VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATION STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN TUẤN MINH TRANSLATION PROCEDURES APPLIED IN THE ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN THE NOVEL “THE CALL OF THE WILD” (Các thủ thuật được áp dụng trong việc dịch Anh-Việt ẩn dụ ý niệm trong tiểu thuyết “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã”) M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 HANOI – 2019 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATION STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN TUẤN MINH TRANSLATION PROCEDURES APPLIED IN THE ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN THE NOVEL “THE CALL OF THE WILD” (Các thủ thuật được áp dụng trong việc dịch Anh-Việt ẩn dụ ý niệm trong tiểu thuyết “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã”) M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn HANOI – 2019 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis represents my own work and has not been previously included in a thesis or dissertation submitted to this or any other institution for a degree, diploma or other qualifications. Signature Nguyen Tuan Minh June, 2019 ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, my teacher and supervisor, whose inspiring and full-of-fun lectures on Cognitive Linguistics and conceptual metaphors had given me inspirations to choose and keep working on this research.
Also, he provided me with useful advice on research direction and encouragement during the work. Also, I am extremely grateful to Ms. Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn, lecturer of Translation & Interpreting Division, Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU, whose paper on the translation procedures and equivalence on Quan họ terms had enlightened me on my research goals and who had kindly offered me invaluable advice and materials on translation equivalence and metaphor translation. My deep appreciation also goes to my father, my mother and my younger brother who provided me with money, food, care and encouragement while I was totally devoted to reading materials and writing this paper.
iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The translation of conceptual metaphor from English to Vietnamese has been largely ignored. In the world, some studies have dealt with the treatment of conceptual metaphors from Arabic to English and from Russion into English, etc. However, no studies on the English-Vietnamese translation of conceptual metaphors can be found. Therefore, this paper examines some conceptual metaphors available in the novel “The Call of the Wild” and the translation procedures used to translate them from English to Vietnamese.
Based on the conceptual theory of metaphors proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (2003), a number of conceptual metaphors have been uncovered in the English versions such as DOGS/WOLVES ARE HUMAN, NATURE IS A HUMAN BEING/AN ANIMAL, TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT, STATES ARE LOCATIONS, etc. together with some 230 linguistic realizations. After that, based on the adapted analytical framework on the translation procedures of conceptual metaphors proposed by Al-Harrasi (2001), the study found various translation procedures, including keeping the same conceptual metaphor, using another conceptual metaphor, deleting the conceptual metaphor, and converting the conceptual metaphors. Keywords: conceptual metaphors, translating conceptual metaphor, translation procedures iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iv TABLE OF CONTENTS.
v LIST OF FIGURES. vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Aims and objectives. Scope of the study.
Structural organization of the thesis. 5 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW. Metaphors and conceptual metaphors. Traditional view of metaphors.
The conceptual metaphor in the cognitive view. Conceptual metaphors in literature. Translation and translation procedures. Translation of metaphors and conceptual metaphor.
25 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY. Description of data. 27 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Data collection and data analysis procedures.
Methods of the study. 29 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. The conceptual metaphors and their linguistic manifestations in the novel. Knowledge-based metaphors.
Image-schema metaphors. The procedures applied in translating the conceptual metaphors. Keeping the same conceptual metaphor. Using a different metaphor.
Converting the conceptual metaphor. Deleting the expression of the metaphor. Recapitulation of main ideas. Suggestions for further research.
0 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Percentage of translation procedures……………………………41 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the reason for choosing the research topic and highlights the purposes and the methods of the study. Also, the structure and the scope of the research are also discussed. Rationale The world today has been much closer together thanks mostly to the advances of technology that has helped bridge the great physical distance that seems at first daunting between different places in the world. Besides, it would be a great mistake to ignore the crucial role taken by translation, the key player that bring people spiritually and emotionally closer, by boosting the understanding among cultures, “aiding the understanding of an increasingly fragmentary world” (Bassnett, 2002).
The cultural aspects of translation have been a constant emphasis in translation (Bassnett, 2002). Normally, when thinking about the relationship between culture and translation, one may immediately think of cultural words, which are particularly associated with a particular language and cannot be translated literally (Newmark, 1988) and wonders how these culture-rich concepts can be rendered into the target language. Therefore, not surprisingly, a large body of research in translation study has been dedicated to this area. It does not take one much time to search for a few studies on translation of culture-specific terms.
