Đánh giá bản dịch Việt - Anh tác phẩm “Oxford thương yêu”

Aims of the study The study is carried out to investigate the quality of the English version of the novel Beloved Oxford based on Newmark’s theory of translation criticism.. What are th

Đánh giá bản dịch Việt - Anh tác phẩm “Oxford

thương yêu”

Trần Thanh Hương

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn:

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: Over the past decade, more and more foreign works of literature have been

translated into Vietnamese, and vice versa However, quantity does not ensure quality Translation quality has received much criticism from reviewers and readers This thesis aims at investigating the quality of Vietnamese-English literary translation through the analysis of the English version of the novel Beloved Oxford Due to the limit of the study, only the first three chapters are selected to be compared and analyzed to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the translated version The translator encounters enormous difficulties in finding the appropriate equivalence Based on the findings, some implications about the challenges of Vietnamese-English literary translation are drawn Although the study has some limitations, it can be a useful reference for those who take interest in literary translation

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Bản dịch; Tác phẩm văn học; Dịch thuật

Content

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Translation has been of great importance to the world’s society and culture, especially in the current process of globalization Thanks to translation, more and more books, documents, news have been translated between languages, which enables human access to the repository of knowledge of many fields in different languages It also contributes to the introduction of each country’s identity to the world Therefore, international understanding, social cultural awareness among people is dramatically improved

Among translation fields, literary translation catches many people’s interest A lot of foreign literature works have been translated into Vietnamese, and vice versa However, the question of how much the quality of literary translation is remains unanswered A plenty of

translated versions have drawn much criticism from reviewers and readers for the last few years Thus, assessing the translations becomes inevitable

The novel Beloved Oxford written by Duong Thuy (published in 2007) is chosen for

several reasons Firstly, it is one of the best sellers in its original Vietnamese language in 2007 The novel has been reprinted seventeen times with the total copies of 59,500 so far (up to April,

2012) Secondly, Beloved Oxford is one of my favourite novels, which helps me understand

more about the life of Vietnamese students overseas This novel is translated into English by Elbert Bloom, an American reader, who is fascinated by Duong Thuy’s works

These reasons and interests provide me with motivation to work on this thesis,

“Evaluating the English version of the novel Beloved Oxford”

2 Scope of the study

The beautiful romantic novel Beloved Oxford consists of sixteen chapters On the ground

of limited time, conditions, this thesis focuses on the first three chapters, namely The Surprising

School Admission, The Challenger, The Lonely Winter respectively

3 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to investigate the quality of the English version of the novel

Beloved Oxford based on Newmark’s theory of translation criticism In order to serve the aim of

the study, two research questions are raised:

1 What are the strengths of the English version of “Beloved Oxford” in terms of

linguistic aspect and translational aspect?

2 What are the weaknesses of the English version of “Beloved Oxford” in terms of linguistic aspect and translational aspect?

4 Research methodology

To achieve the goal of the study, contrastive analysis is employed The researcher conducts the study in the following steps:

 Building up a theoretical background for the study

 Choosing a model for translation quality assessment, that is Newmark’s

 Analyzing and comparing source text and target text to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the translation in term of linguistic aspect and translational aspect

5 Organization of the study

Part I is the Introduction which provides readers an overview of the thesis including the

rationale for the study, the aims, the scope, the methodology and the organization of the study

Part II is the Development, which includes two chapters

Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical background knowledge related to literary translation and translation quality assessment

Chapter 2 is the main part of the study It provides comparison and analysis between original texts and translation texts, and discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the translation

Part III is the Conclusion which summarizes the main ideas and findings of the study,

draws some implications for Vietnamese - English literary translations, points out limitations of the study and makes suggestions for further research

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 LITERARY TRANSLATION

1.1.1 Literary translation definition

According to Toury (1995, cited in Elkjær, 2010), a literary translation is a translation of

a text deemed literary in the source culture, which conforms - translates - to the requirements of a literary text in the target culture

Having the same viewpoint, Schulte (2010) claims that “Literary translation bridges the

delicate emotional connections between cultures and languages and furthers the understanding

of human beings across national borders In the act of literary translation the soul of another culture becomes transparent, and the translator recreates the refined sensibilities of foreign countries and their people through the linguistic, musical, rhythmic, and visual possibilities of the new language.”

