A study on translation methods of personal pronouns from english into vietnamese in the thorn birds

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY - - GRADUATION THESIS “A Study on translation methods of personal pronouns from English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds” Student’s name:Chu Thị Thanh Hiền Class Student code : K50N7 : 14D170437 Hanoi - 2018 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale Nowadays, English is becoming more and more popular in the world People use English as a means to connect between this country among other not only in communication but also in culture, social activities, policy… In Vietnam, English plays an important role in all fields such as: science, technology, aviation, international sport, diplomacy and so on Pronouns are words used to refer to someone or something in context so that we can avoid repetition in the process of communication Personal pronouns are a very important part of the language system Both English and Vietnamese use personal pronouns in the category of politeness However, Vietnamese personal pronouns express the shade of meaning (polite/ impolite) much more clearly than the English ones Vietnamese has a very complicated personal pronouns system, so it is very challenging for English people want to master it Moreover, personal pronouns play an important play in communication, especially in Vietnamese They can reveal the social status or the relationship between the speaker and the listener, in some cases, they can also show the politeness or impoliteness of the speakers There is a change of personal pronoun when translating from English to Vietnamese or vice versa when we want to find the exact equivalence between the two languages, we have to depend on the context, the relationship between the speaker and listener In addition, the factors of sex, age or feeling of the speakers are also very important In English, people prefer to use personal pronouns to replace/ substitute the mentioned noun phrase English use both anaphora and cataphora to refer backwards or afterwards to the noun phrase Meanwhile, Vietnamese tends to use full repetition to refer to the mentioned noun phrase Moreover, there is a case that Vietnamese uses ellipsis as the referred noun is metaphorically understood Cultural factors in Vietnamese can be understood as category of politeness Although both English and Vietnamese refer to the category i of politeness, but in English, personal pronouns can rarely express the very aspects of the meaning (polite/ impolite) whereas in Vietnamese they contrast very well In reality have many problems like that, but until now, still not have any specific research on that issue Even if it had some researched, but it was not depth and direct Therefore “A study on translation methods of personal pronouns from English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds” is chosen for my graduation paper 1.2 Previous studies Until now, many authors have mentioned the topic of personal pronouns, however, there has not been an agreement on the concepts of personal pronouns In the world and in Vietnam, there has been major achievement in the studies of personal pronouns In 1988, Thai Duy Bao in Constrative analysis of etiquette in English-Vietnamese dialogue mentioned personal pronouns (PP) and nouns of address in English The author wrote: “In English conversation, the use of PP is compulsory and traditional such as PP “I”, “We” or the first-person pronoun, interlocutor (the addressor) and PP “you” for second-person, who is participant (addressee) The personal pronouns appeared in all communication and social relationships despite differences in social positions, ages and intimacy level between speakers In other words, it reflects relationships between communication partners, between interlocutor and addressee…” [5, tr 45-46] In addition, the author also mentioned types of address in English which reflect position but not politeness, and not affected by different shades of communication in different situations… Generally speaking, there have been many studies and articles about personal pronouns in English or comparison between English and Russian, Sino, Swiss, Japanese, South African or Vietnamese… but no articles have mentioned the translation methods of personal pronouns in the novel “Thorn Birds” In Vietnamese, personal pronouns were first studied by Alexandre De Rodhes in his Dictionary of Vietnamese- Portuguese- Latin, in 1651, he mentions personal pronouns, as well as the nouns indicating kinship with addressing functions such as ông, bà, chú, bác, cậu… However, in this Dictionary, these personal pronouns were not complete and did not reflect all terms used in real life In 1884, Trương Vĩnh Ky ii spent 30 pages in his book Grammare de langueannamite to describe personal pronouns Nguyễn Văn Chiến had articles about Locality of kinship nouns in Vietnamses, Address terms in Vietnamese In Semantics of conversational lines and pragmatics textbook [59, tr191-197], Đỗ Thị Kim Liên mentioned relevant issues of personal pronouns in conversation or in communication between communication participants such as pairs of interactive personal pronouns in asking and answering; the development ans conversion of personal pronouns with the content of conversation; the development in psychology and emotion of characters which influence the usage In addition we must also