Luận văn Thạc sĩ The equivalence of English – Vietnamese translation of noun phrases in the book “Fire and fury” by Michael Wolff

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

LÃ THỊ PHƢƠNG LOAN

THE EQUIVALENCE OF ENGLISH – VIETNAMESE
TRANSLATION OF NOUN PHRASES IN THE BOOK
“FIRE AND FURY” BY MICHAEL WOLFF
Tính Tƣơng Đƣơng Trong Bản Dịch Anh – Việt Đối Với Cụm Danh Từ Trong
Tác Phẩm “Bão Lửa Và Cuồng Nộ” của Michael Wolff

M.A. THESIS (PROGRAM 1)

Field:English Linguistics
Code:8220201.01

HANOI – 2020


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

LÃ THỊ PHƢƠNG LOAN

THE EQUIVALENCE OF ENGLISH – VIETNAMESE
TRANSLATION OF NOUN PHRASES IN THE BOOK
“FIRE AND FURY” BY MICHAEL WOLFF
Tính Tƣơng Đƣơng Trong Bản Dịch Anh – Việt Đối Với Cụm Danh Từ Trong
Tác Phẩm “Bão Lửa Và Cuồng Nộ” của Michael Wolff

M.A. THESIS (PROGRAM 1)

Field: English Linguistics
Code:8220201.01
Supervisor: Assoc. Professor Dr Le Hung Tien

HANOI – 2020


DECLARATION
I declare that this thesis “The equivalence of English – Vietnamese
Translation of noun phrases in the book Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff” has been
composed solely by myself and that it has not been submitted, in whole or in part, in
any previous application for a degree. This thesis is submitted after a carefully
checking progress in order to fulfill the requirements of the M.A degree.
Hanoi, 2020

Lã Thị Phƣơng Loan

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is my gratitude to the beloved supporters who played important roles in my
accomplishment of this thesis entitled: “The equivalence of English and Vietnamese
Translation of Noun Phrases in the book Fire and Fury”. I realize that this thesis
was not completed without their support. I would like to express my sincere
gratitude and respect to:
 Assoc. Professor Dr Le Hung Tien whose precious guidance, advice and

supervision are the assets to the thesis;
 All the lectures of English Department of Hanoi University of Language and
International Studies who have always been reliable teachers for the
encouragement and enlightenment;
 My colleagues for their support of time and encouragement;
 Last but not least, the members in my family who have always given me
great support and encouragement all the time.
Finally, I thank for all the constructive criticism and suggestion from the readers
for the better contribution of the thesis.

Hanoi, January 2020
Lã Thị Phương Loan

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ABSTRACT
There have been various researches on translation equivalence which have
been key words in the field of translation so far. Within the thesis, an investigation
of the equivalence of the English and Vietnamese translation of the noun phrases
collected in Chapter II of the book “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff was taken
under the aspects of lexicon, grammatical structure, situational and cultural context.
The study aims at testifying the importance of equivalence in the process of
translation among languages and clarifying the mismatches between the two
languages according to the theory of Meaning-based Translation by Larson (1984).
The mismatches of lexicon, grammatical structure, situational and cultural context
between the two versions are the principal elements for the assessment of the
equivalents of the collected noun phrases in the translation. The contrastive analysis
was implemented at the level of phrase and lexis to draw out the mismatches
between the two language texts in term of lexicon, grammatical structures and

situational and cultural context. The method of descriptive qualitative and approach
as well as the inductive method was used for the implementation of the study. 67
mismatches of lexicon in term of surface structure and one case of mismatch in
deep structure (deep meaning) were found. In the case of changes in deep meaning,
the original information can be distorted. Deep structure is therefore given higher
priority over the surface structure in order to get the faithful and natural translation.
There are 16 cases of situational and cultural mismatch (four cases of cultural
mismatch, eleven cases of situational mismatch). The translator showed the flexible
attitude to make the justifiable adjustment, which is clearly illustrated with three
cases stay intact, three cases translated in target culture and nine cases following the
style of source culture. 18 mismatches of grammatical structure were found, which
shows the fact that the English text has the priority of noun phrases while
Vietnamese favors verbal expression. 6 cases of literal translation have been found
during the investigation. From the findings, useful experiences and principles of

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translation have been drawn out: Mismatches in term of language features and
situation communication are inevitable, the theory of equivalent translation is
therefore very necessary in translation.

