Vietnamese translated variants of verbs of giving receiving in “harry potter and the half blood prince” by j k rowling

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ ÁNH DIỆP

VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VARIANTS OF VERBS OF
GIVING/RECEIVING IN
"HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE"
BY J.K. ROWLING
(Các biến thể dịch thuật tiếng Việt của nhóm động từ trao/nhận
trong bản dịch “Harry Potter và Hoàng tử lai” của J.K. Rowling)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60220201

Hanoi - 2016


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ ÁNH DIỆP

VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VARIANTS OF VERBS OF
GIVING/RECEIVING IN
"HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE"
BY J.K. ROWLING

(Các biến thể dịch thuật tiếng Việt của nhóm động từ trao/nhận
trong bản dịch “Harry Potter và Hoàng tử lai” của J.K. Rowling)
M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lâm Quang Đông

Hanoi - 2016


DECLARATION
I declare that this thesis, entitled Vietnamese translated variants of verbs of
Giving/Receiving in "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling, and
the work presented in it is my own and has been generated by me as the result of my
own research.
I confirm that when I quoted from the work of others, the source was always
given and no part of this work has been published before submission.

Hanoi,2016

Trần Thị Ánh Diệp

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
During the whole process of conducting this study for her MA thesis, the
writer has received the support as well as encouragement from a number of people.
Thus, it will probably be an unacceptable mistake if this invaluable contribution to

the accomplishment of this thesis is not mentioned.
First of all, her heartfelt gratitude is reserved to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lâm Quang
Đông, her supervisor, for the patience in providing constant and careful guidance,
advice as well as useful corrections and suggestions.
Secondly, I want to thank all of the lecturers, professors and doctors teaching
at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies of ULIS for their lessons and supports
during my MA course.
Additionally, her sincere thanks are delivered to her beloved family and
friends, whose unlimited love and support have become a strongly motivation for
her to complete this paper.

ii


ABSTRACT
Recent studies have shown that translation is a problematic procedure with
numerous complicated issues that should be detected. In order to facilitate the
translator in the process of translation, especially at word level, this paper is carried
out at the endeavor of exploring the English verbs of Giving/Receiving and their
corresponding variants in the sixth novel “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
of the Harry Potter series. From that, the most used verbs as well as the verbs with
the highest number of variants could be revealed. To reach these aims, the
qualitative, contrastive and quantitative approaches are employed. The original
version is examined to list the English verbs and then contrasted with the
Vietnamese translation to find out the variants. The explanation of the appearance
of these variants is suggested. The results of the study reveal that the Giving verb
give and the Receiving verb get are the most common verbs in the novel. They are
also the verbs with the highest number of variants. The translator‟s choice in this
novel is believed to rely on the context of the utterance, the structure of the verb
phrase in the utterance and the original word choice. However, the extent of

influence of each factor on Giving verbs are not the same as on Receiving verbs.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ........................................................................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ........................................................................ vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................1
1. Rationale of the study ..........................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study .................................................................................................2
3. Research Approaches and Procedure...................................................................2
4. Significance of the study .....................................................................................3
5. Scope of the study ................................................................................................3
6. Structure of the thesis ..........................................................................................3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT .......................................................................................5
CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ..................................................5
1. The generality of translation.............................................................................5
2. Verbs of Giving/Receiving .............................................................................11
3. Concluding Remarks ...................................................................................16
CHAPTER II: THE TRANSLATION VARIANTS OF VERBS OF
GIVING/RECEIVING IN “HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD
PRINCE” BY J.K.ROWLING ..............................................................................18
1. Introduction: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K.Rowling ...18
2. Verbs of Giving/Receiving in the English (original) version and their variants

in the Vietnamese translation. ............................................................................20
3. Concluding remarks .....................................................................................42
PART C: CONCLUSION .........................................................................................44
1. Conclusion .........................................................................................................44
iv


