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Foreignization and Domestication in Trịnh Lữ‟s
Vietnameses Translation of “Life of Pi” by
Yann Martel
Nguyễn Thị Hương
Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Trần Xuân Điệp, Ph.D.
Năm bảo vệ: 2011
Abstract: The present dissertation first focused on the theories concerning foreignisation
and domestication mechanisms. There followed a definition and classification of CSIs;
the chapter concluded with presentation of established classifications of translation
procedures. A consolidated taxonomy of lexical procedures related to
domestication/assimilation and foreignization/exoticism proposed by Kwieciński‟s
(2001) is adopted as the theoretical framework. This is a product-oriented descriptive
translation research, this chapter of the study is devoted to describe and analyze cultural
translation strategies in the corpus by comparison ST and TT. An examination of the
possible translators‟ procedures in the body of translated text reveals that Trịnh Lữ‟s
translations of CSIs in the novel “Life of Pi” are essentially foreignising. The majority of
CSIs are borrowed into the Vietnamese version without any change. Borrowing
procedure is employed for translations of not only proper names but also other various
categories such as clothing items, forms of art, forms of entertainment, animals, etc.
Foreignizing strategies (borrowing, combinations and recognized exoticism) account for
85.7% while normalisation and deletion which are representations of domestication make
up for only 14.3 %. It is clear that procedures which are of foreignising nature constitute
a majority of applied procedures. This essentially demonstrates the dominance of
foreignisation in the transfer from culturally dominant SL to the inferior TL. Irrespective
of the ideological interpretation of its causes and effects, the overwhelming domination
of E and the Anglo-American culture remains a fact of life.
Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Dịch; Bản dịch
Content
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of the problems and rationale of the study
In the past few decades, translation studies have shifted along with the development of cultural
studies. Translation is no longer regarded as merely a cross-linguistic activity but translation is
considered a cross-cultural communication. Cultural diversity, rather than linguistic differences,
is believed to produce the most misunderstanding among readers and constitute the most serious
problems for translators. Thus, one of the focal issues of current translation studies is to explore
cultural differences and then decide how to deal with them most appropriately. A great number
of ethical strategies have been proposed, some of which value the faithful representation of the
original and some value communication of meaning. Based on his investigation of Western
translation history and theories, Lawrence Venuti introduced and described the notions of
foreignization and domestication in his book The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of
Translation published in 1995. The main difference between Venuti‟s strategies and the others is
that domestication and foreignization strategies take into consideration the influence of cultural
and ideological factors on translation and consider the influence of translations on the target
readers and cultures. Indeed, domestication refers to the target-culture-oriented translation which
makes a translated product transparent and easy to read. For Venuti (1995:20), the domesticating
method is "an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values,
bringing the author back home." As an opposition to domestication, foreignization is a sourceculture-oriented translation which strives to preserve the foreign flavor as much as possible in
order to transfer the source language (SL) and source culture (SC) into the target one. According
to Venuti, foreignization signifies “the difference of the foreign text, yet only by disrupting the
cultural codes that prevail in the target language” (ibid). In other words, “cultural codes” of the
target language (TL) should be sacrificed in order to make the reader of a translated text feel the
taste of foreigness. Taking into consideration the fact that literary works may represent cultural
terms, Venuti‟s theories on domestication and foreignization can be applied to literary translation
which plays an important role in the development of the national literature. Literature coming
from the English-speaking source cultures may contain various types of cultural terms connoting
different aspects (such as place names, foods and drinks, sports and national pastimes, art, legal
system, etc) which functions as unique culture-specific items (CSIs) and can be either
domesticated or foreignized by a translator.
After a brief overview of cultural differences in translation, this paper mainly explores
foreignization and domestication in dealing with CSIs in the translation of “Life of Pi” by Trịnh
Lữ. Overall, this product-oriented descriptive translation research is a qualitative attempt to
discover the manifestations of foreignization and domestication by analyzing the translation
procedures in translating CSIs of the corpus.
