Nghiên cứu tương đương dịch thuật giữa một số bài thơ Nhật ký trong tù (Bản tiếng Việt) và bản dịch tiếng Anh tương ưng của Aileen Palmer theo quan điểm của Mona Baker (1992)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ NHUNG A STUDY ON TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN SOME POEM

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ NHUNG

A STUDY ON TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN SOME POEMS

OF PRISON DIARY (VIETNAMESE VERSION) AND ITS ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY AILEEN PALMER ON FORM-BASED APPROACH

OF MONA BAKER (1992)

NGHIÊN CỨU TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG DỊCH THUẬT GIỮA MỘT SỐ BÀI THƠ NHẬT KÝ TRONG TÙ ( BẢN TIẾNG VIỆT) VÀ BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG ANH TƯƠNG ỨNG CỦA AILEEN PALMER THEO QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA MONA

BAKER (1992)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60220201

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LÊ THỊ NHUNG

A STUDY ON TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN SOME POEMS

OF PRISON DIARY (VIETNAMESE VERSION) AND ITS ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY AILEEN PALMER ON FORM-BASED APPROACH

OF MONA BAKER (1992)

NGHIÊN CỨU TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG DỊCH THUẬT GIỮA MỘT SỐ BÀI THƠ NHẬT KÝ TRONG TÙ ( BẢN TIẾNG VIỆT) VÀ BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG ANH TƯƠNG ỨNG CỦA AILEEN PALMER THEO QUAN ĐIỂM CỦA MONA

BAKER (1992)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc.Prof Dr Nguyễn Xuân Thơm

Hanoi - 2016

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled “A study on translation equivalence between some poems of Prison Diary

(Vietnamese version) and its English translation by Aileen Palmer on form-based approach of Mona Baker (1992)” submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2016

Lê Thị Nhung

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from

a number of people

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof

Dr Nguyen Xuan Thom, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported

me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

A special word of thanks goes to Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien; without his interesting lectures on Research Methodology in Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, consultancy and encouragement, it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for the endless sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

ABSTRACT

Given that translation equivalence lies at the center of what translation is and the translation of Prison Diary has posed both interests and challenges, the researcher conducted a study, investigating types of form-based equivalence proposed by Mona Baker (1992) between thirty Prison Diary poems and theirs translated versions by Aileen Palmer as well as some obstacles encountered by the translator Pairs of data were compared, contrasted and interpreted into different categories Three prevalent types of non-equivalence have been identified, including that at the level of word, above word, and grammatically upon careful collection and interpretative analyses of data from both source texts and target texts In coupled with the existence of such non-equivalence, many obstacles were addressed

by the translator due to gaps in both linguistic and literary terms The paper also sheds some light on practical applications for translators, and teachers and students

with their work of translation

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The idea, the question to which the thesis attempts to answer, came from both linguistic (scientific), practical and situational motivations To begin with linguistic reasons, translation has long been a fertile land for research because of its important role in bridging the world and also recording and building up the history of the

world Translation theory is extensively regarded one big branch in applied

linguistics that is worth researcher’s intellectual curiosity It brings about the attractiveness of different languages to certain human communities The author herself constantly holds on to the wonder whether or not translation of poetry is different from that of other genres, if so, to what extent, and if there is any working strategy for this special type of translation, especially in the case that it has something to deal with both linguistic and cultural gaps Therefore, it is important to conduct studies on this theory Practically, as one of the most important and common fields of translation, the translation of literary works (literary translation) is indeed a

help to the understanding of different cultures and civilizations, so responsible for its

complexity and the must for translator of literature to consider every aspect of the material and even beyond the material to produce a good translation Literary translation in general and the translation of poems between English and Vietnamese and other ways round have been such a challenging but charming task for me that I really want to clarify or at least understand the way translators of these works employ when doing translations Another practical and inspiring motivation for my conducting this study is because of the fact that the year 2015 is the 125th celebration

of President Ho Chi Minh’s birthday I really wish to be knowledgeable of how the translated versions of his poems have effects on target readers, whether to be the same to or different from those on Vietnamese counterparts Last but not least, the findings of the paper are expected to be helpful in cross-cultural language learning and teaching

