Tài liệu The use of translation strategies to translate cohesive devices in o’henry’s stories into their vietnamese equivalents

THE PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF BINH DUONG PROVINCE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG THỊ QUỲNH NGA THE USE OF TRANSLATION STRATEGIES TO TRANSLATE COHESIVE DEVICES IN O’HENRY’S STORIES INTO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS MAJOR: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CODE: 8220201 MASTER THESIS BINH DUONG – 2020 THE PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE OF BINH DUONG PROVINCE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG THỊ QUỲNH NGA THE USE OF TRANSLATION STRATEGIES TO TRANSLATE COHESIVE DEVICES IN O’HENRY’S STORIES INTO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS MAJOR: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CODE: 8220201 MASTER THESIS Supervisor: TRẦN QUỐC THAO, Ph.D. BINH DUONG – 2020 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I herewith assure that I wrote the present thesis ―the use of translation strategies to translate cohesive devices in O’Henry’s stories into their Vietnamese equivalents‖ independently, that the thesis has not been partially or fully submitted as graded academic work and that I have used no other means than the ones indicated. No other person's work has been used without due acknowledgment in the main text of this thesis. I declare that all the numbers and data in this thesis are the result of my work. Binh Duong, 2020 ĐẶNG THỊ QUỲNH NGA ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr. Trần Quốc Thao for the continuous support of my MA study and research, for his patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my MA study. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the professors in English Faculty at Thu Dau Mot University, for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions during my study there. My sincere thanks also go to my colleagues in Binh Phu Secondary School for helping me during the time I did my research. Especially the help of Nguyen Tien Thanh in retesting the data in the thesis. Besides, I really want to give my thanks to my classmates for encouraging me a lot during studying periods, especially Lê Công Tường and Tạ Thủy Tiên who supported me a lot in terms of materials and advices. At last, I am extremely thankful for the supports of my family who are always by my side. Especially, my parents encouraged me to overcome all the challenges in my life. iii ABSTRACT Translation is one of the biggest concerns in language learning in general and English language learning in particular. Translation strategies are studied on many different levels and aspects. Cohesive device (CD) translation is the wordlevel translation so it also has word-level problems in translation such as the target language (TL) lacks an equivalent word, the source language (SL) is not lexicalized in TL, two languages are different in forms, etc. CDs in English and Vietnamese are also different in use. Moreover, with the word-to-word translating habit of Vietnamese, it makes the translated text unnatural and difficult to understand in some cases. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the translation strategies of CDs in three O'Henry’s stories including An Unfinished Story, The Furnished Room, and The Last Leaf into Vietnamese equivalents. There were 1,617 CDs collected from three stories for research data. Document analysis was utilized as the primary research instrument within this study. The findings indicated that 300 CDs out of 1,617 (account for 18.5%) translated by translation strategies. There were five strategies found including translation by a more neutral/ less expressive word, translation by paraphrase using related words, translation by paraphrase using unrelated words, translation by omission, and translation by illustration. The frequency of these strategies reveals that translation by omission is the most used and the least used strantegy is translation by using a more neutral/less expressive word. The study also showed the functions of these translation strategies in some specific cases. This study has implications in terms of CDs translation usage for translation learning, teaching, and practicing for teachers, learners, translators, and researchers. Keywords: Cohesive device; short story; O’Henry; translation strategy; iv 1 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iv CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................. viii LIST OF DIAGRAM AND FIGURES ................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 1 1.1. Background of the study .................................................................... 1 1.2. O’Henry’s short stories ...................................................................... 3 1.3. Aims and objectives of the study ....................................................... 5 1.4. Research questions ............................................................................. 5 1.5. Scope of the study .............................................................................. 5 1.6. Significance of the study.................................................................... 6 1.7. Definitions of key terms .................................................................... 6 1.8. The overview of thesis ....................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 8 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 8 2.2. Short story .......................................................................................... 8 2.2.1. Definition of short story............................................................. 8 2.2.2. Characteristics in short story ..................................................... 9 2.3. Language use in O’Henry’s short stories......................................... 10 2.4. Cohesive device ............................................................................... 12 2.5. 2.6. 2.4.1. Definition of cohesive device .................................................. 12 2.4.2. Types of cohesive devices ....................................................... 13 Translation ....................................................................................... 19 2.5.1. Translation definition............................................................... 