An investigation into the vietnamese translation of english adverbs and adverbials as employed in to kill a mockingbird by harper lee

THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES NGUYỄN NỮ THANH THẢO AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH ADVERBS AND A SUMMARY Da Nang, 2017..

THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

NGUYỄN NỮ THANH THẢO

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH ADVERBS AND

(A SUMMARY)

Da Nang, 2017

This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang

Supervisor: Lê Thị Giao Chi, Ph.D

Examiner 1 : Assoc.Prof Lâm Quang Đông

Examiner 2 : Trần Quang Hải, Ph.D

The thesis was be orally defended at the Examining Committee Time : 09/09/2017

Venue : University of Foreign Language Studies

- The University of Da Nang

This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at :

- Library of University of Foreign Language Studies,

The University of Da Nang

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 RATIONALE

It is not easy to know when literature itself dated from Perhaps, it began just as human beings had their reclamation to gain their world, or on a journey of discovery to conquer and dominate the nature for human society formation Up to now, literature has always played an important role in our spiritual and social life in all times It

is a tool of knowledge, discovery, and ideologies about the world

Literary translation is an activity not to be considered as an impossible task or looked down upon as less creative than writing poetry or fiction The necessity of translation service is dramatically acute in our modern word Not only do nations depend on it to bridge what would otherwise an impossible communication gap but it also accommodates human access to the wealth of global scientific and technology information, as well as to the ideas that shape our society

The basic concept of translation is to find equivalence that preserves features of the original meaning or message, applied to every kind of text forms Therefore, the words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs from the source language can be translated into the target language in the way that the message can be retained This means the original meaning should not diverge from what is presented in the target language

However, the structure of each language is naturally different from one another This means the translator, in the quest for retaining the original message conveyed in the source text needs

to make necessary or different procedures in translation, so that equivalence in communication across the two languages can be

achieved This translation phenomenon also occurs in translating parts of speech in some texts In every language over the world, it is generally known that parts of speech have several classes: verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, adverbials, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections Almost all sentences contain adverbs

so as to add more specific information about place, time, manner, cause or degree to a verb, an adjective, a phrase or another adverb However, there have sofar not many adequate studies investigating the function as well as the translation of English adverbs and adverbials into Vietnamese, especially in texts of a literary type As

a result, the likelihood of frequent confusion facing many students

of English might probably stem from the differences in the part of speech in English and Vietnamese This study aims at analyzing the similarities and differences between the two languages in expressing the meaning by means of adverbs and adverbials, and ultimately putting forward some suggestions on how they can be effectively used in communication

A novel entitled To Kill a Mockingbird is not an exception

It has been intensively read in recent years, and it can be taken as a typical piece of writing which is characterististic of the literary genre

As the novel contains many adverbs and adverbials being used, the Vietnamese translation of these adverbs and adverbials can

be more than a problem to language learners and readers For the effect of equivalence in translation, readers may expect some necessary adjustments or alterations made in the target language

in term of lexical or structural means For example:

SL: Atticus said dryly, ‘Do not let this inspire you to

further glory, Jeremy’ (Chaper 8)

TL: Bố nói khô khan, “Đừng lấy chuyện này làm vinh

quang, Jeremy.”

In this example, we can see that the ST verbal structure verb + adv has been rendered into the TT verbal structure verb+adj, which shows a shift in verb structure, according to Catford’s taxonomy (1965/2000) More specifically, the adverb of maner in the ST has

been translated into adjective in the TT, that is, the adverb dryly is replaced by an adjective khô khan in the TL Here, we can see a

common procedure adopted in translation which is transposition

(Vinay& Darbelnet 1995/2000), where the translator replaces one word class with another without changing the message

As the process of going from one language into another can involve a number of problems which are due to the differences between the two languages in terms of word classes or procedures that the translator needs to undergo is deemed as important as the ultimate goal of any work of translation is to preserve the

communicative effect Hence, the topic An investigation into the

Vietnamese translation of English adverbs and adverbials as employed in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is thus to be

carried out in the hope that better insight into the various representations of English adverbs amd adverbials can be recognized once the novel is translated into Vietnamese

