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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER TRANSLATING NONSENSE IN DR.SEUSS‟S CHILDREN BOOKS Supervisor: Ngô Hà Thu, MCS Student: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh Course: QH2014.F1.E20 Hà Nội - 2018 i ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP DỊCH YẾU TỐ KHƠNG CĨ Ý NGHĨA TRONG TRUYỆN THIẾU NHI CỦA DR SEUSS Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS Ngơ Hà Thu Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Hồng Anh Khóa: QH2014.F1.E20 Hà Nôi - 2018 ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh, class QH2014.F1.E20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s 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 Signature Hanoi, May 2018 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Ms Ngô Hà Thu, MCS, lecturer of Faculty of English Language Teacher Education This thesis could not be completed without her instructive supervision, careful guidance and encouragement I also would like to show my profound gratitude to Ms Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy, the translator of the book There’s a Wocket in my Pocket - one of my case studies in the research – for her time and effort to help me answer those questions related to the book and her translation In addition, I would like to dedicate my special thanks to my classmates in QH14E20, who have always supported, and given me many useful advices My special thanks go to my teammates who have always been beside me through ups and downs Last but not least, I cannot fully express my gratitude to my beloved family for their wholehearted support and encouragement i ABSTRACT Literature is always a challenging genre for translators as there are a huge number of expressions in source language that are hard to find their equivalents in target language “Nonsense literature” which includes words or expressions that often not have meaning in source language is even stranger and perhaps, more challenging for translators to cope with Since there has been little research on translating nonsense of the English-Vietnamese language pair, this research was carried out aiming to identify translation strategies that Vietnamese translators used to deal with this problem, specifically literary nonsense at word level Two children‟s books written by Dr Seuss in English which are There’s a Wocket in my Pocket and I can lick 30 Tigers today! and other stories and their Vietnamese translation works namely Trong túi có cậu Tóc búi and Tớ hạ gục 30 cậu hổ hôm nay! câu chuyện khác, respectively were chosen as the case studies for this research Data was collected by reading and comparing the original works and translated versions and then was categorized based on a combined framework from three frameworks proposed by Baker (1992), Newmark (1988) and Lefevere (1975) for further analysis The findings indicated that there are four types of nonsense words and the translators applied different translation strategies to translate nonsense items in the two books The two most common used strategies were Rhymed translation in There is a Wocket in my Pocket and Couplet in I can lick 30 Tigers today! and other stories These findings suggest that translation strategies were determined based on ways of word formation and the translators‟ creativity ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEGEMENT i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF FIGURES, ABBREVIATIONS v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the research problem and rationale 1.2 Research questions 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Thesis structure CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Nonsense literature 2.2 Dr Seuss‟s works as a case study of nonsense literature 11 2.3 Translation of nonsense literature and Dr Seuss‟s works 14 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27 3.1 Selection of subjects 27 3.2 Research methods 28 3.3 Data collection procedure and data analysis method 28 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 4.1 Research question 30 4.2 Research question 44 iii 4.3 Beyond the Data 46 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 50 5.1 Summary of the study 50 5.2 Limitations of the study 51 5.3 Suggestions for further study 52 REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES 56 APPENDIX CATEGORIZATION OF TYPES OF LITERARY NONSENSE AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES 56 iv LIST OF FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Types of literary nonsense 23 Figure 2: Translation