VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


HOÀNG THỊ HẰNG NGA A TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE
VIETNAMESE VERSION OF THE BOOK “HARRY
POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE” IN THE
SERIES HARRY POTTER USING NEWMARK’S MODEL
(Đánh giá chất lượng bản dịch tiếng Việt truyện “Harry Potter và hòn đá
phù thủy” trong tiểu thuyết Harry Potter áp dụng mô hình của
Newmark)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.02.01
HANOI, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


HOÀNG THỊ HẰNG NGA

the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International
Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and this work has not been
submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution. Hanoi, July 2014

Student
Hoàng Thị Hằng Nga
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my
supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hung Tien, for the continuous support of my
study with his patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. I
owe him a debt of gratitude that cannot be measured.
I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all the teachers of the
Department of Post Graduate Studies at College of Foreign Languages,
Vietnam National University for their useful lectures, assistance and
enthusiasm during my course.


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ST: Source Text
TT: Target Text
SL: Source Language
TL: Target Language

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv
LIST OF TABLES v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study 1
2. Objective of the study 1
3. Research questions 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Method of the study 2
6. Organization of the study 3
PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Translation Theory 4
1.1.1. Definition of Translation 4
1.1.2. Translation Methods 4
1.1.3. Translation Equivalence 5
1.2. Contrastive Analysis 7
1.3. Translation Quality Assessment 8
1.3.1. Definition 8
1.3.2. Translation Quality Assessment models 9
1.3.2.1. Response-based approach 9
1.3.2.2. Text-based approach 10
1.3.2.3. Julianne House‟s functional – pragmatic approach 12
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ever before based on information sharing and communicative advances. Thus,
not only linguists or scholars but many people who work in different fields
are concerned about translation. Translation is not an easy work, it is even
more challenging for translators with literary works. Nowadays in Vietnam,
there is a rapid growth of famous foreign literary works which have
diversified the literature. It can not be denied that there is a number of works
that have received love and positive attitude from readers. Besides, there still
exist some works of bad quality which have received criticism from both
publication and profession. Thus, there is necessary to evaluate the
translations, especially literary works.
There are criteria for translation quality assessment which have been
addressed by different linguists such as Nida, J.House, Newmark…. From the
writer‟s point of view, among the suggested models, Newmark‟s model is a
good one which can be used to assess translation quality. The writer has taken
the translation version of the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
stone” by Ly Lan in the series Harry Potter by J.K Rowling to measure how
good the translation is.
2. Objective of the study
This study aims to make a comparison and analyze the ST and the TT
according to Newmark‟s model to assess the quality of the Vietnamese

2
translation of chapter seven in the book “’Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s
stone”, find out some problems of literary translations and draw some
suggestions for this field of translation.
3. Research questions
At the end of this study, the study will answer the following questions:
- How good is the Vietnamese version of chapter seven of the book
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” according to Newmark’s model?
- What might be some implications from the translation?

The study is presented in 3 parts:
Part A is the introduction which includes the rationale for the study, the
objective, the research questions, the scope, the method as well as the
organization of the study.
Part B includes 2 chapters. In chapter one, the Literature Review in
which some related concepts of literary translation, contrastive analysis and
typical models of translation quality assessment are discussed. In the second
chapter, the writer will apply Newmark‟s model with five steps to analyze and
evaluate the translation.
Part C is the conclusion including the conclusions, implications,
limitations and suggestions for further study.

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PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter presents the theoretical background of the study including
some related concepts and typical models of translation quality assessment.
1.1. Translation theory
1.1.1 Definition of translation
There have been different definitions of translation so far. According to
Newmark (1981) “translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a
written message and/or statement in one language by the same message
and/or statement in another language”. House (1977) states that translation is
the replacement of a text in the source language by a semantically and
pragmatically equivalent text in the target language. Sharing the same point of
view, Cartford (1965) defines translation as the replacement of a text in one

without the form of the original.
- Idiomatic translation: It reproduces the „message‟ of the original and prefers
colloquialisms and idioms which do not exist in the original.
- Communicative translation: The exact contextual meaning of the original is
rendered in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable
and comprehensible to the readership.
Among the above-mentioned methods, semantic and communicative
translation are the two most common ones which are often used in literary
translation.
1.1.3. Translation equivalence
In translation theory, equivalence is regarded as a central concept.
According to Pym (1992) “equivalence is supposed to define translation, and
translation, in turn, defines equivalence”. Equivalence is a relationship
between two texts in two languages, rather than between the languages
themselves.

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From Nida‟s point of view, there are two typical equivalences, namely
formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. The terms "dynamic
equivalence" and "formal equivalence" were originally coined to describe
ways of translating the Bible, but the two approaches are applicable to any
translation of any text. The first one centers on the form and content of the
message of the ST whereas dynamic equivalence is the "quality of a
translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported
into the receptor language that the response of the receptor is essentially like
that of the original receptors."
Baker (1992) extends the concept of equivalence to cover similarity in
ST and TT information flow and in the cohesive roles that ST and TT devices
play in their respective texts. She explores equivalence at different levels in

directed so as to achieve an intended effect determines pragmatic equivalence
type. The last type is formal equivalence in which the SL and TL having the
same formal-aesthetic features-orthographic or phonological features, etc.
1.2. Contrastive analysis
Contrastive Analysis has attracted many linguists with countless
debates. One of the most well-known definitions for contrastive analysis is
offered by Lado, R. In Linguistics Across Cultures. He claimed that "those
elements which are similar to [the learner's] native language will be simple
for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult" (1957).
Another definition is introduced by James (1980). In his point of view,
contrastive analysis is not concerned with classification, and, as the term
contrastive implies, it focuses on the difference between languages than in
their likenesses. Furthermore, contrastive analysis investigates the differences
between pairs (or small sets) of languages against the background of

