translating nonsense in dr.seuss‟s children

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

TRANSLATING NONSENSE

IN DR.SEUSS‟S CHILDREN BOOKS

Supervisor: Ngô Hà Thu, MCS

Student: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh

Course: QH2014.F1.E20

Hà Nội - 2018

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ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

DỊCH YẾU TỐ KHÔNG CÓ Ý NGHĨA TRONG

TRUYỆN THIẾU NHI CỦA DR. SEUSS

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS. Ngô Hà Thu

Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh

Khóa: QH2014.F1.E20

Hà Nôi - 2018

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ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Hoàng Anh, class QH2014.F1.E20, being a

candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language) accept the

requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s

Graduation Paper deposited in the library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the

library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance

with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or

reproduction of the paper.

Signature

Hanoi, May 2018

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my

supervisor Ms. Ngô Hà Thu, MCS, lecturer of Faculty of English Language

Teacher Education. This thesis could not be completed without her instructive

supervision, careful guidance and encouragement.

I also would like to show my profound gratitude to Ms. Hoàng Phƣơng

Thúy, the translator of the book There’s a Wocket in my Pocket - one of my case

studies in the research – for her time and effort to help me answer those questions

related to the book and her translation.

In addition, I would like to dedicate my special thanks to my classmates in

QH14E20, who have always supported, and given me many useful advices. My

special thanks go to my teammates who have always been beside me through ups

and downs.

Last but not least, I cannot fully express my gratitude to my beloved family

for their wholehearted support and encouragement.

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ABSTRACT

Literature is always a challenging genre for translators as there are a

huge number of expressions in source language that are hard to find their

equivalents in target language. “Nonsense literature” which includes words or

expressions that often do not have meaning in source language is even stranger

and perhaps, more challenging for translators to cope with. Since there has been

little research on translating nonsense of the English-Vietnamese language pair,

this research was carried out aiming to identify translation strategies that

Vietnamese translators used to deal with this problem, specifically literary

nonsense at word level. Two children‟s books written by Dr. Seuss in English

which are There’s a Wocket in my Pocket and I can lick 30 Tigers today! and

other stories and their Vietnamese translation works namely Trong túi có cậu

Tóc búi and Tớ có thể hạ gục 30 cậu hổ hôm nay! và những câu chuyện khác,

respectively were chosen as the case studies for this research. Data was

collected by reading and comparing the original works and translated versions

and then was categorized based on a combined framework from three

frameworks proposed by Baker (1992), Newmark (1988) and Lefevere (1975)

for further analysis. The findings indicated that there are four types of nonsense

words and the translators applied 8 different translation strategies to translate

nonsense items in the two books. The two most common used strategies were

Rhymed translation in There is a Wocket in my Pocket and Couplet in I can lick

30 Tigers today! and other stories. These findings suggest that translation

strategies were determined based on ways of word formation and the

translators‟ creativity.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEGEMENT ...................................................................................... i

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................ ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... iii

LIST OF FIGURES, ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................... v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1

1.1. Statement of the research problem and rationale ......................................... 1

1.2. Research questions ....................................................................................... 4

1.3. Scope of the study ........................................................................................ 4

1.4. Significance of the study .............................................................................. 4

1.5. Thesis structure ............................................................................................ 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................ 7

2.1. Nonsense literature....................................................................................... 7

2.2. Dr. Seuss‟s works as a case study of nonsense literature .......................... 11

2.3. Translation of nonsense literature and Dr. Seuss‟s works ......................... 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 27

3.1. Selection of subjects .................................................................................. 27

3.2. Research methods ...................................................................................... 28

3.3. Data collection procedure and data analysis method ................................. 28

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................. 30

4.1. Research question 1 ................................................................................... 30

4.2. Research question 2 ................................................................................... 44

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4.3. Beyond the Data ......................................................................................... 46

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 50

5.1. Summary of the study ................................................................................ 50

5.2. Limitations of the study ............................................................................. 51

5.3. Suggestions for further study ..................................................................... 52

REFERENCES ................................................................................................. 53

APPENDICES .................................................................................................. 56

APPENDIX 1. CATEGORIZATION OF TYPES OF LITERARY

NONSENSE AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES ...................................... 56

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LIST OF FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Types of literary nonsense ............................................................... 23

Figure 2: Translation strategies in 30 Tigers .................................................. 45

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ST Souce text

TT Target text

SL Source language

TL Target language

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this first chapter, the reasons for this research to be carried out are

presented. Additionally, research questions, significance and scope of the

research and thesis structure would be clarified.

1.1. Statement of research problem and rationale

Literary translation has flourished more than ever thanks to globalization

which has enabled dynamic exchanges between cultures; never has it been this

easy for general Vietnamese readers to read and understand and feel, say, an

American work of literature despite their improving English proficiency levels.

This, however, implies big challenges facing literary translators who are required

to render not only the messages the author of the source wishes to convey but also

the means the author employs to deliver such message. As a major genre of

literature, children‟s literature makes it even more complicated for translators as it

is a type of literature for which content “is limited by children‟s experience and

understanding” (Kiefer, Hepler & Hickman, 2007, p. 5). To make it more

complicated, Karen Jones (2008) identified that the reading materials for children

often share the traits of being non-sense, creative, rhymed, and humorous. This

implies the relations between children‟s books, poetry and what is termed

“nonsense literature” which is eventually an intriguing genre in children‟s

literature.

“Nonsense literature” or sometimes referred to as “literary nonsense” is a

broad categorization of literature that balances elements that make sense with

some that do not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical

reasoning. According to Srničková (2015), “[n]onsense writers do not create

fantasy worlds, but rather insert unmotivated events and bizarre characters into

familiar and conventional settings, or vice versa. This is essentially what makes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature

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nonsense nonsensical; it is a series of glitches in the matrix, an absurdity that

unabashedly stands out in a sea of ordinary operations and situations.” (p.36)

Even though nonsense literature has caught attention of many academics in

the world, translating works of this genre remains mostly untouched. One reason

may lie in the translatability of the works as even in the source language, the

words in the works do not make any sense and that they are merely a product of

the author‟s creativity. So, how should translators deal with such works? Do they

employ any different and special technique or classical procedures suggested by

Newmark (1988) still work well? In order to answer these questions, the

researcher decided to conduct a research using the translations of Dr. Seuss‟s

poems published in Vietnam by the Alpha Books, JSC as the case studies.

Theodore Seuss Geisel (1904 – 1991) was a German-American author who

produced a huge number of literary works; however, perhaps his most successful

field was children‟s literature in poetry genre as he was authoring more than 60

children‟s books under the name Dr. Seuss. According to research conducted by

Publishers Weekly in 2001, some of the best selling Dr. Seuss‟s books are Green

Eggs and Ham (1960), The Cat in the Hat (1957) and One Fish, Two Fish, Red

Fish, Blue Fish (1960). The New York Times stated that the number of readers of

Dr. Seuss‟s books was beyond millions. Dr. Seuss was famous for exploiting

nonsense words, phrases and structure, making them rhyme so that the stories

would sound poetic and easy for the young readers to remember. As Dotzel (2007)

said, literary nonsense is a type of fiction in which a whole new world is created

by the authors through the manipulation of language; Dr. Seuss‟s poems can be

seen as a typical example of this genre. Also, according to Vendula Srničková

(ibid), literary nonsense was not given enough attention in translation study. Not

much academic literature deals specifically with the translation of nonsense as

well as on translation strategies that can be applied to translate nonsense prose.

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Furthermore, translators do not pay much attention to this kind of genre as

normally nonsense words do not appear frequently in a literary work. According to

Kratochvilová (2001), “all basic features and operations of the genre can be

preserved in the target texts, provided the translator is aware of them” (p.43). That

is to say only when nonsense items are recognized by in-depth analysis of the text

can they be translated properly and thoroughly.

In 2016, the Alpha Books JSC introduced an ambitious project which is

translating several famous books by Dr. Seuss which mostly target at children at

the age of 5 who start to learn a language. This is the first time such masterpieces

of Dr. Seuss have been translated into Vietnamese. Some books are bilingual;

others are printed in Vietnamese only. The 5 first Dr. Seuss‟s books which were

published by Alpha Books are Fox in Socks, Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Hams,

The Cat in the Hat, McElligot’s pool, I can lick 30 tigers today! and other stories.

The books in general were well-received as some creditable online newspapers,

such as Vietnamnet and Vnexpress, reported on the publication of those books at

that time. Several translators were invited to work on the collections, which makes

the scene even more exciting because different translators usually have different

approaches in coping with nonsense language. The researcher did want to examine

all of the translations; yet given time and resources, the researcher decided to

focus on two translators who appears to have translated the most books by Dr.

Seuss in this project and two books which are I can lick 30 tigers today! and other

stories and There is a Wocket in my Pocket. The former was published in April

2016 and translated by Hà Hƣơng Giang; the latter in August 2017 and by Hoàng

Phƣơng Thúy.

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1.2. Research questions

From the above discussion, it can be clearly pointed out that translating

nonsense in literature, especially in poems is quite sophisticated and requires a lot

of effort from translators. Particularly, in Vietnamese translation industry there are

not many translation work of literary nonsense so this research aims to look at the

translatability of nonsense literature.

