Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT Lê Thị Huyền Trang handling cohesive devices in Translating International Trade contracts (Xö lý phơng tiện liên kết dịch hợp đồng thơng mại quốc tế) Graduation thesis Field : English linguistics Vinh, 20007 Lê Thị Huyền Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT ……   …… Graduation thesis Handling cohesive devices in Translating International Trade contracts (Xử lý phơng tiện liên kết dịch hợp đồng thơng mại quốc tế) Field : English linguistics By : Supervesor : Lê Thị Huyền Trang Trần Bá Tiến M.A Vinh, 20007 Lê Thị HuyÒn Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts Acknowledgements It is extremely lucky for me when I have opportunity to this graduation thesis After a long period of time to study, with great attempt I have finished my paper I would like to express my thanks to all who help me during studying this Deepest first of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, M.A Tran Ba Tien : who has given me much invaluable advice, guidance, corrections and encouragement for the accomplishment of the study I am also indebted to foreign experts and my teachers in the foreign Language Department for their helpful me overcome difficulties in the process of my study My thanks also go to my beloved family for providing me with valuable support and encouragement Finally, I wish to express my warm thanks to all my friends for their love and assistance that help me to fulfill this study Le Thi Huyen Trang Vinh 2007 TABLE OF CONTENT Page Lê Thị Huyền Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts ACKNOWLEGEMENT PART A: INTRODUCTION …………………………….………………….1 Rationale ……………………………………………………… Aims of the Study ……………………………………………….1 Scope of the Study……………………………………………… Methods of the Study ……………………………………………2 Design of the Study …………………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT ……………………………….…… …………3 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ………………… ……… 1.1 Translation Theory …………………………….…………… … 1.2 Definitions of Translation …………… …………………… ….3 1.3 Translation Methods …………………………………… ……….3 1.4 Text Styles in Translation…….…………………… …………… 1.5 Process of Translation…………………………… …….……… 1.2 Theory of Discourse………………………………………….… 1.2.1 Concept of Cohesion…………………………………… …… 1.2.2 Lexical Cohesion………………………………………… … ….4 1.2.2.1 Concept of Lexical Cohesion…………………………… … … 1.2.2.2 Types of Lexical Cohesion…………………………………… 1.2.2 Grammatical Cohesion………………………………… …… 1.2.3.1 Concept of Grammatical Cohesion…………………………… 1.2.3.2 Types of grammatical cohesion…………………… ……… CHAPTER 2: ANALYZING COHESIVE DEVICES IN TRANSLATION .5 2.1 Contract………………………………………… ………………5 2.1.1 What is a Contract? 2.1.2 The Importance of Contract………………………… ….………5 2.1.3 The Language of Contract…………………………… ……… 2.1.3.4 The Clause Pattern in International Trade Contracts………… 2.2 Grammatical Cohesion…………….…………………… …… 2.2.1 Reference……………………………………………………… 2.2.2 Conjunctions……………….…………………………………….7 2.2.3 Substitution………………………………………………………8 2.2.4 Ellipsis………………………………………………………… 2.3 Lexical Cohesion……………………………………………… 2.3.1 Semantic Field………………………………………………… 2.3.2 Repetition Lê Thị Huyền Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts 2.3.3 Synonyms………………………………………………………10 2.3.4 Superordinates and General Words…………………………….11 CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATION……………………………………………….12 3.1 Evaluation of a Translation Work…………………….…… 12 3.2 Interpretation of the Translation Survey…….……………… 13 PART C: CONCLUSION………………………………………………… 15 Summary of Major Findings………………………………… 15 Suggestions for Further Study………………………………….15 REFERENCES APPENDIX PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale During the process of studying, learners of English usually concentrate on the logicality of the text When they hear or read a passage of language, they can decide without difficulty whether it is a well-organized text or is a collection of unrelated sentences Textual coherence or relations or ties organize and, to some extent, create a coherent by means of cohesive devices between various parts of a text as Mona Baker (1992:181) puts it “Cohesion is the net work of lexical, grammatical and other relations “ Although the practice of translation is long established, the study of the field developed into an academic discipline only in the second half of the twentieth century According to Jeremy Munday(2001), the study of translation came into being about in the 1950s, however, until 1990s did discourse analysis come to prominence in this branch As it is affirmed in Callow’s book of “Discourse considerations in Translating the Word of God” (1974) “Each Lª ThÞ Hun Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts language has its own patterns to convey the interrelationships of persons and events; in no language may these patterns be ignored if the translation is to be understood by its readers” (Quoted in Baker, 1993:180) Translators are likely to pay attention to grammatical structures and word stocks but not to the cohesive devices when translating English is obviously different from Vietnamese This paper