Strategies to translate vietmamese feudal titles into english

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION - - PHAN THỊ MƠ STRATEGIES TO TRANSLATE VIETNAMESE FEUDAL TITLES INTO ENGLISH SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ART (TEFL) SUPERVISOR: NGUYỄN NINH BẮC, M.A Hanoi, May 2011 RETENTION I hereby state that I: Phan Thi Mo, student of 07.1.E20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College 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 and reproduction of the paper Signature Phan Thi Mo Date: 04.05.2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my supervisor, Mr Nguyễn Ninh Bắc, M.A for his valuable support and guidance for the graduation paper, without whom I might not have finished the paper In addition, I would like to send my sincere thanks to Mr Nguyễn Thành Vân for his enthusiastic help and useful materials I am also much obliged to the librarian staff at University of Foreign Languages and International Studies and National Library of Vietnam, who lent me materials and reference books Last but not least, words of thanks are addressed to my family and friends who continuously offered me both financial and spiritual support throughout the last period of time ABSTRACT In order to meet the increasingly high requirement of the process of globalization and comprehensive integration into the international community, English written and translated documents on Vietnamese history should be given careful attention and serious consideration One of the problems translators might face on when translating Vietnamese historical documents is dealing with culture specific terms like Vietnamese feudal titles In the study, by the method of sampling, 132 translated titles were picked up from four books, Vietnam, The Revolutionary Path (Hodgkin, 1981), Vietnam and the Chinese model (Woodside, 1971), Land equalization in 1893 in Binh Dinh seen from the land records (Phan, 2009) and Historical characters of the Dinh-Le dynasties (Truong, 2008) Then, necessary calculation was made to figure out the percentage of the translation procedures and the most common procedures applied to interpret the Vietnamese feudal titles Moreover, basing on theory on translation, the researcher identified the possible advantages and disadvantages of applying each procedure to render the titles Finally, some worthy notifications when translating the titles were also provided in the paper TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF CHARTS vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF APPENDIXES viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the study Significance of the study Scope of study Methodology Structure of study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of translation Procedures of translation Translation equivalents 12 Translation of culutral terms 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY Sampling 17 Data analysis process 18 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DICUSSION An overview of translation procedures applied to translate Vietnamese feudal titles into English 19 Advantages and disadvantages when using the chosen translation procedures to translate Vietnames feudal titles into English 21 Some notifications 30 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION Summary of the research 36 Limitations 38 Suggestion 38 REFERENCES 40 APPENDIXES 42 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: examples of applying cultural equivalent Table 2: examples of applying functional equivalent LIST OF CHARTS: Chart 1: Frequency of using translation procedures applied to translate Vietnamese feudal titles Chart 2: Two main couples of translation procedures applied to translate Vietnamese feudal titles LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ST – Source Text TT – Target Text SL – Source Language TL – Target Language OALD – Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary LIST OF APPENDIXES Appendix 1: English translations of Vietnamese feudal titles in Historical characters of the Đinh – Lê dynasties Appendix 2: English translations of Vietnamese feudal titles in Land equalization in 1839 in Bình Định seen from the land records Appendix 3: English translations of Vietnamese feudal titles in Vietnam – the Revolutionary Path Appendix 4: English translations of Vietnamese feudal titles in Vietnam and the Chinese model Appendix 3: Vietnam – The Revolution Path Author: Thomas Hodgkin (1981) Hong Kong: The Macmillan press