THE TRANSLATION METHODS APPLIED IN VIETNAMESE VERSION OF THE WORK “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY JACK LONDON

Abstract

Even though The Call of the Wild is one of excellent works by Jack London with great impacts on American literature, there have been little to no research on the way professional translators translate it into Vietnamese. As an attempt to gain more insights into translation methods in literary translation, this research aims to investigate the translation methods used by the two translators Nguyen Cong Ai and Vu Tuan Phuong in translating the workThe Call of the Wildinto Vietnamese. Besides that, the research succeeds in identifying the frequency of every translation methods as well as their effectiveness. Finally, some suggestions would also be given. These goals were achieved by a study using document observation instrument. The findings from the study show that there are only 5 out of 8 translation methods according to Peter Newmark’s theory being used throughout the novel The Call of the Wild. The most common translation method applied is different in each chapter based on its own content and the writer’s purposes. For example, in Chapter VI which describes the sound urges Buck to return to the wild and its process of being wild, semantic translation method is used most dominantly. It was no surprise to the researcher that semantic and faithful translation methods are used most frequently in the work. And three other methods are communicative, free translation methods and adaptation. Last but not least, the researcher also suggests some better issues for further research.