The comparison of two vietnamese translated versions of the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
---------------

THE COMPARISON OF
TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSIONS OF
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
BY OSCAR WILDE
Submitted to the
Faculty of English Language
in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in English Language

Course code: 60220201
By

TRAN QUYNH NHU
Supervised by

HUYNH VAN TAI, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2020


The thesis entitled THE COMPARISON OF TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED
VERSIONS OF THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE was
successfully defended and approved on ………….…………. at Ho Chi Minh City
University of Technology (HUTECH).

Academic supervisor

…………………………

HUYNH VAN TAI, Ph.D.

Examination Committee
1. ……………………………………………………….

Chair

2. ……………………………………………. …………

Reader 1

3. ……………………………………………………….

Reader 2

4. ……………………………………………………….

Member

5. ……………………………………………………….

Secretary Member

On behalf of the Examination Committee
Chair

(Full name, title, signature)

ii

HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE
HCMC, 30/04/2020
MASTER’S THESIS REPORT
Student name: TRAN QUYNH NHU

Sex: Female

Date of birth: 05/06/1987

Place of birth: Ho Chi Minh City

Major:

Student code: 1841900004

English Language

I- Thesis title:
THE COMPARISON OF TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSIONS OF
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE
II- Objectives and contents:
The research aims at comparing the two translated versions, by Thien Luong and
Nguyen Tuan Linh, of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde in order to
examine the differences and similarities of the two versions. Research results reveal
how differently two translators render their versions in terms of relative clauses,
personal pronouns, foreign terms and idiomatic expressions.
III- Starting date: 30/10/2019
IV- Completing date: 30/04/2020

V- Academic supervisor: HUYNH VAN TAI, PH.D.

ACADEMIC SUPERVISOR

FACULTY DEAN

(Full name, signature)

(Full name, signature)

HUYNH VAN TAI, PH.D.

NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, PH.D.

iii


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled:
THE COMPARISON OF TWO VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSIONS
OF THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE
In terms of the statement of requirements for Thesis in Master’s programs issued by
the Higher Degree Committee of Faculty of English Language, Ho Chi Minh City
University of Technology.

Ho Chi Minh City, April 2020

TRAN QUYNH NHU

iv

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
I hereby state that I, TRAN QUYNH NHU, being a candidate for the degree of Master
of Arts (English Language) accept the requirements of the University relating to the
retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited
in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance
with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and
reproduction for theses.

Ho Chi Minh City, April 2020

TRAN QUYNH NHU

v


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would first like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Huynh Van Tai, my
supervisor, for his patience, guidance, insightful advice, and constant encouragement
through the whole research process. Without his support and guidance, this thesis
would never have been completed.
I also would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu and the Faculty
of English Language of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, who have
offered me and my classmates all the knowledge and materials we need for our theses.

vi

ABSTRACT
Since the period of global integration, translation has been being an activity of
enormous importance. In order to learn from the translators who are experienced and
to draw some insights into the translation process, this thesis aims at comparing and
contrasting two translated versions of the novel The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar
Wilde. Thence, differences and similarities between the two were drawn out. The
corpus-based methodology was applied for the research. Data collection was carried
out manually and convenient sampling procedure was adopted. Research results
revealed how differently two translators render their versions in terms of relative
clauses, personal pronouns, foreign terms and idiomatic expressions. Translator 1,
Thien Luong, showed his tendency in translating every component of a relative clause
by using the Vietnamese “mà” thoroughly to transfer this structure. Meanwhile,
translator 2, Nguyen Tuan Linh, chose to domesticate this structure by limiting the
usage of “mà”. In terms of personal pronouns, translator 1 chose a set of neutral
pronouns instead of a more intimate as well as emotion-provoking set like translator
2 did. The comparison also demonstrated how two translators coped with foreign
terms and idiomatic expressions. Each translated version showed its advantages and
disadvantages that would benefit translation learners.
(205 words)
Keywords: translation studies; contrastive analysis; English to Vietnamese
translation; literary translation; linguistic distinction

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

MASTER’S THESIS REPORT ..............................................................................iii

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ...................................................................... iv
RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ............................................................ v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... vi
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page .......................................................................... viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION ................................................................................... xi
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ xii
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. xiii
CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION......................................................................... 1

1.1

Background to the Study ............................................................................ 1

1.2

Statement of the Problem ........................................................................... 1

1.3

Aims and Objectives of the Study............................................................... 2