19 2.5.2. Types of translation ................................................................. 20 2.5.3. Translation problems ............................................................... 21 2.5.4. Translation strategies ............................................................... 24 Review of related studies ................................................................. 29 2.6.1. Vietnamese studies .................................................................. 29 2.6.2. International studies ................................................................. 31 v 2.7. Summary .......................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................. 33 3.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 33 3.2. Research design ............................................................................... 33 3.3. Materials .......................................................................................... 34 3.4. Data collection procedures............................................................... 37 3.5. Data analysis procedures ................................................................. 38 3.6. Framework for data analysis ............................................................ 39 3.7. Validity and reliability ..................................................................... 41 3.8. Summary .......................................................................................... 42 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .................................................. 43 4.1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 43 4.2. Findings ........................................................................................... 43 4.2.1. Frequency of translation strategies .......................................... 43 4.2.2. Types and functions of TSs ..................................................... 46 4.3. Discussion ........................................................................................ 67 4.4. Summary .......................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS ....................................... 73 5.1. Conclusion ....................................................................................... 73 5.2. Implications ..................................................................................... 74 5.3. Limitation......................................................................................... 75 5.4. Recommendation ............................................................................. 76 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................... 77 APPENDIX 1 ....................................................................................................... 81 APPENDIX 2 ....................................................................................................... 82 APPENDIX 3 ....................................................................................................... 84 APPENDIX 4 ....................................................................................................... 93 APPENDIX 5 ..................................................................................................... 102 APPENDIX 6 ..................................................................................................... 105 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CD: Cohesive Device TS: Translation Strategy TL: Target language SL: Source language vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Demonstrative Reference Cohesion (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:38). .15 Table 3.1 Size of the Stories ................................................................................ 35 Table 3.2 Frequency of CDs used in three selected stories by O'Henry .............. 35 Table 3.3 Cohesive Devices (Halliday and Hasan, 1976).................................... 39 Table 3.4 Translation Strategies (Baker 1992) .................................................... 40 Table 4.1 Frequency of TSs used in translating CDs in three selected stories by O'Henry ....................................................................................................... 44 Table 4.2 Cases of translation by using a related word to increase expressive nuance and avoid stereotype translation ...................................................... 46 Table 4.3 Cases of Translating by related word to avoid duplication ................. 47 Table 4.4 Cases of translation by using a more neutral/less expressive word ..... 48 Table 4.5 Cases of translation by illustration translation with CDs that are the alternative word ........................................................................................... 49 Table 4.6 Cases of translation by illustration translation with CDs that are not the alternative word ........................................................................................... 51 Table 4.7 Cases of translation by illustration to adapt the target culture ............. 53 Table 4.8 Cases of translation by using an unrelated word to adapt the target culture .......................................................................................................... 55 Table 4.9 Cases of translation by an unrelated word to increase the hieroglyphs 56 Table 4.10 Cases of translation by unrelated words to create a sense of closeness with the reader ............................................................................................. 57 Table 4.11 Cases of Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words to increase or decrease the level of expression .............................................................. 59 Table 4.12 Functions of TSs found in translating CDs in the short stories by O'Henry ....................................................................................................... 66 Table 4.13 The charateristics of new found functions ......................................... 70 viii 2 LIST OF DIAGRAM AND FIGURES Diagram 2.1 Types of personal reference cohesion ............................................ 31 Diagram 2.2 Types of Comparative Reference Cohesion................................... 32 Figure 3.1 Percentage of CDs used in three selected stories by O'Henry ............ 36 Figure 3.2 Occurrence of CDs used in three selected stories by O’Henry per 1000 words ........................................................................................................... 