VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - TRẦN THANH HƯƠNG EVALUATING THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE NOVEL “BELOVED OXFORD” (Đánh giá dịch Việt – Anh tác phẩm “Oxford thương yêu”) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi - 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - TRẦN THANH HƯƠNG EVALUATING THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE NOVEL “BELOVED OXFORD” (Đánh giá dịch Việt – Anh tác phẩm “Oxford thương yêu”) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr LÊ HÙNG TIẾN Hanoi - 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION 01 Rationale of the study 01 Scope of the study 02 Aims of the study 02 Research methodology 02 Organization of the study 03 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 04 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 04 1.1 Literary translation 04 1.1.1 Literary translation definition 04 1.1.2 Characteristics of literary translation 04 1.1.3 Methods used in literary translation 06 1.1.4 Problems of literary translation 07 1.2 Translation quality assessment 09 1.2.1 Definition of translation quality assessment 09 1.2.2 Role of translation quality assessment 09 1.2.3 Models for translation quality assessment 10 iv CHAPTER 2: TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE NOVEL “BELOVED OXFORD” 14 2.1 Source text and the author 14 2.2 Translation and the translator 15 2.3 Translation quality assessment of the English version of Beloved Oxford 16 2.3.1 Strengths 16 2.3.2 Weaknesses 18 2.3.2.1 Linguistic aspect 18 2.3.2.2 Translational aspect 19 2.3.3 Summary 37 PART 3: CONCLUSION 38 Recapitulation 38 Implications 38 Limitations and suggestion for further research 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I APPENDIX I APPENDIX III v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS OALD Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary SL Source language ST Source text TL Target language TQA Translation quality assessment TT Target text VD Vietnamese Dictionary vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page Examples of the strengths of the translation 16 Examples of word omission 19 Examples of addition 20 Examples of inappropriate equivalence at word level 22 Examples of inappropriate equivalence above word level 26 vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION 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)1 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” From http://duongthuy.net/books.php?id=3&cid=154&page=1 Retrieved May 20, 2012 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 These chapters are selected because they help the readers imagine the setting of the novel, the main characters‟ background and personalities; and especially contain the typical strengths and weaknesses of the translation 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 Research methodology 4.1 Research questions In order to serve the aim of the study, two research questions are raised: What are the strengths of the English version of Beloved Oxford in terms of linguistic aspect and translational aspect? What are the weaknesses of the English version of Beloved Oxford in terms of linguistic aspect and translational aspect? 4.2 Research methods 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 an approach for TQA, 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 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 introduces the theoretical background knowledge related to literary translation and TQA Chapter 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 Translation plays an important role in increasing awareness and understanding among diverse cultures and nations Literary translations in particular help these different cultures reach a compromise 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 Therefore, in order for a translation to be a literary translation the result of the translation must be acknowledged as literature in the target situation and culture, thus bearing the target literature requirements upon it 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 According to Reiss (1976/ 1989, cited in Huang, 2011) literary text - as an “expressive” text type - has a set of typical features It is in a written form, fictional, and canonical, and has an aesthetic function, focusing on the expression of emotions, with poetic language, implicit meanings, and deviations ... UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -* ** - TRẦN THANH HƯƠNG EVALUATING THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE NOVEL ? ?BELOVED OXFORD? ?? (Đánh giá dịch. .. 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. .. especially contain the typical strengths and weaknesses of the translation Aims of the study The study is carried out to investigate the quality of the English version of the novel Beloved Oxford based