Some common strategies to deal with non equivalence in the translation of vietnamese traditional costumes

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION PHẠM THỊ HÀ CHUYÊN Some common strategies to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts (TEFL) Hanoi, May, 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION PHẠM THỊ HÀ CHUYÊN Some common strategies to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of bachelor of arts (TEFL) supervisor: Mr NGUYỄN THÀNH VÂN Hanoi, May, 2011 I hereby state that I: Phạm Thị Hà Chuyên, a student of class 07.1.E20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts 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 Supervisor Hanoi, May the 4th, 2011 Student Acknowledgements I owe a profound debt to many people for their invaluable help during the conduct of my research Firstly, I would like to express deepest gratitude to my supervisor Mr Nguyen Thanh Van for his support, helpful guidance, materials and considerable encouragement which are significant factors in the completion of the study As well, I would like send my sincere thanks to the lecturers in Vietnam National University Hanoi, University of Languages and International Studies, especially lecturers in Translating and Interpreting Division for their lectures, instructions and their useful suggestions that have effectively contributed to my research and supported me to overcome enormous obstacles In addition, words of thanks go to my classmates who gave me initial ideas about the chosen topic Also, I am deeply indebted to my family for their constant encouragement and financial support during the time Last but not least, I owe a great deal of gratitude to readers who take interest in and make useful comments on this research Abstract The research examines and offers strategies to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes The study is conducted to find out effective strategies to help translators in general and those who translate Vietnamese traditional costumes in particular To obtain the intended goal, the samples are mostly collected from the translation of the book “Trang phục cổ truyền dân tộc Việt Nam” by Ngô Đức Thịnh and the translation of the book “Trang phục Việt Nam qua thời đại” by Đồn Thị Tình Through the collection and analysis of the samples, the research introduced the strategies available for dealing with the stated problem Each strategy is presented with typical examples to facilitate reader’s comprehension Additionally, the author of this graduation paper also makes a list of samples and their translations as a source of reference for those who are interested Table of contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………….i Abstract……………………………………………………………… ii Table of contents…………………………………………………… iii List of tables and figures…………………………………………… v List of abbreviations………………………………………………… vi Chapter 1: Introduction 10 I.1 Rationale 10 I.2 Aims and objectives 11 I.3 Significance of the study 12 I.4 Scope of the study 12 I.5 An overview of the rest of the paper 13 Chapter 2: Literature Review 15 II.1 Definition of key terms 15 II.1.1 Translation equivalence and non-equivalence 15 II.1.1.1 Translation equivalence 15 II.1.1.2 The issue of non-equivalence at word level 18 II.1.1.3 Strategies used by professional translators 29 II.1.2 Translation procedure……………………………………….28 II.1.2 Traditional costumes of Vietnam 31 II.2 Related studies 32 Chapter 3: Methodology 35 III.1 Sampling 35 III.2 Data analysis procedures 36 Chapter 4: Results and Discussion 38 I Research question 38 1.1 Strategies to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes 38 1.2 Procedures to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes 53 II Research question 54 2.1 The most common strategies for the problem 54 2.2 The most common procedures for the problem 56 Chapter 5: Conclusion 50 I Major Findings of the study 50 II Limitations of the study 51 III Suggestions for further studies 52 REFERENCE APPENDIX List of tables and figures Table 1: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes………………………45 Figure 1: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes…………………….46 Table 2: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes……………………….47 Figure 2: Frequency of procedures used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes……………………48 List of abbreviations LDOCE: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English OALD: Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary CALD: Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Online dictionary: OLDict SL: Source Language ST: Source Text TL: Target Language TT: Target Text Chapter Introduction In this chapter, the rationale as well as the aims and the objectives of the study are stated Moreover, the methods and design of the thesis are also identified I.1 Rationale Translation has a long history and has played an important role in the development of the human race In our modern world, the increasing globalization has made translation more vital to the multilateral exchanges among countries It is regarded as the bridge for different cultures in the world However, translation which has never been an effortless task requires profound