A study on translation methods of personal pronouns from english into vietnamese in the thorn birds

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH FACULTY
------

GRADUATION THESIS
“A Study on translation methods of personal pronouns from
English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds”
Student’s name:Chu Thị Thanh Hiền
Class
Student code

: K50N7
: 14D170437

Hanoi - 2018

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CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1 Rationale
Nowadays, English is becoming more and more popular in the world. People use
English as a means to connect between this country among other not only in
communication but also in culture, social activities, policy… In Vietnam, English
plays an important role in all fields such as: science, technology, aviation,
international sport, diplomacy and so on.
Pronouns are words used to refer to someone or something in context so that we can
avoid repetition in the process of communication. Personal pronouns are a very
important part of the language system. Both English and Vietnamese use personal
pronouns in the category of politeness. However, Vietnamese personal pronouns
express the shade of meaning (polite/ impolite) much more clearly than the English

ones. Vietnamese has a very complicated personal pronouns system, so it is very
challenging for English people want to master it.
Moreover, personal pronouns play an important play in communication, especially
in Vietnamese. They can reveal the social status or the relationship between the
speaker and the listener, in some cases, they can also show the politeness or
impoliteness of the speakers. There is a change of personal pronoun when
translating from English to Vietnamese or vice versa. when we want to find the
exact equivalence between the two languages, we have to depend on the context,
the relationship between the speaker and listener. In addition, the factors of sex, age
or feeling of the speakers are also very important. In English, people prefer to use
personal pronouns to replace/ substitute the mentioned noun phrase. English use
both anaphora and cataphora to refer backwards or afterwards to the noun phrase.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese tends to use full repetition to refer to the mentioned noun
phrase. Moreover, there is a case that Vietnamese uses ellipsis as the referred noun
is metaphorically understood. Cultural factors in Vietnamese can be understood as
category of politeness. Although both English and Vietnamese refer to the category

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of politeness, but in English, personal pronouns can rarely express the very aspects
of the meaning (polite/ impolite) whereas in Vietnamese they contrast very well.
In reality have many problems like that, but until now, still do not have any specific
research on that issue. Even if it had some researched, but it was not depth and
direct. Therefore “A study on translation methods of personal pronouns from
English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds” is chosen for my graduation paper.
1.2 Previous studies
Until now, many authors have mentioned the topic of personal pronouns, however,
there has not been an agreement on the concepts of personal pronouns. In the world
and in Vietnam, there has been major achievement in the studies of personal

pronouns.
In 1988, Thai Duy Bao in Constrative analysis of etiquette in English-Vietnamese
dialogue mentioned personal pronouns (PP) and nouns of address in English. The
author wrote: “In English conversation, the use of PP is compulsory and traditional
such as PP “I”, “We” or the first-person pronoun, interlocutor (the addressor) and
PP “you” for second-person, who is participant (addressee). The personal pronouns
appeared in all communication and social relationships despite differences in social
positions, ages and intimacy level between speakers. In other words, it reflects
relationships

between

communication

partners,

between

interlocutor

and

addressee…” [5, tr 45-46]. In addition, the author also mentioned types of address
in English which reflect position but not politeness, and not affected by different
shades of communication in different situations…
Generally speaking, there have been many studies and articles about personal
pronouns in English or comparison between English and Russian, Sino, Swiss,
Japanese, South African or Vietnamese… but no articles have mentioned the
translation methods of personal pronouns in the novel “Thorn Birds”
In Vietnamese, personal pronouns were first studied by Alexandre De Rodhes in his