1.4

Research Questions .................................................................................... 2

1.5

Scope of the Study...................................................................................... 2

1.6

Significance of the Study ............................................................................ 3

1.7

Definitions of Key Terms ........................................................................... 4

1.7.1

Idiomatic expression ............................................................................ 4

1.7.2

Personal pronoun ................................................................................. 4

1.7.3

Relative clause ..................................................................................... 4

1.7.4

Translation ........................................................................................... 4

1.8

Organization of the Thesis .......................................................................... 4

viii


CHAPTER 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................. 6

2.1

What is Translation? ................................................................................... 6

2.2

A Brief History of Translation Studies ....................................................... 6

2.3

Literary Translation Theories ..................................................................... 9

2.3.1

Linguistic Theory of Translation ........................................................ 11

2.3.2

Domestication versus Foreignization ................................................. 12

2.3.3

Unit of Equivalence in Prose .............................................................. 14

2.3.4

The Significance of Literary Analysis in Translation ......................... 15

2.4

Contrastive Analysis................................................................................. 15

2.4.1

Relative Clause .................................................................................. 16

2.4.2

Vietnamese conjunction MÀ.............................................................. 16

2.4.3

Viewpoint on Translation of Idiom and Metaphorical Expression ...... 17

2.5

Previous Studies ....................................................................................... 19

2.5.1

Contrastive Analysis Studies on English and Vietnamese .................. 19

2.5.2

Other Studies on Translation .............................................................. 20

2.6

Conceptual Framework ............................................................................ 21

2.7

Summary .................................................................................................. 23

CHAPTER 3:

METHODOLOGY ...................................................................... 24

3.1

Research Design ....................................................................................... 24

3.2

Research Site ............................................................................................ 24

3.3

Sample and Sampling Procedure .............................................................. 24

3.4

Research Instruments ............................................................................... 24

3.5

Data Collection Procedure ........................................................................ 25

3.6

Data Analysis Procedure .......................................................................... 25
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3.6.1

The Coding System............................................................................ 25

3.6.2

Notes on Text Presentation ................................................................ 26

3.7

Validity and reliability .............................................................................. 27

3.8

Ethical issues ............................................................................................ 27

CHAPTER 4:

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .................................................. 28

4.1

Relative Clauses ....................................................................................... 28

4.2

Personal Pronouns .................................................................................... 38

4.3

Idiomatic Expressions .............................................................................. 45

4.4

Foreign Terms .......................................................................................... 48

4.5

Other Discusion ........................................................................................ 50

4.6

Summary .................................................................................................. 53

4.7

Suggestion ................................................................................................ 54

CHAPTER 5:

CONCLUSION ........................................................................... 56

5.1

Summary of the main findings of the thesis .............................................. 56

5.2

Implications of the research ...................................................................... 57

5.3

Limitation of the research ......................................................................... 57

5.4

Recommendations for further research ..................................................... 58

LIST OF REFERENCES....................................................................................... 59
APPENDICES....................................................................................................... 62
Appendix A ....................................................................................................... 62
Appendix B ....................................................................................................... 63
Appendix C ....................................................................................................... 65
Appendix D ....................................................................................................... 66
Appendix E........................................................................................................ 68
x

LIST OF ABBREVIATION
E-V: Translation process from English to Vietnamese
OB: the original The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde in English
PP: Personal Pronoun
T1: Translator 1 – Thien Luong
T2: Translator 2 – Nguyen Tuan Linh
TV1: the first translated version of OB from T1
TV2: the second translated version of OB from T2
RC: Relative Clause
RP: Relative Pronoun
SL: Source Language
ST: Suggested Translation
TL: Target Language

xi


LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 The coding system
Table 3.2 Typographical devices and purpose of usage
Table 4.1a Comparison of translating examples of relative clause - Who/ Whom
Table 4.1b Comparison of translating examples of relative clause - Whose
Table 4.2 Vietnamese translation of English personal pronouns
Table 4.3 Comparison of translating examples of personal pronoun
Table 4.4 Comparison of different pairs of personal pronoun
Table 4.5 Comparison of translating examples of foreign term
Table 5 Commonly-used Vietnamese translation of relative clause

xii


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Unit of equivalence in prose
Figure 2.2 Conceptual framework of the study
Figure 3.1 Research procedure flow-chart

