A translation quality assessment of the vietnamese version of the book harry potter and the philosopher’s stone in the series harry potter using newmark’s model

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  HOÀNG THỊ HẰNG NGA A TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE VIETNAMESE VERSION OF THE BOOK “HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE” IN THE SERIES HARRY POTTER USING NEWMARK’S MODEL (Đánh giá chất lượng dịch tiếng Việt truyện “Harry Potter đá phù thủy” tiểu thuyết Harry Potter áp dụng mơ hình Newmark) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.02.01 HANOI, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  HOÀNG THỊ HẰNG NGA A TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE VIETNAMESE VERSION OF THE BOOK “HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE” IN THE SERIES HARRY POTTER USING NEWMARK’S MODEL (Đánh giá chất lượng dịch tiếng Việt truyện “Harry Potter đá phù thủy” tiểu thuyết Harry Potter áp dụng mơ hình Newmark) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lê Hùng Tiến HANOI, 2014 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby state that the thesis entitled “A translation quality assessment of the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone in the series Harry Potter using Newmark‟s model” and the work presented in it is entirely my own for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and this work has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution Hanoi, July 2014 Student Hoàng Thị Hằng Nga i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, for the continuous support of my study with his patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge I owe him a debt of gratitude that cannot be measured debt to all the teachers of the I also wish to acknowledge my Department of Post Graduate Studies at College of Foreign Languages, useful lectures, assistance and Vietnam National University for their enthusiasm during my course Last but not least, I am grateful to my parents and all my family, from whom I have received a lot of valuable support and encouragement On the whole, without all these help my thesis would not have possibly been completed ii ABSTRACT There is a fact that there have been more and more literary translations due to the process of globalization Therefore, it is necessary to control the quality of the translation so that the readers can enjoy the best of the foreign literary works This thesis is an attempt to assess the quality of a literary translation, specifically chapter seven “The sorting hat” excerpting from the novel “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone”, basing on the schema of Translation Quality Assessment proposed by Newmark By this way, the writer has found out that the translation has obtained a certain success However, it still reveals some mismatches between the source text and the target text especially in terms of semantics In addition, some other mistakes which may affect the conciseness of the translation are also pointed out From the basis of the findings, some implications are made along with suggestions for further studies iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ST: Source Text TT: Target Text SL: Source Language TL: Target Language iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Omission and addition in the translation 18 Table 2: Comparing two versions in terms of the titles 19 Table 3: Comparing two versions in terms of paragraphing 21 Table 4: Comparing two versions in terms of relative clauses 23 Table 5: Comparing two versions in terms of passive and active forms 24 Table 6: Comparing two versions in terms of pronouns and proper names 25 Table 7: Comparing two versions in terms of idioms 27 Table 8: Comparing two versions in terms of word choice and expression 30 Table 9: Mistakes in the translation in terms of grammar and meaning 33 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study Objective of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Organization of the study PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Translation Theory 1.1.1 Definition of Translation 1.1.2 Translation Methods 1.1.3 Translation Equivalence 1.2 Contrastive Analysis 1.3 Translation Quality Assessment 1.3.1 Definition 1.3.2 Translation Quality Assessment models 1.3.2.1 Response-based approach 1.3.2.2 Text-based approach 10 1.3.2.3 Julianne House‟s functional – pragmatic approach 12 vi 1.3.2.4 Newmark‟s comprehensive criticism approach 13 CHAPTER – APPLICATION OF NEWMARK’S MODEL FOR TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER SEVEN OF “HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE” 2.1 Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects .16 2.2 Step 2: the translator‟s interpretation of the SL text‟s purpose, his translation method and the translation‟s likely readership 17 2.3 Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original 19 2.4 Step 4: An evaluation of the translation 31 2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation in the translator‟s term 31 2.4.2 An evaluation of the translation in the critic‟s term 35 2.4.3 Assess the translation as a piece of writing, independently of its original 35 2.5 An assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline 36 PART C CONCLUSION Concluding remarks 37 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 38 REFERENCES 39 vii PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study “Translation is not merely an interlinguistic process It is more complex than replacing source language text with target language text and includes cultural and educational nuances that can shape the options and attitudes of recipients” (Dingwaney and Maier, 1995) Translation performs a crucial