Dictionary of Vietnamese- Portuguese- Latin, in 1651, he mentions personal
pronouns, as well as the nouns indicating kinship with addressing functions such as
ông, bà, chú, bác, cậu… However, in this Dictionary, these personal pronouns were
not complete and did not reflect all terms used in real life. In 1884, Trương Vĩnh Ky
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spent 30 pages in his book Grammare de langueannamite to describe personal
pronouns. Nguyễn Văn Chiến had articles about Locality of kinship nouns in
Vietnamses, Address terms in Vietnamese. In Semantics of conversational lines and
pragmatics textbook [59, tr191-197], Đỗ Thị Kim Liên mentioned relevant issues
of personal pronouns in conversation or in communication between communication
participants such as pairs of interactive personal pronouns in asking and answering;
the development ans conversion of personal pronouns with the content of
conversation; the development in psychology and emotion of characters which
influence the usage. In addition we must also mention articles about personal
pronouns by Bùi Minh Yến in ther doctoral thesis “Addressing in family and society
of Vietnamese “[119]. The doctoral thesis “Address terms originating from kinship
nouns in Vietnamese” surveyed, described and analyzed carefully, completely and
comprehensively about all kinship nouns used to address in communication [31]. In
2012, Trương Thị Diêm wrote about “Address terms originating from kinship nouns
in Catholic community of Vietnamese” [32]. In 2012, Trương Thị Minh Phương
wrote about Address terms of Vietnamese emphasized some basic characteristics in
the use of layers of personal pronouns in Vietnamese and some practical
applications in communication. In 2014, La Thị Thanh Mai in her doctoral thesis
Addressing characteristics of Korean and Vietnamese discussed similarities and
differences in address terms in family and society contexts between Koreans and
Vietnamese.
Further, I would like to mention the study of Truong Thi Bich Ngoc- a student of
Hai Phong Private University, she studied on personal pronouns in English and

Vietnamese. In that research, She provided the definitions of pronouns, kinds of
pronouns and their uses, found and discussed some difficulties in using personal
pronouns and then gave them some suggestions. Methods of her study are:
Consulting grammar books and web pages for definitions and concepts of
pronouns, especially personal pronouns, analyzing data and giving a lot of
examples to make the study more understandable, discussing and analyzing more

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common factors effecting on translation. Scope of the study including: the
definition of pronouns, the classification of pronouns, the use of pronouns,
especially personal pronouns, some difficulties and factors effecting on translation
of learners while using personal pronouns. But she did not mention about
translation methods and what kind of methods using commonly.
Additional, I read the study of Phan Anh in English- Vietnamese comparative
linguistic in 2011. He studied on “subjective and objective personal pronouns in
English and Vietnamese”. In that essay, he had compared and contrasted the way
people address the other through personal pronouns, in order to examine what
would be the problems for both Vietnamese and English learners concerned with
these pronouns. In his research, he had taken properly comparative between two
languages. Same as that issue, Huynh Ngoc Thanh had studied on personal
pronouns in English and Vietnamese. But he just only made the research on
personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese, gave some example to help reader
clearly. He did not make properly on comparative.
The next is the research of Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc- a student of University of social
sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University. She studied on “personal
pronouns in English, German and their equivalents in Vietnamese”. In this thesis,
she had described and analyzed the use of personal pronouns in English, German in
specific communication situations, also compare with personal pronouns in

Vietnamese to find out the similarities and differences in these language. Research
subjects are personal pronouns in English, German and equivalents in Vietnamese.
That research focuses on the use of personal pronouns based on material from
English and German novels that have been translated into Vietnamese. Most of
them are ancient stories and dialogues in these languages. On the side of research
methodology, he uses descriptive and analytical methods, comparative method and
statistical method.
Another research had done by Vu Ngoc Anh- Student of social sciences and
Humanities, Vietnam National University. She studied on “personal pronouns on
the literatures of Nam Cao”. Because Nam Cao have many literatures, therefore,
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she had selected some of them for documents of studies such as: “Nghèo”, “Chi
phèo”, “ Lão Hạc” and “Những chuyện không muốn viết”. She succeeds in
classifying the personal pronoun system in the works that she already selected.
Based on his literatures, she used statistical and classify methods to divided
personal pronouns. And then she summary that there are 49 personal pronouns with
1457 times appearance in four literatures:
First- person pronouns appearance 317 times rank 21.77%
Second- person pronouns appearance 133 times rank 9.13%
Third-person pronouns appearance 1006 rank 69.15%
Besides that, she found out exactly how many time each of personal pronouns
appearance in each literal. Then she made a comparative about that. Insight of that
research, she made it properly. But outsight of them, she did not compare with other
language. It did not mention with the cultural of the nation.
Having a look at studies about personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese, we
see that no studies mentioned the comparison of personal pronouns in
communication between English and its Vietnamese translation, with the analysis
into a specific novel, therefore, we chose this topic: “Study on translation methods

