Difficulties and in vietnamese into english movie translation and some suggested solutions

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie translation and some suggested solutions Supervisor : Nguyễn T.Kim Chi, M.A Student : Nguyễn Phương Linh Date of birth : 06/04/1994 Group : K19A06 ( 2012 – 2016 ) HANOI, 2016 GRADUATION PAPER DECLARATION Title: Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie translation and some suggested solutions I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced be me from any other’s world without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor Hanoi, 15th April, 2016 Student Supervisor signature signature Full name Full name GRADUATION PAPER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I have received great assistance from many people in the preparation of this paper Without their assistance and support, this paper might not have been finished First of all, I would like to hereby to extend my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Nguyễn Thị Kim Chi for her advice, comments, correction and for her kindly encouragement during the development of this paper Also, I am deeply grateful to my teachers at Hanoi Open University for their lectures My special thanks to all my friends for the time, energy they spend on reading my paper and providing me with extremely detailed comments on parts and on the whole as well Last, but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude and thank all my family for their love, great encouragement and support to me to fulfill this paper GRADUATION PAPER TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and objectives of the study Scope of the study Method of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Translation theory 1.1.1 Definition 1.1.2 Types of translation 1.2 About movie translation 1.2.1.History of movie translation 1.2.2 Characteristics of movie translation 1.2.3 Power of film translation 11 CHAPTER 2: DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION 2.1 Linguistics problems 13 2.1.1 Grammatical problems 13 2.1.2 Syntactic problems 14 2.1.2.1 Phrase structure 14 GRADUATION PAPER 2.1.2.2 Clause structure 16 2.1.2.3 Sentence structure: 18 2.1.3 Morphological problems 20 2.1.3.1 Nouns 20 2.1.3.2 Verbs 21 2.1.4 Linguistic untranslatability 23 2.2 Cultural problems 26 2.2.1 Cultural untranslatability 26 2.2.2 Translation of implications and cultural references 28 2.3 Other problems 30 2.3.1 Translation style problems 30 2.3.2 Movie’s characters 31 CHAPTER 3: CAUSES OF DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION 32 3.1 Subjective causes 32 3.1.1 Inadequate language competence 32 3.1.1.1 Incompetence in the source language (Vietnamese) 32 3.1.1.2 Incompetence in the target language (English) 33 3.1.2 Insufficient cultural background 35 3.2 Objective causes 35 3.2.1 Linguistic differences between Vietnamese and English 35 3.2.1.1 Syntax 35 3.2.1.2 Morphology 37 3.2.2 Cultural differences 38 CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR MOVIE TRANSLATION 40 4.1 Overcoming Linguistic Problems 40 GRADUATION PAPER 4.1.1 Dealing with Linguistic Problems 40 4.1.2 Dealing with linguistic untranslatability 41 4.1.3 Avoidance of word-for-word translation 41 4.1.4 Dealing with collocation 42 4.1.5 Dealing with idioms translation 42 4.2 Overcoming lexical and structure problems 43 4.2.1 Lexical Transformation 43 4.2.1.1 Transforming a general meaning word into a specific meaning one 44 4.2.1.2 Using synonyms 45 4.2.1.3 Using antonyms 46 4.2.1.4 To change, add, cut or rearrange words order 47 4.2.1.5 Turning idiolects into normal word in the target language 47 4.2.2 Structural Transformation 47 4.3 Overcoming cultural problems 48 4.3.1 Cultural substitutions 48 4.3.2 Dealing with cultural untranslatability 49 PART C: CONCLUSION REFERENCES PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Translation is an activity of enormous importance in our modern world Nowadays, translation has become a profession It consists of staff translators, freelancers, contract translators, terminologists and pre- and post-editors in machine translation Translation has been the subject of interest not only to linguistic, professional and amateur translators, and language teachers but also to electronic engineers and mathematicians Translation in any of the mentioned fields - for instance, film industry becomes particularly important, for it erases linguistic borders, once physical borders are erased; and, hence, truly unifies nations Movie translation can be a difficult job that requires a lot of experience and effort If done well and with care it can convey the same message as the original conversation but if not done properly it can be a total failure and thus the movie is unsuccessful Although as in any kind of translation field we face different challenges, in movie translation there are some challenges and difficulties that make this kind of translation even more difficult A movie translator who has a long experience knows these difficulties and surely has encountered some of them