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Tài liệu Difficulties and in vietnamese into english movie translation and some suggested solutions

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HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie translation and some suggested solutions Supervisor : Nguyễn T.Kim Chi, M.A Student : Nguyễn Phương Linh Date of birth : 06/04/1994 Group : K19A06 ( 2012 – 2016 ) HANOI, 2016 GRADUATION PAPER DECLARATION Title: Difficulties and in Vietnamese into English movie translation and some suggested solutions I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced be me from any other’s world without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor. Hanoi, 15th April, 2016 Student Supervisor signature signature Full name Full name GRADUATION PAPER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I have received great assistance from many people in the preparation of this paper. Without their assistance and support, this paper might not have been finished. First of all, I would like to hereby to extend my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Kim Chi for her advice, comments, correction and for her kindly encouragement during the development of this paper. Also, I am deeply grateful to my teachers at Hanoi Open University for their lectures. My special thanks to all my friends for the time, energy they spend on reading my paper and providing me with extremely detailed comments on parts and on the whole as well. Last, but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude and thank all my family for their love, great encouragement and support to me to fulfill this paper. GRADUATION PAPER TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT PART A: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1 1. Rationale ................................................................................................... 1 2. Aims and objectives of the study ............................................................. 2 3. Scope of the study ..................................................................................... 2 4. Method of the study .................................................................................. 2 5. Design of the study ................................................................................... 2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 3 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .................................... 3 1.1. Translation theory ................................................................................. 3 1.1.1. Definition............................................................................................. 3 1.1.2. Types of translation ............................................................................ 4 1.2. About movie translation ........................................................................ 7 1.2.1.History of movie translation ............................................................... 7 1.2.2. Characteristics of movie translation .................................................. 8 1.2.3. Power of film translation.................................................................. 11 CHAPTER 2: DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION .............................................................................. 2.1. Linguistics problems ........................................................................... 13 2.1.1. Grammatical problems .................................................................... 13 2.1.2. Syntactic problems ........................................................................... 14 2.1.2.1. Phrase structure............................................................................. 14 GRADUATION PAPER 2.1.2.2. Clause structure ............................................................................. 16 2.1.2.3. Sentence structure: ........................................................................ 18 2.1.3. Morphological problems .................................................................. 20 2.1.3.1. Nouns .............................................................................................. 20 2.1.3.2. Verbs .............................................................................................. 21 2.1.4. Linguistic untranslatability .............................................................. 23 2.2. Cultural problems ............................................................................... 26 2.2.1. Cultural untranslatability ................................................................ 26 2.2.2. Translation of implications and cultural references ....................... 28 2.3. Other problems .................................................................................... 30 2.3.1. Translation style problems ............................................................... 30 2.3.2. Movie’s characters............................................................................ 31 CHAPTER 3: CAUSES OF DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION ....................................................... 32 3.1. Subjective causes ................................................................................. 32 3.1.1. Inadequate language competence .................................................... 32 3.1.1.1. Incompetence in the source language (Vietnamese) .................... 32 3.1.1.2. Incompetence in the target language (English) ............................ 33 3.1.2. Insufficient cultural background ..................................................... 35 3.2. Objective causes................................................................................... 35 3.2.1. Linguistic differences between Vietnamese and English ................ 