1

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
PHẠM THU GIANG

A STUDY ON THE VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION
STRATEGIES IN THE SERIES OF BILINGUAL HANDBOOKS
"VIETNAMESE CULTURE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS"
PUBLISHED BY THE THẾ GIỚI PUBLISHER

Nghiên cứu phương pháp dịch Việt – Anh trong bộ sách song ngữ “Những câu
hỏi thường gặp về văn hóa Việt Nam” do Nhà xuất bản Thế Giới ấn hành
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Hanoi - 2010

Hanoi - 2010
Field: English linguistics
Code: 602215
Supervisor: Dr. Trần Xuân Điệp

6

TABLES OF CONTENTS Page

Acknowledgement i
Abstract ii
Table of contents iii
List of abbreviations v

Part I - Introduction

1. Rationale
1
2. Aims of the study
1
3. Scope of the study
2
4. Methodology of the study
3

15
2.2.2. Changes of grammatical word class
17
2.2.3. Modulation
18
2.2.4. Sentences split or merged
19 7

2.3. Choice of vocabulary
21
2.3.1. Using words of more general meaning
21
2.3.2. Descriptive equivalents
22
2.3.3. Addition
23
2.3.4. Subtraction
25
2.3.5. Using different words or phrases
26
2.4. Translating culture-bound terms, names and titles, and poems
28
2.4.1. Translating culture-bound terms
28
2.4.2. Translating names and titles
30
2.4.3. Translating poems


REFERENCES
APPENDIX 8

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
SL Source language
SLT Source language text
TL Target language
TLT Target language text
PT "Popular Theatre"
WC "Wedding Customs"
SF "Spring Festival in Northern Việt Nam" 9

PART I - INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In a globalized world, translation has played an indispensable role in facilitating
international exchanges and cooperation in various fields, one of the most important of
which is culture because culture is the background of every human communication. There

More than twenty handbooks on “Vietnamese culture frequently asked questions” have
been released so far. The set of the books prominently features Vietnamese culture with
different aspects such as arts, festivals, customs, and architecture and so on. Yet, within the
limit of the research, the paper is not supposed to cover the whole series of the books. The
three small books chosen are “Popular Theatre” (Chèo), “Spring Festivals in Northern Việt
Nam” and “Wedding Customs” which are all edited by Hữu Ngọc and Lady Borton and
published by Thế Giới Publisher in 2008.
Strategy is a broad term which may refer to global strategies (those dealing with whole
texts) and local strategies (those dealing with text segments) (Bell, 1998). However, within
the limit of the minor thesis, the author would like to focus on local strategies which are
specific activities affecting micro-units of the text. Translation procedures studied by
Vinay, Darbelnet, New Mark, Nida are the main source of reference for the author to carry
out her research scientifically. Studies by other experts would also be considered when
necessary.
It is certainly hard for the author to mention a great number of differences between
Vietnamese and English in her analysis. The author would not study the alteration in the
transfer process related to basic grammatical differences such as the order of nouns and
adjectives, the possessions, the verb tenses and so on. Her main concern is the strategies
which translators, especially learners or novice translators may not be aware of in their
work, such as omission, addition, alteration and so on.
4. Methodology of the study
4.1. Research question
The main research question raised in the paper is:
What translation strategies were used in the three selected book of the series "Vietnamese
culture frequently asked questions" published by the Gioi Publisher?
The answer to the question will help readers to realize some common Vietnamese-English
translation strategies used in the bilingual handbooks “Vietnamese culture frequently asked
questions”. The study may also help sharpen the translators’ awareness of some
outstanding differences between the nature of English and Vietnamese languages in use so
that they can learn to produce natural-looking texts in their translation.