There are two main ways for translating a movie subtitling and dubbing, both these ways affect the original conversation in one way or another On one hand we have dubbing which modifies the original conversation and makes it more convenient and familiar to the target audience This method of translation adapts language according to the movements of the mouth of the actor enabling him to appear as speaking exactly the language of the target audience On the other hand there is the subtitled movie translation which implies the subtitles synchronized to the language spoken and usually positioned at the end of the screen, which between the two methods is considered as the method that changes less the original conversation thus enabling the audience to experience language and cultural differences Aims and objectives of the study The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the importance and difficulties of film translation, with the causes and some suggested solutions for improvement in movie translation progress This aim is to show some difficulties while translating Vietnamese movies, causes to the difficulties and some solutions to improve the translation skills Scope of the study This study will focus on difficulties in translating movies, causes of the difficulties and some suggested solutions to have a better translation Method of the study This paper is carried out by the following steps: Have the instruction from my supervisor and other teachers Collect materials from books, documents and the internet Analyzing some conversation in a Vietnamese drama in order to find difficulties, causes and give some strategies for translating movies Design of the study This paper has three main parts Part A is the introduction about the rationale, aim and objectives of the study, scope of the study, methods and the design of the study Part B mentions the development for this paper and consists of three chapters Chapter talks about literature reviews, chapter states the difficulties, chapter shows the causes and chapter shows the techniques to improve the translation quality Part C is conclusion and recommendation The end of the study is the references PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Translation theory 1.1.1 Definition Translation has been various defined The following definitions have been selected as they are really typical Translation is a transfer process, which aims at the transformation of written source language conversation into an optimally equivalent target language text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the source language (Wilss, 1982) Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences (Bell.R , 1991) Translation is the replacement of a presentation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language (Bell.R ,1991) For example, the Vietnamese sentence “Chỉ thầy giáo cho phép sinh viên vào phòng.” can be translated into English as “Only if the teacher has given permission are students allowed to enter the room.” The author continues and makes the problems of equivalence very plain Text in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (full or partly different), in respect of different levels of presentation (in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.) and at different ranks (wordfor-word, phrase-for-phrase, sentence-for-sentence) In Vietnamese-into-English translation, the Vietnamese is the source language and the English is the target language as in the following example: The source language: “Người bắt đầu học ngoại ngữ luôn gặp khó khăn từ bước đầu.” The target language: “Beginners of foreign language always meet difficulties from the outset.” In contrast, in English-intoVietnamese translation, the English is the source language and the Vietnamese is the target language as in the following example: The source language: “Due to ill management and protection, forest resources have, in recent years, been seriously destroyed.” The target language: “Trong năm gần đây, quản lí bảo vệ kém, tài nguyên rừng bị tàn phá nghiêm trọng.” Translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997) “Translators are concerned with the written texts They render written texts from one language into another language Translators are required to undertake assignments, which range from simple items, such as birth certificates and driving licenses, to more complex written materials, such as articles in specialized professional journals, business contracts and legal documents” (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997) Translation, ultimately, by dictionary definition, consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turn into one’s own or another’s language (The Merrian – Webster dictionary, 1974) Translation is a change of form When we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc The forms are referred to as the surface structure of a language It is a structural part of a language, which is actually seen in print or heard speech In translation, the form of the receptor or target language replaces the form of the