VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ DIỆU THÚY

A STUDY ON CONNOTATIVE EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN
"GONE WITH THE WIND" AND ITS TRANSLATION IN
VIETNAMESE BY DUONG TUONG
NGHIÊN CỨU TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG BIỂU CẢM GIỮA TÁC PHẨM
"CUỐN THEO CHIỀU GIÓ" VÀ BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA
DƯƠNG TƯỜNG

MA Combined Programme Thesis

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15
HANOI - 2012
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ DIỆU THÚY

III. Scope of the study…………………………………………………….3
IV. Methods of the study………………………………………………….3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………….5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………5
1.1. Definition of translation……………………………………………….5
1.2. Translation equivalence……………………………………………….6
1.2.1. Jakobson and the concept of equivalence in difference………6
1.2.2. Nida and Taber's Formal dynamic equivalence………………7
1.2.3. Catford and translation shifts……………………………… 10
1.2.4. Kade and quantitative equivalence ………………………… 11
1.2.5. Baker's approach to translation equivalence………………….12
1.2.6. Koller's theory of equivalence……………………………… 13
1.3. Translation of literature ………………………………………………15
1.4. Translation methods………………………………………………… 17
1.5. Translation procedures……………………………………………….19
1.6. The author and the novel …………………………………………….22
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1.6.1. The author Margaret Mitchell………………………………… 22
1.6.2. The novel "Gone with the wind"………………………………26
1.7. The translator and the translation…………………………………… 29
1.7.1. The translator Dương Tường………………………………… 29
1.7.2. The translation "Cuống theo chiều gió"……………………….30
CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………… 31
2.1. Connotations of socially determined usage……………………………31
2.1.1. The language of the upper class ………………………………31
2.1.2. The language of the slaves……………………………………. 35
2. 2. Connotations of speech level………………………………………… 41
2.2. 1. Elevated……………………………………………………….41
2.2.2. Colloquial…………………………………………………… 47
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PART A: INTRODUCTION

I. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
Over the past few decades, international exchange is processing vigorously
in various aspects, especially in culture. By using language to bridge the gap
between different cultures, inevitably, translation has contributed significantly to
this process. Besides, literature has been chosen as a rich source for translation.
Literary works are not only written in different languages but they also feature
different cultures and civilizations. Accordingly, the literary translation process is
quite complex as it requires the translator to consider every aspect of the material,
or even beyond the material in order to produce a good translation. It poses a great
challenge for anyone who attempts to assess the quality of translated literary
works.
According to Chesterman (1989) “Equivalence is obviously a central
concept in translation theory”. “The notion of equivalence held sway as a key issue
in translation throughout the 1970s and beyond.” (Munday, 2008, p. 49). Various
works on translation theories have been carried out just to show how vital

The study is also expected to be a good reference of criteria to any
Vietnamese readers who love romantic novel, and are fans “Gone with the wind”
for a good translation.
These aims can be formulated into the following research questions.
1. What types of connotative equivalence achieved between the novel "Gone
with the wind" and its translation by Duong Tuong?
2. What strategies adopted by the translator to achieve such types of
connotative equivalence?
III. Scope of the study
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Firstly, the theoretical background of the study only focuses on some
fundamental issues in translation theory which are of vital importance to the issue
examined, which are translation, equivalence, methods, and procedures.
Secondly, the research focuses on one kind of equivalence, which is
connotative equivalence. Then only the most outstanding types of connotative
equivalence are examined.
IV. Methods of the study
1. Data collection
The study is designed in accordance with the theory proposed by Koller
(1979), that is characterizes the connotative dimensions of a source language (with
the support of stylistic studies) to analyse their features and structural elements,
and then relate these to the connotative dimenstions of a given target language. In
the first stage, the study explores the source language text to find out the different
dimensions of connotations. The features and structural elements of each
connotative dimension are defined. Data are collected in both English and
Vietnamese to illustrate these dimensions. Even though the novel is almost six
hundred pages long, the researcher tries to collect comprehensive data by
investigating almost every chapter. Subsequently, the examples are grouped
according to the stated catergory for the sake of comparison and assessment.
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PART B - DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Definition of translation
Translation, as one of the most ancient activity of human beings, has
intrigued numerous researchers all over the world. They all attempt to define
translation for the sake of research, and their definitions share one common thing:
the relationship between the source text and the target text.
In the “Dictionary of Translation Studies”, Shuttleworth and Cowie
acknowledge that translation is an “incredibly broad notion which can be
understood in many different ways”. And this idea is proved by numerous
definitions proposed by different researchers around the world.
As early as 1959, the structural linguist Roman Jakobson proposes a
tripartite definition of translation. The first type is intralingual translation or
rewording, which is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the
same language. The second type is interlingual, or another name is translation
proper. It is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. The
third type is intersemiotic translation or transmutation, which is an interpretation of
verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.
Hatim and Munday (2004) take a different approach with the focus on “the ambit
of translation”, which is defined as 1) the process of transferring a written from SL
to TL, conducted by a translator, or translators, in a specific socio-cultural context;
2) the written product, or TT, which results from that process and which functions