role in our understanding and lives as the globe seems smaller than ever before based on information sharing and communicative advances Thus, not only linguists or scholars but many people who work in different fields are concerned about translation Translation is not an easy work, it is even more challenging for translators with literary works Nowadays in Vietnam, there is a rapid growth of famous foreign literary works which have diversified the literature It can not be denied that there is a number of works that have received love and positive attitude from readers Besides, there still exist some works of bad quality which have received criticism from both publication and profession Thus, there is necessary to evaluate the translations, especially literary works There are criteria for translation quality assessment which have been addressed by different linguists such as Nida, J.House, Newmark… From the writer‟s point of view, among the suggested models, Newmark‟s model is a good one which can be used to assess translation quality The writer has taken the translation version of the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” by Ly Lan in the series Harry Potter by J.K Rowling to measure how good the translation is Objective of the study This study aims to make a comparison and analyze the ST and the TT according to Newmark‟s model to assess the quality of the Vietnamese Besides, idioms in the TT are utilized thoroughly by the translator The achievements and weaknesses of using idioms in the TT will be discussed later in the next step Order 10 11 12 13 14 Table 7: Comparing two versions in terms of idioms Beside idioms, the translator‟s choice of word is another section that needs to be compared between the ST and the TT The examples below demonstrate the translator‟s level of language when choosing the equivalents in the TT Order 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Table 8: Comparing two versions in terms of word choice and expression There is a fact that in many cases her choice of word makes a deep impression on the readers whereas in other cases the readers find it not easy to understand Furthermore, in many situations the words or phrases in the ST are totally not equivalent with the TT They will be analyzed in the Step 30 2.4 Step 4: an evaluation of the translation 2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation in the translator’s terms The writer is going to evaluate the translation basing on the analysis of the evidences compared above Both the success and the weaknesses of the translation will be presented • The success of the translation: In terms of syntactic, the translator is successful in transferring many English structures into Vietnamese naturally and flexibly There are a few things capable of charming the readers and making them absorbed in the book The translator‟s ability to make the sentences smooth and fluently is one of them It is not hard to find many examples in chapter seven that make a deep impression on the readers not for the messages in the sentences but the remarkably smooth sentences (see example 2,3 in table 3) Relative clauses are transferred flexibly in the form of independent sentences or under the form of a comment parenthesis or they omitted in TT without changing the meaning of the sentences and the messages of the author (example 2,6,7,8,9 in table 4) Another notable issue is that the passive form and active structures in the ST are transferred into the TT naturally (see table 5) Besides, the translation is also very successful in terms of semantics This is reflected by the translator‟s choice of words, expressions and the use of idioms With proper names and pronouns, the translator transfers them to the TT flexibly according to different cases (see more in table 6) The translator is also successful in using idioms in some cases which makes the text naturally and familiar to the Vietnamese readers (see example 3,4,7,9,10,11,12,13,14 in table 7) One case in point is example : “He was 31 pale green by now” (Nó xanh lét tàu chuối) The idiom “ xanh tàu chuối” was used to indicate the feeling in a horrible or bad situation In the case of Ron, he was very worried about being chosen in one of four houses which was reflected by his appearance The idiom which was used here is the most condensed way to emphasize the bad feeling of the character The similar usage of idioms is found in example 3- “a house for people who feel a bit queasy” (“nhà” chuyên dành cho người cảm thấy bồn chồn đến phát buồn nôn)- and example – “Hermione almost ran to the stool” (Cô bé chạy bay lại ghế) Perhaps the literal meaning of the ST and the TT are not exactly the same; however, the idioms still play a very important part in creating the stronger effect on the readers than a normal structure Furthermore, it makes the TT nearer the spoken style rather than written style in the ST In addition, it can not be denied that many English words and expressions are translated concisely and naturally (see example 1,3,7,13,19,26,28,33,36 in table 8) One example can be taken into account is number 3: “They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.” According to Longman dictionary, “peer about” is “to look very carefully at something especially because you are having difficulty seeing it”; therefore its equivalence in Vietnamese can be “nhìn chằm chằm”, “nhìn chăm chú”, “soi” or “nhịm”, “ngó”…However, in the context, to emphasize the nervous and worrying feeling of the first-year students who were new to the surroundings, no expression is more suitable than “nghểnh cổ ngóng chờ” Similarly, in example 36 “Everybody finished the song at different times”, is transferred to Vietnamese very naturally (Bài hát chấm dứt, người dứt trước, người xong