1.1.2 Characteristics of literary translation

Belhaag (1997, cited in Hassan, 2011) summarizes the characteristics of literary translations:

- expressive

- connotative

- symbolic

- focusing on both form and content

- subjective

- allowing multiple interpretation

- timeless and universal

- using special devices to “heighten” communicative effect

- tendency to deviate from the language norms

1.1.3 Methods used in literary translation

It seems that Nida’s formal equivalence translation, Larson’s literal translation, and Newmark’s semantic translation focus on the form of the text However, they ignore context Similarly, Nida’s dynamic equivalence translation, Larson’s idiomatic translation and Newmark’s communicative translation seek one goal, that is, conveying the message of the original text to the receptor audience and are equivalent to the original text in a dynamic way Therefore, it is advisable that translators bear these methods in mind when translating literary text

1.1.4 Problems of literary translation

The first problem is that of equivalence Jakobson (1966, cited in Boushaba, 1988) considers that equivalence cannot be defined in terms of sameness and synonymy in translation theory The problems of literary translation also include differences between cultures Equal importance should be stressed on both linguistic and cultural differences between the SL and the

TL When working with literature, a translator might have problems related to the analysis o f the

ST, which is made in order to establish the purpose and before a translation

1.2 TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT

1.2.1 Definition of translation quality assessment

In his book A Textbook of Translation (1988), Newmark defines it as translation

criticism According to him, “translation criticism is an essential link between translation theory

and its practice”

1.2.2 Role of translation quality assessment

Newmark (1988) regards translation criticism or TQA as “the keystone of any course in

comparative literature, or literature in translation, and a component of any professional translation course with the appropriate text-types as an exercise for criticism and discussion”

1.2.3 Models for translation quality assessment

In her book A Model for Translation Quality Assessment, House (1986) classifies the

studies on TQA into four main categories: pre-linguistic studies, response-based psycholinguistic studies, source text-based studies, and studies based on pragmatic theories of language use

Newmark (1988) also suggests another translation assessment method called a

comprehensive criticism of a translation This method consists of five steps: (1) a brief analysis

of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects; (2) the translator’s interpretation

of the SL text’s purpose, his translation method and the translation’s likely readership; (3) a selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original; (4) an evaluation of the translation in the translator’s terms and in the critic’s terms; (5) an assessment

of the likely place of the translation in the TL culture or discipline

From the researcher’s point of view, Newmark’s method is employed in this study because of two reasons The first reason is that it can be applied without any difficulty Newmark’s method includes 5 steps, and in each step he describes what to do in detail Besides this method comes from the translator’s real experiences, so it discusses issues raised in translating process The second reason is that it is appropriate for the goal of the study which investigates the quality of the translated version, the strengths and weaknesses of the translation

in terms of linguistic and translational aspect in particular The researcher assesses the translation from the perspective of a practitioner, not of a critic, so she takes much interest in translation practice rather than translation theory

CHAPTER 2: TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE TRANSLATED

VERSION OF BELOVED OXFORD

2.1 Source text and the author

Beloved Oxford is a best-seller romance novel written by author Duong Thuy The story

is about the trials, successes and romances of a young Vietnamese girl, Thien Kim, who travels

to English to study at Oxford University Here she fulfils her dreams and falls in love with a Portuguese teaching assistant, Fernando

In the first three chapters namely The Surprising School Admission, The Challenger, The

Lonely Winter respectively, the author describes the new life of Thien Kim in Oxford She faces

a lot of trouble as she has to adapt herself to a new environment including eating diet, harsh weather, and reserved native people Fernando always helps her to overcome these difficulties by giving her useful advice and supporting her With the enormous help of Fernando, Kim soon gets used to the living style and study style in England When it is near Christmas time, the school has

a break Fernando comes back to his family in Portugal while Kim visits her aunt’s family in France Although Kim’s aunt wants her to stay for Christmas, she insists on returning to England Kim unfortunately catches a cold, but she does not dare go to the doctor’s because of the expensive cost Kim then feels the lonely winter and wishes Fernando would be by her side

