An Investigation Into Metonymy Used In Truyen Kieu By Nguyen Du And Its Translational Versions In English By Huynh Sanh Thong And Michael Concell

Abstract

This thesis investigates into the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of metonymic expressions in Truyen Kieu by Nguyen Du. Then it deals with the translation of those metonymic expressions in its two English translational versions by Michael Counsell and Huynh Sanh Thong. This is a descriptive study aiming at finding the diversity of metonymic expressions in Truyen Kieu. Under the framework of cognitive linguistics, we looked into how Nguyen Du made use of metonymic expressions in reference to the idealized conceptual models and principle of cognitive salience. In term of its English translational versions, on the theoretical foundation of translating metaphors by Peter Newmark along with some proposed procedures, we clarified how metonymies were translated to find out whether the two translators use the same figurative stylistic, i.e. metonymy, in their translation or not. We found that a variety of metonymic expressions have been used in Truyen Kieu. In terms of its English translational versions, it can be seen that there is a huge difference in the procedure applied by the two translators Finally, based on the findings and results of this study, some implications about syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features of metonymic expressions in Truyen Kieu and the translation from Vietnamese to English have been proposed to the Vietnamese learners of English for the language transfer and translation using metonymy.