The floating sweet cake
Interpretation is the keyword to the translations. Translators must understand the poet intention before translation. However, the translator’s understanding and knowledge allows them to ensure to have a translated poem comparable to the source. The translation may be hard and at the same time possible and those who manage to translate are the successful translators. Translation takes step by step to have action it’s received. I made my translation successful by understanding the poet’s intention, the culture, linguistic and history based on the poem. Translation is the main work I have done on this research paper, and I have analyzed how the poem transforms through translation, all lost and all that remain true and comparable to the original poem.
I choose the bánh trôi nước,” by hồ xuân hương a Vietnamese poem to have my translation skills, ability exercised and understand how easy or difficult it is to have translated writing. Before any translation, I had to follow the few main ideas that are the core factors to the translation work. To begin with, I researched Vietnamese history on the culture and the language. I noted that Vietnamese is a deeply idiomatic language, which confirms it to be widely challenging to translate. For example, khỉ ho cò gáy? (We’ll get back to this in a bit.), an expression that is so unique that cannot fully translate into another language According to (Halliday, 110). The vowel soup, a language that creates an exciting sequence of sounds of poetry. According to Matthiessen et al diphthong songs are visible when different sounds are formed by putting vowels together (111). Finally, I noted the Vietnamese tone marks which are added to the vowels and arrange in random order. Through great work and research I managed to finish my translation.
Bánh Trôi Nước,” by Hồ Xuân Hương
Thân em vừa trắng là vừa tròn
Bảy nồi ba chìm với nước non
Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn
Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The Floating Sweet Cake
My body is white my fate, softly rounded,
Rising and sinking like mountains in ponds
The hand that models me may be rough.
You can’t destroy my true red heart.
The poem explains of a rice flour dumpling, prepared in the Vietnamese generation served in a thickened coconut syrup. The poem may seem to talk about food, but a metaphor, created by the dumpling — a metaphor for a woman and her body. The poem describes the sexual and social powerless of women in Vietnamese culture. According to Halliday (110) the poem ends with giving and illustrating the power of women. I viewed Ho Xuan Huong message as the struggle of women in their life to spend their love with who they love. Back in the Vietnamese culture women were not given equal rights to decide who they like. The parents resolved the marriage issue; hence women being with who they love was not easy. In spite of all the struggles, their love and morals remain the same.
I have arranged the translated poem in five lines together with the title which is also similar to the original poetry of five lines. According to my analysis, the original poem has 25 words five clauses formed in 2 clause complexes. The first complex consists of the following clauses; Clause 1 (Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn), clause 2 (Bảy nổi) and clause 3 (ba chìm với nước non). The second complex consists of; Clause 1 (Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn) and clause 2 (Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son). The source poem has no embedded poem clause. My translation poem consists of 35 words and six clauses. The clauses are as follows; my body is white, my fate, softly rounded, rising, and sinking like mountains in ponds, the hand that models me may be rough, you can’t destroy my true red heart and embedded clause: that model me.
I analyzed the transitivity pattern of the two poems. The source poem, clause 1 and 4 are relational, clause 2 and three processes material and clause five processes behavior and no embedded clause. The poem I translated consist of; clause 1, 2 and five processes relational while clause 3, 4 and six processes material. The translated poetry have a slighter difference with the central poem and has an embedded clause, six processes while the source poem has no embedded clause and five clauses. The original poem has 2 rational processes, two material processes, and one behavior processes. My translated work has three relational processes and three material processes.
To understand more about the two poems whether there is a difference or the poems are the same we shall check on the qualitative look at the vocabulary choice and the transitivity pattern. The first line in the original poem, have a transitivity pattern of the carrier and have a relational process. The simple group consists of a noun Thân (body) which as a thing and noun em (younger) which acts as a postmodifier in traditional language and qualifier in modern style. Attributed is actualized by two adjectives (vừa) trắng (both white) and (lại vừa) tròn (and round) and the relational process as implicit.
On my translation, the first line, I constructed in two clauses, “My body is white” and “my fate softly rounded.” Clause one has a pattern of carrier and relation — the line consist of personal possessive adjective “My” which functions as a deictic. “Body” which is the noun acts as the thing. The relational process “is” noted by the help of the copula verb is and the adjective “white” help to realize the attribute. The second clause, also a relational which has the pattern of carrier process and relational attribute. “My” which is possessive adjective acting as the deictic and “fate” functions as the thing. The Attribute is noted by an operative phrase with the adverb “softly” and practical adjective “rounded.” The vocabulary choice and pattern on my first line make a slight difference with the central poem.
The second line of the original poem shows that consists of two material clauses; “ Bảy nổi” and “ba chìm với nước non.” The first clause consists of transitivity pattern of circumstances. The action verb “nổi characterizes circumstances shown by the Numerative “Bảy” and the material process;” The second clause in the line has the transitivity pattern of circumstances. The Numerative “ba realizes the accompaniment,” the material Process is characterized by the action verb “chìm,” and the Circumstance by a prepositional phrase consisting of the preposition “với” and compound noun “nước non.”