This study purports to address the following question:

1. What are the translation strategies the translators used when translating

nonsense poems in Dr. Seuss‟s poems and published by Alpha Books

Publishing House?

2. What are the most common used strategies?

1.3. Scope of the study

The research focuses on two books, namely I can lick 30 tigers today! and

other stories and There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, which were translated by Hà

Hƣơng Giang and Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy, respectively. I can lick 30 tigers today!

and other stories, hereafter 30 tigers for short originally published in 1969 is 63

page long; its translation is entitled Tớ có thể hạ gục 30 cậu hổ hôm nay! và những

câu chuyện khác. There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, hereafter Wocket for short

originally published in 1974 is 24 pages long; its translation is entitled Trong túi

có cậu tóc búi. The researcher decided to analyze the entire two books as they are

not too long. Also, given that these two books were translated by different

translators, the researcher expected to see potential patterns in using words or in

handling structures of translators when dealing with nonsense words of Dr. Seuss.

1.4. Significance of the study

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First of all, given Vietnamese literary translation context, there have been

few researches and articles concerning translating literary nonsense. Thus,

studying the translatability of nonsense literature hopefully will become useful

resource for Vietnamese translation industry.

Moreover, this research will serve as a reference for translators who are

working in Vietnamese translation industry as translating children‟s literature is

always a promising field. As literary nonsense is not discussed widely among

translators, this study may be a useful source for translators in general or for those

who are going to enter children‟s book translation industry.

Additionally, students at English language translation and interpreting

faculty, who are going to become real translators and interpreters also benefit from

this research. They will have a better knowledge of a children‟s books translation

industry and a quite new concept in translation which is literary nonsense

translation and common strategies used to translate these items. This study may

somehow raise their interest and orient them to their future career.

Finally, teachers who are teaching translation to students can use this

research as reference as well as teaching materials. They may consider add

children‟s books and literary nonsense translation to the syllabus to help students

understand more about this industry.

1.5. Thesis structure

This research consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter includes statement of the problem, the significance and scope of the

study and research questions.

Chapter 2: Literature review

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In this chapter, key definitions of the study will be explained; previous

studies on translation of literary nonsense and poetry and its translatability will

also be discussed.

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter includes the description of research samples and sampling

method, data collection method and data analysis method

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

Research findings and discussion on the translatability of literary nonsense

will be presented in this chapter

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This chapter includes summary of the research, implication of the findings

and limitation of the study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will set the theoretical background for the whole research.

The concept of literary nonsense, Dr. Seuss’s literary works and translation of

nonsense and Dr. Seuss’s works are stated clearly.

2.1. Nonsense literature

2.1.1. Definition of nonsense literature

According to Oxford Dictionary, nonsense is “spoken or written words that

have no meaning or make no sense”. However, Anna Barton (2015) said that it is

quite hard to define literary nonsense in absolute terms. Literary nonsense can be

traced back to the mid-19th

century and is thought to be originated from Edward

Lear and Lewis Caroll with Alice in wonderland and Jabberwocky. However, as

Noel Malcolm (1998) mentioned, literary nonsense genre appeared 250 years

earlier with the publication of nonsense poets written by Sir John Hoskyns and

John Taylor in the 17th

century. Literary nonsense was considered as a

combination of two artistic sources which are the older source - oral folk tradition

and the newer source – intellectual absurdities. The first source includes games,

songs, dramas, and rhymes, such as the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle or the

literary figure Mother Goose. The second source is applied in the intellectual

absurdities of court poets, scholars, and intellectuals of various kinds. Today's

literary nonsense is a combination of both sources. Specifically, the 20th

century

authors who are well-known for this kind of genre are Dr. Seuss with a series of

children‟s poems full of nonsense words and Roald Dahl with his short stories

using nonsense as a literary device.

By definition, nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any

other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. Many poets, songwriters,

novelists used nonsense in their work so as to create a sense of humor or simply to

give birth to novelty works. Many explanations of literary nonsense have been

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursery_rhyme

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Diddle_Diddle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_poet

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proposed by previous scholars both in terms of language and meaning.

Kratochvilová (ibid) puts it, “literary nonsense does not appeal to our dreamlike

imagination, but to our linguistic imagination” (p.55). In his comment, besides

discussing literary nonsense in textual context, Kratochvilová mentioned the term

“linguistic imagination” which referred to the cognitive ability of readers.

Similarly, Lerer (2008) concludes, “nonsense is more than play, it takes us to the

limits of expression” (p.208). In this acknowledgement, linguistic aspect of

nonsense literature is also discussed. The above definitions all mean that when

reading a literature work, specifically, a nonsense literature work, readers‟

imagination of language will be activated and it will put them into a new sphere of

language or even a new world. Nonsense literature is “more than play” which

means it is not only for fun but it also stimulates readers‟ linguistic ability.

Srničková (ibid) provides a quite contradictory idea that nonsense writers do not

create fantasy world but they just add some unfamiliar words and characters to the

normal ones. That is why Anna Barton (2015) said that it is quite hard to define

literary nonsense in absolute terms. However, this research applies the definition

proposed by Edward Lear in which nonsense “is not a vacuity of sense; it is a

parody of sense, and that is the sense of it” (“The Music of Poetry”). Dr. Seuss in

his books for children used nonsense items mainly as a way to make fun of

language so that children can learn a language more comfortably. Considering

nonsense literature in this research, it is more about linguistic aspect rather than

cultural ones.

2.1.2. Characteristics of nonsense literature

Nonsense literature is described as coming from the older source - the oral

folk tradition. This implies an outstanding characteristic of nonsense literature

may be abundant rhyme and rhythm. This feature can be found in Edward Lear,

Lewis Caroll and more recently is Dr. Seuss‟s poems - in which nonsense words

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are used frequently to ensure the melody and meter of the poem to attract young

readers. Another feature of folk tradition is that a huge number of images related

to familiar subjects namely animals, plants and toys are used for illustration.

Therefore, in literary nonsense genre, images of familiar subjects and even strange

ones may also be used to boost children‟s imagination. As in Alice in wonderland,

the author used quite a lot of familiar animals such as the White Rabbit and also

the strange one such as the Mad Hatter.

Also from the definition, it can be inferred that nonsense literature has the

characteristic of intellectual absurdities in that many words, phrases and

structures are strange, creative and do not have meaning in real life. These

words, phrases can easily be found in famous nonsense works written by the

aforementioned authors. Some special examples can be found in a famous Dr.

Seuss‟s poem Wocket. Reading the title only, it can be figured out that the word

“wocket” has no meaning in real life.

Moreover, it can be clearly seen that the characteristics of nonsense

literature are much similar to those of children‟s literature. According to Karen

Jones (2008), the reading materials for children often share the traits of being non-

sense, creative, rhymed, and humorous. In this acknowledgement, she mentioned

both characteristics of nonsense literature that have been discussed above.

Therefore, nonsense literature can be considered as a sub-genre of children‟s

literature and it should bear most of the characters of children‟s literature. Peter

Hunt (as cited in Rudvin and Orlati, 2006, p.162) mentioned some characteristics

of children‟s literature, mostly on the language used namely child-orientedness,

simplicity, easy structures, narrow range of grammatical and lexical patterns,

simple lexis and register, standard set of phrases, words from everyday life,

repetition, short text and sentences. Ivana Bobulová et al. (ibid) also comments

that the language used in children books must base on real children’s speech – in

order to make the books easy to understand. These two ideas both refer to

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children as the target reader so both the language and content of the works have to

fit the understanding of children. As the two books mainly focus on linguistic

aspect of literary nonsense, they must ensure simplicity in the use of language by

using short and simple structure and repetition of those phrases and structures. In

many of his poems, Dr. Seuss uses sentences with only four or five words, they

may not even be full sentences but just phrases and these are repeated many times

in his poems. Take the poem The Foot Book (1968) as a particular example:

Feet in the morning

Feet at night

Left foot

Left foot

Left foot

Ivana Bobulová et al. (ibid) also points out one outstanding characteristic of

children‟s literature which is the genre often has nonsense, fantasy, and

imagination – as children‟s plays (being the most natural activity for them) are

based on fantasy and imagination, they are reflected in children‟s books as well.

Sharing this point of view, Kratochvilová (ibid) believes that “literary nonsense

does not appeal to our dreamlike imagination, but to our linguistic imagination”

(p.55). Obviously, imagination is also a unique characteristic of children‟s

literature. Children have vivid imaginations and creative visualization usually

come quite naturally to them. That is why in children‟s literature, the author tend

to include details and events that can provoke children‟s cognitive ability while

reading. Literary nonsense also has that characteristics as the made-up words and

phrases along with unusual images may effectively boost children imagination

especially in terms of linguistic imagination.

In conclusion, literary nonsense could be date back to folklore literature and

intellectual writing. The combination of the styles of both genres shaped the

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characteristics of nonsense literature in modern days and apparently, many of

which shared with children‟s literature. The two outstanding ones are “simplicity”

with the use of a large number of simple phrases, structures and rhyme and

“imagination” with abundant pictures and new words. That is why many

children‟s literary works use literary nonsense as a literary device to attract

children‟s attention.

