3.1. Syntactic features of “IN” prepositional phrases
3.2.2. IN prepositional phrases denoting place or position
In showing place, the meaning “IN” prepositional phrases have many meanings such as:
* With geographical regions
E.g.: Driving in France is very straight forward.
Orgiva is a very small village in the mountains.
* With cities, towns and larger areas E.g.: Do you like living in Nottingham?
They were having a picnic in the park.
She works somewhere in the toy department.
* With buildings/rooms and places that can be thought of as surrounding a person or object on all sides.
E.g.: Can you take a seat in the waiting room, please?
I’ve left my bag in the office.
There’s a wedding in the church this afternoon.
Lots of people were swimming in the lake.
*With containers
E.g.: There’s fresh milk in the fridge.
I think I’ve got a tissue in my pocket.
The money is in the top drawer of my desk.
* With liquids and other substances, to show what they contain E.g.: Do you take milk in your coffee?
I can taste garlic in this sauce.
There’s a lot of fat in cheese and butter.
3.2.3. ‘IN’ prepositional phrases to show movement towards the inside of a container, place or area.
E.g.: She put the letter back in her briefcase. (container) The farmer fired a few shots in the air. (place or area)
3.2.4. ‘IN’ prepositional phrases to show when something is part of something else
E.g.: I’ ve found one or two spelling mistakes in your essay.
Who’s the little girl in the photograph?
There are several valuable paintings in the collection.
3.2.5. ‘IN’ prepositional phrase to show that someone is wearing something:
E.g.: Do you know that girl in the black dress?
A man in a brown suit was walking towards her.
3.2.6. ‘IN’prepositional phrases to show how things are arranged, expressed or written
E.g.: We gathered round in a circle.
Their names are given in alphabetical order.
Complete the form in block capitals.
She spoke to me in Spanish.
3.3. “IN’ prepositional phrases and their Vietnamese equivalents
When investigating English-Vietnamese translational materials, it is momentously interesting to figure out that translators, depending on each case, apply appropriate Vietnamese equivalents to the English preposition IN. Basically, IN in English can be glossed into Vietnamese in two major ways. On the one hand, translators resort to semantically corresponding prepositions in Vietnamese as equivalents of IN; on the other, they translate IN-phrases into Vietnamese by means of words denoting directions, verbs denoting people wearing some piece of clothing, adverbial clauses and the like without having the presence of any prepositions. In what follows we would attach a detailed description and explication to these equivalents.
3.3.1. “IN” in English corresponds to “trong” in Vietnamese
The majority of IN-denoting enclosure senses discussed in the previous section are mapped into trong in Vietnamese. For example:
….. the individual who has dare in my house to question my authority...
(…có kẻ dám cưỡng lại quyền tôi ngay trong cái nhà này…)
… she determined in the heart to ask her mother’s permission…
(… cô định trong thâm tâm xin mẹ cho phép…)
… what happiness and love are for the first time in her life…
( … lần đầu tiên trong đời […] thế nào là hạnh phúc và tình yêu…)
(Trần Kiêm, 2003: 70) In addition to the above-mentioned of trong, Vietnamese people tend to locate things with respect to their own point. That is to say, there’s ability that the viewer is included in both the objective scene and the perceptual field, which suggests subjectivity in Vietnamese conception of space. In this way, Vietnamese speakers apparently possess a perception that if the speaker is in a narrower and smaller LM, and even in a more closed LM, the preposition trong is used, like trong nhà (in the house) incomparison to ngoài sân (in the yard); trong sân (in the yard) to ngoài vườn (in the garden), trong nhà (in the house) to ngoài phố (in the street), etc. Understandably, inVietnamese traditional houses, bedrooms are designed to be smaller than living rooms, yards are often in front of the house and take up larger space, and so forth. Needless to say, this is also the case for explaining such expressions as in Vietnam being translated as trong nước, in our region as trong khu vực, and so on. For example:
Japan, […] the benchmark of economic success in our region,
( Nhật Bản, quốc gia lâu nay vốn là thước đo của thành công về kinh tế trong khu vực,)
… is now on firm footing in Vietnam and in other countries…
( … giờ đây có cơ sở vững chắc ở trong và ngoài nước…)
What is more, it can be observed that trong is also used to indicate a period of time, like in 2008 (trong năm 2008), in 20 years (trong 20 năm nữa), etc. For
East Asia, […], will account for half of the world's economy in 20 years,…
(Đông Á trong 20 năm nữa […], có thể chiếm tới một nửa nền kinh tế thế giới,)
(Chung et al, 2002:35)
3.3.2. “IN” in English corresponds to “ngoài” in Vietnamese
Ngoài is also chosen as a Vietnamese corresponding preposition of in despite the fact that it only accounts for a proportion. What is important to list it as an equivalent of in resides in that it typically and distinctly reflects Vietnamese subjective perception of location. More specifically, as regards Vietnamese ways of thinking, whatever these exists in an opener space than the one being likened, the locative preposition ngoài is made use of. Take the following examples for illustration:
…thousands of people going out in the street…
(… Hàng nghìn người đổ xô ra ngoài phố…)
… the child playing with Jane in the yard…
(…nó đang chơi đùa với Jên ở ngoài sân…)
(Nguyễn Tuyên, 2008: 182) In the mentioned instances ngoài analyse the fact that the yard, the street are in opener space as compared with the house, which can be inferred else where in this case. What is more, it is also interesting to find out that even in such close space as a house the sitting room is more smaller than the bedroom. That is the reason why Vietnamese people tend to employ trong buồng as translational version of in the bedroom, and ngoài nhà of in the living room.