of personal pronouns from English into Vietnamese in the Thorn Birds” and its
Vietnamese “Tiếng chim hót trong bụi mận gai” translation.
1.3 Aims of the study
My study is aimed to provide learners with the definition of translation, pronouns
and personal pronouns. Further, we would like to give full content of personal
pronouns system both in English and Vietnamese. The main tasks are statistical and
classify translation methods of personal pronouns from English into Vietnamese in
the Thorn Birds. Find out which method is most commonly used and after that give
some proposals.
1.4 Research subjects
In this thesis, we choose to investigate translation methods of personal pronouns
used in Colleen Mc Culough’s Thorn Birds published by arrangement with Harper
and Row, publishers, Inc. During that thesis, we will choose all of personal
pronouns used to vocative between characters to analysis and research, in order to
find out which is effective way to translate the personal pronouns from English into
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Vietnamese. The results of the research can be applied in teaching foreign
languages in general, and in teaching English in particular.
1.5 Scope of the study
Basically, the personal pronouns are used throughout the novel, so I only select
some typical chapters for in-depth and specific analysis. We will select 4 chapters
for depth research. Thorn Birds was famous novel of Australian writer- Colleen Mc
Culough published in 1977. That novel was translated into Vietnamese by some
authors such as …. In this thesis, we selected the translation of by Phạm Mạnh
Hùng translator (published in 2011 by literary publisher)
1.6 Research methodology
1.6.1 Listing and classification
We listed the number of personal pronouns including the first personal

pronouns, the second personal pronouns and the third personal pronouns and
expressions of personal pronouns in character’s talk in specific context and
classified them into groups and subgroups to draw general observation.
1.6.2 Discourse analysis
On the basis of personal pronouns collected using discourse analysis, we
described the equivalence between the original and translation in terms of
semantics, context, reference system of personal pronouns, communication
target and etc. In addition, we analyzed and explained the relationship between
language and psychology, culture, society to describe characteristics and
translation methods of personal pronouns in character’s conversations in the
English original and the Vietnamese translation.
1.6.3 Comparison method
We compared characteristics and use of personal pronouns, which are suitable
with communication role, context and functions of personal pronouns used in
the translation from the English original into Vietnamese translation. We did this
in order to find similarities and differences in the use of personal pronouns
between these two languages.
1.7 Organization of the study
This report is organized in three parts:

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The first part is consisting of Abstract, acknowledgements, table of contents, list of
abbreviations, list of tables and figures.
The second part is the main study designed in 4 chapters:
Chapter 1: Overview of the study includes: Rationale, previous studies, aims of the
study, research subjects, scope of study, research methodology, organization of the
study.
Chapter 2: Literature review

Chapter 3: Research findings
Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions
The third part is CONCLUSION which provides overcoming and summary of the
report, Strengths and weakness of the report and Final comment.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURAL REVIEW
2.1 Theoretical of translation
2.1.1 The essence of translation
The essence of translation is to understand the exact meaning of a text in one
language and convey it accurately in another. The final result will be genuine
content, not the mere shadow of an original one.
2.1.2 The definition of translation
Translation has existed in every corner of our life. It is considered as an
indispensable part in the field of not only literature, culture and religion but also
commercial

advertisement,

popular

entertainment,

public

administration

immigration and education… Thus, definitions of translation are numerous, and a
great numbers of books and articles have written about this subject.

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Translation is an operation performed on language. It is an across the board skill
which helps to improve student’s language proficiently in the process of translation,
a text in another. Thus, it is the important means of communication between people
is deferent language. Since then, it can attract the attention of many linguistics
researchers and translation theorists, so what is translation? There are many
definitions around this. Often, though not by any means always, it is rendering the
meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text.
Through translation is no longer a strange terminology in daily life, there is hardly
any agreement on the definition of it. A great number of books and articles have
been written about this debatable subject. The following are some typical
definitions that are basic theoretical background for this study.
As started by the definition on the website:
“Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source- language text by
means of an equivalent target- language text” (as wikipedia)
This definition is so long and only show that translation is the interpreting of the
meaning and the subsequent production of two texts. One other definition is made
by the translator:
“Translation can be generally defined as the action of interpretation of the meaning
of a text, and production of an equivalent text that communicates the same message
in another language” (By Roger T. Bell)
He also adds that:
“Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has
been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic
equivalence (By Roger T. Bell)

