THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY oOo GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON STRATEGIES OF TRANSLATING RELATIVE CLAUSES IN THE NOVEL “LIFE OF PI” BY TRINH LU (LITERATURE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 2012) Supervisor NGU[.]
THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY -oOo - GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON STRATEGIES OF TRANSLATING RELATIVE CLAUSES IN THE NOVEL “LIFE OF PI” BY TRINH LU (LITERATURE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 2012) Supervisor : NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH Student Name : TRỊNH LAN TRINH Student ID : 18D170194 Class : K54N4 Ha Noi, 2022 ABSTRACT This corpus-based study presents how English relative clauses are used in literary works Relative clauses ensure semantic clarity and textual variety but they cause difficulty to non-native speakers of English due to their diverse uses and functions The research is conducted to analysis on relative clause in two languages The aim of this paper is to compare of relative clause in two languages, namely English and Vietnamese The research stage in analyzing the data was data collection, data classifying, data presenting The result of the research is similarities and differences in the structure of relative clauses in English and Vietnamese The study starts with analyzing relative clauses in the source text "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel and the target text is a translation of Trinh Lu The paper also defines translation and analyses several factors affecting translation, text factors, context factors, emotional factors, the translator, and comes to a conclusion that the translator is the key factor in the process of translating relative clauses Besides, translation contains different mental activities such as language, thinking, problemsolving, memory, conceptualization, learning, information processing, perception, understanding, re-expression etc., which makes translation a complex phenomenon In traditional translation views, translation is equal to full translation, while amplification, deletion, edition, narration, contraction and adaptation cannot be called faithful translation Only today when translation develops rapidly and the exchange of information goes on continuously will translation variation come into light and go hand in hand with complete translation in the arena of translation A good translation respects and, therefore, reflects the author’s style and vocabulary The voice of a good translation is as distinctive in English as the author’s voice in the original language, also when compared to other authors translated by the same translator Therefore with this study I hope that, students will aware of the skills required for the translation and find new ways to overcome all the difficulties faced during the translation task in the long run not confine themselves to the mere translation courses at school i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor Ms Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh who guided and encouraged me throughout the preparation and writing of my thesis Although in the process, both of us were caught Covid-19 With great scrutiny, she offered me insightful comments and suggestions at each stage of my thesis Without her valuable guidance, warm encouragement and patient corrections, this thesis would not be accomplished Secondly, I am also very grateful to my dear friends who offered me their generous help, gave me many useful pieces of advice and shared with me their experiences of academic writing Finally, my deepest gratitude and appreciation go to my family Their love, support and constant encouragement gave me a great deal of strength and determination that help me during the stressful time of writing this paper ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVATIONS v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES .vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1 Rationale Previous studies Aims of the study 4 Research Subjects Research subject of study is strategies of translating relative clauses in the novel “Life of Pi” by Trinh Lu Scope of the study With the limitation of time and space, in this paper, I just focus on the key points of relative clauses and some main strategies of translating relative clauses in “ Life of Pi" by Yann Martel and compared it with the translation copy of Vietnamese “Cuộc đời Pi” by Trinh Lu (Literature Publishing House, 2012) .4 Research methodology .5 6.1 Collecting sample 6.2 Dealing with data 6.3 Analyzing and comparing Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW An overview of translation 1.1 Definition of translation 1.2 Translation equivalence 1.3 Translation methods .10 An overview of relative clauses 13 2.1 Definition of relative clauses 13 2.2 Classification 14 2.3 Important of translation 18 iii CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS .20 Overview Life of Pi and the translation "Cuộc đời Pi" by Trinh Lu 20 1.1 The Author Yann Martel .20 1.2 The Novel “Life of Pi” 20 1.3 Translator Trinh Lu .23 1.4 Literary values of the novel “Life of Pi” .24 Strategies for translating relative clauses in the work “Cuộc đời Pi” by Trinh Lu 26 2.1 Reduction relative clauses 27 2.1.2 Splitting 30 2.1.3 Changing into compound sentence .32 2.1.4 Using parenthesis ( ) or hyphen “ – ” for explanation ) ( Marks employment ) 33 2.1.5 Treating relative clauses as adjectives .34 2.3 Other flexible ways for translating 34 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS .36 4.1 Recommendations 36 4.2 Suggestions .38 CONCLUSION .42 REFERENCES I APPENDIX .II iv LIST OF ABBREVATIONS No Abbreviation English full name Vietnamese Meaning SL Source text Ngôn ngữ nguồn TL Target text Ngơn ngữ đích Eg For example Ví dụ RC Relative Clause Mệnh đề qua hệ RCCs Relative Clause Cấu trúc mệnh đề tương đối Constructions v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES No Name Content Diagram Relative pronouns in non - defining clauses Table Statistics the main strategies for translating relative clauses in the work " Life of Pi" Table Examples of reduction relative clauses Table Examples of Translating RC into “mà” Table Examples of Splitting Table Examples of Changing into compound sentence Table Examples of Changing into compound sentence Table Examples of Marks employment Table Examples of Treating relative clauses as adjectives 10 Table Examples of Other flexible ways for translating vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY Rationale Language is so much more than just a tool allowing us to communicate It is the expression of culture, society, and beliefs Thousands of cultures exist around the world, all expressing the specifics of their daily lives through their own languages Classics and masterpieces can be enjoyed by people around the world