A study on structural features of noun phrases in “pride and prejudice” by jane austen in reference to equivalents in the vietnamese translation version

THESIS A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF NOUN PHRASES IN “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE” BY JANE AUSTEN IN REFERENCES TO EQUVALENTS IN THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION VERSION NGHIÊN CỨU VỂ CÁC ĐẶ

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF NOUN PHRASES IN “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE”

BY JANE AUSTEN IN REFERENCES TO

EQUVALENTS IN THE VIETNAMESE

TRANSLATION VERSION

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỂ CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TRÚC CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TRONG “KIÊU HÃNH VÀ ĐỊNH KIẾN” CỦA JANE AUSTEN VÀ SO SÁNH VỚI BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYỄN MINH HIỀN Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF NOUN PHRASES IN “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE”

BY JANE AUSTEN IN REFERENCE TO

EQUIVALENTS IN THE VIETNAMESE

TRANSLATION VERSION

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỂ CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TRÚC CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TRONG “KIÊU HÃNH VÀ ĐỊNH KIẾN” CỦA JANE AUSTEN VÀ SO SÁNH VỚI BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYỄN MINH HIỀN Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2017

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF NOUN PHRASES IN “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE” BY JANE AUSTEN IN REFERENCE TO EQUIVALENTS IN THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION VERSION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2018

Nguyễn Minh Hiền

Approved by SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date:………

ABSTRACT

This study aims at pointing out the differences and the similarities between noun phrases in Vietnamese and English and then analyzing noun phrases from some selected chapters of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen and their equivalents in the translated version

The results of the study suggest some common rules in translating noun phrases from English to Vietnamese and some implications on the work of translating They also recommend numbers of things for readers to consider in their choice of a good translation

Keywords: noun phrases, structure, feature, translation, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of study 2

1.5 Scope of study 2

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Design of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Previous studies 5

2.2 Overview of phrases 6

2.2.1 Definition of phrases 6

2.2.2 Classification of phrases 6

2.3 Overview of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 6

2.3.1 Noun phrases in English 6

2.3.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese 10

2.5 Translation theory 12

2.5.1 Definition of translation 12

2.5.2 Translation of fiction 12

2.5.3 Equivalence and types of equivalence 13

2.6 Overview of the novel and author 15

2.6.1 About the author 15

2.6.2 About the work 15

CHAPTER 3: FINDING AND DISCUSSION 17

3.1 The structural features of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen 17

3.1.1 The pre-modifications 17

3.1.2 The head 20

3.1.3 The post-modifications 20

Multiple embeddings 23

3.2 Vietnamese equivalents of noun phrases in “Pride and prejudice” in the translation version 24

3.2.1 In terms of pre-modifications 24

3.2.2 In terms of the heads 28

3.2.3 In terms of post-modifications 31

3.4 Summary 38

CHAPTER 4: SUGGESTIONS IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES IN “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE” BY JANE AUSTEN INTO VIETNAMESE 39

4.1 Survey questionaires 39

4.1.1 Subjects 39

4.1.2 Questionnaires 39

4.1.3 Procedure 41

4.2 Common errors made by learners of English when translating noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen into Vietnamese 42

4.3 Causes of errors 47

4.4 Suggestions for teaching and learning translating noun phrases into Vietnamese 49

4.5 Summary 50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 51

5.1 Concluding remarks 51

5.2 Limitation of the study 51

5.3 Suggestions for further study 52

REFERENCES 53

APPENDIX 55

Appendix 1 Student worksheet 55

Appendix 2 Answer key for student worksheet: 57

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

During the past two or three decades, developments in the fields of transformational grammar, general and contrastive linguistics, semantics, information theory, anthropology, semiotics, psychology, and discourse analysis etc have exerted great influence on general translation theory, enabling the discipline to broaden the areas of investigation and to offer fresh insights into the concept of correspondence on transference between linguistic and cultural systems The traditionally much debated separation between literal and free translation has been replaced by various linguistically informed modern distinctions, like “formal” versus “dynamic” correspondence, or “semantic” versus “communicative” translation In general, more attention has been paid to the translation process and greater emphasis placed on

“equal response” of the target language reader Such new perspectives on theoretical front as well as the fairly extensive developments in specific inter-lingual contrastive studies have promoted considerably the understanding and mastery of the nature and skill of translation However, these are seen to be insufficient when it comes to translation of fiction The literary translation process is quite complex as it requires translators to put a lot of thoughts on a variety of aspects beyond the materials to be translated The materials are not only written in different languages, but they also represent different cultures, differ greatly in terms of linguistic, literary and cultural-social conventions For this reason, the author concerns a good deal with the translation of literary works

A fundamental shift in linguistic research from focusing on forms to exploring both forms and functions has been seen in recent years by linguistics When it comes

to syntactic analysis, noun phrases are considered to be common cross-linguistically, which may result in the fact that they seem to earn the place of the most frequently occurring phrase type One of the most worldwide famous literature masterpieces,

