Translation quality assessment of products for sale at weasleys’ wizard wheezes in harry potter series by lý lan

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
(FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION)

GRADUATION PAPER

READERS’ PREFERENCE ON THE TWO
TRANSLATIONS OF KENNETH GRAHAME’S
“THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS”

Supervisor: Trần Thị Minh, M.A
Student: Trịnh Thị Quế
Course: QH2010.F1.E16

HÀ NỘI – 2017


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ĐÁNH GIÁ CỦA NGƯỜI ĐỌC VỀ HAI BẢN DỊCH
CỦA TÁC PHẨM “THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS”
CỦA KENNETH GRAHAME

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.S Trần Thị Minh
Sinh viên: Trịnh Thị Quế
Khóa: QH2010.F1.E16

HÀ NỘI – 2017


I hereby state that I: Trịnh Thị Quế, QH.2013.E16 being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor
of Arts (programme) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of
Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should
be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions
established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.

Trịnh Thị Quế
May, 5th, 2017


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Attending ULIS is like getting lost in a maze. You have to be able to navigate,
have super memories and have big visions. To make it more thrilling, the teachers
put some monsters on way that you need to defeat. In that sense, the final thesis
is like a sleeping giant awaiting them next to the way out. Some people will
choose to stay out of the troubles, let the giant alone and silently walk out. But
some insane adventurers decided to make their journey really memorable by
getting themselves involved in the final challenge: to waken the giant, kill him
and walk out gloriously.
Right now, I am here, standing on the threshold of the way out. First and
foremost, I want to show my greatest attitude to God, who comforts, strengthens
and guides me all the time. Then I am extremely grateful for Ms. Trieu Thu Hang
and Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh. On a long tiring journey, they are such reliable
companions, who always gave me good advices. Additionally, I also would like

to thank BGEA – my colleagues for their prayers and encouragement.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Indeed. I want to give thanks to
all the teachers that have been posting challenges on the way out for the last 4
years. Those challenges are what made me who I am today and what my thesis
will be. Thank you!

i


Abstract

“The wind in the willow” by Kenneth Grahame - classic book for children
was translated twice into Vietnamese. The first translation was in 2006 by
Nguyen Tam and the second one was 5 years later – in 2011 by Nguyen Thi Cam
Linh. The two translations of different styles prove to have their own strengths
and drawbacks and attract the readers in different ways. This tends to cause
people have the sense of comparison. The researcher is interested in this special
case of the two translations of the classic children book and does this research to
explore the preferences of the audience on these two translations, or even try to
draw further conclusion about readership in translation.
Based on the theoretical foundation drawn from previous studies, the
researcher designs the questionnaire to distribute to the group of participants
including sixth graders, ninth graders and twelfth graders. Then, it is followed
up with the interviews. The collected data from the interview is presented in
tables and figures for interpreting. The researcher sees that most of readers show
their preference to Cam Linh’s version. The reasons why the readers decided on
their preferences are various but the majority of the respondents prefers one
specific translation because it is more comprehensive and has more natural style.

ii

Table of Contents
Acknowledgment .................................................................................................i
Abstract……….……………………………......................................................ii
Table of Contents………………………..........................................................iii
List of Tables and Figures …..………….........................................................v
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1.Rationale ........................................................................................................1
2. Significance ..................................................................................................2
3. Research questions .......................................................................................3
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.Related studies ...............................................................................................4
1.1. Research by Huyen (2013) .................................................................4
1.2. Research by Chazal (2003) ................................................................6
2. Translation ....................................................................................................7
2.1.Literary Translation.............................................................................8
2.2. Translation of Children Literature......................................................9
2.3. Translation Method ..........................................................................10
3. Translation quality assessment ..................................................................11
3.1. Approaches to translation quality assessment ..................................11
3.2. Models of translation quality assessment.........................................13
4. Readership .................................................................................................15
4.1. Readership in children literature ......................................................15
4.2. Readership in translation quality assessment ...................................16
4.3. Readers’ preference..........................................................................16
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Data collection process ..............................................................................18
2. Sampling.....................................................................................................19
2.1. Selection of research subject ............................................................19

