An evaluation of the vietnamese translated version of the call of the wild by nguyen cung ai and vu tuan phuong m a thesis linguisti

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN AN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY Nguyen cung and vu tuan phuong Đánh giá dịch tiếng việt tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã” hai dịch giả Nguyễn Cung Ái Vũ Tuấn Phương MINOR M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN AN EVALUATION OF THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION OF “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY Nguyen cung and vu tuan phuong Đánh giá dịch tiếng việt tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã” dịch giả Nguyễn Cung Ái Vũ Tuấn Phương MINOR M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Pham Thi Thanh Thuy (Ph.d) Hanoi - 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ……………………………………………………………………… Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………… Table of content……………………………………………………………… List of abbreviations………………………………………………………… PART I: INTRODUCTION Rational for the study……………………………… Objective of the study……………………………… Scope and method of the study…………………… 3.1 Scope of the study 3.2 Method of the study Organization of the study………………………… PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Translation theory……………………………………………………… 1.1.1 Definition of translation ……………………………………………… 1.1.2 Translation methods and procedures…………………………………… iv 1.1.2.1 Translation methods………………………………………… 1.1.2.2 Translation procedures……………………………………… 1.1.3 Translation equivalence………………………………………………… 1.1.3.1 Definition…………………………………………………… 1.1.3.2 Types of translation equivalence……………………………… 11 1.2 Contrastive Analysis 1.3 Translation assessment/ evaluation…………………………………… 1.3.1 Definition……………………………………………………… 1.3.2 Translation Quality Assessment Models……………………… 1.3.2.1 Julianne House and her model………………………… 1.3.2.2 Peter Newmark‘s model……………………………… CHAPTER 2: APPLICATION OF NEWMARK’S MODEL FOR 12 12 13 14 14 16 TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER OF “THE 18 CALL OF THE WILD” 2.1 A brief analysis of the Source Language text ……………………… 2.2 The translator’s purpose…………………………………………… 2.3 Comparing the translation with the original……………………… 2.4 An evaluation of the translation…………………………………… 2.4.1 An evaluation of the translation version in the translator‘s v terms…………………………………………………………… 2.4.2 An evaluation of the translation version in the critic‘s terms… 2.4.3 An evaluation of the translation version as a piece of writing, independently of its original…………………………………… 2.5 The translation’s future………………………………………… PART 3: DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND 38 CONCLUSION REFERENCES……………………………………………………………… 39 Appendix A English version of the selected text …………………………… Appendix B Vietnamese version of the selected text………………………… Appendix C: Evidence quoted from the original and the translated version vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TQA: Translation Quality Assessment ST: Source Text TT: Target Text SL: Source Language TL: Target Language vii LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND TABLES Tables and diagrams New Mark‘s methods of translation………………………… House‘s Revised Schema for the Analysis of ST and TT…… Table 1: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original Table 2:Evidences about translators‘ achievements in terms of word choice and expressions Table 3: Evidences about translators‘ achievements in terms of using idioms Table 4: More evidences about translators‘ achievements in terms of word choice and expressions Table 5: Mistakes in Vietnamese version in terms of grammar and meaning Table 6: Mistakes in Vietnamese version in terms of word choice and meaning viii PART I: INTRODUCTION Rational for the study Translation is an issue which attracts more and more attention from many people all over the world Nowadays, in the inevitable trend of globalization and integration, not only the professional translators but also many people working in different fields such as health care, economy, politics, etc, are concerned about the quality of translation However, in fact, to have a high-quality translation version, especially in the field of literature, is not an easy task and it involves a lot of skills from the translators According to the translator Thuy Toan(1993), to have a good translation version, the translator must not only love his job and literature but also be good at their mother tongue, know foreign languages, have a thorough knowledge of culture, work cautiously and be industrious at consulting From his point of view, it is clear that translation is a challenging job, which requires the translator both the knowledge of the language and the background knowledge of the culture which the literary works belongs to Sometimes, due to lack of either of these or because of the translator‘s carelessness, the translated version may not be concise enough Even more seriously, it can transfer the wrong message that is attached in the literary works At present, in Vietnam, works of literary translations are growing rapidly , even uncontrollably in quantity for commercial purposes ; however, there has been no popular criterion