2. Objectives of the study
The focus of the thesis is to explore the notions of foreignisation and domestication and their
application through different procedures of translating CSIs. In order to estimate the possible
dominance of one of the above strategies over the other, the translation “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ
with reference to cultural aspects is chosen for analysis. The study is an attempt to find out
whether translator Trịnh Lữ domesticates or foreignizes English CSIs when translating “Life of
Pi”. In other words, the main point of analysis is to explore whether translator retains CSIs to
preserve the foreign flavor (foreignization) or tries to make the translation transparent and more
accessible to target readers (domesticatication).
3. Aims of the study
As mentioned earlier, the study aims to identify the signs of domesticating and foreignizing
strategies applied in the translation of “Life of Pi” by Trịnh Lữ. In general, it is expected that the
study would provide translators with some ideas about ways of dealing with CSIs when working
on English literary translations. Translators may turn to either domestication or foreignization
when it comes to translating CSIs. As shown in the study (1.3), a variety of translation
procedures are available to translators in order to help them either domesticate or foreignize
unmatched cultural terms.
4. Significance of the study
Hopefully, the study of domestication and foreignization in dealing with culture-specific items
can provide an overview of the two central concepts in the history of translation theory. It is
hoped that the findings of the study will contribute to the body of theory of domestication and
foreignization in literary translation, and become a reliable source of references for relevant
research.
5. Scope of the study
The notions domestication and foreignization refer translation strategies on various levels such as
lexical, syntactic to semantic. Within the scope and scale of a minor thesis, the focus is on
whether the translator employs domesticating or foreignizing strategies to bridge the lexical gap
between SL and TL. To achieve this goal, the first chapter of Trịnh Lữ‟s translation “Life of Pi”
is selected, read and analyzed for signs of source-language oriented strategies/ domestication and
target-language oriented strategies/foreignization.
6. Research question
Based on the previous studies on domestication and foreignization, the following question is
formulated:
What are the manifestations of foreignization and domestication in the translation of “Life of Pi”
from English into Vietnamese?
This study is an attempt to find answer to the question. CSIs of ST along with TT are collected
and procedures employed by the translator are identified as signs of domestication and
foreignization so that proper answer to the above-mentioned question will be provided.
7. Methodology
The current product-oriented descriptive translation research is a qualitative attempt to describe
and analyze cultural translation strategies in the corpus of the research. To account for the
possible translators‟ procedures in the body of translated text, the novel “Life of Pi” with its
Vietnamese translation by Trịnh Lữ is selected. To be precise, the first chapter of the book “Life
of Pi” by Yann Martel is chosen as the primary ST to be compared closely with it corresponding
translated TT made by Trịnh Lữ.
The following steps and analytical procedures are used in the research:
1. Identifying CSIs in the corpus of the study.
2. Comparing CSIs in the ST and their counterparts in the TT: Through a sentence-by sentence contrasting each source text- target text pair of the corpus of the research and
adopting CSIs as the unit of translation. After that, instances of CSIs are identified as
qualitative evidence. The occurrences of CSIs are classified according to the categories
proposed by Espindola and Vasconcellos (2006).
3. Analyzing CSIs in terms of translation procedures, as suggested by Kwieciński‟s (2001).
4. Examining the extent to which rendering choices may have led to a foreignised or
domesticated translation: After gathering the occurrences in categorized tables, an
examination of the extent to which rendering choices may have led to a foreignised or
domesticated translation has been conducted, the based on Kwieciński‟s consolidated
taxonomy (ibid).
5. Analyzing the extent to which the concepts of foreignisation/domestication may explain
the treatment given to the culture-bound terms in both directions.
In other words, the rendering choices have been located and noted down as qualitative evidence
to show either domestication or foreignization in the TT
8. Design of the study
The study consists of the following parts:
Part one introduces the rationale for the research, the research problem, the aims, the research
question of the study, the scope, the method, and the organization of the study.
Part two is the development of the study. This part includes two chapters. Chapter one provide
critical points of current knowledge, findings as well as theoretical and methodological
contributions to domestication and foreignization. Chapter two details a comparative analysis of
the occurrences of domesticated and foreignized culture-specific items as quantitative and
qualitative data. It also presents results of the study in which the research question is addressed.
Part three concludes the study with implications and also points out any limitations of the study
as well as suggestions for further research.
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