TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG CÁCH DỊCH các từ có yếu tổ văn hóa TRONG CUỐN SÁCH “WANDERING THROUGH VIETNAMESE CULTURE” của hữu NGỌC)

College of Foreign Languages (VHUN)
Postgraduate Studies

BẠCH ÁNH HỒNG
EQUIVALENCE IN THE TRANSLATION OF
VIETNAMESE CULTURAL WORDS IN THE BOOK
“WANDERING THROUGH VIETNAMESE CULTURE”
BY HUU NGOC
(TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG CÁCH DỊCH CÁC TỪ CÓ YẾU TỔ
VĂN HÓA TRONG CUỐN SÁCH “WANDERING THROUGH
VIETNAMESE CULTURE” CỦA HỮU NGỌC)
Field: English Linguistics
Code: 602215
Course: K13
M.A. Minor Thesis
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lê Hùng Tiến
- Hanoi, July 2007 -
Abstract
This paper is a linguistic study on equivalences and the translation methods rendered to
achieve the equivalent effects in a book written by the writer and translator, Huu Ngoc.
More specifically, the chosen subject of investigation is the translation of Vietnamese
cultural words in the book “Wandering through Vietnamese culture”. The reasons for this
choice are both linguistic and practical.
Linguistically, the translation of culture-related words has never been seen as an easy task,
especially between such two distant cultures as Vietnam and English. The challenges may
originate from cultural differences, the cultural knowledge of the translator etc. However,
the hardest problems may be attached to non- equivalence which consists of the concepts
unknown to target language readers, the non-lexicalization of the concepts, the lack of
super ordinates of hyponyms etc. The main contribution of this paper is to draw out the
main ways of dealing with the hurdles by investigating how an experienced translator and a
famous Vietnamese cultural expert overcome the difficulty in his book.

Practically, I hope that the lessons drawn from the study of his work could effectively
assist me in my practical job at my university, where a Vietnamese Studies Department is
to be opened with an aim to train new generation of youngsters who will narrow down the
culture gaps between Vietnam and other countries.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On the completion of this thesis, I am indebted to many people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Le Hung Tien for his valuable and prompt advice and helps, without which, this
thesis could not come into being.
My thanks also go to all my lecturers and officers from Post Graduate Department,
College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, who have facilitated me with
the best possible conditions during my whole course of studying.
Last but not least, let my gratitude go to my family and friends, whose encouragement and
assistance are of extreme importance during the course of my writing this thesis.
Hanoi, July 2007
Bach Anh Hong
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4
PART A: INTRODUCTION 5
1. Rationale 5
2. Scope of the study 5
3. Aims of the study 6
4. Methodology 6
5. Design of the study 7
Chapter 1: Theoretical background 8
1.1. Translation theory 8
1.1.1. Definition of translation 8
1.1.2. Translation equivalence 8
1.1.2.1. The nature of equivalence in translation 9
1.1.2.2. Types of equivalence in translation 9

1.1.3. Common problems of non-equivalence 11
1.2. Notion of culture in translation 13
1.3. Cultural categories 14
1.4. Translation methods 15
1.5. Conclusion 17
Chapter 2: Vietnamese cultural words and their equivalences 18
2.1. The most common types of cultural words 18
2.2. The most common types of equivalence 18
2.2.1. Nil equivalence: 20
2.2.2 Other types of equivalence 28
2.2.2.1 One-to-part-of one equivalence 28
2.2.2.3 One-to-one equivalence 34
PART C: CONCLUSION 36
REFERENCES 41
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Translating from one language into another has never been an easy job even for the most
experienced translators. Translation, involving the transposition of thoughts expressed in
one language by one social group into the appropriate expression of another group, entails
a process of cultural de-coding, re-coding and en-coding. However, the process of
transmitting cultural elements is a complicated and vital task. Culture is a complex
collection of experiences which condition daily life; it includes history, social structure,
religion, traditional customs and everyday usage. This is difficult to comprehend
completely. The more disparities that exist between any two languages, the greater the
meaning loss in the translation is. As hard as it may seem, the translation of Vietnamese
cultural words is now an inevitable part in our integrating life since we have become a
member of WTO. Thang Long University is one of those where the Department of
Vietnam Study is going to be opened with an aims of training Vietnamese students into
those who can introduce Vietnamese culture to the world. This sooner or later will pose
teachers of English at Thang Long University a problem of matching cultural equivalence

