A STUDY ON THE VIETNAMESE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF EXHIBIT LABELS IN THE VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOGRAPHY

thạc sỹ, luận văn, ngoại ngữ, tiếng anh, khóa luận, chuyên đề

1 HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES Nguyễn Thị Nhàn A STUDY ON THE VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF EXHIBIT LABELS IN THE VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOGRAPHY (Nghiên cứu cách dịch Việt-Anh phụ đề vật bảo tàng dân tộc học Việt Nam) M.A.THESIS Field: Linguistics Code: 5.04.09 Hanoi, 2005 HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES Nguyễn Thị Nhàn A STUDY ON THE VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF EXHIBIT LABELS IN THE VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOGRAPHY (Nghiên cứu cách dịch Việt-Anh phụ đề vật bảo tàng dân tộc học Việt Nam) By: Nguyễn Thị Nhàn Supervisor: Dr Trần Xuân Điệp Hanoi, 2005 PART I INTRODUCTION I RATIONALE In Vietnam as well as in every country of the world, museums have been open to help people understand and appreciate the natural world, the history of civilizations, and the record of humanity’s artistic, scientific, and technological achievements Museums exhibit objects of scientific, aesthetic, or historical importance for the purposes of public education and the advancement of knowledge The Vietnam Museum of Ethnography founded in 1997 is a cultural and scientific center It studies, collects, classifies, preserves, restores and exhibits cultural and historical values of all ethnic groups in Vietnam People visit the museum not only to amuse themselves but also to study ethnic groups as well as various cultural values of Vietnamese people Therefore, people from all over the country as well as foreign visitors, scientists as well as students can find interesting things in here For the purpose of welcoming foreign visitors, all the exhibit labels are written in Vietnamese and then translated into English and French The translation of exhibit labels is not at all an easy process as many concepts about the life of ethnic people in Vietnam not have equivalents in the English language The translators have to use lots of translation strategies in transferring the concepts in a way that is the most understandable to foreign visitors However, the translators also have some difficulties in translating the concepts for the problem of non-equivalence at word level So far, little research on the Vietnamese – English translation of exhibit labels has been done Therefore, an investigation on the Vietnamese – English translation of exhibit labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography is really necessary In the hope for some suggestions of implications that can be of some use to those who are responsible for translating exhibit labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography as well as in other museums, the author would like to carry out this minor thesis to answer the question: What are the translation strategies and procedures used in the translation of exhibit labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography (VME)? II SCOPE OF THE STUDY There are several types of exhibit labels in a museum: title or headline labels giving the title of an exhibit; primary or introductory labels providing an overview or introduction to the exhibit; secondary or text labels giving an intermediate level of information between an introductory label and the more specific object labels; and object labels providing information, such as description or title, date or age, artist or user, material composition, and sometimes a brief text on a particular object This study limits itself to the analysis of the Vietnamese-English translation of object labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography in Hanoi III OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY This study aims at:  Analysing the strategies and procedures used in the translation of exhibit labels from Vietnamese to English in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography  Working out the difficulties of translation process that the translators in the museum may have  Giving some suggestions for the problems IV METHODS OF THE STUDY To accomplish this thesis, we will go through a number of materials on translation studies to build up a theoretical background for the research Then, as it was stated in the aims and scope of the study, we will collect the authentic exhibit labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography in Nguyen Van Huyen street, Cau Giay district, Hanoi for description and analysis From these sources, we will analyse and draw out the methods and techniques used in the translation Furthermore, some translators who have translated the labels, will also be interviewed for more specific information about the translation V DESIGN OF THE STUDY This study consists of three major parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion; a bibliography, and some photographs for illustration Part I - Introduction The rationale of the study is given in this part It also gives the aims, scope and methods of the study Part II - Development Chapter I - Literature review This chapter provides the theory of translation, translation equivalence, translation strategies and procedures Chapter II - The translation of exhibit labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography This chapter presents the current context of the translation of exhibit labels in VME; it also deals with the methods and procedures used in the translation Part III – Conclusion This part summarises all the things mentioned in chapter II and gives comments on the suggestions for better translation and further research on the problem The appendix shows photographs for illustration PART II – DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I – TRANSLATION THEORIES I.1 Definition of translation Translation has been approached from a scientific point of view by linguists through times and thus has been defined variously Many have concluded that translation is scarcely an aspect of applied linguistics or it is just regarded as a complicated process of communicating, in which one decodes from one language and encodes into another Some others, who have considered translation as something scientific, however, think