Flowery Language of Young Couple in Act: 3, Scene: 5 in Vietnamese Translations of Romeo and Juliet

• Main Author: Van Nhan Luong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lasting Impressions Press 2016-11-01
• Series: International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies
• Subjects: Translation; Back Translation; Omission; Vietnamese translation; Expansion; Romeo and Juliet
• Online Access: http://www.eltsjournal.org/archive/value4%20issue4/7-4-4-16.pdf

Act: III, scene: 5 in Romeo and Juliet is the most favourite scene of this love story as it describes the romantic, but tragic, love of the young couple with flowery language, and is the only extract used for teaching in Vietnam. Vietnamese students, therefore, know about Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet through the translations of this scene only. That is the reason why this study has analyzed and compared the semantic features in the Vietnamese translation of the conversation between Romeo and Juliet in Act: III, scene: 5 of Romeo and Juliet by Dang The Binh, and the translation by Bich Nhu and Truong Tung with Shakespeare’s original English text. Based on the analysis, a suggested translation with explanations will be introduced to clarify its points of difference from the other two translations. It is found that Omission is the most typical strategy appeared in the translations and the poetic features of the original text have also not been translated successfully.