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2.2. Selection of participants ...................................................................19
3. Data collection instruments .......................................................................20
3.1. Questionnaire....................................................................................20
3.2. Interview...........................................................................................22
4. Data analysis methods ...............................................................................22
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
1.Findings by questions .................................................................................24
2. Cross tabulation analysis ........................................................................... 32
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION
1. Recapitulation...........................................................................................39
2. Summary of the findings ...........................................................................40
3. Limitations................................................................................................41
4. Suggestions................................................................................................41

iv


List of figures
Figure 1: House’s TQA model ........................................................................14
Figure 2: The data collection process ............................................................18
List of Tables
Table 1: Reader’s opinion on similarity (Frequency) ....................................24
Table 2: Reader’s opinion on similarity (Percentage) ...................................25
Table 3: Readers’ opinion on the comprehensiveness ( Frequency) ..............26
Table 4: Readers’ opinion on the comprehensiveness ( Percentage) .............27
Table 5: Readers’ opinion on the naturalness ( Frequency) ..........................28
Table 6: Readers’ opinion on the naturalness ( Percentage) .........................28

Table 7: Reader’s preference ( Frequency) ....................................................30
Table 8: Reader’s preference ( Percentage) ...................................................31
Table 9: Clarity and preference......................................................................33
Table 10: Naturalness and preference ...........................................................34
Table 11: Twelfth graders (1) ........................................................................35
Table 12: Ninth graders (1) ...........................................................................36
Table 13: Sixth graders(1)..............................................................................36
Table 14: Twelfth graders (2) ........................................................................37
Table 15: Ninth graders (2) ...........................................................................37
Table 16: Sixth graders(2)..............................................................................37

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Being the second oldest occupation in the world, translation dates back
to the beginning of human civilization and has always kept its leading role in
facilitating communication among human by undermining the language
barriers. Nowadays, in the high-paced globalization process, the burgeoning
demand for cross-border exchange on various fields seems to consolidate the
indispensable part of translation.
The significance of translation also poses the need to produce good
translation and to evaluate the quality of all translation work. This led to the
appearance of translation quality assessment (TQA), which has already
attracted the numerous translation scholars to devote their time and effort.
Baker (1998, p. 200) said in her work “Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation”
that “Large corpora of translation from and into many different languages must
be analyzed in order to formulate hypotheses about why, and to what extend
one translation is better than another”. Many other big names in translation

study also left their imprint in this area such as Julian House, Hans Vermeer,
Peter Newmark. Throughout the history of translation study, the researchers
have proposed various approaches and attempted to form different models to
soundly assess the whole process of translation. However, in the current context
of TQA, most of the actual assessment work is done by experts such as
translators, theorists based merely on theoretical frameworks; there is quite
little involvement of the actual readership in the evaluating process. As the endusers of the translation, readers should be empowered to play a more active role
as translation evaluators.
In the list of those whose voices are mostly unheard in the TQA process,
readers of children literature must be somewhere near the top. As cited in
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“Translation of Children Literature: A Reader” by Lathey (2006), Riitta Ottinen
states that children are suffering from an unequal relationship with adults in
literature and its translation because children’s book are written and then
translated by adults whose “self-interest are at stake” (Lathey, 2006, p.5). In
other words, adults or experts are the decision makers about how to translate
and the criteria of a good translation. Therefore, Ottinen devoted herself to
“argue in favor of a child-centered approaches to translation”, which should be
promoted among translator, assessors and other relevant parties in the field of
translation study.
Bearing in mind the demand on reasonable translation assessment and
the issues related to the undermining status of readers, especially child readers,
in translation studies (or TQA in particular), the researcher decided to conduct
the research “Readers’ preference on the two translations of Kenneth
Grahame’s ‘The Wind in The Willow”.
In the current market, there are two different Vietnamese translations of
the children book “The wind in the willow”: one translated in 2006 by Nguyen
Tam and the other one in 2011 by Nguyen Thi Cam Linh. The research will