between English and Vietnamese. However, not many empirical studies have been
conducted so far on the issue of translation of Vietnamese cultural words into English.
Those reasons may explain how this study came into being. The study investigates how a
very famous and experienced translator, Huu Ngoc, dealt with all the Vietnamese cultural
words his whole-hearted work “Wandering through Vietnamese culture”. It also raised the
need for translators of Vietnamese-English texts, especially in treating cultural terms, to
pay close attention to the linguistic and cultural elements of the source texts.
2. Scope of the study
This study sets its boundary in studying cultural words in the book “Wandering through
Vietnamese culture” by Huu Ngoc. It will look into the equivalence and non-equivalence
of Vietnamese cultural words and their translations from the following points:
• the most common types of equivalence
• the possible reasons for the non-equivalence
• their translations
3. Aims of the study
The main aims of the study are:
• To find out the most common type of equivalence used in his translation of
Vietnamese cultural words
• To draw out the common problems of equivalence seen in the translation of
Vietnamese cultural words into English
• To draw out the strategies and procedures that may apply to the translation of
Vietnamese cultural words
• To suggest some implications for the translation of the cultural words.
On this ground, the study seeks answer for the retailing research questions:
• What are the common types of equivalence used in the translation of cultural
words in the book “Wandering through Vietnamese culture” by Huu Ngoc?
• What are the most common problems in translating Vietnamese cultural words
into English that can be seen in the book?
• What are the common methods used in the translation of Vietnamese cultural
words?

4. Methodology
With the hope to go on the right track for the answers, the writer will conduct the study in
following steps:
• Building up a theoretical background for the paper.
• Collecting and group the Vietnamese cultural words and their English
equivalents for description, analysis, comparison and induction.
• Finding out the similarities and differences and draw out the translation used in
the translation of cultural words.
• The main method is contrastive analysis.
• Data collection: The Vietnamese cultural words and their translations appear in
the book “Wandering through Vietnamese culture” by Huu Ngoc.
5. Design of the study
This study consists of three main parts, a reference, and a number of appendixes.
Part A: Introduction
The introduction gives rationale for the study. It also outlines the aims and the
methods of the study.
Part B: Development
The development comprises two chapters.
Chapter 1, which is named “Theoretical background”, provides the theory of
translation and the translation of cultural words.
Chapter 2 entitled “Cultural words and their equivalences” discusses the most
common types of equivalence in translation of Vietnamese cultural words.
It also studies the translation of Vietnamese cultural words and translation
methods employed in their translation by Huu Ngoc in his book
“Wandering though Vietnamese culture”.
Part C, which is the “Conclusion”, summaries the strategies and procedures and
comments.
Reference includes all the books, articles or website that has been referred to during the
writing of this thesis.
The appendixes list examples of different groups of equivalence in order of the alphabet.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
1.1. Translation theory
1.1.1. Definition of translation
Translation has been viewed differently through times and thus defined variously. Larson
(1984: 3) stated “Translation is basically a change of form… In translation the form of the
source language is replaced by the form of the receptor (target) language”. Newmark
(1988:5) did not seem to totally agree with Larson - who considered translation a basic
“change of form”, by emphasizing the “intended in the text” as said “ Translation is
rendering a written text into another language in the way the author intended in the text.”
Hatim & Mason (1990:3), on the other hand, focused more on the communicative purpose
of translation by citing: “Translation is a communicative process which takes place within
a social context”. It is then followed by other linguists, Bell (1991: 5), who thought
“semantic and stylistic equivalences” are crucial for a translation to communicate
successfully: “Translation is the expression in another language (or TL) of what has been
expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences”
These definitions, in spite of slight differences in the expressions, share common features
that they all emphasize the importance of finding the closest equivalence in meaning by the
choice of appropriate target language’s lexical and grammatical structures, communication
situation, and cultural and the requirement to find equivalents which have similar
characteristics to the original. It is this notion of equivalence, which will be taken into
consideration in the next part.
1.1.2. Translation equivalence
As easily seen, equivalence can be considered a central concept in translation theory.
Therefore, it is not by chance that many theorists define translation in terms of equivalence
relation. Newmark (1988) defines: “The overriding purpose of any translation should be to
achieve ‘equivalence effect’ i.e. to produce the same effect on the readership of translation
as was obtained on the readership of the original”. He also sees equivalence effect as the
desirable result rather than the aim of any translation except for two cases: (a) If the
purpose of the SL text is to affect and the TL translation is to inform or vice versa; (b) If