source language 1.1.2 Types of translation A, Word-for-word translation: takes twice that time to acquire English structures due its strict rules However long it may take, one cannot become a good translator if he/she is unable to overcome that very first basic requirement 4.1.2 Dealing with linguistic untranslatability In translation, dealing with linguistic problems is a hard progress dealing with linguistics untranslatability is no less difficult job Still, there are several tips suck as replacement or substitution for translator to apply in case of untranslatability For instance, the translators can replace alien words by nearly similar concepts By doing this, he/she can compensate for the untranslatability to some extent For example: In Vietnam, people often use phrase: “trộm vía” before praising a baby for something Vietnamese people since a very long time ago thought that if people praise a good or pretty baby, the deities may come and take the baby away In English unfortunately, we are unable to find a corresponding concept with English speaking people Hence, it can be rendered as follow: Trộm vía, em bé lớn nhanh God forbid that the baby has grown very quick 4.1.3 Avoidance of word-for-word translation It is very clear that the meaning of the word is not decided by itself but by its relation with the others, which is why doing translation, we should not have intention to the translation of isolated words Example: Anh ta coi cô giẻ lau He always disregards her Tay làm, hàm nhai No pains, no gains Tham thâm Grasp all, lose all 41 4.1.4 Dealing with collocation “Why builders not produce a building or authors not invent a novel, since they invent stories and plots? No reasons as far as dictionary definitions of words are concerned We don’t say it because we don’t say it” (Bolnger and Sears, 1968) Most problems arise in translation owing to different collocations in different languages Example: Bữa ăn nhẹ This is translated to ‘a quick meal’ rather than ‘a fast meal’ even though quick and fast may mean the same Mưa to This is translated to ‘heavy rain’ rather than ‘thick rain’ even though heavy and thick may mean the same Có kinh nghiệm This is translated to ‘have an experience’ rather than ‘do/make an experience 4.1.5 Dealing with idioms translation Conversations in Vietnamese movies use many idioms Those following techniques are hoped to help translator to have a better translation of idioms in conversation A, Using an idiom or fixed expression of similar meaning and form There are English idioms, which are expressed in the same way in Vietnamese It enables translators to find a English equivalent idiom with the Vietnamese idiom Example: Nước đổ đầu vịt Like water off a duck back (making no impression on someone Used when giving advice which is not followed) Cha nào, 42 Like father, like son (used to say that son’s character or behavior is similar to those of his father It is used with either good or bad manner.) B, Using an idiom or fixed expression with similar meaning but dissimilar form It is also possible and usually easier to find an English idiom with similar meaning to an idiom, which is expressed differently Example: Được ăn cả, ngã không To put all one;s eggs in one basket (to rely on one particular course of action for success rather than giving yourself several different possibilities To something without two choices: achieving a great success or losing everything) - Giàu từ trứng To be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth: born in a wealthy family It has been a tradition in many countries for wealthy godparents to give a silver spoon to their godchildren at christening ceremonies It may be simply derived from the fact that wealthy people ate silver while others did not 4.2 Overcoming lexical and structure problems Due to the morphological and structural differences between the two languages as mentioned in the previous chapter, translators usually fall into the traps of word-for-word or literal translation Trying to help translators avoid rigid kinds of translation, this thesis pursues to suggest some techniques to improve the translated conversation concerning to lexical transformation and structural transformation 4.2.1 Lexical Transformation Generally, each language has its own ways of expression We would never find an absolutely coincidence in term of linguistic forms and 43 expressive meaning among different languages Therefore, in translation, the meaning of one word in the source conversation might be transferred by different words in the target language conversation The translators themselves are supposed to base on the specific context of the conversation to find an appropriate equivalent word in their translation Below are several techniques in lexical conversion 4.2.1.1 Transforming a general meaning word into a specific meaning one The example below shows different ways to express the word “chống”, which has a generals meaning in Vietnamese, into English Chống Iraq – chống hòa bình, chống nhân loại, trái với đạo lý Fighting against Iraq is tantamount to opposing