2.2. Dr. Seuss‟s works as a case study of nonsense literature

2.2.1. Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is the pen name of Theodore Seuss Geisel (1904 – 1991), who

was a German-American author, political cartoonist, poet, animator, book

publisher and artist. At the age of 18, he became the editor in chief of his college –

Dartmouth College‟s humour magazine and used the pseudonym “Seuss” from

then on. Dr. Seuss produced a huge number of literary works; specifically, he

published over 60 books during his career. However, perhaps his most successful

field was children‟s literature. He published his first children's book, “And to

Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street", under the name of Dr. Seuss in

1937. This book was rejected 27 times before it was published by Vanguard Press.

A breakthrough in Geisel's career came when, in response to a 1954 LIFE

magazine article that criticized children's reading levels, Houghton Mifflin and

Random House asked him to write a children's primer using 220 vocabulary

words. The resulting book The Cat in the Hat, which was published in 1957, was a

milestone to mark his continuous success in children literature field. From then on,

he pursued his career as an author of children‟s books. Many of his books were the

most popular children‟s books of all time, which were being sold over 600 million

copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.

Dr. Seuss died on September 24, 1991, at the age of 87, in La Jolla, California

where he wrote many famous pieces such as If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton

Hears a Who! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Hears_a_Who!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Hears_a_Who!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Circus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas!

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the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960). Dr. Seuss

left a huge treasure of masterpieces for young readers up until now.

2.2.2. Characteristics of Dr. Seuss‟s children books

Dr. Seuss was an outstanding author in children‟s literature though this

genre is usually “limited by children‟s experience and understanding” which

makes it a hard nut to crack (Kiefer, Hepler & Hickman, 2007, p. 5). What makes

Dr. Seuss‟s works, mostly poems, so fun and entertaining is his unique writing

style. As written in the site of Dr. Seuss called “A Hatful of Seuss” where all

information about Dr. Seuss is presented, there are four main characteristics of Dr.

Seuss‟s works.

The first feature of Dr. Seuss‟s children books is that they have a lot of rhyme.

Most of Dr. Seuss‟ works were written using simple end rhymes that make his

stories sound more pleasing to the ears. For example, a book called One Fish,

Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) has the following line:

“From there to here, and here to there,

funny things are everywhere.”

Dr. Seuss used this same kind of rhyming throughout most of his stories, making

the lines a lot less boring than ordinary sentences.

Another feature that makes Dr. Seuss‟s books so alluring to children is that

it has a special rhythm. The term rhythm is used to describe a specific pattern of

sounds. Dr. Seuss‟s used different stress of sounds to make his poems sound more

interesting and catchy to children. Dr. Seuss wrote with a special rhythm called

“trisyllabic meter,” which means that every third syllable of his stories is more

stressed than the others. For example, read these lines from Yertle the Turtle and

Other Stories (1958):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham

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“And today the Great Yertle, that Marvelous he

Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.

It can be clearly noticed that when reading out loud, readers will put more

emphasis on the bolded parts of the word. Using this type of rhythm makes his

books much more fun to read as they sound more like songs than stories.

Another characteristic of Dr. Seuss‟s books is that they are full of new,

imaginative creatures and words. In almost all of Dr. Seuss‟ stories, it can be

easily seen that there are many made-up words and creatures. Even though his

characters are eccentric and his words are outrageous (like "boom-pahs"

and "Schloppity-Schlopp"), they make his stories much more exciting.

Last but not least, in Dr. Seuss‟s books, there always funny pictures which

were all drawn by Dr. Seuss himself. He drew his characters and backgrounds

with a distinctive style. The figures that he draws are often more rounded and

droopier than things appear in real life. The colors and style of the illustrations add

to the fun in the funny language of his stories.

From the above characteristics and examples of Dr. Seuss‟s children books,

it can be clearly seen that Dr. Seuss is a master in composing fascinating poems

for children. His works are not much about the content but the language use as

they are supposed to be children-targeted. Those poems are rich in vocabulary,

especially those made-up words and creatures which are known as literary

nonsense items. Dr. Seuss once said “I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the

wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at

life's realities.” (Goodreads, 2018) That is why these items more or less appear in

almost all of his work, which makes his works unique and enjoyable.

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2.3. Translation of nonsense literature and Dr. Seuss‟s works

The translatability of literary nonsense genre is still an open-to-question

problem. According to Srničková (ibid), literary nonsense was not given enough

attention in translation study. Specifically, in the Vietnamese translation industry

there has not been any significant research on literary nonsense. Srničková also

noted that translating nonsense was the most challenging task in the translation

process and “the translation of nonsense requires a high level of mastery of both

the source and target languages, in order to be able to perceive all of the features

of nonsense in the text and translate them adequately” (p.7). That is another reason

why not many works of literary nonsense genre are translated into other

languages.

Given all the above discussions and the characteristics of Dr. Seuss‟s

children books, this research only focuses on literary nonsense at word level.

Although there is no concrete fixed framework of translation strategies for literary

nonsense, the researcher has realized significant connections between lexical

nonsense and several linguistic phenomena including neologism, non-equivalence

at word level and lexical elements of poems. Accordingly, the researcher expected

to apply existing frameworks to translate the aforementioned linguistic phenomena

to identify the strategies used in the two case studies. Specifically, they are

Newmark (1988)‟s strategies to translate neologism, Baker (1992)‟s strategies to

deal with non-equivalence at word level, and finally Levefere (1975)‟s poetry

translation framework.

2.3.1. Neologisms and Newmark‟s strategies

In his research, Newmark (1988) defined neologisms as newly coined

lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense. Cabré (1999) also

state that “a unit is a neologism if it has arisen recently, if it is not in dictionaries,

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if it exhibits signs of formal instability (e.g. morphological, graphic, phonetic) or

semantic instability and if speakers perceive it as a new unit.” (p.206). From the

above definitions, it can be seen that nonsense items and neologisms share one

common characteristic is that it is new and may not appear in official dictionaries.

Newmark (1988) proposed 12 types of neologisms; however, just four of

which were likely to appear in Dr. Seuss‟s nonsense, namely new coinage, derived

words, collocations and eponyms. As a result, the researcher would only discuss

these four types of nonsense in the following part. For more analysis of the others,

please read more from page 140 to page 148 in “A text book of translation” by

Newmark (1988).

2.3.1.1. New coinages

It is well known hypothesis that there is no such thing as a brand new word;

if a word does not derive from various morphemes then it is more or less

phonaesthetic or synaesthetic. Contrary to that popular belief, Newmark (ibid)

pointed out that many words can hardly be related to meaningful sounds,

specifically dialect words (p.142). Some examples he mentioned are the

internationalism “quark” and the computer term “byte”. Nowadays, the main new

coinages are brand or trade names. Coinage is understood as the word formation

process in which a new word is created either deliberately or accidentally without

using the other word formation processes and often seemingly from nothing

In Dr. Seuss‟s books, there are quite many terms that can be considered

new coinage. One striking example can be seen in the title There is a Wocket in my

Pocket. The word “wocket” here was created to rhyme with the word “pocket” in

the verse and have no actual meaning at all. Or in one of his poems called Too

Many Daves, there are a lot of names which are new coinage such as “Hoos Foos”,

“Snimm”, “Putt Putt” and so on.

16

2.3.1.2. Derived words

Derived words are words that use ancient Greek and Latin phrases with

suffixes such as -ismo, -ismus, -ja, etc., naturalized to match the appropriate

language. According to Newmark (ibid), now this word-forming procedure is used

mainly to designate scientific and technological rather than culture terms and

normally they have naturalized suffixes.

2.3.1.3. Collocations

New collocations (noun compounds) or (adjective plus noun) are

particularly common in the social sciences and in computer language. In Newmark

(ibid) textbook, he gave out some specific cases of collocation, for example, “lead

time,” a term for the time between design and production or between ordering and

delivery of a product, has to be translated in context; “acid rain,” unfortunately a

universal phenomenon, is likely to be literally translated everywhere, since it is

“transparent”. These terms should be translated according to context.

2.3.1.4. Eponyms

Eponyms are any word derived from a proper name (including toponyms).

It is not challenging to translate eponyms that directly refer to the person; but if

they refer to the referent's ideas or qualities, the translator may have to add

explanations. When derived from objects, eponyms are usually brand names, and

can be transferred only when they are equally well known and accepted in the TL.

Newmark also mentioned different translation procedures for neologisms

translation namely transference (with inverted commas), TL neologisms, TL

derived word, naturalization, recognized TL translation, functional term,

descriptive term, literal translation, translation procedure combinations

17

(couplets, etc.), through translation (calque, and internationalism). Given the

similarity in nature between neologism and nonsense literature at word level, such

procedures are expected to be applicable in translating literary nonsense.

Transference

It is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation

procedure. The word then becomes a loan word.

According to Newmark, the names of SL objects, inventions, devices, processes to

be imported into the TL community should be creatively, preferably

“authoritatively”, translated, if they are neologisms, although brand names have to

be transferred. (p.81)

In translation, there must be some words in the source language that do not

have direct equivalents in the target language which are called non-equivalence at

word level. This term is quite similar to nonsense words as they are both new and

do not appear in the dictionary so there is no fixed equivalence when translating

into other languages.

