An in-depth analysis of the English - Vietnamese translation version of Jack London's famous novel The Call of the Wild

Phân tích sâu dịch Anh - Việt tiểu thuyết tiếng Jack London "Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã Nguyễn Thị Hoàn Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Assoc Prof Dr Lê Hùng Tiến Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract: This minor thesis has conducted a comprehensive research and analysis into the translation quality of Chapter – The Call of the Wild by Jack London The researcher based the analysis on J House’s model with dimensions elaborated in two categories: Language User and Language Use The qualitative and quantitative methods were incorporated to bring about the extensive analysis of data in both ST and TT The results presented in Chapter III of this thesis indicate that the TT features mismatches in full comparison with the ST as five dimensions (Medium, Participation, Social Role Relationship, Social Attitude, and Province) go along The mismatches, of which, the most prominent one concerns the formality level and literary style, are attributed to the cultural differences between English and Vietnamese Overt translation was proven to be applied in the TT due to the translator’s intent to retain the value of this timeless famous novel as much as possible The thesis makes a modest contribution to the assessment of literary work, especially timeless and valuable one like this novel Keywords: Ngôn ngữ học; Tiếng Anh; Dịch thuật Content INTRODUCTION I Rationale for the study Over the past years, translation has been playing a crucial part in bridging two cultures and has enabled the advances of modern life and internationalism of around the world In literature, foreign poetry and prose into the curriculum also increasingly covers much ground, which brings translation to more attention However, the translation of literary works is not an easy – to – deal matter and the question of how a good translation text is measured has never ceased to challenge linguists In fact, Translation Quality Assessment (TQA) has been addressed by many linguists so far and it remains a controversial topic with many a theory proposed Among many linguists who have put forward models to carry out a comprehensive assessment, J House is chosen by most researchers because of the best applicability of her model, based mainly on the theory of functional grammar by K Halliday The novel “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London is the author’s first literary work, which helped him rise to the prominence as the top author of American literature in the early 20th century The researcher has taken the translation version by Nguyễn Công Ái and Vũ Tuấn Phương to measure how well the translation is The novel also characterizes Jack London’s writing style, straightforward but formal, which is embraced in each chapter of the novel In this minor study, Chapter of the novel titled “For the love of a man” is chosen as the data for the analysis This chapter is the only one which reveals Buck’s passionate love for his master and this love demonstrates the humanity in the whole novel II Objectives of the study The study aims at investigating the translation quality of the target text of Chapter in full comparison with the source text, based on J House’s model At the end of this study, the answers to the following research questions should be provided: What are the features of the ST, according to J House’s model? What are the mismatches of the TT in comparison with the ST? What kind of translation, covert or overt, is employed? III Scope of the study As referred to earlier, J House’s model is adopted to assess the quality of the translation in this research Due to its modest scale, this study is merely confined to chapter of the novel “The Call of the Wild”, which partly features Jack London’s basic writing style in the novel With such a limit set out at the beginning of the study, all the analysis and comparison between the ST and the TT is only restricted in this chapter IV Method of the study The principal method employed in the study is Documentary Research, using the outside sources (the ST and TT of chapter – “The Call of the Wild) to support the whole procedure of translation quality assessment The researcher also combines both qualitative and quantitative research, analyzing data and providing the readers with deeper insights into the distinctions and value in the ST and TT Some important conclusions can be drawn from these analyses V Organization of the study The first chapter of the study will be Literature Review in which some related concepts of translation theory and typical models of translation quality assessment are discussed In the second chapter, the research will introduce an overview of the original text’s content, and J House’s model applied to analyze the ST In the third chapter, the researcher will apply J House’s model to analyze and compare English ST and its Vietnamese TT to find out mismatches and draw a conclusion of what type of translation is employed in the study CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW I What is translation? There have been many different definitions of translation