ltd Princes – the king‟s son – were known as quan lang, princesses – his daughters – as my nuong (p.14) The former title, quan lang, existed in Ha Tay as late as the eighth century AD and has survived among the Muong as the designation of the hereditary chief (p.14) The state was divided for administrative purpose into fifteen bo, governed by officials known as bo chinh (p.14) Power under the Hung kings was exercised by a class of civil administrators, known as Lac hau, and military administrators, Lac tuong (p.14) Administratively it included the provinces of Giao Chi (modern Bac Bo) and Cuu Chan (northern Trung Bo) and Nhat Nam (middle Trung Bo), each governed by a thai thu (p.19) The Hai Ba Trung, the two Trung sisters, were daughters of the Lac tuong (chief) of the Me Ling, a village in the Son Tay region, who had been brought up by their mother Ba Man Thien (reputed to be a descendant of the Hung kings), „in a spirit of patriotism and love of military art‟ (p.20) Trung Trac was married to Thi Sach, son of the Lac tuong of Chu Dien (in the Ha Tay region) (p.20) These two powerful families, with the support of many of the chiefs (quan lang) and the people of Son Tay, were preparing rebellion when Thi Sach was killed on the orders of Su Ting (p.20) With the disintegration of the Han empire (the peasant revolt of the „Yellow Turban‟ society broke out in AD 184 and was not finally crushed until twenty years later) the deputy governor (thai thu) of Giao Chi, Che Sie (Si Nhiep), was able to strengthen the position of his family in the neighbouring provinces and build up the virtually independent state of Giao Chan under his personal rule: „Si Nhiep led the life of a king.‟ (p.21) (Le Thanh Khoi, pp 102-3, Lich su, pp.91-2) 10.It was in this situation that the revolt led by Phung Hung, quan lang (chief) of Duong Lam in Ha Tay province, and his brother, Phung Hai, broke out in the late 760s or 770s (p.28) 11.By the beginning of the tenth century Chinese imperial power was disintegrating at the periphery and a rebellion in 906 – the year of the final collapse of the T‟ang dynasty – led to the election of Khu Thua Du, a rich notable from Hai Duong, a governor (tiet su) of An Nam (p.28) 12.Encouraged by his supporters in the army and elsewhere – but most of all by Duong Thai Hau (the Queen-mother Duong), who covered him with the king‟s golden dragon robe, the symbol of royalty, and urged him to organize resistance to the Chinese invasion – Le Hoan, Dinh Tien Hoang‟s commander-in-chief, a devout Buddhist, was proclaimed king (p.32) 13.Initially the system depended largely on the „princess of the blood‟ who received the title of vuong (king) and had the responsibility for raising local troops and maintaining security over large areas – provinces or their equivalent (p.35) 14.At the first examination, in 1075, there were ten „laureates‟ of whom the senior, Le Van Thinh, later became thai su (chief minister) (p.36) 15.It was under the overall authority of a Quoc su, a „master of the kingdom‟ who helped the ruler in his prayers for the prosperity of the state and acted as his confidential adviser (p.39) 16.Ly Hue Tong had meanwhile retired to a pagoda, but Thu Do, now thai su (chief minister), took up a ruthless attitude to the old dynasty (p.41) 17.It was under the Tran that, to safeguard the succession and prevent struggles for power between rival claimants, the system was introduced whereby the ruler retired from office at a relatively early age in favour of his heir, normally his eldest son, and became the thai thuong hoang (king‟s father), to whom the most important political decisions were referred (p.42) 18.In the following year special titles – trang nguyen, bang nhan and tham hoa – were given to those who won the centralized (p.42) 19.The whole country was divided into twelve lo, each governed by an an phu su and his deputy (p.42) 20.At the district level the posts of dai tu xa and tieu tu xa (senior and junior commune inspector) were established, officials in charge of groups of two to four villages, with responsibility for census and tax collection (p.43) 21.The nobility enjoying large estates, cultivated by serfs, still had the right to organize their own armed forces, the quan vuong hau, recruited from their own servants, and to transmit their rank and titles to their sons (p.43) 22.After his retirement he continued as thuong hoang to enjoy real power, in conjunction with his two sons and successors, until his death in 1358 (p.52) 