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen, long lives with readers not only because of the excellent plot The considerable attention to the linguistics of the timeless novel has always been paid by scholars across the nations One of the most loved linguistic aspects debated is the abundance of noun phrases exploited in this work of art As a consequence, loads of researches have been conducted to make an analysis of the aforementioned topic

Boasting the vivid and superb language, “Pride and Prejudice” earns a huge popularity in Vietnam and the work Since its introduction, the translation version by Diep Minh Tam has gained noticeable success in winning the hearts of the keen readers

The author would like to conduct a study to explore the use of noun phrases in the novel and also an analysis of their Vietnamese equivalents in the Vietnamese translation version to examine the way to express the equivalents of noun phrases in this art in Vietnamese and suggest some solutions to deal with the difficulties in

translating noun phrases into Vietnamese

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims at describing structural features of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen in reference to the Vietnamese translation version by Diep Minh Tam in order to suggest some solutions in translating English noun phrases into Vietnamese

From this above aim, the study is planned to:

- Describe the structural features of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice”

by Jane Austen

- Find out the way to express the Vietnamese equivalents of noun phrases

in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen in the translation version by Diep Minh Tam in terms of structure

- Suggest some recommendations for students in translating noun phrases into Vietnamese

1.3 Research questions

The research questions, therefore, are posed as follows:

(1) What are the structural features of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice”

by Jane Austen?

(2) What are the ways to express the Vietnamese equivalents of noun phrases

in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen in the translation version by Diep Minh Tam in terms of structure?

(3) What are the recommendations for learners in translating noun phrases into Vietnamese?

1.4 Methods of study

As the research is undertaken with the aim of investigating the noun phrases in the novel, the descriptive and contrastive analysis with the qualitative data will be employed Particularly, English noun phrases in the novel and the Vietnamese equivalents in the translation version by Diep Minh Tam are put into comparison in terms of structure In this way, the use of noun phrases in this work will be extensively investigated while the Vietnamese equivalents are correspondingly reviewed

Moreover, the survey questionnaires will be conducted within students to find out the difficulties of students when translating noun phrases in the novel into Vietnamese

1.5 Scope of study

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen was first published in 1813, and was latter translated into many languages

“Pride and Prejudice” was translation into the target language by Diep Minh Tam, a member of Vietnamese writer associations and introduced to Vietnamese readers by Vuong Tri Nhan The translation version, which is about 600 pages thick, was published in 2010 by the publishing house of Vietnamese writer associations

The task of examining every nominal group in the original version would be considered infeasible due to the big number of the chapters in the literary work compared to the small scale of the research Therefore, the study is restricted to describe, analyse and contrast the structural features of noun phrases in some selected chapters of the novel The chosen ones would be Chapter 1, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 33, and Chapter 34

It would appear to be a question of curiosity to readers why the data selection would come from these chapters While keen readers of this incomparable novel would observe the very popularity of noun phrases throughout the whole novel, the most primary and influential ones which make a generous contribution to the success

of the work by depicting the settings as well as visualizing the characters are seen here

in the chapters Also, the focus of the study would be to the noun phrases which are believed to be complicated in structures and worth analyzing as well as debating It would, therefore, account for the fact that the data would be 100 noun phrases scattered in the novel

1.6 Significance of the study

The study hopes to provide an insight of the so-call popular English phenomenon – Noun phrases in the novel that have over-one-hundred-year existence and numerous keen readers, therefore, contributing to the theories of semantic features

of noun phrases in general

The findings of this study will redound to the benefit of society considering that translation plays an important role in language teaching and learning today The greater demand of graduates with good quality of translation justifies the need for more effective teaching translation tips approach The study contributes as a material for teachers and students in teaching and practicing translation

1.7 Design of the study

The study is designed into 5 chapters

Chapter 1is Introduction of the study The author would like to give an overview of the study, including Rationale, Aims and Objectives of the study, Research questions, Methods of the study, Scope of the study and significance of the study

Chapter 2 is literature review In this chapter, the previous studies related to the thesis, the theoretical background and the theoretical framework will be provided

Chapter 3 is the findings The chapter investigates noun phrases in the novel and makes a contrastive analysis to the translation version

Chapter 4 is the applications of the findings This will analyze the difficulties of learners when translating noun phrases in the novel and suggest some solutions to translate noun phrases effectively

Chapter 5 is the conclusion with summary of the thesis and recommendations for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

Noun phrases as well as other phrases play an important role in mastering any language Without noun phrase, there would have no agents, no patients, and no recipients Additionally, no matter how wide our vocabulary may be, a single word is often insufficient in expressing our thought For this reason, there have been a variety

of studies that investigated noun phrases and the equivalents in target languages They

include both foreign and Vietnamese studies

In terms of foreign studies, George Augustus Gerard Cumming (1971) describes and compares the requirement order of pre-modification of noun phrases in English and French In his thesis, the author discovers the method of express the French equivalents of English noun phrases in general

Bc Andrea RYŠAVÁ (2012) investigates noun phrase in terms of its forms, function and distribution in text In the thesis, he has focused on noun phrase and its modifiers, with a closer analysis devoted to two specific phenomena – to the noun + noun structures, where the first noun modifies the second noun