knowledge because not only the language proficiency but also the culture understanding are needed in the translation process According to Catford (1965: 20), translation is the replacement of textual material in one language by equivalent textual material in another language It is often said that the ultimate purpose of translation should be to achieve an “equivalent effect” (Bekku, 1975: 90; Newmark, 1988: 48) However, finding the nearest equivalent in the TL is not easy as a result of cultural differences Hence, translation equivalence has long been a central topic of translation studies costumes Any imprudent omission may result in misunderstanding by the readers of the translation as those non-equivalents are unknown to the TL readers However, translation by illustration presents a different case In the researcher’s opinion, this strategy is especially helpful and simple for the translation of non-equivalence relating to traditional costumes The reasons are non-equivalence relating to Vietnamese traditional costumes is new to many foreigners; consequently, they may not have any imagination about the item in their mind Translators may take a picture of that costume as an illustration to help readers easily and correctly visualize the translation 1.2 Procedures to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes The author of this graduation paper has also worked out the possible procedures used by professional translators to help deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes Eight procedures were utilized to deal with the problem, including:  Transference  Naturalization  Cultural equivalent  Functional equivalent  Descriptive equivalent  Through-translation  Shift or Transposition  Modulation In general, those procedures are suitable for the translation of nonequivalence relating to Vietnamese traditional costumes The next part gives readers a clearer view on the frequency of procedures employed II Research question What are in general the most common strategies for the problem? 2.1 The most common strategies for the problem After collecting strategies available to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes, the number of those strategies was tabulated as follows Strategies Frequency Translation by a more general 20 word (superordinate) Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word Translation by cultural substitution Translation using a loan word or 27 loan word plus explanation 28 Translation by paraphrase using a related word Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words Translation by omission Translation by illustration Total 0 91 Table 1: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes To help reader visualize, the following pie chart is made Translation by a more general word 8% 22% Translation by cultural substitution 30% 10% 30% Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation Translation by paraphrase using a related word Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words Figure 1: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes As can be seen, translation by paraphrase using a related word is used with the highest frequency (28 times or 30% of the whole) The next comes translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation with twenty-seven times used or nearly thirty percent Translation by a more general word is used with the third highest frequency Translation by cultural substitution ranks the fourth among the five strategies employed Finally, translation by paraphrase using unrelated words is the least frequently used compared with the other four strategies 2.2 The most common procedures for the problem After collecting, encoding, grouping and counting, data have been put into the following table Procedures Frequency Transference 24 Naturalization Cultural equivalent Functional equivalent 18 Descriptive equivalent 35 Through-translation Shift or Transposition Modulation Total 91 Table 2: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes The following pie chart was formed to ease readers’ visualization of the procedures’ rate of recurrence Readers can infer from the pie chart that descriptive equivalent was used most frequently with thirty-nine percent or thirty five times used over ninety-one samples The next one is transference with twenty four times employed or twenty-six percent hold The third most frequent procedure is functional equivalent which occupies twenty percent Cultural equivalent ranks as the fourth frequently used procedures with seven percent equivalent to six times employed The next ones are through-translation with four percent, naturalization with two percent and the two last procedures are shift/transposition and modulation with one percent Transference 4% 1%1% Naturalization 26% Cultural equivalent 2% 7% 39% 20% Functional equivalent Descriptive equivalent Through-translation Shift or Transposition Modulation Figure 2: Frequency of procedures used to deal with nonequivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes The above result looks reasonable Descriptive equivalent seems the most versatile procedure for the translation of non-equivalence relating to traditional costumes of Vietnam Those items are