The knowledge of divergent language

systems, cultural norms and mismatches of lexicon would help the translator,
English teacher and their students deal with the gaps in term of language and
cultures and gain their targets effectively.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION .............................................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ............................................................ vii
CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the Study ............................................................ 2
1.3. Scope of the Study .................................................................................... 3
1.4. Methodology ............................................................................................. 3
1.5. Organization of the thesis ........................................................................ 4
CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................... 5
Literature Review............................................................................................ 5
2.1. Translation theory .................................................................................... 5
2.1.1. Concept of translation ............................................................................ 5
2.1.2. Notion of equivalence: ........................................................................... 7
2.1.3. Translation equivalence ......................................................................... 8
2.1. Larson’s Translation strategies ............................................................ 10
2.1.1. Concerning concepts ............................................................................ 10
2.1.2. Larson’s translation strategies ............................................................ 13
2.2. Noun phrase ............................................................................................ 17
2.2.1. English Noun phrase ........................................................................... 17
2.2.2. Noun phrase in Vietnamese ................................................................. 18
CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................... 21
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 21

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3.1. Research question..................................................................................... 21
3.2. Research approach ................................................................................... 21
3.3. Research method ...................................................................................... 24
3.4. Data collection ......................................................................................... 25
3.5. Data analysis ............................................................................................ 25
3.5.1. Categorizing .......................................................................................... 25
3.5.2. Classifying ............................................................................................. 26
3.5.3. Analyzing ............................................................................................... 26
CHAPTER 4 .................................................................................................. 30
DESCRIPTION AND EVALUATION OF EQUIVALENT
TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH NOUN PHRASES ................................. 30
4.1. Data analysis ........................................................................................... 30
4.1.1. Mismatches of lexicon.......................................................................... 31
4.1.2. Mismatches of grammatical structure ................................................. 37
4.1.3. Mismatches of situational and cultural context ................................. 41
4.2. Cases of literal translation ..................................................................... 44
4.3 Discussion ................................................................................................. 46
4.4. The findings and implication ............................................................... 48
4.4.1. Findings ............................................................................................... 48
4.4.2. Implication ........................................................................................... 50
CHAPTER 5 .................................................................................................. 53
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 53
5.1. Results and significance of the study .................................................... 53
5.2. The limitation of the study .................................................................... 55
REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 56
APPENDIX ....................................................................................................... I

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1: Translation process by Larson (1984: 4) ...................................................13
Figure 2: Translation as a continuum by Larson (1984: 17) .....................................14
Table 1: Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt by Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1998: 203) ..............................19
Table 2: The summary of findings for mismatches are shown as the table below ...48

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Translation means conveying information from one language (source language)
to another language (target language). Nowadays, in the world of communication and
international integration in various aspects of life, the need for information exchange
and development or enhancement of relationships with different people and nations of
various cultures at the international level is more and more indispensable, the role of
translation is therefore inevitable. Of all languages, English, as one of the officially and
widely recognized international languages, has the largest number of target language or
source language in term of translation. In fact, English covers almost in-formal as well
as formal material of all fields as a language of target text or source text.
Unexceptionably, we have seen the need for Vietnamese language to be in the relation
with English as the target language or source language in all kinds of material.
However, translators have dealt with many obstacles during their process of translation
due to the differences in term of language features, communication situation and
culture. Those differences show the inevitable reality in translation, which forces the
theorists to set out the concepts of equivalence in translation that help translators to be
justifiably aware of the differences and have the reasonable methods for their task. That

