Generally, euphemism employment in translation gets hold of an essential importance in not only orienting the audience’s attitude towards the characters mentioned in the plot but also mitigating the intension (if any) resulted in by the cultural conflict(s) between the source language and the target language. However, there are no abundant resources for studies on this research topic at present; therefore, the researcher was inspired to conduct a comparative study on euphemism in two Vietnamese translations of George Orwell’s The Animal Farm, which are translations produced by Phạm Minh Ngọc and An Lý. Accordingly, a twofold objective is addressed, particularly to figure out how different andor similar the translations are and what approaches taken by two translations to employ euphemism. Thanks to the methodology presented in Chapter 3, the researcher finds out that both of translators did employ euphemistic expressions though the frequency of euphemism employment in An’s translation is greater than that in Phạm’s. In addition, two main approaches taken to employ euphemism are also called out which are grammatical and lexical modalities. Hopefully, this paper’s findings and suggestions could partly contribute to enriching the data source on euphemism employment in translation for further studies.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON EUPHEMISM EMPLOYMENT IN TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF GEOGRE ORWELL’S THE ANIMAL FARM Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh, MA Student : Vũ Hồng Nhung Year of enrolment : HANOI, 2014 QH2010.F1 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH VIỆC SỬ DỤNG UYỂN NGỮ TRONG HAI BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA TÁC PHẨM THE ANIMAL FARM (GEORGE ORWELL) Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh Sinh viên : Vũ Hồng Nhung Khóa: QH2010.F1 HÀ NỘI, 2014 DECLARATION I hereby state that I, Vũ Hồng Nhung, QH2010.F1.E21, 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, 2014 Vũ Hồng Nhung i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh, MA for her precious guidance, valuable advice as well as her encouragement which were the decisive factors motivating me in accomplishing the paper despite the geographical distance between us Second, I would like to express my special thank to Ms Ngô Hà Thu for her inspiring talks which turned out to be my motivation that not only helped finish my graduation paper but broadened my background knowledge as well In addition, I would love to express my high appreciation for the special encouragement from my former English teacher, Ms Phạm Thu Hương, who plays an important role in giving useful pieces of advice that helped keep my mind in balance despite the hardship I was suffering from Besides, I also feel grateful for my family, especially my younger brother, for the strong support and special caring and treatment since the very first moment of my doing this graduation paper till the very last one Finally, I would like to say thank you to all of my friends whose helpful comments and wholehearted encouragement constructively contribute to the paper proceeding i ii ABSTRACT Generally, euphemism employment in translation gets hold of an essential importance in not only orienting the audience’s attitude towards the characters mentioned in the plot but also mitigating the intension (if any) resulted in by the cultural conflict(s) between the source language and the target language However, there are no abundant resources for studies on this research topic at present; therefore, the researcher was inspired to conduct a comparative study on euphemism in two Vietnamese translations of George Orwell’s The Animal Farm, which are translations produced by Phạm Minh Ngọc and An Lý Accordingly, a two-fold objective is addressed, particularly to figure out how different and/or similar the translations are and what approaches taken by two translations to employ euphemism Thanks to the methodology presented in Chapter 3, the researcher finds out that both of translators did employ euphemistic expressions though the frequency of euphemism employment in An’s translation is greater than that in Phạm’s In addition, two main approaches taken to employ euphemism are also called out which are grammatical and lexical modalities Hopefully, this paper’s findings and suggestions could partly contribute to enriching the data source on euphemism employment in translation for further studies ii iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments .i Abstract ii Table of contents .iii List of abbreviations v List of tables and figures vi Chapter 1- Introduction 1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale 1.2.Aims and objectives .2 1.3.Scope of the study 1.4.Significance of the study .3 1.5.Organization of the study Chapter – Literature review 2.1.Translation .5 2.1.1.Definitions of translation .5 2.1.2.Methods of translation 2.1.3.Communicative translation and semantic translation 2.2.Equivalence in translation 10 2.2.1.Language and culture 10 2.2.2.Definitions of equivalence in translation 11 2.2.3.Types of equivalence 12 2.3.Euphemism 13 2.3.1.Definitions of euphemism 13 2.3.2.Classification of euphemism .14 2.3.3.Theory of euphemism in translation 15 Chapter - Methodology 17 3.1.Research approaches 17 iii iv 3.2.Participants 17 3.3.Data collection instrument and procedure 18 Chapter - Findings and interpretation 20 4.1.Research question 1: A comparison of euphemism employment between two translations 20 4.2.Research question 2: Approaches of euphemism employment in two translations 26 4.2.1.Lexical modality 26 4.2.3.Grammatical modality .31 Chapter 5- Conclusion .34 5.1.Summary 34 5.2.Limitations of the study .35 5.3.Suggestions for further studies 36 References 38 Appendix 40 iv v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS - FELTE: ULIS: VNU: SL: TL: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education