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Roger’s two definitions are the specific written about translation which indicate

translation is the transferring both the form and the meaning from one language to
other in equivalence. We continuously consider one definition of Catford:
“Translation is the replacement of a text in one language (Source language) by an
equivalent text in another language (target language)” (Catford: 1988)
This is the general definition about translation because it is only the replacement
one language by an equivalent another language.
Although these definitions are different in expression, they share common features
that they all emphasize the importance finding the closest equivalence in meaning
by the choice of appropriate target language’s lexical and grammatical structures.
Some sorts of movement from one language to another also insist on the different
methods of translation which will be taken into consideration in the next part.
According to Toury, he said that “Translation is a kind of activity, which
inveterately involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions”
(1978:p200)
Besides that, as E.A.Nida said “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” (1959). On other view, he
said that “translation is the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language
(the source text) and the production, in another language of an equivalent text (the
target text) that communicates the same message”.
Another opinion, Savory said that “translation is made possible by an equivalent of
thought that lies behind its different verbal expressions (1968).
As a simply understanding that “Translation is the action of explanation of the
meaning of a text, and a subsequent production of an equivalent text called a
translation, that communicates the same message in another language. The
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translated text 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 to convey the original tone and intent of a message,
taking into account cultural and regional differences between source and target
languages.
While linguistic and cultural skills are critical, the most important quality a good
translator must have is the ability to write well in the target language. Skilled
translators must have the ability to understand the source language and the culture
of the country where the text originated, then using a good library of dictionaries
and reference materials, to render that material clearly and accurately into the target
language.
Even bilingual individuals can rarely express themselves in a given subject equally
well in both languages, and many excellent translators are not fully bilingual to
begin with. Knowing this limitation, a good translator will only translate documents
into his or her native language. When choosing a translator it is important to insist
that the translator only translate into their native language and into an area of their
subject matter expertise.
2.2 Theoretical of pronouns
2.2.1 The definition of pronouns
The Oxford dictionary Online defines: “Pronouns are used in place of a noun
that has already been mentioned or that is already known, often to avoid
repeating the noun. Pronouns are nominal substitute forms used to refer to a
particular antecedent (things or person or people have been mentioned before).”
Moreover, the Cambridge Grammar Dictionary of English (2007) defines
pronoun’s usage as to “substitute for or stand for the reference to entities which
full noun phrase make”. In grammar, a pronoun is defined as a word or phrase
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that may be substituted for a noun or noun phrase, which more replaced, is
known as the pronoun’s antecedent. How is this possible? In a nutshell, it is
because pronouns can do everything that nouns can do. A pronoun can act as a

subject, direct object, indirect object, object of the preposition, and more.
Without pronouns, we’d have to keep on repeating nouns, and that would make
our speech and writing repetitive, not to mention cumbersome. Most pronouns
are very short words such as personal pronouns: He, she, they, it, we,… As
mentioned, pronouns are usually used to replace nouns, however they can also
stand in for certain adverbs, adjectives, and other pronouns. Anytime you want
to talk about a person, animal, place or thing, you can use pronouns to make
your speech or writing flow better.
2.2.2 The classification of pronouns
A pronoun is a word which is used instead of a noun. A pronoun is used instead
of a noun to avoid repetition of a noun in an essay. Eg: He,she, they, it, her, his,
him its…
Pronouns are classified into following types:
Personal pronouns (I/we/you/they/...)
Possessive pronouns (mine/yours/his/hers...)
Reflexive pronouns (myself/ourselves/...)
Demonstrative pronouns (this/that/these/those/...)
Interrogative pronouns (who/what/which...)
Indefinite pronouns (someone/somebody/anybody/everyone/all/...)
Relative pronouns (who/whom/which/...)

