A study of linguistic expressions describing women in truyen kieu by nguyen du and their english translational equivalents

Abstract

In Truyen Kieu, women always suffer numerous miseries and mishap. This thesis concerns with the investigation into linguistic expression describing women in Truyen Kieu by Nguyen Du in aspects of syntax and lexicology in comparison with the two English versions: The Tale of Kieu by Huynh Sanh Thong [1983] and The Kim Van Kieu by Vladislav Zhukov [2004]. The descriptive and comparative method were carried out on the base of the framework by Catford [29] and Newmark [50]. Furthermore, owing to Tu Dien Truyen Kieu and some other important documents, the research aimed to find out the most appropriate English translational equivalents of the expressions describing women in Truyen Kieu between the two chosen versions and investigated the 129 samples of lexical and syntactic features of the expressions describing women in terms of appearance, behaviour, characteristics and gestures in Truyen Kieu and their equivalents in the English versions. The results show that, lexically, Sino-Vietnamese words, idioms and proverbs, classic references, reduplicatives..were used lively and vividly in Truyen Kieu. Syntactically, most of the expressions are analyzed following the structures such as noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverb phrases. In terms of the effectiveness of versions, the translation by Huynh Sanh Thong is the most appropriate since the version secures the referential and pragmatic equivalence to the original. Basing on the findings and results of this study, the research also provided some recommendations on English teaching and learning as well as translation work. The thesis provided the learners with the language device and help them know how to use these expression to express the proper meaning they want to convey in concrete contexts. The research, in addition, enforce teachers to gain the deeper knowledge about the social-cultural events, get good general linguistics and translational skills. Besides, the study also helped to put forward some suggestions for further research