peace, resisting mankind and running counter to morality The first ‘chống’ is translated as ‘fighting against” as it implies a struggle The second ‘chống’ is translated as “opposing” because it implies the prevention or changes of a certain situation The third one is translated as “resisting” since it involves the usage of strength to stand against somebody or something What can be seen through this example clearly requires translators to understand what is under the line of the conversation and transfer it in accordance with the author’s desire By taking another example into great consideration, we can realize how important the lexical conversion is In Vietnamese, ‘hỏng’ means - no longer can be used - trạng thái không dùng - not bring expected result – không mang lại kết mong muốn The English equivalent words for ‘hỏng’ are - broken, be out of order, break down, go wrong 44 - fail In specific circumstances, ‘hỏng’ is expressed by different ways as in the following examples: Trời nóng mà điều hòa lại hỏng It’s so hot but my air conditioner doesn’t work Đường xấu nên lốp xe nhanh hỏng The road is too rough, so the wheels go bad right away Cái bánh hỏng rồi, đừng ăn The fish has gone off, don’t eat it Vụ va chạm làm xe hỏng nặng The accident has done a lot of damage to the car Buổi diễn hỏng The performance has turned out a flop! Thằng bé chiều đâm hỏng The child has been bad mannered because of over spoiling 4.2.1.2 Using synonyms - Tại Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh có 1.000 doanh nghiệp gây ô nhiễm môi trường phải đưa vào diện di dời từ nội thành khu công nghiệp nông trường xa thành phố…trong thời gian từ năm 2002 đến 2004 Nhưng đến có 48 doanh nghiệp di dời Các doanh nghiệp chưa di dời đưa lí thiếu vốn đất không tìm địa điểm phù hợp (Sài Gòn giải phóng) More than 1,000 polluting enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City should be relocated from the inner city to father industrial zones in the 2002-2004 period However, only 48 have moved so far Those 45 companies that remain immovable alleged the lack of funds and land or failure to find suitable new sites as the main reason - Trong đợt xét tặng danh hiệu Nhà giáo ưu tú lần thứ 8, Thái Bình có thêm 10 nhà giáo ưu tú, nâng tổng số lên 59 Nhà giáo ưu tú toàn tỉnh In the 8th drive to consider eligibility to and award the title “Outstanding teacher”, Thai Binh province had additional 10 such teachers, raising the total of those acquiring the title to 59 - Gia Lai xét xử vụ án tổ chức người trốn nước chống lại quyền nhân dân Phạt tù năm với bị cáo, bốn bị cáo khác bị cáo năm tù The People’s Court of Gia Lai province tried as a case of organizing illegal departure from the country and sabotaging the people’s administration One of the accused received a six-year jail sentence and four others, one-year each - Sau tám năm ban hành pháp lệnh ưu đãi người có công: mức sống người có công tăng lên gấp lần nước chăm sóc triệu người có công (lao động xã hội) Eight years after the issue of an Ordinance on preferential treatment to people with meritorious services to the country: the living standard of these people has doubled At present, the country attends to more than million such people 4.2.1.3 Using antonyms - Oán lâu, hận nhiều Cớ chẳng yêu Huge is my rancor; great, my bitterness Yet, I still keep falling in love 46 - Em có tưởng tượng xem Một anh sống không em Bơ vơ muôn lần chết Đã chết mà phải sống thêm (Xuân Diệu) Have thee ever imagined that Without you, I’ll lead a lonely life As I’ve been not alive, untold times, But must live on, though already died 4.2.1.4 To change, add, cut or rearrange words order Nhiều cổ phiếu tăng giá; giá trị giao dịch giảm, nhà đầu tư nước tích cực mua cổ phiếu Prices of listed shares have increased despite declining transaction foreign investors still continue to buy them In the above example, the translators added the preposition despite to link the phrase: declining transaction with the next line 4.2.1.5 Turning idiolects into normal word in the target language In the south of Vietnam, ‘ốm’ is an idiolect means thin – ‘gầy’, ‘mập’ is also idiolect means ‘béo’ Thus, the following sentences are rendered into English as: - Ngày trước mập mà đợt ốm She was used to be heavy but now she is really thin 4.2.2 Structural Transformation Before rendering any sentence into English, a translator should read, analyze carefully so that they can choose the most suitable structures The two below cases shows how important structural transformation is to the success of the translation version 47 - Đã có sách thuế theo tỉ lệ nội địa hóa xe máy năm 2001 There has been tax policy upon the year – 2001 motorbike localization With this translation, viewers will not understand what is being said here because the sentence is absolutely not in accordance with English style Suggestion: Tax policy has been worked out in line with the motorbike localization in 2001 - Nó nghiện hê-rô-in, cai năm năm lại bị nghiện trở lại He is a heroin addict He had stopped addiction for five years, then took for drug again The translation version has convey exactly the same message of the source conversation, however, it still a word-for-word kind of translation The following version is supposed to be better since it sounds more English: ‘He is a heroin addict, clean for six years before succumbing again.’ 