is the reason why the concept translation equivalence is one of the key words in my
thesis. Due to the length of the thesis, it is impossible for the author to refer to all
linguistic ranks and the collection of noun phrases in the chapter II of the book “Fire
and Fury” was taken to get the data for the study “The equivalence of English and
Vietnamese Translation of Noun Phrases in the book Fire and Fury”. Both English
noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases have pre-modifiers and post-modifiers;
nevertheless, the formation of noun phrase in the two languages is different in term of
structure and order of modifying-elements. The post-modifiers are rather complex,
ranked from phrases to finite, non-finite and verbless clauses. However, the author has
learnt from other theses that the difficulties in translation of noun phrases in term of
structures (basing on structural differences of noun phrases in the two languages:

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English and Vietnamese) have been investigated. One more experience learnt from the
article “The characters and functions of the nominalization in the science and
technology document” by Professor Hoang Van Van that it is not proper if the
elements such as situational context, culture, communication situation etc. are not taken
into consideration when translating noun phrases”, the author therefore decided to
apply the translation strategies basing on the meaning-based method by Larson (1984)
for the assessment of the equivalence of Noun phrases in the book “Fire and Fury”.
Strategies in translation would be regarded for the treatment of the linguistic situations
where mismatches exemplified for the holes between the two languages in term of
lexicon, grammatical structure, situational and cultural context. Those kinds of gaps
need filling to gain the equivalence. The basic theoretical concepts of meaning and
lexical choice in Larson (1984) Meaning –Based Translation, would be very helpful
for the analysis of the data. The complex of modifiers in English noun phrase reflexes
the fact that a large amount of information of the message can be contained in a noun
phrase. Translators therefore may cope with many obstacles to decode meaning and

capture rightful information contained in English noun phrase during the process of
translation. This reality encourages me to take the rank of noun phrase into the
investigation.
1.2. Aims and objectives of the Study
1.2.1 Aims of the study:
- To compare the noun phrases in the original text of the book “Fire and
Fury” by Michael Wolff and the Vietnamese version translated by Tran Trong Hai
Minh and to identify mismatches between the two texts in term of lexicon,
grammatical structure, situational and cultural context.
- To find out how the translator deal with those mismatches to achieve the
equivalent translation.
1.2.3 The objectives of the study:
-

To clarify the mismatches between the two languages found in the
translation of the noun phrases in the Chapter II of the book “Fire and
Fury” according to the theory of Meaning-based Translation by Larson
(1984).

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-

To investigate the equivalence between the source text and target text at
the range of noun phrase.

1.3. Scope of the Study
The thesis investigated the equivalence of the English and Vietnamese
translation of the noun phrases collected in Chapter II of the book “Fire and Fury”

by Michael Wolff, published by Henry and Holt Company in New York in the year
2018 and its target text in Vietnamese “Bão lửa và cuồng nộ” translated by Tran
Trong Hai Minh (a journalist and reporter) and published by Vietnam Literature
Association. The mismatches of lexicon, grammatical structure, situational and
cultural context between the two versions are the principal elements for the
assessment of the equivalence of the collected noun phrases in the translation. The
theory of translation strategies by Larson (1984) and theories of dynamic
equivalence are the resorts for the assessment.
1.4. Methodology
The contrastive analysis will be taken at the level of phrase and lexis to draw out
the mismatches between the two language texts at the range of lexicon, grammatical
structures and situational and cultural context. 28 examples of noun phrase in the
source language text and their target version are analyzed and interpreted. The
thesis concentrates on how the noun phrases are translated in Vietnamese
equivalence.
The method of descriptive qualitative and approach was resorted to make the
description and interpretation of the language of translation of the noun phrases in
the target text in order to find out the useful and practical implications for
translators and students of the area.
The inductive method is used for the implementation of the study. From the typical
examples of English noun phrases taken from the book “Fire and Fury”, I based on the
language features as well as the differences in term of situational and cultural context
between the two languages to conduct the assessment of translation equivalence
between the two versions, then draw out some experiences and rules for the translators
and English learners.