University of Languages and International Studies Vietnam National University Source language Target language v vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES - List of tables No Table Page Table 4.1: A demonstration of how source words/ phrases 20 are translated into Vietnamese by two translators Table 4.2.1.a: A demonstration of lexical modality-based 27 euphemism employment in the two translations Table 4.2.1.b: A demonstration of phrase in replace of 28 word/ phrase modality presented in the two translations Table 4.2.1.c: A demonstration of Sino-Vietnamese 29 involvement in the two translations - List of figures No Figure Page Figure 4.2.1.1: How lexical modality applied in Phạm’s 30 translation Figure 4.2.1.1: How lexical modality applied in An’s 30 translation vi vii vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study In Vietnam’s literature world, it can be noted that there are two major groups of audience who approach foreign literary works The former group often includes people with proficiency high enough to master the source language Not only are they able to read the work but they can figure out the message behind the lines and the attitude of the author as well People in the latter group are those who employ the translation of the work to enjoy its humanism However, the size of the latter group probably overwhelms the former one As the statistic number from some big Vietnamese publishing houses revealed in Vietnam’s book market, the number of translated copies is as many times as the available original ones For instance, according to Trẻ Publishing House’s copyright deposit data, there were 25,000 Vietnamese translation copies of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, which has been praised through decades, sold in 1987 whilst there were not many original ones available at that time Thence, translation has been an essential language-transferring means which helps spread out the foreign literature in the domestic sphere As a matter of fact, a variety of translation procedures coupled with methods are made full use of on the platform of translation theory so as to produce a high quality translation Obviously, there exists cultural differences between languages; therefore, in addition to transferring the explicit content of the literary work, a translator is expected to utilize proper representation language to denote a certain matter For example, a political issue mentioned in a source text, which is considered neutral in the source culture, might be offensive or extremely sensitive in the target culture Or in other case, the target language is selected carefully to ease the intensive atmosphere in literature Hence, the translator needs be aware of and pay best attention to the language expression, particularly lexical choice, in order that the key message is still 33.33 % 35 % 35 % 33.33 % 30 % 33.34% Figure 4.2.1.1: How lexical modality is applied in Phạm’s translation Figure 4.2.1.1: How lexical modality is applied in An’s translation According to the illustrations above, the researcher finds out that both translators share the trend of distributing sub-modalities of lexical modality in their translation and the differences between them can be considered insignificant Neither Phạm nor An has shown their most preferable sub-modality in accordance with the information presented in the above pie charts To be more specific, three sub-modalities are distributed quite equally in Phạm’s translation whereas An’s translation witnesses a slight difference when the sub-modality in the name of phrase in replace of word/phrase was applied less frequently than the rest which share the same percentage of 35% 4.2.2 Grammatical modality 29 In addition to utilizing the lexical modality, the researcher figured out that the two translators also took advantages of grammatical modality Accordingly, the common format of euphemism formation shall be presented as below: Noun/ verb + khơng được/ khơng cịn/khơng thuộc loại (not so) + adjective/ adverb+ cho lắm/ Thus, the researcher decided to introduce a comparison table description as below with a view to showing how grammatical modality is applied in actual translations Table 4.2.2: Expressions of euphemism employment following grammatical modality in translations Source text Page(11) was not of first rate Phạm’s translation không thuộc loại An’s translation không thuộc loại intelligence (the windmill) thơng minh (việc xây dựng cối sáng láng cho (cái cối xay presented xay) không thêm) nhiều trở ngại unexpected suôn sẻ cho không ngờ 25 không an tâm cho thấy lờ mở, bứt rứt 44 (năm năm (năm trại difficulties were conscious of a vague uneasiness (the farm had had a 24 fairly successful mùa, nhưng) year, but) was still 11() thành cơng ) khơng có tiền thiếu Page in the source language book of The Animal Farm 30 short of money his appearance that was a little altered my sight is failing 45 nhiều tiền cho da khơng cịn da khơng cịn 51 nhuận cho mắt tơi khơng cịn bóng xưa mắt tơi nhìn rõ cho As seen in the illustration table, euphemism employment following this modality is mostly applied by Phạm while An just perseveres with using free phrasal expressions Their translations, however, are still successful in restricting the readers’ negative feelings towards a certain character or incident which is presented in the books To sum up, there are two main approaches that the translators applied to form euphemism in their translations The first modality deals with lexicon and is formed by three sub-modalities which include methods of word in replace of word, phrase in replace of word/phrase and Sino-Vietnamese involvement The second modality works on grammatical aspect according to which a common formula is withdrawn Furthermore, thanks to the analyses presented in the above part, the researcher found out the common tendency of applying those modalities between the two translators that is the distribution of