show the comparisons between two different translations of one literary work
and ask for the preference of the readers. Through this paper, the researcher
expects to reveal a new picture of literary translation assessment from the
viewpoint of the readers, which hopefully can make contribution to the field of
translation and TQA.
2. Significance
In the current context of translation studies, this research can make
remarkable contribution to the process of translation and evaluation.
Firstly, by asking for the readers’ preference, the researcher joined Riitta
Ottinen and many others in promoting readership - a significant but ignored
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aspect of TQA. This thesis is expected to bring an eye-opening experience
when it shows people the differences between the assessment of the experts and
the actual readers. Therefore, it will help raise people’s awareness about the
importance of readership, and facilitate readers’ deeper involvement in the
TQA process. It is believed to improve the quality of the assessment.
Secondly, once completed, the research can show which translation with
different methods is preferred by the readers. Further explanation for their
choice will also be made through the analysis of the information gained from
the questionnaire. As a result, the translators can get the real responses of the
readers and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each translation method
in a very specific situation. This will act as a reference for the translators to
adjust and perfect themselves in this field.

3. Research questions
Conducting the research touching up on the readers’ perception towards the
target text, the researcher aims at answering the following questions:
1. What is the reader’s preference of the two translations of The Wind in the

Willow Chapter II?
2. Which impacts the readers on their preference to one particular
translation?

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Related thesis
1.1.

Research by Nguyen (2013)

In the process of building the theoretical foundation for this thesis, the
researcher seeks different sources of information related to children literary
translation, translation quality assessment. To the excitement of the researcher,
the study “Translation methods applied in translating the second chapter of
“The wind in the willow” by Kenneth Grahame” conducted by Nguyen Ngoc
Huyen in 2013 proves to be of great help. Although this is just a bachelor
thesis, by studying the same subject – the children book “The wind in the
willow”, this paper can still provide its findings and theoretical backgrounds to
be highly useful information for the researcher.

1.1.1. Summary of Nguyen’s research
The paper by Nguyen (2013) aims at exploring the translation methods
applied to translate Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willow” by Nguyen
Tam (2006) and Nguyen Thi Cam Linh (2011) and deciding which methods are
more successful and can be widely applied to translate other literary works.
Her study is conducted based on Newmark’s framework of translation

methods (1988) consisting of word-for-word translation, literal translation,
faithful translation, semantic translation, communication translation, idiomatic
translation, free translation and adaptation. Further analysis on those methods
will be done in the latter part of this research.
By the analytic comparison between the original and the translated text
as well as between the 2 translations, Nguyen (2013) tried to answer three
research questions. In the first question, Nguyen (2013) found out that Nguyen
Tam used 5 out of 8 translation methods by Newmark in his translation and
Nguyen Thi Cam Van applied 6. The second question revealed that the
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prevailing method in the translation by Nguyen Tam is literal translation (80%)
and in the version by Nguyen Thi Cam Linh is semantic translation (54%). As a
result, Nguyen Tam’s work has foreignization tendency, whereas Nguyen Thi
Cam Linh bended her work toward domestication. In the last question regarding
which translation is more preferable, Nguyen (2013) stated that Nguyen Thi
Cam Linh’s version is more successful in terms of maintaining the artistic value
of the original work and being friendly to the target readers.

1.1.2. Evaluation of Nguyen’s research (2013)
Nguyen’s study is conducted with a wide range of samples from the
sources text and translated texts, which contributes to its validity. The result is
clearly and thoroughly displayed. The researcher also shows her profound
understanding of Newmark’s translation methods through her thorough
analysis.
However, the research still has several weaknesses that can be improved.
First, although “The Wind in The Willow” by Kenneth Grahame is considered
as a classical literary work for children, Nguyen fails to cover the concept of
children literature and its translation in her literature review.

Second, Nguyen breaks the full text of chapter 2 into smaller units for
analyzing to find out ONE method that is applied in each unit. However, some
methods are missed because in some cases, more than one methods are applied
in one unit.
Thirdly, she also draws a conclusion that the translation by Nguyen Thi
Cam Linh is more successful than the version by Nguyen Tam. Nevertheless,
her viewpoint is not soundly supported with convincing arguments. This leaves
a significant gap for this thesis to fill in.

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1.2.