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1.5. Organization of the thesis

Chapter 1: Introduction
The rationale for the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methodology used
to conduct the study and the organization of the thesis are introduced in this part.
Chapter 2: Literature review: (1) translation theories, Larson‟s translation
strategies and (3) Notion of noun phrase and noun phrases in English and
Vietnamese.
Chapter 3: Methodology
Chapter 4: Description and Evaluation of The Equivalence of English Noun
Phrases in The Translation: (1) data analysis and (2) implication and findings.
Chapter 5: Conclusion

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CHAPTER 2

Literature Review
2.1. Translation theory
2.1.1. Concept of translation
Commonly, translation regards to notions of transferring, conveying or moving
information contained in one word, phrase or text from one language to another.
The language to be translated is called source language (SL) while the language of
the translated product is the target language (TL). There have been many definitions
of translation by different authors in the field, depending on how they view
language and translation. According to Foster (1958), translation is defined as a
mental activity in which meaning of a given language discourse is rendered from
one language to another. Through the process of translation, linguistic entities are
transferred from one language into their equivalents to another language, which
means that many related elements are deliberately considered in the translation, and
translation therefore is not only a normally physical movement of linguistic entities

but the mental one.
Peter Newmark (1988: 7) identifies translation as “a craft consisting in the
attempt replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the sane
message and/or statement in another language”. The word “craft” does not only
mean the act of crafting but also refers to connotative meaning. Peter Newmark‟s
view on „translation‟ is showed clearly in his work “A Textbook of Translation”. He
refers to translation as a science, a skill which entails the knowledge. The process of
translation bears the creative, the intuitive, the inspired and a matter of taste.
Translation, as defined by Catford (1995), is the replacement of textual material
in one language by equivalent textual material in another language. Types and shifts
are the main concepts in his contribution in the field of translation. There are three
criteria of types including: full translation, total translation, rank-bound - translation
and unbounded translation; while Shifts refer to the changes that take place during
the translation process. However, Catford (1995) mainly bases on linguistic theory

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to discuss the nature of translation therefore he does not refer to cultural, situational
and historical factors which should also be taken into consideration along with the
discipline as claimed by Snell-Hornby (1988).
Hatim and Munday (2004: 6) define translation as “the process of transferring a
written text from source language (SL) to target language (TL)”. In the two points
of view, the authors do not explicitly express that the object being transferred
is meaning or message, they only points to the text itself.
Ghazala (1995) goes further with the translation which is partly more concrete
“translation is generally used to refer to all the process and methods used to convey the
meaning of the source language into the target language”. He focuses on both terms:
meaning as an essential element in translation and method that helps to transfer
meaning. That is, understanding the meaning of the source text as well as the effective

method is the vital and decisive element to gain the appropriate equivalence in the
target text. It is meaning that is translated related to lexicon, grammar, culture,
situational communication and so on and methods are the resort to solve the differences
regarding to the above elements.
Besides, Nida and Taber (1982: 12) also refers to the reproduction of the meaning
of the source language text into that of the target language text by saying that
translation comprises the transforming in the receptor language at the nearest natural
equivalent level of the source language message in term of both meaning and style.
Larson (1984) highlights the result of the translation process, which regards to
the conformity of the target text to the source text in relation to the semantic
structure. He poses that meaning of the source text must not be distorted when it is
translated into the target text, which means that the original flavor shall be kept
unchanged. He raises the importance of keeping the meaning constant despite the
changes in form when linguistic entities are turned into the form of the target
language.
In summary, only Catford (1995) and Hatim and Munday (2004) do not refer to
meaning or message as well as the related elements that need deliberately