target language texts.
Data analysis:
A mechanical listing of noteworthy and typical examples of translations in the books
which, together, cover a wide range of strategies is done first. The author does not solely
depend on the methods and strategies already studied by many researchers presented in the
literature. She tries to seek more specific techniques employed by the translators and 12

discover their particular challenges, especially those related to culture-bound terms, and
how they overcome their challenges. The author attempts to reason the use of the strategies
and, in a few cases, adds some evaluation on the results or the effectiveness of the
translations. Finally, the author draws a conclusion on the strategies in Vietnamese-English
translation of the books and then gives some suggestions for translators and further studies.
This study is carried out by the combination of the following methods:
- Deductive and inductive methods. Deductive method is the important method used in this
research. The author makes the description and interpretation of the strategies used in the
translations based on the studies by some famous linguists, translators and other
researchers contributing to the field. However, the author also needs inductive method to
arrive at necessary conclusions about common strategies used and the reasons beneath.
- Qualitative and quantitative methods. This study is much more qualitative than
quantitative in nature because it heavily depends on the author's own interpretation of
translation examples. Qualitative method offers the opportunity to gain insight into the
translators' decision-making during their transfer process, thus seeking out the "why".
Quantitative method is sometimes used to add necessary details and figures to the findings.
- Descriptive and contrastive methods: Descriptive is the main method of this study. A
detailed description of the translation versions would help the readers acquire profound
understanding of the translation strategies. For many cases, the author needs to explain the
differences between English and Vietnamese to clarify the translators' intention hidden in

1.1. Definitions of translation
Translation is an incredibly broad notion which has been defined from various
perspectives. Some definitions are quite simple such as the definition by Hatim and Mason
(1990) “translating is a communicative process which takes place within a social context”,
some definitions give more details, “translating is the transformation of a text originally in
one language into an equivalent text in a different language retaining, as far as possible, the
content of the message, and the formal features and the roles of the original text” (Bell
1991: XIII cited by Hoang Van Van, 2005). Nida and Taber (1982) claim, “Translation
consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source
language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” Along the
line, Wills (1982) extends the above definition with more terms, “Translation is the
procedure which leads from a written SL text to an optimally equivalent TL text, and
which requires the syntactic, semantic, stylistic and text pragmatic comprehension by the
translator of the original text.” In general, it can be drawn from the above definitions that
translation is regarded as an action of communication, a problem-solving activity, an
intercultural action and a text-processing action. No matter how different the definitions
can be, faithfulness to the source text is widely considered to be the most important
concern of translators. However, translators have different views on the essence of
faithfulness or the application of the idea on their work, which will be discussed in the next
parts of the thesis.
1.2. Translation methods and strategies
1.2.1. Translation methods
Translation method refers to the way that particular process is carried out in terms of
translator’s objective that affects the whole text.
Different views on the translation process result in different translation approaches which
are mainly related to two main directions: literal and free. The literal approach involves
adherence to the form of the original text while the free translation aims at capturing the
sense of a longer stretch of language (Basil Hatim & Jeremy Munday, 2004).
to the translation of certain grammatical structures and lexical items while global strategy
operate at a more general level. 16

As mentioned in the Scope of the Study, the main concern of the author is local strategies in
transfer process, those which affect the micro-units of the text.
Looking closely at techniques to deal with "local problems", Chesterman (1997) divides
strategies into three categories of grammatical strategies (involving purely syntactic
changes of one kind or another, e.g. loans/calques, phrase and sentence structure changes,
etc.), semantic strategies (changes mainly relating to lexical semantics and clause meaning,
e.g. synonym, antonym, paraphrase and trope changes) and pragmatics strategies
(involving selection of information, e.g. cultural filtering, information changes,
illocutionary changes, partial translation, transcending, etc.)
We can find more detailed description of each "local strategy" through the work by Vinay
and Darbelnet (1995) though they use the term "procedure" instead of "strategy".
Vinay and Darbelnet propose seven procedures operating on three level of style: lexis,
distribution, and message. The procedures are classified as direct and indirect translation.
Oblique translation occurs when word for word translation is impossible.
Direct
Indirect (Oblique)
1.Borrowing
4. Transposition
2.Calque
5. Modulation
3. Literal translation
6. Equivalence