of translation merely in terms of complex techniques of comparative linguistics (Jumpet 1961, Carry and Jumpet, 1963) In order to find an adequate definition of translation, prominent figures in linguistics such as Cat Ford, Bell, Hatim & Mason, Nida, and many others have carried out careful analyses of the process of translating, especially in the case of source and receptor languages having quite different linguistic structures and cultural features We start with a definition quoted from the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (1992:4739): “Translation is the replacement of a text in one language (Source Language-SL) by an equivalent text in another language (Target Language-TL).” And it is then followed by the linguists’ definitions: “Translation is the expression in another language of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences.” Bell (1991:5) “Translation is basically a change of form In translation the form of the source language is replaced by the form of the receptor (target) language.” Larson, M.L (1984:3) “Translation is a communicative process which takes place within a social context.” Hatim & Mason (1990:3) “Translating consists of producing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent to the message of the source language, first in meaning and secondly in style.” Nida, E.A (1975:33) These five definitions, in spite of slight differences in the expressions, share common features that they all emphasize the importance of finding the closest equivalence in meaning by the choice of appropriate target language’s lexical and grammatical structures, communication situation, and cultural context Through their definitions these scholars also confirm the possibilities of effective interlingual communication by translation if a set of basic requirements which are considered “Laws of Translation” could be achieved Nida (1964:164) proposes four major principles: Making sense Conveying the spirit and manner of the original Having a natural and easy form of expression Producing a similar response Whereas Savory (1968:54) sets up twelve objectives for a translation: A translation must give words of the original A translation must give the idea of the original A translation should read like an original work A translation should read like a translation A translation should reflect the style of the original A translation should possess the style of the original A translation should read as a contemporary of the original A translation should read as a contemporary of the translation A translation may add to or omit from the original 10 A translation may never add to or omit from the original 11 A translation of verse should be in prose 12 A translation of prose should be in prose Nida and Savory’s principles are different in number However, they all pay their first attention to correspondence of meaning over correspondence of style And it is also recognizable that equivalence in both meaning and style cannot always be retained altogether In concrete textual situation, it is the translator that decides which principles must be achieved and it is the meaning that must have priority over the stylistic forms I.2 Translation equivalence Equivalence can be considered a central concept in translation theory; many theorists define translation in terms of equivalence relation Pym (1992) has even pointed to its circularity: equivalence is supposed to define translation, and translation, in turn, defines equivalence Here are some elaborate approaches to translation equivalence: Nida 91964) distinguishes formal equivalence and dynamic translation as basic orientations rather than as a binary choice: + Formal equivalence is achieved when the source language and target language words have the closest possible match of form and content + Dynamic equivalence is achieved when the source language and target language words have the same effect on their effective readers 10 Newmark (1988a) terms Nida’s dynamic equivalence as ‘equivalence effect’ or ‘equivalence response’ principle: “the overriding purpose of any translation should be to achieve ‘equivalence effect’, that is to produce the same effect (or one as close as possible) on the readership of the translation as was obtained on the readership of the original” (Newmark 1988a) He also sees equivalence effect as the desirable result rather than the aim of any translation except for two cases: (1) if the purpose of the source language text is to affect and the target language translation is to inform or vice versa; (2) if there is a pronounced cultural gap between the source language and the target language text Koller (1979) considers five types of equivalence: + Denotative equivalence: the source language and target language words refer to the same thing in the real world + Connotative equivalence: provides additional values besides denotative and is achieved by the translator’s choice of synonymous words or expressions + Text-normative equivalence: the source language and target language words are used in the same or similar context in their respective languages + Pragmatic equivalence: with readership orientation, the source language and target language words have the same effect on their respective readers + Formal equivalence: produces and analogy of form in the translation by either exploiting formal possibilities of target language, or creating new forms in target language I.3 Non-equivalence at word level According to Baker (1992:20), non-equivalence at word level means that the TG has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the ST The type and level of difficulty posed can vary tremendously depending on the nature of non-equivalence Different kinds of ... possess the style of the original A translation should read as a contemporary of the original A translation should read as a contemporary of the translation A translation may add to or omit from the. .. the idea of the original A translation should read like an original work A translation should read like a translation A translation should reflect the style of the original A translation should... theory of translation, translation equivalence, translation strategies and procedures Chapter II - The translation of exhibit labels in the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography This chapter presents the