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- Intralingual (within one language, i.e. rewording or paraphrase)
- Interlingual (between two languages)
- Intersemiotic (between sign systems)
In his point of view, “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-
units” because “the translator recodes and transmits the message from another
source. Thus translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes”
(p.139). The problem of meaning and equivalence lies in the structure and
terminology of languages rather than the inability of one language to render a
message into another language. He acknowledges that "whenever there is
deficiency, terminology may be qualified and amplified by loanwords or loan-
translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and finally, by circumlocutions" (p.
234). Jakobson's theory requires the translator has to recode the source text
message first and then s/he has to transmit it into an equivalent message for the
target readers.
1.2.2. Nida and Taber's Formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence
Nida quotes Belloc (1931) “There are, properly speaking, no such things as
identical equivalents”, and affirms that “One must in translating seek to find the
closest possible equivalent” (Nida, 1964, 159). Nida categorizes equivalence into
two fundamental types: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence.
“Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form
and content….One is concerned that the message in the receptor language should
match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language.”
(Nida, 1964, 159)
Apparently, formal equivalence focuses on the source text structure, whose
role is to determine the accuracy of the translation. Formal equivalence is used to
get closer to the language and customs of the source culture.
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the message, meaning that translator only searched for “formal equivalence” -
Nida‟s term. However, the new focus in the response of the receptor or the reader,
meaning that translator should look for what Nida calls “dynamic equivalence”.
“Dynamic equivalence” was discussed in Nida‟s work in 1964, and was further
discussed in this book. The impacts of dynamic equivalence on the translation of
grammatical meaning, referential meaning and connotative meaning are studied.
Furthermore, the effect on translation of idioms, discourse structure, language
variety, types of discourse and style are also the topic of discussion.
Nida‟s theory is proved to be a controversial one and receives quite a lot of
disagreements and criticisms from other scholars. The French theorist Henri
Meschonnic (1987, p.77) argues that Nida‟s dynamic equivalence makes
translation become adaptation. Catford accused Nida of cultural imperialism (1969,
134). The Chinese scholar Qian Hu voiced the fiercest criticism Nida‟s concept is
wrong because “Total compatibility between any two languages is precluded”. He
explained that even two speakers of the same language do not understand the same
utterance the same way, let alone people speaking different languages. That sounds
reasonable and even Nida admitted that “Of course no communication, even within
a single language, is ever absolute (for no two people ever understand words in
exactly the same manner), and we certainly cannot expect a perfect match between
languages” (1969, 4-5).
Despite criticism against Nida‟s equivalence theory, Fawcett affirms that
“the book should be compulsory reading for all translators” (Translation and
Language. Linguistic theories explained, 58).
1.2.3. Catford and translation shifts
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Catford considers equivalence a central term and says that “the central
problem of translation practice is that of finding target language translation
equivalents” while “a central problem of translation theory is that of defining the
nature and conditions of translation equivalence” (1965, p.21). He approaches the

“One – to- one”: one source language item corresponds to one target language
item. Most of the examples can be found in technical terms.
“One- to – several” or “several-to-one”: an item in one language corresponds to
several in the other language.
“One- to- part”: only partial equivalents are available, resulting in “approximate
equivalence”.
“One – to- none”: no full equivalence is available in the target language.
Kade‟s quantitative approach has been criticized because it is restricted to
the word level and it assumes that the language system can be equated with
concrete realization in text (Snell – Hornby, 1988, 20).
1.2.5. Baker's approach to translation equivalence
Baker (1992) explores the notion of equivalence at different levels, in
relation to the translation process, including all different aspects of translation
putting together the linguistic and the communicative approach.
The first level is equivalence at word- level and above word- level. Baker
acknowledges that, in a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word
level is the first element to be taken into consideration by the translator. When the
translator starts analyzing the source text s/he looks at the words as single units in
order to find a direct 'equivalent' term in the target language. It is vital to notice
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that a single word can sometimes be assigned different meanings in different
languages. This means that the translator should pay attention to a number of
factors when considering a single word, such as number, gender and tense (p.11-
12).
The second level is grammatical equivalence, referring to the diversity of
grammatical categories across languages. Grammatical rules may vary across
languages and this may pose some problems in terms of finding a direct
correspondence in the target language. Baker claims that different grammatical
structures in the source language and target language may cause remarkable