there is a pronounced cultural gap between the SL and the TL text.
Pym(1992) has even pointed to its circularity: equivalence is supposed to define
translation, in turn, defines equivalence.
1.1.2.1. The nature of equivalence in translation
Equivalence has been considered the unique intertextual relation that only translations are
expected to show: it is defined as the relationship between a source text and a target text
that allows the TT to be considered as a translation of the ST in the first place. Nearly all
traditional definitions of translation, whether formal or informal, appeal to some notion of
this: translation means the replacement, or substitution, of an utterance in one language by
a formally or semantically or pragmatically equivalent utterance in another language.
Therefore, it is no surprise that equivalence is always taken for granted as a prescriptive
criterion, as Koller (1995:196) says:
“Translation can be understood as the result of a text-reprocessing activity, by means of
which a source-language text is transposed into a target-language text. Between the
resulting text in L2 (the target-language text) and the source text in L1 (the source-
language text) there exists a relationship which can be designated as a translational, or
equivalence relation.”
Then the question to be asked is not whether the two texts are equivalent, but what type
and degree of translation equivalence they reveal. Therefore, it is possible to say that
equivalence is “Any relation characterizing translation under a specified set of
circumstances.” And “Equivalence was a relationship between two texts in two languages,
rather than between the languages themselves” (Dr. Tien’s lectures- 2007).
1.1.2.2. Types of equivalence in translation
Translation theorists tend to classify equivalence in accordance with different criteria and
approach. Some out standings are quantitative, meaning based, form-based and function
based.
a. Quantitative approach:
Munday (2001) seems to stick to numeracy and suggests:
• One-to-one equivalence: A single expression in TL is equivalent to a single
expression in SL.

• One-to-many equivalence: More than one TL expressions are equivalent to a
single SL expression.
• Many- to-one equivalence: there is more than one expression in the source
language but there is a single expression in target language which is
equivalence to them.
• One-to-part-of-one equivalence: A TL expression covers part of a concept
designated by a single SL expression.
• Nil equivalence: no TL expression is equivalent to a single SL expression ->
loaned/borrowed equivalents should be used.
b. Meaning-based equivalence
Koller (1979) considers five types of equivalence:
• Denotative equivalence: the SL and the TL words refer to the same thing in the
real world.
• Connotative equivalence: this type of equivalence provides additional values
besides denotative value and is achieved by the translator’s choice of
synonymous words or expressions.
• Text-normative equivalence: The SL and the TL words are used in the same or
similar context in their respective languages.
• Pragmatic equivalence: With readership orientation, the SL and TL words have
the same effect on their respective readers.
• Formal equivalence: This type of equivalence produces an analogy of form in
the translation by their exploiting formal possibilities of TL, or creating new
forms in TL.
c. Form-based equivalence:
An extremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker
(1992) who seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of
equivalence can be defined. She distinguishes between:
• Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, when
translating from one language into another. This means that the translator
should pay attention to a number of factors when considering a single word,