xiii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Despite the fact that English is gradually reaching a stable position in the world as an
irreplaceable global language, translation will never lose its place in its native
country; especially in some specific fields such as literature, legal matters, news, etc.
The same situation applies to Viet Nam as well. In the article issued on November 6th
2014 on Nhan Dan Online, the author, Huu Viet mentioned an increase of translated
books in Vietnamese market. The number of original books has been outnumbered
with translated books. There was a time the rate of translated books that were
published took a share of 90% in the Vietnamese publishing industry. However, the
number of translated books that are considered good and qualified is rather humble.
Every year, Vietnam Writers’ Association and Hanoi Writers’ Association offer an
annual award for prominent literary and translated works. As a judging member of
translation literature board, in Huu Viet’s words, translated work candidates for the
prize are about eight to ten works a year, a relatively small number in comparison
with original literary works. Another article on The World and Vietnam Report
(2018) addressed an issue that the quality of translated book has reached an “alarming
level”.
1.2 Statement of the Problem

Working as a translator and editor, the researcher has had opportunities to work with
many English-to-Vietnamese (E-V) translation books, and has encountered many
difficulties in the process of learning and working. Reading broadly and in depth, as
well as learning from experienced formers, is always practical and effective ways to
approach translation profession. Therefore, the researcher would like to study and
analyze two translated versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde by
two translators - Thien Luong and Nguyen Tuan Linh.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the traditional literature that is recommended
for ones who want to study the language style of Wilde. With an ideal of art-for-art
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literature, Wilde wrote this story for the sake of writing beautifully. He could write it
in a simpler way, but he chose to express it in a more complex way. Hence, The
Picture of Dorian Gray is challenging for foreign translators who want to turn it into
their languages. It also is difficult for Vietnamese translators who want to bring this
novel into Vietnamese. In Viet Nam, there are some translators who have made
attempts to bring this masterpiece to Vietnamese readers, including Duong Tuong,
Nguyen Tho Sinh, and recently Thien Luong and Nguyen Tuan Linh. The researcher
chooses to work with two latter translated versions for two reasons. Firstly, they are
the most recently translated versions of this novel. Secondly, these two are claimed
to be the most complete and fullest translated versions of the novel.
1.3 Aims and Objectives of the Study
The research aims at comparing the two translated versions of The Picture of
Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde in order to examine the differences and similarities of
the two versions.
This research’s objective is to compare two translated versions by the two translators
Thien Luong and Nguyen Tuan Linh of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in
terms of dealing with relative clauses, personal pronouns, idiomatic expressions, and
foreign terms.

1.4 Research Questions
This research focuses on answering the following research question:
 What are the similarities and differences between the two Vietnamese versions
of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde in terms of the
translation of English relative clauses, personal pronouns, idiomatic expressions,
and foreign terms?
1.5 Scope of the Study
This study aims to investigate the similarities and differences between two translated
versions from English to Vietnamese of the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Other
criteria for translation evaluation such as text formatting are not subjected to the scope
of this study.
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1.6 Significance of the Study
Thien Luong in Viet Nam has recently created his name for the translation of some
famous works of Vladimir Nabokov such as Lolita, Cloud Castle Lake, A Russian
Beauty and Other Stories. He has a strong opinion on translation that is to keep the
original structure as much as possible to transfer the style and culture of the original
work into Vietnamese. In other words, he followed the school of externalization.
Besides, he also has controversial criticisms for the translation products that have
been published before. Therefore, Thien Luong's translated products can be
considered as an attempt to improve errors from previous translations. Analysis of
Thien Luong's translation would be a great learning opportunity for the researcher on
the field of foreignization translation.
Meanwhile, although Nguyen Tuan Linh has not been recognized as an acclaimed
translator, the way he put effort in the production of The Picture of Dorian Gray
translation, as well as the way he diligently conversed with the readers from the
opening of the book, in which he explained the reasons for several interpretations he
adopted, demonstrated a serious attitude of working. Decoding how Nguyen Tuan

