Assessing the translations of english movie titles released in CGV cineplex from 2011 to 2014

Although movie title translation seems to be surrounded by intense controversy, the quality of translated titles has received little attention of Vietnamese researchers.. In the first ph

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

***********

TRẦN THỊ MINH

ASSESSING THE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES RELEASED IN CGV CINEPLEX FROM 2011 TO 2014

(Đánh giá chất lượng bản dịch tựa đề phim tiếng Anh phát hành

tại cụm rạp CGV từ năm 2011 đến năm 2014)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

********

TRẦN THỊ MINH

ASSESSING THE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES RELEASED IN CGV CINEPLEX FROM 2011 TO 2014

(Đánh giá chất lượng bản dịch tựa đề phim tiếng Anh phát hành

tại cụm rạp CGV từ năm 2011 đến năm 2014)

M.A COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: ASSOC.PROF.DR.LÊ HÙNG TIẾN

HANOI - 2016

ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Tran Thi Minh, QH2013, being a candidate for the degree of Master accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Hanoi, 2016

Trần Thi ̣ Minh

I would also like to express the sincerest thanks to Quang, Thu, and Thanh,

who willingly spent time participating in the study and openly shared their experiences and opinions Without their help, this paper would not have been finished

Furthermore, I would love to extend my profound gratitude to all the teachers who have taught me translation, interpreting, and research methodology as well as my family and friends who have never neglected to support and encourage

me so that I could overcome many obstacles during the study

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the readers for their interest in the paper

ABSTRACT

In Vietnam, together with the rapid development of the movie industry, movie translation has become a dominant aspect of translation Aware of the importance of movie translation, quite a few domestic researches have investigated the issue Although movie title translation seems to be surrounded by intense controversy, the quality of translated titles has received little attention of Vietnamese researchers Thus, in an attempt to settle controversy, this research investigates the quality of the translations of English movie titles released by CGV, which is regarded as the leading company in theatre business in Vietnam and techniques that can be used by the translators here to produce successful translations This goal was achieved by qualitative and quantitative approaches in the two phases of the study In the first phase, document analysis method with movie titles serving as instrument was utilized to examine the quality of the translations based on the translation quality assessment model proposed by Newmark In the second phase, three translators who produced successful translations were requested to participate in the face-to-face semi-structured interviews in order to find some techniques that can be used in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in CGV Cineplex The results from both phases show that (1) most of the translations meet one criterion in the TQA model introduced by Newmark; (2) translators share some common techniques while still having their own way to deal with movie title translation The findings from the study hopefully will benefit not only translators who work with movie title translation but also researchers and people who are interested in the issue

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACCEPTANCE i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

INTRODUCTION 1

I Statement of the problem and the rationale of the study 1

II Aims and objectives of the study 4

III Significance of the study 4

IV Scope of the study 5

V Methods of the study 6

VI Organization of the paper 6

CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 8

1.1 An overview on translation strategies and equivalence 8

1.1.1 The concept of translation 8

1.1.2 Strategies of translation 9

1.1.2.1 Methods of translation 11

1.1.2.2 Procedures of translation 14

1.1.3 An overview on translation equivalence 20

1.2 Translation quality assessment 22

1.2.1 A review on models of translation quality assessment 22

1.2.2 TQA model by Newmark 25

1.3 An overview on movie titles 27

1.3.1 Definition of movie 27

1.3.2 Classification of movies: 28

1.3.3 Movie titles in English 30

1.3.3.1 Functions of movie titles in English 30

1.3.3.2 Characteristics of movie titles in English 32

1.4 Principles in translating movie titles 34

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 39

2.1 Qualitative approach 39

2.2 Setting 39

2.3 Design of the study 40

2.3.1 Phase 1 41

2.3.1.1 Sampling 41

2.3.1.2 Data collection method 42

2.3.1.3 Data collection procedures 42

2.3.2 Phase 2 45

2.3.2.1 Sampling 45

2.3.2.2 Data collection method 46

2.3.2.3 Data collection procedures 47

2.3.2.4 Data analysis procedures 48

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 49

3.1 Phase one 49

3.1.1 Assessing the translations of animation titles 49

3.1.2 Assessing the translations of action movies’ titles 57

3.1.3 Assessing the translations of comedy titles 68

3.2 Phase two 74

3.2.1 Case 1: Quang 74

3.2.2 Case 2: Thanh 76

3.2.3 Case 3: Thu 78

3.2.4 Summary of findings in cases 79

CONCLUSIONS 81

I Summary of findings 81

II Recommendations 82

III Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 83

REFERENCES 86 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: I APPENDIX 2: II APPENDIX 3: VI

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of figures

Figure 1.1 Newmark‟s V_diagram of translation methods

Figure 1.2 House‟s TQA model

Figure 2.1 The process of releasing a local movie title in CGV Cineplex

Figure 3.1 Strategies employed in translating titles of animations

Figure 3.2 Quality of translations of animation titles classified according to

Newmark‟s TQA framework Figure 3.3 Strategies employed in translating titles of action movies

Figure 3.4 Quality of translations of action movie titles classified according to

Newmark‟s TQA framework Figure 3.5 Strategies employed in translating titles of comedies

Figure 3.6 Quality of translations of comedy titles classified according to

Newmark‟s TQA framework

List of tables

Table 3.1 Translations of animation titles fully meet the TQA framework

Table 3.2 Translations of animation titles only meet assessor‟s standard

Table 3.3 Translations of animation titles only meet the translator‟s standard

Table 3.4 Translations of animation titles fail to meet the TQA framework

Table 3.5 Translations of action movie titles fully meet the TQA framework

Table 3.6 Translations of action movie titles only meet the assessor‟s standard

Table 3.7 Translations of action movie titles only meet translator‟s standard

Table 3.8 Translations of action movie titles fail to meet the TQA framework Table 3.9 Translations of comedy titles fully meet the TQA framework