requirement of equivalence has the following form: quality (qualities) X in the
source language text must be preserved, or at least the translation must seek to
preserve them as far as possible.
After defining the conditions of equivalence, Koller categorizes equivalence
into five types. The first type is denotative equivalence, which is “related to
equivalence of extralinguistic content of a text”. This kind of equivalence focuses
on the lexicon, meaning the words and syntagma of a language. From Koller's
point of view, denotative equivalence is in principle attainable.
The second types of equivalence and also the focus of the study is
connotative equivalence, which is related to the lexical choices, especially between
near – synonyms. Koller categorizes the following connotative dimenstions
relevant for translation:
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(a) Connotations of speech level (connotative values such as elevated,
poetic, normal, colloquial, slang, vulgar)
(b) Connotations of socially determined usage (student language, military
usage, working –class language, educated class, etc)
(c) Connotations of geographical relation or origin (non-regional, American
English, dialects, etc)
(d) Connotations of medium (spoken language, written language)
(e) Connotations of stylistic effect (archaic, pompous, artificial, fashionable,
euphemistic, plain, descriptive, etc)
(f) Connotations of frequency (common, uncommon)
(g) Connotations of register (normal usage, technical, medical)
(h) Connotations of evaluation (positively evaluative, pejorative, ironic, etc)
(i) Connotations of emotion (emotive, neutral)
Koller states that the achievement of connotative equivalence is one of the
hardest tasks of the translator. Therefore, it is important to focus on particular
lexical and syntactic areas that are connotatively "loaded". The translator needs to

receptor of the original and the second author of the translation at the same time, in
a translation, the image of the original‟s author is parallel to the one of the
translator.
Landers as a translation theorist and translator himself states the requirement
for a literary translator “In addition to a thorough mastery of the source language,
the literary translator must possess a profound knowledge of the target language. In
reality, being in love with one or both languages, if not an absolute necessity, is a
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trait frequently found among the best and most successful literary translators”
(2001, 7).
Lander states that the “majority view among translators has been that a
translation should affect its readers in the same way that the original affected its
first readers” (2001, 27).
Stockwell (2002, a), Venuti (1996), Pilkington (2000), Berman (1985/2000)
all mention the typical features of literary translation, and collected by Baker,
including: they have a written – based form, they enjoy canonicity (high social
prestige), they fulfill and effective/aesthetic rather than transactional or
informational function, they aim to evoke emotions and/or entertain rather than
influence or inform; they have no real- world truth- value (meaning they are judged
as fictional, whether fact-based or not); they feature words, images with ambiguous
and/or indeterminable meanings; they are characterized by “poetic” language use.
Conventional “core literary” genres are drama, poetry, and fictional prose.
However, a text only display some of the features listed above.
According to Baker, the focus of literary translation studies is source- target
text relations. Specifically, equivalence and communicative purpose are the main
focus of attention. Holmes (1988, 53) & Jones (1989) claim that the pivotal issue
regarding equivalence is the translator‟s ability to convey exactly the stylistic
features of literary texts. In case that situation is impossible, what should be given
priority? Another school of thought is that the translator should attach importance

This method attaches great importance to the aesthetic value (the beautiful
and natural sounds of the source language text, compromising on meaning where
appropriate). Less important cultural words may be translated by culturally neutral
third or functional terms but not by cultural equivalents. Semantic translation
offers great flexibility and creation.
1.4.5. Communicative translation
Communicative translation attemps to render the exact contextual meaning
of the original so that both the content and language are readily acceptable and
comprehensible to the target readers.
1.4.6. Idiomatic translation
This kind of translation method reproduces the message of the original but
tends to prefer colloquialism and idioms where these do not exist in the original.
1.4.7. Free translation
Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content
without the form of the original. This method often produces much longer
paraphrase than the original, resulting in prolix and pretentious translation.
1.4.8. Adaptation
This is the "freest" form of translation. This method is mainly used for plays, in
which the themes, characters and plots are usually preserved; the source language
culture is converted to the target language culture and the text is rewritten.
1.5. Translation procedures
Translation methods relate to whole texts, while translation procedures are
used for sentences and the smaller units of language. Newmark introduces various
procedures that can be employed by translators.
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1.5.1. Literal translation
Newmark (1988) claims that literal translation is the most important and
basic procedure. Literal translation ranges from one word to one word through
group to group, collocation to collocation, clause to clause, to sentence to sentence.

of organizations. Normally, this procedure should be used only when they are
already recognized terms.
1.5.9. Shifts or transpositions
This procedure involves a change in the grammar from source language to
target language. This procedure may be used when a source language grammatical
structure does not exist in the target language, or when literal translation is
grammatically possible but may not accord with natural usage in the target
language. Another kind of transpositions is the replacement of a virtual lexical gap
by a grammatical structure. Transposition is the only procedure concerned with
grammar.
1.5.10. Modulation
Modulation is defined as a variation through a change of viewpoint, of
perspective, and of catergory of thought. There are several types of modulation,
such as "positive for double negative", "part for the whole", "abstract for concrete",
"cause for effect", "one part for another", "active for passive", "reversal of terms",
"change of symbols".