Linh interpreted the original and rendered the translation would be a chance for
learning as well.
Nowadays, the practice of expressing Vietnamese in both spoken and written
languages is a great challenge for the youth. Young people who have been influenced
by the lack of reading as well as the use of short and curt communication style in
cyber world have gradually become unfamiliar with how to write properly, not to
mention how to write decently. Oscar Wilde has a polished and decent writing style,
hence translating this work into Vietnamese has great meaning in terms of writing
style.
This research would like to investigate the two translated version of the same original
literature work with an aim to make a comparison and obtain useful translating tips
for the researcher herself, as well as for those who have been working in translation
industry. The results of this research might contribute to how translators would deal
3


with the differences of the two languages when it comes to translating English work
into Vietnamese.
1.7 Definitions of Key Terms
1.7.1 Idiomatic expression
Idiomatic expression is defined as a phrase or expression that typically presents a
figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become
figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. (McArthur, 2018)
1.7.2 Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular
grammatical person. (McArthur, 2018)
1.7.3 Relative clause
A relative clause is a kind of subordinate clause that contains the element whose
interpretation is provided by an antecedent on which the subordinate clause is
grammatically dependent; that is, there is an anaphoric relation between the

relativized element in the relative clause and antecedent on which it depends.
(Huddleston and Pullum, 2018)
1.7.4 Translation
Translation is defined as the replacement of textual material in one language (source
language - SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language TL). (Catford, 1965)
1.8 Organization of the Thesis
This study report comprises five separate chapters.
Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the study through which the aims and
objectives, hypotheses and
Chapter 2 is the review of literature related to translation and contrastive analysis,
presenting the foundation of translation studies, of grammatical points that would be
the criteria for this thesis’ analysis, and other previous studies that have been carried
on the subject as well.

4


Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the study. It demonstrates how the study was
carried out and other important notes on the process of research.
Chapter 4 is the analysis and discussion, which presents results that have been found
from the thesis. Besides, discussion and suggestion are also provided as well.
Chapter 5 presents an explanation of limitation of thesis and concludes on the matter.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 What is Translation?
There are a lot of definitions and doctrines about what translation is, both from the
Western and Eastern regions. In the scope of this thesis, the researcher intends to

discuss a couple of perspectives which are beneficial to the research.
Catford (1965) in his book named A linguistic theory of translation gave us a
definition of translation as follows, “[translation is] the replacement of textual
material in one language (source language - SL) by equivalent textual material in
another language (target language - TL)”. Catford emphasized that two key terms lied
in “textual material” and “equivalence”. There were situations, by Catford’s words,
that SL text could not be fully transferred into TL. Textual material was just one part
of what was underlying in the SL. Moreover, the most important problem of
translation practice was to find TL translation equivalents, which comes from
“defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence”.
Other scholar contributed many definitions on translation; e.g. Newmark (2005)
defined that translation is “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in
the way that the author intended the text”. Nida (1975) regarded translation as the
reproduction of the source language in the closest natural equivalent of the target
language. In general, most translation scholars and theorists have reached a consensus
about the characteristic of equivalent in the process of translation. The characteristic
of equivalent requires the translator to work towards criteria for a quality translation.
The history of translation is the history of the argument over those criteria.
2.2 A Brief History of Translation Studies
Translation has a long-lasting history that closely attached to religion-related works,
for instance Buddha’s teachings in the East and Bible in the West; but not until the
nineteenth century has it become a separate study with theories and principles.
In Tang dynasty, there was a Buddhist monk named Xuan Zang 玄奘 (602-664), who
was also a traveler, a translator and a great scholar. He set down the famous
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translation criteria that translation "must be both truthful and intelligible to the
populace." (Zhong, 2003). During his investigation into Buddhist Sanskrit scriptures
and aphorism and translation into Hanyu (Chinese language), Xuan Zang also

recommended the 五 種 不 翻 (the Five Untranslatables), which are five situations
that Sanskrit terms should not be translated. Those are terms that “(1) carries a magic
spell; (2) bears multiple meanings; (3) does not exist in the target culture; (4) bears
an established translation; and (5) generates positive associations.” (Pym, 2017). In
modern Chinese academic, Yan Fu 嚴 復 (1854-1921), a scholar of the nineteenth
century, was the first one who translated works of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill,
Thomas Henry Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and Montesquieu, etc. into Chinese
language. Yan Fu suggested three criteria for translation: faithfulness (xin 信),
comprehensibility (da 達), and elegance (ya 雅), which later become classical ones
in the Chinese theory of translation (Wang, 2009).
Ho Dac Tuc, in his book Dich thuat va Tu do [ST: Translation and Freedom1] (2012)
made a comparison between Chinese and Western viewpoints on translation as
followed:
Điểm yếu nhất trong lý luận của các nhà lập thuyết Trung Quốc nổi tiếng đã nêu trên
là chú trọng so sánh ngôn ngữ gốc với ngơn ngữ đích, khơng bàn về q trình chuyển
ngữ từ ngơn ngữ này qua ngơn ngữ khác. […] Nói cách khác, họ khơng chú ý qui
trình truyền đạt và tiến trình tâm lý của người dịch khi bàn về dịch thuật.
[Suggested Translation: The weakest point in those well-known Chinese doctrine
establishers is to place significance on comparing the source language with the
target language without addressing the process of transferring one language to
another. […] In other words, they do not pay attention to the manoeuver of conveying
and psyche of translators.]