modalities in their translation does not witness any great differences; in contrast, they are employed as frequently as the others 31 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION With a view to concluding this paper, this chapter includes a brief summary and some limitations of the study as well as provides some proposals for further studies on related subject 5.1 Summary Supported by the data collected from a combination of the data research, the study has thoroughly answered two research questions 5.1.1 What are differences and/or similarities of euphemism employment in English-Vietnamese translation as seen in examples taken from two translated versions of George’s The Animal Farm? In general, both translators did employ euphemism in their translation However, the frequency of euphemism employment varies between them as apparently shown in translations, there emerged two trends of employing euphemism While Phạm tried to use hard word or remain the shade of words’ meaning by a wide range selections of their Vietnamese equivalents which also encourage the hope-to-be-similar attitudes from the second readers as the source word does On the contrary, An had intention of mitigating almost of hard feeling from the source text when she employed more euphemistic expressions which could be composed by words or even phrases so that her translation sound more friendly and pleasant to ear 5.1.2 What are the main approaches taken by the two translators in employing euphemism in English-Vietnamese translation? The data gathered from text research shows that there are two typical modalities namely the lexical modality and grammatical modality To be more specific, lexical modality is composed by three sub-ones which are word in replace of word, phrase in replace of word/ phrase, Sino-Vietnamese involvement Therefore, it can be seen that, the way of employing euphemism varies and depends on translators It is not fixed that only word can be used as a 5.2 substitute for the other and vice versa Limitations of the study 32 Although the researchers did try to exert efforts to accomplish this research paper, it is inevitable for the research to remain some limitations First of all, the researcher initially did plan to additionally study the motivation of translators when they decided to apply euphemism in their translation Although Phạm did show his willingness to clear off the researcher’s enquiries which was initially supposed to address another research question on the translators’ motivation of employing euphemism, he did not want his personal information and contact to be revealed publicly whereas everything shall be very clear and well grounded in a research All of those causes resulted in the fact that the researcher had to make some adjustment in the study by omitting the research question of investigating into the motivation/ or factors influencing on translators’ euphemism employment Second, in order to seek something new, after a careful consideration the researcher eventually made a decision to carry out the study on euphemism employment in published translation rather than how to translate an English euphemism into Vietnamese, which raised the problem that the organization of the paper’s findings sounds original and quite different from the study previously conducted by Phan (2011) Furthermore, given that the topic of euphemism in translation still remains unpopular in research area, there emerged a number of difficulties in the stage of doing literature review for the number of study on translation and study on euphemism is much greater than the study on euphemism employment in translation To be more specific, there are not many available scientific studies on how a translator employs euphemism when he does translation except for research on translations of Holy Qur’an(12) Indeed, it requires the researcher to exert her greatest efforts and make full use of her academic network to get a good access to the references Last but not least, the researcher honestly admits that the finding for the second research question is more or less intermingled with which is about the sub-modality of 12() the Holy Bible of Islam 33 Sino-Vietnamese involvement as it could be considered the combination of the two former sub-modalities Therefore, the researcher decided to save that arising problem as a suggested research topic which is hoped to be supplementary study for this paper 5.3 Suggestions for further studies Euphemism can be said as the art of using words; therefore, there should be more researchers working on this subject so that the younger generations of translators could have better sources of reference and know what shall be better choice of wording when they are about to produce a translation Whatever effort has been made in conducting the research, there is still room for further studies Some notions of these occurred in the course of doing this research The researcher hereby lists out some most remarkable ones: From the practical point of view, further research shall be recommended concentrating more on: - deeper investigation into the modalities based on which a translator form euphemistic expressions, especially which one has a close-knit relation with Sino-Vietnamese words and working out how to categorize it ; - cultural overlap as well as cultural distance between English and Vietnamese which affects the euphemism employment in translations; - and the influence of translator’ social background coupled with time of a translation on his/ her euphemism employment In addition, to ensure the reliability and persuasiveness of the research, the researcher strongly suggests investigating into different genres of data, such as newspapers, magazines, and other mass media publications which are officially published with apparent information of author’s biography It is worth expecting that other researchers would pay better attention to those proposed topics so that a comprehensive