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considering, including language features, culture, situational contexts. They only
refer to the text itself which is only the container not the flavor of the source text.
The others all refer to the concept of equivalence in translation in different ways.
Peter Newmark (1988) uses the words knowledge, art, science and skill to describe
the task of translation, which implies the gaps between the two texts need filling
during the process of translation by translators. According Foster (1958), translation
process does not mean physically substituting words, he realized that linguistic
entities must be mentally transferred into their equivalents to another language with
a deliberate consideration of related elements. Ghazala (1995), Nida and Taber

(1982), and Larson (1984) all refers to the word meaning in their views of
translation. Ghazala (1995) uses the phrase appropriate equivalent to express his
view of translation target while Nida and Taber (1982) say the nearest equivalent in
term of meaning and style is necessary in translation. Larson (1984) raises the
importance of keeping meaning instant despite the changes in form.
2.1.2. Notion of equivalence:
The notion Equivalence plays the central role in translation. The equivalence‟s
typical status in translation helps it to evolve many different points of view in
translation. In fact, we deal with two systems of languages: source language and
target language. Each language has its own set of language features, culture,
communication situation of which some are shared and some are not shared. In case
of literal translation, it is easy for us to be aware of the notion of equivalence, hence
all the translator does is substitute words from one language for words in another
language and clarify grammar features. However, the translation itself is factually
much more complicated. Literal translation cannot help to convey the original
flavor of the source language text due to the differences or even big holes in term of
language, culture and communication situation between the two languages;
subsequently concepts don‟t always exist equally in two different languages or
cultures. The translator then often decodes the deep structure of words or phrases in
a sentence by using his understanding of context and culture, then seek the correct

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encoding in the target language. This requires the translator to have a deep
understanding of both cultures, not just the language. In fact, one can speak both
languages fluently, but if he/she does not understand the idiomatic meaning of
words and culture behind them, the translation would be unfaithful to the original
spirit. A literal translation is unacceptable – it is very necessary for the translator to
capture the deep structure or meaning behind the words. Equivalence is a powerful

tool in service of that goal, but it is only an effective resort when you have a deep,
comprehensive understanding of the deep meaning of words or phrases. As Peter
Newmark (1988: 51) points out that meaning is basically known as a network of
various relations which is very complicated and it shall be deliberately considered at
many levels in the process of translation.
2.1.3. Translation equivalence
Translation equivalence is an important concept of translation theory. It is
considered one of the most important and core issues in translation theory since the
second half of the twentieth century. Gaining equivalents has become the
problematic factor that the translator deal with. As Catford indicates “the central
problem of translation practice is that of finding target language equivalents. A
central task of translation theory is that of defining the nature and conditions of
translation equivalence.” (Catford, 1965, P.21). In fact, the concept of equivalence
in translation theory is included in many works by prominent theorists.
Nida (1964: 159) evolves two essential orientations in translating, including
formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence focuses on the
message itself in term of both form and content while dynamic equivalence aimed at
complete natural expression. The formal equivalence comprises the view of point
that the message in the receptor language text should as close as possible match the
different elements in the source language text. However, the dynamic equivalence
does not involve the relation between the source message and the target message, a
follower of dynamic equivalence tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior
relevant to the context of his own culture.

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Baker (1992) proposes a more detailed list of elements relating to the concept of
equivalence. She investigates the notion of equivalence at different levels, in
relation to the translation process, including various aspects of the linguistic and the