mention articles about personal pronouns by Bùi Minh Yến in ther doctoral thesis “Addressing in family and society of Vietnamese “[119] The doctoral thesis “Address terms originating from kinship nouns in Vietnamese” surveyed, described and analyzed carefully, completely and comprehensively about all kinship nouns used to address in communication [31] In 2012, Trương Thị Diêm wrote about “Address terms originating from kinship nouns in Catholic community of Vietnamese” [32] In 2012, Trương Thị Minh Phương wrote about Address terms of Vietnamese emphasized some basic characteristics in the use of layers of personal pronouns in Vietnamese and some practical applications in communication In 2014, La Thị Thanh Mai in her doctoral thesis Addressing characteristics of Korean and Vietnamese discussed similarities and differences in address terms in family and society contexts between Koreans and Vietnamese Further, I would like to mention the study of Truong Thi Bich Ngoc- a student of Hai Phong Private University, she studied on personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese In that research, She provided the definitions of pronouns, kinds of pronouns and their uses, found and discussed some difficulties in using personal pronouns and then gave them some suggestions Methods of her study are: Consulting grammar books and web pages for definitions and concepts of pronouns, especially personal pronouns, analyzing data and giving a lot of examples to make the study more understandable, discussing and analyzing more iii common factors effecting on translation Scope of the study including: the definition of pronouns, the classification of pronouns, the use of pronouns, especially personal pronouns, some difficulties and factors effecting on translation of learners while using personal pronouns But she did not mention about translation methods and what kind of methods using commonly Additional, I read the study of Phan Anh in English- Vietnamese comparative linguistic in 2011 He studied on “subjective and objective personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese” In that essay, he had compared and contrasted the way people address the other through personal pronouns, in order to examine what would be the problems for both Vietnamese and English learners concerned with these pronouns In his research, he had taken properly comparative between two languages Same as that issue, Huynh Ngoc Thanh had studied on personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese But he just only made the research on personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese, gave some example to help reader clearly He did not make properly on comparative The next is the research of Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc- a student of University of social sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University She studied on “personal pronouns in English, German and their equivalents in Vietnamese” In this thesis, she had described and analyzed the use of personal pronouns in English, German in specific communication situations, also compare with personal pronouns in Vietnamese to find out the similarities and differences in these language Research subjects are personal pronouns in English, German and equivalents in Vietnamese That research focuses on the use of personal pronouns based on material from English and German novels that have been translated into Vietnamese Most of them are ancient stories and dialogues in these languages On the side of research methodology, he uses descriptive and analytical methods, comparative method and statistical method Another research had done by Vu Ngoc Anh- Student of social sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University She studied on “personal pronouns on the literatures of Nam Cao” Because Nam Cao have many literatures, therefore, iv she had selected some of them for documents of studies such as: “Nghèo”, “Chi phèo”, “ Lão Hạc” and “Những chuyện không muốn viết” She succeeds in classifying the personal pronoun system in the works that she already selected Based on his literatures, she used statistical and classify methods to divided personal pronouns And then she summary that there are 49 personal pronouns with 1457 times appearance in four literatures: First- person pronouns appearance 317 times rank 21.77% Second- person pronouns appearance 133 times rank 9.13% Third-person pronouns appearance 1006 rank 69.15% Besides that, she found out exactly how many time each of personal pronouns appearance in each literal Then she made a comparative about that Insight of that research, she made it properly But outsight of them, she did not compare with other language It did not mention with the cultural of the nation Having a look at studies about personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese, we see that no studies mentioned the comparison of personal pronouns in communication between English and its Vietnamese translation, with the analysis into a specific novel, therefore, we chose this topic: “Study on translation methods of personal pronouns from English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds” and its Vietnamese “Tiếng chim hót bụi mận gai” translation 1.3 Aims of the study My study is aimed to provide learners with the definition of translation, pronouns and personal pronouns Further, we would like to give full content of personal