TL neologism (with composites)

Using TL neologism means that when translating creating a brand new

word in TL, just like neologism in SL. For example, the word “muggle” in Harry

Potter series, Lý Lan translated it into “máu bùn” which is a brand new word in

Vietnamese that Lý Lan created to describe those witches who have no power.

TL derived words

This translation strategy is to use TL derived words to translate neologism

in SL text.

18

Naturalisation

This procedure is used to adapt the SL word first to the normal

pronunciation, then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL.

In Dr. Seuss‟s 30 Tigers, specifically in The Glunk that got thunk there is one

example of this translation strategy.

ST: You have a Schnutz. I know you have.

(The Glunk that got Thunk)

TT: Sơ-nút-zơ hẳn là có trong nhà.

(Tượng tượng ra một gã Khệnh Xanh, p.56)

Recognised TL Translation

It occurs when the translator “normally uses the official or the generally

accepted transition of any institutional term.”

Functional term

According to Newmark (ibid), functional term or functional equivalent is

the most accurate way of translating, i.e. deculturalising a cultural word. This

strategy normally neutralizes or generalizes the SL word.

Descriptive term

It refers to the description of SL item into its TL.

Literal translation

This translation procedure retains the grammatical pattern of SL text but

words are translated out of context. Literal translation normally serves as a pre-

translation process to identify the problems that need to be solved.

19

Translation procedures combination (couplet, etc.)

This is the combination of two or more translation procedures that is used

to deal with a single problem.

Through translation

It is the literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations

and components of compounds. It can also be called: calque or loan translation.

For example “European Union” is translated into “Liên hiệp châu Âu”, this is

called through translation.

Internationalism

This translation strategy means using TL word which is widely known and

used internationally.

2.3.2. Non-equivalence and Baker‟s strategies

In translation, there must be some words in the source language that do not

have direct equivalents in the target language which are called non-equivalence at

word level. This term is quite similar to nonsense words as they are both new and

do not appear in the dictionary so there is no fixed equivalence when translating

into other languages.

According to Baker (1992), non-equivalence at word level means that the

target language has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source

text. (p.21) Baker introduced eight strategies used by professional translators to

translate non-equivalence items which are translating by a more general word

(superordinate), translating by a more neutral/less expensive word,

translation by substitution, translating by using a loan word plus explanation,

20

translating by using paraphrase, translating by omission, translating by

illustration.

Translation by a more general word (superordinate)

This is one of the most common strategies to deal with many types of non-

equivalence in translation. Baker believes that it works appropriately in most

language.

Translation by a more neutral/less expensive word

This strategy is a strategy in the semantic field of structure. Translators use

this strategy to avoid misunderstanding and obtain high naturalness in TL

translation.

Translation by a cultural substitution

This strategy is used to replace a culture-specific item or expression in SL

text with a TL item that have the same impact on the target reader. This makes the

translated text more comprehensible and familiar to the readers.

Translation by using a loan word or loan with plus explanation

This strategy is particular useful to deal with culture-specific items, new

and modern concepts. Translator can use loan word with explanation the first time

one new item appear in the text, and then that word can be repeated many times in

TL versions without being afraid readers have difficulty in understanding that

term.

21

Translation by paraphrasing

Translation by paraphrasing means SL concepts are lexicalized in TL

language but in different form. This strategy can also be used when the concept in

SL is not lexicalized in TL.

Translation by omission

This strategy is used when there are SL items that, if they are not translated,

target readers still get the idea of the author, or if other translation strategies

cannot be applied, translators can skip those items to avoid lengthy explanation.

Translation by illustration

When SL text refers to a physical entity which requires lengthy text in TL

to explain and may distort the meaning as well as the intention of the author in that

specific sentence, this strategy is employed. Illustration is an option that can

convey the meaning of the entity and it also gives readers a specific and lively

image of that object.

2.3.3. Poetry translation and Lefevere‟s strategies

Dr. Seuss‟s works are mainly in poetry genre so poetry translation

framework can be applied in translating Dr. Seuss‟s children‟s books. Poetry

translation is quite perplexing as to ensure the aesthetic value of poetry; translators

have to deal with a large number of aspects. As Mathews (1966) (as cited in Wilss,

2001) said that to translate a poem whole is to compose another poem. Jacobson

(1966) (as cited in Wilss, 2001) concludes that poetry by definition is

untranslatable and only creative transposition is possible (p.238). That is why

poetry is believed by many to be untranslatable. However, Holmes (1970) believes

that while the translation of a poem is never equal to the original, any text

including a poetic one has many interpretations and therefore many possible

22

translations. In agreement with this idea, Lefevere (1975) proposed 7 strategies to

deal with poetry translation. His framework covers all the poetic features: formal

and contextual. Lefevere views poetry as a unified context in which the form,

content and aesthetic issues are closely related to each other but each have their

own special value. Below is a list of his comprehensive strategies:

Phonemic translation: reproducing the source language sound in the target

language.

Literal translation: word for word translation

Metrical Translation: reproducing the source language meter.

Verse to Prose Translation: Distorting the sense, communicative values

and syntax of source text.

Rhymed Translation: transferring the rhyme of the original poem into

target language.

Blank/free verse translation: finding just the proper equivalents in the

target language with a proper semantic result.

Interpretation: version and imitation. Version occurs when the absence of

source language text is retained and the form is changed. Imitation occurs when

the translator produces the poem of his own.

2.3.4. Nonsense words in 30 Tigers and Wocket and a suggested

translation framework

As mentioned in 2.3.1, nonsense items can be referred to neologism as they

did not appear in dictionaries or exist in real life and the researcher decided to

apply Newmark‟s 12 types of neologism to categorize nonsense words.

23

In the two chosen books, the researcher can pick out 54 nonsense items.

Among those 12 types of neologism, new coinage, derived words, eponyms and

collocations are four types that are found in Dr. Seuss‟s children books and new

coinages takes up the biggest proportion. For detailed classification, please see

Appendix 1.

2%2%

19%

77%

New coinage

Eponyms

Collocation

Derived word

Figure 1: Types of literary nonsense

As can be seen in the chart, 77% of nonsense items in Dr. Seuss‟s books are

new coinages, 19% are eponyms and 2% are collocations and the remaining 2%

are derived words. That is to say, Dr. Seuss had such distinct language ability that

he invented his own words and though having no sense, these words are extremely

amusing.

In the book Wocket, there are 31 nonsense items; all are new coinages.

Moreover, each nonsense word is paired up with a meaningful word, suffix of

which is similar to that of the nonsense word. For example:

Eg.1.

Did you

ever have the feeling

24

there‟s a

WASKET

in your BASKET?

(Wocket, p.7)

Eg.2.

Sometimes

I feel quite CERTAIN

there‟s a JERTAIN

in the CURTAIN

(Wocket, p.10)

In the first example, the pair “WASKET” and “BASKET” end with “-ET”:

the nonsense word “WASKET” is created based on “BASKET” – the sense-

making one. In the second example, in group of three words that end with “-AIN”,

the only one that have no sense is the word “JERTAIN” and similarly, this word is

invented in the foundation of those two meaningful ones.

The book 30 Tigers includes 3 small stories but only 2 of them, King Looie

Katz and The Glunk that got Thunk, include nonsense items at word level. There

are 23 nonsense items in total which belongs to 4 categories: new coinages,

eponyms, collocations and derived words. It can be seen that types of nonsense

items in this book are more diverse compared to the book Wocket. New coinages

in 30 Tigers are created in different ways from Wocket: instead of having similar

suffix, the nonsense words here need contextualizing to guess their meanings.

Below are some examples of nonsense in 30 Tigers:

Eg.3.

A thing my sister likes to do

Some evenings after suppers

25

Is sit upstairs in her small room

And use her Thinker-Upper.

(The glunk that got thunk)

Eg.4.

And since that day on Katzen-stein,

All cats have been more grown-up.

They‟re all more demo-catic

Because each cat holds his own up.

(King Looie Katz)

The two nonsense words in the two above examples “Thinker-Upper” and

“demo-catic” are not created to follow any rhyme and rhythm rule. In terms of the

word “demo-catic”, “demo-” is a prefix which has Greek origin and its meaning is

“people”; “-ic” is a familiar suffix in English which means “relating to”, so the

“catic” part can be understood as relating to cat. In this case, it can be seen that

“demo-catic” is a derived word. Furthermore, “demo-catic” was invented because

it sounds like a meaningful word in English which is “democratic” and its

meaning in this story is also quite the same as “democratic”. “Thinker-Upper” was

created by combining a meaningful word “think” and a common suffix “er” and

then adding “Upper”. “Thinker” in this context can be related to the meaning of

the word “think” so “Thinker-Upper” here can be generally understood as a rich

imagination. However, both “demo-catic” and “Thinker-Upper” had to be put in

the surrounding context of the stories to be fully comprehended; if they appeared

singly out of context, they could not be able to be translated.

26

From the categorization above, the researcher proposed a framework of

strategies that based on the three frameworks suggested by Newmark, Baker and

Lefevere to ensure comprehensive and accurate analysis.