Table 3.10 Translations of comedy titles only meet translator‟s standard

Table 3.11 Translations of comedy titles fail to meet the TQA framework

INTRODUCTION

In this initial part, the problem and the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, and the significance of the whole paper are presented Most importantly, the research questions are identified to serve as a guideline for the whole research

I Statement of the problem and the rationale of the study

The French artist and novelist, Baker (2004, p.40) believes that “Movie is so important that it has become the first arts of human world” In Vietnam, despite being a fledgling industry, motion pictures have been rapidly developed and widely loved by Vietnamese people, young and old alike According to Trinh (cited in Megastar Hé Lộ Doanh Số, 2012), in Vietnam, film industry “has maintained significant growth” in the past few years and “the box office revenue of Megastar alone rises from $13.8 million in 2009 to $47.8 million in 2012” In 2012, Hollywood‟s films occupied up to “80% of the movies screened in Megastar Cineplex alone” (Thị Trường Điện Ảnh, 2012) As a result, movie translation, apart from book translation or news translation, has become a dominant aspect of translation in the country

Aware of this trend, quite a lot of dedicated Vietnamese researchers have conducted studies on movie translation “A Study on Film Translation” by Van (1999) and “A Study on the Translation of Filmscripts in English to Vietnamese” by Thanh (2001) are some examples, to name but a few The studies cover many facets

of movie translation such as translating film scripts, translating idioms in movies However, translating movie titles are not addressed in these researches despite its importance Meanwhile, as Prendergast (n.d.) states, one of the factors that can help movie-makers “market” their product” and “plays a critical role” in the success of a movie is its title This viewpoint is shared by many other researchers and translators such as Patterson (2008), May (2010), etc As a good title can “arouse the readers‟ interest to see a movie”, the translation of film title is of importance” (Mei, 2010)

Then, as an initial attempt to discover the translation of movie titles in Vietnam, Duong (2006) conducted a study on “Translation of English Movie Titles into Vietnamese” Furthermore, Minh (2014) did a research to investigate the principles in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese These researches have helped to reveal many aspects related to movie title translation like functions and features of movie titles, strategies and principles in translating titles However, translation quality assessment, which is one of the main concerns of translation theorists, members of translation revision boards Benhaddou, 1991), has not been investigated yet Meanwhile, the quality of film title translation is considered more significant as more movies are “released internationally” under the “effect of globalization” (Translation of Film Titles, n.d.)

Quite a lot of controversies have emerged over the quality of translated titles

in the countries where Hollywood‟s movies are distributed Hawley (2008) remarks that the translation of movie titles can “lead to the loss” of cultural and aesthetic features of the original titles Besides, Andersen (2010) states that translation

“causes misunderstandings in relation to the movie and its audience.” In addition, Kelan and Wei (2006) also points out the existing problems in translating English movie titles, including “the messy and low-quality” and “alienation and assimilation” Back to the situation of movie translation in Vietnam, translating movie titles has perplexed not only translators but also many others including film critics, moviegoers, etc Thus, in his article discussing inadequacies of translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese, Kha (2012) describes this issue as a

“war” Meanwhile, Ruelle (2010) also lists out several problems including the lack

of feeling and original meaning faced by many Vietnamese translators when translating movie titles from Vietnamese into English and vice versa

Nevertheless, what can be regarded as a good translated title is still open to question It is said that “reframing a linguistic expression or a cultural phenomenon”

that may be foreign to “non-American ears” is often “inevitable” (Heller, 2014) In addition, those who criticize translations of movie titles appear to base themselves

on their own feeling and knowledge Without a solid theoretical framework, it is very likely that those criticisms are biased and cannot be justified Therefore, it will

be useful and essential to use an appropriate theoretical framework to assess the quality of the translation of movie titles that have been released in Vietnam so far in order to provide audience with an acceptable explanation on why a translated title should be appropriate or not and to help rectify the situation

Besides, titles have three main functions including “informative function”,

“aesthetic function” and “vocative function” (Newmark, 1988, p.40) Therefore, how to translate the film titles properly and how to make the translation attractive to the audience become questions that the translators should consider during translation For that reason, it will be useful and essential to figure out techniques that can be applied in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in order

to ease the task

Moreover, according to Hong (2010), regarding the “quality and quantity of movies shown in Vietnam”, CGV Cineplex “has advantage over other cinemas” In the annual report from HSC (2011), CGV is also regarded as the “leading company

in theatre business” in Vietnam As a result, it will be a wise choice to utilize film title resources and translators from CGV Cineplex as the samples in order to fulfill the aims and objectives of the research This will probably confirm the validity and assure the reliability of the paper

All the reasons above have inspired the researcher to conduct a study on

“Assessing the translations of English movie titles released in CGV Cineplex from

2011 to 2014”

II Aims and objectives of the study

First of all, the research paper aims to assess the quality of translated titles of movies distributed by CGV Cineplex from 2011 to 2014 To conduct the assessment, the researcher adapted a translation criticism framework suggested by Newmark (1988)

Then, it is expected to find out the strategies or techniques which were employed to translate good film titles in CGV Cineplex from 2011 to 2014 This would be done by interviewing the translators who produced good translations Via this, it is expected that helpful implications can be made about techniques that can

be employed to produce good translations

To achieve these objectives, the research was undertaken to answer the following questions:

1 To what extent do the translated titles meet the standard as proposed in Newmark‟s translation quality assessment framework?