for a good and valuable translated version Besides the successfully -translated masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights (Đồi gió hú ), Harry Porter, Noruwei no mori (Rừng Nauy), The Centaur in the Garden (Con nhân ma ở ̃ vườn ), there still exists ones of bad quality, for example , the Vietnamese version of ―The Da Vinci Code‖ (Mâṭma D ̃ a Vinci) by translator Đo Thu Ha (Van Hoa-Thong Tin Publisher ,2006) This translation receives a lot of criticism right from publication because of the mistakes that she should not have made in terms of vocabulary, grammar and descriptions For this reason, the minor thesis would like to focus on the evaluation of one literary translation so that the readers can have better understanding of some models of translation quality assessment initiated by some famous linguists in the world like Nida and Taber, Peter Newmark, and J House, etc Within the limitation of the minor thesis, only some of these models will be introduced, and then, the model of Peter Newmark will be applied in evaluating the Vietnamese translated version of ―The Call of the Wild‖ by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong, two great and famous Vietnamese translators to point out both the strengths and weaknesses of translated texts in comparison with the original Also, the author would like to investigate the prominent equivalence types the translator has achieved in translating this famous masterpiece so that other translators can get some experiences from them Objective of the study This thesis mainly aims at answering the three research questions:  How good is the Vietnamese version of ―The Call of the Wild‖ according to Newmark‘s model?  What are the weaknesses of the translated version?  What might be some lessons learned from the translation version? Scope and method of the study 3.1 Scope of the study The masterpiece ―The Call of the Wild‖ includes of seven chapters in total Due to the limited time for this study, only Chapter Two of this short story will be chosen as the typical analysis of the success and the shortcomings of two translators in translating this masterpiece from English into Vietnamese The title of this chapter is ―The Law of Club and Fang‖ and the reason why this chapter is chosen is that the writer has had access to this chapter since she was a fourth year student At that time, she had chances to learn about this chapter in the subject ―English Literature‖, which attracts her a lot Moreover, this is a moving chapter about the process in which the dog adapts itself to the new harsh environment and rude owners Therefore, the writer decides to make a comparison between the original version and the translated one to see whether the translators can transship both the connotative and denotative meaning of the source text into the target text or not a Method of the study The goal of this study is to evaluate the quality of the translated version of ―The Call of the Wild‖ by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong To reach this goal, I decide to have an insight into various translation quality assessment models by different authors, among which Peter Newmark‘s model is chosen as the main criteria for assessing the Vietnamese version of this masterpiece because of its strong points in terms of application, that is, it is easy to follow During the assessing process, Contrastive Analysis approach will be applied to compare and evaluate the translated version against the original one This assessing process will be carried out as follows First, the original text will be read thoroughly and comprehensively, then the source text will be compared to its translation under the framework of NewMark‘s TQA model According to his model, there are five main steps towards TQA and the researcher is going to strictly follow them:  Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects  Step 2: the translator‘s interpretation of the SL text‘s purpose, his translation method and the translation‘s likely readership  Step 3: A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original in terms of both sematics and syntactics  Step 4: an evaluation of the translation: - (a) in the translator‘s terms, (b) in the critic‘s terms, (c) as a piece of writing, independently of its original V 19 1617 20 17 21 17 22 17 23 17 24 17 25 17 26 17 27 1718 28 VI 18 29 30 31 32 33 VII 34 35 36 37 38 39 VIII 40 41 42 43 44 IX 45 21 46 21 47 21 48 21 49 2122 X 50 51 52 53 XI 54 55 56 57 58 59 XII 23 60 61 23 62 2324 63 24 XIII 64 24 65 24 66 24 67 24 68 2425 69 25 XIV 70 71 72 73 74 75 XV 76 77 XVI ... introduced, and then, the model of Peter Newmark will be applied in evaluating the Vietnamese translated version of ? ?The Call of the Wild? ?? by Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong, two great and famous Vietnamese. .. towards the animals and he demonstrates a deep understanding of their psychology and behavior 18 He supposes that only by real and limitless compassion towards the animals, can humans tame them,... of ? ?The Call of the Wild? ?? by two translators Nguyen Cung Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong, some comments can be given as followed Firstly the Vietnamese version of Chapter Two ? ?The Law of Club and Fang‖