so far From the researcher’s point of view, however, following definitions should be taken into consideration II Literary translation II.1 General characteristics of literary language Literature is the use of well-chosen words to tell a story through narrative, involving characters in conflict, or to express an emotion or idea through artfully arranged images II.2 Problems of literary translation One of the prominent problems in translating literary texts is the differences between cultures It is easily recognized by a translator who uses a cultural approach that each language contains elements which are derived from its culture III Translation Quality Assessment III.1 Proposed models Over long history of translation quality assessment, linguists have kept on putting forward their approaches to reach the best assessment for the quality of translation III.1.1 Nida’s response – based approach Nida and Taber (1969: 173) proposed three similar criteria: the correctness with which the receptors understand the message of the original, the ease of comprehension and the involvement a person experiences as a result of the adequacy in the form of translation III.1.2 Koller’s text – based approach Koller (1974) acknowledges the importance of a linguistic model of translation quality assessment, which is portrayed in three straightforward stages introduced by him III.1.3 Peter Newmark’s comprehensive criticism approach Peter Newmark states that any comprehensive criticism should cover five topics to criticize a text III.1.4 Julianne House’s functional – pragmatic approach House’s model for translation assessment is based on pragmatic theories of language use It concerns semantic field, pragmatic aspect and textual aspect In the definition of translation, the term “equivalent” is the key term III.2 Representation of Julianne House’s TQA model III.2.1 Covert and Overt Translation In an overt translation, the TT audience is not directly addressed and there is, therefore, no need at all to attempt to recreate a second original text since an overt translation must overtly a translation In overt translation, the work of the translator is important and visible Covert translation, on the other hand, means the production of a text which is functionally equivalent to the ST In this type of translation, the translator has to attempt to recreate an equivalent speech event III.2.2 Representation of J House’s model House adopts Halliday’s term ideational and interpersonal as labels for the referential and the non-referential functional components House’s model consists of two sections: dimensions of language user and dimensions of language use, possibly broken down into the following subcategories: A Dimension of language user: Geographical Origin Social Class Time B Dimension of language use Medium (Simple/Complex) Participation (Simple/Complex) Social Role Relationship Social Attitude Province CHAPTER II: I I.1 ANALYSIS OF THE SOURCE TEXT, BASED ON J HOUSE’S MODEL Brief introduction of the chapter The author Jack London Jack London was the most successful authors in the early 20 th century, gaining widespread recognition subsequent to the publication of the novel “The call of the wild” in 1903 I.2 The novel “The call of the wild” “The call of the wild” is the story of Buck, a domesticated dog which is snatched cruelly out of his beloved home and thrown into a hostile world of clubs and fang, where he has to learn the hard way to survive I.3 Introduction of Chapter Chapter of the novel, titled “For the love of a man” is the only part which portraits the intimate relationship between Buck and his master, John Thornton II Discourse features of the source text II.1 Syntactic features II.1.1 Clause and Clause Complexes The chapter is comprised of 227 clauses, breaking down into numerous smaller units, 52 of which are clause simplexes, whereas the remaining are complex clauses with a huge number of clauses with rather intricate relationship between clauses a Elaboration Elaboration is conveyed in an effective way via the use of relative clauses, which are often used to modify and elaborate the nouns before them b Extension and enhancement The use of non – finite verbs describes Buck’s loafing time with Thornton and his two dogs, which is absolutely his dream after being exhausted for a long time II.1.2 Transitivity By means of material verbs, the chapter is aimed at describing the heroic and touching actions performed by Buck in many times to rescue Thornton from dangerous situation Not appearing as often as material process, relational process and behavioral process also greatly contribute to the elaboration of love between Buck and Thornton Furthermore, by means of behavioral process, the passionate love for Thornton is also conveyed clearly through Buck’s behaviors Despite its infrequent appearance in the chapter, verbal process mainly deals with the intimacy Thornton gives Buck in another way Mental and existential processes only account for a minor part in the chapter In consideration of the main aim of the chapter, which deals with the love between Buck and his master, the small percentage of these two processes is understandable II.1.3 Mood Another feature of formality is inversion, which