1

All references in Vietnamese in this study were translated into English for referring purposes only by the

researcher.

7

“Các lý luận dịch thuật của người Trung Quốc có khuynh hướng bàn về thành quả
mà khơng phân tích sâu q trình dịch, khơng chú ý nghiên cứu tâm lý, nhân sinh
quan, động lực làm việc, khả năng cá nhân, và quan hệ giữa người dịch và xã hội họ
đang sống.”
[ST: Chinese translation theories tend to the results of the process, rather than have
a thorough analysis of that process, with no attention to investigating the psyche, life
viewpoints, working motivations, personal capacity, nor the relation between
translators and their society.]
Ho Dac Tuc (2012)

Meanwhile, Western viewpoints, under Cicero and Horace’s influence (the 20s BC),
put more importance in creativity and sense-for-sense translation. Translation in the
time of Cicero had the purpose of, as mentioned by Ho Dac Tuc (2012), not only a
way of transferring the meaning of words but also enriching the target language. Anno
Domini years witnessed the born and rise of various Biblical translation schools,
which also had a remarkable impression on Western perspectives of translation. The
biggest issue during that time was the struggle between literal translation (to keep the
translated version as exact as possible to the source) and sense-for-sense translation.
Since the 16th century, translation became a requisite activity in Renaissance era, and
there came many translation theories (Ho Dac Tuc, 2012). Ho mentioned five
principles that are required for a translator from French translator Etienne Dolet,
which was cited in Steiner (1992) as follows:
(1) “The translator must perfectly understand the sense and material of the original
author. He also should feel free to clarify obscurities.
(2) The translator should have perfect language knowledge of both SL and TL, so as not
to lessen the majesty of the language.
(3) The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.
(4) The translator should avoid Latinate and unusual forms.

(5) The translator should assemble and liaise words eloquently to avoid clumsiness.”

Dolet (1540)

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In 1972, James Stratton Holmes had an ambition to wholly describe the translation
practice. In his essay The Name and Nature of Translation Studies, Holmes divided
translation studies into two general branches: pure translation studies and applied
translation studies. Besides, Holmes’ contribution was to recommend the name
“Translation Studies” for denoting the complete practice related to translation,
including theories, research, practice, and also translation training and criticism as
well. Since Holmes, a number of scholars started using “Translation Studies” as an
official name for this branch of study.
As we can see until now, the history of translation is the history of debating between
word-to-word and sense-for-sense theories.
2.3 Literary Translation Theories
There are a lot of ways to define literature, but within the scope of this research,
literature is understood in two simple conventional forms which are prose (as fiction)
and verse (as poetry). Due to the fact that it is a form of art, one of the most important
characteristic of literature is that it is more aesthetic and literary stylistic rather than
factual. Definitely there are various types or genres of literary works and each genre
has various focus level on aesthetic aspect. For example, realistic school might be
more factual than fantasy or surrealism literature. But in overall, the voice of literary
work usually has a high level of artistic convention. Because of this, the approach
when translating literature will be different from translating other nonfiction texts. It
is possible that we can approach translate literature, or criticize translation through
the theories of translation mentioned previously. But it might be insufficient if we
deal with literary translation products with merely sense-for-sense or word-for-word

approaches. There are more theories that exclusively address the issues in literary
translation such as Neubert and Shreve (1992), or Nida and Tabert (1974), and others
that saw translated products in light of linguistics or cultural aspects. Each theory also
contained many methods or strategies for translation (for instance, adding or
subtracting, keeping the original source or regenerate the target texts,
“domestication” or “foreignization”, etc.).
9


