VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES VƯƠNG THU HẰNG FOREIGNIZATION AND DOMESTICATION OF CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS IN TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL “THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS” (Ngoại lai hóa và bản địa hóa các yếu tố đặc thù văn hóa trong hai bản dịch Anh-Việt “Gió qua rặng liễu” và “Gió đùa trong liễu”) M. MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 HÀ NỘI - 2020 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES VƯƠNG THU HẰNG FOREIGNIZATION AND DOMESTICATION OF CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS IN TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL “THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS” (Ngoại lai hóa và bản địa hóa các yếu tố đặc thù văn hóa trong hai bản dịch Anh-Việt “Gió qua rặng liễu” và “Gió đùa trong liễu”) M. MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201. Lê Hùng Tiến HÀ NỘI - 2020 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby state that the major programme thesis entitled “Foreignization and Domestication of Culture-specific Items in Two Vietnamese Translations of the English Novel “The Wind in the Willows”” has been conducted and submitted in partial of fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
I confirm that this submission is my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree, and all the references to other works mentioned in the paper have been cited properly, to the best of my knowledge and belief. Vương Thu Hằng Hà Nội, June 2020 i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place, I would like to express my sincere thanks for the Translation and Interpreting Division, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, VNU Hanoi for providing me with an advantageous environment to gain useful knowledge and access materials about translation studies. Next, I feel profoundly grateful to my supervisor, Assoc. Lê Hùng Tiến, for his enthusiastic support and encouragement that helped me surmount difficulties.
Without his valuable contributive advice, this study could not have been completed. Besides, my heartfelt thanks are given to my classmates from class QH2016D1 for standing by my side and urging me on throughout the research period. I genuinely appreciate their support and constant encouragement. Also, I am much obliged to other fellow friends of mine.
Thanks to their positive suggestions and encouragement, I could possibly gain great inspirations. Their provision of rare and precious reference materials was real help to me. Ultimately, I am deeply indebted to my husband and my whole family for their wholehearted support. Thanks to them, I could maintain high motivation and study in favorable conditions.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This research investigates the translation strategies and procedures applied to treat culture-specific items appearing in “The wind in the willows” by Kenneth Grahame in its Vietnamese translations “Gió qua rặng liễu” by Nguyên Tâm (2006) and “Gió đùa trong liễu” by Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh (2017). To fulfil this aim, the mixed method is adopted in this study. The qualitative method and quantitative calculations are used to process 171 culture-specific items identified from the 12 chapters of the source text and their translations in the target texts. Based on the taxonomy of culture-specific items synthesized from different works, especially Espindola (2005) and the taxonomy of domesticating and foreignizing procedures following Aixelá (2016), the study compares and contrasts the culture-specific items in the source text with those in the target texts and between the target texts themselves and describes the phenomenon of translation practices with culture-specific items.
As a result, among 14 types of culture-specific items, food and drink, toponyms and ecology are the largest groups. Next, foreignization is more prevailing than domestication to treat 171 culture-specific items in both of the translations. Intratextual gloss and linguistic (non-cultural) translation are the most dominant foreignizing procedures, and deletion and absolute universalization are the most dominant domesticating procedures. The procedures used to treat each type of culture-specific items are also identified.
Most of food and drink items are foreignized through linguistic (non-cultural) translation and intratextual gloss. Toponyms are frequently foreignized through repetition and extratextual gloss. Ecological items are mainly foreignized through linguistic (non-cultural) translation. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS. vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Culture-specific items.
Definition of culture-specific items. Categorization of culture-specific items. Stempleski and Tomalin (1993). Other theoretical frameworks of CSIs in the 21st century.
Taxonomy of culture-specific items adopted in this research. Domestication and foreignization. Concepts of domestication and foreignization. Local procedures of domestication and foreignization of CSIs.
Vinay and Darbelnet (1958). 25 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Hervey and Higgins (1992). Laviosa and Braithwaite (1998).
36 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Procedure of data collection. Procedure of data analysis. 44 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.