The second line in the translated version also consists of two material clauses; “Rising” and “and sinking like mountains in streams.” The first clause has transitivity pattern of the process which is characterized by the action verb “rising.” The second clause has a transitivity pattern of the process which the process notes by the help of the action verb “sinking” and circumstance by the preposition “like.” The noun mountains and the preposition act as a qualifier with a preposition “in” and the noun “streams” In clause two we find the process rising which relate to nổi in the source clause. In the process, sinking which corresponds to chìm in the source clause, while the Circumstance ba (three times) in the source clause does not exist in the sentence. “Like a mountain in the ponds” functions as the circumstance of manner while “với nước non” in the source poem functions as Circumstance of accompaniment where the two statements are the same. All the work is giving a slight difference between the two poems.
The third line in the original poem “Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn” is a relational clause with a transitivity pattern of Attribute. The Attribute characterizes an adjectival group of two adjectives in implicit paratactic relation “Rắn nát” (hard and soft), relational Process is implicit in the clause. Carrier, given by a nominal group consisting of the noun “tay” (hand) functioning as head and the noun kẻ nặn (maker/ shaper) acting as a qualifier.
Similar to the source clause, the third line in my version “the hand that models me may be rough” is a relational clause. Which makes the difference from the source clause, however, is that unlike the clause of the source text which has the pattern of Attribute represented in the order of Carrier (The hand that models me) Process: relational (maybe) Attribute (rough) — the Carrier, shown by a nominal group of the definite article. The functioning as Deictic, the singular noun hand functioning as Head and the embedded relative clause that models me (elaborating the meaning of hand) functions as Qualifier. A linguistic group realizes the relational Process comprises of the modal auxiliary verb may, and the copula verb is, and the Attribute is achieved by the adjective rough. A closer examination of the vocabulary item realizing the Attribute reveals that the choice of “rough has no correspondence either to rắn or nát in the original clause.
The fourth line in the original poem “Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son” is a behavior clause which has the transitivity pattern of Behavior Process: behavioral (giữ) Range (tấm lòng son), where Behaver, is given by the noun em, the Circumstance by the adverb vẫn. The behavioral Process by the verb giữ and the Range by a nominal group have the Thing tấm lòng and the Epithet son.
The fourth line in my translated version “You can’t destroy my true red heart” is a material clause which has the transitivity pattern of Actor (You) Process: material (can’t destroy) Goal (my true red heart), in which the second personal pronoun you realize the Actor. The material Process is shown by a verbal group which consists of the modal auxiliary verb “can’t” and the action verb “destroy.” The Goal is emphasizing a nominal group comprising of the personal possessive adjective functioning as Deictic. The two adjectives “true red” act as Epithets, and the noun heart function as the thing. A closer analysis reveals that the content in this line represents a different process from that in the source line, except for the noun heart which may correspond to tấm long. The other items such as you, can’t, destroy, my, and true red do not have correspondences in the source line.
As far as lexical choice is concerned, there are several items in the translated version which can be equivalent to those in the source poem the formed white from the translated work can be equal to the form trắng in the source poem and also the form tròn in the source poem can be equivalent. The form rising in the translated poetry to a certain extent can be equal to the form nổi in the source poem. According to Halliday et al he form sinking in the translated work to a large extent can be equivalent to the form chìm in the source poem, and the reference of “My body to” The Floating Sweet Cake (115). In the translated version, to a certain extent can be considered to be comparable to the reference of Thân em to Bánh trôi nước in the source poem. There are, however, grammatical and lexical choices in the translated version which are very different from those in the source poem.
One important factor that contributes to making the translated versions differ more markedly from the source poem is that there are some symbolic and cultural values attached to “Bánh trôi nước” having its origin in the Vietnamese culture which does not seem to be laden in “The Floating sweet Cake.” According to Halliday et al (110) in reading “Bánh trôi nước,” the reader is led into the realm of some metaphorical modes of meaning which, in this particular context, seem to be readily understood by the Vietnamese.
The research I have presented works on the clause level trying to prove wherever it’s possible to translate a poem and maintain the beauty in the poem. I have clearly understood that the poetic language one of the most challenging words to translate and most cases untranslatable. The original poem and the translated poem have enlightened me with the challenges of poet translation. The work leaves me with a dilemma wherever it is possible to capture the poem’s semantic word, meaning and the poetic feature. I have noted that not everything can be translated smoothly and maintaining the original beauty of the poetry. When translating a poem from one culture to a new language, it’s always tough to have the loyalty and patriotism of the original culture demonstrated in the new translated poetry thus I conclude translating poetic may be possible or impossible.