2 What techniques can be used in translating movie titles as suggested by translators?

III Significance of the study

The paper will be fairly useful for people who have to translate or assess translated movie titles and researchers who happen to have an interest in the topic

First and foremost, the study is expected to be beneficial for those who assess film titles According to Tran (2012), before being released in Vietnam, one translated title has to undergo certain testing phases involving the assessment of local distribution manager and the original studio If the translated title is approved

by the original studio, it will be released; otherwise, it will be sent back to the local distributor for edition Therefore, film distributors may adopt the same framework that was employed in this research to assess translated titles before sending them to

original studios in order to avoid rejection and time-consuming edition process, which may ultimately help to save a great deal of time and energy

Secondly, the study may be helpful for translators who have to translate movie titles When being aware of criteria in the framework that can be used to assess the quality of translated title, translators might avoid making mistakes as well

as justify themselves when being criticized by the public Besides, reading the paper, they may also find some practical techniques that were employed by other experienced translators to produce good translations Then, in specific context, they may apply the most appropriate one to make the best translation as possible

Last but not least, the study is also expected to serve as a preliminary for further investigation on the issue The study has no ambition of forming any universal laws or generalizations Rather, it is meant to provide an in-depth understanding on the complexities of the issue in order to help establish the foundation for future further investigation on the quality assessment of movie titles

in particular, on the quality assessment of all kinds of title in general

IV Scope of the study

First, although “Assessing the translation of English movie titles released in CGV Cineplex from 2011 to 2014” has been set as the title of the whole study, the

samples of the study will be confined to titles of three most dominant movie genres including action, animated and comedy movies that were released by CGV Cineplex from 2011 to 2014 There were several reasons for this Firstly, except for the three above-mentioned genres, movies distributed by CGV Cineplex could be classified into many other genres including horror, romance, drama, war, music, thriller, crime movies, etc and the number of movies in each genre was less than 10 In addition, translation quality assessment itself is a very complicated issue which requires a lot

of time and effort Consequently, in the limited time frame, the researcher chose to

focus on assessing the translated titles of three most dominant movie genres including action, animation and comedy to ensure the quality of the paper

Besides, only translators working for CGV Cineplex and having experience

of translating movie titles from 2011 to 2014 were selected to participate in the study The cases were deliberately chosen so that they could provide highly in-depth information of their situations, which would be helpful in understanding the complexities of the studied issue

V Methods of the study

In order to gather data to seek answers to the research questions, the researcher decided to use qualitative approach with two phases In phase one, English titles and their translations of movies released in CGV Cineplex was assessed based on the criteria of the translation quality assessment framework proposed by Newmark (1988) Then, the translators who produced successful titles

as found out in phase one would be interviewed in phase two to spot the strategies and techniques they used to make good translations Collected data was analyzed and synthesized to answer each research question Because this was rather complicated, the detailed methodology of this research would be presented thoroughly in Chapter 2, Part 2 of this paper

VI Organization of the paper

The research paper includes three main parts as follows:

Part A: Introduction presents problem and the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, and the significance of the whole paper Most importantly, the research questions are identified to serve as a guideline for the whole research

Part B: Development includes three chapters Chapter 1 (Theoretical Background) aims to establish the theoretical background for the research paper In this chapter, the definition of translation, the theory of translation strategies,

translation quality assessment framework and an overview on movie titles are provided Chapter 2 (Research Methodology) describes the samples and participants, the instruments as well as the procedures which were employed to collect and analyze data Chapter 3 (Results and Discussion) answered the research questions with data presentation, data analysis and the comparison among the findings themselves

Part C: Conclusions summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the limitations of the research, several recommendations related to the studied issue and some suggestions for further investigation

After Part C are the reference list and appendices

CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This first chapter in the Development part shed light on the literature review

of the study, specifically the background of translation, translation strategies, some translation quality assessment frameworks, movies titles with their characteristics and functions as well as some principles in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese

1.1 An overview on translation strategies and equivalence

1.1.1 The concept of translation

First of all, is necessary to understand the concept of translation mentioned

by many translation theorists to obtain an overall picture of the translation

Discussing translation, different scholars may propose various definitions Wassety (cited in Ghadi, 2010) regards translation as “a legitimate offspring of the phenomenon of language” Also, Ghadi (2010) states “translation is actually an activity performed by human beings in order to convey ideas and thoughts despite different languages” These definitions provide a very basic and general understanding about translation as a phenomenon of language and an activity of people

Besides, from a specific perspective, Le and Nguyen (2008, p.3) say that translation can be considered either as “a product” or “a process” On the one hand, being regarded as “a product”, translation may be seen as the text that has been translated On the other hand, translation means “a process” when it refers to the activity of translating

Due to the rapid growth of translation and translation studies, translation, now, is usually divided into two main branches based on the input material, including written translation and oral translation which is commonly known as interpreting or interpretation (Munday, 2001, p.17) Also, according to Munday

(2001, p.17), it has been decided, for reasons of space and consistency of approach,

to focus on written translation rather than oral translation (the latter is commonly known as interpreting or interpretation) He mainly discusses issues related to written translation In addition, this paper aims to investigate English movie titles and their translation in Vietnamese so within the scope of this research, translation, whenever it is used, means written translation

Moreover, translation scholars also introduce various opinions about translation as a process Banja (2009) regards a translator as a “message conveyor”; hence a translation may be understood as “the process” In 1972, Harmant and Stork (p.36) states that translation aims to render as close as possible all grammatical and lexical features of the “source language” by finding equivalents in the “target language” Dubois (1973) shares the same viewpoint: “Translation is the expression

in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences.” Newmark (1982, p.7) describes translation as “a craft consisting in an attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language.” In his “A Textbook of Translation” Newmark simplifies the definition of translation as “the rendering” of “the meaning of a text into another language in the same way that the author intended the text” (1988, p.5)