In terms of Vietnamese studies, Nguyen Thuy Uyen on her M.A thesis “A study on abstract nouns in English and Vietnamese” showed the similarities and differences between the metaphor of abstract nouns in English and Vietnamese, at the

same time, offered some implications for teaching and learning

Also, “A study on compound nouns in the novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte” by Duong Thi Ngan reported some problems in translating compound nouns

in the particular fiction and suggest some solutions

Le Thi Tuyet Ngoc (2009) conducted “English and Vietnamese Noun phrases:

A contrastive analysis” She states the similarities and differences in noun phrases of the two languages in term of their internal and external structures The study draws attention to the analysis of the heads of noun phrases in the two languages, the pre-modification and post modifications, their positions and functions of English and Vietnamese noun phrase Finally, some teaching implications are made for those who teach English as a Foreign Language to their students At the same time, some kinds

of error made by Vietnamese learners due to differences in word order and functions

of noun phrases between the two languages will be discussed

There have been a variety of studies on translation such as translation on adverbs (Tran Thuy Hang, 2013), conditional sentences (Le Thi Yen, 2010), economic terminology (Hoang Thi Bay, 2005)

However, noun phrase in a particular fiction is still an issue that hasn’t been into investigation As a result, an M.A thesis titled “A study on structural features of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen in references to equivalents in the Vietnamese translation version” has been done

“A phrase is defined as a group of related words that lacks both subject and verb.”

A phrase is a part of a sentence It is a group of words (within a sentence) that does not contain both subject and verb and does not express a complete idea

Example: He is standing near a wall

The part of above sentence “near a wall” is a phrase because it does not contain subject and verb and does not express a complete idea

A phrase does not include both subject and verb at a same time and does not make

a complete sense, hence a phrase cannot stand as a sentence on its own

Pre-modification + Head + Post-modification

In English there are five different kinds of phrases, one for each of the main parts of speech

2.3 Overview of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese

2.3.1 Noun phrases in English

2.3.1.1 Definition of noun phrases in English

The noun phrase can be defined in many ways in terms of different grammatical theories However, most scholars of traditional grammar agree on the following definition which is quoted from A Comprehensive grammar of the English

language (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1987):

A noun phrase is a phrase that has a noun as its head

The noun phrase typically functions as subject, object, complement of the sentence and complement of the prepositional phrase

It can be inferred from the definition that the functions of noun phrases bring about the recognition of noun phrases

For example, in the following sentence

Sarah has written fifty books for children

Subject (S) Object (0) Complement of prepositional phrase (PC)

2.3.1.2 Structural features of noun phrases in English

Crystal (2008) defines the structure of noun phrase

“The structure of a noun phrase is featured minimally by the noun while the constructions preceding and following the noun are put under the name of pre- modification and post-modification.”

“The noun phrase typically functions as subject, object, complement of the sentence and complement of the prepositional phrase”

Traditional Grammar made a big advance in grammatical study during the twentieth century The contemporary work now seems noticeable with distinguished names, among which are Randolph Quirk and his colleagues, whose English grammar series are very much known As a result, this study would like to revisit the background of noun phrases from the point of view of Quirk and Greenbaum (1987)

Noun phrases are believed to typically function as subject, object, complement

of sentences and as complement in prepositional phrases, as exemplified in these following sentences:

(b) The pretty girl (c) The pretty girl in the corner

(d) The pretty girl who became angry

In this approach, noun phrases are subclassified into basic noun phrases and complex noun phrases

Basic noun phrase

The basic noun phrases are characterized as nouns with articles or other closed- system items that can occur before the noun head; those are the Determiners

as bellows:

All these 10 Students

As its name suggests, a determiner “determines” the precise meaning of the noun and may come into three types: pre-determiners (e.g all, both, half), central determiners which may be the possessive, or articles, etc.) and post- determiners (e.g cardinal numbers, ordinal numerals, and quantifiers)

Complex Noun phrase

Take an example of a long sentence with the aforementioned information about the girl in the previous part:

The pretty girl standing in the corner who became angry is Mary Smith

It is easily seen that the complicated structure of the sentence is reshaped because of the complex noun phrase Then it comes to how a complex noun phrase could be realized:

Complex Noun Phrase

Comprising all the items

placed before the head –

remarkably nouns and

adjectives

Around which the other components cluster and which dictates concord and other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase

In which reside all the items after the head – notably prepositional phrases, non-finite clauses and relative clauses

The word noun phrase is self-explanatory It is obvious that the most common kind of head word in a noun phrase is a noun In some cases, a pronoun may also act

as the central part of a noun phrase There are four kinds of pronouns functioning as heads: personal pronoun(a), indefinite pronoun (b), possessive pronoun (c), and demonstrative pronoun (d) For example:

a He in He is a doctor

b Someone in someone in the house

c His in his is large

d This in this happens every two years

Usually, when a pronoun takes the role of head in a noun phrase, it is not preceded by pre-modification; however, it can be followed by post-modification, e.g

he who hesitates

Pre-modification can be most typically expressed by an adjective (some expensive furniture), a participle (a very interesting mind, a retired teacher, a noun (his life story), genitive (his fisherman’s cottage), an adverb or adverb phrase (round- the-clock service, this is the in thing at present), a sentence (his what-do-you-call-it cottage)