such as number, gender and tense (1992:11-12).
• Textual equivalence, when referring to the equivalence between a SL text and a
TL text in terms of information and cohesion. It is up to the translator to decide
whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties as well as the coherence of the SL
text. His or her decision will be guided by three main factors, that is, the target
audience, the purpose of the translation and the text type.
d. Function-based equivalence:
Nida (1964) distinguishes formal equivalence and dynamic translation as basic orientations
rather than as a binary choice:
• Formal equivalence is achieved when the SL and TL words have the closest
possible match of form and content.
• Dynamic equivalence is achieved when the SL and TL words have the same
effect on their effective readers.
1.1.3. Common problems of non-equivalence
As we all share the view that equivalence is the vital part of translation, we may easily
agree that the problem of non-equivalence is the hardest hurdles of translation. Many
theorists has showed their concerns in the issue of “untranslatability”. The following are
some common types of non-equivalence at word level suggested by Barker (1994: 72):
a. Culture-specific concepts
The source-language word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target
culture. The concept in question may be abstract or concrete; it may relate to a religious
belief, a social custom, or even a type of food.
b. The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language
The source-language word may express a concept which is known in the target culture but
simply not lexicalized, that is not ‘allocated’ a target-language word to express it.
c. The source-language word is semantically complex
The source-language word may be semantically complex. This is a fairly common problem
in translation. Words do not have to be morphologically complex to be semantically
complex (Bolinger and Sears, 1968). In other words, a single word which consists of a
single morpheme can sometimes express a more complex set of meanings than a whole

sentence.
d. The source and target languages make different distinctions in meaning
The target language may make more or fewer distinctions in meaning than the source
language. What one language regards as an important distinction in meaning another
language may not perceive as relevant.
e. The target language lacks a superordinate
The target language may have specific words (hyponyms) but no general word
(superordinate) to head the semantic field. Russian has no ready equivalent for facilities,
meaning ‘any equipment, building, services, etc. that are provided for a particular activity
or purpose’
f. The target language lacks a specific term (hyponym)
More commonly, languages tend to have general words (superordinates) but lack specific
ones (hyponyms), since each language makes only those distinctions in meaning which
seem relevant to its particular environment.
g. Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective
Physical perspective may be of more importance in one language than it is in another.
Perspective may also include the relationship between participants in the discourse (tenor).
h. Differences in expressive meaning
There may be a target-language word which has the same propositional meaning as the
source-language word, but it may have a different expressive meaning.
i. Differences in form
There is often no equivalent in the target language for a particular form in the source text.
Certain suffixes and prefixes which convey propositional and other types of meaning in
English often have no direct equivalents in other languages.
j. Differences in frequency and purpose using specific forms
Even when a particular form does have a ready equivalent in the target language, there may
be a difference in the frequency with which it is used or the purpose for which it is used.
k. The use of loan words in the source text
The use of loan words in the source text poses a special problem in translation. Quite apart
form their respective propositional meaning, loan words such as au fait, chic, and alfresco

in English are often used for their prestige value, because they can add an air of
sophistication to the text or its subject matter.
1.2. Notion of culture in translation
The definition of "culture" as given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1999) varies from
descriptions of the "Arts" to plant and bacteria cultivation and includes a wide range of
intermediary aspects. More specifically concerned with language and translation,
Newmark (1988:94) defines culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are
peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression", thus
acknowledging that each language group has its own culturally specific features. He
further clearly states that operationally he does "not regard language as a component or
feature of culture" (Newmark 1988:95) in direct opposition to the view taken by Vermeer
who states that "language is part of a culture" (1989:222). According to Newmark,
Vermeer's stance would imply the impossibility to translate whereas for the latter,
translating the source language (SL) into a suitable form of TL is part of the translator's
role in transcultural communication.
Despite the differences in opinion as to whether language is part of culture or not, the two
notions appear to be inseparable. Discussing the problems of correspondence in translation,
Nida (1964:130) confers equal importance to both linguistic and cultural differences
between the SL and the TL and concludes that "differences between cultures may cause
more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure". It
is further explained that parallels in culture often provide a common understanding despite
significant formal shifts in the translation. The cultural implications for translation are thus
of significant importance as well as lexical concerns.
Lotman (1978:211-32) states that "no language can exist unless it is steeped in the context
of culture; and no culture can exist which does not have at its centre, the structure of
natural language". Bassnett (1980:13-14) underlines the importance of this double
consideration when translating by stating that language is "the heart within the body of
culture," the survival of both aspects being interdependent. Linguistic notions of
transferring meaning are seen as being only part of the translation process; "a whole set of
extra-linguistic criteria" must also be considered. As Bassnett further points out, "the