The researcher‟s proposed framework is as followed:

1. Rhymed translation (Lefevere)

2. Phonemic translation (Lefevere)

3. Translating by substitution (Baker)

4. Translation by paraphrasing (Baker)

5. Naturalisation (Newmark)

6. Recognised TL translation (Newmark)

7. Couplet (Newmark)

8. Others

27

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to present the methodology used in this research.

Research samples of the paper would be thoroughly described in this chapter.

Moreover, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure would also be

mentioned.

3.1. Selection of subjects

As mentioned in previous chapters, two famous books of Dr. Seuss and

their Vietnamese translated versions would be employed in this research.

The first book, There is a Wocket in my Pocket is a short children‟s rhyming book

written by Dr. Seuss and published by Random House in 1974. The story is about

a little boy talking about strange creatures living around his house. Each of those

imaginary creature has a nonsense name rhymes with its hiding place, as in the

title. Readers can see amusing illustrations of them in each page of the book. The

Vietnamese translated version of There is a Wocket in My Pocket named Trong

TÚI có cậu TÓC BÚI (Tóc Búi). This book was translated by Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy

and was published in August 2017 by Alphabooks JSC. The design of the

translated version is exactly the same as the original one, from the cover, the pages

to the font size of the letters.

The second sample of the research is I can lick 30 tigers today! and other

stories which is also a children‟s story book by Dr. Seuss and first published in

1969. In this book, Dr. Seuss tells three rhyming tales featuring the extended

family of The Cat in the Hat. The title story I can lick 30 tigers today! tells a story

about The Cat in the Hat‟s son, who claims that he can win 30 tigers. However in

the end he fights no tigers at all by making excuse after excuse to disqualify all the

tigers. In other story, his daughter gets a bit carried away by her imagination in

The Glunk That Got Thunk. And in the last story of the series, we look back at one

of the Cat‟s ancestors for a tale about tails in King Looie Katz. This last story is

also a warning against hierarchical society advocating self-reliance. This book was

28

translated into Vietnamese by Hà Hƣơng Giang under the name Tớ có thể hạ gục

30 cậu hổ hôm nay! và những câu chuyện khác. The book was published in April

2016 by Alphabook JSC and just like many other books written by Dr. Seuss, the

design of this translated book remains the same as the original one.

3.2. Research methods

Two methods employed in this research are quantitative and qualitative

method.

To answer the first question on translation strategies, the research applied

qualitative method which includes focused sampling and document analysis as the

main data collection method. The two books are examined carefully to collect

nonsense items in original versions and their equivalents in translated ones as

samples of the study.

As for the second question, quantitative method is employed. The

researcher counts the number each translation strategy is used to find out which

one is the dominant one.

3.3. Data collection procedure and data analysis method

Data collection procedure and data analysis method were divided into three

steps:

Step 1: collecting nonsense items in the two books Wocket and 30 Tigers

and their Vietnamese equivalents in the translated versions namely Tóc búi and 30

cậu hổ

This step was based on the criteria and characteristics of nonsense

presented in Chapter 2. The researcher read the original books first and then

underlined all nonsense items that appeared in the English versions and then read

the translated ones to find the equivalents for those underlined words.

Step 2: categorizing types of nonsense items in original books

29

After having collected nonsense items in step 1, the researcher classified

them based on the framework of neologism types suggested by Newmark that had

been mentioned in chapter 2 (see Appendix 1).

Step 3: categorizing Vietnamese equivalents in the translated version and

figuring out translation methods

After categorizing types of nonsense items, the researcher decided which

strategy the translators used to translate those texts based on the framework of

translation strategies that the researcher proposed in 2.3.4.

After that, the number of translation strategies were counted and transferred

into chart to see the frequency of strategy and find out the most dominant strategy.

This step provided the answer for the second question.

30

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, research findings of the strategies translators used to

transfer nonsense literature in two Dr. Seuss’s children books to Vietnamese.

Data analysis and discussion about those findings are also presented.

As mentioned in 2.3.4, the researcher would employ the adapted framework

proposed by Newmark, Baker, Lefevere to translate those nonsense items and to

answer two research questions:

1. What are the translation strategies the translators used when translating

nonsense in Dr. Seuss‟s poems published by Alpha Books Publishing

House?

2. What are the most common used strategies?

4.1. Research question 1: Translation strategies the translators used when

translating nonsense in Dr. Seuss‟s poems published by Alpha Books Publishing

House

1. Phonemic translation

This strategy was used to translate 3 nonsense items in the two books,

which was only a small proportion of total number of nonsense words. These 3

items appeared in the book translated by Hà Hƣơng Giang. The translator

employed this strategy mainly to translate words that describe sounds.

Eg.1.

ST: It started thunk-thunk-thunking


31

TT: Rồi bắt đầu thịch-thịch-thịch-thình

(Tưởng tượng ra một gã Khệnh xanh, p.46)

Eg.2.

ST: Then BLUNK! Her Thinker-Upper thunked


TT: Bất chợt BÙM, trí tƣởng tƣơng kêu vang

(Tưởng tượng ra một gã Khệnh xanh, p.48)

It can be seen that the sounds of the SL are reproduced but the nuance of

the verse is still quite faithful to the author‟s intention. The reason is that

alliterative expressions in ST are translated into alliterative ones in TT. In the first

example, the translator was successful using phonemic translation strategy to

translate “thunk-thunk-thunking” into “thịch-thịch-thịch-thình” as she can keep the

both repeated consonant “th” and the sound effect. Similarly, in the second one,

“BLUNK” was translated into “BÙM” to keep the “b” sound. However the

difference between the two languages when using this strategy is quite evident.

While “thunk-thunk-thunking” has no meaning in English language and may never

be used in any other occasions apart from this, its translation “thịch-thịch-thịch-

thình” is quite familiar in Vietnamese language. This phrase describes the sound

of heart beating when people feel nervous. In this context, this can also be

understood as the sound of the head thinking. Similarly, “BÙM” is used in

everyday situations when referring to the sound of a blast or explosion but the

English word “BLUNK” appear just once in this specific occasion.

The use of phonemic strategy showed the ingenuity of the translator as she found

out the translated words that keep the aesthetic value of the original text and at the

32

same time be close to everyday conversation of all people, especially of children –

the targeted readers.

2. Rhymed translation

Rhymed translation was applied for all nonsense items in the book Wocket

translated by Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy. As mentioned above, there is a similar

characteristic among all nonsense words in the book; that may be the reason why

they have the same translation method. All nonsense items in this book are nouns;

more specifically, they are names of strange creatures that live in the house. That

was another challenge for the translator to transfer both the part of speech and the

effect of sound to target readers.

Eg1.

ST:

I like the

ZABLE

on the

TABLE

(Wocket, p.18)

TT:

Tớ thích cậu

VUI TRÀN

đứng ở trên

CHIẾC BÀN

(Tóc búi, p.18)

Eg2.

ST:

The only one

I‟m really scared of

33

is that VUG

under the RUG

(Wocket, p.22)

TT:

Kẻ duy nhất

tớ sợ

chính là gã MỜ ÁM

lẩn lút dƣới TẤM THẢM

(Tóc búi, p.22)

It can be clearly seen that in the source text nonsense items were created by

just changing the first letter of the words that have meaning to make it a nonsense

one: ZABLE and TABLE, VUG and RUG. In order to maintain the rhyme and

rhythm of the source text, rhymed translation method was applied in this book.

Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy translated those nonsense words maybe by translating

meaningful words first, and then she would find words which rhymed with the

ones she just have translated. For example, when translating the pair “ZABLE”

and “TABLE”, she probably translated “TABLE” into “CHIẾC BÀN” first and

then came up with the word “VUI TRÀN” later which had the sound “ÀN” like

the first one. Similarly, “VUG” and “RUG” are translated into “MỜ ÁM” and

“TẤM THẢM” which both have the sound “AM” at the end of the words. One

intriguing feature is that while in English those nonsense words literally have no

sense at all, the translated versions of those words have their meanings in

Vietnamese.

3. Translation by substitution

Translating by substitution method proposed by Baker was used to translate

two words in The Glunk that got Thunk. This strategy involves replacing an

34

expression with one of the different meaning but similar impact in the translated

text.

Eg.1.

ST: And use her Thinker-Upper


TT: Và vận hành Trí Tưởng Tượng Tít Mây

(Tưởng tượng ra một gã Khệnh Xanh, p.42)

Eg.2.

ST:

Unless you plunk them with great care …

Will keep the stew from glunking.”


TT:

Phải khe khẽ, nhẹ nhàng, cẩn thận …

Thì món hầm mới đậm vị, ngọt ngon.


As the aim of translation by substitution is to make the word or the idea be

understandable in the target language, the translated version of nonsense items in

these two examples are really familiar to Vietnamese readers, especially young

readers. The word “Trí Tƣởng Tƣợng Tít Mây” is often used by Vietnamese

people when describing someone who have overactive imagination. If translated

literally this word into English, it will be “Imagination to the cloud”. Cloud is

35

known to be up in the sky, so it is appropriate to translate Thinker-Upper into that

Vietnamese collocation. Different from the first example, the second one

substituted the nonsense word by providing two Vietnamese words which have the

opposite meaning to the English one. Apparently, “glunking” here had a negative

sense, despite not being able to understand the meaning of this word. However,

“đậm vị, ngọt ngon” in Vietnamese version have positive effect which are used to

describe good taste of food. In short, translation by substitution can appear in

different forms as long as it offers easy-to-understand words to target readers.

