VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER STRATEGIES APPLIED IN THE ENGLISH VIETNAMESE TRANSLA[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER STRATEGIES APPLIED IN THE ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF POEMS IN THE POETRY COLLECTION “LOVE & MISADVENTURE” BY LANG LEAV Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thuý, M.A Student: Nguyễn Hoàng Anh Phương Course: QH2013.F1.E16 HÀ NỘI – 2017 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 ANH-VIỆT CÁC BÀI THƠ TRONG TUYỂN TẬP THƠ "YÊU LÀ THƯƠNG HAY VẬN RỦI" CỦA TÁC GIẢ LANG LEAV Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.S Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thuý Sinh viên: Nguyễn Hoàng Anh Phương Khóa: QH2013.F1.E16 HÀ NỘI – 2017 I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Hoàng Anh Phương, QH2013.E16, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language) 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 Signature Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I want to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thuý, M.A – Lecturer of Faculty of English Language Teacher Education Had it not been for her helpful guidance and active encouragement over the last months, this graduation paper could not have been successfully completed Her insights and expertise in translation studies and research methodology have greatly assisted me upon carrying out the study I am also deeply indebted to my family and friends for their solid support during the process of my research Without their mental and financial assistance, I would not have mustered enough motivation to finalise this study I am heartily thankful to my classmates for their enthusiastic support and valuable suggestions on my thesis A special thank goes to Ms Phạm Hồng Anh for providing me with a source of inspiration, so that I could decide on the topic of this research I am also truly grateful to Ms Nguyễn Thu Nhàn who has wholeheartedly accompanied and motivated me along the process of research conduct Finally, I would like to offer my warm regards to all the readers of this thesis paper I appreciate your constructive feedback and hope that this study will be of use to anyone who takes an interest in its topic i ABSTRACT Poetry translation has always been regarded as a more perplexing task than the translation of any other literary texts due to its intrinsic literary and aesthetic complexity Hence, concerted efforts have been made to identify translation methods or strategies that can be adopted to preserve the poet’s message and stylistic uniqueness, thus generating equivalent effects in target language The aims of this study were to find out the translation strategies applied to translate the poems in the poetry collection Love & Misadventure written by Lang Leav, concerning André Lefevere’s seven strategies (1975), and subsequently draw some lessons about poetry translation from English into Vietnamese The data were obtained from 65 Englishwritten poems and their Vietnamese translated versions in the bilingual book Love & Misadventure – Yêu là thương hay vận rủi by means of document observation The theoretical model used was seven strategies for translating poetry devised by André Lefevere (1975) The researcher opted for a qualitative approach, and the data were analysed descriptively The findings showed that the translator applied three out of seven strategies proposed by Lefevere which were metrical translation, rhymed translation, and blank verse translation Blank verse translation was the most frequently used strategy, followed by metrical translation and rhymed translation These results implied the translator’s tendencies to transfer poetic form and meaning in her translation, as well as revealing certain gaps in Lefevere’s methodology in the case of translating poetry from English into Vietnamese ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement i Abstract ii Table of contents iii List of tables, figures, and abbreviations v Chapter – Introduction 1.1 Statement of problem and rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Organisation of the paper Chapter – Literature review 2.1 Poetry translation 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Characteristics 2.1.2.1 Loss of poetic elements 2.1.2.2 Particular difficulties in poetry translation 2.1.2.3 Translator expertise 2.2 Approaches to translating poetry 10 2.2.1 Dryden’s triadic model (1680) 10 2.2.2 Raffel’s four audience-based types of poetry translation (1988) 11 2.2.3 Holmes’ four traditional approaches (1988) 12 2.2.4 Lefevere’s seven strategies for poetry translation (1975) 13 Chapter – Methodology 18 3.1 Selection of subjects 18 3.2 Sampling 19 3.3 Data collection procedure 19 iii 3.4 Data analysis procedure 19 Chapter – Findings & Discussion 21 4.1 Lefevere’s translation strategies applied in Love & Misadventure 21 4.2 Most dominantly used strategies in Love & Misadventure 22 4.2.1 Blank verse translation 22 4.2.2 Metrical translation 26 4.2.3 Rhymed translation 29 4.3 Some lessons about poetry translation from English into