translator must tackle the SL text in such a way that the TL version will correspond to the
SL version To attempt to impose the value system of the SL culture onto the TL culture
is dangerous ground" (Bassnett, 1980:23). Thus, when translating, it is important to
consider not only the lexical impact on the TL reader, but also the manner in which
cultural aspects may be perceived and make translating decisions accordingly.
1.3. Cultural categories
Adapting Nida, Newmark (1988:95-102) places "foreign cultural words" in several
categories as follows:
(1) Ecology
Animals, plants, local winds, mountains, plains, ice, etc.
(2) Material culture (artifacts)
Food, clothes, housing, transport and communications
(3) Social culture – work and leisure
(4) Organizations, customs, ideas – Political, social, legal, religious, artistic
(5) Gestures and habits (often described in ‘non-verbal’ language)
1.4. Translation methods
Language and culture may thus be seen as being closely related and both aspects must be
considered for translation. When considering the translation of cultural words and notions,
Newmark proposes two opposing methods: transference and componential analysis
(Newmark, 1988:96). As Newmark mentions, transference gives "local colour," keeping
cultural names and concepts. Although placing the emphasis on culture, meaningful to
initiated readers, he claims this method may cause problems for the general readership and
limit the comprehension of certain aspects. The importance of the translation process in
communication leads Newmark to propose componential analysis which he describes as
being "the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights
the message" (Newmark, 1988:96). This may be compared to the scale proposed by
Hervey et al, visualised as follows:
(Hervey et al, 1992:28)
Nida's definitions (1964:129) of formal and dynamic equivalence may also be seen to
apply when considering cultural implications for translation. According to Nida, a "gloss

translation" mostly typifies formal equivalence where form and content are reproduced as
faithfully as possible and the TL reader is able to "understand as much as he can of the
customs, manner of thought, and means of expression" of the SL context. Contrasting with
this idea, dynamic equivalence "tries to relate the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant
within the context of his own culture" without insisting that he "understand the cultural
patterns of the source-language context". All in all, it can be easily seen that the above
approaches are not very much different from what Venuti (1995:20) named “source
language oriented and target language-oriented” translation approach, which may share
some similarities with Newmark’s ( 1988: 145) methods of translation as follows:
SL emphasis TL emphasis
Word – for - word translation Adaptation
Literal translation Free translation
Faithful translation Idiomatic translation
Semantic translation Communicative translation
Word-for-word translation
This method focuses on SL word order in which words are translated by most common
meaning and out of context. Therefore, the results of this method are that the translation is
read like original text.
Literal translation
The SL text, concretely its grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest
equivalents. In this method, words are translated single and out of text.
Faithful translation
Where the translator reproduces precise contextual meaning. Here, cultural words are not
translated.
Semantic translation
More account is taken on aesthetic value of the SL text and some small concessions are
made to the readers. As a result, the translation is more flexible and less dogmatic than the
application of other methods in the group
Communicative translation
This method attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that