7. Adaptation

alterations. They are used (1) to adjust the form of the message to the characteristics of the
structure of the target language, (2) to produce semantically equivalent structures, (3) to
generate appropriate stylistic equivalences and (4) to produce an equivalent communicative
effect.
A translator makes an addition when he needs to clarify an elliptic expression, to avoid
ambiguity in the target language, to change a grammatical category, to amplify implicit
elements or to add connectors
Subtraction refers to the omission of words or phrases if they are not essential to the
meaning or impact of the text.
Alterations are changes made because of incompatibilities between the two languages due
to structural differences between the two languages such as changes in word order,
grammatical categories and semantic misfits, especially with idiomatic expressions.
New Mark (1988b) contributes a large number of strategies affecting the micro-units of the
text.
- Transference: it is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text. It includes
transliteration and it is somewhere called "transcription." 18

- Naturalization: it adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal
morphology of the TL.
- Cultural equivalent: it means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one. however,
"they are not accurate"
- Functional equivalent: it requires the use of a culture-neutral word.
Descriptive equivalent: in this procedure the meaning of the SLT is explained in several
words.
Componential analysis: it means "comparing an SL word with a TL word which has a
similar meaning but is not an obvious one-to-one equivalent, by demonstrating first their
common and then their differing sense components."

strategies used in Vietnamese-English translations. Thus, the author expects to dig deep
into the case of Vietnamese-English translation with a view to providing more valuable
information for readers.
1.3. Foreign language translation
Translation into a foreign language is usually a big challenge for any translators because
they have to learn to write in the foreign language with an authentic style. Stuart Campbell
(1998) says, “In translating into a second language, comprehension of the source text is
the easier aspect; the real difficulty is in producing a target text in a language in which
composition does not come naturally”. It is easy to look up equivalent meanings of certain
words in a dictionary but it is much more difficult to produce a target text that sounds
natural to English native readers in terms of word choice, collocation, and sentence
structure and so on. The reason is probably that “The second language translators have to
work within the limitations of their second language repertoire, and the stages of
individuals’ language development must be reflected in the quality of their translation.”
(Stuart Campbell, 1998) Translation competence in the foreign language is somehow
associated with foreign language proficiency. Though a good translator certainly has
language proficiency, a good foreign language learner does not necessarily become a good
translator. A good translation into a foreign language must demonstrate the translator’s
sensitivity to both his native language and his foreign language. Besides, translators need
to have good background knowledge of the subject they tackle and understand the role of
the translation as well as the target audience.
1.4. Translation of cultural texts
Different cultures have their own culture-specifics; therefore, the issue of cultural loss is of
central concern in translation. Newmark defines culture as "the way of life and its
manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means
of expression" (1988a). With regard to correspondence in translation, Nida attaches equal
importance to both linguistic and cultural differences between the SL and the TL and
concludes that "differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the
Literal translation follows closely the form of the source language; therefore, it is also
known as form-based translation. According to Vinay and Darbelnet (1995), literal
translation occurs when there is an exact structural, lexical, even morphological
equivalence between two languages. Vietnamese and English are two languages of
numerous grammatical and lexical differences; hence, the author could hardly find any true
literal translation in three selected books. However, the meaning of the terminology “literal
translation” is not always restricted within the strict rule given by Vinay and Darbelnet
above. Many linguists classify the level of the “literal” depending on how much close the
TLT and the SLT are. Newmark (1988) differentiates between word-for-word translation,
literal translation, faithful translation and semantic translation which are all categorized as
the methods closest to the SL. Larson (1984) divides translation method into two
categories: literal translation and idiomatic translation. He uses three terms for the scope of
“literal translation”. They are very literal, literal and modified literal. He states that very
literal and literal translation normally have little communicative value because the SLT
sounds strange and odd to the readership. The author finds the term modified literal most
suitable to identify the most common strategy in the books. According to Larson, modified
literal strategy is a way to modify order and grammar of the source language in an
acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language but the lexical items are translated
literally.
One of the most significant differences between Vietnamese and English is word order in
noun phrases. Many of the pre-modifiers characterizing the head noun in English, are post-
modifiers in Vietnamese, especially adjective, nouns and possessive. For most of the cases,
the order of the words in Vietnamese noun phrases has to be changed to acceptable
grammatical rules in English. The underlined words in the following examples are head
nouns.
Example 1: “Tuồng và chèo là hai loại hình nghệ thuật sân khấu truyền thống của Việt
Nam.” (PT. p12)
Tuồng and chèo are both Vietnamese traditional theatrical art forms. (PT. p13)
Example 2: “Các đôi uyên ương vận những trang phục giản dị.” (WC. p16)