Post-modification may consist of a prepositional phrase (the car outside the station ), a non-finite clause (the dog barking next door, a report written by my colleague, the ability to use his hands, the ability of using his hand) ,finite clause – a

relative clause (the news that appeared in the papers this morning), an adverb phrase-minor possibility (the road back), an adjective - minor possibility (something different)

And it should be noted that modification can be restrictive and non-restrictive This means that the head can be viewed as a member of a class which can be linguistically identified only through the modification that has been supplied (restrictive) Or the head can be viewed as unique or as a member of a class that has been independently identified (that is, in a preceding sentence) any modification given to such a head is additional information which has no role in pointing out the head, and we call it non-restrictive

In the example,

Mr.Brown’s daughter who is married is a teacher

Pre-modification Head Post-modification (restrictive)

it can be concluded that Mr Brown has more than one daughter and the daughter in this sentence is only identifiable as a teacher by means of the post-modification in the form of a relative clause “who is married” – this modification is restrictive

In contrast, in the following sentence

Mr.Brown’s daughter, who is married, is a teacher

Pre-modification Head Post-modification

Mr Brown has only one daughter Therefore, the post-modification “who is married” does not function as a signal to identify this daughter It just gives additional information on the subject mentioned and this post-modification is non-

restrictive

Modification at “its most restrictive” tends to come after the head and it tends

to be given more prosodic emphasis than the head, while non-restrictive modification tends to be unstressed in prehead position, while in post head position, its parenthetic relation is endorsed by being given a separate tone unit, or in writing, by being enclosed by commas

Nowadays linguists have more sufficient definitions of the noun phrase which reveal its basic syntactic, structural and transformational features: “A noun phrase is any word group that has the following features:

1 Typically having a noun as head

2 Able to be moved in sentence transformation (in making questions, passives, relative clauses, ….)

3 Able to be replaced by a pronoun

4 Typically functioning as subject, object and complement in the sentences

2.3.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese

2.3.2.1 Definition of noun phrases in Vietnamese

Diệp Quang Ban (2005) defined noun phrase (danh ngữ) is a phrase in which the noun function as the main part

Also, noun phrase in the theory of Doan, Nguyen Pham (2001) is a "free combination of a noun nucleus and one or more than one subordinate elements " which can be front elements standing before the nucleus noun or can be end elements standing after the nucleus noun

2.3.2.2 Structural features of noun phrases in Vietnamese

The fact is Vietnamese linguists cannot reach a consensus on some grammatical issues With no exception, noun phrase has been at the center of debate for long Now I’d like to present the viewpoint of some established figures in this field

Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1996) points out that Vietnamese noun phrases have two parts: the head and the modification composed of the pre-modification and post-modification What special about his finding is the head noun He claims that if the noun is preceded by a classifier, both the noun and the classifier form the head So the head is the combination of T1 and T2 For example:

T1 (classifier) T2 (noun)

một cuốn sách này

According to Diệp Quang Ban, a noun phrase consists of three constituents: pre-modification, the head, post-modification In the pre-modification, all the modifiers add more information in terms of quantity In contrast, all the elements of post-modification give more information about quality The head of a noun phrase can

be a word or a group of words in which a classifieris followed by a noun, a verb, or an adjective For instance:

A noun phrase is treated as a grammatical unit composed of three parts: modification, head, post-modification In this part, I will take “tất cả những cái con mèo đen ấy” as an example to analyse the structure of Vietnamese noun phrase The structure of Vietnamese noun phrase can be summarized in the following table:

Totality Numerals/

quantifiers Focus marker Classifier Noun Attributive modifier Demonstrative

Table 1: The Structure of Noun Phrase in Vietnamese The head of a noun phrase can be a single noun (e.g.: mèo) or a classifier + a noun (e.g.: con mèo) Classifiers are words such as cái, con, người., e.g.: cái chén, con rùa., người lính

Pre-modification consists of the focus marker “cái” (cái con người bạc ác ấy), numerals quantifier is distributed in position (-2) Numerals are một (one), hai (two),

ba (three), etc Indefinite quantifiers are vài, dăm ba, mọi, những, tất cả, các, mấy, etc The word totality is ambiguous in the sense that it can refer to the collection of many things (plural) (a) or the collection of many parts of a single object (singular) (b) For example: (a) Anh ta làm tất cả mọi việc (b) Anh ta ăn cả một con gà

Unlike pre-modification in which all the positions are relatively stable, postmodification is more complicated Before investigating post-modification, we should bear in mind that there is no rigid formula for the post-modification