strategies in 30 Tigers 45 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ST Souce text TT Target text SL Source language TL Target language v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION In this first chapter, the reasons for this research to be carried out are presented Additionally, research questions, significance and scope of the research and thesis structure would be clarified 1.1 Statement of research problem and rationale Literary translation has flourished more than ever thanks to globalization which has enabled dynamic exchanges between cultures; never has it been this easy for general Vietnamese readers to read and understand and feel, say, an American work of literature despite their improving English proficiency levels This, however, implies big challenges facing literary translators who are required to render not only the messages the author of the source wishes to convey but also the means the author employs to deliver such message As a major genre of literature, children‟s literature makes it even more complicated for translators as it is a type of literature for which content “is limited by children‟s experience and understanding” (Kiefer, Hepler & Hickman, 2007, p 5) To make it more complicated, Karen Jones (2008) identified that the reading materials for children often share the traits of being non-sense, creative, rhymed, and humorous This implies the relations between children‟s books, poetry and what is termed “nonsense literature” which is eventually an intriguing genre in children‟s literature “Nonsense literature” or sometimes referred to as “literary nonsense” is a broad categorization of literature that balances elements that make sense with some that not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning According to Srničková (2015), “[n]onsense writers not create fantasy worlds, but rather insert unmotivated events and bizarre characters into familiar and conventional settings, or vice versa This is essentially what makes nonsense nonsensical; it is a series of glitches in the matrix, an absurdity that unabashedly stands out in a sea of ordinary operations and situations.” (p.36) Even though nonsense literature has caught attention of many academics in the world, translating works of this genre remains mostly untouched One reason may lie in the translatability of the works as even in the source language, the words in the works not make any sense and that they are merely a product of the author‟s creativity So, how should translators deal with such works? Do they employ any different and special technique or classical procedures suggested by Newmark (1988) still work well? In order to answer these questions, the researcher decided to conduct a research using the translations of Dr Seuss‟s poems published in Vietnam by the Alpha Books, JSC as the case studies Theodore Seuss Geisel (1904 – 1991) was a German-American author who produced a huge number of literary works; however, perhaps his most successful field was children‟s literature in poetry genre as he was authoring more than 60 children‟s books under the name Dr Seuss According to research conducted by Publishers Weekly in 2001, some of the best selling Dr Seuss‟s books are Green Eggs and Ham (1960), The Cat in the Hat (1957) and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) The New York Times stated that the number of readers of Dr Seuss‟s books was beyond millions Dr Seuss was famous for exploiting nonsense words, phrases and structure, making them rhyme so that the stories would sound poetic and easy for the young readers to remember As Dotzel (2007) said, literary nonsense is a type of fiction in which a whole new world is created by the authors through the manipulation of language; Dr Seuss‟s poems can be seen as a typical example of this genre Also, according to Vendula Srničková (ibid), literary nonsense was not given enough attention in translation study Not much academic literature deals specifically with the translation of nonsense as well as on translation strategies that can be applied to translate nonsense prose wanted to ensure the rhyme and rhythm of the poem rather than the meaning and outlook of those creatures All in all, rhymed translation is still the recognizable and outstanding strategy that the translator used to translate nonsense items in Wocket book, others just play as references for her decision 4.3.2 After having a closer look at and analyzing the two chosen books, the researcher found out that though certain differences did exist, there are patterns of translating nonsense items First of all, while