2. Implications .......................................................................................................44
3. Limitations of the study .....................................................................................45
4. Suggestions for further study .............................................................................46
REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................47
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................. I

v


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
1. SL: Source Language
2. TL: Target Language

vi


LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1: Giving verbs and some related verbs ..........................................................12
Table 2: The semantic roles of participants in the case of the verb send/gửi ...........15
Table 3: English verbs with explicit meaning of Giving/Receiving in the original
version .........................................................................................................21
Table 4: English verbs with temporary meaning of Giving/Receiving in the original
version .........................................................................................................22

Table 5: Vietnamese variants of verbs of Giving .....................................................24

Figure 1: Vietnamese variants of verbs of Receiving ...............................................32

vii


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In recent years, foreign literary works, especially English ones, have been widely
introduced in Vietnam. Had it not been for the substantial efforts made by many
excellent translators, these works would not have become a great enjoyment of
Vietnamese literature enthusiasts. In other words, translation procedure has a
significant influence on the reception of readers, and, obviously, the popularity of a
particular work. A number of problems could be detected during this procedure, and
the solutions to these should be explored to assist the translators. These troubles
might come from many complicated issues namely cultural elements, technical
terms, verb phrases, and so on. This inspires the author to conduct a study of
English and Vietnamese, and the chosen subjects are the meanings of verbs of
Giving/Receiving and its Vietnamese translated variants.
Verbs of Giving/Receiving are widely-used; however, their variety of meanings
tends to cause considerable difficulties to translators. Particularly, in the translation
process of a literary piece, it is crucial that the translator have deep understanding of
the intent and the messages conveyed by the author. The intentions and messages
are generally generated from every single word in the text, and verbs of
Giving/Receiving are the ones that cannot be left out. They are difficult and
complicated elements that should be carefully investigated to make any translation
refined. As a result, this paper is conducted with the expectation that the
Vietnamese equivalents of verbs of giving/receiving in the examined literature piece
might be brought to light.

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", the sixth novel in the Harry Potter series
by J.K. Rowling, is chosen as the source of data for this study because of its
abundance and variety of instances where those verbs occur, and hence the diversity
of its Vietnamese equivalents, and because of the writer‟s own interest. The
1


researcher was strongly appealed and impressed by this novel and then she made a
decision to choose this piece, both Vietnamese and English versions to examine.
For all of the above reasons, the researcher proposes Vietnamese translated variants
of verbs of Giving/Receiving in "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince" by J.K.
Rowling as the title of the study.
2. Aims of the study
As mentioned, the aim of this study is to investigate the translation variants of
English verbs of Giving/Receiving in the corpus novel. This aim can be reached by
answering the following research questions:
1. What verbs are used to denote the meaning of Giving and Receiving in the
novel “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K.Rowling?
2. How are these verbs translated in the Vietnamese version?
3. Research Approaches and Procedure
In the study, the following approaches are employed:
Qualitative and descriptive approach: the whole novel is thoroughly examined in
order to note down and to list all the English verbs of Giving/Receiving.
Contrastive analysis approach: the English (original) version is contrasted with
then Vietnamese translation so as to identify the translation variants of the
investigated verbs.
Quantitative approach: The collected data are presented quantitatively according to
their number of occurrences in both the English (original) version and the
Vietnamese translation.

2


The data collection procedure consists of three main steps.
First of all, the original version of the novel is examined to enumerate the English
verbs of Giving/Receiving and their number of occurrences. These verbs are found
based on the verb list and the definition of the act of Giving/Receiving proposed by
Lâm Quang Đông (2008) and Newman (1996). The dictionary meaning also plays
an important role in this step. This addresses the first research question.
Secondly, the Vietnamese version is studied and contrasted with the original to find
the translated counterparts (the variants) of the English verbs.
Finally, based on the gathered data, the reasons for the appearance of these variants
are suggested. The theory of context by Halliday/Hassan (1990) could be
considered one of the key bases of this part.
4. Significance of the study
The study will contribute to understanding of the different Vietnamese variants of
English verbs of Giving/Receiving through a translated literary work. Besides,
practical options for translating verbs of Giving/Receiving into Vietnamese will be
proposed on the basis of the study results.
5. Scope of the study
As mentioned earlier, the research merely examines the Vietnamese translation of
English verbs having the literal meaning of Giving/Receiving in the Vietnamese
version of the sixth novel in the Harry Potter series named “Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince”.
6. Structure of the thesis
The thesis, which reports the different stages of the study and its results, is expected
to consist of the following parts according to requirements of an M.A. thesis
3

