a contrastive study of sociolinguistic elements of personal pronouns of english and vietnamese - a translational perspective

Abstract

This study resulted from the researcher’s study of the translation into English of Vietnamese personal pronouns used in five short stories, “Chi Pheo”, “Old Hac”, “In the Moonlight”, “Buying a House”, “An Unworthy Life”, and the two novels “The Sorrow of War” and “Diary of a Cricket”. This paper investigates the sociolinguistic elements of personal pronouns in Vietnamese and English. It discusses in detail the influence of sociolinguistic elements on translating Vietnamese personal pronouns into English ones. Based on the contrastive information about the using of personal pronouns in Vietnamese novels and short stories and the English equivalents, the study shows conclusions in choosing target forms for the source forms. The study also makes some suggestions for the translation work.