To name a few, Hapsari and Setyaningsih (2013) in their study “Cultural Words and the Translation in Twilight” worked with 100 cultural words related to food, house, artifacts, transportation, clothes, communication such as “madrone trees”, “pelicans”, “crib” and “ravioli”, etc, and various translation procedures applied to render these terms into Indonesian. Nhàn (2015) studied the translation procedures in translating terms used in “Quan họ”, a traditional way of singing and performing songs in Bắc Ninh, a northern province of Vietnam. In this research, she discussed a great number of cultural words, their 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com translation procedures and their equivalents such as “áo the”, “khăn xếp”, “liền anh”, “liền chị”, “hát thờ”, “hát canh”,etc. However, another equally important part in culture but often ignored in translation is the pattern of thoughts and ways in which people of different cultures categorize things.
A famous theory that summarizes the relationship between languages, thought and culture is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Proposing the idea of linguistic determinism, Sapir and Whorf argue that language determines thought and language is a reflection of culture (Yule, 2006). Therefore, under the light of cognitive linguistics, there is something more than just cultural terms. Evan and Green (2006) maintained that patterns of thought or conceptualization are reflected in language.
Different groups of people (different cultures), speaking different languages have their own ways of understanding, perceiving and construing their physical environment around them and other experiences. In other words, each culture will perceive and understanding reality in different ways or thought is also a product of culture. “The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man” (Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1948). Metaphors have long been a focal interest for the academic world and widely studied from many perspectives, including traditional views, philosophers’ view and cognitive view, etc.
Studying metaphors from the cognitive approach and their translations will present certain benefits and new insights as the conceptual metaphor, with its basis in basic physical, physiological and cultural experience of human beings, serves as a powerful tool in revealing these differences in the thinking patterns, allowing the possibility of examining and comparing different ways of construing reality of different groups of people. To some degree, conceptual metaphors have some properties that are the same as cultural words. Although sometimes, two cultures share the same expressions, most 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com of the time, the expression in a particular language is culture-specific. For example, there are numerous “cultural thoughts” in the English language such as THE SUN IS A HUMAN (the sun-kissed valley) or STATES ARE LOCATIONS (they went from bad to worse) (phrases taken from The Call of the Wild).
What does a translator, as a traveler from one source to another (Michel Cronin, cited in Bassnett, 2002), do when they work with such metaphors/images? Do they keep the same metaphors; create a new metaphor or what else? 2. Aims and objectives The overall purpose of this study is to investigate the treatment of conceptual metaphor, in other words, the translation procedures used to translate the conceptual metaphors in the novel “The Call of the Wild”from English to Vietnamese. To achieve this aim, the following objectives are set: (1) identifying the conceptual metaphors present in the English novel and their linguistic expressions; (2) comparing the conceptual metaphors in the English source text and the Vietnamese target text to reveal the translation procedures used. Research method This research adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve the desired outcomes.
First, basing on the description offered by Lakoff and Johnson (2003) on conceptual metaphor, the paper investigates the English version to identify the conceptual metaphors available and their linguistic manifestations. After that, based on the adapted framework by Al-Harrasi (2001), the Vietnamese translations of these linguistic realizations are examined and compared to the source text to reveal what translation procedures are adopted to deal with those conceptual metaphors. Next, quantitative research method will be applied to reveal which translation procedures are the most used. This research aims at answering two questions: 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
What are the conceptual metaphors and their linguistic manifestations in the English novel “The Call of the Wild”? 2. What translation procedures are applied in translating the conceptual metaphors from English to Vietnamese? Research question 1 aims at identifying the conceptual metaphors in the English novel and their linguistic realizations. Based on the results in question 1, question 2 is devoted to deal with the issue of translation procedures. Scope of the study This study closely examines all the seven chapters in the English adventure novel “The Call of the Wild” by the American writer, Jack London to list some conceptual together with their linguistic evidence.
This study classifies the conceptual metaphors, by their nature, into knowledge-based and image-based metaphors. In image-based metaphors, there are two sub-types, image-schema and image metaphors. This paper focuses on knowledge-based and image-schema metaphors only. This paper deals only with the translation procedures applied to treat the conceptual metaphors in the process of translation from English to Vietnamese.
In other words, this study does not aim at making systematic quality assessments on the translation quality but only discusses and argues on the treatment of conceptual metaphors in translation when the translator moves between the two modes of thinking. Significance Normally, when conducting research in conceptual metaphors, one is likely to examine only one type in depth, for example, LOVE IS A JOURNEY. However, adopting the cognitive approach to the study of metaphors, this research investigates a wide range of conceptual metaphors that underlie the language expressions in the novel “The Call of the Wild”. Furthermore, the paper hopes to contribute to the large reservoir of translation research by approaching translation from the view of cognitive 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com linguistics, which is still under-researched compared to other approaches to the study of metaphor in general.
Hopefully, this paper will be beneficial to students, teachers and translators who are interested in looking at metaphors from the cognitive perspective, especially in a single work of literature. Finally, this paper is an attempt to investigate the translation procedures adopted to deal with the conceptual metaphor during the translation process from English to Vietnamese.