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similarities and with the purpose of providing input to applied disciplines
such as foreign language teaching and translation studies. With its largely
descriptive focus contrastive linguistics provides an interface between theory
and application. It makes use of theoretical findings and models of language
description but is driven by the objective of applicability. (Gast, V. 2011).
Contrastive analysis, therefore, is defined as a linguistic enterprise
aimed at producing inverted two-valued typologies (it is always concerned
with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can
be compared.
1.3. Translation Quality Assessment
1.3.1 Definition
Newmark (1995) regards translation criticism or translation quality
assessment as a crucial link between translation theory and its practice and as

linguistic and cultural intuitive knowledge and experience. However, determining
whether the translation is good or not should be based on a special model of
quality translation assessment, not on the human‟ feelings or factors. Thus, in the
next part, some of the outstanding quality translation assessment models will be
presented with the aim to provide necessary information before applying the
model to evaluate the translated version of the novel.
1.3.2. Translation Quality Assessment models
1.3.2.1 Response – based approach
As mentioned in the previous part, most of the anecdotal approaches to
the evaluation of translation base on the translator‟s linguistic and cultural
intuitive knowledge and experiences. We can state that these approach are
unenlightening, as they represent a narrow and selective view of translation
one-sidedly emphasizing one aspect of translation :the process of
comprehension and interpretation on the part of the translator.

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Another view for translation quality assessment is response – based.
One of the representatives of this approach is Nida. Nida‟s three criteria for
assessing the quality of a translation are programmatic and general :
“1.general efficiency of the communication process, 2. comprehension of
intent, 3. equivalence of response.” The third and most important criterion is,
of course, closely related to Nida‟s well-known basic principle of “Dynamic
(or Functional) Equivalence of a Translation”, the manner in which receptors
of the translation text respond to the translation text must be equivalent to the
manner in which receptors of the translation text respond to the source text.
Three similar criteria are suggested by Nida and Taber (1969): the correctness
with which the receptors understand the message of the original, the ease of
comprehension and the involvement a person experiences as a result of the
adequacy of the form of the translation. Again, these behavioral criteria need to

functional approach aims primarily to systematize translation evaluation.
Reiss believes that the “transmission of the predominant function of the
source text is the determining factor by which the target text is judged” and
proposes “specific translation methods according to text type”. She suggested
that different types of texts can be differentiated to the basis of three functions
of language : content-oriented texts, e.g.news, scientific-technical texts, form-
oriented texts, such as poems and literary genres, and conative texts, e.g.
advertisements and texts of a persuasive bent. The determination of the
textual types presupposes a careful analysis of the source text, but the
suggestions are not explicit enough, she gives no clear indication as to how
one should go about establishing language functions and a source text types.
Further, at what level of delicacy this can and should be done is left
unexplained. Thus, it needs to be further developed and made more concrete
in order to form a workable model of translation quality assessment.

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1.3.2.3. Julianne House’s functional – pragmatic approach
House (1977) is in favour of semantic and pragmatic equivalence and
argues that source text and target text should match one another in function. She
gives a model for translation quality assessment which is based on pragmatic
theories of language. It attempts to avoid anecdotalism, reductionism,
programmatic statements and intuitively implausible one-sided considerations of
the source text and target text alone. The key point in her model is to compare
function of the source text and the target text; therefore, to understand her model,
it is necessary to understand “function” of an individual text which is different
from function of language. She states that the “function of a text is the
application or use which the text has in the context of a situation”. The function
consisting of an ideational and interpersonal functional component is equivalent
to that of the original. An initial analysis of the original according to a set of

assessment called “comprehensive criticism of a translation” including 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. The evaluation of the translation: (a) in the translator‟s term, (b) in the
critic‟s term
5. Where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in
the target language culture or discipline
In the first step, the critic has to try to point out the author‟s purpose,
that is, the attitude he takes towards the topic; characterization of the readers

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that the literary work aims at ; an indication of its category and type. The
critic assesses the quality of the language to determine the translator‟s degree
of license. In this step, the critic can briefly state the topic or themes but
avoids retelling the plot. He also doesn‟t need to spend time discussing the
author‟s life, other works unless they may help to understand the text.
In the second step, the critic attempts to see the text from the point of
view of the translator, is sometimes overlooked in translation criticism. The
critic has to review whether the translator has omitted any section of the
original text and whether it affects the message that author wishes to express.
Moreover, it is important to find out if any text is over-translated and to what
extent the cultural meaning of the original text has been changed or
transferred to the target culture. In interpreting the translator‟s intention and
procedures, the critic tries not to criticize but to find out why he has used

as in the case of House‟s, it has many strong points in terms of application.
This is due to the fact that these steps are initiated from the practical
experiences of the translators. Moreover, it reflects the problems and the
concerns of the translators in the translation process; therefore, it is easy to be
carried out. For those reasons, in this thesis, the writer decide to apply
Newmark‟s model for translation quality assessment of chapter 7 of the book
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s stone”.

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CHAPTER 2 – APPLICATION OF NEWMARK’S MODEL FOR
TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CHAPTER SEVEN OF
“HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE”
This chapter will present the application of Newmark‟s translation
quality assessment model to assess the quality of the TT in chapter seven of
the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone”. The ST will be
analyzed according to the five steps of Newmark‟s model.
2.1. Step 1: A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its
functional aspects
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British
author J. K. Rowling. The series were originally printed in English by two
major publishers, Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in
the United States. The books later have been published by many publishers
worldwide.
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” is the first novel in
the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry Potter who discovers his
magical heritage, as he makes close friends and a few enemies in his first