MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

LƯƠNG VĂN NHÂN

A STUDY OF
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONAL
VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S
SONGS IN TERMS OF SEMANTIC AND
SYNTACTIC FEATURES
Subject Area : THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Code
:
60.22.15

M.A. THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Supervisor: TRƯƠNG BẠCH LÊ, Ph.D.

Danang, 2011


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that the present thesis “A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH
TRANSLATIONAL VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S SONGS IN
TERMS OF SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES” is my own work.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree in any
other institution.
Da Nang, 2011

Lương Văn Nhân

ABSTRACT
Trinh Cong Son has been the close and friendly name to many people.
Sometimes, he is the CONFIDANT to share the feelings of sadness and
happiness by singing his marvelous songs whose lyrics are weaved by brilliant
but simple and meaningful words which take a lot of time to understand some
phrases and sentences in more than 500 songs of this talent musician. His music
is so strange! Sweet floating sadness! It insinuates the human heart to make a
cool and sparkling lake with holy melodies. Has it got the “SONISM” when
people are drunk with his thinking?
+ “Cuộc đời đó có bao lâu mà hững hờ.” (Mưa hồng)
+ “Vì sao tôi sống? Vì Đất nước cần một trái tim.”
(Mỗi ngày tôi chọn một niềm vui)
More than 70 of his songs have been translated into many languages, such
as: English, French, Japanese, etc. because translators love Son’s songs very
much and want to share and introduce those songs to friends around the world.
However, according to Professor Buu Y, a famous translator and a close friend of
Trinh Cong Son, right before translating Son’s songs, translators surrender.
Translating is only for the sake of love for his music. Many English translational
versions of Vân Mai, Trần Duy Tính, Như Quỳnh, and Khương Duy, etc. or
some foreigners, such as: Richard Fuller, Patrick Gallagher, John C. Schafer and
Jason Gibbs, etc. try to convey Son’s ideas in his songs. Those English
translational versions only help us understand the general meaning but are too
difficult to sing like Vietnamese versions.


Translating Trinh Cong Son’s songs is an attractive trend. Besides that,
there has not been any certain research on this problem in the light of linguistics.
My research, by standing on the point of view in Translation strategies of
Newmark, Baker and Catford to study the semantic and syntactic features of 14

songs taken from Trịnh Công Sơn – The collection of everlasting songs. Music
press 1997. (Trịnh Công Sơn – Tuyển tập những bài ca không năm tháng. Nxb
Âm Nhạc 1997). The research also puts forward some suggesting English
translational versions to set the implications after studying those songs.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

i

ABSTRACT

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

vii

LIST OF TABLES

viii

LIST OF CHARTS


ix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. RATIONALE
1.2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.5. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
1.6. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
2.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1.1. What is translation?
2.1.2. What is equivalence?

1
1
3
3
3
3
4
6
6
6
8

2.1.3. Types of equivalence


10

2.1.4. What is literary translation?

16

2.1.5. Vietnam - English translation

17

2.2. TRANSLATION PROCEDURES/STRATEGIES AND METHODS

19

2.2.1. Translation procedures

19

2.2.2. Translation methods

25

2.2.3. Translation of songs
2.3. TRINH CONG SON’S BIOGRAPHY
2.3.1. Writings about Trinh Cong Son and his music

27
28
29



2.3.2. Translations of Trinh Cong Son’s songs
CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES
3.1. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

30
32
32

3.1.1. Aims

32

3.1.2. Objectives

32

3.2. RESEARCH DESIGN
3.3. METHODS OF RESEARCH
3.4. DATA COLLECTION AND DESCRIPTION
3.5. RESEARCH PROCEDURES

33
33
34
34

3.6. SUMMARY
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. SEMANTIC FEATURES

4.1.1. Translation by using omission

35
36
36
36

4.1.1.1. Full omission

36

4.1.1.2. Partial omission

41

4.1.2. Translation by using a more neutral/less expressive word

45

4.1.3. Translation by using a more general word

50

4.1.4. Translation by using expansion

53

4.1.5. Translation by using co-hyponym

56


4.1.6. Translation by paraphrase using unrelated word

57

4.1.7. Translation by using meronymy
4.2. FREQUENCY OF SEMANTIC TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

59
59

4.3. SYNTACTIC FEATURES

61

4.3.1. Structural-shifts

62

4.3.2. Intra-system shifts

69

4.3.3. Class-shifts

72

4.4. FREQUENCY OF SYNTACTIC TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

83


4.5. SUMMARY

84


CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS
5.1. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS
5.2. IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATION
5.3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
5.4. SAMPLE OF SUGGESTED TRANSLATIONS &
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
5.4.1. Suggested translations of songs

86
86
88
91
91
91

5.4.2. Suggestions for further study
REFERENCES

94
95

CORPORA

100


QUYẾT ĐỊNH GIAO ĐỀ TÀI
APPENDIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Adj

Adjective

AP

Adjective phrase

Adv

Adverb

AdvP

Adverb phrase

Conj

Conjunction

Link

Linking

N


Noun

NP

Noun phrase

Pro

Pronoun


Prep

Preposition

Prep.P

Prepositional phrase

QW

Question word

SL

Source language

ST


Source text

TL

Target language

TT

Target text

V

Verb

VP

Verb phrase


LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: The tokens and percentage of semantic strategies

60

Table 4.2: The tokens and percentage of syntactic strategies

83



LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1: The percentage of semantic strategies