37 Figure 4.1 Percentage of TSs used in three selected stories by O'Henry ............. 45 ix 3 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION O'Henry is a famous writer in the 19th century. He wrote many stories for newspapers at that age. His stories are believed to imply valuable moral lesson and the language is easy to understand. In his stories, the language is used abundantly, so it is a valuable learning source for English learners in both language and culture. Therefore, as an English learner, I am interested to analyze one element in the stories, which is cohesion. Cohesion is an important grammar factor that is used to connect elements of a text to make it become unity. However, it is difficult for Vietnamese learners to use cohesion correctly because of the effect of Vietnamese-English translating habits when using English. Hence, in this study, the translation strategies of cohesive devices (CDs) will be allocated in a specific context to make this study be a useful material for learning cohesion as well as in the translation area. 1.1. Background of the study Translation plays a critical role in global development. It is considered as the way to exchange information between different language areas, and it helps to share experiences, sciences and technology to people all over the world. Translation includes both interpretation and written form. In translation, literary work translation is one of the most popular types. In Viet Nam, there have been a lot of foreign literary works translated into Vietnamese. They also appear in education program. The literary works interest people of all ages. Thanks to the various genres and topics, literary works become the hobby of many people in their spare time. It gives a chance for Vietnamese people to access to the international literature. Due to its significant role, literary work translation is a big concern in linguistics. There has been several research conducted on the problems of literary work in many aspects. According to Ninda and Taber (1982:33) translation is a process of ―reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence 1 of the SL message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style‖. It means that translation is the process of changing the meaning of the SL text utilizing an equivalent TL text. However, translation of literary text is a difficult task. Therefore, the translator should be careful to use an appropriate strategy to produce a good translation. In terms of translation strategy, different translation theorists state different translation strategies. First, Chesterman (1998) divides the classification of strategies into three kinds: syntactic strategies, semantic strategies, and pragmatic strategies. From another angle, Newmark (1988:45-47) suggested eight strategies of translation which consist of word-for-word translation, literal translation, faithful translation, semantic translation, adaptation, free translation, idiomatic translation, communicative translation. Baker (1992:23-47) mentioned eight strategies of translation in general: translation by a more general word, translation by a more neutral/ less expressive word, translation by cultural substitution, translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation, translation by paraphrase using a related word, translation by paraphrase using unrelated words, translation by omission, and translation by illustration. A good translation is usually used many different strategies. A text that is considered to have a high level of consistency, coherence and logic, the key element is cohesion. In literature as well as in linguistics, CD is an aspect of the semantics which can be expressed and used variously in different languages. CD is the set of linguistic means which can create a texture. The texture is the basic unit in a text that create relationship between sentences and paragraphs besides the semantic relations to make it more meaningful and unitary. Without these units the sentences and paragraphs would be isolated and not organized. Furthermore, cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the text depends on that of another. Therefore, texture of the text makes a text distinguish from a non-text (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:2) In other words, cohesion makes any text more meaningful as showing the relationship between sentences and parts of the text allows the reader to easily identify the 2 exact meaning of the text. Thus CDs unify the whole text, and hence, the more CDs, the more powerful the text is. The text is considered as powerful because cohesive markers hold and linking the content of the text together to be as one piece of information. Hence, the translation of CDs must be paid attention in the translation of a literary work from a language into another language. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion includes grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Grammatical cohesion is the connection between grammatical features across sentence boundaries, which consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. Lexical cohesion is the connection of vocabulary link parts of the text together, which contains reiteration and collocation. However, some translators do not pay attention to the CDs during the translation process, making the translation awkward or meaningless so that readers do not feel the meaning of the writer in the original text. From the above issues, this study was conducted for the following reasons. Firstly, CD plays an important role in languages, so it is also a factor to consider when translating into other languages. Secondly, there have been a lot of translated works into Vietnamese, and also there have been a lot of research on translation in many different fields, with many different levels such as sentence level, phrase level, idiom, but there has not found any study on translation of CDs into Vietnamese. Therefore, this study was conducted to clarify whether cohesion in written text can contribute to the matter of translation. Finally, O'Henry's short stories are quite popular in Vietnam, they can be used as a reference for the translation teaching process. 