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 Aims

The aim of the study is to investigate the kinds of adverbs

and adverbials used in the novel entitled To Kill a Mockingbird by

Harper Lee It looks at how these adverbs and adverbials are translated into Vietnamese as manifested in the Vietnamese version

by Huỳnh Kim Anh and Phạm Viêm Phương and what procedures have been adopted in the Vietnamese translation of these adverbs and

- To identify the procedures adopted in translating these English adverbs and adverbials into Vietnamese;

- To work out the most common procedure adopted in the Vietnamese translation of English adverbs and adverbials as

employed in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2 What procedures have been adopted in the Vietnamese

translation of English adverbs and adverbials in the novel To Kill a

Mockingbird by Harper Lee?

3 What is the most common procedure adopted in the Vietnamese translation of English adverbs and adverbials in the

novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Due to the limitation of time, ability, and conditions, I only wish to concentrate on investigating the Vietnamese translation of

English adverbs and adverbials in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by

Harper Lee Therefore, this research focuses on a sample of 250

adverbs and adverbials used in To Kill a Mockingbird in the first

eight chapters written by Haper Lee and their Vietnamese equivalents So, in this study, I used Vinay and Darbelnet’s methodology of translation, especially the two procedures – transposition and modulation – which are used as analytical tool for the analysis of how adverbs and adverbials in the corpus are translated into Vietnamese, and what procedures have been adopted

in translation

1.5 JUSTIFICATION FOR THE STUDY

Hopefully, making an investigation into the Vietnamese

translation of English adverbs and adverbials in To Kill a

Mockingbird will be a contribution to the existing knowledge of the

field And findings of the procedures used in translating English adverbs and adverbials will be expected to be of great value to Vietnamese learners of English

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study is organized into five chapters including:

- Chapter One “Introduction

- Chapter Two “Literature Review and Theoretical Background”

- Chapter Three “Research Design and Methodology”

- Chapter Four “Discussion of Findings”

- Chapter Five “Conclusion – Implications – Recommendations”

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

Translation is a complex process where fragile balance is achieved between the equivalence of the text translated and the

linguistic means chosen In reality, translation from English into Vietnamese is a complex work which poses great difficulties to the translator but there are a few researchers dealing with adverb translation There are researchers who have done analysis about language translation and the process of translation from English into Vietnamese

By means of researches, many problems of translation have been revealed At first there are various methods and procedures of translations, yet according to Nida and Taber (1969/1982)’s methodology for translation Therefore, adverb has also frequently been a subject matter of study among writers and teachers Actually, English adverb has been paid much attention and described by such a lot of grammarians like Walker and Elsworth (1988), Laurie Rozakis (2003), Haln and Hensley (2000), and so on Generally, English adverb

is studied concerning three perspectives, theoretical, practical, and and functional, and the most detailed pictures of English adverb are offered

by Eastwood (1992), Quirk (1973) and Greenbaum (1985)

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Definition of Translation

Translation, by dictionary definition, consists of changing from one form to another, to turn into one ‘own or another’ language (the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1974) Some authors have given the following different definitions of translation

2.2.2 Equivalence in Translation

Equivalence is defined as a central concept in translation theory Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) [28] view equivalence-oriented translation as a procedure which replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different wording They also suggest that, if this procedure is applied during the translation process, it can maintain the stylistic impac of the SL textin the TL text

b Function of Vietnamese Adverbs

+ Adverbs modifying adverb

+ Adverbs modifying adjective

+ Adverbs modifying verb

+ Adverbs modifying noun

c Position of Vietnamese Adverbs

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODS

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

- Providing some basic theoretical concepts related to word, adverbs and adverbials, Vietnamese adverbs and adverbials, translation and translation procedures;

- Collecting samples of English adverbs and adverbials in To

Kill a Mockingbird and their Vietnamese translations in the translated

version;

- Describing and analyzing the collected data to figure out the translation procedures used in the act of translating;