In order to evaluate a translation, there is a wide variety of approaches, procedures, methods, all of which more or less draw assumption and notion of linguistic deviation and translation equivalence The latter - equivalence remains the most interesting to me because it is equivalence that in my opinion conveys or destroys the effects on the two groups of readers, source language reader, and the target ones Naturally, there are many theoretical approaches and previous studies on this cornerstone concept The successful evaluation of the translated equivalents in English by Aileen Palmer is also helpful to the reading, teaching, and translating, and studying literary works in Vietnam Lastly, a considerable number of studies have been conducted on the translation of poems and novels between English and Vietnamese, the most famous of which are “Gone with the Wind”, “The Old Man and the Sea”, and “The General Retires” However, very few studies have made efforts up to date to understand the rendering of Vietnamese great literary compositions into English in spite of numerous translated works This, to my personal viewpoint, represents a gap in the circle of translation criticism and evaluation and motivates me to invest my effort into this topic

2 Aims of the study

The conduct of the study firstly aims at providing a theoretical background on several concepts related to the topic of the study such as translation, translation studies, literary translation, and translation equivalence Subsequently, it made an investigation into the achievement of equivalence in the translated equivalents by

Aileen Palmer based on Mona Baker’s theory Equivalence effect can be found at

different aspects, namely quantity, function, and form Seeing that poems in Prison Diary remain a great source of literary and translating values, this study employed the form-based approach to equivalence by Mona Baker (1992) to investigate this central issue in translation field, equivalence, at both word and above-word levels,

grammatical, textual and pragmatic levels More specifically, the research aims at

reasoning out:

- identifying and describing types of equivalence in the approach of Mona Baker and clarifying the most prevalent ones;

- examining Mona Baker-proposed strategies for dealing with such non-equivalence employed by the translator;

- clarifying obstacles faced by the translator in rendering the selected poems

3 Scope of the study

Prison Diary, also known as Reflection in Captivity, encompasses some 133 Tang,

Luc Bat and Ngu ngon poems written by President Ho Chi Minh when he was kept

wrongly in jail in China Nam Tran, a famous Sino-Vietnamese translator in Viet Nam, transforms them into Vietnamese Therefore, the study in nature makes a comparison between Nam Tran’s translations and Aileen Palmer’s However, this study will merely select 30 poems translated by Aileen Palmer for discussion, analysis and comparison There have been in reality a few translators of this work, but Aileen Palmer appeared to have translated creditably almost the whole work while the others just focus on a modest number of poems from Prison Diary, leading

to my choice of his translation More importantly, the study, in spite of the title, made an investigation into existent types of Mona Baker’s form-based non-equivalence and corresponding strategies employed by the translator

4 Significance of the study

The study is expected to be an effective and useful evaluation of translation equivalence between the two texts It results in several theoretical and practical values, in terms of translation light Firstly, the study will help reader obtain a better understanding of explanation on equivalence suggested by Mona Baker through a wide variety of examples from the two groups of sample poems Upon reading and analyzing the English version of Prison Diary, of course, they are likely to acquire some of effects used by the translator However, when approaching the whole work

of Prison Diary with some analytical conclusions, the effects will be significantly

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and New York: Routledege

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Cross-Language Equivalence Lanham and New York: University Press of America, Inc

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Albany: State University of New York Press

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Applications Routledge

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Theory and Practice of Translation from English into Spanish Peter Lang

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Humans in English and Vietnamese Poetry M.A Thesis

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Acquisition: From Theory to Practice Peter Lang International Academic Publisher

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ARTICLES

1 Le, Hung Tien (2010) Tương đương dịch thuật và tương đương trong dịch

Anh-Việt Tạp chí Khoa học ĐHQGHN, Ngoại ngữ 26, 141-150

2 Vanessa, L Equivalence in Translation: Between Myth and Reality Retrieved

19th May, 2014 from http://translationjournal.net/journal/14equiv.htm

3 Li, N (2008) The Contrast of Chinese and English in the Translation of

Chinese Poetry Asian Social Science, 4 (12), 105-111

4 Yinhua, X (2011) Equivalence in Translation: Features and Necessity

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1 (10), 169-170

5 http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/article-rhyme-schemes

6 http://literary-devices.com/content/rhyme-scheme

7 Thanh, Do Ngoc Dậy học làm thơ : Tại sao ta cần đọc thơ và làm thơ?

Retrieved 4th August, 2015 from

http://www.ge-tvl.com/?php=product&cat=238#.Vhx5fyOZbk4

8 http://www.poetry.org/termsin.htm

THESIS

1 Pham, Thanh Binh (2010) Strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word level

in translation (Published master thesis)

2 Qiu, X (2012) Translating classical Chinese Poetry into English: Challenges and

A possible solution - A Case Study of Translating Lipo's Grievance on Jaded Steps (Published master thesis) Retrieved 23rd May, 2015 from https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/qiu_xuelai_201205_ma.pdf