23.Du Tong was succeeded by another of his brothers, Tran Nghe Tong (1370-3), who, thought the legitimate heir, showed extreme unwillingness to accept the job and abdicated two years later – but lived on another twenty years as thuong hoang (p.52) 24.Now, in 1397, to provide better opportunities for poor students, the state organized free course in all the provincial capitals, taught by the doc hoc – and giao thu – who received payment for their work in rice fields (p.54) 25.More intelligent, Quy Khoang simply made Gian Dinh retire and, in accordance with Tran royal practice, take the tile of thuong hoang (p.56) 26.He also began his association with his closest adviser, Nguyen Trai, a son of the scholar and poet, Nguyen Phi Khanh (who, although a bang nhan, was excluded from the mandarinate on account of his plebeian origin until the reign of Ho Quy Ly, and later exiled to China by the Ming until his death) (p.57) 27.Now each bo was put in charge of a president (thuong thu) assisted by two vice-presidents (thi lang), one of the left and one of the right, and the rules by which they should function were defined (p.65-66) 28.Local administration was reorganized – and made more bureaucratic – in the twelve provinces (thirteen after the annexation of Quang Nam from Champa in 1471), and imperial censors (giam sat ngu su) appointed to tour the provinces, „check on administrators and express the silences of the people.‟ (p.66) (Le Thanh Khoi, p.22-3) 29.There were at this time 8000 communes, of varying size and importance, each administered by its xa truong (mayor), assisted by a ly truong – originally elected by the commune‟s council of notable, but tending increasingly to be appointed b the central government (p.66) (Le Thanh Khoi, p.223) 30.In 1474, the annals say, Le Thanh Tong created new posts – de quan, to inspect the dykes, and a Khuyen nong, to encourage agricultural production (p.66) 31.The usurpation of power by the Mac (from 1527 to 1592) followed by their expulsion and withdrawal to Cao Bang, the growth of conflict between the two great chua, the Trinh in the north and the Nguyen in the south, developing into a forty-five-year war (1627 - 72) – how can one explain the breakdown of a central authority that during the fifteenth century had appeared increasingly affective and stable? (p.68) 32.How far to the practical advantages for the ruling class of this dissociation of chua and vua – of temporal and spiritual power? (p.69) 33.In 1530 he abdicated, returned to sighing in his native village of Co Trai and continued as Thai thuong hoang to direct the affairs of state (p.71) 34.The second, Uong, was a ta thi lang (assistant of the Left to the President of the Great Tribunal), who died relatively young (possibly poisoned by his ambitious brother-in-law) (p.72) 35.Thus 1558 was an important year in Vietnamese history – marking the beginning of the split between the two great families – Trinh and Nguyen – from which came the future chua (p.72) 36.Meanwhile Trinh Tung continued to enjoy complete control of the State and among other titles reflecting the reality of power was in 1599 appointed vuong, „king‟ – (the title became hereditary in the Trinh family) (p.73) 37.However, he still left behind him, as unofficial hostages, his son and grandson and gave his daughter in dynastic marriage to Trinh Trang, eldest son of Trinh Tung, who succeeded him as chua or vuong in 1620, after suppressing the usual rebellions on the part of his brothers (p.74) 38.Any „man of the people‟ (that is, a non-official) could become a tri phu (prefect) on payment of 2800 quan, or a tri huyen (district administrator) on payment of 1800 quan (p.79) 39.One was popular satire – the various anonymous pieces collected in Truyen Tieu Lam, „The Forest of Laughter‟; the stories of Trang Quynh (Dr Quynh), „a character symbolizing the people‟s militancy, intelligence and cleverness‟, who „mocked scholars, abused mandarins, lampooned Chua Trinh, made fun even of the King Le and the envoy of the „Heavenly Court‟, and Trang Lon (Dr Pig), „a poor down-and-out who, through a series of strokes of luck, reaches the top of the mandarin hierarchy and is appointed ambassador to China.