communicative approach. She identifies the different aspects of equivalence: (1)
Equivalence can happen at levels of word and above word. She mentions words as a
single unit which is assigned an equivalent in target language; and a single word can
be assigned in different meanings in different languages, which evolves the fact that
the translator shall look at a number of factors when considering a single word such
as number, gender and tense. (2) In term of textual equivalence, Baker aims at
essential factors, including the target audience, the purpose of the translation and
text type, would guide the translator‟s decision. In her opinion, it is very necessary
for the translator to create a cohesive and coherent text for the target audience in a
specific context. (3) With respect to grammatical equivalence, she regards to the
diversity of grammatical categories across languages. She argues that grammatical
rules are different across languages, which may lead to obstacles in term of finding
a correspondence in target language. More specifically, she claims that differences
in term of grammatical structure between the source language and the target
language may cause significant changes in the way the information or message is
carried across. These changes may cause the unfaithfulness to the original spirit due
to addition or omission of information in the target text because of the lack of
certain grammatical devices in the target language. (4) Besides, Baker proposes the
pragmatic equivalence. The author pays much attention to the notion implicature in
translation since it refers to the information which is not explicitly said in the source
text, it lies under the surface linguistic structure. It is therefore necessary for
translators to discover the implied meanings in translation in order to get the source
message across. The translator has the duty to reproduce the author‟s intention in
another language of different linguistic features and in another culture in such a way
that enables the target readership to capture it clearly.
Bell (1991: 6) refers to the term equivalent translation of different levels such as

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semantics, grammar, lexis, context and so on. He claims that texts in different
languages can be fully or partly equivalent at different ranks of words, phrases and
sentences. The source language text sometimes has no meaning in the target text and
the meaning in the target text gained partly or fully equivalent to the source language
text because the two texts may share the communicative situation and purpose.
House (1997) argues that the original and translation should match one another
in function. The author raises the importance of function in equivalence. The
translation is only considered to be adequate in quality if it matches the “textual”
profile and function of the original. She evolves two types of translation: overt
translation and covert translation. In an overt translation text, the translator makes
no attempt to hide the fact that it is a translation, in other words reader find it easy
to recognize that it is a translation. However, a cover translation always makes the
target readers feel that it is not a translation because some implicit information
captured by intended reader of the source language text is made explicit in the target
language text for the benefit of the target culture and intelligibility.
Newmark‟s point of view on the equivalence translation is expressed in his two
books: Approaches to Translation (1981) and A Textbook of Translation (1988). He
does not refer to the terms formal and dynamic equivalence like Nida does, instead
he notes the term semantic and communicative translation respectively. Semantic
focuses on meaning, while communicative which refers to the needs of the
addressee focuses on effect. The communicative translation therefore tries to satisfy
the readers by producing the target language text with the deliberate consideration
of smoothness and readability. Particularly, Newmark (1981) shows his strong
belief that literal translation is the best approach in term of semantic and
communicative translation, but the communicative translation would be more
favored in case of conflict between the two forms of translation.
2.1. Larson’s Translation strategies
2.1.1. Concerning concepts
Larson clarifies the concepts with respect to what he interprets in his translation
strategies.

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(1) Form and meaning: Form is something that can be seen in sprint and heard
in speech like words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraph etc. which are regarded
as surface structure of a language. Form of one language, source language, is
placed by the form of another, target language, in the process of translation.
Meaning, on the other hand, is referred to as deep structure which is information or
content to be transferred from source language text to the target language text. It is
constituted by the elements of lexical and grammatical structure, communication
situation and cultural context of the source language text. The translator has to
analyze the above elements to determine meaning.
(2) Implicit meaning and explicit meaning: Various kinds of meaning constitute
the meaning of the text on a whole. Some of those may not be overtly expressed in
the forms of the source language text, which is called implicit meaning. Clearly,
explicit meanings are those overtly expressed in the source language text. The
translator therefore shall consider both explicit and implicit information to uncover
the whole meaning of the source language text.
(3) Referential meaning, organizational meaning and situational meaning:
Referential meaning is what the communication refers to. It is the information or
content contained in the source language text which is organized into the semantic
structure. Organizational meaning is formed on the base of the information referred
earlier in the same text. It therefore helps to put the information together in order to
create a coherent text. The translator sometimes builds up meaning on the base of
the communication situation, by that way, the organizational meaning is formed. It
is crucial to the understanding of any text. The situational matters resulting in
situational meaning may include where and when the communication take places,
age, sex and social status of the addresser and addressee, cultural back grounds and
so on.