investigates how cohesive devices are transferred from English into Vietnamese Analyzing cohesive devices in translating English into Vietnamese will supply translators with an insight into how ties or connectivity is used in real texts to have a good translation version In the situation of globalization, the era of developed economy, contracts especially International Trade Contracts become more and more important The characteristics of contract in general require accuracy, clarity and binding Despite the difficulty and complexity of the subject matter, we choose International Trade Contracts as the material to investigate Aim of the study With the above reasons, our targets of this thesis, firstly, is to examine theoretical approaches to discourse and translation to set the base for the investigation Most importantly, the study attempts to highlight the importance of applying theory into practical work by analyzing and handling cohesive devices in translation Thirdly, the study hopes to find out some differences and similarities in the cohesive devices used in the two languages Finally, it is aimed at evaluating some translation works to improve translation skill and conducting a survey to uncovers how learners of English deal with cohesive devices in the translation of International Trade Contracts Methods of the study This study investigates the cohesive devices in translation, employing several methods as follows: The first method applied in this investigation is the review of published theories The next is the analysis of all selected data originated in International Trade Contracts Moreover, Contrastive analysis and comparative method have been applied Lê Thị Huyền Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts Additionally, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in the thesis Design of the study This paper consists of three main parts Part A: Introduction We present the rationale of choosing the topic, the aims, the methods to be applied and the design of the thesis as well Part B: Development In this part, there are three chapters: Chapters I: Theoretical Background The Theoretical Background supplies fundamental and theoretical concepts that are relevant to the purpose of the study Chapter II: Analyzing Cohesive Devices in Translation This main chapter analyzes the cohesive devices used in the legal documents We also study how translators and/or learners of English handle these transitions in the transference of International Trade Contracts Chapter III: Implication In this chapter, the evaluations of several translations are made from which the writer gains a lot of lessons and experiences There is also a translation survey to study how learners handle transition devices in their Vietnamese-English translation Part C: Conclusion The last part offers the review of the research Suggestions for further study are also presented in this section PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: Theoretical Background 1.1 Translation Theory Throughout history, written and spoken translation has played a crucial Lê Thị Huyền Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts role in interhuman communication and not least in providing access to important texts for scholarship and religious purposes As a mean of communication, translation appears to be vital in the world today; it helps people to communicate by eliminating the language barrier that separates them Translation is used for multilingual processes such as international agreements between states, public and private organizations The official documents such as treaties, contracts, and the constitution of an independent state an instruction issued by exporting companies give translations enhanced importance A theory is an explanation of a phenomenon, has no tangible manifestation but an idea that constitutes the internal to representation of a phenomenon In our investigation of the process, we recognize that the purpose of translation theory is “to reach an understanding of the processes undertaken in the act of translation and, not, as is so commonly misunderstood, to provide a set of norms for effecting the perfect translation” (Bassnett McGuire, cited in Roger T.Bell, 1991: 22) Although the practice of translating is long established, the study of the field developed into an academic subject only really in the second half of the twentieth of the century Many books on linguistic and translation theories have been established However, there are many different and even opposite points of views on translation theory In this chapter, the author would like to review the most expressive and relating translation position that shapes the theoretical background for the study 1.2 Definitions of Translation There is no such a perfect or ideal definition for translation The term “translation” has been defined in different ways Translation “is rendering a written text into author intended the text” (Roger T.Bell, cited in Bui Tien Bao, 1999: 4) Roger T Bell (1991) claims that “Translation is the expression in another language target language of what has been expressed in one language