3.3.3. “IN” in English corresponds to “trên” in Vietnamese
Take the following examples for illustration:
…Afar, some sheep are grazing in the field…
(…Một đàn cừu đang ăn cỏ ở trên cánh đồng phía xa…)
…and I was trying to hum it this morningwhen I was in bed…
(… sáng hôm nay tôi vẫn còn nhẩm lại khi nằm trên giường.)
… Have you read the news in the paper today?
(… Anh đã đọc tin trên báo ra ngày hôm nay chưa?)
(Nguyễn Tuyên, 2008: 150)
In the above-mentioned examples, in in English is used with LMs like field, bed ,newspaper because as regards English experience in interacting with the world, field issue as an area with limits, bed is conceptualized as a partially enclosed LM whose boundaries are defined as incomplete, and paper, meaning newspaper constituting one type of books is also described as a container. These LMs, on the contrary, are assumed to possess two-dimensional surface in Vietnamese and evoke the usage of trên.
3.3.4. “IN” in English corresponds to “dưới” in Vietnamese For example:
- They sat in the shadow of a tree…
(Họ ngồi dưới bóng cây…)
… aschool of fish in the river.
(… một đàn cá đang bơi tung tăng dưới sông…)
… walking in the rain, feeling cold and hungry...
(… đi dưới mưa, thấy toàn thân lạnh cóng và đói mềm...)
Vietnamese people hold the view that the ground plays an important role as a plane fixed by a system of coordinates. Living above the ground and under the pull of gravity, people are conscious that the sky is above them and the ground is underneath them. This specifies why it is common knowledge for people in Vietnam to say dưới đất (in the ground), and regard the ground as a reference so as to conceptualize other space.
3.3.5. “IN” in English corresponds to “ở” in Vietnamese For example:
In Cornwall, in the far southwest, there is still a sense of Celtic identity.
Ở vùng Cornwall, ở cận tây nam, bản sắc Celtic vẫn tồn tại) Bureaucracy is still thriving in many parts of Asia…
Tệ quan liêu còn đang lộng hành ở nhiều nơi của châu Á,…)
(Chung et al, 2002: 4) Ở is seen as a preposition with highly abstract meaning in that it reflects connection of various kinds of space into one type of space. To this end, ở can be used with different landmarks, ranging from those denoting entities containing people like regions, countries, cities, districts, communes, villages, etc. to those portraying events, institutions, people, and so forth.
3.3.6. “IN” in English corresponds to “bên” in Vietnamese For example:
Every stump that started up in the their path…
(… mỗi gốc cây cụt chợt hiện ra bên đường…)
…, and the sheer noise in the neighbour’s house…
(…, và tiếp theo là tiếng động xé tai ở bên nhà hàng xóm…)
(Trần Kiêm, 2003:167)
Vietnamese people are likely to specify whether the speaker is present in the same or different location from another one. Accordingly, bên is employed to indicate there is separation between the this speaker’s space and another space of that speaker.
3.3.7. “IN” in English corresponds to “bằng” in Vietnamese
… everything on that table was in silver, too.
(… mọi thứ trên bàn ăn đều bằng bạc. )
… and the tales written in French…
(… những mẩu chuyện được viết bằng tiếng Pháp… )
(Trần Kiêm, 2003: 69) The English preposition in is used to express logical shape of the speaker being under in a LM in form of a medium or material. Accordingly, the Vietnamese preposition bằng is practically used to convey this relation, as in the examples below.
3.3.8. “IN” in English corresponds to “về” in Vietnamese For example:
Even in this respect, capital resources are stocked in favour of the south east.
(Ngay cả về lĩnh vực này, nguồn tư bản vẫn luôn được xem xét một cách thuận lợi hơn cho miền Nam.)
It is important to note that về in Vietnamese is also encoded to designate a walker being in a larger scale of reference functioning as a LM. For example:
… to denote an ideological belief in unfettered free markets.
(… chỉ một quan niệm ý thức hệ về những thị trường tự do thiếu kiểm soát.)
. (Chung et al, 2003: 39) 3.3.9. “IN” in English corresponds to “vào” in Vietnamese
Which Pyongyang says will take place in early April.
( … Bình nhưỡng cho hay sẽ diến ra vào đầu tháng tư)
…, and these flowers are only in full bloom in spring…
(…, loài hoa này chỉ nở rộ vào mùa xuân… )
(Nguyễn Tuyên, 2008: 149) In Vietnamese, vào is conventionalized to designate temporal expressions concerning a certain part of a day, a season in a year, a particular month in a year, a particular year in which a significant event or a habitual activity takes place.
3.3.10. “IN” in English corresponds to “trước” in Vietnamese He then admitted embezzling 2,000 of the club’s money in court.
( Trước toà anh ta thú nhận là đã biển thủ £2000 bảng Anh trong quỹ của câu lạc bộ.)
… one looks small in the magnificent mountains.
(… trước núi non hùng vĩ, người ta thấy mình thật nhỏ bé. ) -Nothing could ever make me give up, even in sheer trouble.
(Không gì có thể làm cho tôi chùn bước, ngay cả trước khó khăn tột độ.) (Nguyễn Tuyên, 2008: 285) 3.3.11. “IN” in English corresponds to “sau” in Vietnamese
For example:
…and his tiny figure soon disappeared in the trees…
(…, và dáng hình nhỏ bé của ông biến mất sau vòm cây…)
Lonely as she feels, she lends her eyes to the sun setting in the moun Cô đơn, nàng thả mắt nhìn theo bóng mặt trời lặn sau đỉnh núi.
(Nguyễn Tuyên, 2008: 254