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Reciprocal pronouns (each other/one another...)
Pronoun is a universal part of all language, a majority of languages have
pronoun to refer to things/people mentioned already. However, for each
particular language, pronouns possess more than just one function of reference.
2.2.2 Personal pronouns in English and Vietnamese
2.2.2.1 The definition of personal pronouns

As Wikipedia suggests, personal pronouns are “pronouns that are associated
primarily with a particular grammatical person- first person (as I), second
person (as you), or third person (as he, she, it, they). Personal pronouns may
also take different forms depending on number (usually singular or plural),
grammatical or natural gender, case, and formality. The term “personal” is used
here purely to signify the grammatical sense; personal pronouns are not limited
to people and can also refer to animals and objects” (Personal pronounWilipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Personal pronoun has three persons: speaker, hearer, and people or thing is
mentioned. A personal pronoun can be in one of three “persons”. A first- person
pronoun refers to the speaker, a second-person pronoun refers to the person
being spoken to (hearer), and a third- person pronoun refers to the person being
spoken of (people or thing is mentioned). For each of these three grammatical
persons, there is a plural as well. If we make a normal translation from English
to Vietnamese, we just have six words: “tôi, bạn, nó, họ, chúng tôi, các bạn”.
Example: Bố mẹ cháu bảo cháu đưa bà cháu sang thăm hai cụ- They asked me
to take her to meet you.
When you retranslate this English sentence, it become: Họ bảo tôi đưa nó cô ấy
qua gặp các bạn”- Word for word translation.

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2.2.3 Personal pronouns in English
In English grammar, the personal pronoun system is deemed as a closed system.
As the name implies, personal pronouns represent specific people, animals or
inanimate object. “They are not only used to substitute nouns, but also refer to a
specific individual or group” (Quirk et, al..1985,341-342). English personal
pronouns are associated with three grammatical persons, and can take on
various forms depending on person, number, case and gender. The following
table shows the personal pronouns in English.

Nominative/

First person
Singular Plural
I
We

Second person
Singular Plural
You
You

Third person
Singular
Plural
She/he/ it
They

Subjective case
Accusative/

Me

Us

You

You

Her/him/it

Objective case
Genitive:

My

Our

Your

Your

Her/him/its Their

Determinative/

Mine

Ours

Yours

Yours

Hers/ his/ Theirs

Independent case

Them

its
Table 1.1 Personal pronouns in English

As the table above shows, English personal pronouns present distinctions
between persons. The first person pronouns refer to the speaker or the writer.
The second personal pronouns refer to the person spoken to or the addressee.
Furthermore, the third person pronouns are used situationally, and they refer to
persons or things other than the speaker(s) or the addressee. For example, in (1),
a husband speaking to his wife and nodding his head towards the children’s
bedroom, might say:
(1) Are they asleep? (Where they refers to the children)

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Moreover, as noted above, each personal pronoun has different forms for
grammatical number: singular and plural. For instance, the first person singular
I is only used for the speaker whereas the first person plural we is used for the
speaker plus one or more other persons. As the example in (2) below illustrates,
the first personal pronouns I and the third personal pronouns she are singular
forms, and only refer to one person, whereas we and they are plural forms that
refer to two or more people
(2) I like coffee.
She is clever.
We went home.
They played doubles.
Personal pronouns have different forms based on their grammatical case. The
five personal pronouns have a further distinction between subjective, objective
and genitive case forms, such as I/ me/my, he/him/his, she/her/her, we/us/our and

they/them/their. As the table above shows, the only exceptions are the second
person you and the third person it that do not have distinct subjective and
objective case forms. Furthermore, the choice between subjective, objective and
genitive cases is made on the basis of grammatical function of pronouns in the
clauses. As their name implies, subjective personal pronouns act as the subject
and the object of a preposition; and genitive personal pronouns mark a noun as
being the possessor of another noun. The following example show the case
functions of personal pronouns:
(3) a. He was late.
b. It was he.
c. Sue likes me.
d. I saw him.
e. I gave it to him.
f. This is my book. It´s not hers.

(subjective case)
(subjective case)
(objective case)
(objective case)
(objective case)
(genitive case)

