VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRỊNH MINH XUÂN A STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC AND SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS ON MARTHA COLLINS’ TRANSLATION OF “BLACK STARS” BY NGÔ TỰ LẬP Nghiên cứu tác động của các nhân tố ngôn ngữ và văn hóa – xã hội đối với bản dịch tiếng Anh tập thơ “Những vì sao đen” của Ngô Tự Lập do Martha Collins thực hiện M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRỊNH MINH XUÂN A STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF LINGUISTIC AND SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS ON MARTHA COLLINS’ TRANSLATION OF “BLACK STARS” BY NGÔ TỰ LẬP Nghiên cứu tác động của các nhân tố ngôn ngữ và văn hóa – xã hội đối với bản dịch tiếng Anh tập thơ “Những vì sao đen” của Ngô Tự Lập do Martha Collins thực hiện M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn Hanoi – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled "A study on the influence of linguistic and socio-cultural factors on Martha Collins’ translation of “Black stars" by Ngô Tự Lập” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi.
Hanoi, 2016 Trịnh Minh Xuân i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The fulfillment of this thesis would not have been possible without the support, assistance and encouragement of a number of people. First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, for his valuable guidance and advice throughout this study. His wholehearted support has enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject and tremendously contributes to the accomplishment of this thesis.
My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Ngô Tự Lập, the author of the book under investigation of this research, who helps me build up a solid theoretical background on contemporary literary and poetry translation through many interviews. I am especially grateful to his support throughout the research for the intense explanation on matters I met on studying the book. Furthermore, I am indebted to many of the teachers in Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi for their useful lessons from which I developed a good research method and generated meaningful ideas for my study.
Finally, I would like to show my profound gratitude to all members of my family and all my colleagues with their endless support in various ways. Without their encouragement, I would not have been able to accomplish the study. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Literary translation, particularly poetic translation, plays an undeniably important role in globalization process; however, how to produce good poetic translation involves many factors in consideration. This thesis aims at discovering some factors affecting Ngô Tự Lâp‘s ―Black Stars” translation by Martha Collins and the author.
Due to the limit of the study, this paper only focuses on linguistic and socio-cultural aspects that might have led to the modifications in “Black Stars” translation. About 120 verses from 30 poems collected from the book are categorized and analyzed in qualitative approach. The researcher pointed out the modifications in the translated poems in English (in comparison with the Vietnamese original version) on the linguistic facet then studied the underlying factors influencing those modifications. The findings indicate that in order to have good poetic translation, the translators have put many factors into consideration, among which linguistic and socio-cultural factors were the most typical.
In terms of linguistic group, these factors include syntactic, lexical and stylistic factors; whereas, in terms of socio- cultural group, they are factors relating to regional history, geography, living customs and readers‘ perception. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration. iii Table of contents. iv List of abbreviations.
vii PART A - INTRODUCTION 1. Aims of the study……………………………………………………………… 2 3. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………. Methodology of the study……………………………………………………… 3 6.
Organization of the study……………………………………………………… 3 PART B - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………. Definitions of translation……………………………………………………… 5 II. Poetic translation……………………………………………………………… 6 III. Research of Vinay and Darbelnet……………………………………….
Research of Nida…………………………………………………………. Research of Newmark…………………………………………………. Linguistic and Socio-cultural factors affecting modifications in translation. Linguistic elements………………………………………………………… 9 IV.
Context factors…………………………………………………… 12 IV. Socio-cultural elements…………………………………………………… 13 V. Study of Pham Thu Giang (2010)………………………………………… 14 V. Study of Lubis (2009)……………………………………………………….
15 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Study of Johnson (2006)…………………………………………………… 15 V. Study of Burgos (2007)……………………………………………………. Study of Gou (2007)……………………………………………………….
Data collection procedure………………………………………………. Data analysis procedure…………………………………………………. 21 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS…………………………………………. Modifications in ―Black stars‖ translation…………………………………….
Changes in grammatical word classes…………………………. Changes in sentence structures…………………………………. Different meaning word generating……………………………. Factors influencing translation………………………………………………… 31 II.
Linguistic context………………………………………………… 43 II. Stylistic factors…………………………………………………… 46 II. Socio-cultural factors……………………………………………………… 49 II. 52 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Perception differences…………………………………………… 55 PART C - CONCLUSION 1. Summaries of main findings…………………………………………………… 57 2. Limitations of the study………………………………………………………. Suggestions for further study………………………………………………….
I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SL Source language SLT Source language text TL Target language TLT Target language text vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Translation used to be considered an inter-language transfer of meaning. Many earlier definitions demonstrate this, using source language and target language as their technical terms. Moreover, translation theories strictly confined themselves within the sphere of linguistics.