‟ (p.80) 40.Rejecting overtures from the new chua, Trinh Sam, attacked by three columns in 1769-70 and betrayed by his son-in-law, he blew himself up with his wife and his children (p.83) (Lich su, p.328-9; ) 41.A soldier serving in the Trinh army in the mid-seventeenth century, in the time of the war of the chuas, he had been taken prisoner by the Nguyen forces and settled in one of the military colonies (don dien) used by the Nguyen to combine the development of new land with garrison duties (p.85) 42.Chua Vo Vuong, an amorous and self-indulgent prince, had died in 1765, leaving a disputed succession and an all-powerful regent, Truong Phuoc Loan, who had placed on the throne a twelve-year-old son of Vo Vuong‟s by a favourite concubine, Dinh Vuong, in whose name he and his family managed the state and oppressed the people (p.85) 43.The death of the chua, Trinh Sam, in 1872 had been followed by a succession crisis of a familiar kind (p.86) 44.Soon after the ceremony of Le Hien Tong died, leaving the throne to his grandson, Le Chieu Thong (formerly Le Duy Ky), who, after Nguyen Hue had returned to the south, mistakenly yielding to pressure from the last of the Trinhs, Trinh Bong, gave him a large fief and the hereditary title of vuong (p.87) 45.Nguyen Hue was faced at the same time with an increasingly difficult relationship with his brother, Nguyen Nhac, who had introduced new administrative arrangements, declaring himself „Emperor of the Centre‟ (Truong Uong Hoang De), giving Nguyen Hue the title of „King peacemaker of the north‟ (Bac binh vuong) and Nguyen Lu „King organizer of the east‟ (Dong dinh vuong) – Dong, referring here to Nam Bo (p.87) 46.But he did not officially describe himself as „emperor‟ (Hoang de, or opposed to vuong) until four years later (1806), two year after he had received investiture from Peking (p.100) 47.From the outset Gia Long laid down his „four No‟s principle – no prime minister (te tuong), no first doctor (trang nguyen), no official queen (hoang hau), no title of prince (vuong) to be awarded outside the royal family – and then only in an honorary capacity – as a method of preventing challenges to his personal power (p.101) (Lich su, p.370) 48.Le Van Khoi was himself a northerner of Muong origin, who had been an officer in the Tay Son army, but abandoned it to serve with Duyet at a time when the latter was commanding the Nguyen army in the north, rising rapidly to the rank of ve (lieutenant-colonel) (p.103) 49.The rebellion began with Le Van Khoi‟s escape from prison (with the help of some hoi huong guards), the massacre of the governor and his household, his acceptance of the title of Binh nam dai Nguyen soai („generalissimo, pacifier of the south‟) and his declaration of the deposition of Minh Mang and replacement by Hoang Ton, son of the legitimate prince, Canh (p.104) 50.The administrative system at the level of the newly created provinces (tinh) was controlled by Chinese-style governors-general (tong doc) or governors (tuan phu) – the former having responsibility for military strategy, frontier affairs, the suppression of rebellions – with a supporting bureaucracy, financial, judicial, military, educational (p.104) (Woodside, p.146-9) 51.At the level of commune (xa) the ancient principle – phep vua thua le lang – („the laws of the emperor are less tan the customs of the village‟) continued to operate (p.104) 52.Here the basic elements were the ly truong, the village headman, responsible to the bureaucracy fro collecting taxes and executing court orders, and the hoi dong hao muc, the council of notables, or elders, who handled the whole range of village business (p.140-105) 53.„Although regional practice varied, it seems clear that the ly truong were indeed more the agents of their village elders than tools of the provincial governments‟ (p.105) (Woodside, p156 and p152-8) 54.Those who succeeded at the metropolitan examinations, the top academic elite, continued to be known, as they had been from the fourteenth century, as tien si (p.105) 55.Finally, for the tien si there was the „glorious return‟ to his village – the expensive triumphal procession which the commune was obliged to organize for him (p.106) (Woodside, p.207-16 For the „Four Books‟ and the „Five Classics‟, see ibid, p.189) 56.The other major direct tax was the „body tax‟ (thue than), or poll tax, from which the ruling class – nobility, mandarins, „doctoral‟ degree holders (tien si) and regional graduates (cu nhan), „shade‟ student sons of distinguished fathers – were exempt, as they were from corvée – the main burden falling on the mass of the peasants, aged between twenty and fifty-five (p.108) 57.It was in the way that Tran Thien Chanh and Le Hy – retired tri huyen (district administrator) and suat doi (company commander) – raised an