pronouns system both in English and Vietnamese The main tasks are statistical and classify translation methods of personal pronouns from English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds Find out which method is most commonly used and after that give some proposals 1.4 Research subjects In this thesis, we choose to investigate translation methods of personal pronouns used in Colleen Mc Culough’s Thorn Birds published by arrangement with Harper and Row, publishers, Inc During that thesis, we will choose all of personal pronouns used to vocative between characters to analysis and research, in order to find out which is effective way to translate the personal pronouns from English into v Vietnamese The results of the research can be applied in teaching foreign languages in general, and in teaching English in particular 1.5 Scope of the study Basically, the personal pronouns are used throughout the novel, so I only select some typical chapters for in-depth and specific analysis We will select chapters for depth research Thorn Birds was famous novel of Australian writer- Colleen Mc Culough published in 1977 That novel was translated into Vietnamese by some authors such as … In this thesis, we selected the translation of by Phạm Mạnh Hùng translator (published in 2011 by literary publisher) 1.6 Research methodology 1.6.1 Listing and classification We listed the number of personal pronouns including the first personal pronouns, the second personal pronouns and the third personal pronouns and expressions of personal pronouns in character’s talk in specific context and classified them into groups and subgroups to draw general observation 1.6.2 Discourse analysis On the basis of personal pronouns collected using discourse analysis, we described the equivalence between the original and translation in terms of semantics, context, reference system of personal pronouns, communication target and etc In addition, we analyzed and explained the relationship between language and psychology, culture, society to describe characteristics and translation methods of personal pronouns in character’s conversations in the English original and the Vietnamese translation 1.6.3 Comparison method We compared characteristics and use of personal pronouns, which are suitable with communication role, context and functions of personal pronouns used in the translation from the English original into Vietnamese translation We did this in order to find similarities and differences in the use of personal pronouns between these two languages 1.7 Organization of the study This report is organized in three parts: vi The first part is consisting of Abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents, list of abbreviations, list of tables and figures The second part is the main study designed in chapters: Chapter 1: Overview of the study includes: Rationale, previous studies, aims of the study, research subjects, scope of study, research methodology, organization of the study Chapter 2: Literature review Chapter 3: Research findings Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions The third part is CONCLUSION which provides overcoming and summary of the report, Strengths and weakness of the report and Final comment CHAPTER 2: LITERATURAL REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical of translation 2.1.1 The essence of translation The essence of translation is to understand the exact meaning of a text in one language and convey it accurately in another The final result will be genuine content, not the mere shadow of an original one 2.1.2 The definition of translation Translation has existed in every corner of our life It is considered as an indispensable part in the field of not only literature, culture and religion but also commercial advertisement, popular entertainment, public administration immigration and education… Thus, definitions of translation are numerous, and a great numbers of books and articles have written about this subject vii Translation is an operation performed on language It is an across the board skill which helps to improve student’s language proficiently in the process of translation, a text in another Thus, it is the important means of communication between people is deferent language Since then, it can attract the attention of many linguistics researchers and translation theorists, so what is translation? There are many definitions around this Often, though not by any means always, it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text Through translation is no longer a strange terminology in daily life, there is hardly any agreement on the definition of it A great number of books and articles have been written about this debatable subject The following are some typical definitions that are basic theoretical background for this study As started by the definition on the website: “Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source- language text by means of an equivalent target- language text” (as wikipedia) This definition is so long and only show that translation is the interpreting of the meaning and the subsequent production of two texts One other definition is made by the translator: “Translation can be generally defined as the action of interpretation of the meaning of a text, and production of an equivalent text that communicates the same message in another language” (By Roger T Bell) He also adds that: “Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalence (By Roger T Bell) viii Roger’s two definitions are the specific written about translation which indicate translation is the transferring both the form and the meaning from one language to other in equivalence We continuously consider one definition of Catford: “Translation is the replacement of a text in one language (Source language) by an equivalent text in another language (target language)” (Catford: 1988) This is the general definition about translation because it is only the replacement one language by an equivalent another language Although these definitions are different in expression, they share common features that they all emphasize the importance finding the closest equivalence in meaning by the choice of appropriate target language’s lexical and grammatical structures Some sorts of movement from one language to another also insist on the different methods of translation which will be taken into consideration in the next part According to Toury, he said that “Translation is a kind of activity, which inveterately involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions” (1978:p200) Besides that, as E.A.Nida said “Translation consists of producing in the target language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, firstly with respect to meaning and secondly with respect to style” (1959) On other view, he said that “translation is the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language (the source text) and the production, in another language of an equivalent text (the target text) that communicates the same message” Another opinion, Savory said that “translation is made possible by an equivalent of thought that lies behind its different verbal expressions (1968) As a simply understanding that “Translation is the action of explanation of the meaning of a text, and a subsequent production of an equivalent text called a translation, that communicates the same message in another language The ix 3.2 Summary of the translation of personal pronouns was used by characters from English version into Vietnamese version In terms of person, there are three type personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese In English: the first person refers to the speaker or writer (I, me) The second person “you” refers to the immediate addressee(s), or any potentially listener(s) or reader(s), or even a generic one (people in general, including the first person) The third person (He/ him, she/ her) refers to the people/person besides the first and second person, or, to the one(s) mentioned in the conversation besides the speaker/writer and the listener/ reader In Vietnamese, there are three specialized Vietnamese personal pronouns referring to:  The first personal pronouns: tôi, tao, tớ, mình, ta…  The second person, there are base personal pronouns: mày, ngươi, mi  In the third person, besides “nó” and “hắn” for singular form and “chúng nó”,”bọn hắn” for plural form, Vietnamese has borrowed personal pronouns from Mandarin: “y”, “thị” for singular form and “chúng”, “họ” for plural form In the novel “Thorn Birds”, I found out English personal pronouns appear 629 times, Vietnamese personal pronouns appear 558 times It is shown in the following table: Language English Vietnamese Frequency Percent Frequency Percent (%) (%) The first personal pronouns 205 28.2% 251 30.2% The second personal pronouns 81 11.1% 71 8.5% The third personal pronouns 441 60.7% 510 61.3% Total 727 100% 832 100% Table 3.2 Summary of the translation of personal pronouns was used by character from English version into Vietnamese version xxiii In form, there is a charge of type of speech of personal pronouns from translated from English into Vietnamese due to some factors affecting conversation participants in terms of interpersonal relationship on the two axes (vertical axishorizontal axis), in which vertical axis is social relationship, status and according to relationship such as close relationship (love, respect, husband and wife), family relationship, friendship, enemy, hatred… between conversation participants, and reflecting role, hierarchy in family and society, age, gender, position, occupation, attitude, feeling 3.3 The translation of the first personal pronoun from English into Vietnamese 3.3.1 Translation of the first personal pronouns “I” is used in “Thorn Birds” into Vietnamese “Tiếng chim hót bụi mận gai” As mentioned above, the subjective case I is the first person singular pronoun in English, which functions as the subject pronoun It is usually used by one person to make reference to himself or herself The pronoun I can shift from one person to another if it is used by different people But when they translated into Vietnamese, it will become many different words such as: Toi, tao, anh, em, con, cha, me, ta… Numbers of time first personal pronouns “I” is used in “Thorn Birds” and equivalent translation “Tiếng chim hót bụi mận gai”, which was shown as the follow: Ord Equivalent translation Tôi Ta Tao Em Anh Con Mẹ Bố Frequency 134 12 25 10 15 10 xxiv Percent 61.2% 5.5% 3.2% 11.4% 4.6% 6.8% 4.6% 2.7% Total 219 Table 3.2 Translation of personal pronouns “I” into Vietnamese 100% As the table above shows, there are many different Vietnamese words for English personal pronouns “I” And the various words are not always interchangeable The grammatical reasons for different Vietnamese word for the same