obtained on the readers of the original.
However, according to Peter Newmark (1988), there are only two methods of translation
that are appropriate to any texts. They are as follows.
1) Communicative translation
In this method, translators try to produce the same effect on the TL readers as the
original does on the SL readers
2) Semantic translation
Translators attempt to reproduce the exact contextual meaning of the author with
the constraints of the TL grammatical structures.
Adaptation
This is the ‘freest’ form of translation. It is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry;
the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture converted to the TL
culture and the text rewritten. The deplorable practice of having a play or poem literally
translated and then rewritten by an established dramatist or poet has produced many poor
adaptations have ‘rescued’ period plays.
Free translation
Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form
of the original. Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called
‘intralingual translation’, often prolix and pretentious, and not translation at all.
Idiomatic translation
Idiomatic translation reproduces the ‘message’ of the original but tends to distort nuances
of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the
original. (Authorities as diverse as Seleskovitch and Stuart Gilbert tend to this form of
likely, ‘natural’ translation.)
1.5. Conclusion
This part of study has just examined general translation theories. It also takes a close look
on the significance of culture and the translation of cultural words. Furthermore, a variety
of different approaches have been examined in an attempt to shed light on Huu Ngoc
translation of cultural words in the next chapter.
Chapter 2: Vietnamese cultural words and their equivalences

2.1. The most common types of cultural words
In his classification of culture words, Newmark (1998) concluded five major categories of
culture words including ecology, material culture (artifacts), social culture – work and
leisure, organisations, customs, ideas and gestures and habits.
In Huu Ngoc’s book, the frequency of material culture, and to be more specific, food is the
highest as compared to other types. The ratio among them can be illustrated in the chart as
follows:
Culture-related words Quantity Rate (%)
Food and drinks 135 45.9%
Others 160 54.1%
2.2. The most common types of equivalence
As mentioned above, there are many approaches to the classification of equivalence in
translation. This thesis adopts Munday (2001)’s perspective of quantitative equivalence
which is consisted of one-to-one equivalence, many- to- one equivalence, one-to-part-of-
one equivalence and nil equivalence. We can hardly find the case of one-to- many
equivalence. Therefore, this kind of equivalence is not taken into consideration.
The writer of the thesis has listed almost all the cultural words occurred in his book and put
them into the order of the most common types of equivalence to the least common one.
The data can be easily find in the table below:
Type of equivalence Quantity Rate (%) Examples
Nil 194 66 Nước vối: “voi tea”
One-to-part-of-one 39
13
Cá kho: fish cooked
with sauce
One-to-one 43
14.6
Miếng trầu: a betel
chew
Many-to-one 19 6.4 Đền, miếu, phủ: temple

Total 295
2.2.1. Nil equivalence:
Looking into the translation of “Wandering through Vietnamese culture”, one can easily
see on the chart above that nil-equivalence makes up the largest part, consisting 66%.
Clearly, This is not a surprise to any translator who have ever stepped into the translation
land of culture related words. There are some explanations for this biggest share.
The possible explanation is the availability. Normally, with exactly the same meaning, no
one can say for sure that two cultures could choose to express it the same way. For
example, , Vietnamese people would prefer using the buffalo in many idioms “Ngưu tầm
ngưu, mã tầm mã” but the English would like to use “bird” as in “Birds of the same
feather flocks together”. One other example may be “hiền như củ khoai”, “hiền như bụt”
or “hiền như cục đất” for Vietnamese people but their English counter part would like to
say “as mild as a lamb” (hiền như một chú cừu non). That is the case when two cultures
express the same meaning. As a consequence, one can easily guess what the situation will
be like when there are abundant of things in Source Language (SL) culture but there is no
such things Target Language (TL) culture.
The first problem occurs when the Vietnamese word may express a concept which is
totally unknown in the target language culture. To be more exact, those words often link to
food and many kinds of tropical herbs and plants. For instances:
Tía tô Hoa đơn Cải cúc
Hẹ Hoa thị Mùi hoặc Ngổ
Húng Hoa mộc Lá khúc
Ngổ Hoa thiên lý Diếp cá
Lá chanh Hoa ngâu Gạo tẻ, gạo nếp
The explanation to this situation may be the climate differences. Vietnamese climate is hot
and humid which is home to many tropical kinds of plants while the English climate is cold
and dry, which may be suitable to totally different kinds of plants. Therefore, it can be
easily understood while there are a lot of tropical plant culture-related words in his book
which may not be known to English readers.
This may also be the reason for the second group of non-equivalence which is dishes.