As the example in (3a) shows, the second person he is in the subjective case
because it is in the subject position of the sentence. In (3d), the pronoun him is
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in the objective case because it stands in the object position, and the pronoun
him in (3e) is in objective case which functions as a prepositional complement.
Moreover, in examples (3b) and (3c), the subjective case form he and the

objective case form me are both used as the subject complement. As Quirk et al.
found, the “prescriptive grammar tradition stipulates the subjective case form,
the objective case form is normally felt to be the natural one, particularly in
informal style” (p.336). Moreover in (3f), the first person pronoun my and the
third person pronouns hers both stand in the genitive case.
Gender differences occur in English personal pronouns system. The overt
grammatical contrast can mainly be identified between personal and nonpersonal gender. The personal gender includes two sets of distinctions, which
occur in the third person singular pronouns. For instance, he is used for male
referents and she refers to female ones. The plural form of the third personal
pronouns, such as they and them, are both neutralized in grammatical gender.
Neutral gender is restricted to third person singular pronouns it, and it is mainly
indicated to animals of unspecified sex or to inanimate objects. Besides, the first
and second personal pronouns are inevitably of personal rather than nonpersonal gender (Quirk et al. 1985, p.341)
2.2.4 Personal pronouns in Vietnamese
The system of Vietnamese personal pronouns is absolutely more complicated
than the one of English. Not only age, gender, person but also the social context,
attitude of the speaker to the listener as well as the relationship between the
speaker and listener are indicated through the way Vietnamese choose personal
pronouns in every day communication. There are two branches in the system of
Vietnamese personal pronouns: true personal pronouns and kinship terms
(Wikipedia, “Vietnamese pronouns”)

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Those are the ones used to indicate the person category, which can’t be found in
other word classes. The following table illustrates the Vietnamese specialized
personal pronouns.
Vietnamese Personal Pronouns
Person

Singular
Formal
First

Tôi

Informal

In

tao, mình

English
I, me

Plural
Formal

Informal

chúng tôi

English
bọn tao, We, us

In

bọn
Second

Ông (male), Mày, bạn

you

bà (female)
Third

He, him

(female)
bạn
Các ông ấy, Mấy

They,

ấy, anh ấy

các ngài ấy, thằng đó, them

Bà âý, cô ấy

các anh ấy
bọn nó
Các bà ấy, các Mấy con They,

Con

nhỏ She, her

đó, cô ta

Neuter

you

(male), các bà mày, các

Masculine Ông ta, ngài Thằng đó

Feminine

Các

mình
ông Chúng

-

nó

it

cô ấy

đó, bọn them

Họ

nó
Chúng

They,

nó

them

Table 1.2 Vietnamese Personal Pronouns
Different with English, which just simply use: “I and you”; in Vietnamese, there
are so many ways: tôi, anh, chị, nó, chúng tôi, các cậu, chúng mày, chúng tao,
chị ấy, anh ấy, họ, con, cháu, tớ, anh, chị, em, bố, mẹ, bác, ông, mình, ta, đàng
ấy,… The difficulty and complexity are: Vietnamese personal pronoun also has
emotional nuance. They can expressing: love, angry, respect, hate, despise,
formal, informal, familiar…
Moreover, Vietnamese vocative has a clear hierarchy: a child talk to an old man,
he has to use “thưa, bẩm”, but there is no vice versa here. When talking to
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children, parents can call them “thằng Tuấn, con Hiền”, but children can’t call
their parents by name.
Personal pronoun is also used depending on the relatives or the strange of the
relationship.
In a close friendship, they use “mày, tao”. If they call each other by “quý anh”
or “ông”, it is a ridicule. And with a stranger, using “mày, tao” is so impolite,
sometime it make the other angry.
“Cụ già” and “lão già” have same meaning. They talk about an old man, but
when we say “cụ già đó” (respect), it is very difficult with “lão già đó”. In some
cases, “lão” is not quite old; it is a familiar way to call somebody, such as “cái
lão nhà tôi”= my husband.
This is a table with the most common personal pronouns in the Vietnamese

language. You have here that the “I” and “you” are interchangeable. That means
if you talk to your father, you use “con” for “I” and “bố” for “you”. Your father,
however, use “bố” for “I” and “con” for “you”.
Kinship terms are a very important part of the Vietnamese system to address or
refer to oneself and others. They are even used much more than true personal
pronouns. Even though the listener is not a family member or relative, kinship
terms can also used as pronouns to address and refer to friends and unfamiliar
interlocutors (Luong, 1990). The Vietnamese kinship term system is quiet
complicated, it is not only very challenging for foreigners but also sometimes
hard for Vietnamese people to master all kinship terms. The below table
summarizes the meanings and usages of the Vietnamese kinship terms:
(Wikipedia, “Vietnamese Pronouns”)
Term
Cha