Therefore, it can be concluded that translation should be perceived in the scope of this paper as the process of conveying as accurately as possible the meaning and aesthetic effects of the ST into the TT in written form

1.1.2 Strategies of translation

Extensive research has been done in the field of translation strategies However, the definition offered by each author or theorist represents his/her own point of view and their views differ from each other Therefore, different researchers

have investigated and described various translation strategies from their own perspectives

Baker (1992, p.26) lists eight strategies, which have been used by professional translators, to cope with the problematic issues while doing a translation task These strategies can be summarized as follows: Translation by a more general word; Translation by cultural substitution; Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation; Translation by paraphrase using a related word; Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words; Translation by omission; Translation by illustration Eight strategies suggested by Baker (1992, p.26) are quite clear and detailed However, they just work with translation at word level Meanwhile, translation should not only be limited within a single word‟s boundary

Discussing the term “translation strategies”, Bell (cited in Ordudari, 2007) provides a more comprehensive definition in which he states that translation strategies include “global” (those dealing with whole texts) and “local” (those dealing with text segments) strategies This perception is widely shared among influential translators and scholars such as Newmark (1988); Vinay and Darbenet (1995) This appears to be the best approach to understand the nature of translation strategies Thus, in this paper, the term “translation strategies” refers to methods and procedures of translation that deal with whole texts and text segments

Up until the second half of the twentieth century, theory of translation methods appeared “locked in” (Munday, 2001, p 19) what Steiner (1998, p.319) coins as a “sterile” controversy over “literal”, “free” and “faithful” translation The

“literal” and “free” poles surface once again in the rich translation tradition of the Arab world, which created the great center of translation in Baghdad There was intense translation activity in the Abbasid period, centered on the translation into Arabic of Greek scientific and philosophical material, often with Syrian as an intermediary language (Delisle & Wdodsworth, 1995, p.112) Baker (2004, p.320) describes the two translation methods that were adopted during that period:

The first [method] […] was highly literal and consisted of translating each Greek word with an equivalent Arabic word and, where none existed, borrowing the Greek word into Arabic

(Baker, 2004, p.320) Newmark, a famous translator and translation theorist, also differentiates between word-for-word and sense-for-sense approaches However, he also finds that

“the triumph” of the “consumer” “illusory”, which leads him to narrow the “gap between emphasis on source and target language by providing a system of eight translation methods which he presents in a V_diagram as follows:

Figure 1.1 Newmark‟s V_diagram of translation methods

(Newmark, 1988, p.45) Furthermore, Newmark also suggests the theory of translation procedures that a translator may use to deal with smaller segment of a text Thanks to its practicality and detailed description, Newmark‟s theory of translation methods and procedures has been widely recognized for its significant influence on many successors (Thuy, 2009)

Therefore, in this study, the concept of translation strategies refers to global and local strategies with eight translation methods and sixteen procedures proposed

by Newmark (1988) They are respectively presented as follows:

1.1.2.1 Methods of translation

Word-for-word translation

According to Newmark (1988, p.45), word-for-word translation is explained

as “interlinear translation, with the TL immediately below the SL words” Regarding this method, the word-order in the SL is preserved Words are translated by their

“most common meanings” despite other factors which may exert influences on the translation such as cultural differences, context, etc This is illustrated with the following instance:

He is a big liar

 Anh ta là một lớn người nói dối

(Le & Nguyen, 2008, p.22)

Literal translation

Similar to word-for-word translation, in literal translation, Newmark (1988, p.46) states that “lexical words” are translated singly, out of context Nevertheless, literal translation differs itself from word-for-word translation in the ability to convert the SL grammatical constructions into their “nearest TL equivalents” Example is given below:

He is a big liar

 Anh ta là một kẻ nói dối lớn

(Tien & Bac, 2008, p.22)

Faithful translation

Newmark (1988, p.46) suggests that faithful translation seeks to “reproduce” the “precise contextual meaning” of the ST within the “constraints” of the TT grammatical structures That helps to explain why the procedure renders cultural words and preserves the level of grammatical and lexical “abnormality” in the translation Furthermore, it tries to be absolutely “faithful” to the “intentions” and

“text-realization” of the SL author Below is an example:

He is as fast as a kangaroo

 Nó nhanh như một con kanguru

(Tien & Bac, 2008, p.23)

Semantic translation

Semantic translation puts great focus on the aesthetic value of the ST,

“compromising” on “meaning” where “appropriate” to avoid “assonance, word-play

or repetition jars” in the TT (Newmark, 1988, p.46) Moreover, it may translate “less important cultural words by culturally neutral third or functional terms” The TT and

ST below can serve as the illustration of this translation method:

Right in the heart of Hanoi, Hoan Kiem Lake is an enchanting body of water,

a peaceful oasis away from all the hustle and bustle of the city

 Nằm ngay giữa trái tim Hà Nội, hồ Hoàn Kiếm là một hồ nước đẹp mê hồn, một ốc đảo yên bình tách biệt với sự hối hả bận rộn của thành phố

(Tien & Bac, 2008, p.25)

Communicative translation

Newmark (1988, p.47) mentions that communicative translation seeks to convey the “exact contextual meaning” of the ST “in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership.” The

“effectiveness of the message to be communicated is the priority of this method” (Tien & Bac, 2008, p.27) An example of communicative translation is presented below:

Right in the heart of Hanoi, Hoan Kiem Lake is an enchanting body of water,

a peaceful oasis away from all the hustle and bustle of the city

 Hồ Hoàn Kiếm là một hồ nước đẹp, yên tĩnh nằm ở trung tâm Hà Nội ồn

Không ai nghe lời khuyên của cô ấy cả

 Her advice fell on deaf ears

(Tien & Bac, 2008, p.31)

Free translation

As proposed by Newmark (1988, p.46), free translation translates the

“content” without the “form” of the original text As a result, it is normally a

“paraphrase much longer than the original” It is illustrated in the following instance:

Tide in, dirt out

 Tide, thách thức mọi vết bẩn

Adaptation

The “freest” translation method, according to Newmark (1988, p.46), is adaptation It preserves the “themes, characters, plots” with the SL culture being converted into the TL culture and the text being recomposed This method is regarded as “a kind of rewriting the text in translation” (Le & Nguyen, 2010, 32) The following extract lyric of a song can demonstrate this translation method:

Nắm tay nhau cùng bước bên nhau vì hạnh phúc nhân loại Nắng phương đông chiếu sáng SEAGAMES Việt Nam hân hoan chào đón

 Hand in hand for happiness mankind we walk together Eastern sun shines

up SEAGAMES Vietnam‟s been expecting for long

1.1.2.2 Procedures of translation

Transference

Newmark (1988, p.81) states that transference, which is also called

“transcription”, is the “process of transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation procedure” This means translators will directly take the SL word into TL with no translation Two examples offered by the researcher are given below:

Naturalisation

According to Newmark (1988, p.82), this procedure “adapts the SL word first

to the normal pronunciation, then – to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL” Naturalisation procedure can be seen in the following translations:

(Tien & Bac, 2010, p.35)

Through translation

Through-translation is defined by Newmark (1988, p.82) as “the literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations, the components of

compounds and perhaps phrases” and it is known as “caique or loan translation”

(Newmark, 1988, p.82) Some examples are given below:

A shifts or transposition procedure involves “a change in the grammar from

SL to TL.” (Newmark, 1988, p.85) These include changing from singular to plural, the change required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, the change in the position of the adjective, the change of an SL verb to a TL noun and

so forth Some examples are:

Hat-trick (sport term) Hat-trick

Madonna (name of a singer) Madonna

ST TT

After her return Sau khi cô ấy trở lại

(Tien & Bac, 2010, p.37)

Modulation

The term modulation is used to define “a variation through a change of viewpoint, or perspective and very often of category of thought” (Vinay & Darbelnet, cited in Newmark, 1988, p 88) This procedure includes three main types, namely one part for another, passive for active or vice versa, positive for double-negative or vice versa The following instances illustrate this procedure:

double-negative (Tien & Bac, 2010, p.37-38)

Cultural equivalent

In this procedure, a SL “cultural word” is translated by an equivalent

“cultural word” in TL (Newmark, 1988, p 82-83) This is used in the following translation:

He graduated after obtaining a degree with (high) distinction

 Anh ta tốt nghiệp loại giỏi (xuất sắc)

(Tien & Bac, 2010, p.38)

Functional equivalent

As it is suggested by Newmark (1988, p.83), this procedure is “applied to translate “cultural words” in the SL, which “requires the use of a culture-free word,

sometimes with a new specific term” in the TL, which makes it neutralize or generalize the SL, and sometimes add a particular” This is shown in the instance given by the researcher:

The White House decided to lift trade embargo against Vietnam in 1994

 Vào năm 1994, Chính phủ Hoa Kỳ đã quyết định bãi bỏ lệnh cấm vận thương mại đối với Việt Nam

Descriptive equivalent

When this procedure is used, the meaning of the “original word is explained

in several words” (Newmark, 1988, p 83) Descriptive equivalent procedure is often used with “transference to translate a cultural word” (Newmark, 1988, p.84) This is illustrated in the following example given by the researcher:

To attend the Salsa course, you must pay the tuition fee first

 Để có thể tham gia khóa học Salsa (một điệu nhảy kết hợp giữa các điệu nhảy Latin) trước tiên bạn phải trả học phí

Synonym

According to Newmark (1988, p.84), this procedure is a "near TL equivalent” and employed “for a SL word where there is no clear one-to-one equivalent, and the word is not important in the text, in particular for adjectives or adverbs of quality” This procedure is shown in the instance offered by the researcher:

“recognised” in TL instead of creating his own new translation, for example:

Ủy Ban Dân Tộc

 State Committee of Ethnic Minority Affairs

Hey buddy! Today is this dude‟s doom date Have anything to cheer him up

 Này anh bạn, hôm nay gã này đen đủ đường Có gì giúp cậu ta giải sầu không?

Harvard is one of eight universities in Ivy League

 Harvard là một trong tám trường đại học thuộc “Liên đoàn Ivy”

Componential analysis

According to Newmark (1988, p 90), this is “the splitting up of a lexical unit into its sense components, often one-to-two, -three or –four translations” Newmark also adds: “Normally the SL word has a more specific meaning than the TL, and the translator has to add one or two TL sense components to the corresponding TL” (1988, p.114) Below is an instance offered by the researcher:

implications and omissions” (Newmark, 1988, p 90) An example is provided by the researcher:

Năm 1945, tại quảng trường Ba Đình, Người đã đọc bản Tuyên ngôn độc lập

 In 1911, at Ba Dinh square, President Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence

Reduction and expansion

According to Newmark (1988, p 90), these are rather imprecise translation procedures In simple terms, reduction implies “omission of a word from an expression”, which “is not essential for understanding”; whereas “expansion is a rather descriptive way of translating an expression and involves the use of a greater number of words in TL than in SL” (Václavíková, 2006) Two examples of the procedures are given below:

To attend the barbecue, you must have a student ID

 Để được dự tiêc barbecue (bữa tiệc ngoài trời, đồ ăn được nướng trên bết cũng đặt ngoài trời), anh phải mang theo thẻ sinh viên

(Tien & Bac, 2008, p 39)

1.1.3 An overview on translation equivalence

The concept of equivalence is said to hold a central position in translation studies However, it is a rather controversial issue, causing many heated debates among translators and scholars as to its nature, definition and applicability

Jakobson (1959) states that there are three types of translation, including

“intralingual”, “interlingual” and “intersemiotic” It is interlingual translation that has been focus of translation studies Particularly, when discussing the thorny problem of equivalence in meaning between words in different languages, he stresses the fact that there can be no full equivalence between two words (Jakobson,

1959, p.114)

Meanwhile, with regard to equivalence, Nida (1969, p.25) believes that there are two basic types of equivalence, including “formal equivalence” and “dynamic equivalence” He argues that in formal equivalence, the TT resembles very much the

ST in both form and content whereas in dynamic equivalence an effort is made to convey the ST message in the TT as naturally as possible Nida is credited for introducing a receptor-based direction to the task of translating (Munday, 2001, p.42) However, this theory has been criticized for some reasons Lefevere (1993, p.7) argues that equivalence is still focused on the word-level whereas Broeck (1978, p.40) wonders how it is possible to measure the equivalent effect since no text can have the same effect or elicit the same response in two different cultures in different periods of time

Koller (1979) introduces a detailed examination of the concept of equivalence According to him, “equivalence deals with equivalent items in specific ST-TT pairs and contexts” In an effort of answering what is equivalent to what, Koller (1979, p.186-191) distinguishes five types of equivalence These include

“denotative equivalence”, “connotative equivalence” (relating to lexical choices),

“text-normative equivalence (relating to text-types), “pragmatic equivalence” (involving the receiver of the text message and “formal equivalence” (relating to the forma and aesthetics of the text) He continues to argue that a “hierarchy of values” can be preserved in translation only if the translator comes up with a hierarchy of equivalence requirements for the TT (Koller, 1989, p.89) Although the hierarchical ordering of equivalence is still open to debate, Koller‟s contribution to the field of translation studies is acknowledged for bringing into translators‟ attention various types and ways in which the fashionable desideratum of equivalence may be achieved

Baker (1992, p.6) addresses the vexing issue of equivalence by adopting a more neutral approach when she argues that equivalence is a relative notion because

it is influenced by a variety of linguistic and cultural factors She differentiates between word-level and above-word-level equivalence Grammatical equivalence refers to the diversity of grammatical categories across languages and the difficulty

of finding an equivalent term in the TT due to the variety of grammatical rules across languages On the other hand, textual equivalence refers to equivalence that may be achieved between a ST and TT in terms of cohesion and information Pragmatic equivalence deals mainly with implicature

In conclusion, ontrary to linguistic-oriented approaches to translation which assume that the source text occupies a supreme position and that it is considered to

be of crucial importance in determining not only the translation process but also the extent to which it has been successful, target-oriented approaches view the source text as the point of departure for the translation process and mostly focus on the cultural, historical, and socio-political factors surrounding translation, thus looking

at it as a culture-bound phenomenon Despite of its shortcomings, it should be stressed that equivalence is still one of the pivotal definitory axes of translation since

it functions as a reminder of the central problems a translator encounters during the translation process

1.2 Translation quality assessment

1.2.1 A review on models of translation quality assessment

According to Larson (1984, p.489), it is important to test a translation to know whether a translation that is faithful to the source text message and that it is natural sounding in the target language Furthermore, it seems that assessing the quality of a translation “lies in the heart of all concerns with translation criticism” (House, 2001) Accordingly, there have been quite a few “attempts” to find ways to

“evaluate the quality of a translated work” (Faghih & Jaza‟ei, 2015)

Larson (1984) proposes a model of translation quality assessment (TQA) in which the translated text and the original one should be compared and contrasted based on three criteria including accuracy, clarity and naturalness This model is presented below:

1) Accuracy: conveys all the information that is in the source text Sometimes the translator struggles with reformulating the message and may include information that is not in the source text or meant in the source text This information should be removed from the translation

2) Clarity: the translation must be understandable to the people who are depending on

it for information A translation may be accurate without being clear It tends to contain ambiguity Ambiguity is when a phrase or sentence could have more than one meaning in a specific context so the target audience is not sure of the intended meaning

3) Naturalness: A translation can be accurate and clear and still not be natural A

natural translation is idiomatic and uses the grammatical forms ordinarily used in the target language Ideally the translation does not sound like a translation, instead it sounds like a text originally created in that language

Larson (1984, p.490) However, this model appears rather simple It seems that the model is just a simple description of the three factors that a translator should consider when producing a translation Besides, in the model, the interrelationship among the three factors is not clearly stated In addition, the three criteria are ambiguous For example, one native speaker may find the translated text natural while others do not

If an assessor base himself on this model, he may find it difficult to identify whether

a translated text reach the equivalent effect as the original one create on the source language readers

One model which has received positive comments from translation theorists

is the one proposed by House (1977) Before presenting her model, House explains the theoretical basis on which her model is developed She starts by saying that it is the essence of translation that meaning be preserved across the two languages involved, and that meaning has three basic aspects: Semantic, Pragmatic and Textual aspect The model is presented below:

Figure 1.2: House‟s TQA model

(House, 1977, p.27) The semantic aspect is the most easily accessible from the three aspects and has been given preference by evaluators However, the pragmatic aspect, which is

"the particular use of an expression on a specific occasion" (House, 1977, p.27) is very important in translation because translation deals with language in use

The textual aspect has been frequently neglected though it is a very important aspect because all the references such as substitutions, anaphora, ellipses, etc that make up the different ways of text functions account for the textual meaning that should be preserved in translation

According to House (1977), the equivalence sought should be an equivalence

of function In other words, both source and translated texts must present the same function and the text's function can only be made explicit through a detailed analysis

of the text itself

This is the basis for the model, and what makes it different from other criteria for establishing equivalence is the fact that those criteria relied either on the writer's intention, an item that is not open to empirical investigation, or on the reader's responses, which present problems to be measured The function of a text would then be "the application or use of what the text has in the particular context of a situation" (House, 1977, p.37)

Approaching TQA from a translator‟s point of view rather than a theorist, Newmark (1988, p.186) proposes a process of 5 “topics” to assess a translation These five topics include: (1) a brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects; (2) the translator's interpretation of the SL text's purpose, his translation method and the translation's likely readership; (3) a selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original; (4) an evaluation of the translation - (a) in the translator's terms, (b) in the critic's terms; (5)

where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline

The TQA model proposed by House requires profound and full knowledge of functional grammar (Tien, cited in Thuy, 2009) Meanwhile, regarding the number

of movie titles in this research and the context of CGV Cineplex, it is impractical to use House‟s model Meanwhile, in this case, the TQA model suggested by Newmark (1988) is considered a better framework to assess the quality of a translation in practice (Thuy, 2009) Furthermore, Tien (2007) also suggests that all the steps in the translation quality assessment framework that Newmark (1988) introduces are drawn from the practical experience of a translator Therefore, they reflect the issues that translators concern, which makes it feasible and uncomplicated to follow this TQA model It is noteworthy that despite its simplicity, Newmark‟s TQA model is established based on fundamental theories which are indispensable in assessing the quality of a translation (Tien, 2007) On top of that, the model puts its emphasis on the elements affecting translation as a communication process but not just a textual form (Tien, 2007) while movie titles, as mentioned above, are also means of communication that movie producers utilize to attract audience As a result, Newmark‟s translation quality assessment framework, with its simplicity and flexibility, appears to be more appropriate in this case For that reason, all the collected titles serving as the sample for this research paper would be assessed based

on the TQA model proposed by Newmark (1988)

1.2.2 TQA model by Newmark

Newmark (1988, p.186) suggests a model of TQA which consists of 5 “topics” This model is presented in detail as follows:

1) Text analysis: In this very first step, the assessor should analyze the author‟s purpose, that is, the attitude he takes towards the topic In addition an indication

of the source text‟s category and type should be analyzed Newmark (1988, p.184) also noted that under no circumstances should the assessor “discuss the author‟s life, other words or general background”

2) The translator‟s purpose: Here, it is necessary to find out whether the translator has misinterpreted the author by omitting certain sections of the text It should be noted that the assessor is not criticizing them but attempting to understand why the translator has used these procedures In any event, here the assessor empathizes with the translator and distinguish between incompetence (inadequate knowledge of SLT and/or topic) and a translator method which may

be too idiomatic or too academic

3) Comparing the translation with the original: In this stage, how the translator has solved the particular problems of the SL text should be considered The assessor should not take the points successively, instead he/she should group them selectively under general heads: the title, the structure, including the paragraphing and sentence connectives; shifts, metaphors, cultural words, translationese, proper names, neologism, untranslatable words, ambiguity, level

of language, and, where relevant, meta-language, puns, sound-effect This third section is the heart of the critique; normally it has to be selective since, in principle, any passage that diverges from literal translation in grammar lexis or

„marked‟ word order constitutes a problem, offers choices, requires you to justify your preferred solution

4) The evaluation of the translation: The referential and pragmatic accuracy of the translation is assessed If the translation is not a clear version of the original, the assessor should consider first whether the essential invarant element of the text which consists usually of its facts or its ideas is adequately represented However, if the purpose of the text is to sell something, to persuade, to prohibit, etc, then this purpose is the keystone of the invariance, which changes from text

to text; and this is why any general theory of translation invariance is futile

After considering whether the translation is successful in its own terms, the assessor evaluates it by his or her own standards of referential and pragmatic accuracy Here, it should be noteworthy that the assessor have to avoid criticizing the translator for ignoring translation principles that were not established and extent of the semantic deficit in the translation, and whether it

is inevitable or due to the translator‟s deficiencies

5) The translation‟s future: The assessor evaluates the work‟s potential importance within the target language culture For example, is it worth translating? What kind of influence will it have on the language, the literature, the ideas in its hew milieu? However, it should be noted that this “topic” is applied in the casue of serious text such as a novel, a poem, or an important book

The TQA model proposed by Newmark is of high practicality because it is established based on the process of translating a text It requires practical knowledge

of translation; therefore, it is suitable for assessing the translations of movie titles, which should be done in a short period of time However, it is noteworthy that among the five “topics” presented in this model, the “translation‟s future” stage in which the potential importance of the translated version of “serious texts” appears to

be inappropriate in the case of assessing the translated movie titles This is because all the titles served as samples in this paper had been already released by CGV Cineplex For that reason, in this paper, a part of the TQA model proposed by Newmark, which includes the first four topics, is utilized

1.3 An overview on movie titles

1.3.1 Definition of movie

The word “movie” sounds simple and familiar to people, however; it is still necessary to clearly define the term in order to avoid any ambiguity