appears much in this chapter The part of clause which is inversed prior to Subject may be the Complement or Adjunct In the chapter, it is also obvious that ellipsis is also used The Subject (Buck) is omitted the beginning clauses because of its reference in the last clause Modality is also a part of mood structure, which is of significance to create the illocutionary force in the chapter As regards voice, it is found without difficulty that the passive voice is favored in the chapter, among the clauses with active voice to describe the plot of the story II.2 Textual features II.2.1 Thematization The chapter is made up of various kinds of themes Regarding simple and multiple theme, 70 percent of clauses is unmarked simple theme, while nearly 30% is marked multiple theme, which is often composed of textual and topical theme II.2.2 Cohesion a Reference The chapter employs personals, demonstratives, and comparatives as the prominent devices of reference when creating the connection between clauses b Ellipsis and Substitution The ellipsis employed in the chapter nearly limit itself in clauses, which eliminate the subject of the subsequent or prior clauses and there exists only one subject in the last or first clause Substitution, otherwise, should be considered as the common way of creating the cohesion in the discourse c Conjunction Most of conjunctions in chapter convey the meaning of extension among clauses, which can be broken down into addition, adversative and variation Since the chapter aims at telling a story, spatio – temporal conjunctions appear much in the chapter, especially time conjunctions d Lexical cohesion Connecting clauses by using lexical cohesion involves the employment of many means of lexical wording such as repetition, synonyms, collocation III Analysis of the original text based on J House’s model III.1 Dimension of language user Geographical Origin: Non – marked, standard American English Social class: non – marked, educated middle class Time: The novel was published in 1903 III.2 Dimension of language use III.2.1 Medium  i ii  i ii Syntactic means Virtual absence of anacolutha, contact parentheses and comment parentheses typical of spoken modes Strict use of tense mixture, especially perfect tenses such as present perfect and past perfect, which are supposed to signify the written language Lexical means Virtual absence of interjections as one of spoken language features Presence of “must” instead of “have to” Apparently, “must” is used preferably in writing whereas “have to” is seen more commonly in speech  Textual means i Absence of redundancy in the chapter III.2.2 Participation  i ii  Syntactic means Predominant use of monologues and scare appearance of dialogues, which prove the text’s simplicity in addresser and address’s participation Overwhelming dominance of declarative clause over imperative and interrogative, owing to the narrative feature of the text Lexical means There is an abundant use of third person pronouns III.2.3 Social Role Relationship  i ii  i ii Syntactic means Little presence of conversations and hence, not much implication of relationship among interlocutors in the chapter Little presence of interrogative and imperative, indicating little transitional role of the interlocutors in the chapter Lexical means Presence of reference Little presence of first and second pronouns (I, you) in conversations, which has been proved scare in the chapter III.2.4 Social attitude  i ii iii Syntactic means Absence of elliptical clauses, anacolutha and contractions Strict use of tenses, especially perfect tenses, namely present and past perfect tenses (cf Medium above) Frequent use of passive voice (cf Medium above)  i Lexical means Absence of subjectivity qualifying modal adverbials, interjections, and other emotive markers (cf Medium above)  i Textual means Comprehensive representation of a well-structured, elaborate, logically sequenced and strongly cohesive text III.2.5 Province  i ii Syntactic means Use of past tenses in most of the chapter Frequent use of simile as a prominent figure of speech in the chapter  i ii iii Lexical means Frequency of action verbs and nouns, predominantly conveying the intimate interaction between Buck and Thornton Judicious use of adjectives and adverbs Frequent use of active nouns, which perform actions  i Textual means Frequency of spatio – temporal cohesive devices III Statement of function The function of the source text, in Halliday (1973)’s terms, falls into two categories, namely “ideational” and “interpersonal” In the dimension of Medium, a simple, written – to – be – read language supports the ideational component by providing the readers a condensed information flow, typified by the overwhelming employment of declaratives over interrogatives and imperatives In the dimension of Participation, predominantly monologous, non-participatory character of the text, which allows for a fully-premeditated , non-alternating, and well-organized flow of information, supports the ideational component as well On the dimension of Social Role Relationship, little interpersonal impact is created due to its characteristic as a literary work whose aim is to entertain the readers On the Social Attitude dimension, the