eight selected songs in contrast to the source texts in Vietnamese All the typical strategies used by the translator in these eight songs were detected and illustrated from the highest frequency to the lowest ones Finally, as a summary of findings, all the figures will be demonstrated by charts

4.1 Research question 1: What strategies are applied in translating Vietnamese teenager songs into English?

After collecting all lyrics of Vietnamese teenager songs and their English versions, the researcher based on Newmark’s theory of translation methods (Chapter 2) to identify strategies applied in Vietnamese – English translation process of selected songs and arranged them into two main categories in terms of translation methods applied for translating a song as a whole, including adaptation and semantic translation However, when it comes to more specific items like sentences or phases, there will be particular strategies discussed in detail

4.1.1 Adaptation

According to the definition, adaptation is the freest translation method When using this method, the translator acts as the second author of the text While preserving the theme, characters and plots of the text, he recreates a new form for it, using his own words and expressions, trying to convey the text’s meaning or message as accurately as possible Unlike text translation, song translation is considered as a rather challenging task because of musical constraints Therefore, adaptation tends to be one of the most favourite methods employed by translators in dealing with song lyrics This offers translators a vast space to do their translation or more precisely, their recreation Among the eight