4.3 Overcoming cultural problems 4.3.1 Cultural substitutions Each nation has its own culture, hence, cultural differences or even cultural shock is unavoidable Unluckily, these cultural differences among nations noticeably hinder translators in transferring what really mean from one language into another For example, in Vietnamese movies, you can see that when people meet someone accidently, they always ask: ‘Bạn đâu đấy?’ instead of greeting If this sentence is translated exactly as: “Where are you going?” in this circumstance, is totally distorted the actual meaning of the conversation and even make the viewer confused because it is a kind of private question, ‘Hello!’ or ‘Hi!’ would sound more pleasant to the ears of English speaking viewers 48 Another similar case is when Vietnamese people use different ways when saying goodbye to each other, for example: ‘bác lại nhà; tiễn bà ạ; tí năm gặp nhé’ if the translator transfer formally as: ‘return your home please” or “five o’ clock, remember” The foreign viewers will be unable to get the idea out of these translated version, they can even feel unsatisfactory or confused For such expressions, it would be more natural if they were rendered simply as “Goodbye” or “Goodbye and see you soon/again” 4.3.2 Dealing with cultural untranslatability Untranslatability is absolutely inevitable owing to the copious differences between the two cultures as well as the two languages Nonetheless, a translator can still partly transfer the conversation by adapting several techniques as following: A/ Using loan words and translator’s notes As I mentioned earlier in chapter 2, the job of finding an equivalent word sometimes is impossible In such case, it is advisable that you had better not translate these words but using a loan word with an enclosed clear explanation This method may help the viewer not misunderstanding about a specific concept of the movie For example: + áo dài -> ao dai (Vietnamese dress-the long split tunic typically worn by Vietnamese women) + quan họ Bắc Ninh – love duets of Bac Ninh (a famous folk music; fevestival held in the Spring, whereby young men and women meet with their counterpart) + bánh chưng - banh chung (square glutinous rice cake filled with green bean paste and fat pork wrapped in rush or bamboo leavers and boiled) B/ Finding an equivalent concept in the target language 49 Different cultures have different concepts, thus, if translators render semantically one concept in a culture into another culture, it would be nonsense The reason is simply because that concept does not exist in the other cultures Turning back to the two examples in the chapter two presenting about conceptual equivalence, one example is “Cá gỗ” This saying is used to indicate a mean person “Cá gỗ” is quoted in a fork story in which the main character was such a mean man that he had never spent any money buying a fish for his meal though he likes eating fish very much Fish was a luxurious dish in his opinion Instead of having real fish for his meals, he thought of making a wooden fish and hanging it on the roof of his house Every day, his meal only consisted of rice and fish sauce, but he looked upward the wooden fish and imagined that he was having fish In English culture, there was a similar character in Dickens named Scoorge who was also very mean Thus, a good translator could never interpret the concept “Cá gỗ” as a “wooden fish” but a “Scrooge” The second example mentioning about “Chi Dau”, a character in “Chi Pheo” by Nam Cao – very famous writer in the Vietnamese literature The task of the translator is to make know of the saying: “Nghèo chị Dậu” to the foreigner by finding an English equivalence with similar meaning To accomplish this work, the translator should now about ‘Chị Dậu’ story In this story, ‘Chị Dậu’ is a really poor person that she even had to sell her own 7year-old daughter to get the money and save her husband Thus, in Vietnamese culture now, ‘Chị Dậu’ is a widely used word in daily life indicating very poor people Whereas, in English, there is another concept indicating that kind of people which is ‘a church mouse’ Thus, instead of translating the saying: ‘Nghèo chị Dậu’ as ‘Poor as chi Dau’ It would be better if it is rendered as: ‘Poor as a church mouse’ 50 Translators should try their best on finding an equivalent concept in the target language, this is the best way for foreign viewers understand fully about the meaning of the conversation or the movie situation C/ Paraphrasing For the aspect of cultural untranslatability, paraphrasing is also a possible strategy that can be employed by translators Regarding the following example: Người Mường Thu Cúc Xuân Đài, Lai Đông Tân Lập mặc quần chân què từ nhiều đời với áo Cóm áo Mường truyền thống Quần chân què quần cụ miền quê xuôi Các