Reciprocal
con

Literal meaning
Father
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Note
many

other

terms

are

used,


depending on the dialect: ba, bố,
mẹ

con

tía, thầy
mẹ is the northern form, má is

Mother

used in the south. many other
terms are used, depending on the
Anh

em

dialect: u, bầm, mạ
can be used to address any male

older brother

regardless

of

status.

e.g.

by

military personnel to those of
lower ranks.
chị
Em

em
anh or chị

older sister
younger sibling or
cousin of the same

Con
Cháu

Ông

generation
cha, mẹ, bà, etc.
one’s child
ông, bà, bác, chú, grandchild;

niece;

etc.

nephew; cousin of

cháu or con

junior generations
Grandfather

paternal and maternal grandfathers
are differentiated as ông nội
("internal grandfather") and ông
ngoại

Bà

cháu or con

("external

respectively
paternal

Grandmother

grandfather"),

and

maternal

grandmothers are differentiated as
bà nội ("internal grandmother")
and
Cô
chú

cháu
cháu

ngoại

("external

grandmother"), respectively
in some dialects, literal meaning is

father’s sister
father’s

bà

restricted to father's younger sister
younger in some dialects, literal meaning is

brother

restricted
xviii

to

father's

younger


brother
Thím
Bác

cháu
cháu

chú’s wife
a
parent's

older in some dialects, can also refer to

sibling

father's elder brother or sister as
well as mother's elder brother or

Dì

cậu

cháu

cháu

mother’s

sister
sister, in some dialects, literal meaning is

stepmother

restricted to mother's younger

mother’s brother

sister
in some dialects, literal meaning is
restricted to mother's younger

mợ

cháu

brother
in some dialects, used by the

cậu’s wife

husband to refer to his wife,
children to refer to mother, or
parents-in-law

to

refer

to

a

daughter-in-law
dượng cháu

the husband of cô or

cụ/ cố cháu
Sơ
cháu

dì, stepfather
great-grandparent
great-greatgrandparent

Table 2.1 summarizes the meanings and usages of the Vietnamese kinship terms
The Vietnamese kinship terms can reveal the relation of the speakers and
listeners very clearly, and this is a very interesting feature of Vietnamese system.
For example:
“I will give you some money.”
Mother to son: “Mẹ sẽ cho con một ít tiền.”
Older sister to younger brother: “Chị sẽ cho em một ít tiền.”

xix

Non-kinship terms used as pronouns:
In English, there are some nouns of title or occupation such as sir, madam,
doctor, professor, Mr President, ect. are used as a polite way of addressing
someone to show respect. For example:
“Can I speak with you for a moment, sir/ madam/ doctor/ professor/ Mr
President?”
However, these nouns of title and occupation are not used frequently because
we just say “Can I speak with you for a moment?” can show our politeness. In
contrast, almost any noun used for a person can be used as a personal pronoun
in Vietnamese, such as “doctor” (bác sĩ), “professor” (giáo sư), “owner” (ông
chủ), “father” (cha, ba, bố), etc. These personal pronouns are usually used as
second-person pronouns and used widely in every communication situation. We
can take the above sentence as an example:
“Can I speak with you for a moment?”
Patient to doctor: “Tôi có thể nói chuyện với bác sĩ một lát không?”
Student to teacher: “Em có thể nói chuyện với thầy một lát không?”
Son to father: “Con có thể nói chuyện với ba một lát không?”
Servant to owner: “ Con có thể nói chuyện với ông chủ một lát không?”

xx


CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS
3.1 Introduction and summary the thorn birds and the translation Tieng chim
hot trong bui man gai.
3.1.1 Introduction the novel.
The Thorn Birds is Colleen McCullough’s second novel, and her most widely read
word to date. Its publication propelled her to immediate literary stardom and

ensured her status as a widely read author. It is also a showcase for the themes and
literary styles that recur in her later works. The overarching theme in The Thorn
Birds is the conflict between love and ambition. In the story, at least four characters
sacrifice love on the altar of ambition. Father de Bricassart rejects Meggie and his
love for her in order to realize his ambitions in the Church. Meanwhile, Luke
O’Neil rejects an emotional connection with Meggie and his daughter in order to
fulfill his ambitions in the sugarcane business.
The Thorn Birds is a sweeping love story set on Drogheda, a sheep station in the
Australian Outback. At its heart is the ill-fated romance of beautiful Meggie Cleary