nonsense words in the ST literally did not have any meaning, their TL equivalents are mostly meaningful in Vietnamese Despite that, Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy and Hà Hƣơng Giang – the two translators both tried to be faithful to the author‟s ideas by understanding the overall context and translating as close to the intention of the source text as possible Furthermore, illustration by Dr Seuss was also valuable references for both translators to get the ideas of the author Translators of the two books both used illustration-based translation to translate nonsense words as in many cases, looking at the surrounding context was not enough to guess the meaning of the word 4.3.3 Among translation strategies that the researcher mentioned in 2.3.4, the most used translation strategy was Rhymed translation proposed by Lefevere However, this was only employed in the book Wocket where all nonsense words had the same pattern In 30 Tigers, translation procedures proposed by Newmark were mostly used Among that, Couplet was the most outstanding one, including Naturalisation and Cultural substitution, which was used to translate names of characters or things in order not to distort the invented characters of the authors Although translation procedures invented by Baker was the least used to translate nonsense in the two books, they were highly practical to help young readers grasp the author‟s ideas and at the same time absorb the beautiful language 48 It is obvious that translation theories of the three theorists were essential in translating nonsense literature However, as literary nonsense was quite an unfamiliar field to translators, the above-mentioned strategies could not cover all cases In this research, the translator found out and concluded that in Dr Seuss‟s books, translators had to base on other features such as illustration or translation of the existing words to complete their translation In this case, these strategies were extremely useful in translating nonsense because Dr Seuss‟s books were full of author‟s imagination and pictures sometimes served as the definitions of the words This hopefully would be a clue to latter researchers who work on nonsense literature 49 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS This chapter aims at summarizing the process of carrying out this research Limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research were also discussed in the conclusion chapter 5.1 Summary of the study Nonsense is not a new concept in English literature; however, it is quite peculiar to Vietnamese one That is why translating nonsense is never a simple task for translators Moreover, there are not many, if not to say there is not any research conducted by Vietnamese researchers in figuring out translation strategies that are used to deal with nonsense items All the above mentioned reasons urged the researcher to conduct this research children books of Dr Seuss were chosen to be the subjects of the study is due to plenty of nonsense items that appear in the books Furthermore, translating nonsense items for children as target readers is even more difficult and rare Another reason is that there are some researchers in different countries rather than Vietnam conducting researches related to nonsense in children‟s literary works; thus, the researcher could use them as references to carry out this study Regarding the methodology that this research employed, Wocket and 30 Tigers written by Dr Seuss were the subjects that the researcher decided to choose as they have their translation version already published in Vietnam and there were quite a lot of different kinds of nonsense in the two books The researcher first find out and list out nonsense items in original books and their translated version and then put them in a table for easier categorization Based on the theoretical background set in literature review chapter, those collected nonsense items would be categorized to see what types of nonsense they were and also their translation 50 strategies Quantitative and qualitative were used as the main methods in this research For the findings, there were four main kinds of nonsense items that were found in the books which were new coinage, eponyms, derived words and collocations While in the book Wocket, all nonsense words were new coinages and they had the same way of creation, in 30 Tigers, nonsense items were more varied in types As a result, translation strategy in Wocket was mainly Rhymed translation proposed by Lefevere while in 30 Tigers, there are different kinds of translation methods All in