sau) thanks to the expression “người dứt trước, người xong sau” 32 In brief, it can not be denied that the translation on the whole has achieved some success However, there are inevitable mistakes in the TT when comparing with the ST which need to be improved in order to make the translation better • The weaknesses of the translation: With regard to syntactic, some sentences are not translated correctly; the message in the TT even has no relationship with the message in the ST Following are some examples: Order Table 9: Mistakes in the translation in terms of grammar and meaning In example and 2, it can be seen clearly that the meaning of the sentence in the ST is totally different with the one in the TT Furthermore, in example 3, the structure “would prefer you to ” is not used to give command whereas in the translated version, the translator uses “ta yêu cầu cháu” which indicates the command or order In example 4, the message in the ST is that the other teachers aren't feeling true school spirit while they sing the song, they look happy and carefree but they are not happy; however, they still 33 smile Hence, this message is totally not the same as the message in the TT – “nụ cười…chợt tắt lịm” Besides, the most serious problem with the translation is about vocabulary and expressions The first problem in the choice of words and expressions is that some idioms are not used correctly in particular contexts It can be denied that the translator has been successful in using idioms; however, in some context, it is not suitable (see example 1,2,5,6,8 in table 7) In example 1, the translator transfers “frayed” in the ST into “vá chùm vá đụp” in the TT which are not equivalent In example 2, the hat “bowed to each of the four tables” which means that the hat bowed to the students of four houses sitting in the four tables on the floor, not all the directions - “bốn phương tám hướng” - as mentioned in the translated version The second problem, which is the most notable problem, is that the denotative and connotative meanings of many words have been totally changed between the ST and the TT It can be seen in table (example 2,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,14,16,17,18,20,21,22,27,29,30,32,34,35,37,38) Many simple words in the TT and the ST are not equivalent such as the door – sàn nhà, behind – xung quanh, streamed – trườn, teachers – giáo sư, several – nhiều, catcalling – huýt sáo mừng, plate – đĩa, sandy-hair – tóc bím vàng, swung forward – tự lách qua, great auntie – mợ, peppermint humbugs – bọ the Many expressions in the TT not reflect correctly the meaning in the ST such as: a ruff and tights – đồ bó sát, the school song – ca trường, roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops - thịt cốt lết, đùi trừu, bacon – thịt ba 34 2.4.2 An evaluation of the translation in the critic’s terms Through the analysis of the achievements and the weaknesses of the translation of chapter seven in the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” by Ly Lan, some comments can be drawn as followed First of all, in general, the translation of chapter seven “The sorting hat”, which contains 19 pages, has obtained a certain success The translation has followed the original version very closely in most cases Besides, the translator seems to have many experiences in translating literature works in the way idioms and many expressions are used naturally and the way sentences are paragraphed flexibly Moreover, Ly Lan has proven herself to have an abundance vocabulary which is the contribution to the success of the translation However, there are still some problems in the translation which need to be improved for a better version The translator should be careful when choosing vocabulary which needs to be familiar to all the readers Moreover, the translation should follow the origin more closely because some details of the original version is omitted or added with no reasons which somewhat affects the quality of the translation 2.4.3 Assess the translation as a piece of writing, independently of its original As an independent piece of writing, the Vietnamese version of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” is a very exciting and interesting story “Harry Potter đá phù thủy” is a good book if it is considered a literature work for children Through the book, Ly Lan has proven herself not only an experienced translator but also a talented writer The language used in the book in general is simple and easy to be understood to most of the readers, especially young readers Most of the expressions are suitable, 35 concise and familiar to Vietnamese readers Moreover, the writing style in the book is very natural which sometimes makes the book seem to be a Vietnamese novel It is believed that for those reasons the Vietnamese version of “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone” is a successful literature work, independently of its original 2.5 Step An assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline J K Rowling is best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series The books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold millions of copies They have become the best-selling book series in history and have been the basis for a series of films which became the highest-grossing film series in history Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and maintained creative control by serving as a producer on the final installment Therefore, the Vietnamese version of the story has made great contribution to the variety of national literature In brief, in spite of some inevitable mistakes, it can be said that the Vietnamese version of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” will be a great literature work for many Vietnamese