deliberate writing style ranging from consultative to frozen supports the interpersonal functional component, since it widens the proximity between the addresser and addressees (readers) Regarding the dimension of Province, as a literary work, the source text impresses the readers by the employment of various imagery lexical wordings, figurative language, and numerous cohesive devices CHAPTER III: COMPARISON BETWEEN THE SOURCE TEXT AND ITS VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION I Comparison between the source text and the target text based on J House’s model In full comparison with the ST, mismatches are found in the TT in terms of all five dimensions of language use I.1 Medium The TT adds some comment and contact parentheses as a result of the author’s attempt to explain or provide additional information for the readers’ better understanding This addition of information on the one hand, assists the readers’ comprehension as the story progresses; on the other hand, it proves that the TT nears the spoken style rather than written style in the ST In addition, in terms of textual structure, many changes, most notably adding some clauses, also characterize TT whereas ST is much more precise I.2 Participation In TT, these pronouns are retained well, though some connotations are added For example, Skeet is favorably referred to as “cô ả” or “cô nàng” due to this character’s femaleness whilst Buck or Nig are mentioned with a more neutral pronoun “nó” Apparently, such words or phrases as “đấy thôi”, “nữa kia” and the comment parenthesis “nó đấy” reduce the neutrality performed in the ST and adds some feelings or attitudes of the storyteller to the TT I.3 Social Role Relationship Due to the remarkably limited conversation in both ST and TT, few traces of relationship among characters are shown One side is a group of rich and arrogant men, typified by Matthewson and another side is John Thornton, an ordinary man, who is needy and therefore possesses no power Consequently, the illocutionary force created in the TT is proved to be much milder and inappropriate compared to that in the ST I.4 Social attitude The social attitude deals mainly with the text writer’s attitude towards the readers, demonstrated by means of linguistic formality or informality While numerous clauses in the ST is in passive voice, in the TT, the active voice is used otherwise Many clauses in the chapter either start or end with phrases characterizing spoken language Another perceptible feature of formality concerns the textual structure of TT compared with ST Besides the transference of relative clause, the formality is also lessened in the TT due to the switch of noun phrases in the ST into clauses in the TT So often are noun phrases in the ST switched into verb phrases in the TT, which clearly identifies the TT as much more informal because the employment of noun phrases in English means high formality in every discourse I.5 Province One of the significant mismatches between the ST and the TT is the deliberate addition of words, or phrases in lieu of a word in ST The ST is especially filled with single action verbs, which often result in the combination of many verbs together in the TT The purpose of the translator is obviously to enable the TT readers fully understand the exact meaning of the words used in the ST In some cases, the verbs are also inserted into the phrases in the TT whereas ST carries no verbs at all: The TT also gives preference to reduplicated adjectives or verbs to modify the verbs, sometimes by adding the adjectives after or before verbs or nouns with the aim of creating imagery effects in the readers: The reduplicated adjectives are also used in the TT to describe the adjectives and adverbs in the ST As regards Textual means, the addition of some cohesive conjunctions is also applied Another typical feature of the ST as a literary work is the abundance of action nouns II Overtly Erroneous Errors Despite great attempts in the TT, some of the errors still exist due to the complexity of wordings in the ST which leads to the incorrect interpretation in the TT III Statement of Quality and Translation Type III.1 Statement of Quality In general, the translator has demonstrated his great attempts in keeping the TT as close to the ST as possible However, the mismatches are unavoidably found along the dimensions III.2 Statement of Translation Type Simply put, overt and covert translation features each kind of text and the adoption of either translation method also depends on the function of the ST and TT Since the ST is a part of the timeless and valuable literary work of American literature in the early 20th century, the overt translation is adopted CONCLUSION The study has demonstrated the researcher’s analysis attempt towards the quality of the Vietnamese translation version of Chapter – The Call of the Wild by Jack London in comparison with the source text in English I Restatement of aims This study set out to assess the quality of the TT by first investigating the features of the ST based on J House’s model and then comparing the ST and TT on dimensions of language use: Medium, Participation, Social Role Relationship, Social Attitude and Province The final aim is to determine