xxi


and the handsome Roman Catholic priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart. Forced to
choose between the woman he loves, and the Church he is sworn to, Father Ralph's
ambitions win, and he stays with the Church, eventually becoming a Cardinal in
Rome. De Bricassart never realizes that Meggie's bright, compliant young son,
Dane, is his child, even when the boy comes to Rome to study for the priesthood.
After Dane's tragic death, Meggie must choose between her own comfort, and the
independence of her beautiful, willful daughter Justine, a talented actress.
McCullough's tome, almost 700 pages in length, details the private lives of three
generations of the Cleary clan over 55 years, and paints a convincing portrait of the
trials and rewards of life in the Australian desert, and one woman's doomed love for
an unavailable man.

3.1.3 The translation “Tieng chim hot trong bui man gai”
There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than
any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it
researches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing
among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And,

dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One
superlative song, existence the price, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in
His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… or so says
the legend.
That novel, after published on 1977 by arrangement with Harper and Row,
Publishers, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-26271 ISBN, it had
been translation into many differences languages included Vietnamese version that
translated by Phạm Mạnh Hùng. This version published in 2011 by literary
publisher.

xxii


3.2 Summary of the translation of personal pronouns was used by characters
from English version into Vietnamese version.
In terms of person, there are three type personal pronouns in English and
Vietnamese.
In English: the first person refers to the speaker or writer (I, me). The second person
“you” refers to the immediate addressee(s), or any potentially listener(s) or
reader(s), or even a generic one (people in general, including the first person). The
third person (He/ him, she/ her) refers to the people/person besides the first and
second person, or, to the one(s) mentioned in the conversation besides the
speaker/writer and the listener/ reader.
In Vietnamese, there are three specialized Vietnamese personal pronouns referring
to:
 The first personal pronouns: tôi, tao, tớ, mình, ta…
 The second person, there are 3 base personal pronouns: mày, ngươi, mi.
 In the third person, besides “nó” and “hắn” for singular form and “chúng
nó”,”bọn hắn” for plural form, Vietnamese has borrowed personal pronouns
from Mandarin: “y”, “thị” for singular form and “chúng”, “họ” for plural

form.
In the novel “Thorn Birds”, I found out English personal pronouns appear 629 times,
Vietnamese personal pronouns appear 558 times. It is shown in the following table:
Language

English

Vietnamese

Frequency Percent

Frequency Percent

(%)

(%)

The first personal pronouns

205

28.2%

251

30.2%

The second personal pronouns

81

11.1%

71

8.5%

The third personal pronouns

441

60.7%

510

61.3%

Total

727

100%

832

100%

Table 3.2 Summary of the translation of personal pronouns was used by
character from English version into Vietnamese version.
xxiii

In form, there is a charge of type of speech of personal pronouns from translated
from English into Vietnamese due to some factors affecting conversation
participants in terms of interpersonal relationship on the two axes (vertical axishorizontal axis), in which vertical axis is social relationship, status and according to
relationship such as close relationship (love, respect, husband and wife), family
relationship, friendship, enemy, hatred… between conversation participants, and
reflecting role, hierarchy in family and society, age, gender, position, occupation,
attitude, feeling.
3.3. The translation of the first personal pronoun from English into
Vietnamese.
3.3.1 Translation of the first personal pronouns “I” is used in “Thorn Birds”
into Vietnamese “Tiếng chim hót trong bụi mận gai”
As mentioned above, the subjective case I is the first person singular pronoun in
English, which functions as the subject pronoun. It is usually used by one person to
make reference to himself or herself. The pronoun I can shift from one person to
another if it is used by different people. But when they translated into Vietnamese,
it will become many different words such as: Toi, tao, anh, em, con, cha, me, ta…
Numbers of time first personal pronouns “I” is used in “Thorn Birds” and
equivalent translation “Tiếng chim hót trong bụi mận gai”, which was shown as the
follow:
Ord.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Equivalent translation
Tôi
Ta
Tao
Em
Anh
Con
Mẹ
Bố

Frequency
134
12
7
25
10
15
10
6

xxiv

Percent
61.2%
5.5%
3.2%
11.4%
4.6%
6.8%

4.6%
2.7%