If linguistic theory is the sole concern of the translation, then both the translators and
translation critics are solving the equivalence issue on the level of sentence structure
and other smaller equivalent units. But how about the overall concepts or intentions
of the whole original text? This is particularly important in terms of literary works.
The TL structure might be guaranteed to be equivalent with that of SL, but nothing
can be sure that the intentions of authors are the same. Neubert and Shreve’s (1992)
opinions on this issue focused on the general intention and style of the source
language, that is, to consider the equivalence on the bigger level – the whole text.
Nida and Tabert (1974) paid special attention to the intention of the message rather
than the form of speech. However, bigger consideration of the form and content might
overlook a very important element in translating literary which is the aesthetic aspect.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray, this aspect is critical in the process of translating
Wilde’s work into Vietnamese. The aesthetic value of the original work should not
be sacrificed.
Furthermore, Susan Bassnett (2002:114) criticized that the most common weakness
in translating prose is that translators attach special importance to the content of the
work and undervalue its original structural aspect. With novel in general, especially
in the case of Oscar Wilde, according to Bassnett, the sentence structure is also a
means for the author to perform his or her own literary style. For example, in The
picture of Dorian Gray, in paragraphs expressing philosophical concepts or
descriptions in order to highlight the characters’ personality, Wilde often writes

complex long sentences, using many commas and semicolons in his work. There is a
sentence of Wilde in the work that has the length of 457 words with more than ten
connected clauses. Or the philosophical dialogues of Hallward and Lord Henry in
Chapter 1 are also comprised in long and beautiful sentences. So the author's intention
is also one of the important factors in prose translation.
Catford (1965) suggested that translation would be regarded as an art to create the
new text in TL. Consequently, standing before various translation theories, translators

10


have to consider choosing a theory (or some) that can integrate most suitable elements
for the original literature.
2.3.1 Linguistic Theory of Translation
Due to the fact that translation is an activity related to language, so more or less,
linguistics aspect definitely plays a significant role in this process. In general
linguistic theory, Catford (1965) mentioned the rank scale of grammatical hierarchy
of five units: sentence, clause, group, word, and morpheme. He emphasized that “the
concept of rank (and rank scale) is an important one both in theoretical linguistics
and in many applications of linguistics, including translation-theory” (Catford, 1965).
This concept matters in how it would affect the choice of translation equivalence
which would be presented later.
Also stated in Catford ibid., there are three important notions of translation, or three
broad types of translation, that a translator must acknowledge. Those are the extent,
the level, and the rank of translation.
2.3.1.1 Extent of translation: Full versus Partial Translation
Full Translation: In this translation, every unit of meaning of the SL text is
replaced by equivalent textual TL material.
Partial Translation: Some part or parts of the SL text are left untranslated due to the
reason of the untranslatability of SL, or translator do that on purpose of introducing

the “local colour” into the TL text, (the word used by Catford ibid.).
2.3.1.2 Levels of Translation: Total versus Restricted Translation
Total translation: translation in which all levels of the SL texts are replaced by TL
material is called “total translation”. In this type of translation, the SL grammar and
lexis are replaced by equivalent TL grammar or lexis.
Restricted translation: This translation is the replacement of the SL textual material
by equivalent TL textual material at the level of phonology or graphology or grammar
or lexis.

11


2.3.1.3 Rank Translation: “Rank-bound” versus “Unbounded” translations
Rank-bound translation: As implied by the term itself, this type of translation has a
nature of bouncing to the grammatical rank of language. For instance, rank-bound
translation in which the rank of translation is the unit of “word” is called the wordfor-word translation.
Rank-unbounded Translation: in this type, translation is not attached to any one rank.
Sentence may sometimes be not the largest unit in rank anymore. Translators can
build the unit of equivalence that is bigger than sentence, such as passage or literary
style. Especially when it comes to TL’s collocational and idiomatic expressions.
A translator may choose any one of the above three types for his process of rendering.
Or he may also combine all the three in different proportions. It is determined by the
nature of the work to be translated and the readership of it.
As mentioned above in the definition of translation, key terms lie in “translation
equivalents” and hence the most important task is to define “the nature and conditions
of translation equivalence” (Catford op. cit.). We will have a closer view on the
choice of translation units which give rise to two following translating tendencies:
domestication and foreignization.
2.3.2 Domestication versus Foreignization
Nida (1964) highlighted the dynamic of language in social and cultural context. Nida

mentioned two basic orientations in translating that result in two different types of
equivalence, i.e. formal equivalence and primary equivalence. Formal equivalence
focuses on both form and content of the message in SL. In contrast, the other
orientation is dynamic equivalence, that is the effect that readers in TL have with the
message must be the same as original readers do. Dynamic equivalence translation
aims at bringing the message in most natural expressions to TL readers, as much as
the SL receptors may have with the original text. This approach can be called the
"domestication" of SL, focusing on the role of readers and target language culture. In
this view, the translated text may have to accept the loss of some aspect of the original

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