Research by Chazal (2003)

1.2.1. Summary of Chazal’s research
If the research by Nguyen (2013) focuses on the same subject with this
thesis, the similarity between the paper by Chazal and this one is that both
papers work on the readers’ preferences in two translations of one book.
Just like “The wind in the willow”, the highly popular French children
book called “Le Petit Prince” by Saint – Exupery was translated twice. The first
translation was in 1943 by Katherine Wood, and the second was 52 years later
(in 1995) by Allan Wakeman. Wood managed to maintain the fairytale-like
atmosphere of the story and be faithful to the original text, but her language in
the translation was seen as abnormal and unnatural. Meanwhile, the translation
by Allan Wakeman seems to be simpler and more suitable to children, but
somehow lose the enchantment. In this paper, Axelle Chazal is devoted to
answer the question about which translation is preferred by the readers and
interpret the answers. He conducted a questionnaire with 3 groups of samples:

translators, adults and children. The findings was quite interesting when a
majority of attendants found Allan Wakeman’s translation more suitable for
children, but most of them prefer Katherine Wood’s one. This shows that “the
child in the neighborhood” and “the child within ourselves” (Oittinen, 1993: 15
as cited in Chazal, 2003) has different responses toward one translation work.

1.2.2. Evaluation of Chazal’s research
One of the strong points in Chazal’s paper is that the literature review is
highly cohesive. It formed a valid theoretical foundation for the questionnaire
and the findings of the research. Specifically, several characteristics of children
literary translation are applied to form the questionnaire. Moreover, some parts
of the findings are consistent with some aforementioned theories in the
literature review, while some other prove the controversy theories. Therefore,
every part in Chazal’s thesis is closely linked to each other. Moreover, the
6


samples joining his questionnaire can well represent the different demographic
in the society, which improves the incredibility of the collected statistics. On
the other sides, there are still rooms for improvement in this paper. Although
the paper studies the readers’ preference, theories about translation quality
assessment were not covered.

2. Translation
According to Mona Baker (1998), different definitions of translation will
lead to different ways to perceive its quality and different ways to evaluate it.
Therefore, it’s highly important for the researcher to have a clear concept of
translation as a foundation for further development. In this thesis, the researcher
get a sound definition of translation by consulting Julian Houses and Hans
Vermeer. In his book “Translation Quality Assessment”, House (1997, p. 13)

defined translation as
“the result of a linguistic-textual operation in which a text in one language is
re-contextualized in another language. As a linguistic-textual operation,
translation is, however, subject to, and substantially influenced by, a variety of
extra-linguistic factors and conditions”.

The very important term “extra-linguistic factors and conditions” in the
definition of House are clarified, in the skopos theory by Hans Vermeer, as the
purposes (skopos) of the translation. In translation, “the end justifies the means”
(Vermeer, 1984, p.101, cited in Munday, 2001). Vermeer also further claimed
that readership is one of the most important factors that determine the purpose
(or the end) of the translation.
As a result, the above definition is chosen among many other because it
equips the researcher with clear understanding of translation, the role of
readership in the translation process and also acts as a guiding light for the
whole research paper.
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2.1.

Literary translation

According to Baker (1998), there was a time when literary translation
used to prevail other forms of translation such as interpreting, dubbing, subtitle
and stand as the main focus of translation studies. Even though it is not the case
now, the status of literary translation cannot be ignored.
A literary translation is viewed as “the translation of literature such as
novels, plays and poems” (Baker, 1998). Because of the complicate nature of
literature, literary translation is surely a demanding task. Besides the linguistic

meaning, all the “feelings, cultural nuances, humor and other subtle literary
elements” of the source text must be fully communicated (Luong, 2010).
Furthermore, the translator must deal with the aesthetic features, cultural value
and the genre characteristics of the work, which are considered to be extremely
hard to be conveyed between languages. Therefore, literary translators are
required to devote time and effort for preparation such as historical and literary
research. After all, literary translation is “the fruit of thousands of decision,
large and small, and of creative activities on the part of the translator” (Baker,
1998).
Moreover, “literary translation is a notion of not only translation but
literature as well” (Nguyen, 2013, p.7). The history of literature development
shows that translated literature work, instead of being in a passive position, has
been interactive with its destination to bring the evolvement. For example,
Thuy Toan (1999) said that at the beginning of the 20 th century in Vietnam,
most of the authors worked as translators in French or Chinese, which caused
their writing to be heavily affected by the foreign styles. Therefore, the point to
be made is that translation can have a certain effect on or even change the
characteristics of the target language literature. Specifically, what is considered
foreign, unnatural or translation-like in the past can become familiar and widely
accepted after being heard or used widely for a long time. Likewise, other
features of literature can evolve after enough contact with translation.
8