army consisting entirely of volunteers (p.144) (Le Thanh Canh, „Notes pour server l‟histoire‟, p.195) 58.Truong Quang Ngoc‟s reward for his betrayed was simply to be confirmed in his rank as Lanh binh (provincial military commander), to which Ham Nghi had appointed him (p.162) 59.A Nghe An tien si who had served in various provincial posts, he was known when still quite young, on account of his remarkable memory and range of knowledge, as „the living library‟ (p.162) 60.Meanwhile in Bac Bo the leadership of the resistance had been delegated by Ham Nghi in 1885 to Nguyen Quang Bich (1830-90), a tien si from Thai Binh, who had had a distinguished career as a mandarin, ending up as governor of Hung Hoa, retreating to the mountains after the fall of the citadel (p.164) 61.In Thanh Hoa after the fell of Ba Dinh there was a lull in the fighting until Tong Duy Tan, a Thanh Hoa tien si, former mandarin, poet and early Can Vuong mountain base commander, returned from China early in 1889 to lead the resistance in the province, in alliance with the Muong (p.166) 62.Of the three groups among whom he shared out Quang Phuc Hoi‟s scarce supplies of piastres and bombs, the one sent to Bac Bo (Nguyen Hai Than and Nguyen Trong Thuong), which had been meant to kill GovernorGeneral Sarraut, succeeded in organizing the assassination of the tuan phu of Thai Binh and long-time collaborator, Nguyen Duy Han (April 1913), and two weeks later two politically unimportant French colonels at the Hotel Hanoi (p.209) Appendix 4: Vietnam and the Chinese model A Comparative Study of Nguyễn and Ch‟ing Civil Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Author: Alexander Barton Woodside Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971 From the 1500‟s to the 1700‟s two groups of rulers competed for power in Vietnamese society, the chúa (lords) of the Trịnh family in the north and the chúa of the Nguyễn family in central Vietnam (p.2) The eldest brother even proclaimed himself emperor (vua) of Vietnam in this year, having already made himself “king” (vương) two year earlier (p.2) All three of them had themselves saluted at their courts as hoàng-đế (p.9) One of the Vietnamese terms for ruler was a domesticated Chinese name, hoàng-đế, mentioned above (p.10) Bue the other major term for ruler was an indigenous expression, vua, which could not be represented by a Chinese character but had to be written in nôm (p.10) Certainly Vietnamese peasants were far more inclined than Chinese peasants to look to their vua for leadership in daily life and to blame him directly for their misfortunes (p.10) The tradition of the Việt Điện U Linh Tập stressed the creative obligations of the vua (p.12) The tradition of Kuo and Phức pointed to the moral obligations of the hoàng-đế (p.12) In Vietnam, the Sino-Vietnamese title hoàng-đế was borrowed more directly and with more calculated premeditation from the Chinese (p.13) 10.It was not for nothing that one of the Tây-sơn brothers had himself declared king (vương) of Vietnam in 1776 among the stone elephants, lions, and stupas of the old Cham capital of Vijaya (p.23) 11.Had he styled himself as a hoàng-đế or as a vương, rather than as a vua, these two Sino-Vietnamese titles were obviously not strong “iconic” signs recalling some easily understandable corresponding form or person in the villagers‟ past experience (p.58) 12.Each board had a president or thượng-thư to match the shang-shu of Ming-Ch‟ing boards (p.69) 13.But the two vice-presidents of each Vietnamese board were called thamtri, a little which had existed in China (ts’an chih cheng-shih) from the T‟ang through the Yũan but which the Chinese had abandoned from the Ming period on (p.69) 14.The third highest board officials were the two thị-lang (shih-lang in Chinese, the vice-presidents of the Ming-Ch‟ing boards), who were added in a faintly conformist after thought by Ming-mạng in 1826 (p.69) (Đại Nam thực lục biên, đệ nhất, nhị, tam kỷ, II, 40:22b) 15.The panels were staffed, Ming-Ch‟ing fashion, by directors (lang-trung), vice-directors (viên ngoại lang), and secretaries (chủ sự) (p.69) 16.Its senior officials were called Censor-in-chief of the Left (tả đô ngự sử) and Censor-in-chief of the Right (hữu đô ngự sử) (p.71) 17.The Vietnamese Censorate, like the Chinese one, sheltered six “offices of scrutiny” (lục-khoa, liu-k’o in Chinese) with six “senior supervising secretaries” (chưởng ấn cấp trung) attached to them (p.71) 18.Village leader (xã trưởng) lost the power to decide