VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*** NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH HẠNH

EVALUATING THE VIETNAMESE VERSION OF
THE BOOK ‘CHICKEN SOUP FOR MOTHER AND
DAUGHTER SOUL’ BY JACK CANDFIELD AND MARK
VICTOR HASEN USING JULLIANE HOUSE’S MODEL

(Đánh giá chất lượng bản dịch Tiếng Việt tác phẩm “Chicken Soup
for Mother and Daughter Soul” áp dụng mô hình của Julliane House) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Hanoi - 2013
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***


Table of contents iv
List of abbreviations vi
List of figures vii
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study 1
2. Significance of the study 1
3. Scope and objectives of the study 3
3.1. Scope of the study 2
3.2. Research questions 2
4. Research methods 2
5. Organization of the study 2
B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW 3
1. Translation theory 3
1.1. Definitions of translation 3
1.2. Translation methods and strategies 5
1.3. Translation equivalence 10
1.4. Translation quality assessment 13
2. Literary translation 15
2.1. Characteristics of literary translation 16
2.2. Challenges in literary translation 17
3. Introduction about the book 18
CHAPTER 2. APPLICATION OF HOUSE’S MODEL FOR TRANSLATION
QUALITY ASSESSMENT 21
v

1. Presentation of the model 21
1.1. An overview of the model 21
1.2. Operation of the model 22
2. Application of the model 26

TT: Translation Text
vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Translation Process Page 6
Figure 2: A Scheme for Analyzing and Comparing Original and Translation Texts
Page 24
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A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
In the trend of globalization and integration, people are more frequent to read
books and documents written in a foreign language because that helps them to
understand and be more familiar with the thoughts, traditions, principles and actions
of the people from the culture. Therefore, translation is regarded as a significant key
interlinking people from all cultures in the world. In Vietnam, more and more
foreign books and documents are translated into Vietnamese. However, Vietnamese
readers do not always have chance to approach translations of good quality and that
a translation is considered good still draws much discussion. Each translation
theorists has his or her own founded criteria for translation quality assessment.
Among distinguished scholars of this field is Julian House who is a German
linguist, with her model for translation quality assessment.
Many famous English books have been translated into Vietnamese. „Chicken
Soup for Mother and Daughter Soul‟ by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield is
one of them. Being translated into Vietnamese, the series of the book are popular to
a number of Vietnamese readers. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, translating a
foreign text and making it acceptable by the target language readers is not easy due
to the fact that each language has its own unique features and peculiarities and
literary book translation calls for stringent and high quality standards. Therefore, an

the eight situational dimensions. A statement of function of the ST will be made
after that. Next, a profile of the translation text will be come up with and compared
with the ST‟s to find out mismatches before a statement of quality can be drawn
about the target text (TT).
5. Organization of the study
The study contains three chapters:
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Chapter 1 – Literature Review
In this first chapter, some related concepts of translation theory and typical
models of translation quality assessment are introduced. Also, the chapter discusses
characteristics and challenges of literary translation.
Chapter 2 – Application of House‟s model for translation quality assessment
In this chapter, House‟s model for translation quality assessment will first be
presented and then applied to analyze and decide the ST profile as well as statement
of function with ideational and interpersonal meaning.
Chapter 3 – Discussion of results and implications
In the third chapter, the researcher will apply Julliane House‟s model to
analyze and compare the English ST and the Vietnamese translation one and then
draw the statement of quality.
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B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I – LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Translation theory
1.1. Definitions of translation
To translate is understood as to express the meaning of speech or writing in a
different language. However, in translation studies, things are not that simple.
Theorists approached translation studies differently and they proposed various
definitions of translation.

(1988:5), translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the
way that the author intended in the text.
Unlike previous scholars, Hatim and Mason (1990) suggested that translating
is a communicative process which takes place within a social context (Hatim and
Mason, 1990:3). Translation deals with the signs and attempts to preserve semiotic
as well as other pragmatic and communicative properties which signs display.
No matter how diversely the scholars defined translation, the basic ideas they
shared are that translation does not deal with language as a system, but with
language in use and that the essence of translation lies in the preservation of
semantic, pragmatic, and textual aspects of meaning across two different languages.
1.2. Translation methods and strategies
Nida (1969) in Munday (2001:40) divide the process of translating into three
stages system: (1) analysis of message in the SL; (2) transfer; (3) reconstruction of
the transferred message in the TL.
6
Figure 1: Translation Process
As can be seen from the diagram, ST is analyzed in terms of the intention of
the text, the intention of the translator, text styles, the readership, stylistic scales,
attitude, setting, the quality of the writing, connotations and denotations, and the
cultural aspect of the text. Then the meaning is transferred from the SL to the TL.
The last stage is the reconstruction stage in which the translator revises or re-