It seems that this dynamic will probably challenge any assessments based on
long-set theories. Consequently, a big question mark is posed to Nguyen’s
conclusion that Nguyen Tam’s translation is “too foreign for the target readers
to acquire” (Nguyen, 2013, p.38). The researcher expects to use this thesis to
clarify this through the opinion of the actual readers.

2.2.

Translation of children literature

Although no concrete definitions of children literature have been
reached, the researcher asserts that the need to present a clear view towards this
term. In the same attempt, Oittiinen (2000) defines children literature as
“literature read silently by children and aloud to children”. Also as a sub-area of
literature, children literature is classified into the “low culture” category (in
response to high culture one), which means that it does not contain many
cultural values and can be easily understood by readers (usually children) with
different cultural backgrounds (Baker, 1998). This seems to remarkably reduce
the workload for the translation; however, there are still numerous difficulties
translating children books.
One of them is the struggle whether the translation should be source text
– oriented or target text – oriented. Actually, the debate over this issues has
always been heated as each translators and assessors have their own point of
view.
Nord (1997, as cited in Chazal, 2003) applaused the bold move by
Barbara Teush in her Germany translation of “Alice in Wonderland”. In order
to fully convey the effect of the song “twinkle twinkle little bat” to the target
language, she utilized a Germany nursery rhymes with altered lyrics.
Nevertheless, there are always opposite ideas that, in some ways, helps us to
fully understand the issue.
If we want to acquaint children with people, and their customs elsewhere
– and that, I think, is one of the main tasks of literal translation – we
9


have to stick to the original, otherwise the whole business would not

make much sense. Or it will be easier to simply publish books written in
their own country to begin with (Roy Seifert, 1993, p. 48, as cited in
Chazal, 2003).
Among contrasting viewpoints and theories, translation of children
literature is surely the results of the translators’ countless consideration and
decision. According to Oittinen (2000), all children writers imbue their own
image of children into their works, and the translators in their translating
process have to take this into account with the filter - their own image of the
children. However, the child image is not a simple issue; it can be viewed
differently in individual or collective scale. Obviously, different perception of
children will lead to different ways of writing and translating. Therefore, in this
study, the readers – the final users of the children book will be offered chances
to raise their voices and define themselves.

2.3.

Translation methods

Translation methods are said to be applied to the whole text, but in fact,
the translator can switch methods in the smaller unit of paragraphs or even
sentences. Still, it determines the way that translators deal with the linguistic
aspect, aesthetic and cultural value of the text. As discussed above, translators
bear different viewpoints toward the translation quality, which leads to different
translation methods that are applied. According to Newmark (1998), there are 8
key methods of translation.
Word-for-word translation
Literal translation
Faithful translation
Semantic translation

Adaptation
Free translation
Idiomatic translation
Communicative translation

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Eight methods are divided into two groups based on their effects on the
translation. Four methods on the left wings are claimed to show the emphasis
on the source text, also known as foreignization, and the four on the right wings
emphasize the role of target text, or domestication in the other words according
to Venuti (1995). So far, the debate among translation scholar over which
methods can facilitate good translation has not lost its heat, and the researcher is
also motivated to raise her voice.
However, as discussed in article 2.1, the above perception about the
domestic and foreign tendency of the methods is being challenged. That the
literal translations are still considered as abnormal and natural need again
discussing.
In the context of this research, the translation methods are grouped in a
different way which is based on the study by Nguyen (2013). Literal translation
(the main method applied in the translation by Nguyen Tam (2006) is put in
comparison with non-literal translations including semantics, communicative
and idiomatic translation (applied by Nguyen Thi Cam Linh (2011)).