all, Rhymed translation and Couplet were two most dominant strategies that translators used to translate nonsense in the two chosen books Also, apart from the content analysis, when interviewing the translator, the research has identified two other strategies which has not mentioned in the existing frameworks but been used in the case studies: illustration-based translation strategy and existing word-based translation strategy That is to say, nonsense translation is not the same to every translator as it depends on the text, the perception and creativeness of the translator It is also clear that no matter what strategies the translators used, the translation might lose a certain degree of meaning and effects relative to the original texts Moreover, cultural and linguistic gaps also play crucial roles in the process of nonsense translation 5.2 Limitations of the study Although the researcher tried to carefully and thoroughly conduct this research, it is still unable to avoid certain limitations First of all, the scarcity of references restricted the quality of the research As mentioned above, there is not any Vietnamese researcher dig deep into 51 nonsense translation, finding researches that have related theory is not easy Translation framework proposed by foreign researchers did not fit in Vietnamese translation That is why the researcher had to come up with a framework that was combined by different ones Secondly, the scale of the research is noticeable Due to time limit, only two books by Dr Seuss were investigated; hence, the number of nonsense items was also quite small to generalize the trend of translating nonsense Last but not least is the complex nature of the issue and humble knowledge of the researcher that made the study was not profound enough Literary nonsense was an exotic concept to Vietnamese translators so it was quite hard for them to find appropriate translation strategies, let alone those nonsense terms appeared in poems which made it even harder to translate Complex as it was, the researcher could not offer detailed and comprehensive comments on each translation strategy 5.3 Suggestions for further study Due to its limitation, it is recommended for later researchers to have a more profound research on this problem It would be more reliable if later researches on the same issues are conducted at a larger scale to identify some pattern, if any, of translating nonsense literature Researchers may continue to work on Dr Seuss‟s books or other works that include a large number of nonsense expressions Last but not least, later researchers can carry out researches with nonsense not only at word level but also at sentence level or even at higher levels 52 REFERENCES Anderson, N A (2010) Elementary Children’s Literature: Infancy through Age rd 13 (3 Ed.) Boston: Allyn & Bacon Aiwei, S (2005) Translatability and poetic translation Translatum Journal, Retrieved from http://www.translatum.gr/journal/5/translatability-and-poetic-translation.htm Baker, M (1992) In Other Words: a Coursebook on Translation London: Routledge Barton, A (2015) Nonsense literature Oxford Bibliographies doi:DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199846719-0099 Bobulová, I et al (2003) Children's and Juvenile Literature (Written in English) Nitra: Pedagogická fakulta UKF v Nitre ISBN 80-8050-628-0 Cabré, M.T (1999) Terminology: theory, methods and applications Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamin Dancette, J (1997) Mapping Meaning and Comprehension in Translation, In J H.Danks.G.M.Shreve,S.B.Fountain Dotzel, B (n.d.) Literary Nonsense Genre: Definition & Examples Lecture Retrieved from: http://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-nonsense-genre-definitionexamples.html Frimmelová, K (2010) Translating Childrens Literature (Doctoral dissertation, Masaryk University, Faculty of Education) 53 Holmes, J (1970) Forms of Verse Translation and the Translation of Verse Form The Nature of Translation: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Literary Translation, The Hague: Mouton Jones, K (2008) How to write effective poetry for kids Retrieved from http://www.helium.com/items/1176034-childrens-poetry-childrens-humorwriting-fo r-children Kiefer, B., Hepler, S., & Hickman, J (2007) Charlotte Huck's children's literature, 9th ed Boston, MA: McGraw Hill Kratochvilová, E (2001) Literary Nonsense and its Translation: diplomová práce Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta Vedoucí diplomové práce Ing Mgr Jiří Rambousek Lefevere, A (1975) Translating poetry: seven strategies and a blueprint Assen: Van