hard to transfer into another languages as they are typical of Vietnam but the other nations Moreover, costumes are tangible; hence, translators may use languages to describe them to help readers visualize the items Another popular procedure is transference It must be said, however, that this is too easy a way to be good, as the translator may use exactly the same word in SL text without worrying about misleading readers The third one is functional equivalent which is used eighteen times or twenty percent in the list of samples These three procedures are used the most frequently The others are used with the less number of times Summary This chapter elaborates on the answers to the research questions through analyzing and discussing the collected data The major findings will be condensed in the final chapter Chapter Conclusion The introduction, the review of literature, the implementation and results of the research have been discussed in the earlier chapters As a final point, in this concluding paper, the outcomes of the whole study will be summarized and evaluated by summing up the findings, limitations of the research, recommendations and our suggestions for further studies on similar topics I Major Findings of the study Though there have been many books and researches on translation non-equivalence few of them apply the theory of translation equivalence to such a specific case relating to traditional costumes This thesis, however, discusses in detail this phenomenon with relevant examples It is organized in a way that helps readers find it easy to get the general ideas about the main theory In this thesis, people can find clear measures to deal with non-equivalence in general and suggestions for the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes in particular These are factors that may make the thesis stand out from other studies that also examine the same issue Furthermore, the author tried to choose the most outstanding and popular samples to make the samples most close to the real practice of translating Vietnamese traditional costumes To be more specific, this research suggests some of the most common solutions for the non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes As a response to the research questions, the analysis and discussion of samples with the strategies used by professional translators give significant findings indicated below: To start with, the study aims to find out the strategies in place for the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes The research confirms that the strategies and procedures to deal with non-equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes are available As expected, three over five strategies which are Translation by paraphrase using a related word, Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation and Translation by a more general word were used with the higher frequency in comparison with the others What is more, three out of eight procedures which are Descriptive Equivalent, Transference and Functional Equivalent were employed more frequently than the other five From the findings above, the study can be useful to a certain extent for translators who are dealing with the translation of nonequivalence relating Vietnamese traditional costumes The appendix with the list of samples was added to the appendix part of the paper for reference of those interested II Limitations of the study There are some weaknesses in this graduation paper Firstly, due to the limited time of the research’s broad scope, samples collected in this paper, however, cannot cover all cases in real practice of translating non-equivalence at word level relating to Vietnamese traditional costumes Furthermore, quality of the study is restricted due to the time limit, the scarcity of references and complex nature of the issue as well as the humble experience of the writer The study apparently cannot offer more detailed and comprehensive measures for the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes Moreover, more details on the strength and weaknesses of the strategies employed and used the most were not given up to the expectation III Suggestions for further studies As mentioned above, samples collected in this paper cannot cover all cases in real practice of translating non-equivalence at word level relating to Vietnamese traditional costumes There is a potential space for further study and analysis nominated from international translators and professionals to better explore and share more knowledge and experiences in this field Additionally, besides Mona Baker’s theory, there are many other approaches that latter studies can rely on Furthermore, there are many specific cases relating to Vietnamese culture which is similar to traditional costumes for next researches to base REFERENCES Australian Government, Guide to Social Security Law Version 1.176 Released 21 March 2011 Retrieved 29 April 2011 from http://www.facsia.gov.au/guides_acts/ssg/ssguide-2/ssguide-2.2/ssguide2.2.5/ssguide-2.2.5.10.html Baker, M (1992) In Other Words A Coursebook on Translation, London/New York Binh (2010) Strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word level in translation Hanoi University Catford, John