what kind of translation, overt or covert, is applied in the translation procedure II Summary of major findings and Conclusions By means of J House’s model, the deep analysis of the both ST and TT has led the researcher to some important findings Firstly, as the ST belongs to a famous literary work, it should be concluded that the far more attention is devoted to the literary features which are elaborated on dimensions of Medium, Social Attitude and Province In regards Medium, the TT embraces signals of spoken mode such as comment and contact parentheses and exclamation, which are absent in the ST In terms of Social Attitude, the TT lessens the formality which characterizes the ST These can be concluded by the preference to active voice rather than passive voice, signal of spoken language, the treatment of relative clauses and the employment of clauses instead of noun phrases In respect of Province, the TT lacks many features which should establish it as a literary work The most typical ones are the abundance of verbs in the TT instead of just one verb or no verbs at all in the ST, the omission of action nouns as the subject, which plays an important role in defining the text as the literary one On the other hand, some changes made in the TT is wellsuited to a narrative such as the addition of conjunctions and useful employment of reduplicated adjectives and verbs The dimensions which are paid less attention are Participation and Social Role Relationship since the chapter is characterized by narratives through the author’s voice as a storyteller Secondly, the findings also determine that the kind of translation used is overt translation since many signals demonstrate the translator’s attempt to retain the value of the ST in the TT To sum up, the findings of this study offer some important conclusions On the one hand, some unavoidable mismatches feature the TT compared with the ST On the other hand, the TT has proved the flexibility in its language use, such as the addition of conjunctions to create more narrative effects, the preference to the reduplicated words (adjectives, verbs), etc III Significance and Implications of findings The findings in this study somewhat demonstrate the techniques employed in the translation process of a literary work, which is considered as a tough job for translators due to the cultural gap embraced in language Spoken language wordings (except in conversations) should be avoided In this translation text, the use of verbs and reduplicated adjectives is preferred to illustrate the flow of story The cohesive devices can also work well in a narrative Another important implication to improve the translation quality of a literary work is the necessary attempt to use action nouns instead of clauses like in this study IV Limitations of the study & Suggestions for further studies Since only Chapter is excerpted as data for the analysis in this study, the conclusions drawn by the researcher is only adaptable to this chapter, not the whole novel Further, the limitation on time and scale of the study does not allow full recording of data and accordingly, the analysis can be somewhat restricted For further study, the conductor of this minor thesis expects to enjoy a broader and more comprehensive analysis of the whole novel “The Call of the Wild” so as to create a well-rounded insights into the translation of this famous novel References  Books: Baker, Mona (1992) In other words: a Coursebook on Translation, London: Routledge Cao Xuan Hao (1991) Tiếng Việt: Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng(quyển 1), Khoa học Xã hội Hoang Van Van (2005) Translation: Theories and Practice, Ha Noi Open University House J (1997) Translation Quality Assessment: A model revisited Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen Halliday K (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar 2nd edition Oxford University Press Munday J (2001) Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Application Newmark P (1981) Approaches to translation Oxford: Pergamon Newmark P (1988) A textbook of translation New York/London: Prentice Hall Yule, George (1988) The Study of Language Cambridge University Press  Websites: Difference between Written and Spoken Language Available at: http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-written-and-spokenlanguage/ Differences between Writing and Speech Available at: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/writingvspeech.htm Features of Narrative Writing (2008) Available at: http://ncowie.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/features-of-narrative-writing/ ... widespread recognition subsequent to the publication of the novel ? ?The call of the wild? ?? in 1903 I.2 The novel ? ?The call of the wild? ?? ? ?The call of the wild? ?? is the story of Buck, a domesticated dog which... an overt translation must overtly a translation In overt translation, the work of the translator is important and visible Covert translation, on the other hand, means the production of a text... overt and covert translation features each kind of text and the adoption of either translation method also depends on the function of the ST and TT Since the ST is a part of the timeless and valuable