their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are translated singly, out of
context. It is used to translate general styles texts with few cultural differences such
as manuals, news, etc. It is also called borrowing translation.
- Faithful translation: The translator attempts to reproduce the precise
contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical
structures. Cultural words are transferred but the degree of grammatical and lexical
abnormality is maintained in the translation.
- Semantic translation: This translation method is closer to the TL than
other method in the semantic group. It takes more account of the aesthetic value of
the SL text and does not rely on cultural equivalence and make small concessions to
the readership. Therefore, it is more flexible, allows for the translator‟s intuitive
empathy with the original.
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- Communicative translation: The translation units dealt with are word,
paragraph, and text. The translator attempts to render exact contextual meaning of
the original. Both the content and the language are readily acceptable and
comprehensible to the reader.
- Idiomatic translation: This method deals with translation unit of sentence
and paragraph. It reproduces the „message‟ of the original but tends to distort
nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not
exist in the original. The outcome is a lively and natural translation.
- Free translation: It is used for translation unit of sentence and paragraph.
This method reproduces the matter without the manner and the content without the
form of the original. It is usually a paraphrase so the translation is much longer than
the original.
- Adaptation: The method is the freest form of translation and deals with
text unit. It is mainly used for plays, poetry, and songs. In adaptation, the themes,
characters, plots are preserved, and the SL culture is converted to the TL culture and
the text is rewritten.

- Through-translation: it is the literal translation of common collocations,
names of organizations, components of compounds and perhaps phrases. It is used
for already recognized terms. It is also called calque or loan translation.
- Shifts or transpositions: It involves a change in the grammar from SL to
TL, for instance, (i) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when a
specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TL
word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth. It is used when a SL
grammatical structure does not exist in the TL or where literal translation is
grammatically possible but may not accord with natural usage in the TL.
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- Modulation: It is a variation in the message when it is translated into a TL
due to a change in the point of view. It occurs when the translator reproduces the
message of the original text in the TL text in conformity with the current norms of
the TL, since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective.
- Recognized translation: it occurs when the translator "normally uses the
official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term."
- Compensation: it occurs when loss of meaning in one part of a sentence
is compensated in another part.
- Paraphrase: in this procedure the meaning of the CBT is explained. Here
the explanation is much more detailed than that of descriptive equivalent
- Couplets: it occurs when the translator combines two different procedures
to deal with a single problem. It is common for cultural words, where transference
may be combined with a functional or cultural equivalent.
- Notes: notes are additional information in a translation.
1.3. Translation equivalence
Translation equivalence is the central issue in translation theory. It is the
relationship between a SL text and a TL text (rather than between the languages
themselves) that allows the TL text to be considered as a translation of the SL text.
As Catford points out, "the central problem of translation-practice is that of finding

of the original in such a way that the TL wording will trigger the same impact on
the TC audience as the original wording did upon ST audience (Nida and Tiber
(1982)). A translation, in their opinion, is successful if it can achieve equivalent
response in the two languages, which means dynamic equivalence is the goal of
translation.
1.3.3. Koller (1989): five types of equivalence
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Koller (1989) establishes translation equivalence categories which involve
various types of equivalence among which are denotative, connotative, text-
normative, pragmatic, and formal equivalence.
- Denotative equivalence:
Denotative equivalence is the type of equivalence in which the SL and TL
words are supposedly referred to the same thing in the real world. This type of
equivalence is related to the equivalence of the extra linguistic content of a text. It is
also the purpose of any translation procedure, which is to find the referential
identity between SL and TL units.
- Connotative equivalence:
Connotative equivalence is realized when the SL and TL words trigger the
same or similar associations or communicative values in the mind of native
speakers of the SL and TL. It is related to the lexical choices, especially between
near-synonyms.
- Text-normative equivalence:
When the SL and TL words are used in the same or similar text types in their
respective languages, it is called text-normative equivalence.
- Pragmatic equivalence:
Pragmatic equivalence is oriented towards the receiver of the text or
message. This type of equivalence is established to translate the text for a particular
readership. The expectations of the target readers have to be considered. Pragmatic
equivalence is also used when the translator wants to make an impact on the


