VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES HOÀNG THỊ DIỄM HẰNG APPLYING HOUSE’S TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT MODEL TO ASSESS THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF MARK TWAIN’S “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN”-CHAPTER XX BY XUÂN OANH ÁP DỤNG MÔ HÌNH ĐÁNH GIÁ CHẤT LƯỢNG BẢN DỊCH CỦA HOUSE VÀO VIỆC ĐÁNH GIÁ BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT “NHỮNG CUỘC PHIÊU LƯU CỦA HUCKLEBERRY FINN”-CHƯƠNG XX- DỊCH GIẢ XUÂN OANH M. Thesis Combined Programme Thesis English Linguistics 60 22 15 HA NOI-2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES HOÀNG THỊ DIỄM HẰNG APPLYING HOUSE’S TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT MODEL TO ASSESS THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF MARK TWAIN’S “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN”-CHAPTER XX BY XUÂN OANH ÁP DỤNG MÔ HÌNH ĐÁNH GIÁ CHẤT LƯỢNG BẢN DỊCH CỦA HOUSE VÀO VIỆC ĐÁNH GIÁ BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT “NHỮNG CUỘC PHIÊU LƯU CỦA HUCKLEBERRY FINN”-CHƯƠNG XX- DỊCH GIẢ XUÂN OANH M. Thesis Combined Programme Thesis Major: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Asso. Lê Hùng Tiến HA NOI-2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Statement of authorship .iii Tables of contents .iv List of abbreviations .vii List of diagrams .1 2 Purpose of the study.
Significance of the study. Definition of translation. Three main views on translation equivalence. Interlingual and intertextual equivalence.
Typologies of equivalence. Difficulties in literary translation. Cultural translation problems. Stylistic translation problems.
Linguistic translation problems .12 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Text specific translation problems. Translation quality assessment. Role of translation quality assessment.
Approaches to assess the quality of a translation. Models with a quantitative dimension. Non- quantitative models. Descriptive-explanatory model.
House’s model of translation quality assessment. House‘s original model. House‘s revised model .20 CHAPTER 2: RESUTLS AND DISCUSSION 1. Source Text Profile .31 Statement of Function.
Comparison of original and translation text and statement of quality Comparison of original and translation .32 Statement of quality. Vietnamese version of the selected text Appendix B. English version of the selected text Appendix C. Huck‘s repetition of phrase ―by and by‖ TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi Appendix D.
Huck‘s repetition of word ―considerable‖ Appendix E. Huck‘s repetition of word ―considerable‖ Appendix F. Omissions of clausal linkages Appendix G. Back Translation and Categorization of Overtly Erroneous Errors TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TQA: Translation Quality Assessment ST: Source Text TT: Target Text SL: Source Language TL: Target Language TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com viii LIST OF DIAGRAMS House‘s Revised Schema for the Analysis of ST and TT Page 21 Chart of Overtly Erroneous Errors Page 37 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Rationale People all over the world are now getting closer and closer thanks to many factors, among which literature is an important one. Not only can readers entertain but they can also approach the cultures of a far away country while staying at their home. However, it is a matter of fact that not everyone is competent enough to read the original text. Therefore, the readers normally choose to read translation texts.
The increasing number of translations available calls for the need of assessing the quality of such works so that the readers can enjoy reliable ones. Given the situation, the evaluation of a translation has become the concern of Translation Quality Assessment approaches and quite many attempts have been made to find the answer to the question of how to effectively assess the quality of a translated work. Along with those attempts are a numbers of related frameworks advocated by some translation researchers; among which The Translation Quality Assessment Model by the German scholar Juliane House is one of few approaches considered promising. This assessment model by House is based on Hallidayan Systemic-Functional Theory, but it also draws eclectically on Prague School ideas, speech act theory, pragmatics, discourse analysis and corpus-based distinctions between the spoken and written language.
House‘s Model enables us to analyze and compare an original text and its translation on three different levels: Language/ Text, Register (Field, Mode and Tenor) and Genre. This study aims to apply House‘s Model on Mark Twain‘s ―The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‖-chapter XX and its Vietnamese translation by Xuân Oanh (2009). It can be said that this research is a new exciting experience for the researcher in that she is not a graduate majoring in translation. Therefore, this research first and foremost is to fullfill the researcher‘s interest in translation and in House‘s Model in particular.
In addition, being able to assess a translation will provide the researcher confidence and knowledge to practice translation, particularly literature translation. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 Besides the above reasons, through library reasearch, it is realized that House‘s Model has been widely applied to assess legal document translation. Therefore, this study seeks to explore new aspects on utilizing House‘s framework to evaluate a literal translation work. Purpose of the study In this research, an attempt will be made to apply the Housian TQA Model to identify two kinds of errors in the translated work: overtly erroenous errors and covertly errornous errors.