For many years the popular trend in the translation circles had been perfect faithfulness to the original both in content and form and it had been regarded as the iron criterion as if from the holy Bible for translators to observe. The godly status and the impossible idealistic belief were not altered until new thoughts arose with the respect of consideration of target readers, the unavoidable translator‘s subjectivity and the purpose and function of translations. This thesis, starting to look from new angles such as the accommodation to target cultural conventions, the translator's consciousness of linguistic and cultural adaptations to make it easy for readers to understand translated works without too much pain and effort. Translation of poetry was, and still is by some, believed as impossibility for any unfaithful elements would have been taken as failure, be it content or form.
The arguments include linguistic elements and cultural elements. Most importantly the myth of untranslatability looks upon poetry as beauty itself which is untouchable for once it is touched it is destroyed. But as translation of poetry has never been stagnant though sometimes vigorous and sometimes not, there is strong evidence in both translation history and present day practice that poetry translation, a literary form as distinguished from fiction, drama, and prose, is translatable. Poetry itself serves a purpose, be it an illusive matter or not, and aesthetics can be reproduced in another language and culture if accommodation is made.
“Black Stars” is a collection of poems originally in Vietnamese by Ngô Tự Lập, who can be seen as a master of both the Source Language (his mother tongue- Vietnamese) and the Target Language (English). The book was published in 2013, also the first time introduced to the public, both in Vietnamese and English, after a long period of co- operating between the author and an American native poet Martha Collins. It consists of 42 poems divided into 3 sections mostly talking about the author‘s inner world, his memories and dreams. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com There were several reasons why the researcher decided to study this bilingual poem collection for her research.
Firstly, it was proved to be good poetry in translation (the book was nominated for PEN International Prize in the United States 2014 in Poetry in translation category). Secondly, the close co-operation during the translating process between the author and the translator, who is also a poet and writer in the target language, guarantees the faithfulness of the translation as well as the soundness of the modifications made. For all of these advantages, it serves well the purposes of studying on the linguistic and socio-cultural factors affecting literary translation, especially poetry translation. It also proves that poetry translation can be both faithful and aesthetic with regards to the target readers‘ features, among which the most important are linguistic and socio-cultural factors.
Aims of the study This research was carried out to serve the following aims: - To find out the linguistic modifications made in the English translation “Black stars” conducted by Martha Collins and the author Ngô Tự Lập from the Vietnamese original “Những vì sao đen” poetry collection. - To identify the factors influencing the process of translating which brings about those modifications. Research questions This research is carried out to find out the answer to the following research questions: 1. What are the linguistic modifications made in the translation “Black stars” in comparison with the Vietnamese original “Những vì sao đen”? 2.
What are the factors influencing those modifications? The answers will help readers realize some modifications made in the Vietnamese - English translation process of the bilingual poetry collection book “Black stars” and their underlying reasons. The study may also help sharpen the translators‘ awareness to put in consideration some outstanding differences between the nature of English and Vietnamese languages in use as well as the socio-cultural distinctive features of the two countries so that they can learn to produce readers-friendly poetry translation in TL with the highest respect to the original meanings and beauty of the work in the SL. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study - Pointing out linguistic and socio-cultural stamps on the language uses in the poetry translation.
- The bilingual book of Ngô Tự Lâp‘s “Những vì sao đen” -“Black Stars” poetry collection co-translated by Martha Collins and the author is under investigation. Methods of the study - This study used the qualitative method. Qualitative method investigates the why and how of the changes and adaptation, not just what, where, when. Firstly, it was employed in comparing the translated poems with their Vietnamese original version to find out the modifications made on the linguistic facet, evaluating and categorizing them into smaller categories.
Secondly, the researcher employed qualitative approach to categorize the factors influencing the above-mentioned modifications with intense reasoning and many interviews and mailing with both the author of the original poems and the translators of ―Black stars‖. - Data was collected by means of descriptive analysis and statistic. Organization of the study This research consists of 3 parts: INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT, AND CONCLUSION. This part allows the readers to get the general idea of what the thesis is about.
It provides the rationale for the study, aims of the study, the research questions, the scope, the method and the organization of the study. Part B: DEVELOPMENT This is the focus of the study which is divided into 3 chapters. Chapter 1: Literature Review. Chapter I briefly introduces some necessary theoretical points from different backgrounds.
The author begins by reviewing different views of translation theories with the focus on poetry translation. Following that a review of the elements to consider in translation in general and more specifically in poetry translation, among which the focuses are on the linguistic elements, elements of American culture, language use, interrelationship between language and culture and how they interact and affect each other. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.