Part A: Introduction
This part includes the rationale, aims of the study, research questions, reseach
approaches and procedure, scope and significance of the study as well as the
structure of the thesis.
Part B: Development
Chapter I: Theoretical Background. In this chapter, the theory of translation and the
matter around the problems of translation variants are provided. Moreover, the
chapter reviews some aspects of verbs of Giving/Receiving.
Chapter II: The translation variants of verbs of Giving/Receiving in “Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K.Rowling. This chapter presents the results and
the data analysis concerning the English verbs of Giving/Receiving and their
translation variants in the selected novel.
Part C: Conclusion
The last part briefly summarizes the main ideas of the study, presents the limitations
of the study as well as suggests further research on the same topic.

4


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1. The generality of translation
1.1. Definition
In Approaches to Translation, Newmark (1982:7) states:
Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message
and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in
another language.
According to Bell (1991:5), "Translation is the expression in another language (or
TL) of what has been expressed in another, SL, preserving semantic and stylistic
equivalence.”

As might be drawn from the above definitions by the two scholars in different
times, in the theory of translation, equivalence might be considered a central
concept. Therefore, equivalence relation is applied in defining translation by a
number of theorists. As Pym (1992) claims, equivalence is believed to define
translation, and translation, in turn, defines equivalence. Thus, the next part presents
some discussions about equivalence in translation, especially at word level.
1.2. Equivalence
Translation equivalence can be classified in various ways based on different factors.
In terms of meaning, equivalence could be divided into five main groups:
denotative, connotative, text-normative, pragmatic and formal equivalence.
-

Denotative equivalence: The SL and TL words refer to the same thing in the real
world.

5


-

Connotative equivalence: Additional values besides denotative are provided.
This equivalence is achieved by the translator‟s choice of synonymous words or
expressions.

-

Text-normative equivalence: The SL and 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: produces and analogy of form in the translation by either
exploiting formal possibilities of TL, or creating new forms in TL.
(Adapted from Koller ,1979)

In addition, Nida (1964) suggests another way of categorize equivalence based on
function: dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence. These two types of
equivalence are distinguised 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.

On the other hand, Munday (2001) seems to stick to numeracy and suggests the
following classification based on the quantity: one-to-one equivalence, one-to-many
equivalence, one-to-part-of-one equivalence and nil equivalence.
-

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 TL which is equivalent to them.

6


-

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 ->
Loan or borrowing should be used.

Moreover, in Baker (1992), a discussion of the notion of equivalence in terms of
form could be found. She seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon
which the concept of equivalence can be defined. She distinguishes between
equivalence at word level and above word level. Because the subject of this
research is the translation variants of giving/receiving verbs, only the equivalence at
word level is discussed further.

To begin with, Baker (1992) defined a word as “the smallest unit which we would
expect to possess individual meaning” (Baker, 1992:11). With more precision, she
also defines the written word “as any sequence of letters with an orthographic space
on either side” (Baker, 1992:11)
Besides, she deals with the lexical meaning of a word. The lexical meaning refers to
“the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system and their „personality‟ it
acquires through usage within that system” (Baker, 1992:11). The four main types
of the lexical meaning of a word (Cruse, 1986) are also presented in Baker (1992):
propositional meaning, expressive meaning, presupposed meaning and evoked
meaning.
-

Propositional meaning: This meaning refers to the relation between it and what
it refers to or describes in a real or imaginary world. This meaning provides the
basis on which we can judge an utterance as true or false.

-

Expressive meaning: This meaning relates to the speaker‟s feelings or attitude. It
cannot be judged as true or false.