The attributive modifiers can be a noun phrase (a), a verb phrase (b), an adjective phrase (c), a prepositional phrase (d), or a pronoun (e) Its function is to describe the head noun For example: (a) phòng tạp chí , vườn cau (b) cái nhà xây năm ngoái (c) chiếc áo đẹp, khu vườn xanh tốt It is noticeable that an adjective phrase may

be preceded by the intensifier “rất”, e.g chiếc áo rất đẹp, khu vườn rất xanh tốt (d) cái võng ở sau vườn (e) phòng (của) chúng tôi

Demonstratives are considered to be the rightmost post-modifiers They are ấy,

nọ, kia, này, ấy, etc Usually, demonstratives can follow any of the attributive modifiers, e.g.: hoàn cảnh (của) chị ấy, những cái con mèo đen ấy

2.5 Translation theory

2.5.1 Definition of translation

The study of translation has been dominated, and to a degree still is, by the debate about its status as an art or a science As a matter of fact, translation has been variously defined and, not infrequently, in dictionaries of linguistics, omitted entirely and the following definitions have been selected partly because they are, in some sense, typical and partly because they raise issues which the author will be discussing

in detail later

“Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences”

(Dubois:1973, in Bell’s translation: 1991 )

“Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language

by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language”

(Hartmann and Stork: 1972, 713)

It can be said that there are common features shared by the two definitions the author has given so far; the notion of movement of some sort between languages, content of some kind and the obligation to find equivalents which preserve features of the original

According to Magdy M.Zaky,

“Translation is an activity that aims at conveying meaning or meanings of a given- linguistic discourse from one language to another, rather than the words or grammatical structures of the original”

In Magdy M.Zaky’s definition, the emphasis is laid on the notion of

“meaning”, but translation still requires movement of some sort between languages

Above are some typical definitions of translation and translation of fiction, by all means, bears those features However, there must be differences of some kind It is this notion of translation of fiction that the author is about to take up

Translation of fiction is much more complicated than that of other genres, as it deals not only with bilingual, but also bi-cultural and bi-social transference, including the entire complex of emotions, associations, and ideas, which intricately relate different nations’ languages to their lifestyles and traditions

Translation of fiction involves the exchange of the social experience of individuals in the fictional world with readers in another culture or society Both the social factor and the authorial factor (authorial individualism) are emphasized in the process of fiction translation The two kinds of style mentioned above, i.e authorial style and text style concern both social and authorial factors of fiction and distinguish one novel/short story from another Therefore, the reproduction of style (both authorial style and text style) is considered the core in translation of fiction It is also

a difficult task for the translator of fiction to explore the style of a novel/short story and the message the author conveys about social life, human relationships, etc

To sum up, translation of fiction depends largely on various factors, including aesthetic conventions, historical and cultural-social circumstances, authorial individualism and the author's worldview, among which reproduction of the fictional style is regarded as its core It's impossible for either the linguistic, communicative, or philological approach to cover all the features of fiction translation The best approach to studying translation of fiction and solving the potential problems in translation of fiction is the sociosemiotic approach This approach helps one understand better not only the meanings of words, sentences and discourse structures, but also the symbolic nature of distinguishing between designative and associative meanings It also emphasizes the fact that everything about a message carries meaning And when the meaning is decided, it means that an equivalent is picked up And in any kind of translation, finding equivalents is an obligation The next part will

be looking at equivalence

2.5.3 Equivalence and types of equivalence

Equivalence can be said to be the central issue in translation although its definitions, relevance, and applicability within the field of translation theory have caused heated controversy

Jakobson regards translation equivalence as being essentially a transfer of the message from the source language to the target language and a pragmatic/semantic approach to translation

In Jakobson’s point of view, “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code- units” (1959/2000:114) In his description, inter-lingual translation involves

‘substituting messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire messages in some other language’:

The translator recodes and transmits a message received from another source Thus translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes

(Jakobson 1959/2000:114)

For the message to be equivalent in source language and target language, the code- units will be different since they belong to two different sign systems (languages) In Jakobson’s discussion, equivalence focuses on differences in the structure and terminology of languages rather than on any inability of one language to render a message that has been written in another verbal language

The concept of equivalence has been one of the key words in translation studies In earlier work on translation equivalence, Catford (1965: 20) defines translation as "the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL)" He distinguishes textual equivalence from formal correspondence The former is "any TL text or portion of text which is observed on a particular occasion to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text" and the latter is "any TL category (unit, class, structure, element of structure, etc.) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the same place in the economy of the TL as the given SL category occupies in the SL" (ibid.: 27)

Wilss (1982a: 134) states that "the concept of TE (translation equivalence) has been an essential issue not only in translation theory over the last 2000 years, but also

in modern translation studies" and that "there is hardly any other concept in translation theory which has produced as many contradictory statements and has set off as many attempts at an adequate, comprehensive definition as the concept of TE between SLT (source language text) and TLT (target language text)" In his definition, "translation is a transfer process which aims at the transformation of a written SL text into an optimally equivalent TL text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the SL text" (1982b: 3) I think his phrase 'optimally equivalent' is reasonably appropriate, but in my view the problem is that he fails to present what makes the optimality