47 Answer to research question 1: To what extent are the culture-specific items domesticated and foreignized in the two Vietnamese translations “Gió qua rặng liễu” by Nguyên Tâm and “Gió đùa trong liễu” by Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh?. 48 Answer to research question 2: Which domestication and foreignization-oriented procedures are the most dominant as the treatment of all the culture-specific items in general and for each type of culture-specific items in particular?. Suggestions for further research .XVII v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ABBREVIATIONS List of abbreviations CSIs: Culture-specific items SC: Source culture SL: Source language ST: Source text TC: Target culture TL: Target language TT: Target text TT1: “Gió qua rặng liễu” translated by Nguyên Tâm (2006) TT2: “Gió đùa trong liễu” translated by Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh (2017) List of tables Page Table 1.1: Taxonomy of culture-specific items by Aixelá (1996) 15 Table 1.2: Taxonomies of culture-specific items in the 21st century 18 Table 1.3: Taxonomy of culture-specific items synthesized in this research 20 Table 4.1: Frequency and percentage of the overall strategies of domestication and foreignization applied in “Gió qua rặng liễu” and “Gió đùa trong liễu” 55 Table 4.2: Frequency of domestication and foreignization for each type of CSIs 58 Table 4.3: Frequency of domestication and foreignization-oriented procedures 62 Table 4.4: Frequency of foreignization and domestication-oriented procedures for each type of CSIs 66 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of figures Page Figure 1.1: Newmark’s taxonomy of culture-specific items (1988) 12 Figure 1.2: Taxonomy of culture-specific items by Stempleski and Tomalin (1993) 15 Figure 1.3: Taxonomy of culture-specific items by Davies (2003) 17 Figure 2.1: Aixelá’s taxonomy of domestication and foreignization- oriented procedures (1996) 26 Figure 2.2: Hervey and Higgins’s taxonomy of foreignization and domestication procedures (1992) 30 Figure 2.3: Taxonomy of domestication and foreignization-oriented procedures adopted in this research based on the framework by Aixelá (1996) 38 Figure 4.1: Percentage of the types of culture-specific items collected from “The wind in the willows” 49 Figure 4.2: Percentage of foreignization and domestication-oriented procedures used to treat the CSIs 63 Figure 4.3: Percentage of foreignization and domestication-oriented procedures applied to treat toponyms 67 Figure 4.4: Percentage of foreignization and domestication-oriented procedures applied to treat CSIs about food and drink 71 Figure 4.5: Percentage of foreignization and domestication-oriented procedures applied to treat ecological CSIs 73 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter makes the statement of the research problem and gives the rationale of the study. Besides, it presents the aims and objectives of the study, its significance and its organization.
Statement of the problem and rationale for the study In the present era of globalization and integration, translation has become increasingly significant in various areas in countries across the world because it is necessary for people to overcome the language barrier in order to successfully communicate with one another. Translation has been defined over the past decades. Among the earliest definitions, the one proposed by Hartman and Stock (1972 - Cited in Tiến & Bắc, 2008) said that translation was the substitution of a source language unit with an equivalent target language unit. Then, Larson (Cited in Tiến & Bắc, 2008) defined translation as a procedure of three major steps of examining SL factors, grasping their meaning then and reconstructing it with TL units appropriate for the target culture.
It could be seen that Larson’s definition shows more interest in the naturalness of translation. In other words, Larson’s approach seems more TL-oriented. Besides, Munday (2001) considered translation as either “the general subject field, the product (the text that has been translated) or the process (the act of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating)” (pp. Generally, there have been various definitions of translation, and each emphasizes different issues in translation.
Among them, there have been discussions about whether translation should be SL-oriented or TL-oriented. The task of translation has never been easy due to many factors including complicated cultural and linguistic factors among which are culture-specific items. Concerning cultural translation, culture-specific items are embedded with very special connotation; therefore, the successful translation of one “cultural word” has never been an easy task. To deal with culture-specific words or phrases, there are two basic strategies proposed by Venuti (1995).
Controversy surrounding domestication and 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com foreignization has been lasting for a long time (Yang, 2010). It is partly because this matter is related to ethic problems in translation. Normally, the translator is supposed to be faithful to the source text; therefore, culture-specific items are supposed to be maintained as foreign as they are. Attempts to make them become less strange to the target readership may involve an omission, an addition or a change.
Besides, foreignization and domestication have their own merits and demerits. For example, when CSIs are foreignized, the translation may not be easy to understand; however, it brings the target readership a chance to know the source culture. Meanwhile, domestication could make it easier for the target readership to reader the translation; however, the opportunity for them to gain new knowledge about a different culture could be missed. Internationally, there have been various studies on the same research problem.
Locally, there is a research gap in existing research. As for the pair of English and Vietnamese, there has been a shortage of studies conducted in the same way as this research. Nguyễn Thị Hương (2011) carried out a study named “Foreignization and domestication in Trinh Lu's Vietnamese translation of “Life of Pi" by Yann”. The study examined a collection of 33 CSIs adopting the taxonomy of CSIs proposed by Espindola (2006) and the framework of translation procedures by Kwiencinski (2001) and resulted in the finding of the dominance of foreignization through the English-Vietnamese translation.
In 2014, Dương Thị Ngọc Anh researched on the domestication and foreignization in the English-Vietnamese translation of “Let’s pretend this never happened” by Jim Brenton in her bachelor thesis. The study, combining different models of CSIs and translation procedures, focused not only on CSIs but also on other aspects including wordplay and syllables. The result based on the analysis of 45 CSIs showed a similarity with the finding of the afore-mentioned research by Hương (2011) that foreignization occurred more frequently than domestication. Apparently, CSIs have gradually received more attention when in the following year.
Lã Thị Hồng Hải (2015) and Phạm Thị Quỳnh Anh (2015) both carried out studies on them despite their different 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Hải (2015) laid more emphasis on CSIs together with idioms and colloquialisms. Meanwhile, Anh (2015) concentrated on proper names.