Also, to gather data for the most commonly used procedure,

a combined qualitative and quantitative approach is used

3.2 DATA COLLECTION

Firstly, the data was collected from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

by Harper Lee A total of 500 samples have been extracted, in which250 are of the original language – English (i.e 200 adverbs and

50 abverbials) and 250 of the target language – the Vietnamese translational equivalents It is important to note that the sampled adverbs taken for investigation came from the first eight chapters of the novel only

Secondly, the collected data was categorized according to different types of adverbs and adverbials The collected data was then divided into different types of adverbs After this, each language pair, that is, the English adverb and adverbial and its Vietnamese equivalent from the sample was analysed, based on the chosen procedures of translation proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet

3.3 DATA ANALYSIS

Firstly, the data collected was examined to discover what

types of adverbs and adverbials are used in ‘To Kill a Mockingbirds’

by Harper Lee, and how they are translated

Secondly, the data, or rather, the Vietnamese translational equivalents of English adverbs and adverbials, were analysed, and and then categorised following the common procedures of translation proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995) namely transposition and modulation

Thirdly, the data was quantitatively processed and shown in the statistical tables

Finally, the frequency of each procedure was displayed in the tables

3.4 RESEARCH PROCEDURES

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 PREAMPLE OF ADVERBS AND ADVERBIALS USED IN

4.2 THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH

ADVERBS AND ADVERBIALS IN TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

4.2.1 Transposition

a Transposition in Translating Adverbs of Manner

Table 4.2 The Vietnamese equivalents of Adverbs of Manner

“I’m Charles Baker Harris,”

he said “I can read.”

"Chào", Jem vui vẻ đáp

"Tao là Charles Baker Harris", nó nói "Tao biết đọc đó"

End-mid

(52) Dill sighed patiently

“I told her till I was blue in

the face where I was

goin‘— she’s just seein’

too many snakes in the

closet Bet that woman

drinks a pint for breakfast

every morning—know she

drinks two glasses full

Seen her.”

Dill thở dài kiên nhẫn "Tớ

đã cố hết sức nói dì ấy tớ đi đâu rồi đó chứ - dì ấy chỉ thấy quá nhiều rắn trong tủ

Tớ dám chắc bữa điểm tâm nào dì ấy cũng uống nửa lít rượu - tớ biết dì ấy uống hai

ly rượu Từng thấy rồi mà."

Front- front

(53) Little Chuck’s face

contracted and he said

gently, “You mean him,

ma’am? Yessum, he’s

Khuôn mặt Little Chuck cau

lại và nó nói nhẹ nhàng, "Ý

cô nói nó hả? Vâng, nó còn sống Nó làm gì khiến cô sợ

mid

Mid-Adverb of Manner Vietnamese Equivalent Trans-

clearly, and sometimes in

the middle of a game he

would sigh at length, then

go off and play by himself

behind the car-house

Anh ấy nhớ mẹ rất rõ, và

đôi khi đang chơi giữa chừng anh ấy thở dài hồi lâu, sau đó bỏ đi chơi một mình ở phía sau nhà xe

mid

Mid Vietnamese Equivalents in Form of Noun Phrases

b Modulation in Translating Adverbs of Manner

- Concrete for abstract

Table 4.4 The Abstract for Concrete Modulation in Translating

Adverbs of Manner

Adverb of Manner Vietnamese Equivalent

(58) The remains of a picket

drunkenly guarded the front

yard— a “swept” yard that was

never swept— where johnson

grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in

abundance

Tàn tích của những chiếc cọc

nhọn làm hàng rào xiêu vẹo

ở sân trước - một cái sân "để quét" vốn không bao giờ được quét - nơi cỏ cho gia súc và cỏ thuốc thỏ mọc lan tràn

(59) “He’ll be so presently,” said

Atticus “It was a little too strong for

him.” Our father sighed “I’m going

to bed,” he said “If I don’t wake up

"Nó sẽ ổn thôi," bố Atticus nói

"Chuyện này hơi sốc với nó." Bố chúng tôi thở dài, "em đi ngủ đây," ông nói "Nếu sáng mai em