C (1965) A Linguistic Theory of Translation: an Essay on Applied Linguistics London: Oxford University Press Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (3rd ed.) (2008) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Halliday, M.A.K (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar London.: Edward Arnold Halverson, S (1997) The Concept of Equivalence in Translation Studies Target1-2(1997), 207-233 Hiền, J & Phạm, G (2009) Traditional costumes or Vietnam Thế Giới Publisher Hiền Nguyễn (2003) A study on pragmatic equivalent in Vietnamese – English translation of tourist advertisement University of Languages and International Studies 10 Hang Nguyen (2003) A study on stylistic equivalence in translation University of Languages and International Studies 11 Lac Viet dictionary 12 Le Hoang (2001) A study on lexical 13 Longman Advanced Learner's Dictionary 5th edition, 14 Mona Bayar, (2007) To Mean or Not to Mean, Kadmous cultural foundation Khatawat for publishing and distribution Damascus, Syria 15 Ngo (2000) Trang phục cổ truyền dân tộc Việt nam, National Culture Publishing House 16 Newmark, P (1995) A Textbook of Translation New York: Prentice Hall International APPENDIX List of samples on Vietnamese traditional costumes used in the research Áo báng: Báng shirt Áo bà ba: Baba shirt Áo bốn (tứ) thân: Four body / four-panel shirt Áo cà sa: to wrap themselves in a piece of unsewn brown or orange cloth in a number of different ways Áo cánh: The cánh/ the canh Áo chùng: Chùng vest shirt Áo dài: Split tunic dress Áo dài năm thân (of the Tày- Nùng people): Five piece tunic Áo điều lục: điều lục dress 10.Áo giao lĩnh: Giao lĩnh golden-gauze robe 11.Áo kaki đại cán: loose khaki shirts with four pockets on the outside 12.Áo kép: Lined dress / double-layered shirt 13.Áo long cổn: Royal tunic 14.Áo lương the đen: Gauze shirt 15.Áo mền: Wadded parka 16.Áo mớ ba: three-dress suits 17.Áo mớ ba mớ bảy: Layering issues 18.Áo năm thân: Năm thân (five-flapped) 19.Áo pằn: Pằn shirt 20.Áo tang: Poncho and mourning clothing / mourning clothes 21.Áo tơi: palm-leaf raincoat 22.Áo tràng hạt: robes made from coarse cloth/ baggy robes with round stand-up collars and brown buttons 23.Áo vân: Silk shirt 24.Áo xô: coarse crepe shirt 25.Cạp tọa: overturned cloth belt 26.Chùm xà tích bạc: Gilded silver key chains 27.Chuỗi hổ phách: Bead necklace 28.Dày da lợn: Pig- skinned shoes 29.Dép cong: Curved toe shoes 30.Dép Thái mũi cong: Thai sandal with a curved nose 31.Đồ tem: tem stuff 32.Giày cườm: Glass bead strap sandal 33.Giày mang cá: Fish gill sandal 34.Giày mõm nhái: Toad sandal 35.Guốc gộc tre: Bamboo clogs 36.Hài: embroidered shoes 37.Hia: Boots 38.Khăn chàm: Scarf 39.Khăn mỏ quạ: Crow’s beak scarf 40.Khăn piêu: Piêu wrap 41.Khăn quần: Pants scarves 42.Khăn rằn: Checkered turbans 43.Khăn vành dây: String turban 44.khăn tang: mourning headband 45.Khăn vuông: Square turban (Northern women wear in cold season)/ square headscarves 46.Khau bắn (vịng đá có cạnh): Khau bắn 47.Khố: Loincloths 48.Kiềng: necklace 49.Lằm (vòng cổ người Mường): necklace 50.Lược đồi mồi: Tortoise shell combs 51.May chát shựa: May chát slựa 52.Muk lếch nọi (mũ trẻ nhỏ): Youngster’s hat (muk lếch nọi) 53.Mũ phác đầu: “phác đầu” hat 54.Mũ đầu mâu: “dau mau” cap 55.Mũ chữ đinh: Đinh-shaped cap 56.Mũ bình thiên: : Bình thiên cap (pacifying the world) 57.Mũ vân: Quyển vân cap (cloudy) 58.Mũ phù dung: Phù dung cap (changing hibiscus) 59.Mũ củng thần: Củng thần cap 60.Mũ rơm: traditional hats 61.Mũ cửu long: “nine dragon” cap 62.Nón: Hat 63.Nón ba tầm: Three layered hat 64.Nón cụ: The Cụ ()/cụ hats with flat tops, small diameter and thick edges 65.Nón dứa Huế: Pineapple Huế hat 66.Nón thơ: Poetic hat 67.Nón lá: Palm leaf conical hat 68.Nón nhị thốn: Two inch hat 69.Nón nhọn: The nhọn 70.Nón thúng: Basket shaped bamboo hat/ basket bamboo hat 71.Nón quai thao (Nón thúng quai thao): Conical (fringed) hat 72.Phả trán: Phả trán 73.Pươn khau (vòng hạt cườm): Pươn khau 74.Quần đũi: Pant 75.Quần tọa: baggy pants with overturned belt 76.Quần nhiễu: Crepe pants 77.Ruột ngựa: Cloth hoarse bowl belt 78.Ruột tượng : sash belt 79.Sựa pài (Áo năm thân): Five body 80.Tênh (thắt lưng phụ nữ Mường): Belt 81.Thổ cẩm: Brocade 82.Tóc trái đào: three patches of hair on the head 83.Túi hà bao: “hà bao” purse 84.Túi “hổ phệ”: Extra/ cloth pocket 85.Tư thơi: Tư thơi shirt 86.Vịng vía/ túi vía: Via necklace/ Via bag 87.Váy lưỡi trai bảy bức: seven-layer visor 88.Yếm: Bra/ chest support 89.Yếm cổ xây: Neck bra 90.Yếm cổ xẻ: Cleaved neck bra 91.Yếm cổ kiềng: Collar neck bra ... non- equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese costumes? 1.1 Strategies to deal with non- equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes Totally eight strategies to deal with translation. .. used to deal with non- equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese traditional costumes? ??……………………45 Figure 1: Frequency of strategies used to deal with non- equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese. .. rest of the paper The author of this thesis is going to clarify the problem of nonequivalence at word level and find out the strategies to deal with them in general and with non- equivalence in the