Loss and gain in the Vietnamese translational equivalents of English idioms used in the 4th volume of the novel series “Harry Potter” by J.K. Rowling

Tóm tắt

Owning to their unique semantic and structural features, idioms contribute to the richness of language, enabling language users to express their ideas in concise and sophisticated ways. This study is aimed at identifying and analyzing loss and gain in the Vietnamese translational equivalents of the English idioms used in the 4th volume of the Harry Potter novel serial by J.K. Rowling. The translation shift theory of Catford [1], [2] was employed to clarify the fundamental aspects of loss and gain phenomena. The study reveals that loss and gain in lexis or structure occur frequently in translations of idioms, assisting in preserving the idioms’ figurative meanings. It is hoped that the research results can be of some help for teaching, learning and English – Vietnamese translation of idioms.