35 3.2.1.1. Syntax ............................................................................................. 35 3.2.1.2. Morphology .................................................................................... 37 3.2.2. Cultural differences .......................................................................... 38 CHAPTER 4: SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR MOVIE TRANSLATION ........................................................................................ 40 4.1. Overcoming Linguistic Problems ....................................................... 40 GRADUATION PAPER 4.1.1 Dealing with Linguistic Problems ..................................................... 40 4.1.2 Dealing with linguistic untranslatability .......................................... 41 4.1.3. Avoidance of word-for-word translation......................................... 41 4.1.4. Dealing with collocation ................................................................... 42 4.1.5. Dealing with idioms translation ....................................................... 42 4.2. Overcoming lexical and structure problems ...................................... 43 4.2.1 Lexical Transformation..................................................................... 43 4.2.1.1. Transforming a general meaning word into a specific meaning one ............................................................................................................... 44 4.2.1.2. Using synonyms ............................................................................. 45 4.2.1.3. Using antonyms.............................................................................. 46 4.2.1.4 To change, add, cut or rearrange words order ............................. 47 4.2.1.5 Turning idiolects into normal word in the target language.......... 47 4.2.2. Structural Transformation .............................................................. 47 4.3. Overcoming cultural problems ........................................................... 48 4.3.1 Cultural substitutions ........................................................................ 48 4.3.2. Dealing with cultural untranslatability ........................................... 49 PART C: CONCLUSION REFERENCES PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Translation is an activity of enormous importance in our modern world. Nowadays, translation has become a profession. It consists of staff translators, freelancers, contract translators, terminologists and pre- and post-editors in machine translation. Translation has been the subject of interest not only to linguistic, professional and amateur translators, and language teachers but also to electronic engineers and mathematicians. Translation in any of the mentioned fields - for instance, film industry becomes particularly important, for it erases linguistic borders, once physical borders are erased; and, hence, truly unifies nations. Movie translation can be a difficult job that requires a lot of experience and effort. If done well and with care it can convey the same message as the original conversation but if not done properly it can be a total failure and thus the movie is unsuccessful. Although as in any kind of translation field we face different challenges, in movie translation there are some challenges and difficulties that make this kind of translation even more difficult. A movie translator who has a long experience knows these difficulties and surely has encountered some of them. There are two main ways for translating a movie subtitling and dubbing, both these ways affect the original conversation in one way or another. On one hand we have dubbing which modifies the original conversation and makes it more convenient and familiar to the target audience. This method of translation adapts language according to the movements of the mouth of the actor enabling him to appear as speaking exactly the language of the target audience. On the other hand there is the subtitled movie translation which implies the subtitles synchronized to the language spoken and usually positioned at the end of the screen, which between the two methods is considered as the method that changes less the 1 original conversation thus enabling the audience to experience language and cultural differences. 2. Aims and objectives of the study The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the importance and difficulties of film translation, with the causes and some suggested solutions for improvement in movie translation progress. This aim is to show some difficulties while translating Vietnamese movies, causes to the difficulties and some solutions to improve the translation skills. 3. Scope of the study This study will focus on difficulties in translating movies, causes of the difficulties and some suggested solutions to have a better translation. 4. Method of the study This paper is carried out by the following steps: Have the instruction from my supervisor and other teachers. Collect materials from books, documents and the internet. Analyzing some conversation in a Vietnamese drama in order to find difficulties, causes and give some strategies for translating movies. 5. Design of the study This paper has three main parts. Part A is the introduction about the rationale, aim and objectives of the study, scope of the study, methods and the design of the study. Part B mentions the development for this paper and consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 talks about literature reviews, chapter 2 states the difficulties, chapter 3 shows the causes and chapter 4 shows the techniques to improve the translation quality. Part C is conclusion and recommendation. The end of the study is the references. 