A study of the translation of fairy tales from English into Vietnamese- A Cognitive sociolinguistics perspective

Abstract

This article investigates the problems appearing in the translation of fairy tales from English into Vietnamese in light of Cognitive sociolinguistics. The study aims to find out the typical features of English fairy tales, the achievements and the downsides in Vietnamese translational versions. The theoretical framework is based on the theory of Cognitive sociolinguistics proposed by Gitte Kristiansen and René Dirven [4], and from researches of Catford John Cunnison’s [2], Peter Newmark’s [3] and Nguyễn Quốc Hùng’s [5]. For data analysis, contrastive and inductive methods have been used. The result shows that besides the achievements obtained, there are some problems that should be pointed out. This paper suggests three kinds of errors defined as under-translation, over-translation and unnaturalness found to be common in the translational versions. The findings then serve as a foundation to put forward some possible suggestions for Vietnamese translators and some implications for Vietnamese learners of English.