3. Translation quality assessment
3.1.

Approaches to translation quality assessment

Before any further analysis on TQA, it is of great significance to clarify
the views toward quality of translation applied in this specific context. Just as
many other elements in Translation Studies, translation quality has been long a
controversial definition. Scholars, translators and evaluators used to believe that
equivalence or faithfulness is the only benchmark of TQA. However, it is
considered oversimplified by Xu (2000, as cited in Yang, 2010) and impossible
in some cases by Nord (2001). However, based on the above definition of
translation as a purposeful action by House (1997), a good translation should
fulfill its purpose, which widely varied from one text to the other, and
sometimes equivalence must be sacrificed for other prioritized purposes. This
11


view of translation quality is highly flexible and opens new doors to TQA. The
process of translation assessment no longer depends one single benchmark but
has to take into consideration various factors and the relation among those
elements.
Translation quality assessment is an indispensable branch of Translation
Studies which studies the ways to evaluate to what extend the translation are
considered as satisfying. Up to now, different approaches are grouped into three
main directions suggested by House (2001): Anecdotal and subjective
approaches, response-oriented psycholinguistic approaches and text-based
approaches.
The first approaches – anecdotal and subjective ones focus on the
mental process of the translation to explain the decisions of the translator such
as staying faithful to the source text or keeping the naturalness in the
translation. The second approaches – the response-oriented psycholinguistic
put more emphasis on the role of readership. A good translation must enable the
target audience to have the same experience with the translation as the original
audiences have with the source text. Meanwhile, in the last approaches – the

text-based, the relations between source text and target texts are carefully
studied through comparison. Here, the transference of syntactic, semantic,
stylistic and pragmatic feature is the benchmark for evaluating translation.
Generally speaking, all the three groups of approaches aim at opening a
new pathway to more reasonable assessment of translation and help to create an
overview of TQA. The researcher highly agrees that 1) the assessor needs to
look at the translated text from the translator’s perspective and 2) the
equivalence between source text and target text needs to be preserved. Yet,
under the context of this research, the second approaches are the most
applaudable in the sense that readers’ reaction should be the focal point in
TQA. However, the ideal of comparison between the response from target
audiences and original audiences seems to be unfeasible in terms of translation
12


assessment. Hence, the researcher will just aim at analyzing the target
audiences’ responses to the translation and also combining with other
approaches as presented below.
According to Larson (1984, as cited in Vuong & Nguyen, 2013), it is
important to assess the accuracy, clarity and naturalness of the translation. It
must be done throuh different kinds of tests varying from the comprehension
test to the reading-out-loud test. It can be also referred that collecting responses
from the audiences will help to handle the assessment of clarity and naturalness,
which will form audiences’ preference.

3.2.

Models of translation quality assessment

Different from approaches, TQA models are the actual plans consisting

of orderly steps to conduct assessment. So far, there have been a number of
different models ranging from simple to highly complicated ones. The review
of some outstanding TQA models are presented as follows.
The first one is the model proposed by Newmark (1988). This model is
composed of five topics:
1) analyze the source text
2) analyze the author’s purpose
3) compare the source text with the target text
4) evaluate the translation
5) evaluate the future of the translation
Newmark’s model has certain advantages such as simply, practicality
and clarity. However, the role of readers, which is the focus of this research, is
totally ignored in the assessing process. Additionally, Newmark did not give
further detailed instruction on how to conduct the aforementioned five steps;
thus, the assessor will probably have difficulty applying this model in
evaluation.
The second one to be reviewed is House’s TQA model (House, 1997).
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Figure 1: House’s TQA model

