Foreignization and Domestication in Trịnh Lữ’s Vietnameses Translation of “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel

Foreignization and Domestication in Trịnh Lữ‟s Vietnameses Translation of “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel Nguyễn Thị Hương Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Trần Xuân Điệp, Ph.D. Năm bảo vệ: 2011 Abstract: The present dissertation first focused on the theories concerning foreignisation and domestication mechanisms. There followed a definition and classification of CSIs; the chapter concluded with presentation of established classifications of translation procedures. A consolidated taxonomy of lexical procedures related to domestication/assimilation and foreignization/exoticism proposed by Kwieciński‟s (2001) is adopted as the theoretical framework. This is a product-oriented descriptive translation research, this chapter of the study is devoted to describe and analyze cultural translation strategies in the corpus by comparison ST and TT. An examination of the possible translators‟ procedures in the body of translated text reveals that Trịnh Lữ‟s translations of CSIs in the novel “Life of Pi” are essentially foreignising. The majority of CSIs are borrowed into the Vietnamese version without any change. Borrowing procedure is employed for translations of not only proper names but also other various categories such as clothing items, forms of art, forms of entertainment, animals, etc. Foreignizing strategies (borrowing, combinations and recognized exoticism) account for 85.7% while normalisation and deletion which are representations of domestication make up for only 14.3 %. It is clear that procedures which are of foreignising nature constitute a majority of applied procedures. This essentially demonstrates the dominance of foreignisation in the transfer from culturally dominant SL to the inferior TL. Irrespective of the ideological interpretation of its causes and effects, the overwhelming domination of E and the Anglo-American culture remains a fact of life. Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Dịch; Bản dịch Content PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problems and rationale of the study In the past few decades, translation studies have shifted along with the development of cultural studies. Translation is no longer regarded as merely a cross-linguistic activity but translation is considered a cross-cultural communication. Cultural diversity, rather than linguistic differences, is believed to produce the most misunderstanding among readers and constitute the most serious problems for translators. Thus, one of the focal issues of current translation studies is to explore cultural differences and then decide how to deal with them most appropriately. A great number of ethical strategies have been proposed, some of which value the faithful representation of the original and some value communication of meaning. Based on his investigation of Western translation history and theories, Lawrence Venuti introduced and described the notions of foreignization and domestication in his book The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation published in 1995. The main difference between Venuti‟s strategies and the others is that domestication and foreignization strategies take into consideration the influence of cultural and ideological factors on translation and consider the influence of translations on the target readers and cultures. Indeed, domestication refers to the target-culture-oriented translation which makes a translated product transparent and easy to read. For Venuti (1995:20), the domesticating method is "an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values, bringing the author back home." As an opposition to domestication, foreignization is a source- culture-oriented translation which strives to preserve the foreign flavor as much as possible in order to transfer the source language (SL) and source culture (SC) into the target one. According to Venuti, foreignization signifies “the difference of the foreign text, yet only by disrupting the cultural codes that prevail in the target language” (ibid). In other words, “cultural codes” of the target language (TL) should be sacrificed in order to make the reader of a translated text feel the taste of foreigness. Taking into consideration the fact that literary works may represent cultural terms, Venuti‟s theories on domestication and foreignization can be applied to literary translation which plays an important role in the development of the national literature. Literature coming from the English-speaking source cultures may contain various types of cultural terms connoting different aspects (such as place names, foods and drinks, sports and national pastimes, art, legal system, etc) which functions as unique culture-specific items (CSIs) and can be either domesticated or foreignized by a translator. After a brief overview of cultural differences in translation, this paper mainly explores foreignization and domestication in dealing with CSIs in the translation of “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ. Overall, this product-oriented descriptive translation research is a qualitative attempt to discover the manifestations of foreignization and domestication by analyzing the translation procedures in translating CSIs of the corpus. 2. Objectives of the study The focus of the thesis is to explore the notions of foreignisation and domestication and their application through different procedures of translating CSIs. In order to estimate the possible dominance of one of the above strategies over the other, the translation “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ with reference to cultural aspects is chosen for analysis. The study is an attempt to find out whether translator Trịnh Lữ domesticates or foreignizes English CSIs when translating “Life of Pi”. In other words, the main point of analysis is to explore whether translator retains CSIs to preserve the foreign flavor (foreignization) or tries to make the translation transparent and more accessible to target readers (domesticatication). 3. Aims of the study As mentioned earlier, the study aims to identify the signs of domesticating and foreignizing strategies applied in the translation of “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ. In general, it is expected that the study would provide translators with some ideas about ways of dealing with CSIs when working on English literary translations. Translators may turn to either domestication or foreignization when it comes to translating CSIs. As shown in the study (1.3), a variety of translation procedures are available to translators in order to help them either domesticate or foreignize unmatched cultural terms. 4. Significance of the study Hopefully, the study of domestication and foreignization in dealing with culture-specific items can provide an overview of the two central concepts in the history of translation theory. It is hoped that the findings of the study will contribute to the body of theory of domestication and foreignization in literary translation, and become a reliable source of references for relevant research. 5. Scope of the study The notions domestication and foreignization refer translation strategies on various levels such as lexical, syntactic to semantic. Within the scope and scale of a minor thesis, the focus is on whether the translator employs domesticating or foreignizing strategies to bridge the lexical gap between SL and TL. To achieve this goal, the first chapter of Trịnh Lữ‟s translation “Life of Pi” is selected, read and analyzed for signs of source-language oriented strategies/ domestication and target-language oriented strategies/foreignization. 6. Research question Based on the previous studies on domestication and foreignization, the following question is formulated: What are the manifestations of foreignization and domestication in the translation of “Life of Pi” from English into Vietnamese? This study is an attempt to find answer to the question. CSIs of ST along with TT are collected and procedures employed by the translator are identified as signs of domestication and foreignization so that proper answer to the above-mentioned question will be provided. 7. Methodology The current product-oriented descriptive translation research is a qualitative attempt to describe and analyze cultural translation strategies in the corpus of the research. To account for the possible translators‟ procedures in the body of translated text, the novel “Life of Pi” with its Vietnamese translation by Trịnh Lữ is selected. To be precise, the first chapter of the book “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel is chosen as the primary ST to be compared closely with it corresponding translated TT made by Trịnh Lữ. The following steps and analytical procedures are used in the research: 1. Identifying CSIs in the corpus of the study. 2. Comparing CSIs in the ST and their counterparts in the TT: Through a sentence-by - sentence contrasting each source text- target text pair of the corpus of the research and adopting CSIs as the unit of translation. After that, instances of CSIs are identified as qualitative evidence. The occurrences of CSIs are classified according to the categories proposed by Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006). 3. Analyzing CSIs in terms of translation procedures, as suggested by Kwieciński‟s (2001). 4. Examining the extent to which rendering choices may have led to a foreignised or domesticated translation: After gathering the occurrences in categorized tables, an examination of the extent to which rendering choices may have led to a foreignised or domesticated translation has been conducted, the based on Kwieciński‟s consolidated taxonomy (ibid). 5. Analyzing the extent to which the concepts of foreignisation/domestication may explain the treatment given to the culture-bound terms in both directions. In other words, the rendering choices have been located and noted down as qualitative evidence to show either domestication or foreignization in the TT 8. 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Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics;. on domestication and foreignization, the following question is formulated: What are the manifestations of foreignization and domestication in the translation of “Life of Pi” from English into. in the body of translated text, the novel “Life of Pi” with its Vietnamese translation by Trịnh Lữ is selected. To be precise, the first chapter of the book “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel is chosen