of research environment could be created with a hope of motivating researchers work more on studying the aspect of speech acts and figures of speech in translation 34 REFERENCES English 1.1 Books Barnwell K., 1980 Introduction to semantics and translation Summer Institute of Linguistics Bell R T., 1991 Translation and translating: Theory and practice New York: Longman Inc Burgin, V., 1986 Theory of the end of art: Criticism and post modernity Atlantic Highlands: Humanities International Press Catford, J.C 1965 A linguistic theory of translation: An essay in applied Linguistics London: Oxford University Press Koller, W., 1979 Equivalence in Translation Theory Translated by A Chesterman In A Chesterman (ed.), Readings in translation theory (Helsinki, Finn Lectures) Kramsch, C., 1998 Language and culture Shanghai: Foreign Education Press Larson, M L., 1984 Meaning-based translation: A guide to cross-language equivalence New York: University Press of America Leech, G B., 1981 Semantics Harmondsorth: Penguin Books Levý, J., 1984 The art of translation Translated from Dutch by P Corness Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company Newmark, P., 1988 A textbook of translation Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall International Orwell, G., 1945 The animal farm Maryland: Prince Frederick Orwell, G., 1945 Trại súc vật Translated from English by P M Ngọc., 2003 Ho Chi Minh City: Giấy Vụn publisher Orwell, G., 1945 Chuyện nông trại Translated from English by A Lý., 2013 Hanoi: Nhã Nam culture and communication JSC 35 Oxford University Press 2011 Oxford advanced learner dictionary New York: Oxford University Press Rawson, H., 1981 A dictionary of euphemisms and other double-talk New York: Crown Publishers Sanderson, P., 1999 Using newspaper in the classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Sapir, E., 1956 Culture, Language and Personality Berkeley: University of California Press 1.2 Online materials Merriam-Webster n.d Merriam-Webster.com [online] Available at [Accessed 15 December 2013] Vietnamese 2.1 Books Danang Publishing House 2011 Vietnamese dictionary Danang: Danang Publishing House Phan, T T T., 2011 An investigation into English-Vietnamese translation of euphemism M.A University of Danang Trương, V., 2003 Nghiên cứu uyển ngữ tiếng Anh việc chuyển dịch sang tiếng Việt Ph.D University of Social Science and Humanities, Vietnam Natioal University, Hanoi 2.2 Online materials Nguyễn, T L T., n.d Uyển ngữ tiếng Hán tiếng Việt Available at: [Accessed 03 January 2013] 36 2.3 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE University of Languages and International Studies Faculty of English Language Teacher Education QH2010.F1.E21 Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Cam Linh (MA) I am Vu Hong Nhung from class QH2010.F1.E21 I would like to invite you to participate in a questionnaire for my graduation paper which conducts a comparative study on euphemism-employing in two Vietnamese versions of George Orwell’s “The Animal Farm” This survey is not a test, so there are no “right” or “wrong” answers and you are not compulsory to state your name Thank you very much for your cooperation PART 1: Personal information *Participant’s information Name (Optional): Class: (Optional): Email address (Optional): Contact number (Optional): 37 Your personal information will NOT be revealed under any circumstances *Conductors’ contact: vuhongnhung.e21@gmail.com PART 2: Questions Question Which of the two following translations of “The Animal Farm” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A Trại súc vật B Chuyện nông trại C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “(was not of first rate) intelligence” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A (Không thuộc loại) thông minh (gì lắm) B (Khơng thuộc loại) sáng láng (gì cho lắm) C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “foolish” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A dốt nát 38 B ngốc nghếch C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “beast” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A súc sinh B súc vật C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “stupidest” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A ngu dốt B trì độ C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “brilliant talker” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A diễn giả có hạng B tay nói dẻo quẹo 39 C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “miserable condition” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A điều kiện khốn nạn B hoàn cảnh lầm than C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “twinkling eyes” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A mắt đảo lia B mắt hấp háy C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question Which of the two following translations of “Animal hero, first class” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A Súc vật anh hùng, hạng B Thú hùng hạng 40 C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Question 10 Which of the two following translations of “tough” you think employs euphemism? If you have any suggested translation, please fill in “Other” box A thô bạo B khó nhằn C Both of the translations employ euphemism D Neither of the translations employs euphemism E Other: …………………………………………………………… Thank you very much! 41 ... TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH VIỆC SỬ DỤNG UYỂN NGỮ TRONG HAI BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA TÁC PHẨM THE ANIMAL FARM (GEORGE ORWELL) Giáo viên... comparison between the two translated versions of George Orwell’s The Animal Farm After studying thoroughly the source language book of The Animal Farm together with it two translations, the researcher... 2003 Nghiên cứu uyển ngữ tiếng Anh việc chuyển dịch sang tiếng Việt Ph.D University of Social Science and Humanities, Vietnam Natioal University, Hanoi 2.2 Online materials Nguyễn, T L T., n.d Uyển