word, say I, are, firstly to express the difference in age, which is culturally a “big deal”; and secondly, to express the two genders As the table above shows, personal pronouns “I” translated into “tôi” rank highest percent Basically, this is a common address using for communication In family relationship, it shows that they are a person who serious and respect the listener In social relationship, the people who are the first time meet each other, they not know exactly about social status of adversary, they will address “toi” In this novel, that shows on two main relationships: family relationship (husband and wife), social relationship (communication with parish priest- Father de Bricassart) In family relationship, we can see in that example: Fee: “All right, Paddy Did you get the lower paddock done today?” (“Tốt thôi, Paddy Hôm làm xong khu vực rời chứ”) Paddy: “Yes, all done, I can start on the upper first thing in the morning Lord, but I’m tired” (“Ừ, xong rồi Sáng mai bắt tay vào khu vực sớm sớm chút Ơi, tơi mệt mỏi q”) The reason Paddy address “toi” not “em” with Fee, because of the influence of social at that time In model social, they will address as “anh-em”, “vợ-chồng”, “ông xã-bà-xã”… But in that time, they will keep their affection Besides, in terms of social relationships, in the conversation between the meggie with Father Ralph “I am not a hypocrite, Father de Bricassart I had lost faith in my own church, and I had no wish to espouse a different, equally meaningless creed” xxv (“Tôi người đạo đức giả, cha đờ Brikaxxa ạ, lòng tin vào nhà thờ mà trước tơi tín đờ của nó, không muốn cải theo đạo khác cũng vô nghĩa thế”) Although, Fee is older than Father Ralph, in terms of social status, they belong to two different classes However, normally, in the address between the parish priest and their lambs would be "father-children," but in this case, since Fee was not a follower, neither did she hate or alienate the followers Therefore, while communicating, Fee uses the pronoun I just show her neutrality and still shows respect for the parish priest From the next we see the author translated to the word "tao" accounted for 7% This is a pretty rude word Not polite In terms of close friends, such an approach would be normal, nothing to argue But in terms of family relationships, there will sometimes be many cases For example, in that sentence “Want a Chinese burn? And don’t be such a crybaby, or I’ll tell Bob” (“Mày muốn tao vặn tay mày à? Đừng có choe chóe lên, bé hay nhè, khơng tao bảo Bơp cho đấy” ) we see, though Jeck is the brother of the meggie, but they not too close, in that case, they address “tao” In this situation, even though they are an ancestors, they are not very close and love each other Jeck and Huggi are two cunning and naughty boys, bully little sister In this case, although it is "tao" in terms of family relationship, this is understandable, as sometimes it is the way of talking between the brothers Besides, despite being treated like this, meggie still confesses and calls "anh" that shows respect, as well as role and age in the family Whether unhappy or angry, meggie can not confess or call "mày" with her brother “No! Don’t, Jack, Please don’t! You’ll break her, I know you will! Oh, Please leave her alone! Don’t take her, please!” (“Đừng Jêc! Thôi xin anh! Anh làm gãy nó mất, em biết, gãy mất! Ôi, buông nó ra! Đừng động đến, em xin mà!”) xxvi As for Frank, considering his age as the eldest of his family, he has the right to address "tao" with these two children Another aspect is that he does not like either of them, brother relationship between them is not close The opposite for Meggi is different He always confesses to "anh" and calls "em", expressing his deep pamper and affection towards his sister He always wanted to give good things to his sister “If I catch you flaming little twerps touching that doll again I’ll brand your shitty little arses!” (“Chúng mày còn đụng đến búp bê này lần nữa là tao vặn gãy chân đấy!”) In another social relationship, the personal pronouns depend on the social status of the speaker and the listener in the conversation This is shown through conversation between the Sister Atherasa with the Meggie brothers “This is the first morning of the new school year, Robert cleary, and I would have thought that on this morning if not on others you might have made an effort to be on time”( “Bắt đầu vào năm học mới, Rôbe Kliri, ta cho rằng ít nhất là hôm mày có thể cố gắng đến đúng giờ chứ”) In that social time, the Sister likes a teacher, but in that case, they are not a good person They know that Cleary’s family is poor, so they always have bad attitude with them They did not take care much for them, always found the mistakes to beat them Even that, she still hold the address “ta” not “tao” Another translation is “anh, em, cha, mẹ,con…”, it is normal addressing in family relationship It should be based on each situation for translating We need to know exactly: who are communicates? What are relationships between them? 3.3.2 Translation of the personal pronoun we, and us We use we and us to refer to different groups of people, but always including the speaker We and us can refer to the speaker + the listener, or the speaker + other people but not the listener, or people in general including the speaker: xxvii Example: “Show us, go on! We just want to have a look” (p2, us/we refer to speaker (Jeck), the listener (Meggie) and other people (Hughie) In the equivalent translation, it is “ Nào, đưa xem! Chúng tao xem lúc mà” “There! First one! We’ll find them all, you wait and see” (“Một hạt rồi! Em thấy khơng, chúng ta tìm đủ hết”) (we refer to the speaker + the listener- Frank+ Meggie) After use count method, I find out the time for personal pronouns We/Us appearance as the follow: Ord Equivalent Frequency Percent translation Chúng tao 15.6% Chúng ta 17 53.1% Chúng 10 31.3% Total 32 100% Table 3.3 Translation of personal pronoun “we” into Vietnamese In friendly way and formal situation, “we/us” can be translated into “Chung toi”, “Chung ta”, “chung to” Another sides, to address with a impolite and informal, “we/us” can be translated into “bon tao” 3.4 The translation of the personal pronoun “you” from English into Vietnamese Same as personal pronoun “I”, when we translate the person “you” into Vietnamese, it just only change in the role of the character, between speaker and listener We can shows as follow” Ord Equivalent Frequency Percent translation Anh 13 18.4% xxviii Em 15 21.1% Con 13 18.3% Mẹ 9.9% Bố 7.0% Mày 11.3% Các anh 4.2% Chúng mày 2.8% Bố mẹ 7.0% 10 Total 71 100% Table 3.4 Translation of the personal pronoun “you” from English into Vietnamese In some cases, in English word, the speaker use the word “you” but when translated into Vietnamese it will be very different Such as: a) “No, you’ll break her! Oh, Jeck, don’t take her away- you’ll break her!” “Không, anh làm gãy mất Ôi, Jêc, đừng động đến nó, anh làm gãy mất thôi” b) “Why are you late?” “Tại chúng mày đến muộn” c) Stuart said: “Why did you have to name me after stew?” “Tại bố mẹ lại đặt tên na ná cái món ăn này” When translate, the translator should know clearly about each situation, it will not make any mistakes Here we can see in example (c) the personal pronoun “you” mentioned to not only one person, it said for two people “bố mẹ” 3.4 The Translation of the third personal pronoun from English into Vietnamese The third personal pronouns have highest frequency in the personal pronoun system that we survey The author used the third personal pronouns “he/his, she/her” to narrate that novel When the author narrated from the third personal, it will be hold the consistent for all of characters Number of times third single personal pronoun “he, his, she, her” appearance as follow: Ord English personal Frequency xxix Percent pronouns He 87 19.7% His 103 23.3% She 114 25.9% Her 137 31.1% Total 441 100% Table 3.5 Translation of the third personal pronouns into Vietnamese 3.4.1 The translation of the personal pronoun “he/his” In English meaning, “he/his” have a simple meaning to translate into Vietnamese “anh ấy” But based on each situation, it will be translate into difference words In that novel, the author translated “anh” when mention to Frank, “ông” when mention to his father, “hắn”,”ông già” when mention MacPherson and “cha” when mention to Ralph de Bricassart It should be based on his attitude with the characters In Vietnamese, people will have difference way to call one people, if they like that person, they will call “anh ấy”, with someone make they respect, they will call by formal way Some time it will be influence by their age, their relationship and grade in the social Eg: “Too right You don’t think he’d take the animal himself to let me have the roan you? My arms feel as if they’ve been pulled out of their sockets” (Paddy talk with his wife about MacPherson) “Đương nhiên Thế tưởng ơng ta chịu vất vả với vật ấy và cho xám tro chắc? Hai vai nhức nhối, hết cả hơi.” 3.4.2 The translation of the personal pronoun “she/her” We can see that personal pronoun “she/her” had repeated so much Basically, Because Meggie was a main character in that novel When translated, the author used the method of translation based on situation When she was young, the author translated into “cô bé”, but after she became a beauty girl, it will be translated “cô” If we compare with other character like Sister Agatha’s (xơ Agatha), the author xxx translated “bà ta”, “mụ” That addressed refer to the meaning that she is not kindly person, not permit to receive their respect Eg: “She snapped Bob, as if the object of her inquiry were a new and particularly obnoxious species of insect” (she- “bà ta”) “Bà ta dằn giọng hỏi Bôp, thể trước bà ta xuất hiện sâu bọ chưa biết và hết sức tởm lợm” 3.4.3 Translation of the third single personal pronoun “they, them” In that novel, personal pronoun “they” used to narrate all of the stories So It can be translated simply by “họ” On other side, based on each situation, when translate into Vietnamese “they” can become “chúng”, “chúng nó”, “bọn họ”, “bọn nó” Eg: “They were more frightened of his vengeance than of their father’s, for Frank had a vicious streak” “Chúng sợ sự trừng trị Frank cả sự trừng phạt bố, đó ẩn giấu sự hằn học nào đó” CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Overview and summary of the thesis Both English and Vietnamese have personal pronoun in the three positions: first PP, second PP, thirds PP singular and plural which are used by characters in their communication Also, all personal pronouns have neutral shades of meaning and no personal pronoun show politeness, interpersonal relationship or gender expect for third person singular which shows either male or female In English and Vietnamese, first person and third person personal pronoun reflect one person (singular) or many people (plural) Second person “you” in English is xxxi both singular and plural, in Vietnamese, first person personal pronoun such as “minh”, “ta” is used for both singular and plural depending on specific context 4.1.1 In terms of usage rate From the tables were written above, we see that the number of times personal pronouns were used into the communication in the English original version than it’s in the Vietnamese translated version This was shown in the table: English The first PP 205 The second PP 81 The third PP 441 Total 727 3.5.2.1 In terms of usage rate Vietnamese 251 71 510 832 Balance 46 10 90 146 4.1.2 In terms of semantics, pragmatics and culture When translation from source language A (English) into target language B (Vietnamese), there may be some circumstances such as: complete equivalence, partial equivalence or no equivalence On this basis, we proposed a diagram showing the interpersonal relationship, which are the expression and the expressed Therefore, translation is about finding equivalence (form source language to target language) The equivalent language itself is the communication of language (translation of language determined by the expressed- the contents, type, intention, purpose and style of the author and the expression- the characteristics of the language and the translation of the source culture to target culture In translating between two or more languages, personal pronouns (PP) of both Vietnamese and English reflect politeness and feelings Personal pronouns in English only have neutral meaning (he/him, she/her, we/us, they /them), no other PP reflects a sense of formality or informality Meanwhile, PP in Vietnamese not xxxii show politeness and formality but only neutral feelings (toi, chung toi…), or informality (tao, han…) The combination of the analysis and comparison of the personal pronouns when translate from English into Vietnamese shows that there are two groups of solutions proposed to two main subjects in the training and improvement of translation quality in general, the ability to translate personal pronouns in particular Personal pronouns play an important play in communication, especially in Vietnamese They can reveal the social status or the relationship between the speaker and the listener, in some cases, they can also show the politeness or impoliteness of the speakers As we can see from all the contrast I have made between English and Vietnamese personal pronoun system, it is not easy to find the equivalence of personal pronouns in the two languages Before concluding my essay, I would like to suggest some implications for teaching and learning EnglishVietnamese 4.2 Suggestions for teachers Teachers are persons, who play an important role on orient the student in study as well as improving their translation skills They will supply background knowledge and reduction the mistakes made by students Inadequate cultural background, in fact, this includes competent knowledge on almost all aspects, such as religions, traditional customs, social norms, and historical awareness This kind of combined knowledge can be gained along with the process of learning English and learning translation Firstly, when there is a change of personal pronoun when translating from English to Vietnamese or vice versa, the teacher has to understand that situation clearly to explain to the students They should be has an overview about English- Vietnamese languages system, knowledge of personal pronouns and interpretation and xxxiii translation skills After that, the teacher should give some similar examples for students to master that knowledge Secondly, when we want to find the exact equivalence between the two languages, we have to depend on the context, the relationship between the speaker and listener In addition, the factors of sex, age or feeling of the speakers are also very important For example, all of us know that the pronoun “we” refer to the first person, but in some cases, we have to understand it as a second-person references Let’s take a look at this example: Teacher said to students: T: Can we keep silent for moment? Ss: Yes, sir In the above conversation, we see that the Teacher use the pronoun “we” to refer to the students, the second-person reference Moreover, in many offices nowadays, people seem to adopt the new culture of business, through the way the call each other, between the boss and the employee: Some people translate “you”, “I”, “he”, ”she”, “they” as “mày”, “tao”, “thằng ấy”, “con ấy”, “chúng nó” and use in the conversations in the office Moreover, people argue that it’s just no more no less than a way to address each other, and they’re willing to sacrifice the traditional value to the so-called “open culture” The solution is that we shouldn’t rely too much on other culture values to show off or to prove that we are fashionable The true value and beauty lay in the appropriateness of using the correct words in correct situation to the correct person One alarming problem is that the Vietnamese teenagers nowadays have the tendency to use the pronouns “vợ” (wife), “chồng” (husband), “bồ”, “ông”, “bà”, to address each other in schools instead of “bạn”, “tớ”, “anh”, “em”, which may be too unexplainable for the foreigners the reasons why they use that Teachers xxxiv can’t forbid the students to use such pronouns, all we can is to direct the students to the correct, appropriate way to address