4. Translation by paraphrasing

As mentioned in 2.3.2, translation by paraphrasing is used when the words

in source language cannot be lexicalized in target language. However, to make the

concept more understandable to readers, the translator had to find way to translate

those terms and translation by paraphrasing is quite effective to deal with this

problem. There are two sub-strategies which are paraphrasing using a related word

and paraphrasing using a non-related word. The former is used when the concept

expressed by the source item is lexicalized in the TL but in a different form. In

contrast, the latter is employed if the concept expressed by the source item is not

lexicalized at all in the TL. Instead of a related word, the paraphrase may be based

on modifying a superordinate or simply on unpacking the meaning of the source

text.

Eg.1.

ST:

A fancy cat named Looie

Was the King of Katzen-stein.

(King Looie Katz)

TT:

36

Có vị vua mèo tên gọi Lu-i

Trị vì vương quốc Mèo Hết Thảy.

(Vua Lu-i Mèo mủng, p.22)

In the target text, “vƣơng quốc Mèo Hết Thảy” is generally known as

“kingdom of all cats”. Although there is no word that has the same meaning as

“kingdom” in the source text, the translator may have based on the lexical “Katz”

in the word “Katzen-stein” and the overall context of the poem to paraphrase the

nonsense word using a related word (Mèo).

Eg.2.

ST:

She turns on her UN-Thinker

And un-think the things away.


TT:

Em tớ liền bật công tắc NGỪNG-Tưởng tượng

Và mọi điều tƣởng tƣợng bị đẩy xa


In the second example, “UN-Thinker” is a meaningless word; however, if

separating the word into components, each has its own meaning: “think” is the

meaningful one which means “nghĩ” in Vietnamese, “un” is a common prefix in

English that is used to create the opposite meaning of a word, for example,

“satisfactory-unsatisfactory”, “known-unknown”, etc and “er” is also a common

suffix that is used to create a noun, for example “teach-teacher”, “catch-catcher”,

37

etc. Generally, this word may be understood as stop thinking about something. In

order to maintain the intention of the author and also to fit in the overall context,

the translator used a related word to translate “UN-Thinker” into “NGỪNG-Tƣởng

tƣợng” - back translated as “stop imagine”, which is quite related to the act of stop

thinking. Furthermore, she also added the word “công tắc” – a noun in Vietnamese

which means “switch” before “NGỪNG-Tƣởng tƣợng”. This word may be

employed based on the phrasal verb “turn-on” in the ST, which means “bật” in the

TL and “bật công tắc” is a common phrase in Vietnamese. In The Glunk that got

Thunk, Dr. Seuss also used the word “un-think” as a verb a few times, and the

translator also translated it into “ngừng tƣởng tƣợng”.

5. Naturalisation

There are only two examples in The Glunk that got Thunk that

naturalization method was solely used.

Eg.1.

ST: Texa-Kota-Cutt


TT: Tếch-xa Cô-ta Cút


Eg.2.

ST: You have a Schnutz. I know you have.


TT: Sơ-nút-zơ hẳn là có trong nhà.

38


Texa-Kota-Cutt is the name of an imaginary place where the Glunk comes

from. Schnutz is also an imaginary fruit, which Dr. Seuss mentioned above is a

kind of berry. Naturalization method might be the most appropriate way to

translate names of those imaginary things as it helps keep both the intention of the

author and also the fascination of the words.

6. Recognised TL translation

Translators often used recognized TL translation proposed by Newmark to

those institutional terms that are widely accepted by the public. In “King Looie

Katz” there is a really creative word that the translator applied recognized TL

translation to transfer the meaning form SL to TL.

ST:

They‟re all more demo-catic

Because each cat holds his own up.

(King Looie Katz)

TT:

Bình đẳng cho tất cả loài mèo

Đuôi mèo nào thì mèo đó tự nâng.

(Vua Lu-i Mèo Mủng, p.38)

It is known that “democratic” is a word that has meaning in English, which

means “bình đẳng” in Vietnamese. In the context of this poem, Dr. Seuss might

probably create the word “demo-catic” by deleting the letter “r” in “democratic” to

make it sounds more related to “cat” as the poem is all about the cat world.

39

Moreover, the suffix “-ic” commonly refers to “relating to” in English. That might

be the reason why Hà Hƣơng Giang – the translator of the book decided to use

recognized TL translation to maintain the meaning of the word: “democratic” by

keeping its Vietnamese equivalent: “bình đẳng” and added “cho tất cả loài mèo”

for the “-catic” part. Although it was quite a long translation version, it is created

for the sake of young readers.

7. Couplet

Couplet is a common procedure in translation, especially in translating

words or expressions that do not have their exact equivalents in target language.

This procedure is popular as translators do not use only one translation strategy

but use a combination of two or more strategies to translate a single word or

expression. 30 Tigers is not an exception as there are quite a lot of nonsense words

that do not have Vietnamese equivalents. In this book, translator used Couplet

mainly to translate name of characters and strange things that appear in the poems.

Eg.1.

ST:

So Looie Katz made Fooie Katz

Follow him around.

(King Looie Katz)

TT:

Vua Lu-i Mèo Mủng sai Phu-i Mèo Mủng

Đi cùng ngài khắp chốn, mọi nơi.

(Vua Lu-i Mèo Mủng, p.24)

Eg.2.

40

ST:

But, if you don‟t have berries, razz.

A Schnutz-berry will do.


TT:

Nhƣng nếu không,

Thay bằng dâu Sơ-nút-zơ cũng đƣợc.


In the first example, it can be seen that the translator used naturalization

and translation by cultural substitution to translate names of the cats that live in the

kingdom. First of all, she used naturalization might be to show respect to the

names that Dr. Seuss created and also to keep the impact of sound of the original

words. Secondly, cultural substitution is utilized to translate the word “Katz” into

“Mèo Mủng” to maintain the effect of the word to readers. “Katz” in English is a

funny way to refer to the “cat” and so is the effect of the word “Mèo Mủng” in

Vietnamese. There are similar names of other “cats” in the kingdom that were also

translated by this procedure.

In the second example, the combination of naturalization and translation by

paraphrasing is used to translate the word “Schnutz-berry”. The translator may

have the intention of keeping the exotic name of the berry that Dr. Seuss invented

so she used naturalization to translate the word without distorting the meaning of

the name. “Berry” has the exact equivalent in Vietnamese which is “quả mọng”

but Vietnamese people do not get so familiar with this term, especially young

readers. That is why the translator paraphrased the word and translated it into

“dâu” which is “strawberry” in English so that it could be more common.

8. Others

41

This category includes all the nonsense words, translations of which do not

reflect any translation procedure introduced by Newmark, Baker or Lefevere.

Therefore, it should be noted that the conclusions made on the possible translation

strategies in this category merely based on personal observation of the researcher.

There are four cases to be discussed; all are found in 30 Tigers.

Eg.1.

ST:

Then BLUNK! Her Thinker-Upper thunked

A double klunker-klunk.


TT:

Bất chợt BÙM, trí tƣởng tƣợng kêu vang

Và nổ ra đôi tiếng đùng-đoàng.


Eg.2.

ST:

And today I did some cooking

And I cooked some Glunker Stew.


TT:

Hôm nay con vào bếp đấy mẹ ơi

Con nấu món thịt hầm của Khệnh.


42

The translation strategy in these two cases is that the nonsense words are

translated based on the translation of another nonsense word in the previous

part of the verse or of the poem.

In example 1, the word “klunker-klunk” is translated into “đùng đoàng”

which in Vietnamese depicts the sound of an explosion or a loud noise of

fireworks. This expression is translated that way because it followed the meaning

of the word “BÙM” which also means quite the same in Vietnamese. Similarly, in

the second example, the word “Glunker Stew” is translated into “thịt hầm của

Khệnh” because in the previous part of the poem, the word “Glunk” is translated

into “Khệnh” or “Khệnh Xanh”. This strategy is used may be to ensure the flow of

the poem and also the logic of the translated version.

Eg.3.

ST:

My sister‟s eyes flew open

And she saw she‟d thunked a Glunk.


TT:

Em gái tớ vội vàng mở mắt

Và em ngã kềnh khi trông thấy gã Khệnh Xanh.


Eg.4.

ST:

43

And now woth your permission, dear,

I‟ll use your tele-foam.


TT:

Và bây giờ nhóc cho phép chứ?

Ta sẽ dùng „điện thệnh‟ nhà mình!


These two examples have the same

translation strategy which is translation

based on illustration.

“Glunk” is translated into “Khệnh

Xanh” because in the book, there is a

picture of a huge green animal that has

quite angry and scary look. Green color has

the Vietnamese equivalent as “xanh” and

the look can be translated as “khệnh” to

describe an arrogant person.

Image of “Glunk” illustrated by Dr. Seuss in

“The Glunk that got Thunk”, page 48

Image of “Glunk” illustrated by Dr. Seuss in

“The Glunk that got Thunk”, page 55

44

The same as the word “tele-

foam”, in the page that contains this

word there is an illustration of a

telephone which is translated into

“điện thoại” in Vietnamese.