Vietnamese 32 Chapter – Conclusion 38 5.1 Summary of major findings 38 5.2 Limitations of the study 39 5.3 Suggestions for further studies 40 5.4 Contributions of the study 40 References 42 Appendix 45 iv LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations ST Source Text TT Target Text SL Source Language TL Target Language Tables Table 4.1 The translation strategies applied in translating Lang Leav’s poems v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter specifies the research problem and rationale, objectives of the study and research questions, the scope and the significance of the thesis, as well as the organisation of the whole paper 1.1 Statement of problem and rationale Literary translation holds an influential position among other types of translation given the complex nature of literary texts One of the most prominent translation scholars, Peter Newmark, states that the greater the quantity of a language's resources (e.g polysemy, word-play, sound-effect, metre, rhyme) a text is charged with, the more challenging it is to be translated, and the more worthwhile (1988) In this sense, a large number of researchers have set out to build a solid foundation for literary translation with regard to both theoretical frameworks and empirical approaches Within the field of literary translation, poetry rendering seems a more challenging task than translation of other literary modes Poetry is characterised by its distinctive literary and aesthetic features The former consist of rhymth, rhyme, metre, and the latter involve figurative language and rhetorical devices such as metaphor, simile, hyperbole Since form and content of poetry are highly interconnected and inseparable, the translator has to take into consideration both these two aspects in the translation process In consequence of such seemingly insurmountable difficulties, the issue of poetry translatability has given rise to considerable theoretical and practical debates among scholars Jacobson (1959) believes that poetry is by definition untranslatable; similarly, Frost (cited in Bassnet & Lefevere, 1998) describes poetry as “what gets lost in translation” On the other hand, despite acknowledging the varying degrees of loss of meaning in poetry translation, Newmark (1988) asserts that poetry is by no means unsuitable for translation In fact, poetry has been “superbly and closely translated at various times”, reflecting a linguistic harmony between the poet and the poet-translator Besides, poetry renderings prove to be a demonstration of the translator’s “suggestive and tactful compensatory sound techniques” Considering these polarised views on the translatability of poetry, more time and efforts have been dedicated to investigating the problems of translating poetry than any other literary genres Boase-Beier (2009) claims that “far more has been written about the translation of poetry than either prose or drama” Methodological studies of poetry and translation from a non-empirical position are regarded as “most valuable and most needed” by Bassnett (1980) In this regard, translation theorists have proposed various strategies to translate poetry, such as Holmes’ four traditional approaches to verse form translation (1988), or Lefevere’s seven descriptive strategies (1975) Nevertheless, in the context of English-to-Vietnamese translation, it could be noticed that few studies have been conducted in the matter of poetry translation from English into Vietnamese Meanwhile, taking the serious challenges of translating poems into account, there is a clear need for in-depth researches to be conducted into this branch of literary translation, particularly specific strategies to overcome those difficulties Therefore, this thesis paper is dedicated to contribute to the limited existing research body in the field of translated poetry from English into Vietnamese By testing the application of theories on strategies into real practice of translation, the study expects to offer new insights and corroborate earlier findings in the field of poetry translation in Vietnam As one of the few translated poetry books in Vietnam, Love & Misadventure – Yêu là thương hay vận rủi has been warmly welcomed by Vietnamese readers since its publication The reputation of its author (Lang Leav) as a best-selling contemporary writer and the translator’s credibility (Zelda) as a wellknown writer and poet herself have justified the researcher’s decision to undertake the study into this translated work ... objectives, the research aims to answer these following research questions: What are the translation strategies employed in the translation of poems in “Love & Misadventure” by Lang Leav from English into... identify all the translation strategies applied in the translated version of the poetry collection Love & Misadventure - to identify the most dominantly applied translation strategies in the translated... thus generating equivalent effects in target language The aims of this study were to find out the translation strategies applied to translate the poems in the poetry collection Love & Misadventure