Different kinds of vegetables / herbs may lead to different ways of cooking, which leads to
the existence of exotic Vietnamese dishes to Englishman. For examples:
Xôi gấc Thịt kho tàu Cua đồng nấu thiên lý
Xôi vò Gà tần thuốc bắc Miến lươn
Xôi đỗ Chả lươn Giả cày
Living on land, Vietnamese (and Chinese) peasants also have their own festivals, customs
or ceremonies relating to land, rice or grains, trees with special attention paid to the
weather, especially rain. For instances:
Lễ cầu đảo (cầu mưa) Lập Xuân Tết Đoan Ngọ (diệt sâu bọ)
Tết Hàn Thực Cốc Vũ Dựng cây nêu ngày tết
Tết Trung Thu Tết Ông Công Ông Táo Đi hái lộc
Additionally, the traditional games and entertainments of the Vietnamese are also various:
Trồng Nụ, Trồng Hoa Ô ăn quan Đánh thẻ
Múa khèn Múa sư tử Múa chiêng
Those mentioned categories are like only the tip of the Vietnamese culture iceberg which
can be roughly listed as illustrations for the diversity of the source language culture.
Clearly, this poses a huge challenge to the translator and the writer.
So that will happen if the translator has to face with the translation of culture-related
concepts? Looking into the translation of those nil-equivalents words, one can clearly see
that the first common translation tool that is fully made use of is borrowings.
First of all, looking at the group of typically tropical plants and vegetables, Huu Ngoc uses
the third language, that is, Latin as a medium for translation. He tends to use the scientific
terms of the plants to translate the Vietnamese words. For instances:
Cây sấu : dracontomelum duppereanum Pierre
Gạo tẻ : Oryza sativa Lin var dura
Gạo nếp : Oryzasativa Lin glutinosa
Hoa sói : Eugenia
Hoa ngâu : Algaria
Hoa đơn, hoa mộc : Apotasis
Hoa thiên lý : pergularia odoratissimasm

However, it can hardly be denied that Latin-original words can make the text difficult to
understand because not all common English readers can know all the Latin words or have
an available dictionary of plants and vegetables to check all the words up when necessary.
One more thing is that a common reader may find it uninteresting to read a culture books
with full of Latin original words. Huu Ngoc seems to understand this fact when he
accompanying each Latin word with the specific description or use of each type. For
instance:
Cà cuống: lethocerus indicus belostomalidae, an insect the size of cicada which gives an
aromatic meat and essence
Back translation: Cà cuống: lethocerus indicus belostomalidae, một loài côn trùng cỡ như
con ve, thịt và tinh dầu làm gia vị (my translation-Bach Anh Hong (BAH))
Quả thị: The fruit of the cây thị is found in countries with warm climates and grows fleshy,
light yellow, aromatic fruits the size of oranges. Its scientific name is diospyros decandra
lour and it belongs to the ebancea family, whose generic name in Vietnmamese is hồng
(khaki). (p288)
Back translation:
Quả thị: Quả của cây thị, thường có ở các nước có khí hậu ấm áp, thịt mọng, màu vàng
nhạt, là loại quả tỏa mùi hương có cỡ bằng quả cam. Tên khoa học là diospyros decandra
lour, thuộc họ ebancea có tên Việt Nam thường gọi là hồng.
After translating the word with the Latin-original equivalence, together with some
description, the Vietnamese word is then used as a common English word. That is, the
author of the book has loaned the original words as the equivalence like in:
Ornamental flowers are orchids, camellias, chrysanthemums, sói, mộc, dahlia, peony…(p
291)
Many Vietnamese words have been rendered in the translation effectively. In those cases,
there is no other language that has such words to be used as the third medium:
Nước vối : “voi tea”
Chuối tiêu : bananas of the kind called “tieu”
Múa khèn : khen dance
Múa Hát : Hat dance