1.2. O’Henry’s short stories The O'Henry short story topic, particularly diverse, reflects somewhat the diversity of contemporary American social life. The context in which the writer built composition is very abundant: bustling New York City, immense farms in Central and Southwest America, the newly founded pristine towns of gold seekers. The art space in the story of O'Heniy is mostly the narrow, dark, stuffy space of the rooms, the doors, the small corner of the park, the zigzag streets, the 3 pieces of the sidewalk (The skylight Room, The Green Door, The Last Leaf) and just a little space spread over mountains, meadows, farms, villages (Christmas by injunction, A chaparral prince). The world in O'Henry's artistic conception, the world that the writer re-created in the short story is the vibrant bustling world of money (An unfinished story) the gloomy dark world of the miserable life misfortune, Love Story, The furnished room) and the warm, bright world of love. O’Henry's characters are quite diverse: capitalist bosses, senior officials, and police are also featured in O’Henry's work. Most are still poor, ordinary people, earning a living by many different jobs: officials, secretaries, journalists, painters, musicians, actors, doctors, pharmacists, salespeople, barbers, gold seekers and even the wanderers, thugs, bandits, criminals. The incredibly vast world that O’Henry lived in which provided material for his story. Moreover, great fiction has enabled the writer to create diverse situations In O'Henry's short stories, excepting humor, adventure, romance, readers can find many works imbued with reality, kindness and progressive concepts of the writer. O'Henry reflects the obvious truths of contemporary American society: the opposition between the two worlds - the world of the rich and the world of the poor; monetary power with its positive side and its damaging effects. The writer's attitude always forwards to the poor, praising the kindness and love of those who have the same plight. O'Henry's artistic language is also unique. Readers can come across a very clear narrative style. Slang, local accents, idioms are used by O’Henry in short stories with certain artistic uses. O’Henry's description was flexible, sometimes direct, specific as a strict realist; sometimes he exaggerated, personified or used comparisons from simple to elegant. However, in this paper, O’Henry's story will be used as a data source to examine CDs in them without performing an analysis of the story's content or characters. 4 1.3. Aims and objectives of the study This study is to examine the translation strategies used to translate CDs in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents. The following are the specific objectives of the research:  To examine the types of translation strategies used to translate CDs in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents;  To discover the most common types of translation strategies used to translate CDs in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents;  To analyze the functions of translation strategies used to translate CDs in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents. 1.4. Research questions To achieve the aforementioned objectives, the following research questions must be addressed: 1) What types of translation strategies are used to translate cohesive devices in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents? 2) What are the most common types of translation strategies used to translate cohesive devices in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents? 3) What are the functions of translation strategies used to translate cohesive devices in O’Henry’s selected short stories into Vietnamese equivalents? 1.5. Scope of the study Here the TSs used in translating CDs in the stories are tried to explore. Moreover, the frequencies of the TSs are examined. Lastly, the function of TSs used are analyzed. The source of research’s data is CDs collected from three short stories by O’Henry including The Furnished Room, An Unfinished Story, and The last leaf presented in Selected Short Stories From O.Henry Stories published by The Odyssey Press Inc.; and their translations in tuy n t p O.Henry published by Literary Publisher (2017) căn phòng đầy đủ tiện nghi translated by 5 Mạnh Chương, m t c u chuyện d dang, and chi c l cuối c ng both translated by translated by Ngô Vĩnh Viễn. This study mainly focuses on exploring the types of TSs, examining the frequencies, and analyzing the function of TSs used to translate the CDs. It is emphasized that it only examined the CDs, how the other parts of the sentence translated are ignored. In addition, the other aspects of O’Henry stories like figurative language, content, plot, character are not paid attention. Therefore, it is decided that the study is conducted by document analysis. 1.6. Significance of the study The current study addresses the translation strategies used in translating CDs in short stories by O’Henry. The findings of this study are expected to provide information as a learning reference to help English learners understand more clearly about cohesion translation. The findings of the study can be very useful in the area of translation. The significance of the study is beneficial as the material to improve the vocabulary of cohesive for Vietnamese – English learners. This study is expected to support and enrich for data sources of analysis about O’henry and sets the premise for the future studies about the short stories by O’Henry as well as the translation. For teachers who teach literature translation, it is a helpful teaching material to teach CDs, translation strategies, and to contrast the use of cohesion in English and Vietnamese. 1.7. Definitions of key terms  Cohesive device refers to the connection between the related elements within a text to make it unity.  Short story refers to a short, narrative prose that is usually centered on one single event  Translation in this study means a process that the translator conveys the SL to other languages. 6  Translation strategy was defined as a set of processes used to solve the difficulties of language and culture during doing translation tasks.  Vietnamese equivalent in this study refers to a Vietnamese word that is equal in meaning to an English word.  Source language: the language in which the original text is written.  Target language: refers to the language into which the original text is translated. 