7


Baker (1992) claims that two or more words/utterances might share the same
propositional meaning but differ in their expressive meanings, for example, the
words famous in English and fameux in French. They both basically mean „wellknown‟ (propositional meaning). However, while famous is neutral in English,
fameux is potentially evaluative and could be used in some contexts in a derogatory
way.
-

Presupposed meaning: It could be defined as the restrictions on what other
words or expressions we expect to see before or after a particular unit.
+ Selectional restrictions: For instance, we expect a human subject for studious
and an inanimate one for geometrical.
+ Collocational restrictions: In English, teeth are brushed, but in German and
Italian they are „polished‟, in Polish they are „washed‟, and in Russian they
are „cleaned‟.

-

Evoked meaning: This meaning arises from dialect and register vairation.
+ Dialect: dialect: a variety of language which has currency within a specific
community or group of speakers. Dialect might be classified according to
geographical (e.g. lift in British English BE - and elevator in American
English AE), temporal (e.g. verity – really) and social (e.g. scent - and
perfume) bases.
+ Register: It refers to a variety of language that a language user considers
appropriate to a specific situation.

These types of lexical meaning all contribute to the overall meaning of a
word/utterance in vague and complex ways because of the nature of language. As
stated by Baker (1992), in most cases, words have „blurred edges‟; that is, the
meanings of words are negotiable and can only be realized in specific contexts.
Sharing the same viewpoint, Tyler/ Evans (2003:18) also state:

8


In normal communication lexical items do not occur in isolation. In point of

fact, when humans use lexical items, the lexical items always occur in context
and their precise interpretation changes with each use.
Consequently, it can be inferred that one word in one language could be translated
in different ways into another language. This perception is also mentioned in Diệp
Quang Ban (2004). According to Diệp Quang Ban (2004), the events […] are
expressed via the perspective built by people, and encoded in the grammar of a
specific language. Therefore, the same event could be perceived and expressed in
different ways which can differ among different speakers, and languages. Besides,
these ways can vary among different times of perception of the same person or
within the same language but with different means of expression allowed in this
language. Thus, the central element that causes the changes of word interpretation,
as agreed by the above authors, is the context where the lexical items occur.
1.3. Context of situation
Discussing the effects of context on the meaning of language, the concept of
“context of situation” has been raised. According to Schaeffner (2002), this concept
was formulated in 1923 by Malinowski in The Meaning of Meaning. It was then
elaborated by Firth (1951) and extended in numerous studies (Schaeffner, 2002).
The best-known treatment might be Hymes‟ (1971) discussion of models of the
language and social setting interaction (Schaeffner, 2002). In this discussion, speech
situation is categorized in terms of eight components which summarized as form
and content of text, setting, participants, ends (intent and effect), key, medium,
genre and interactional norms (Halliday/Hasan, 1990:22, mentioned in Schaeffner,
2002).
Halliday/Hasan (1990) proposed a more abstract interpretation with the three
headings of field, tenor and mode as a foundation for deriving the text features from
the situation features.

9

-

Field: the subject matter. In other words, it is the answer to the questions: What
is happening, to whom, where and when, why is it happening, and so on

-

Tenor: the social relation existing between the interactants in a speech situation.
It might consist of relations of formality, power, and effect (e.g. the relation
between manage/clerk, father/son). It tends to influence interpersonal choices in
the linguistic system. Hence, the structures and strategies chosen to activate the
linguistic exchange are affected.

-

Mode: the way the language is being used in the speech interaction. It includes
the medium (spoken, written, written to be spoken, etc.) as well as the rhetorical
mode (expository, instructive, persuasive, etc.).

All these three components help the speaker/writer to orient himself in the context
of situation. Thus, the translators have to try and maintain the context by seeking
the corresponding three elements in the target language.
-

Field: the translator will have to take decisions about what terminology to use, to
what extent the writer‟s context is familiar to the target language reader, the type
of grammatical structures to adopt (e.g: active/passive);

-

Tenor: this variable will allow the translator to frame the right choice of register
(formal/informal, modern/archaic, technical/non-technical);

-

Mode: it is the way the text should be organized (where the information focus
lies, what is given and what new information is provided, etc.)
(Adapted from Taylor, 1998)

Generally speaking, equivalence is the central concept in translation. One
word/utterance in the source language could be translated into a number of variants
in the target language, according to the choice of the translator. This choice may be
affected by some certain factors, including the context of situation.