The frequency of their occurences will be the foundation to assess the quality of the target text and to challenge House‘s idea that to literary work, it has to be an overt kind of translation. Reserch questions How good is the translation according to House‘s model? What are the remaining problems of the translation? Whether the translation is an overt or covert kind of translation? What might be some implications for the translation of English literature into Vietnamese? 4. Research method This study utilizes qualitative design. First, the original text will be read thoroughly and comprehensively then the source text will be compared to its translation under the framework of House‘s TQA model.
Although, there are quite many models available for translation quality assessment, House‘s model is applied in that this model provides a comprehensive set of parameters enable the researcher to assess the translation text on dimension of both functional and pragmatic equivalence. In addition, as stated by House, the model can be applied for a wide range of text. The procedure is briefly introduced by Munday (2001, p.92) as below: A profile is introduced of the ST register To this is added a description of the ST genre realized by the register Together, this allows a ―statement of function‖ to be made for the ST, including the ideational and interpersonal component of that function (in other words, TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3 what information is being conveyed and what the relationship is between sender and receiver) The same descriptive process is then carried out for the TT The TT profile is compared to the ST profile and a statement of ―mismatches‖ or errors is produced, categorized according to genre and to the situational dimensions of register and genre A ―statement of quality‖ is then made of the translation Finally, the translation can be categorized into one of two types: overt translation or covert translation As it is impossible for the researcher to analyze the whole text due to limit of time and knowledge and also to be suitable with the applied framework, only one chapter will be selected randomly to guarantee the objectiveness of the procedure (chapter XX). However, examples from other chapters will be taken to prove the generality of the obtained findings in possible cases.
Significance of the study It is very important to be able to evaluate a translation in that translation has become an indispensable part in human civilization. In Vietnam, English is a popular foreign language and is a tool of communication as well as a key to human knowledge. The demand for knowledge has fostered the development of translation and it seems that many non- professionals and semi-professional translators undertake the task of translating. Hopefully, this study will be a source of reference for other researcher concerning the same issue and important features of the framework will be ackowledged to have successful translation works.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.1 Definition of translation Newmark (1981) defines translation as ―a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same language and/or statement in another language.‖ His definition of translation is then understood as ―rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the same way that the author intended the text‖. (1988:5) House (1977:29) defines translation, specifically written translation ―is the replacement of a text in the source language by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the target language‖ It can be seen that though definitions on translation are quite diverse, they all seem to imply that translation does not refer to language as a system but refers to language in use. In addition, the necessity to reach some kind of equivalence between the two languages is emphasized in translation. Translation methods Newmark (1988:45) introduces a number of translation methods via V diagram as below: SL emphasis TL emphasis Word-for-word translation Adaptation Literal translation Free translation Faithful translation Idiomatic translation Semantic translation Communicative translation This diagram can be briefly explained as follow: - Word for word translation: The SL word order is maintained and only the most common meanings of the words are used out of context.
- Literal translation: The SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are translated singly, out of context TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 5 - Faithful translation: The SL text is reproduced in its precise contextual meaning under the constraints of the TL grammatical structures. - Semantic translation: the aesthetic value of the SL text is greatly emphasized, compromising on ‗meaning‘ where appropriate so that assonance, word-lay or repetition jars in the finished version. Consequently, it gains more flexibility and allows the translator to be intuitively empathetic with the original. - Adaptation: themes, characters, plots are preserved, and the SL culture is converted to the TL culture and the text is rewritten.
- Free translation: the translated text or the so-called ―intralingual translation‖ is longer than the original, often ―prolix‖ and ―pretentious‖ - Idiomatic translation: nuances of meaning tend to be distorted by preferring colloquialisms and idioms that 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. According to Newmark (1988), among the above-mentioned eight methods, only semantic and communicative translation can fulfill the two main aims of translation namely accuracy and economy. Translation equivalence When analyzing a translation especially literary translation, equivalence is one of the standards that can not be missed. However, due to its status as a central concept, it is also a source of controversy.
A thorough knowledge of this notion would enable us to understand the principles underlying models of translation quality assessment presented thereafter. Three main views on translation equivalence According to Pym (1992:37) ―equivalence is supposed to define translation, and translation, in turn, defines equivalence‖. In other words, equivalence is a major concept in translation theory; however, approaches to this concept are considerably different. In this part, three main views will be introduced.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 6 According to Baker and Sandanha (1992) in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, authors such as Cartford, Nida, Taber, Toury and Koller consider equivalence an essential requirement in translation and it can be achieved. However, authors Snell-Hornby and Genzler reject the theoretical notion of equivalence. They claim that it is either irrelevant or causes damage to translation studies. Yet other theorists have a neutral viewpoint on this concept.