But, perhaps it is even more important that translation helps preserve literature While the language might not be widespread, translation offers the works a much larger audience for many years to come All of this is possible thanks to translation The very existence of world literature stands upon translation English and translations are also, they are not simply languages; they have become lifestyles they are languages that are dynamic and are continuously evolving in the translation process, we have to pay attention not only to grammar, structure, vocabulary, and pronunciation but also the culture of the new language It is easy to make mistakes and often find a lot of difficulties in translation and when dealing with grammar On the other hand, I found many Vietnamese learners are experiencing a lot of difficulties when learning to use English relative clauses, special in translation text They make many mistakes in making clauses containing relative clauses such as lack of relative pronouns, lack of subject-verb agreement Translation is more than just changing the words from one language to another Translation builds bridges between cultures Translators are people who have a near-perfect understanding of both the source language and culture and the target language and culture They may use a few more words, or perhaps even change the wording of a whole paragraph, but the meaning of the original will get through It is the same with the translation on relative clauses in literary works Because of the above mentioned reasons, my final thesis is entitled “ A study on strategies of translating relative clauses in the novel “Life of Pi” by Trinh Lu It is a famous literary work and is sold more than ten million copies worldwide This study will give some strategies for translating relative clause from English into Vietnamese The study confirms that translators need more than language skills: in addition to general and sometimes specialized knowledge, they need analytical, research, So, to help people who are learning English have deep understanding of translating relative clauses in English as well as in Vietnamese I hope this study will help all concerned understand and use English relative clauses more easily I also hope that this study will be useful for them when translating relative clauses in English into Vietnamese and vice versa Previous studies Linguistic typology of the English and Vietnamese languages is different As a result, there are some ways of rendering English relative clause into Vietnamese And the question is how to transfer English relative clause into appropriate and natural Vietnamese version That is the reason why some people have conducted studies or reports on this issue These studies have shown common ways of translating relative clause from English into other languages Therefore, I would like to refer to these studies as reference materials for my graduation paper Firstly, this is “A Study of Translation of Relative Clauses from English into Thai ” conducted by Ph.D, Nattharath Leenakitti and Ph.D, Nattama Pongpairoj Leenakitti candidate in the English as an International Language Program, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand She received her M.A in Translation from the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University Nattama Pongpairoj, the corresponding author, is an associate professor in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand She received her B.A (English) (first-class honors) from Chulalongkorn University, M.A (Linguistics) from the University of Oregon, and Ph.D (Linguistics) from the University of York This research investigated translation strategies used in translating English relative clauses with the relativizers ‗who,‘‗which,‘ and ‗that‘ into Thai To analyze the data, a framework for the analysis was constructed based on Chesterman‘s (1997) translation strategies, supported by Nida‘s (1964) and Saibua‘s (2007) translation adjustment techniques The findings confirmed that the two main strategies used in translating the English relative clauses into Thai are literal translation and translation adjustment While literal translation suggested parallel syntactic structures between the English and Thai relative clauses, translation adjustment underscored distinctions between the two languages The findings confirm the hypothesis and have implications for the study of the relative clause structure and its translation strategies The second study-“Relative clauses: Structure and variation in everyday English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.” is conducted by Andrew Radford Andrew Radford is lecturer in Linguistics in the School of English & American Studies at the University of East Anglia (1975–76), Lecturer in Linguistics in the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages at the University of Oxford (1976–78) and Professor of Linguistics of Essex University Andrew Radford's study use novel examples from live, unscripted radio/TV broadcasts and the internet, it will help us to reconsider the nature of everyday English and its complex interplay of syntactic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors Uncovering unusual types of non-standard relative clauses, Andrew Radford develops theoretically sophisticated analyses in an area that has traditionally hardly been touched on: that of non-standard (yet not clearly dialectal) variation in English Making sense of a huge amount of data, the study demonstrates that some types of non-standard relative clauses have a complex syntactic structure of their own in which the relation between the relative clause and its antecedent is either syntactically encoded or pragmatic in nature, while others come about as a result of hypercorrection, and yet others arise from processing errors The last one is “Understanding relative clauses: A usage-based view on theprocessing of complex constructions” by Dr D (Daniel) Wiechmann University of Amsterdam Daniel Wiechmann’s Understanding Relative Clauses presents an extremely detailed and methodologically interesting quantitative corpus analysis of one of the most debated syntactic structures in the field of (psycho)linguistics,namely, relative clause constructions (RCCs) Wiechmann’s analysis, conducted from the usage3 ... of study is strategies of translating relative clauses in the novel “Life of Pi” by Trinh Lu I choose this book and the translation copy of Trinh Lu because the translation methods offered in. .. sophisticated analyses in an area that has traditionally hardly been touched on: that of non-standard (yet not clearly dialectal) variation in English Making sense of a huge amount of data, the study. .. hypothesis as to reasons behind processing ease/difficulty Aims of the study This study is aimed at exploring strategies for translating relative clauses in the novel “Life of Pi” by Trinh Lu - Introduce