10


2. Verbs of Giving/Receiving
2.1. The act of Giving/Receiving
An act of Giving is defined as “an act whereby a person (the giver) passes with the
hands control over an object (thing) to another person (the recipient)” (Newman,
1996). Lâm Quang Đông (2008), labels these three entities X, Z and Y,
respectively. In some cultures, the act of Giving may associate with some rituals
and vary in terms of position, movement or kinship obligation (Newman, 1996).
Moreover,

Newman

(1996)

suggests

that

the

transfer

of

control/ownership/possession tends to be the core meaning of Give words. Thus, the
act of Giving can be considered not only one of the human interactions but also are
frequent and generally highly purposeful. He also states that Give is a basic verb in
every language. Lâm Quang Đông (2008) shares the same opinion, and extends this
to the other verbs of Giving. Verbs of Giving, as argued by Lâm Quang Đông
(2008), belong to the basic vocabularies of languages. These verbs are among the
earliest linguistic elements to be perceived and used by children. Besides, the
number of verbs of Giving is abundant to properly express various circumstances,
characteristics, manners of the act of Giving as well as the interpersonal relations
among the participants.
An act of receiving is defined through the verb take in comparison with the verb
give (Newman, 1996). The similarities is that both acts include “the movement of a
thing, typically the hands of a person; the movement is initiated by a person; the
thing ends up in the sphere of control of a person” (Newman, 1996: 56-57). They
differ in terms of the directions of movement of a thing with respect to the subject
referent (Newman, 1996). Particularly, in the case of give, the movement is away
from the subject referent while in the case of take, the movement is toward the
subject referent. Another distinction is that there is no Giver necessarily presented
in the base of take. In other words, there is only one person necessarily involved in

11


the sub-categorization of the basic meaning of take. Like verbs of Giving, verbs of
Receiving also vary in accordance with certain circumstances.
Based on the core concept of an act of Giving/Receiving, Lâm Quang Đông (2008)
proposed a list of Giving verbs and some related verbs as follows:
Table 1: Giving verbs and some related verbs
Allocate

Distribute

Present

Allot

Divide

Provide

Assign

Donate

Receive

Award

Endow

Refund

Bequeath

Entrust

Reimburse

Bestow

Extend

Relegate

Bribe

Forward

Remit

Buy

Furnish

Repay, pay back

Cede

Get

Return

Concede

Give

Reward

Confer

Hand out

Sell

Contribute

Hand

Send

Dedicate

Impart

Share

Delegate

Jump

Submit, hand in

Deliver

Leave

Supply

Devote

Make over

Take

Dig

Offer

Throw

Dispatch

Pass

Transfer
(Adapted from Lâm Quang Đông, 2008)

This list tends to focus on the verbs of Giving. Besides, some verbs such as dig, buy
and sell are believed to be excluded from the verbs of Giving/Receiving. On the

12


other hand, there are also some other verbs mentioned in the above list among
which some verbs of Receiving are also found. As can be seen, however, by preexamining the original version, the researcher find that there are some verbs with
the meaning of Giving/Receiving found in the corpus does not exist in the list,
especially the Receiving verbs such as accept, inherit, catch, grab, reap and have.
Therefore, in the current study, a contrastive analysis of the two versions (the
original and the Vietnamese) of the novel and a dictionary research also serve as the
tools for identifying the data.
2.2. The representational semantic structure of verbs of Giving/Receiving
Lâm Quang Đông (2008), in his book, presents the representational semantic
structure of verbs of Giving. He groups the verbs according to the number of
participants involved in the act of Giving.
2.2.1. The representational semantic structure of verbs of Giving/Receiving with 3
participants or less
a. 1 participant
-

Only Agent appears, Recipient and Theme cannot be identified.
(M1) GIVE <Agent>
Bà ấy toàn cho đi chứ chẳng bao giờ lấy cả.