generations 36 PART C CONCLUSION The study has demonstrated the writer‟s analysis attempt towards the quality of the Vietnamese translation version of Chapter – The sorting hat – in the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” by J.K Rowling Concluding remarks Basing on Newmark‟s model, the analysis of the both ST and TT has led the writer to some important findings Firstly, in terms of the first question, the Vietnamese translation of Chapter of the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” is of high quality In general, the translation follows closely the original version The translator has been successful in conveying the intention and the message of the author through the way she arranges structures and the diverse vocabulary in the story Moreover, the language in general is clear, easy to understand and of great interest to the readers However, the translation still has some shortcomings in terms of syntactics and semantics Furthermore, the omission and addition in the translation when comparing with the origin is another problem that the translator should be careful From the findings above, some implications for translation of English literature works into Vietnamese can be concluded Firstly, it can be said that Newmark‟s model has many strong points in terms of application It is the model that is easy to follow because of five clear steps and it helps the critic have a deep insight into the achievements and the weaknesses of the translation as well It especially works with literature works such as novels or short stories… 37 Secondly, Ly Lan has proved herself an experienced writer The way she uses mother tongue; structures in the TT are transferred into the ST naturally are things that other translators can learn from her Thirdly, the very first shortcoming of the translation is the addition and omission when comparing with the origin Therefore, one implication can be drawn that the translator should follow the original version very closely if he would like the readers to understand the work entirely Last but not least, in terms of semantics and syntactics, many simple words, expressions and structures in the origin and their equivalents in the translation version are totally not the same In fact, they even have no relationship in any sense The writer can not find the reason for this problem However, it can be said that every translator should be very careful in translating every words even they are so simple Limitations of the study & suggestions for further studies The scope of the study which has been put forward in Introduction results in some limitations for this minor thesis As it is impossible for the writer to compare and analyze the whole book due to the limitation of time and also to be suitable with the applied framework, only Chapter is chosen as data for the analysis in this study Therefore, the conclusion is only adaptable to this chapter, not the whole novel and the analysis can be somewhat restricted For further study, more studies should be conduct to analyze the whole Vietnamese version “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” to enjoy a broader and more comprehensive analysis of the whole translation 38 REFERENCES English Baker, M (1992) In other Words A course book on Translation London: Routledge Cartford, J (1965) A Linguistic Theory of Translation London: Oxford University Press Dingwaney, A and Maier, C (1995) Between Languages and Cultures: Translation and Cross-Cultural Texts University of Pittsburgh Press Gast, Volker (2011) “Contrastive analysis: Theories and methods.” In: Kortmann, B and J Kabatek (ed.): Dictionaries of Linguistics and Communication Science: Linguistic theory and methodology Hewson, L and Martin, J Redefining Translation : The Variational Approach London and New York: Routledge, 1991 House, J (1977) A Model for Translation Quality Assessment, Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen House ,J (1997) Translation Quality Assessment: A model revisited James C (1980) Contrastive analysis Longman Group Ltd Koller, W.(1979), Equivalence in Translation Theory, in Chesterman, A (1989), Readings in Translation Theory, Loimaan Kirjapaino 10 Lado, R (1957) Linguistics across cultures: Applied linguistics for language teachers University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor 11 McAlester, G (1999) Developing translation Competence/ edited by Christina Schaffner, Beverly Adab John Benjamins Publishing Company 12 Newmark P (1981) Approaches to translation Oxford: Pergamon 13 Newmark P (1988) A textbook of translation New York/London: Prentice Hall 39 14 Nida, E.A and C Taber (1969) The Theory and Practice of Translation Leiden 15 Pym, A (1992) Translation and Text Transfer Frankfurt/Main: Lang 16 Reiss, K (1989) "Text types, translation types and translation assessment." A Chesterman (trans.) In A Chesterman (ed.) Readings in Translation Theory Vietnamese Lê Hùng Tiến (2006), Lý thuyết thực tiễn dịch thuật Anh –Việt :Một số vấn đề lí luận phương pháp bản, Đề tài nghiên cứu cấp Đại học Quốc Gia Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ - ĐHQG Hà Nội 40 ... state that the thesis entitled ? ?A translation quality assessment of the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone in the series Harry Potter using Newmark‟s model? ?? and the work presented in. .. understand the message of the original, the ease of comprehension and the involvement a person experiences as a result of the adequacy of the form of the translation Again, these behavioral criteria... evaluation of the translation 2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation in the translator’s terms The writer is going to evaluate the translation basing on the analysis of the evidences compared above