Using a linguistic approach to translation, Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence, namely formal and dynamic equivalence Formal equivalence ‘focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content’, unlike dynamic equivalence which is based upon ‘the principle of equivalent effect (that is, a translator seeks to translate the meaning of the original in such a way that the target language wording will trigger the same impact on the target language audience as the original wording did upon the source language audience)’ (1964:159)

Baker, on the other hand, distinguishes three main types of equivalence, using both linguistic and communicative approach They are grammatical, textual and pragmatic equivalence Grammatical equivalence refers to the diversity of grammatical categories across languages, whereas textual equivalence deals with the equivalence between a source languagetext and a target language text in terms of information and cohesion Pramatic equivalence refers to implicatures and strategies

of avoidance during the translation process

Besides, equivalence can be classified into equivalence at word level and above word level For example, at word level, the word “sing” in English means “hát”

in Vietnamese and “deliver a speech” in English has “đọc diễn văn” The latter English expression literally means something like “đưa ra một bài diễn văn” but in Vietnamese it would be unacceptable So we cannot base ourselves on the meaning of the words individually

In conclusion, the notion of equivalence is undoubtedly one of the most problematic and controversial areas in the field of translation The term has caused, and it seems quite probable that it will continue to cause heated debates within the field of translation studies

2.6 Overview of the novel and author

2.6.1 About the author

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon, England She was the seventh child of the rector of the parish at Steventon, and lived with her family until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801

Her father, Reverend George Austen, was from Kent and attended the Tunbridge school before studying at Oxford and receiving a living as a rector at Steventon Her mother, Cassandra Leigh Austen, was the daughter of a patrician family Among her siblings she had but one sister, Cassandra, with whom she kept in close contact her entire life Her brothers entered a variety of professions: several joined the clergy, one was a banker, while several more spent time in the military Although her family was neither noble nor wealthy, Rev Austen had a particular interest in education, even for his daughters Although her novels focus on courtship and marriage, Jane Austen remained single her entire life She died in Winchester on July 8, 1817

Jane Austen published four novels anonymously during her lifetime: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815) Two novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in

1817 These novels are prominent for her satiric depiction of English society and manners

2.6.2 About the work

Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, is Jane's Austen's earliest work, and in some senses also one of her most mature works Austen began writing the novel in

1796 at the age of twenty-one, under the title First Impressions The original version

of the novel was probably in the form of an exchange of letters Austen's father had offered the manuscript for publication in 1797, but the publishing company refused to

even consider it Shortly after completing First Impressions, Austen began writing Sense and Sensibility, which was not published until 1811 She also wrote some minor works during that time, which were later expanded into full novels Between

1810 and 1812 Pride and Prejudice was rewritten for publication While the original ideas of the novel come from a girl of 21, the final version has the literary and thematic maturity of a thirty-five-year-old woman who has spent years painstakingly drafting and revising, as is the pattern with all of Austen's works Pride and Prejudice

is usually considered to be the most popular of Austen's novels and Elizabeth one of the most attractive characters in the British literature

“Pride and Prejudice” was translated into the target language by Duong Minh Tam, a member of Vietnamese writer associations and introduced to Vietnamese readers by Vuong Tri Nhan The translated version, which is about 600 pages thick was published in 2010 by the publishing house of Vietnamese writer associations

CHAPTER 3: FINDING AND DISCUSSION 3.1 The structural features of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

In general, the noun phrases in this literary work would be recognized with ease because of their full structure with the modification preceding and following the head noun Examples are provided below:

(1) … a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing

(2) …(take) an eager interest in that gentleman‟s concerns?

(3)… the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry (4) … a single man in possession of a good fortune

(5) … the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour Lady Lucas

However, when it comes to details, most noun phrases are more heavily modified by the Post-modification than by the Pre-modification, which would be exemplified as follows:

(1) … a judgment too unassailed by any attention to herself

(2) … (married) a man more of fashion than fortune

(3) … the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination (4) … the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister

(5) … your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others

The next part would deal with each type of modification alone to provide a better understanding about the way the noun phrases are structured

3.1.1 The pre-modifications

In terms of pre-modification, the popularity of articles “a” and “the” might catch the eyes of keen readers

The indefinite article “a”, for instance, is used to refer to something indefinite

or generic For example,

(1) …a truth…

(2) …a single man…

(3) …a Mr Phillips…

(4) ….a distant relation…

It may be a liitle confused to readers by “a Mr Phillips” Although Mr Phillips

is proper noun, the author has never mentioned him before in the novel and hasn’t got any explanation followed Thus, “a” must be preceded the head noun “Mr Phillips”

Premodification by the definite article “the” is also predominant This article, with the head noun followed by “of – phrase”, is employed to limit generic reference Or sometimes this article implies that the head becomes definite as a result

of being mentioned earlier For example,

(5) … the two youngest of the family…

(6) … the officers’ names and connections…

(7) … the north of England…

(8) the servant (at Mrs Bennet’s house)

(9) … the place…… (Netherfield)