whether such lands could even be rented for three years (p.78) 19.From the top down, I included governors-general or tổng đốc, whose responsibilities spanned two or three provinces each; provincial governors or tuần phủ, provincial financial and judicial commissioners or bố-chính-sứ and án-sát-sứ respectively; and, below the provincial level, prefects (tri phủ) and district magistrates (tri huyện) (p.84-85) 20.Nguyễn Công Hiến, a famous example, served as protector (trấn thủ, the chief civil official of a province or protectorate under one of the regional overlordships in the Gia-long era) of Hải Dương from 1802 to 1817 (p.102-103) 21.Encouraged by Thực, and upon the basis of his originally unsolicited report, Minh-mạng summoned a group of examination system students in Huế, gave them a supplementary examination, and posted them to his own Six Boards as hàng tẩu (apprentices) (p.120) 22.The military administration of a protectorate was headed by a protector or trấn-thủ (3A in the military bureaucracy) (p.146) 23.The civil administration, which included prefects, district magistrates, and educational officials, was led by a hiệp trấn (3A in the civil bureaucracy), whose name – “associate defender” would be a rough translation – significantly also had a military ring to it (p.146) 24.The hiệp trấn, if they were paragons, were nonetheless confined to reinforcing the efforts of local schools (p.146) 25.After 1831 – 32 the thirty-one provinces were ruled by Chinese-style governors-general and governors (tổng đốc and tuần phủ; tsung-tu and hsun-fu in Chinese) (p.146) 26.In the same way, although the provincial judicial and fiscal hierarchies below the governor were led by judicial commissioners (án sát sứ) and financial commissioner (bố sứ) not every one of the thirty-one provinces had two commissioners as in China (p.149) 27.At provincial tax collection stations after 1838 the transportation of tax produce and the recording of collections were supervised by an official known as a cai lại (a superintendent subureaucrat) (p.150) 28.In the early nineteenth century village life was managed not so much by the village chiefs (who were known, with grater fidelity to Chinese usages, as lý trưởng in the Ming-mạng period) as the village elders or council of notables, known collectively as the hội đồng hảo mục (p.154) 29.They constituted a permanent village elite and were led by a tiên-chỉ, the man who possessed the highest status among them (p.155) 30.What it also showed was the residual prestige of former village chiefs, whose influence probably was only heightened when they retired and joined the ranks of the hào mục (p.156) 31.Although regional practices varied, it seems clear that the lý trưởng were indeed more the agents of their village elders than tools of the provincial governments (p.156) 32.Under Minh-mạng, however, they received the title of cử-nhân („recommended man‟), the Sino-Vietnamese equivalent of the term chujen, by which regional graduates were known in Ch‟ing China (p.171) 33.Scholars who then went on to further triumphs at the triennial metropolitan and palace examination in Huế from the 1820‟s onward were saluted, as in China, as “presented scholars” (tiến-sĩ, the SinoVietnamese equivalent of the Chinese word chin-shih) (p.171) 34.The provincial educational commissioner was known as the đốc-học (p.183) 35.Below him, in the prefectures, there were prefectural educational officers (giáo-thụ), and in the districts, district educational officers (huấn-đạo) (p.183) 36.Even more significantly, however, he upgraded his rank in the Vietnamese tributary system of that of “king” (quốc vương) – the same rank Minh-mạng himself occupied in Peking‟s eyes in the Chinese tributary system – on the grounds that there were few rebellions among the Jarai, the ruler-subject distinction was clear among them, and their customs were “pure and honest.” (p.238) ... applied to translate Vietnamese feudal titles into English 19 Advantages and disadvantages when using the chosen translation procedures to translate Vietnames feudal titles into English. .. when they read and translate documents on Vietnamese history Scope of the study: Although the title of the study is ? ?Strategies to translate Vietnamese feudal titles into English? ??, it is impossible... (Phan, 2009) and Historical characters of the Dinh-Le dynasties (Truong, 2008), 132 of Vietnamese feudal titles were translated into English with 645 times in total According to Newmark‟s categorization