However, the translator translated

“tele-foam” into “điện thệnh”

although “foam” has nothing to do

with “thệnh”. The translator may

want to keep the “th” sound of “thoại” and the “ệnh” sound of “khệnh” so that it

would be more logical and fascinating.

Translation based on illustration is used to describe the exact image that the

author of the original work wanted to display. Illustration is also a useful tool for

translators, especially when translated abstract or nonsense expression as it helps

them to know what the word means or what it looks like.

4.2. Research question 2: The most common used strategy

In Wocket, Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy used Rhymed translation to translate all

nonsense items (see Appendix 1). Therefore, it is no doubt that in this book, the

most commonly used strategy is rhymed translation. All 31 nonsense items in this

story are translated that way maybe because they have the same method of

creation which leads to the same characteristic as mentioned in 4.1.

On the other hand, in 30 Tigers, nonsense words are of different ways of

creation resulting in various translation strategies. However, in this book, there is

not any item that is transferred into Vietnamese using Rhymed translation.

45

5%

10%

5%

19%14%

37%

10%

Phonemic translation

Translation by substitution

Translation by paraphrasing

Naturalisation

Recognised TL translation

Couplet

Others

Figure 2: Translation strategies in 30 Tigers

Among 23 nonsense words in 30 Tigers, the translator applied 7 translation

strategies. It can be clearly seen that the dominant one is Couplet with 37% of the

nonsense items are translated by this strategy, followed by Others with 19% and

phonemic translation with 14%. As translating nonsense words is quite an arduous

task for translator, finding just a single translation strategy that works is no less

challenging, combining different strategies to covey full meaning of the word

maybe the most appropriate way. Couplet is used mainly to translate nonsense

name of the character in Dr. Seuss‟s book. For example, “Zooie Katzen-bein” is

translated into “Zu-i Mèo Chét” by combining Naturalisation and Translation by

cultural substitution. The reason for this combination is that the translator wanted

to keep the name of the character and at the same time make it understandable for

target readers of the book.

The second most used strategy is Others which is used to translate 19% of

all nonsense words in 30 Tigers book. Nonsense words do not have any meaning

so finding equivalents, especially Vietnamese ones, for those words is not easy for

sure. If luckily, the translator could find equivalents by using translation strategies

46

proposed by previous researchers. If not, they have to use their imagination as well

as their language ability and sensitivity to transfer the meaning and the aesthetic

value of the word. In 30 Tigers, the translator was quite successful in using her

own way to translate some nonsense words; for example: translation based on

illustration and translation through sound effect of the word.

4.3. Beyond the data

4.3.1. Depending on different types of nonsense items, the translators used

distinctive translation strategies. While in the book Wocket, all the nonsense items

are created the same way, hence uniform strategies are applied to translate them,

in 30 Tigers, kinds of nonsense words are more diverse leading to more various

strategies.

Nonsense in the book 30 Tigers includes not only nouns such as names of

creatures, animals, things or places but also verbs or adjectives used to describe

things or actions. Therefore, besides trying to maintain the rhyme and rhythm of

the verse, the translator had to pay more attention to the intention of the author and

the logic of the poem. As a result, in some cases, she sacrificed the aesthetic value

of the poem to make nonsense features more comprehensible to readers. For

example:

ST:

A thing my sister likes to do

Some evenings after suppers,

Is sit upstairs in her small room

And use her Thinker-Upper.


TT:

47

Em gái tớ có một sở thích

Sau khi dùng bữa tối xong xuôi,

Là lên gác, ngồi vào phòng bé tẹo

Và vận hành trí Tƣởng Tƣợng Tít Mây.

(Tượng tượng ra một gã Khệnh Xanh, p. 42)

In the ST, it can be clearly seen that “suppers” and “Thinker-Upper” both

have the “-er” sound. However, in the TT, “trí Tƣởng Tƣợng Tít Mây” does not

rhyme with any word in the verse. That is to say, the translator in this case had to

give up on the sound pattern to ensure the understandability of the nonsense item.

In the book Wocket, Rhymed translation is seen to be the main translation

method. However, the translator – Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy when interviewed by the

researcher confirmed that actually, she tried to use also literal translation and

illustration-based translation to make Vietnamese equivalents as closest to the

meaning of the source text as possible. For example, in the pair “TABLE –

ZABLE” which is translated into “CÁI BÀN – VUI TRÀN”, the researcher only

realized rhymed translation strategy that the translator used to translate the word.

Only after having short interview with the author via email did the researcher find

out that the word “VUI TRÀN” best described the feature of the character. “VUI

TRÀN” means extremely happy in English and the picture that depicts this

creature is exactly the one with a really big smile and a happy face that Dr. Seuss

drew. The translator must have looked at the illustration of those strange creatures

first and then find a suitable and rhymed translation version of the word later.

There are quite many cases, but not all, that Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy used this

strategy to translate. There are some cases that the illustration of the creature and

its translation word had nothing to do with each other as the translator must have

48

wanted to ensure the rhyme and rhythm of the poem rather than the meaning and

outlook of those creatures. All in all, rhymed translation is still the recognizable

and outstanding strategy that the translator used to translate nonsense items in

Wocket book, others just play as references for her decision.

4.3.2. After having a closer look at and analyzing the two chosen books, the

researcher found out that though certain differences did exist, there are patterns of

translating nonsense items. First of all, while nonsense words in the ST literally

did not have any meaning, their TL equivalents are mostly meaningful in

Vietnamese. Despite that, Hoàng Phƣơng Thúy and Hà Hƣơng Giang – the two

translators both tried to be faithful to the author‟s ideas by understanding the

overall context and translating as close to the intention of the source text as

possible. Furthermore, illustration by Dr. Seuss was also valuable references for

both translators to get the ideas of the author. Translators of the two books both

used illustration-based translation to translate nonsense words as in many cases,

looking at the surrounding context was not enough to guess the meaning of the

word.

4.3.3. Among 8 translation strategies that the researcher mentioned in 2.3.4,

the most used translation strategy was Rhymed translation proposed by Lefevere.

However, this was only employed in the book Wocket where all nonsense words

had the same pattern. In 30 Tigers, translation procedures proposed by Newmark

were mostly used. Among that, Couplet was the most outstanding one, including

Naturalisation and Cultural substitution, which was used to translate names of

characters or things in order not to distort the invented characters of the authors.

Although translation procedures invented by Baker was the least used to translate

nonsense in the two books, they were highly practical to help young readers grasp

the author‟s ideas and at the same time absorb the beautiful language.

49

It is obvious that translation theories of the three theorists were essential in

translating nonsense literature. However, as literary nonsense was quite an

unfamiliar field to translators, the above-mentioned strategies could not cover all

cases. In this research, the translator found out and concluded that in Dr. Seuss‟s

books, translators had to base on other features such as illustration or

translation of the existing words to complete their translation. In this case, these

strategies were extremely useful in translating nonsense because Dr. Seuss‟s books

were full of author‟s imagination and pictures sometimes served as the definitions

of the words. This hopefully would be a clue to latter researchers who work on

nonsense literature.

50

CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS

This chapter aims at summarizing the process of carrying out this

research. Limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research

were also discussed in the conclusion chapter.

5.1. Summary of the study

Nonsense is not a new concept in English literature; however, it is quite

peculiar to Vietnamese one. That is why translating nonsense is never a simple

task for translators. Moreover, there are not many, if not to say there is not any

research conducted by Vietnamese researchers in figuring out translation strategies

that are used to deal with nonsense items. All the above mentioned reasons urged

the researcher to conduct this research. 2 children books of Dr. Seuss were chosen

to be the subjects of the study is due to plenty of nonsense items that appear in the

books. Furthermore, translating nonsense items for children as target readers is

even more difficult and rare. Another reason is that there are some researchers in

different countries rather than Vietnam conducting researches related to nonsense

in children‟s literary works; thus, the researcher could use them as references to

carry out this study.

Regarding the methodology that this research employed, Wocket and 30

Tigers written by Dr. Seuss were the subjects that the researcher decided to choose

as they have their translation version already published in Vietnam and there were

quite a lot of different kinds of nonsense in the two books. The researcher first find

out and list out nonsense items in original books and their translated version and

then put them in a table for easier categorization. Based on the theoretical

background set in literature review chapter, those collected nonsense items would

be categorized to see what types of nonsense they were and also their translation

51

strategies. Quantitative and qualitative were used as the main methods in this

research.

For the findings, there were four main kinds of nonsense items that were

found in the books which were new coinage, eponyms, derived words and

collocations. While in the book Wocket, all nonsense words were new coinages

and they had the same way of creation, in 30 Tigers, nonsense items were more

varied in types. As a result, translation strategy in Wocket was mainly Rhymed

translation proposed by Lefevere while in 30 Tigers, there are 7 different kinds of

translation methods.

All in all, Rhymed translation and Couplet were two most dominant

strategies that translators used to translate nonsense in the two chosen books. Also,

apart from the content analysis, when interviewing the translator, the research has

identified two other strategies which has not mentioned in the existing frameworks

but been used in the case studies: illustration-based translation strategy and

existing word-based translation strategy.