The difference in the usage of the two articles result in the fact that in a number

of cases, “the” would mostly be exploited to modify the head noun followed by a prepositional phrase with “of” whereas the other would also be seen with the ones post-modified by other prepositional phrases or relative clauses, which would be illustrated with the below cases:

(10a)… the power of their conversation

(11a)… the injustice of her implied doubt

(12a)… their chance of marrying men of

any consideration in the world

(13a)… the notion of doing a very gallant

(13b)… an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal

(14b) … a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding

Yet, there are some cases that “a” followed by of-phrase such as:

(15)…a single man of large fortune …

(16)….a mixture of quick parts, sarcarstic humour, reserve, and caprice…

(17)….a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much… (18)….a woman of mean understanding, little information and uncertain

temper

Beside the widespread employment of the articles “a” and “the”, a number of cases are detected where possessives also make up the pre-modification in the noun phrases:

(19)… his sense of her inferiority

(20)… his reason for his interference

(21)…Darcy’s leaving Kent

(22)….your idea of an accomplished woman

Similarly, descriptive adjective constituting as part of the pre-modification are found:

(23)… our surest way of disappointing him

(24)… the smallest objection to explaining them

(25)… the beautiful expression of her dark eyes

(26)… some vert strong objections against the lady

Apart from these word classes, the noun phrases in the novel are also modified by numerals, quantifiers and demonstrative words For example,

pre-Numerals:

(27)…five grown-up daughters…

(28)…two motives for their choosing to walk up and down…

Quantifiers

(29)… every reason in the world to think ill of you

(30)… many in my rank of life who can afford …

(34)….A true Darcy spirit

(35)…Some music books…

(36)…a lively Scotch air…

(37)…a most country-town indifference to decorum

3.1.2 The head

The head of noun phrases in the novel in most cases is noun, the other minor case is pronoun In the form of noun, the head of noun phrases can be one word or more than one word:

(1) ……his first entering a neighbourhood

(2). …….one of your set-down…

(3). …….his having an estate of his own…

From the examples, it is clear that the head of noun phrases can be a group of words that defines as a noun V-ing in the examples function as the main element of the head noun

The head of the noun phrase in the following example can be several sperate difference nouns:

(4). The easiness, openness, ductility of his temper…

The head noun functioned by pronoun as in some examples below:

(5). … None of them…

(6). … something more of quickness…

(7). ….saw anything more elegant than their dresses

(8). … know what I suffer

(9) He is just what a man ought to be

(10). …Mrs Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviors …

(11). ….Mr Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes…

(12). ….just behind you, who is very pretty …

It can be seen from these above examples that when the head of noun phrases is functioned by pronoun, it will be mostly postmodified rather than premodified

“where”, “when” or “whose” can also be found This can be illustrated by the following examples

(1). the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four

(4) ….Mrs Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour…

In those following sentences, the relative pronouns “which”, “when” and

“that” are compulsory and these relative clauses are essential for identifying the heads

(5). admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her

complexion…

(6). the time when I liked a red coat

(7). an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged

(8). …….the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house

(9) … the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow

(10). … a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had

(12) …the extraordinary kindness (which/that) she was treated with

(13) …the most beautiful creature (that) I ever beheld

In Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, the author also prefer to use the structure “preposition + relative pronoun” in post-modification such as:

(14). …the manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assemby…

(15). ….a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much… (16)….a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion,

for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and for none received either attention or pleasure…

3.1.3.2 Non-finite clauses

The non-finite clauses in this novel is not much prefered by Jane Austen but this type of post-modification still have their presence under two forms: -ed clause and -ing clause For instance:

(1). a sister married to a Mr Phillips

(2). a brother settled in London

(3) a source of felicity unknown before

(4). … the measures taken to separate Mr Bingley and Jane

(5). the gentlemen being out,

(6). a face glowing with the warmth of exercise

(7). … every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness

(8) … a great inclination (,Miss Bennet), to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?

(9) …Elizabeth, (who is) easy and unaffected,…

Some of the noun phrases in Jane Austen’s novel is postmodified by both relative clauses and non-finite clauses, for example:

(10). ….one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty,

and I dare say very agreeable

(1). an estate of two thousand a year

(2). a clerk to their father

(3). her hope of seeing him in the course of the day

(4). a servant from Netherfield

(5). concern in parting with her

(6). her inquiries after her sister

(7). a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year

(8). …an invitation to dinner…

It can be inferred from the above examples that these prepositions are used

to show their relationship with the head – the relationship of content, place or object

One of the most striking features of the use of noun phrases in “Pride and Prejudice” is the employment of noun phrases complexes in the prepositional phrases

(9) … the influence of friendship and affection

(10) … a woman of mean understanding, little information and uncertain temper

(11) … the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit and your selfish disdain…

(12) … a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve and caprice

(13) … some odd unconnected questions about her pleasure in Hunsford, her love of solitary walks and her opinion of Mr and Mrs /Collin‟s happiness

By using paralleled words in prepositional phrases, the author is free to add more information in the postmodification This seems to be spared for endless chains

of information, which enables the writer to specify as much as possible the previous head noun