The translators usually have to add function words, such as prepositions, pronouns,
auxiliary verbs and articles and so on, to express acceptable grammatical relationship
within a sentence of the receptor language. However, as long as the content words are
translated literally, the strategy remains modified literal translation.
Example 11: "Chèo tiếp tục phát triển và đạt đến đỉnh cao vào cuối thế kỷ 19" (PT. p16) 23

Chèo continued to develop and reached its peak by the end of the nineteenth
century (PT. 17)
Example 12: "Những nghi lễ cưới xin đã phát triển qua thời gian như thế nào?" (PT.p12)
How have wedding rites evolved over time? (PT. p13)
Most of the sentences applying modified literal translation strategy in the transfer process
definitely have simple grammatical structure and lexical terms with literal meaning. Unlike
other strategies which will be discussed later, this strategy is detected in almost all pages of
the three selected books. It is quiet understandable why this strategy is the most common
one used by the translators. The books aim at ordinary people interested in basic
information on Vietnamese culture; therefore, the content is quite readable with clear
wording. Another important reason is that the intended audience, either Vietnamese people
or English speakers interested in language study, would learn little if the expressions of the
TLT are too far different from those of the SLT.
However, the simplification of the content and language of the source texts could not help
erase all difficulties for translators because they had to convey cultural elements of a
country assumed strange and unfamiliar to the target readers, and language is obviously
part of that culture. When serious linguistic gaps or cultural gaps occur, modified literal
translation is of little help. Many other strategies are used to express shades of meaning,
explain culture-bound terms and achieve effective communication with the target readers.
These strategies, which reveal the translators' language proficiency and creativity, will be
discussed thoroughly in the latter sections of the thesis.

Several inhabitants of northern regions of Việt Nam - such as… can play đàn
nguyệt and chầu văn because of the form's long history. (SF. p79)
The translators usually have to modify sentence structures in TL when those in SL are
different from the standard subject-predicate sentence style of English. The most
noticeable ones are those containing words such as thì, là, mà which divide the sentence
into two main parts. These types of sentences are exhaustively discussed when the new
concept duos "Theme-Rheme" analysed by Lưu Vân Lăng (1970) and Trần Ngọc Thêm
(1985), and later "Topic-Comment" structure introduced by Cao Xuân Hạo (1991)
emerged to replace the old subject-predicative duos to describe basic grammatical
structures of Vietnamese sentences. Words such as thì, là, mà mark the linear between
topic and comment. Compared with the basic sentence type of English with subject-verb
structure, topic-comment sentences may lack subjects and the topic of the sentence can be
occupied by an adverb, an object or simply a word semantically relating to the comment
discussed in the topic. In these cases, the translators must change the order of the clauses or
the word groups to conform to the acceptable grammatical structure in English. 25

Example 6: “Dưới chân núi là các thung lũng, đồng lúa, và những dòng suối êm đềm.” (SF.
p46)
Valleys, paddy fields, and calm streams rest at the base of the mountains. (SF. p47)
In the above example, dưới chân núi is “topic” and the rest after “là” is comment. However
“dưới chân núi” cannot be the subject in an English sentence because an English subject is
person, place, thing, or idea that is doing or being something. Therefore, the translator
must remove it to the end of the sentence as an adverb clause. The following examples
illustrate similar reasons for shifts in the order of sentence elements.
Example 7: “Việc chi bao nhiêu là do bố mẹ chú rể và cô dâu quyết định.” (WC. p20)
The couple’s parents decide how much to spend. (WC. p21)
Example 8: "Tham gia liên hoan có trên 700 nghệ sĩ đến từ 14 đoàn chèo với 15 vở (PT.