When Fernando finally returns from Portugal, he takes Kim to the doctor’s and they enjoy the happy time together

The author Duong Thuy is currently one of the popular young writers in Vietnam She started writing short stories when she was 16 years old Since then, writing has been her hobby and also her need to express herself She has never been a full time writer, but she always tries to write professionally

2.2 Translation and the translator

The novel was translated into English by Elbert Bloom and was published by Youth Publishing House in the late 2011

The non-professional translator, Elbert Bloom, finds this novel so charming that it deserves to be made available for English speaking people all around the world Thus, he decided to translate this novel into English He translated each chapter with the aid of a dictionary, sent the translated versions to Duong Thuy for review, and edited his work according

to her comments It was edited over and over by himself before coming out

2.3 Translation quality assessment of the English version of Beloved Oxford

2.3.1 Strengths

The considerable strength of the translation is the translator’s appropriate word choices in comparison with the original This helps the translation become clearer and more explicit in meaning than the source text

2.3.2 Weaknesses

Weaknesses of the translation can be found in both linguistic and translational aspect

2.3.2.1 Linguistic aspect

Linguistic aspect involves plural noun forms

2.3.2.2 Translational aspect

Translational aspect includes omission, addition, equivalence, accuracy and naturalness

a Omission

Omission in translation is understood as no translation of a certain piece of information in the source text and the information does not include in the target text In these following examples, the translator omits crucial information that helps readers to fully comprehend the text

b Addition

Addition in translation is understood as an extra piece of information added to the target text that is not in the source text Addition makes what is implicit in the source text explicit in the target text However, if the additional information in the target text is redundant and not useful

to readers to understand the text, it then becomes unnecessary

c Equivalence

It is common knowledge that equivalence is a key issue in translation theory There are many ways of classifying according to different views of equivalence, for instance, Nida’s formal and dynamic equivalence (1964), Widdowson’s structural, semantic, and pragmatic equivalence (1979), Newmark’s semantic and communicative equivalence (1988) Another classification of equivalence is Baker’s (1992) which is viewed from different perspectives, syntactically and pragmatically In this thesis, Baker’s classification is chosen to form the foundation for analyzing weaknesses in equivalence

c.1 Equivalence at word level

The equivalents are divided into three groups based on their part of speech in the sentence: noun equivalents, verb equivalents and adjective equivalents The translator makes mistakes because he translated the text word for word

c.2 Equivalence above word level

Equivalence above word level includes phrase equivalents, sentence equivalents and idioms

d Accuracy

Every error that has been discussed in the previous parts ranging from errors in grammatical aspect to errors in translational aspect certainly influences the accuracy of the translation To avoid unnecessary repetition, no discussion on the inaccuracy of the translated text is provided in this part

e Naturalness

In this thesis naturalness in translation is observed from linguistic angle Unnaturalness can be identified by analyzing the use of words, expressions, grammatical structures

2.3.2 Summary

In this chapter, by analyzing, synthesizing, describing, explaining, comparing the first three chapters between the original and the translation, the answers to the two research questions

are found out

1 What are the strengths of the English version of “Beloved Oxford” in terms of linguistic aspect and translational aspect?

It is revealed that the enormous strength of the translation is the translator’s proper use of words in comparison with the original, which makes the translated version clearer and easier to

be understood

2 What are the weaknesses of the English version of “Beloved Oxford” in terms of linguistic aspect and translational aspect?

The weaknesses lie in both linguistic and translational aspects Linguistic weakness consists of the misuse of plural noun forms Translational aspect involves omission, addition, equivalence, accuracy and naturalness, among which the translator encounters enormous difficulties in finding the appropriate equivalence

PART III: CONCLUSION

Among many translation fields, literary translation is supposed to be the most challenging but interesting Thanks to translation, many foreign works of literature have been introduced to Vietnamese readers, and vice versa However, little attention is paid to the quality of literary translation This thesis attempts to investigate the quality of Vietnamese-English literary translation, strengths and weakness of the translated version in detail

The study starts with an overview of key concepts in literary translation and translation quality assessment Then, in the main part, the analysis and comparison between the source text and target text is presented to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the translated version Based on the results, the researcher can explore some implications about the challenges of Vietnamese-English literary translation

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