2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1. Translation theory 1.1.1. Definition Translation has been various defined. The following definitions have been selected as they are really typical. Translation is a transfer process, which aims at the transformation of written source language conversation into an optimally equivalent target language text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the source language. (Wilss, 1982) Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences. (Bell.R. , 1991). Translation is the replacement of a presentation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language. (Bell.R. ,1991). For example, the Vietnamese sentence “Chỉ khi nào thầy giáo cho phép thì sinh viên mới được vào phòng.” can be translated into English as “Only if the teacher has given permission are students allowed to enter the room.” The author continues and makes the problems of equivalence very plain. Text in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (full or partly different), in respect of different levels of presentation (in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.) and at different ranks (wordfor-word, phrase-for-phrase, sentence-for-sentence). In Vietnamese-into-English translation, the Vietnamese is the source language and the English is the target language as in the following example: 3 The source language: “Người bắt đầu học ngoại ngữ luôn luôn gặp khó khăn ngay từ bước đầu.” The target language: “Beginners of foreign language always meet difficulties from the outset.” In contrast, in English-intoVietnamese translation, the English is the source language and the Vietnamese is the target language as in the following example: The source language: “Due to ill management and protection, forest resources have, in recent years, been seriously destroyed.” The target language: “Trong những năm gần đây, do quản lí và bảo vệ kém, tài nguyên rừng bị tàn phá rất nghiêm trọng.” Translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text. (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997). “Translators are concerned with the written texts. They render written texts from one language into another language. Translators are required to undertake assignments, which range from simple items, such as birth certificates and driving licenses, to more complex written materials, such as articles in specialized professional journals, business contracts and legal documents”. (Bui Tien Bao and Dang Xuan Thu, 1997). Translation, ultimately, by dictionary definition, consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turn into one’s own or another’s language. (The Merrian – Webster dictionary, 1974). Translation is a change of form. When we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. The forms are referred to as the surface structure of a language. It is a structural part of a language, which is actually seen in print or heard speech. In translation, the form of the receptor or target language replaces the form of the source language. 1.1.2. Types of translation A, Word-for-word translation: 4 Here the source language (SL) word is translated into another language by their most common meanings, which can also be out of context at times, especially in idioms and proverbs. - The following are the characteristics of this approach: + SL word order is preserved. + Words are translated by their most common meanings, and out of context. B, Literal translation Here the SL grammatical constructions are translated to their nearest language (TL). A literal translation sounds like nonsense and has little communicative values. - The following are the characteristics of this approach: + Lexical words are translated singly, and out of context. C, Faithful translation Here the translation interprets the exact contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the grammatical structures of the TL. - The following are characteristics of this approach: + Words are translated in context but uncompromising to TL. + Transfer cultural words + Does not naturalize + Often read like a translation D, Semantic translation: Semantic translation refers to that type of translation, which takes into account the aesthetic value of the SL text. - The following are the characteristics of this approach: + More flexible than faithful translation 5 + Naturalize a bit while faithful translation is uncompromising (but in order to achieve aesthetic effect), for instance, it may translate cultural words with neutral or functional items. + Great focus on aesthetic features of source text (at expense of meaning if necessary). + Close rendering of metaphors, collocations, technical terms, slang, colloquialisms, unusual syntactic structures and collocations, peculiarly used words, neologism, badly written or inaccurate passages. E, Adaptation: The text is rewritten considering the SL culture which is converted to the TL culture where the characters, themes, and plots are usually preserved. - This kind of translation is used mainly for plays and poems. F, Free translation: Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form of the original. It is a kind of meaning-based translation and usually a paraphrase much longer than the original. Free translation focuses on the content of the target text rather than the form, which means that the same content is expressed in the target text but with very different grammatical structures if need be. G, Idiomatic translation: It translates the message of the original text but tends to distort the original meaning at times by referring colloquialisms and idioms. (Su, 2003) Idiomatic translation makes use of idioms and colloquialisms that are not present in the source text. It is asserted that the original meaning of a fixed combination is not equal to the sum of the meaning of separate words. H, Communicative translation: 6 This method displays the exact contextual meaning of the original text in a manner where both content and language are easily acceptable