themselves by explanations and suggestions For English students, know how to address appropriately in Vietnamese One implication is that when teaching the English students about Vietnamese personal pronouns as well as translating the English personal pronouns in class, the teacher should care about some features Those are the addressee (age, rank in society, gender ), the politeness features of the context, the context themselves and the purposes intended Since there are a lot of word choices in Vietnamese to express such a simple English personal pronoun, the teacher should be careful in translation and should explain clearly the theories as well as the parole to the English students to help them with the culture and the personal pronouns system of Vietnamese Learning about the personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese is interesting Both languages have their own beauty The teacher-to-be should bear in mind that their duty is not only carry the boat of knowledge but also to kindle the love of students for their language and the foreign language in order to use the language not only for examination but also for applying into their real life successfully 4.3 Suggestions for managements in the school Managements in the school play an important role on the effective of the lesson First of all, they should organize the numbers of student in each class Because, if in one class, there are too many students in there, it will make confuse for teacher They can’t focus on each student, lead low effective Moreover, study method is also very important They should arrange some practical lessons for students Example, instead for simple siting in the class room, they can go outside to practice xxxv And the last but not least, I suggest that they should hire some foreign teacher to teach direct for student in some specific lessons It will increase effective of each lessons, student can be have opportunity to practice with foreigner 4.4 Suggestions for students As research, the study methods that teacher offer have effective or inefficient, most of them depend on the student They should be able to research by themselves to achieve successful They should not only study on manual, also should be learn from outside Moreover, learning a language is not the same as learning Maths, Geography or Physics, you shouldn’t just sit in your desk, a lot of exercise or learn by heart a number of formulas Practice makes perfect, you have to go outside, speak with some native speakers, learns from them all the skills that you can’t learn from books Especially personal pronouns are very important in communication, practicing with native speakers can help you improve your using personal pronoun system They should increase their languages skills, especially translation skills In addition to the materials provided by teachers, students can find materials for themselves such as books, magazines, theories, movies… Besides, they can role- play with their friend to practice more via communication or questionnaire To professional on language, they should be active, find the knowledge by themselves 4.4 Suggestions for further research and final comments In the time to come, Vietnam will further integrate into the world economy and culture This progress requires translations of high quality, especially from English to Vietnamese and vice versa Thus, more studies should be carried out to identify and how to cope with common mistakes in these translations xxxvi Besides, studies on what can be called a pure Vietnamese language and how to maintain it through the processes of translation should be implemented These studies are supposed to bring readers an overview of the contemporary situation of Vietnamese translated works, its strengths and limitations, and how to improve it Digging into current publications to find common pitfalls that may harm the quality of translations is recommended Research should touch upon translation of all writing styles, be it literary, journalistic, or official As we know, acquire a second language is not easy at all There are many problems we have to face in the learning process, personal pronoun system is one of those problems I hope that this paper will help you to understand more deeply about this topic and gain more knowledge about English and Vietnamese system In conclusion, I want to significantly contribute to the study of English – Vietnamese translations in college and on the media through this study In my opinion, it can be considered a companion of all people who are seeking to improve their English – Vietnamese translation skills as well as the quality of their translations I hope that readers of this thesis can find it useful in their future work and study or at least see it as a reference worth looking at xxxvii ... understanding that Translation is the action of explanation of the meaning of a text, and a subsequent production of an equivalent text called a translation, that communicates the same message in another... characteristics and use of personal pronouns, which are suitable with communication role, context and functions of personal pronouns used in the translation from the English original into Vietnamese translation. .. describe characteristics and translation methods of personal pronouns in character’s conversations in the English original and the Vietnamese translation 1.6.3 Comparison method We compared characteristics