DECLARATION I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been copied or reproduced by me from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor. Hanoi, 15-11- 2013 Approved by Candidate Dr. Nguyen Dang Suu Nguyen Thi Hien i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the process of writing this graduation paper I have received a lot of useful guidance and instruction. First of all I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Nguyen Dang Suu who has given me valuable suggestion and enthusiastic instruction in the time I carry out this paper. My sincere thanks also go to Dean and all lecturers at Faculty of Post Graduate Study for their constructive ideas and assistance. Apart from that, I would like to express my special thanks to my friends who gave me great support and kindness with the interesting and valuable materials. Finally, I am deeply indebted my parents for their great encouragement and support during my study at Hanoi Open University.
Nguyen Thi Hien ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii THE EFFECTS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CULTURE ON TRANSLATION PROCESS.1 PART A: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study .5 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THERIOTICAL BACKGROUND.
Overview of translation studies. The concepts of translation. Overview of culture *****. Overview of Vietnamese culture.
Overview of Western culture. The relation between culture and language. The role of culture in translating foreign language. Overview of cross-culture.
Researches so far. Summary of chapter: .21 CHAPTER II: METHODS AND PROCEDURE. Aims of the research. Method of research.
Methods and Technique of Collecting and Analyzing Data. Summary of chapter .24 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Some cultural differences between English and Vietnam. The cultural background of Vietnam.
The cultural background of English. The differences between English culture and Vietnamese culture. Effects of culture on translation process. The effects of culture on translation at word level.
The effects of culture on translation at phrase level. Conclusion of chapter.51 CHAPTER IV: SOME TYPICAL EXAMPLES UNDER CULTURE’S VIEW. Obama’s inauguration speech. Blast snatches breadwinner from family.
G-20 Leaders Tighten Grip on Banks. My Bubble Burst Again. Localities prevail state regulation. Bush Administration Urges Congress to Back Trade Ties With Vietnam.
Theory of translation- Cultural Untranslatability. Limitations of the study. Suggestion for further study.66 iv THE EFFECTS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CULTURE ON TRANSLATION PROCESS PART A: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 1. Rationale of the study First of all, I would like to tell a story relating to the reason why I choose this title to research in my graduation paper.
In a letter to her Vietnamese boyfriend, an oversea student wrote: “He is a real John Bull” to tell about her boss. However, the boy doesn’t think so, he thinks that the girl has had new boyfriend named John Bull so he doesn’t reply the girl’s letter. Days passed by, they separated in the doubt of the girl. Evidently, the girl said that saying because she knows English culture very well, “He is a real John Bull” means “He is a real English gentleman”, but the boy didn’t know that, he insisted that the girl was appraising a man, John Bull.
In this case, no one can be blamed for; it’s just because of cultural differences. Based on the above example it is obvious that culture is very important, if translators do not understand deeply the cultural differences between two nations, they will easily get confused and misunderstanding while translating. In Vietnam, there has been a growing concern about the quality of translations. Some have been called by prestigious translators as “disaster of the translation art”.
Indeed, the practice of translation is not only a craft, but also a science and an art, which needs to be constantly improved with a view to bringing the Vietnamese mass culture to a new height. Particularly, English is the language of billions of documents available in all fields, academic or popular. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that many scholars and lecturers of translation at universities have spared no efforts to work on the frequently seen types of mistakes in translation as well as techniques translators may employ to avoid them. They devote their lives to find out and resolve common pitfalls that make a translation unnatural and sometimes even incomprehensible.
1 At present time, in the information technology era and global economic integration, English has been considered a bridge to link the countries all over the world. Consequently, communication in English is indispensable demand of human beings. However, it is very difficult for learners to apply English fluently in real communication with foreigners, especially for the learners who have the different culture with the one of the language they are studying, like Vietnamese culture. Most of the English learners pay attention only to the development of the language skills but not to the culture of the language they are studying.
That is the main reason I choose this topic to do my graduation research, “The effects of English and Vietnamese culture on translation and students’ mistakes when learning translation”. I hope that this paper, to some extent, will help English learners understand more and pay more attention to the culture in the translation process. Once the English learners understand clearly and profoundly the source- language as well as the target-language cultures, they will know how to deal with some difficult situations, find out some mistakes and choose the best translation in their learning process. Aims of the study As a matter of fact, each language fills with its invisible cultural background that we hardly take notice of it in translation.