(4) Primary meaning, secondary meaning and figurative meaning: We have seen
that there are various ways in which form expresses meaning, which permits kinds
of meaning existing in one form. Primary meaning happens when there is one to

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one correlation between form and meaning. While the characteristic of “skewing” is
the reason for the constituting the secondary and the figurative meaning. In each
language, there is the diversity or the lack of one to one correlation between form
and meaning which is the characteristic of “skewing”. Larson (1984) points out that
distinctive forms for representing the meaning are different across languages and
“skewing” helps to avoid the literal translation which may leads to the distortion of
meaning since the same meaning may be expressed in different forms in the other
language. In fact, one language may be interested in forms of noun while the other
is interested in verbal usage. The skewing between grammar and semantic structure
therefore shall be considered in order to find the underlying meaning. In any
circumstance, meaning always takes the priority over form.
(5) Lexical equivalent: Normally, the two languages are spoken by people of
different cultures, the lexical of the two certain languages will therefore not match.
Accordingly, the term lexical equivalent, a term crucial to matters of faithfulness
and naturalness, has become so popular in translation. Larson (1984: 153) says there
are three matters concerning to the choices of adequate lexical equivalents,
including: concepts when knowledge is shared, concepts when knowledge is not
shared and key terms of the text that need special treatment. He further discusses the
complexity of the term lexical equivalent by pointing out that even in the case of
shared concepts “the way in which they are expressed in the two languages is often
very different”. Meaning components and the way in which they are combined are
different across languages, especially mismatches in term of secondary senses and
figurative senses of lexical items. In fact, some senses of meaning may be figurative

in one language but non-figurative in another, positive in one language but negative
in another.
(6) Communication situation: According to Larson (1984), the elements
concerning to communication situation comprises of the author, purpose in his
writing, the audience, the relationship between the author and the audience, culture
of the source text, common knowledge shared by both readers of source language

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and target readership, social context and other factors. Of which the author‟s
attitude toward his audience in an important part of communication as author
always writes with his writer in mind. Culture is also an indispensable element in
the communication situation for the fact that language is part of culture and as
stated by Larson (1984: 431) “translation from one language to another cannot be
done adequately without knowledge of the two cultures as well as the two language
structures”.
2.1.2. Larson’s translation strategies
According to Mildred Larson, Translator bases on the source language text to
discover the meaning and then represses the meaning in the receptor language.
During the process of translation, he/she can use tools like dictionaries, lexicons,
grammars, cultural descriptions etc. of both source language and target language.
She holds the opinion that the translator has the duty to keep meaning constant in
the target language text. Basically, the form of the source language may change as it
is turned into the target language text however the distortion of meaning is not
permitted in the translation. The translator therefore often considers the different
kinds of meaning (primary meaning, secondary meaning and figurative meaning)
which convey the explicit and implicit information of the text, as well as
communication situation which comprises historical setting, cultural setting,
author‟s intention when translating the document.

Text to be
translated

Translation

Discover the meaning

Re-express the meaning

MEANING

Figure 1: Translation process by Larson (1984: 4)

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As argued by Larson, translation concerns not only linguistic features but
also other elements of communication situation, hence referential and structural
meaning, situational meaning is regarded as a crucial factor that helps the translator
interpret the author‟s culture or the cultural information given in the text. According
to Larson (1984: 15), there are two main types of translation, mainly form-based
and meaning-based translation. Form-based translation attempts to follow the form
of Source Language and is known as literal translation, while meaning-based
translation makes every effort to communicate the meaning of the SL text in the
natural forms of the receptor language. Such translation is called idiomatic
translation which means that translation shall not sound like a translation. It shall
gain both targets: natural as much as possible in the target language text and not to
fall into “unduly free translation”.