source language preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies” Translation is basically a transference of form of a language The form of the source language is replaced by the form of the target language Although different theorists have their own definition of translation it is generally referred to as “the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language (Roger T Bell 1999:6) Lê Thị Huyền Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts 1.3 Translation Methods Translation methods are the procedures used in translation for possible range of text or text types They provide a background of fundamental and restricted rules and suggestions for translating the text, commenting translation Peter Newmark (1988) establishes the form of a flattened V diagram of translation methods: Source language emphasis Target language emphasis Word-for-word translation Adaptation Literal translation free translation Faithful translation Idiomatic translation Semantic translation Communicative translation _ _ Word-for-word translation Word-for-word translation is often understood as interliner translation, the follows the source language words immediately Translators keep the same ideas and forms The source language word order is persevered and the words are translated simply by their most common meanings This method is used to construe a difficult text as a pre-translation process and to understand the mechanics of the source language Literal translation: Literal translation is regarded as a pre-translation process to point out the problems to be solved The lexical words are rendered singly, however, the nearest target language equivalents are transferred from the source language grammatical structures Faithful Translation Faithful translation attempts to reproduce the exact contextual meaning of the original within the restriction of the target language grammatical structures It changes the cultural word and keeps the degree of grammatical and lexical abnormality in the translation It affords to be extremely faithful to the source language writer’s intention and realization Semantic translation Semantic translation is not similar to faithful translation because it must under take the aesthetic value of the source language text The faithful translation is uncompromising and dogmatic, meanwhile, the semantic translation compromises on “meaning” where appropriate in order that the Lª ThÞ Hun Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts completed version finishes with no assonance, word-play or repetition jars Adaptation Adaptation that is considered the freest form of translation is used mainly for plays The theme and the plots are preserved; the source language culture converted to the target language culture and the text is rewritten Free translation Free translation reproduces the subject without the manner, or the content without the form of the original Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than the original Idiomatic translation Idiomatic translation reproduces the information of the original but tends to misrepresent the meaning by preferring colloquialism and idioms where these not exist in the original Communicative translation Communicative translation attempts to interpret the exact contextual meaning of the original in such way that both content and language are really acceptable and comprehensible to the readership 1.4 Text Styles in Translation According to Newmark, the text is classified into four types: - Narrative is a dynamic chain of events where the emphasis is on the verbs or phrasal verb - Description is immobile with the concentration on linking verbs, adjectives and adjectival nouns - Discussion is a treatment of ideas with the focus on concepts, verbs of thought, mental activity… - Dialogue with the stress on colloquialisms and pacifisms 1.5 Process of Translation In the study of translation theory (Newmark, 1995), translation process begins with choosing a method of approach Then translation is made with four levels: the source language text level, the level of language, the referential level and the cohesive level There are two approaches to translating The first approach to translating is to start translating sentence by sentence to get the feel and the feeling tone of the text and then sit back, review it and read the rest of the source language text The second one is to read the whole text two or three times and find the intention, register, tone, mark the difficult words and passages and start Lê Thị Huyền Trang 10 .. .Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts VINH UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT ……   …… Graduation thesis Handling cohesive devices in Translating International. .. originated in International Trade Contracts Moreover, Contrastive analysis and comparative method have been applied Lª ThÞ Hun Trang Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts. .. in order to fulfill our subject of the study satisfactorily Lª ThÞ Hun Trang 16 Handling Cohesive Devices in Translating International Trade Contracts Chapter II: Analyzing Cohesive Devices in