This model has a strong linguistic foundation with clear instructions.
Yet, this model is not popular due to its complexity. In order to successfully
apply this model, the assessor has to have profound linguistic knowledge and
professional competence (Le, 2006, as cited in Pham, 2009). Moreover, just like
Newmark’s model, House’s TQA models doesn’t pay adequate attention to the
readers, but it covers the social aspects and the translator’s perspectives instead.
Thus, this model is not appropriate for the scale of this research.
After reviewing a wide range of TQA models, the researcher decided to

apply the model by Koller (as cited in Baker, 1998). Koller provided a threestep model to assess translation:
1) Source text criticism, with a view to transferability into the
target language.
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2) Translation comparison, taking account of the methods
used in the production of a given translation
3) Translation evaluation on the basis of native speaker
metalinguistic judgment, based on the text-specific features
established in step 1.
Among the TQA models, Koller’s model is appropriate and fit the scale
and purposes of this research. The two first steps analyzing the source text and
target text have been done in part 1.1.2. The research by Nguyen (2013) is
highly useful to provide necessary information and analysis. The last step
digging in the reaction of the audiences will be the focus of this research.

4. Readership
4.1.

Readership in children literature

In children literature, readership is a term that needs clarifying. Although
written mainly for children, this genre still attracts a wide range of audiences.
For example, Dav Pilkey – author of the book “The Adventure of Captain
Underpants” said “The reading level is “officially” ages 7 to 10, but I’d like to
think the interest level would be more like ages 4 to 140” (Mancini, 2011, p. 6).
It means that the audiences of children books are not only children but also
adults.
However, in the limited scale of this research, for the sake of time and

effort, the readership will be narrowed down. A short interview through email
with Giang Thanh Dang – a PR staff at Nha Nam Publishing House – was
conducted to find out the target readers of children books. According to Dang,
when it comes to children books, the publishers will aim at people under the
age of 18. The design and the content should be made attractive to this group of
readers.
However, even with in this group of target readers, the diversity is
remarkable. According to the articled called “Who is your target reader in your
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children book?” it is said: “It’s not easy when writing for children. A sixteenyear-old child doesn’t enjoy the same book as a twelve-year-old. A twelveyear-old doesn’t enjoy reading the same books as an eight-year old.”

4.2.

Readership in translation quality assessment

As presented above, in translation in general and in translation for
children literature in particular, readers still do not have the role they deserve.
However, it is undeniable that the audiences have decisive impact on the
translation. Translation can be considered as the dialogue between readers,
author and translator, which is reflected through the TQA approaches
mentioned earlier.
In the skopos theory proposed by Hans Vermeer in the 1970s (as cited in
Baker, 1998), he also considers readership as a decisive factor that the
translators have to take into account in order to produce a good translation.
Therefore, feedbacks from audiences may replace one-sided theoretical
assumptions of the translator and assessors and become an important
benchmark to evaluate a translated text. Furthermore, readers are the end-users
of translation who are under direct impact of the translation, so they should be

empowered to express their viewpoints.

4.3.

Readers’ preference

In this thesis, two translation methods are racing for the preference of the
readers. One side is the Nguyen Tam’s literal translation with foreingnization,
and the other is Nguyen Thi Cam Linh’s non-literal translation with
domestication.
In the thesis by Chazal (2003), among the people who that think
Wakeman’s translation is done by a native English speaker and Woods’s
translation is by a foreigner, 45% of them prefer Wakeman’s work and and

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41.2% prefer Woods. It shows that people joining the survey give equal favor
toward foreignization and domestication.
In his paper called “The Misery and Splendor of Translation”, Jose’
Ortega y Gasset raised his voice about audiences’ taste:
“ It’s clear that a country’s reading public do not appreciate a translation made
in the style of their own language. For this they have more than enough native
authors. What is appreciated is the inverse: carrying the possibility of their
language to the extreme of intelligible so that the ways of speaking appropriate
to the translated author seem to cross in theirs”. (Ortega, 1937, p. 63).

However, in contrast to Ortega’s provoking idea, Nguyen (2013) thinks
that domestication is more favored by the readers because it’s more natural,
understandable and still of great aesthetic value.

Through the review of related literature, the thesis got its theoretical
foundation. The literature review helps to clarify terms and tries to create a big
picture of the children literature and TQA. The debate over literal and nonliteral translation methods or domestication and foreignization has not lost its
heat. Therefore, the researcher is excited for this research to be done; she
believes that asking for reader’s preference on translation can provide the
translator with better understanding of their audiences, which remarkably
improves the quality of translation.

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