Figure 2: Translation as a continuum by Larson (1984: 17)

Larson (1984: 16) says that idiomatic translations use the natural forms of
the receptor language both in the grammatical constructions and in the choices of
lexical items. A successful translation would be an idiomatic translation which
seems to be written originally in the receptor language. However, a translation is
often a mixture of literal and idiomatic forms of language. Translation then falls on
a continuum from very literal, to literal, to modified literal, to near idiomatic, to
idiomatic, and may fall, even more on the unduly free as displayed above. Within
my thesis, I grouped the cases into two groups: literal translation and idiomatic
translation. This division is based on Larson‟s framework of translation strategies
and the collected data.

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Mismatch of grammatical structure:
Larson (1984: 58) also notes that the translator shall consider the skewing
between grammar and the semantic categories in order to find the underlying
meaning. He must be aware of this skewing in the source language as the same form
may be used as two different parts of speech. Since language system has its own
way to arrange concepts into different parts of speech, there is little guarantee that a
noun in one language is often best translated by a noun in another language. One
language may have the preferential use of noun while the other may be expressed in
the same meaning by forms of verbal noun. Being aware of the natural differences
between languages would be very useful for the translator to gain both faithfulness
and intelligibility in his/her translation because skewing between semantic classes
and part of speech occurs often.
Mismatch of lexicon:
Larson (1984: 154) points out the fact that the languages may share some
concepts but may not share the others. Even in cases where concepts are shared, the
way in which they are expressed in the two languages is not always the same, it is

often very different. Meaning components are combined, divided and grouped
differently in different languages. She also states “there is usually complete
mismatch between secondary senses and figurative senses of lexical items between
languages”. How to attain the best lexical equivalent for the translation is an uneasy
question for translators. According to Larson (1984), the translator must be aware of
the fact that a single word in source language text may be translated by one word or
by more than one word in the target language text and vice versa several words in
the source language text may be sometimes translated by one word in the target
language text. A complete match between the two languages happen when there is
the same primary sense used in both texts. Besides, the translator shall accept
different ways in the two languages in expressing the same concepts since lexical
structures of the two languages are different. Sometimes, the translator unpacks the
meaning components of a word in source language and then use phrase and clause

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in target language to express the meaning in the translation. The equivalent lexical
items will almost never have the same secondary senses from one language to
language; figure senses therefore always need adjustments in translation.
Sometimes a nonfigurative equivalent will be needed in the receptor language.
Mismatch of situational and cultural context:
For Larson, choices of lexical items shall be taken into consideration from
the point of view of situational context. Communication situation is very important
for rightful interpretation of information contained in the source language text. The
meaning is partly determined by who author was, purpose in his writing, who the
text was written for, the relationship between author and his audience, the culture of
the source text, how much common information shared by both source language
audience and target language audience, and other factors of the communication
situation (social context, age, sex, social status, culture‟s ideals etc.). Lexical

choices will depend on various factors of the situation where communication is
presented, the translator shall therefore be aware of the meaning of words conditioned
by situational context (Larson 1984: P131). In fact, situational context helps the
translator to define the appropriate events, things or behaviors referred in the message.
The translator shall base on the spirit of the whole text to unpack bundles of meanings
and interpret the noun phrases with the most adequate lexical choices in the receptor
language. Concepts of three kinds of meaning: referential meaning, organizational
meaning and situational meaning referred as above in the theoretical part would
exemplify for the useful ways to deal with the mismatches of cultural and situational
context and gain the equivalent translation which is faithfully and naturally nearest to
the receptor language. The meanings must be understood and translated in the light of
situational context and lexical items shall be looked at from the point of view of the
situational context (Larson 1984: P 421). The chapter talked about the worry or partly
surprised feeling of Trump‟s inner circle when they were trying to support him in his
new position as President of United State. The book‟s genre clearly belongs to political
prose and the differences in term of political system, geography, and the culture of the

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