"No one knows the exact origins of Khuốc chèo" (PT. p83)
Example 2: "Ở một số địa phương có thông lệ là mẹ cô dâu không được đưa con gái về nhà
chồng." (WC. p38)
In some localities, the mother the bride was not customarily allowed to escort her
daughter to the groom's house. (WC. p39)
Example 3: "Điển trai và thông minh, Lê Duy Kỳ hiểu biết rộng, đặc biệt là về văn học."
(WC. p50)
"Handsome and intelligent, Lê Duy Kỳ had a broad knowledge, especially of
literature." (WC. p51)
Example 4: "Gióng là một nhân vật anh hùng theo truyền thuyết đã dẹp tan quân xâm lăng
phương bắc." (SF. p104)
Gióng is a legendary hero who defeated northern invaders. (SF. p105)
This strategy is considered a common one which helps translators avoid awkward
production in the TL.
2.2.3. Modulation
Modulation is another strategy that helps the translator avoid rigid adherence to the
grammar structure of the SL. With modulation, the message’s form is altered by a change
in perspective or semantics. In other words, a phrase’s angle is adjusted so that it sounds
more familiar to the intended audience. The common types of modulation are the choices
made the translator to use negative instead of assertive as in the original structure, passive
instead of active or vice versa. With negation and assertion, replacement with antonyms is
always necessary.
Example 1: “Thị đề nghị nối lại tình nghĩa vợ chồng, nhưng Chu Mãi Thần từ chối” (PT.
p38) 27

She asks for renewal of their conjugal ties but Chu Mãi Thần does not accept her
back. (PT. p39)


28

Besides, the translator combines sentences in his or her effort to achieve conciseness
strongly recommended in the TL.
Example 3: “Trào lộng trong chèo luôn gắn với trữ tình. Trữ tình cũng là một đặc trưng
quan trọng khác của chèo…” (PT. p22)
Satire in chèo is always linked to romance, another significant feature. (PT. p23)
The combination helps the translator avoid repetition of the word "romance"
Example 4: "Những chiếc thuyền khác trước mặt, đằng sau, hai bên lướt nhẹ theo dòng
suối uốn lượn. Khi sương mù đang tan dần, núi non lởm chởm hiện ra. ." (SF. p50)
Other boats in front, behind, and on both sides of us glided along the winding
stream as the gradually melting fog revealed the rugged face of the mountain. (PT. p51)
The second sentence becomes the adverb phrase of the fist one and the insertion of "reveal"
tactically refines the translated version.
Secondly, division of one sentence into two is necessary mostly when the equivalent
sentence may be too long. Noticeably, when the translator needs to explain some cultural
terms unfamiliar to the target audience, which obviously lengthens the original sentence,
he or she has to split the SL sentence into two.
Example 5: "Do không được triều đình ủng hộ, chèo trở về với những người hâm mộ ban
đầu là nông dân, kịch bản lấy từ truyện viết bằng chữ nôm." (PT. p16)
Without royal patronage, chèo returned to its original supporters, the farmers. It
drew on nôm stories, which were Vietnamese verse narratives written in modified Chinese
characters. (PT. p17)
Example 6: "Trong chèo hiện đại, có sử dụng thêm các nhạc cụ khác để làm phong phú
thêm phần đệm như thập lục, tam thập lục, nguyệt, tiêu." (PT. p76)
In modern chèo, other musical instruments enrich the background music. The
sixteen-stringed zither (thập lục), hammer dulcimer (tam thập lục), double-stringed lute
(nguyệt), and the flute (tiêu) add their harmonious influences. (PT. p77)
The division actually offers the translator opportunities to clarify and improve the