In the translation process, many misunderstandings as well as some difficulties are caused by differences of language. This gives rise to confusion for the interlocutors. However, it is just the differences of culture which can be considered the greatest barrier. Our society is getting developed day by day; the needs of translation also become more and more complicated.
People gradually realize that studying of translation and cross-cultural translation is very necessary for everyone. Therefore, the objective in my study is to help the English learners know and understand more profoundly about the importance of culture in study English as a foreign language. Research question Consequently, one main question will be investigated: What are the effects of English and Vietnamese culture to the translation process? 4. Scope of the study Language and culture in translation activities are very wide fields that require a lot of time to study.
Because of the limitation of time, my graduation paper cannot cover all the aspects of this issue. Therefore, the writer focuses on researching the culture, translation and cross-cultural translation focusing on the differences between two culture and find out some students’ mistake when learning translation to choose the best ones. Methods of the study This study mainly based on scientific theories about culture and translation, I have to collect materials and find the most suitable ones to systematize as well as analyze them. The main methods of the study are: Firstly, descriptive method is used to describe and make a general overview of culture and translation.
Secondly, statistic method is used to gather information about culture and translation, apart from that giving the study point of view of this thesis. Also, survey method is used as a technique of gathering data from students by their own translation some sentences to find out mistakes and how to improve it. Thirdly, contrastive method is used to figure out the differences between English and Vietnamese culture to give their effects to the translation. Design of the study To gain the above aims and the logical systematical paper, my graduation paper is divided into three parts and a reference: The first part introduces the rationales, the aims, the scopes, the methods and the design of the study The second part includes four chapters as follow: Chapter 1 Literature Review which gives general theory relating to the research 3 maters: overview of translation, translation methods, language, culture, cross culture.
Chapter 2 Methodology and Procedures includes an overview of data as well as the methodology that were used in analyzing the effects of culture on translation base on some typical culture view. Chapter 3 Finding and discussion: Some cultural differences between English and Vietnam and the effects of culture on translation Chapter 4 some typical examples under culture’s view The third part is the conclusion, which gives the summary of the whole study and gives some suggestions for further study. 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THERIOTICAL BACKGROUND 1. Overview of translation studies 1.
The concepts of translation Translation is the transmittal of written text from one language into another one. Although the terms translation and interpretation are often used interchangeably, by strict definition, translation refers to the written language, and interpretation to the spoken word. Translation is the action of interpretation of the meaning of a text, and subsequent production of an equivalent text, also called a translation, that communicates the same message in another language. The text to be translated is called the source text, and the language it is to be translated into is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called the "target text." The purpose of translation is the establishment a relation of equivalence of content between the source and target texts, i.e to ensure that both texts have the same message, while taking into account a number of constraints including context, languages’ grammar, conventions, idioms, styles….
“Translation Studies” (Hoang Van Van, 2000, p.5) quoted some definitions of translation as follows: “Translation consists of producing in the target language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, firstly with respect to meaning and secondly with respect to style”. According to Cartford (1965) “Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language)”. “Translation as the process of conveying message across linguistic and cultural barrier is an eminently communicative activity, one whose use could well be considered in a wider range of teaching situations than may currently be the case” (Tudor, cited in Duff, 1989). 5 “Translating is the transformation of a text originally in one language into an equivalent text in different language retaining as far as possible the content of the message, and the formal features and the roles of the original text” (Bell, 1991, p.
The above mentioned definitions indicate that a translation must maintain the ideas and the style of the original. It should be read as a contemporary of the original and it may add or omit from the original. We have seen that even within a single language there are a great variety of ways in which form expresses meaning. Only when a form is being used in its primary meaning or function is there a one-to-one correlation between form and meaning.
The other meanings are secondary meanings or figurative meanings. Words have these extended meanings and in the same way grammatical forms have extended usages. Each language has its own distinctive forms for representing the meaning. Therefore, in translation, the same meaning may have to be expressed in another language by very different forms.
To translate the form of one language literally according to the corresponding form in another language would often change the meaning, or at least result in a form which is unnatural in the second language. Meaning must, therefore, have priority over form in translation. It is meaning that is to be carried over from the source language to the receptor language, not the linguistic forms.