Lúa chiêm : rice of the Chăm
The second effective tool is communicative methods or to be more specifically, the free
translation or paraphrasing. However, not all the words are paraphrased in the same way.
With dish-related group, each word is translated by the description of how the dish is
cooked:
Source Language Target Language Back Translation
Bánh cuốn steamed rice roll Cuốn gạo hấp
Nem chua minced and fermented pork Thịt lợn xay rồi để lên men
Giò boiled pork paste Thịt lợn xay luộc
Chả sautéed pork paste Thịt lợn xay rán
But the biggest group is translated by the detailed description of how the food is cooked
plus its ingredients:
Source Language Target Language Back Translation
Bún chả grilled pork eaten with
vermicelli
Thịt lợn nướng ăn kèm bún
Phở sốt vang
rice noodles severed with
beef stewed and flavored
with wine
Phở ăn với thịt bò hầm rượu
vang
Lươn om củ chuối
eel cooked over a slow fire
with pieces of banana
rhizome
Lươn nấu trên lửa nhỏ với
những miếng củ chuối.
In many other cases, the purpose of the things is used for paraphrasing:
Source Language Target Language Back Translation

Thuốc lào home – grown tobacco for
the water bubble pipe
Thuốc lá nhà tự trồng dùng
cho ống điếu nước
Giấy bản absorbent paper to write
ideograms on with a brush
pen
Giấy thấm mực dùng để viết
chữ tượng hình bằng chổi
lông
Giấy lệnh paper for the royal
ordinances
Giấy dùng để viết các lệnh
của nhà vua
With the culture word relating to festivals, customs or ceremony, the author describe in
detail how the process is preceded as the translation:
Hái lộc: people pick a twig from a tree growing on the pagoda’s grounds which they
believe will bring them prosperity
Back translation:
Hái lộc: mọi người bẻ một nhánh từ cây trồng trong sân chùa với niền tin rằng nhánh cây
sẽ đem lại sự thịnh vượng cho họ
Đoan Ngọ: an occasion to “kill insects” on a person’s system by eating and drinking,
right at the drawn, anything which is better or sour : glutinous rice alcohol, green
fruits (peach, plum, mango, star fruit…) and other foods like the watermelons,
coconut milks …
Back translation:
Đoan Ngọ: một dịp để “diệt côn trùng” trong cơ thể người bằng cách ăn và uống, ngay
vào lúc sáng sớm, bất cứ thứ gì ngon hoặc chua: rượu nếp, hoa quả còn xanh (đào,
mận, xòai, khế…) và các thức khác như dưa hấu, nước dừa…
The shape and appearance of things also proves its use when being rendered in translation:

Source Language Target Language Back Translation
Nhà sàn house on stilts Nhà trên các trụ
Bánh dẻo moon shaped cake Bánh giống hình mặt trăng
Bánh chưng square cake Bánh vuông
Literal translation is ultilized in many cases to deal with the culture-words that are totally
dissimilar to the target language readers. Some illustrations are:
Source Language Target Language Back Translation
Hoa đá literally, rock flower =
coral
Nghĩa đen, hoa đá = san hô
Hoa tai literally, flower of the ear =
pendant
Nghĩa đen, hoa của tai =
khuyên tai
Mặt hoa literally, blossoming face –
lovely face of a woman
Nghĩa đen, mặt như hoa nở-
khuôn mặt đáng yêu của
phụ nữ
Số đào hoa literally, born under the
star of a peach flower = to
be chased after by women
Nghĩa đen, được sinh ra
dưới ngôi sao hoa đào =
thường bị những người phụ
nữ đẹp theo đuổi
The final way of paraphrasing that Huu Ngoc used is to explain in detail the difficult to
understand part of the word to the commonly understandable ones. For instances, “lúa
chiêm” and “lúa mùa” or “ông đầu rau” are often heard but many Vietnamese youngsters
do not understand exactly the meaning of the words. When reading the translations, the

Vietnamese young readers could understand the words more, and hopefully they can do the
same to English readers. Followings are some common cases:
Source Language Target Language Back Translation
Lúa chiêm Summer rice Lúa mùa hè