cụ người Mường mặc quần chân què với áo Cóm, mặc sang áo cánh, thành “cụ nhà quê người Kinh” The Muong at the Thu Cuc, Xuan Dai, Lai Dong and even Tan Lap have since many generation worn trousers with a large seat Old Vietnamese peasants in the plain and a very short blouse with a round collor, then a blouse and become “old Kinh* peasants” *(Kinh means Vietnamese in the low land) ‘Quần chân què, áo Cóm, áo cánh, người Kinh’ are all alien words that cannot be found in any other language Acknowledging that fact, the translator here employed both the techniques of paraphrasing and using footnote By making use of these techniques, the translator did explain all of these words in such an imaginary way in English that viewers can visualize the traditional clothes of an ethnics minority as well as the King people These above-mentioned methods are hoped to help translators somehow in improving the quality of the movie translation 51 PART C: CONCLUSION This thesis is based on the proposition that movie translation is a very important job Movies nowadays play an important role in spreading our cultures and images to other parts of the world The way of translating movie conversation should be improved if we want the world know more and understand more about our people, lives and cultures What I endeavor to in this thesis is to show how would-be movie translators some difficulties in translating Vietnamese movies to English in terms of linguistic and cultural aspect All the problems of linguistic and culture aspects are discussed in the chapter Chapter is concerned with the main causes of problems which have been pointed out in the previous chapter By dividing these causes under two main types: linguistic and cultures, hopefully, this chapter can help readers easily link the difficulties in chapter with their causes In the chapter 4, the thesis offers several translation techniques which can be adopted to deal with movie translation difficulties These techniques are also classified into a reasonable category relative to that of the two previous chapters However, due to the scope and scale of the thesis, some of them are highlighted, the others are not Although there are not many papers on difficulties on Vietnamese to English movie translation, the thesis tried best to explore the matter A clear category of different kinds of problems along with pertinent examples hopefully offers readers a better view on this issue Clear definitions, deeply analyzed examples as well as positive suggestion for each type of problems can all be found in this thesis Furthermore, types of difficulties are also limited to the most common one so that readers can easily pay their due 52 attention to Finally, the author manages to achieve the aims and scope of the thesis from the beginning to the end Even so, several limitations still remain in this thesis as the probable hindrances to the final result The thesis touch upon on a broad topic in a limited times, thus, it is somewhat general Also, as mentioned earlier before in this thesis, not many documents and books on this issue are available Thus, these examples are only generated from limited sources The result is not such a kind of bias, but undiversified, though In this time to come, Vietnamese movies will attract more and more attention of international friends This phenomenon pushes the movie translation process especially from Vietnamese into English and vice versa into a greater demand than ever before Translation of best quality are highly requires Thus, more researches and studies on movie translation should be fostered to help people who would like to become a movie translator In conclusion, I want to contribute some certain things to the study of movie translation through this modest thesis I hope that readers can find this thesis somewhat useful for themselves either in their future work and study or at least a reference worth looking at 53 REFERENCES English materials Bùi Tiến Bảo & Đặng Xuân Thu (1999) Interpreting and Translation Course Book Nhà xuất Giáo dục, Hà Nội Hà Văn Bản (2004) Common Mistakes in English Grammar Made by Vietnamese NXB Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Fitikides, T.J (1967) Common Mistakes in English Hatim, B and Mason, I (1990) Discourse and the Translator London and NewYork John, C and Fathi, Y (2003) An Introduction to Intercultural Communication Macmillan Publishing Company, New York Nguyễn Đăng Liêm (2005) Review of: A Contrastive Grammatical Analysis of English and Vietnamese Mendessohn, B and W Palmer, J (1970) Correct your English Nord, C (1992) Text Analysis in Translation Training In teaching Translation and Interpreting: Training Talent and Experience John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia Slype, G.V and Tankle, K (1983) Better Translation for Communication Oxford Pergamon Press 10 Lê Văn Sự (2003) Tranlation and Grammar Nhà xuất văn hóa thông tin, Hà Nội 11 Taber, C.R and Nida, E.A (1969) The Theory and Practice of Translation E.J Brill, Leiden, Nertherland Vietnamese materials Xuân Bá (2006) Những lỗi