and comprehensible to the readers. - The following are the characteristics of this approach: + Bee freer than semantic translation + Give priority to the effectiveness of the message to be communicated + Focus on factors such as readability and naturalness + Both the content and the language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the reader. - This kind of translation used for informative texts. I, Gist translation Gist translation is characterized by keeping the main idea/gist of the text. - Most free type of translation - Used in language learning situation to summarize 1.2. About movie translation 1.2.1.History of movie translation It is known from the films translation history that in the times of silent movies, translation was relatively easy to conduct: the so-called titles interrupted the course of a film every couple of minutes, so the target language titles could easily be translated and inserted in place of the original ones. The problem arose with the appearance of “talkies” in the late 1920s. At first, American film companies tried to solve it by producing the same film (using the same set and scenario, but different directors and actors) in various language versions. However, this soon turned out to be unprofitable, as the films produced were of poor artistic quality and they did not win the public. The studios that had been built in France for this purpose began to produce 7 dubbed versions of films instead. The new invention “enabled Hollywood to avoid any interruption in its dominance of the international film market”. Talkies guaranteed that the audience was very much aware of the source culture and its nature, and thus they helped cement Hollywood’s leading position. The introduction of talkies exerted a far-reaching influence on both larger and smaller countries. As film production costs rose, it became increasingly difficult for smaller countries to export their productions andlimited by their small domestic markets- their home production decreased, which led to a rise in film imports. As for larger European countries, they “were better equipped to continue producing their own films, but were also faced with powerful American competition”. This situation, i.e. the wide gap between larger and smaller countries, was to be reflected later in the choice of the film translation mode: larger countries tended to dub imported foreign productions, while smaller ones settled on subtitling. From the early 1930s until 1950s American film companies reigned over the entire movie industry as they monopolized the recording equipment. During World War II the American film industry flourished 1.2.2. Characteristics of movie translation A. Multimedia Film, is a kind of multimedia, both a visual medium and an aural one. In general translation, the readers see it with their eyes, but read it in mind. They get messages only by a visual channel. The audience of film watch what characters are doing and hear what they are talking about, messages reach the audience through visual and acoustic channels. Obviously, fascination of dubbed film lies in harmonious cooperation between visual and acoustic 8 channels, which demands the target language should cope with the original images in the film as naturally as possible. What's more, films and TV plays are supposed to act directly on the sense of sight of the audience, not on the sense of hearing. As Martin points out, "Picture is the basic element of the language of film." "However... it is normal and unquestionable that in the film utterance forms a constituent element of the reality and play a fundamental role in achieving realism... In fact, utterance is a component of the visual picture and therefore, it is subject to the movement of the pictures."(Martin, 1977, p. 149) We can notice that the translation of utterance should be synchronized with the settings of the scenes, the identity of the characters, their movements, gestures, facial expressions, pauses and lip movements; in that pictures transfer the major part of the messages and pictures play the much more important role. B. Spoken Language & Easy Understandability English feature films are an entertainment more than a holy art. Once they indulge in self-admiration, they come to a dead end. As a mass art, feature films are due to win the audience. An excellent film should be a dignified compromise between market and art so as to offend neither the mass nor the critics. Film translation primarily deals with spoken language, rather than written language. English films are means of entertainment, so it is the translator's duty to enable the audience to get entertained in the easiest way. The audience may be experts of English culture or merely laymen; they may be Doctors or just beginners. They have different ages, genders, levels of education and backgrounds, etc. They consequently have varied understanding abilities and appreciation values. To cater so many different 9 tastes, popular films assure well-chosen themes, closely-knit plots, attractive frames and most importantly, easily understood subtitle With conversation being the major component of the script, colloquialism is the top priorities for a translator of film translation. In addition, extra-linguistic features such as facial expressions, gestures, stance and paralinguistic features such as pitch of the voice, rapidity of speech, pauses and hesitations should also be taken into account in film translation. C. Transience In film, utterances are spoken which are difficult to trace. In general translation, to be more specific, fiction readers may turn over pages to ransack any useful clues with ease and in no hurry when failing to grasp the intended meaning. However, if the audience miss what they are hearing, especially important sentences or words, they will be lost in the dark, because they has nowhere to turn to, and no time to think with new messages surging over them. The "shots" of films last only seconds and usually cannot be replayed, which makes it impossible for the audience to refer back to the previous parts of the story to recollect or reflect upon the information as a reader does with a book. The transience of pictures demands the translator convey as much message as the duration of each "shot" allows, and at the same time as intelligible enough for the audience to absorb immediately as possible. What's more, no notes can be allowed on the screen as other translators do in a book to explain potential linguistic obscurities and cultural specifics. The translator is forced to lighten the burden on the audience, which keeping the original message intact. 