An investigation into semantic and syntactic features in the vietnamese-english translation of the short story “vừa nhắm mắt vừa mở cửa sổ”

Abstract

Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences (By Roger T. Bell). However, languages are different from each other; they are different in form having different codes and rules regulating the construction of grammatical stretches of the languages and these forms have different meanings. Based on the theories of Translation, this paper aims at investigating into the Vietnamese story: “Vừa nhắm mắt vừa mở cửa sổ” of Nguyễn Ngọc Thuần which is translated in to: “Open the Windows, Eyes closed” in an attempt to discover the translation of semantic and syntactic features from Vietnamese into English version. The findings also aim at suggesting and implying for teaching English to Vietnamese learners, especially students who major in Translation as well as any students in translating literary works from Vietnamese into English.