That is to say, nonsense translation is not the same to every translator as it

depends on the text, the perception and creativeness of the translator. It is also

clear that no matter what strategies the translators used, the translation might lose

a certain degree of meaning and effects relative to the original texts. Moreover,

cultural and linguistic gaps also play crucial roles in the process of nonsense

translation.

5.2. Limitations of the study

Although the researcher tried to carefully and thoroughly conduct this

research, it is still unable to avoid certain limitations.

First of all, the scarcity of references restricted the quality of the research.

As mentioned above, there is not any Vietnamese researcher dig deep into

52

nonsense translation, finding researches that have related theory is not easy.

Translation framework proposed by foreign researchers did not fit in Vietnamese

translation. That is why the researcher had to come up with a framework that was

combined by different ones.

Secondly, the scale of the research is noticeable. Due to time limit, only

two books by Dr. Seuss were investigated; hence, the number of nonsense items

was also quite small to generalize the trend of translating nonsense.

Last but not least is the complex nature of the issue and humble knowledge

of the researcher that made the study was not profound enough. Literary nonsense

was an exotic concept to Vietnamese translators so it was quite hard for them to

find appropriate translation strategies, let alone those nonsense terms appeared in

poems which made it even harder to translate. Complex as it was, the researcher

could not offer detailed and comprehensive comments on each translation strategy.

5.3. Suggestions for further study

Due to its limitation, it is recommended for later researchers to have a more

profound research on this problem. It would be more reliable if later researches on

the same issues are conducted at a larger scale to identify some pattern, if any, of

translating nonsense literature. Researchers may continue to work on Dr. Seuss‟s

books or other works that include a large number of nonsense expressions. Last

but not least, later researchers can carry out researches with nonsense not only at

word level but also at sentence level or even at higher levels.

53

REFERENCES

Anderson, N. A. (2010). Elementary Children’s Literature: Infancy through Age

13 (3rd

Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon

Aiwei, S. (2005). Translatability and poetic translation. Translatum Journal, 5.

Retrieved from

http://www.translatum.gr/journal/5/translatability-and-poetic-translation.htm

Baker, M (1992). In Other Words: a Coursebook on Translation. London:

Routledge.

Barton, A. (2015). Nonsense literature. Oxford Bibliographies. doi:DOI:

10.1093/OBO/9780199846719-0099

Bobulová, I. et al. (2003). Children's and Juvenile Literature (Written in English).

Nitra: Pedagogická fakulta UKF v Nitre. ISBN 80-8050-628-0

Cabré, M.T. (1999). Terminology: theory, methods and applications. Amsterdam

and Philadelphia: John Benjamin

Dancette, J. (1997). Mapping Meaning and Comprehension in Translation, In J.

H.Danks.G.M.Shreve,S.B.Fountain

Dotzel, B. (n.d.). Literary Nonsense Genre: Definition & Examples. Lecture.

Retrieved from:

http://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-nonsense-genre-definition-

examples.html

Frimmelová, K. (2010). Translating Childrens Literature (Doctoral dissertation,

Masaryk University, Faculty of Education).

http://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-nonsense-genre-definition-examples.html

http://study.com/academy/lesson/literary-nonsense-genre-definition-examples.html

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Holmes, J. (1970). Forms of Verse Translation and the Translation of Verse Form.

The Nature of Translation: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Literary

Translation, The Hague: Mouton.

Jones, K. (2008). How to write effective poetry for kids. Retrieved from

http://www.helium.com/items/1176034-childrens-poetry-childrens-humor-

writing-fo r-children

Kiefer, B., Hepler, S., & Hickman, J. (2007). Charlotte Huck's children's

literature, 9th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.

Kratochvilová, E (2001). Literary Nonsense and its Translation: diplomová práce.

Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta. Vedoucí diplomové práce

Ing. Mgr. Jiří Rambousek.

Lefevere, A. (1975). Translating poetry: seven strategies and a blueprint. Assen:

Van Gorcum.

Lerer, S. (2008). Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry

Potter. Chicago and London: The Univ. of Chicago Press

Lynch-Brown, C., & Tomlinson, C. M. (1998). Essentials of children's literature.

Allyn & Bacon.

Malcolm, N. (1997). The Origins of English Nonsense. London: HarperCollins.

Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. Shanghai: Practice Hall

Rudvin, M. & Orlati, F. (2006). Dual readership and hidden subtexts in children‟s

literature: The case of Salman Rushdie‟s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. In J.

van Coillie & W. P. Verschueren (Eds.), Children’s literature in translation:

Challenges and strategies. Manchester: St Jerome.

Srničková, V. (2015). Translating Nonsense in Roald Dahl's Children's

Books (Doctoral dissertation, Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta)

55

Wolfram, W. (2001). The Science of Translation- Problems and Methods.

56

APPENDIX (in the order of appearance)

CATEGORIZATION OF TYPES OF LITERARY NONSENSE AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

No

Nonsense

items in

English

Page Vietnamese

equivalents Page Types

Translation

strategies

Theorists

Newmark Baker Lefevere

THERE IS A WOCKET IN MY POCKET - TRONG TÚI CÓ CẬU TÓC BÚI

1 WASKET 7 GÃ ĐỒ BỎ 7

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

2 NUREAU 8 LIẾC XÉO 8

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

3 WOSET 9 CAO RÁO 9

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

4 JERTAIN 10 HOM HEM 10

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

5 ZLOCK 11 HỒ ĐỒ 11

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

6 ZELF 12 NHẨN NHA 12

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

7 NINK 14 HAY HÁT 14

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

8 ZAMP 15 THÈN THẸN 15

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

9 YOT 16 QUẢN CA 16

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

10 YOTTLE 17 QUẠU CỌ 17 New Rhymed √

57

coinage translation

11 ZABLE 18 VUI TRÀN 18

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

12 GHAIR 18 GỜ-Ế 18

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

13 BOFA 19 ĐÀNH HANH 19

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

14 NUPBOARDS 20 NÚP-ÉN 20

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

15

NOOTH

GRUSH 21

HAI MÁI

LẠNH BĂNG 21

New

coinage Rhymed

translation √

16 VUG 22 MỜ ÁM 22

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

17 QUIMNEY 24 LEN LỎI 24

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

18 ZALL 25 RANH 25

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

19 YEPS 26 MƠ MÀNG 26

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

20 TELLAR 28 TE TƢA 28

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

21 NELLAR 28 CHE MƢA 28

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

22 GELLAR 28 GHÊ CHƢA 28

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

23 DELLAR 28 NGÀY XƢA 28 New Rhymed √

58

coinage translation

24 BELLAR 28 BẺ NỬA 28

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

25 WELLAR 28 EM NỮA 28

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

26 ZELLAR 28 DÂY DƢA 28

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

27 GEELING 30 ĐU XÀ 30

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

28 ZOWER 31 CỒ ĐEN 31

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

29 ZILLOW 32 BAN TỐI 32

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

30 FINDO 34 TÌM ĐỒ 34

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation

√

31 NOOK GASE 35 NUỐT SẠCH 35

New

coinage

Rhymed

translation √

KING LOOIE KATZ - VUA LU-I MÈO MỦNG

32 Katzen-stein

Vƣơng quốc

Mèo hết thảy 22 Eponyms

Translation by

paraphrasing √

33 Looie Katz

Lu-i Mèo

Mủng 23 Eponyms Couplet √

34 Fooie Katz

Phu-i Mèo


59

35 Kooie Katz

Cu-i Mèo


36 Chooie Katz

Chu-i Mèo


37 Hooie Katz

Hu-i Mèo


38 Blooie Katz

Blu-i Mèo


39 Prooie Katz

Pru-i Mèo


40

Zooie Katzen-

bein Zu-i Mèo Chét 32 Eponyms Couplet √

41 Demo-catic

Bình đẳng cho

tất cả loài mèo 38

Derived

words

Recognised TL

Translation √

THE GLUNK THAT GOT THUNK - TƯỞNG TƯỢNG RA MỘT GÃ KHỆNH XANH

42 Thinker-Upper

Trí Tƣởng

Tƣợng Tít Mây 43 Collocation

Translate by

substitution √

43 UN-Thinker

NGỪNG-

Tƣởng tƣợng 44

New

coinage

Translate by

paraphrasing √

44

Thunk-thunk-

thunking

Thịch-thịch-

thịch-thình 46

New

coinage

Phonemic

translation √

45 blunk BÙM 48

New

coinage

Phonemic

translation*

60

46 Klunker-klunk Đùng-đoàng 48

New

coinage Other

47 glunk Khệnh Xanh 48

New

coinage Other

48 Tele-foam „điện thệnh‟ 51

New

coinage Other

49 Texa-Kota-Cutt

Tếch-xa Cô-ta

Cút 52 Eponyms Naturalization √

50 Glunker Stew

Thịt hầm của

Khệnh 53

New

coinage Other

51 Chuck-a-luck Lắc xắc 54

New

coinage

Phonemic

translation* √

52 glunk

>< đậm vị, ngọt

ngon 54

New

coinage

Translation by

substitution √

53 Schnutz-berry Dâu Sơ-nút-zơ 56

New

coinage Couplet √

54 Schnutz Sơ-nút-zơ 56

New

coinage Naturalization √

translating nonsense in dr.seuss‟s children

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