10 1.2.3. Power of film translation While watching a foreign movie with dubbing or subtitles, do you ever wonder why the film is so successful, even though it wasn’t made in your native language? The answer may be quite simple – it is translated, and translation has certain advantages and disadvantages which can influence an audience’s reaction. This is what we are going to talk about today – film translation. Film has always been a powerful tool and a ubiquitous source of ideas in every culture. Entertainment and business are inseparably bound in this industry. Movies are not just a national property; on the contrary, they go far beyond national borders and attract global attention and recognition, resulting in a huge economic impact for the film industry on the international market. The international market, in turn, cannot be imagined without a team of translators whose primary goal is to establish communication between cultures. It is important to find a happy medium and try to make the translation comprehensible for the target audience and, nevertheless, keep its original message. One of the best examples of how translators can affect a first impression is movie title translation. For example, viewers may think they are going to watch a teenage comedy, but what they see instead is a serious psychological drama. This happened in Russia where the movie title ‘Leaves of Grass’, an allusion to a poetry collection of Walt Whitman, was translated as ‘Weed’. This is just one out of hundreds of examples of how crucial it is to properly translate a movie, starting with its title. Film translation is a very powerful and sometimes hazardous tool. For a film that is released nationally in a particular country to be a success abroad, it must overcome major linguistic and cultural obstacles to unite people and 11 eliminate misunderstanding. There is no universal way of translating films because all the methods described above depend on various factors, including history and translation traditions of different countries. What translators have to do is to transfer ideas and values of one culture to another and make it appear authentic. 12 CHAPTER 2: DIFFICULTIES IN VIETNAMESE TO ENGLISH MOVIE TRANSLATION There are many problems that translator may meet when translate a Vietnamese movie into English. In this thesis I would like to divide them as linguistics problems and cultural problems. All the examples were taken in the Vietnamese drama ‘Winter lullaby’ 2.1. Linguistics problems Linguistic problems are the first things that viewers can see if they read the translated conversation. First translators must have the ability to provide the translated conversation with correct grammar, brief and easy to understand. The conversation is very important for the viewers to understand the content and messages of the movie. If the viewers find the conversation good and easy to follow, they will have more interest in the movies. Moreover, a movie or drama is a way of promoting culture of a country to the world. Thus, providing correct translation of conversation in movies not only express the meaning of the movies, but also help the viewers know more about the country making those movies. Nord (1992) defined linguistic problems as: “The structural differences between two languages in lexis, grammatical feature and sentence structures can lead to a certain translation problems classified as linguistics problems, no matter which of the two serves as source and which serves as target language.” Basing on that definition, linguistics problems are divided into the following subclasses: grammatical problems, syntactic problems and morphological problems. 2.1.1. Grammatical problems Grammar is a basic aspect of any language. It is the first thing translators have to pay attention when translating movies. There is variety of 13 grammatical problems usually found in translation, occurring in many words classes such as adjective, adverb, article, conjunction, determiner, indefinite determiner, indefinite pronoun, negative determiner, preposition, pronoun, reflexive pronoun, relative pronoun, verb, present participle. - Article Có một bức thư gửi cho chị  There is an letter for you - Relative pronoun Em là em ghét nhất loại người không công bằng  I hate most those people who work unfair - Adjective Mấy món ăn này thơm quá.  Those dishes smell so good - Adverb Trang thật sự rất thú vị.  Trang is really an interesting friend. 2.1.2. Syntactic problems Syntactic system of Vietnamese is quite different to that of English. Syntactic problem often make movie translators confused with how to express the conversation clearly and smoothly in the target language. Syntactic problems in translations include: phrase, clause and sentence. In this thesis, the definition of phrase, clause and sentence is as adapted from Merriam – Webster Online Dictionary. 2.1.2.1. Phrase structure Phrase: a word or group of words forming a syntactic constituent with a single grammatical function. A, Addition of unnecessary words 14
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