CHO ĐI <bà ấy>

She always gives but never takes.
He usually gives.
-

GIVE <he>

There is no occurrence of the Giver and Recipient. Only Theme appears

13


(M2) GIVE (Theme)
Cái ngọt bùi đem cho, còn đắng cay gánh lấy. ĐEM CHO <ngọt bùi>
Advantages to give, disadvantages to retain.
Give blood here!

GIVE <blood>
(Adapted from Lâm Quang Đông, 2008)

b. 2 participants
This case happens when one of the three participants is unspecified and schematic.
(M3) GIVE <Agent;Theme>
Tôi thích tặng quà.

TẶNG <tôi; quà>

I like to give presents
The teacher gave the answers after the test. GIVE <the teacher; the answers>
(M4) GIVE <Agent; Recipient>
Con thí cho thằng mõ đấy.

THÍ <con; thằng mõ>

I gave to that circulator!
I like to give to the church.

GIVE <I; the church>

(M5) GIVE <Theme; Recipient>
Bốn cái móng giò biếu bốn ông to nhất.

BIẾU<4 cái móng giò; 4 ông to>

Four legs are given to the four leaders.
He was given the Nobel Prize for his invention. GIVE <the Nobel Prize; he>
(Adapted from Lâm Quang Đông, 2008)

14


c. 3 participants
(M6) GIVE <Agent; Recipient; Theme>
Người cho em tất cả là Bác Hồ Chí Minh

CHO <Người; em; tất cả>

The person who gave me everything is Uncle Ho Chi Minh.
He handed the report to me.

HAND <he; me; the report>
(Adapted from Lâm Quang Đông, 2008)

2.2.2. The representational semantic structure of verbs of Giving/Receiving with
more than 3 participants
According to Lâm Quang Đông (2008), in the case of the verb send/gửi, it is

hypothesized that the act of Sending can happen through an intermediator. In
English, an intermediator is realized by a prepositional phrase (the circumstant).
Two main kinds of circumstants are proposed by Lâm Quang Đông (2008): Default
Circumstants and Non-default Circumstants.
Table 2: The semantic roles of participants in the case of the verb send/gửi
Participants

Circumstants

1

2

3

Default

Non-Default

Agent

Recipient

Theme

Intermediary

Time

Author

Goal

Complement

Recipient

Manner

Source

Experiencer

Instrument

Means

Reason

Locative

Locative

Instrument

Etc.

Instrument

Beneficiary

Direction

Patient

Goal

15


I will send you the contract through email. (I: Agent, you: recipient, the contract:
theme, email: Non-default circumstant –Instrument)
I have sent you the gift through Mr. Brown. (I: Agent, you: recipient, the gift:
theme, Mr. Brown: Default circumstant – Intermediary Recipient)
(Adapted from Lâm Quang Đông, 2008)
As mentioned above in the act of Receiving, Receiving is the reverse act of Giving.
Thus, both verbs of Receiving and Giving share the same expressive semantic
structures. However, the semantic roles of the participants 1 and 2 are reversed with
each other. As Newman (1996) claims, the distinctive features of the two acts are
the directions of the movement. Regarding give, the movement is away from,
whereas in the case of take, the movement is toward the subject referent. Therefore,
in the structure of Receiving verbs, the participant 1 is the recipient and the
participant 2 is the person from whom something is taken. Moreover, in the case of
Receiving verbs, the appearance of the participant 2 is not necessary.
3. Concluding Remarks
This chapter discussed the definitions of translation and the concept of equivalence
in translation. Numerous factors could influence the translater‟s choice, and the
context of situation is one of the most important factors. In the context of situation,
the three main aspects namely field, tenor and mode shoud be taken into
consideration in the translation process. In addtion, the concept of the act of

Giving/Receiving suggested by Newman and Lâm Quang Đông as well as the list of
some typical verbs proposed by Lâm Quang Đông is presented and chosen to be one
of the main criteria to conduct the investigation. Otherwise, a dictionary research
and a comparison between the two version are also useful tools for analysis. The
representational semantic structures of the verbs of Giving/Receiving by Lâm

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