Gorcum Lerer, S (2008) Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter Chicago and London: The Univ of Chicago Press Lynch-Brown, C., & Tomlinson, C M (1998) Essentials of children's literature Allyn & Bacon Malcolm, N (1997) The Origins of English Nonsense London: HarperCollins Newmark, P (1988) A textbook of translation Shanghai: Practice Hall Rudvin, M & Orlati, F (2006) Dual readership and hidden subtexts in children‟s literature: The case of Salman Rushdie‟s Haroun and the Sea of Stories In J van Coillie & W P Verschueren (Eds.), Children’s literature in translation: Challenges and strategies Manchester: St Jerome Srničková, V (2015) Translating Nonsense in Roald Dahl's Children's Books (Doctoral dissertation, Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta) 54 Wolfram, W (2001) The Science of Translation- Problems and Methods 55 APPENDIX (in the order of appearance) CATEGORIZATION OF TYPES OF LITERARY NONSENSE AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES No Nonsense items in English WASKET NUREAU WOSET JERTAIN ZLOCK ZELF NINK ZAMP YOT 10 YOTTLE Page Vietnamese equivalents Page Types Translation strategies Theorists Newmark THERE IS A WOCKET IN MY POCKET - TRONG TÚI CÓ CẬU TÓC BÚI New Rhymed GÃ ĐỒ BỎ coinage translation New Rhymed LIẾC XÉO coinage translation New Rhymed CAO RÁO coinage translation New Rhymed 10 HOM HEM 10 coinage translation New Rhymed 11 HỒ ĐỒ 11 coinage translation New Rhymed 12 NHẨN NHA 12 coinage translation New Rhymed 14 HAY HÁT 14 coinage translation New Rhymed 15 THÈN THẸN 15 coinage translation New Rhymed 16 QUẢN CA 16 coinage translation 17 QUẠU CỌ 17 New Rhymed 56 Baker Lefevere √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ 11 ZABLE 18 VUI TRÀN 18 12 GHAIR 18 GỜ-Ế 18 13 BOFA 19 ĐÀNH HANH 19 14 NUPBOARDS 20 NÚP-ÉN 20 NOOTH 15 GRUSH HAI MÁI 21 LẠNH BĂNG 21 16 VUG 22 MỜ ÁM 22 17 QUIMNEY 24 LEN LỎI 24 18 ZALL 25 RANH 25 19 YEPS 26 MƠ MÀNG 26 20 TELLAR 28 TE TƢA 28 21 NELLAR 28 CHE MƢA 28 22 GELLAR 23 DELLAR 28 GHÊ CHƢA 28 NGÀY XƢA 28 28 coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New 57 translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ 24 BELLAR 28 BẺ NỬA 28 25 WELLAR 28 EM NỮA 28 26 ZELLAR 28 DÂY DƢA 28 27 GEELING 30 ĐU XÀ 30 28 ZOWER 31 CỒ ĐEN 31 29 ZILLOW 32 BAN TỐI 32 30 FINDO 34 TÌM ĐỒ 34 31 NOOK GASE 35 NUỐT SẠCH 35 coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage New coinage translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation Rhymed translation √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ KING LOOIE KATZ - VUA LU-I MÈO MỦNG 33 Looie Katz Vƣơng quốc Mèo Lu-i Mèo Mủng 34 Fooie Katz Phu-i Mèo Mủng 32 Katzen-stein 22 Eponyms Translation by paraphrasing √ 23 Eponyms Couplet √ 24 Eponyms Couplet √ 58 35 Kooie Katz Cu-i Mèo Mủng 27 Eponyms Couplet √ 29 Eponyms Couplet √ 30 Eponyms Couplet √ 30 Eponyms Couplet √ 38 Blooie Katz Chu-i Mèo Mủng Hu-i Mèo Mủng Blu-i Mèo Mủng 39 Prooie Katz Pru-i Mèo Mủng 30 Eponyms Couplet √ Zooie Katzen40 bein Zu-i Mèo Chét 32 Eponyms Couplet √ 41 Demo-catic Bình đẳng cho tất lồi mèo Derived 38 words Recognised TL Translation √ 36 Chooie Katz 37 Hooie Katz THE GLUNK THAT GOT THUNK - TƯỞNG TƯỢNG RA MỘT GÃ KHỆNH XANH 42 Thinker-Upper Trí Tƣởng Tƣợng Tít Mây 43 Collocation Translate by substitution √ 43 UN-Thinker NGỪNGTƣởng tƣợng New 44 coinage Translate by paraphrasing √ Thunk-thunk44 thunking Thịch-thịchthịch-thình New 46 coinage Phonemic translation BÙM New 48 coinage Phonemic translation* 45 blunk 59 √ 46 Klunker-klunk Đùng-đoàng 47 glunk Khệnh Xanh 48 Tele-foam „điện thệnh‟ New 48 coinage New 48 coinage New 51 coinage 49 Texa-Kota-Cutt Tếch-xa Cô-ta Cút 52 Eponyms Naturalization 50 Glunker Stew Thịt hầm Khệnh New 53 coinage Other 51 Chuck-a-luck Lắc xắc New 54 coinage Phonemic translation* 52 glunk >< đậm vị, ngon Translation by substitution 53 Schnutz-berry Dâu Sơ-nút-zơ 54 Schnutz Sơ-nút-zơ New 54 coinage New 56 coinage New 56 coinage 60 Other Other Other √ √ √ Couplet √ Naturalization √ 61 62 ... literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations and components of compounds It can also be called: calque or loan translation For example “European Union” is translated into “Liên... procedure In the second example, the combination of naturalization and translation by paraphrasing is used to translate the word “Schnutz-berry” The translator may have the intention of keeping the exotic... specifically with the translation of nonsense as well as on translation strategies that can be applied to translate nonsense prose Furthermore, translators not pay much attention to this kind of genre