1.8. The overview of thesis This study consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 presents the background of the study, research questions, objectives of the study, significance of the research and overview of the research. Chapter 2 shows the definition of terms such as short stories, cohesion, translation as well as translation strategies, and the overview of related literature and previous studies. Chapter 3 introduces the methodology with seven main parts: the research design, the the materials of the research, data collection procedures, data analysis procedure, frame work for data analysis, and validity and reliablity. Chapter 4 includes the description of data, analyzing data, the contrast with Vietnamese translation, some implications and recommendation for learning translation. Chapter 5 draws some conclusions from the study. 7 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Introduction In this chapter, five main parts are discussed to present the theoretical background and previous studies for the thesis. Firstly, definitions of short story and its characteristics are taken into consideration. Secondly, it shows definitions of CDs and types of CDs basing on the theory of Halliday and Hasan (1976). The third presents what related to translation consists of translation problem and translation strategies which comprise the framework of Newmark (1988), Chesterman (1998), and Barker (1992). Fourthly, the language in O'Henry's stories are reviewed. Last but not least, a summary of previous studies is provided to learn some useful experiences of pioneer and identify the gap of researches. 2.2. Short story 2.2.1. Definition of short story Although short story has long existed in literature, and has been studied by researchers on many aspects, some researchers have come up with definitions for short stories. One of the earliest writers concerned about short story, Poe (1896) considered the time of reading a story is also to distinguish it with other types of literary works, which was mentioned in The Philosophy of Composition of E. A. Poe (1896:164) ―If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression- for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and everything like totality is at once destroyed‖. Poe believed that there was something special in a single session of reading and that short stories and poems of a certain length could capitalize on that special quality. Not concern in the time of reading, Jones (1968) defined a short story as an imaginative statement of feeling that feeling is created or imagined. Short story is a short piece of fiction aiming at unity of characterization, theme, and effect. According to the Oxford 8 Advanced dictionary, a short story itself is defined as a story, usually about imaginary characters and events that are short enough to be read from beginning to end without stopping. Yatma (2015:3) cited ―Short story is the story less than 10,000 words to give singular image and focus on one actor in a situation. Short story is one of the literary forms that are a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format and usually focuses on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of character, and cover a short period, style". In short, despite being interpreted in different ways, short story is generally a short, readable in a short time prose. From the above mentioned, it is considered that the definition of Yatma is the most specific and suitable for this study. 2.2.2. Characteristics in short story There are many types of literature such as drama, poetry, novel, short story. Compared to other forms of literature, poetry and short stories both have a relatively short number of words, readers can read all at once. However, poetry has rhyme, rhythm, and couplet. In addition, while dramas or novels often have a complex plot, with many thrilling details and many characters in the story, a short story is simpler. It usually has a simple plot, focusing on one character. According to Southey (2009), there are five elements in short story: 1. Character: There are one or a couple of characters in a short story. It always has a protagonist and sometimes antagonist. The characters may be people or even animals. 2. Setting: The setting of a short story is the time and place in which the story takes place. It is often related to the theme. The writer often uses descriptions of landscape, scenery, buildings, seasons or weather to provide a strong sense of setting. Knowing about the context of the story allows readers to have a good connection to the character to follow the story better. 3. Plot: The plot is what the writer arranges for his characters to develop his basic idea. It is a logical sequence of events including beginning, 9 middle, and end. There are five essential parts of plots: 1) introduction, 2) rising action, 3) climax, 4) falling action, 5) denouement. A short story usually has one plot. 4. Conflict: In a short story, there are two sides, one protagonist and one antagonist. The conflict in short story is struggle between the protagonist and the other party, sometimes the fight with some people, or the fight with nature, the fight with society or even the fight with the character his own. 5. Theme: The theme or subject is the central idea or belief in a short story that the writer is trying to convey. The theme may be the writer’s thought about a topic or view of the short story that usually points to what the writer is saying and may use various figures of speech to emphasize the theme, such as symbol, simile, metaphor, hyperbole and other. In general, because of the single theme and the limitation of length, short stories tend to begin and end-all of a sudden, there is no gap for extending or developing the plot, and even the only main character may never be fully developed. 2.3. Language use in O’Henry’s short stories O’Henry, the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), is a famous American short story writer. O’Henry wrote several short stories such as Twenty Year, Cabbages and Kings, some of which are famous stories for example The Last Leaf, The Gift of the Magi, The Skylight Room, etc. O’Henry used many techniques in his stories such as narrative, surprising ending, allusion, etc. The narrative method appeared in most of his work since he wrote about life around him, he put people around him into his stories so that they could play the main characters in his stories. In his stories, he let the readers think that they have the stories figured out but in fact, they did not. He always finished the story surprisingly. 10