during a course of study, it is formative. When being used to measure the results of
learning, translation quality assessment is summative.
1.4.2. Approaches to translation quality assessment
Translation quality assessment is a controversial issue and is still under-
researched. In this part, the writer would like to present approaches sorted by House
(2001).
 Mentalist Views
In mentalist views, the evaluation of a translation is subjective and intuitive.
Although this view was propagated, House dismisses it by claiming that texts have
no core meanings and their meanings change depending on individual speakers‟
positions.
 Response-based Approaches
In behavioristic views, the translator‟s mental actions are dismissed. Instead
of that, a more scientific way of evaluating translations is chosen. Nida (1964) is the
most famous pioneering scholar in this tradition. He took readers‟ reactions to a
translation as the main tool to assess the quality of a translation. However, Julliane
House rejects this approach. She doubts the possibility to measure an equivalent
response. Also, she claims that the source text is largely ignored in this method.
Another approach in response-based approaches is functionalistic, “skopos”-
related approach. Reiss & Vermeer (1984), supporters of this approach, claim that
purpose (skopos) of a text and target culture norms are important to judge a
translation. The translator is the person who decides on the function of the
translation. Nevertheless, House criticizes that the theory does not define clearly the
notion of “function” and this skopos theory cannot be said to be an adequate theory
when it comes to tackling the evaluation of a translation in its fundamental
directionality.
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 Text and Discourse Based Approaches

comparison of an original and its translation on three different levels: the levels of
language or text, register (field, mode and tenor) and genre.
2. Literary translation
2.1. Characteristics of literary translation
Literary texts include all forms of literature written in prose or poetry. They
can be a short story, a novel, a drama, etc. According to Reiss (1989), literary texts
belong to expressive text type in which the authors use the aesthetic dimension of
language. In literary translation, the typical features of the source literary text not
only need to be considered carefully but also are the influential elements. In Jone‟s
(2009) summary of a wide range of viewpoints from Stockwell (2002), Venuti
(1996), Pilkington (2000), and Berman (2000), a set of typical features of literary
text are indicated. As in the scholars‟ viewpoints, literary texts are in written-form,
although sometimes they can be spoken. Besides, they fulfill affective or aesthetic
function rather than transactional or informational function. They focus on the
expression of emotions and entertain rather than influence or giving information.
Moreover, they are considered to be fictional. Whether being fact-based or not, they
features words, images, etc. with ambiguous or indeterminable meanings. Last but
not least, they are characterized by poetic language use.
Recognizing the characteristics in a literary text will enable the translator to
be at least partly qualified to fulfill his task with much more accuracy. The first
characteristic of literary translation is rhetorical and aesthetic value which
distinguishes a literary text from a non-literary one and is the essence expected to be
captured and maintained in a literary translation. Literary works are created
artistically by increasing the difficulty and length of perception, which leads to
defamiliarization (Shklovsky, 1917, quoted in Pilkington, 2000: 18). Once the
defamiliarization is comprehended by the translators or readers, a unique sensation
17

is created. Moreover, in literary translation, the form connects with the content
meanwhile in non-literary translation the content may be considered detachable

figurative language, historical stylistic dimensions, etc. Therefore, the translator‟s
choices whether to retain stylistic features of the SL text or historical stylistic
dimension are important. For example, when translating poetry, it is vital for the
translator to decide whether the verse should be translated into verse, or into free
verse or into prose.
Moreover, poetic language is non-standard so the translation is under the risk
of being unfamiliar. Bassnett points out that “Again and again, translators of novels
take pains to create readable TL texts, avoiding ST effect that can follow from
adhering too closely to source language syntactical structures, but fail to consider
the way in which individual sentences form part of the total structure” (Bassnett,
2002: 115). She then suggests that “what the translator must do, therefore, is to first
determine the function of the SL system and then to find a TL system that will
adequately render the function” (Bassnett, 2002: 199), which shows her view of
giving priority to the aesthetic function. Determining the function of the source
language requires the translators‟ knowledge of ST, which guides the translators to
“consider the way in which individual sentences form part of the total structure”
(Bassnett, 2002: 115).
3. Introduction of the book
„Chicken Soup for the Soul‟ is the name of a series of books with collections
of short and dense inspirational stories and motivational essay. The first stories of
the series were compiled by two internationally known speakers, Jack Canfield and
Mark Victor Hansen.
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen had been known as two famous
speakers telling inspirational and motivational stories which could be used for their
audiences to discover, experience, and retain their key concepts and approaches.
Their audiences‟ requests to have stories in the written form were finally responded
19

to after many years. Rather than focusing on their stories only, Hasen and Canfield
decided to add other people‟s stories and search for stories of ordinary people doing