Furthermore, there are some options that the author use more than one prepositional word in the same complex noun phrases, which can be illustrated in the example:

(14). …a young man of large fortune from the north of England

Though the number of Multiple prepostional phrases is fairly limited in the selected chapters, it is of great importance to mention them as one of the most noticeable features of the noun phrases in this literary work

The above examples present the use of a number of prepositonal phrases at a time with the only view to post-modifying for the same Head noun in a paratactic relationship This type of word complexes as post-modification enables the noun phrases to carry a heavy load of information whereas the whole noun phrase would be smoothly seamless

(16) … the attempt [[ to be amused with her own book [[ which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his.]] ]]

(17) ….the defects [ of the person [ with whom you are to pass your life]]

In (15), a relative clause is seen within a prepositional phrase, which also lies

in a prepositional clause in a noun phrases Similarly, a case of multiple embedding is introduced where there is a relative clause in a prepositional phrase which lies in a finite clause which serves as post modification in a noun phrase

3.2 Vietnamese equivalents of noun phrases in “Pride and prejudice” in the translation version

Boasting the exceptionally outstanding features as aforementioned, the noun phrases in the original version would be a source of inspiration for translators who appreciate the complexity and sophistication of languages For most cases, a number

of changes would be made in order that the message of the translated item is fully and properly transmitted These changes make no difference to the meaning of the original version other than transmitting a smooth version, which is acceptable in the target language, to the readers The author of the translated version has employed the method of paraphrasing for socio-cultural acceptance and easier understanding He also leaves out words or phrases which appear to be unnecessary in the target language The following part would be a comparative analysis of Vietnamese equivalents of noun phrases in “Pride and prejudice”, chiefly in terms of structure, between the orginal version by Jane Austen and the translation version by Diep Minh Tam in the hope that readers can have a more detailed understanding of noun phrases

in this novel

3.2.1 In terms of pre-modifications

Firstly, in terms of articles, it can be seen that most of the articles present in the selected chapters of the source language text are omitted when rendered into the target language Only in one or two cases are they referred to for the purpose of emphasis

As far as definite article “the” is taken into account, the translator transfers the notion

of being definite brought about by this article by completely omitting it as the translated head itself remains definite and employing a number of classifiers or quantifiers as in (3) and (4), which are very common in the target language or as a result of the omission of the head And in some other cases, the translator states exactly what “the” refers to as in (5) For example,

(1a)…the feelings or views (1b)…cảm nghĩ hay quan điểm…

(2a)…the rightful property… (2b)….tài sản hợp pháp…

(3a) The servant (3b) ….người hầu…

(4a) .the officers’ names,…… (4b) …… tên những sỹ quan…

(5a) the two youngest of the family (5b) …hai cô con gái nhỏ nhất của nhà

(9a) a very charming neighbour… (9b)…một người láng giếng thật lôi

cuốn…

(10a)…a sweet girl… (10b)….một thiếu nữ dễ mến, hiền dịu… (11a) ….a Mr Phillips… (11b) .một ông Phillips…

(13a) ….a militia regiment… (13b) một trung đoàn lực lượng dân

quân (14a) .a source of felicity (14b)… một nguồn vui

However, the following samples show differently They are to indicate the undeniable truth that “a” is not translated in some cases The authors tend to “ignore” the appearance of the article “a” in the original items may pose a hypothesis that this

element is of no importance in the meaning of the noun phrases

(15a) … a very strange creature by way

of a friend

(15b)… người lạ lùng so với bạn bè

(16a) … an object of admiration to so

great a man (16b)… đối tượng được một người thuộc tầng lớp thượng lưu như anh cảm

mến

(17a) … a silence which might

make him fancy her affected with what

had passed

(17b)…bầu im lặng có thể khiến anh nghĩ cô đang bị xúc động với những lời nói vừa qua

(18a) … a mixture of sweetness and

archness in her manner which made it

difficult for her to affront anybody

(18b) …Tính cách của cô là sự pha trộn giữa ngọt dịu và hóm hỉnh khiến cô khó đối đầu với ai được

(19a) … a something about her more

wrong and reprensible

(19b) ….Cô có điều gì đấy sai trái hơn và đáng trách hơn những người khác… The translation of possessive adjectives from the source language text into the target one bears great resemblance to that of the indefinite article “a” There are hardly any changes in the meaning The only change lies in the position of possessive adjectives in noun phrases, which results from the difference between the two languages as discussed in the theory And it is very common to find throughout the original text and in this novel such possessive adjectives as “her, their, his, its” as the author wants to avoid repetition However, to make the translation as natural and readily understandable to the target language readers as possible, besides maintaining the original text, the translator sometimes clearly states the possessor or ignores those adjectives Another point should be made is that while “her”, “their”, or “his” are principly translated into “của cô/bà…ấy, “của họ” or “của anh ấy/nó” respectively, the translator often omits “của” to make it sound more ear-pleasing in Vietnamese For example,

(20a) .her father (20b) ông bố (của) bà…

(21a) their minds (21b)….tâm trí hai cô (two girls)