According to OALD, Movie (n.d.) is “a series of moving pictures recorded

with sound that tells a story, shown at the cinema/movie theater” and its synonym is

“film” When it comes to the definition of Film (n.d.), OALD says that the term

means “a series of moving pictures recorded with sound that tells a story, shown on television or at the cinema/movie theater” There is a slight difference between them: Both can be shown at the cinema, however, only film can refer to “moving pictures” shown “on television” However, the research only concerns movies or films shown in CGV Cineplex Hence, within the scope of the paper, the two terms are used interchangeably to denote “a series of moving pictures recorded with sound that tells a story, shown at the cinema/movie theater”

1.3.2 Classification of movies:

It would be no exaggeration to state that movie genre has certain influences on the strategy that a translator chooses to translate a movie title Therefore, in this paper, movie genre is a factor that is considered in assessing the

translation of the selected movie titles

So numerous and various are movies, hence, movie classification is such a difficult and complicated task “The world's biggest movie website” (Daily Mail Report, 2010), IMDB proposes 26 movie genres These include Action, Comedy, Family, History, Documentary, Reality-TV, Talk-show, etc However, the website lists out film genres in a way that mixes TV series with motion pictures, which may

cause confusion for movie classification

Meanwhile, Andersen (2010) mentions three film genres including Romance, Comedy and Children‟s movies Although the author provides detailed explanation

of each genre, his classification as such cannot cover all movie types

According to Tan (2015), based on different theme and complexity, films can

be divided into several genres, including the Western film, the Musical, Comedy, Science fiction, War film, Detective and Gangster, Horror film, Film Noir, Social- Political Drama, Adventures, lyric films and so on Although it is fairly detailed, using this way to classify movies seems unfeasible because the author does not

provide readers with explanation and criteria to categorize movies into different genres

Fischoff (1998) presents fourteen movie genres including Action – Adventure, Drama, Comedy, Romance, Musical, Horror, Animation, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Murder, Biblical, Documentary, Sport-based, Animal-based Thanks to detailed description and examples for each genre, this appears to be the best way of classifying movie genres Besides, this research concerns three dominant movie genres in CGV Cineplex, as a result, it appears unnecessary to complicate the situation by listing out all of the fourteen movie genres proposed by Fischoff (1998) Therefore, only action, comedy and animation movie genres are presented in this paper as follows:

Action: the overriding focus of these films is fast pace, derring do,

exploding guns, cars, and people Males tend to dominate the storyline and male interests and values are paramount, even if women are featured as "heroes or villains." Females, except for the occasional movie like Thelma and Louise or La

Femme Nikita, tend to be surbordinate interests and of subordinate focus

Comedy: Films which portray people, relationships, or events in a deliberate

and consistently humorous way either with jokes and one-liners or because of the situations conceived It is a type of dramatic work that is amusing and satirical in its tone, mostly having cheerful ending The motif of this dramatic work is triumph over unpleasant circumstance by which to create comic effects, resulting in happy or successful conclusion Thus, the purpose of comedy is to amuse the audience Comedy has multiple sub-genres depending upon source of humor, context in which

an author delivers dialogues, and delivery method, which include romantic comedy, comedy of humors and tragicomedy

Animation: Films in this genre are produced by a simulation of movement

created by displaying a series of pictures, or frames Cartoons on television is one example of animation Animation on computers is one of the chief ingredients of multimedia presentations However, it should be noted that there is a difference between animation and video Whereas video takes continuous motion and breaks it

up into discrete frames, animation starts with independent pictures and puts them together to form the illusion of continuous motion

1.3.3 Movie titles in English

1.3.3.1 Functions of movie titles in English

According to Turgut (2012), movie title is a powerful designed element that not only can allude to the story of the movie but also to the genre and the general atmosphere of the movie

Discussing the functions of movie titles, Duong (2006) states that titles can

“provide information” about the film by “summarizing the main plot, uncovering the theme, or offering some ideas” Although a title might be “vague, abstract or hard to capture the meaning”, people still catch a certain notion of the film She also adds that movie titles should act as audience “attracter” because it can stimulate the interest and desire for watching the movies of audience

Sharing the same point of view, Andersen (2010) also suggests that film titles mainly aim to attract moviegoers Movie titles is “privileged and prioritized” because they are the most “visual of a movie‟s promotional features” and they are

“displayed” to public before films “run” in the cinemas

The two viewpoints are obviously right However, restricting the functions of movie titles within supplying some information about the film and attracting audience does not seem very appropriate because naming a movie is “the play writer‟s painstaking conception” (Wang, 2007) Hence, titles surely contain artistic

creativity Acknowledging this, Wang (2007) and Sun (2007) agree that movie titles have three main functions including “informative function”, “aesthetic function” and

“vocative function”

Informative function

Discussing the functions of language, Newmark (1988, p.40) states “The core

of the informative function of language is external situation, the facts of a topic, reality outside language” Similarly, the informative function of movie titles means providing the “potential audience” some “relevant information” about the movies (Wang, 2007) The “relevant information” may include the genre, the main characters, the plot or setting, etc of the movie For example, the title “The dark

knight rises” (2012) may let moviegoers know that this is an action film about hero

called “the dark knight”

Vocative function

The vocative function of language aims at the “readership”, “addressee” and calls upon them to “act, think or feel”, which means to “react” in the way “intended

by the text” (Newmark, 1988, p.41) When the theory of vocative function is applied

to movie titles, the “readership” and the “addressees” here refer to “moviegoers” (Sun, 2007) Hence, regarding movie titles, the vocative function is to “draw attention of audience” and “make them psychologically interested” in watching the movies (Sun, 2007)