thường gặp tiếng Anh NXB Giáo Dục, Hà Nội 54 Nguyễn Quốc Hùng (2007) Hướng dẫn kĩ thuật dịch Anh-Việt ViệtAnh NXB Văn hóa Sài Gòn Nguyễn Thượng Hùng (2005) Dịch thuật: Từ lí thuyết đến thực hành NXB Văn hóa Sài Gòn, thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Đặng Ngọc Hướng, Vũ Tuấn Anh and Nguyễn Thu Hường (2013) Basic of translation Hà Nội Trịnh Thị Kim Ngọc (1999) Ngôn ngữ Văn hóa – Tri thức việc giảng dạy tiếng nước NXB Khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội Hoàng Văn Vân (2005).Nghiên cứu dịch thuật NXB Khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội Hoàng Văn Vân dịch (2002) Ngôn ngữ học qua văn hóa NXB Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội, Hà Nội Sources from Internet http://ojs.academypublisher.com/index.php/tpls/article/viewFile/tpls 02017176/4115 http://bibliofond.ru/view.aspx?id=134230 http://www.lingo-star.com/power-film-translation/ Marriam-Webster Online Dictionary 55 [...]... ideas and values of one culture to another and make it appear authentic 12 CHAPTER 2: DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION There are many problems that translator may meet when translate a Vietnamese movie into English In this thesis I would like to divide them as linguistics problems and cultural problems All the examples were taken in the Vietnamese drama ‘Winter lullaby’ 2.1 Linguistics... like to point out some of the following cultural untranslatability in terms of conceptual, lexical equivalence 26 A, Conceptual equivalence Concept is defined as an idea or principle relating to something abstract In translation, different concepts from different cultures are always somewhat troublesome In fact, the job of rendering a cultural concept perfectly from one language into another is, sometimes,... friends In this case, if Linh and Thao have same friends, only the person who is mentioned the last (in this sentence is Thao) has ‘s’ as possession Linh and Thao’s friends = Friends of Linh and Thao ( Friends of both Linh and Thao ) If Linh and Thao have different friends, both of them have possession “ ‘s” after their names Linh’s and Thao’s friends = Friends of Linh and friends of Thao ( Friends of Linh... film translation Film has always been a powerful tool and a ubiquitous source of ideas in every culture Entertainment and business are inseparably bound in this industry Movies are not just a national property; on the contrary, they go far beyond national borders and attract global attention and recognition, resulting in a huge economic impact for the film industry on the international market The international... have more interest in the movies Moreover, a movie or drama is a way of promoting culture of a country to the world Thus, providing correct translation of conversation in movies not only express the meaning of the movies, but also help the viewers know more about the country making those movies Nord (1992) defined linguistic problems as: “The structural differences between two languages in lexis, grammatical... Difference in lexical aspects - Personal pronouns Unlike English, personal pronouns in Vietnamese are diversified and flexible in terms of style and function For example, there are various ways of expressing the first singular person in Vietnamese such as: tao, tớ, tôi, bác, chị, em, bà, anh, chị, mày depending on the nuance of the sentence However, in english, there is no other ways round of saying all... cannot express the feeling in each word like Vietnamese sentence Vietnamese has many pronouns and they can change their pronoun to show their feelings (in the above examples is the expression for the angriness) In this case, the translated movies seem to be less interesting than the original version - Colloquial words Colloquial words are those used in conversation, especially common and familiar conversation;... excellent and experienced the translators are, sometimes they still have to face up with such unexpected phenomenon as cultural untranslatability It is the situation in which translators try in vain to find an equivalence term in the target language due to the differences in culture, history, geographical features and development level In the case of Vietnamese- English translation, the same thing happens and. .. translation - Used in language learning situation to summarize 1.2 About movie translation 1.2.1.History of movie translation It is known from the films translation history that in the times of silent movies, translation was relatively easy to conduct: the so-called titles interrupted the course of a film every couple of minutes, so the target language titles could easily be translated and inserted in place... eldest daughter -in- law After translation, viewer can only understand the meaning of the sentence but they cannot understand why the responsibility only belongs to the eldest daughter -in- law but not all offspring The viewers cannot fully understand about the role of the eldest daughter -in- law in Vietnamese family The eldest daughter -in- law in Vietnamese culture plays an important role in the family She