61

Chart 4.2: The percentage of syntactic strategies

84


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. RATIONALE
Trịnh Công Sơn (1939-2001) was a song writer, musician, poet and painter.
He was born in Daklak, grew up in Huế, studied in Qui Nhơn, taught school in
Bảo Lộc, and then finally moved to Saigon in 1965. A heavy drinker and smoker,
he died of diabetes, liver and kidney failure. He wrote over 600 songs, achieving
his first hit, "Ướt mi" ["Wet Lashes"], in 1957. Joan Baez dubbed him the Bob
Dylan of Vietnam. He often wrote about the ephemeral nature of life, as in the
classic "Cát bụi" ["Sand and Dust"]. The singer most associated with him is
Khánh Ly, whose husky, mournful voice helped to popularize his music. They
often performed together on South Vietnamese university campuses. More
recently, Hồng Nhung has also been celebrated for her jazzy interpretions of his
songs. Trinh Cong Son’s songs are so strange, which were written by intellectual
language. In another way, they are ‘weaved’ by the most beautiful words in the
treasure of Vietnamese language. It takes years to understand some words or
sentences in Trinh Cong Son’ songs, but not all of us can catch Son’s ideas, and
some seem to be so different. Son himself created his own unique school of
music which is not only very sublime but also very sweet with simple melodies.

Therefore, Son’s music is also for public, in other word, it is also for all because
it is easy to remember.
Son’s songs will be immortal in people’s hearts not only in Vietnam but also
in many countries like: France, Japan and America, etc. People love to sing his
songs. Many of those songs have been translated into many languages, most of
them are in English, French and Japanese with different versions. For examples:


+ Biết Đâu Nguồn Cội (Unknown origin)
+ Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này (The quiet world of mine / So silent here)
+ Một Cõi Đi Về (My own lonely world / A realm of return / A place for
leaving and returning)
+ Cát bụi (Dusty sand / Sand and Dust)
+ Đời gọi em biết bao lần (Life has called you many times)
+ Em đến từ nghìn xưa (You’ve come a long time)
+ Gần như niềm tuyệt vọng (Something like despair)
+ Lời buồn thánh (Sad Sunday eve)
+ Tuổi đời mênh mông (In too large life)
As an English teacher and a fan of Trinh Cong Son’s music, I find it very
interesting to study the English translations of Son’s songs which are various
with more than 70 English translated works by many people. However, up to
now, just a few researches on the lyrics of the English translational versions have
been found.
It is clear that there are many difficulties for translators to translate Trinh
Cong Son’s songs into English. Practically, clarifying the syntactic and semantic
features helps us have a clear view about Son’s songs and their English
equivalences and find out another better way to translate Trinh Cong Son’s songs
with full ideas of writer obtained.
Theoretically, more than 70 of his songs were translated into English, and
many studies in the lyrics and melodies of Trinh Cong Son’s songs have done so

far. However, researches on the syntactic and semantic features of English versus
Vietnamese versions of Trinh have not been carried out. Therefore, it is
necessary to do a research on this matter to have a total view about translating


Trinh Cong Son’s songs into English. “A STUDY OF THE ENGLISH
TRANSLATIONAL VERSIONS OF TRINH CONG SON’S SONGS IN
TERMS OF SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FEATURES” has been carried out
for the reasons listed above.
1.2. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
We hope this study will provide insights into the practice of translating
Vietnamese songs into English, especially the strategies in handling the
intricacies of semantic and syntactic features of great works such as those written
by Trinh Cong Son.
1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study deals with investigating the procedures used in translating the
semantic features of lexicon and the syntactic features of phrases and sentences
in Trinh Cong Son’s songs taken from Trịnh Công Sơn – The collection of
everlasting songs. Music press 1997. (Trịnh Công Sơn – Tuyển tập những bài ca
không năm tháng. Nxb Âm Nhạc 1997) and website />1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study will seek the answers to the following questions:
(1) How were the semantic features in Trinh Cong Son’s collection of songs
translated into English?
(2) How were the syntactic features in Trinh Cong Son’s collection of songs
translated into English?
1.5. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
+ “Source language”: is the language in which a text was originally written.


+ “Target language” is the language into which a text is translated.

+ “Semantic approach” is an approach to translation which has three
features:
• SL bias
• Keeps semantic and syntactic structures as closely as possible
• Author-centered
+ “Communicative approach” is an approach which has three features:
• TL bias
• Keeps effect as closely as possible
• Second reader-centered
1.6. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
The study will include five chapters as follows:
- Chapter 1, INTRODUCTION, concerns with the statement of the
problem, justification for the study, scope of the study and research questions.
Organization of the study is also given out.
- Chapter 2, LITERATURE REVIEW and BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE,
deals with some previous studies related to the problem and presents theoretical
background of:
+ Trinh Cong Son’s biography
+ Trinh Cong Son’s music
+ Theory of translation
- Chapter 3, METHODOLOGY, consists of aims and objectives of the
study, research design, research methodology and research procedure. In


addition, data collection, data analysis as well as the reliability and validity of
the study will be mentioned.
- Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS, this chapter is divided into 2
parts:
+ Section 1: The semantic features of lexicon in Trinh Cong son’s songs
when being translated from Vietnamese into English.

+ Section 2: The syntactic features of phrases and sentences in Trinh Cong
Son’s songs when being translated from Vietnamese into English.
- Chapter 5, CONCLUSION, summarizes what have been discussed in
chapter 4 with some comments on the limitations of this study and make
suggestions for future studies.


CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
2.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1.1. What is translation?
There are many definitions of translation. The simplest way is the transfer
of text from the language A into language B. However, going through the time,
this understanding has begun to become wider and deeper depending on the
position of researchers. Often, though not by any means always, it is rendering
the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended
the text. Common sense tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be
able to say something as well in one language as in another. On the other hand, it
may be complicated, artificial and fraudulent.
Translation was mainly discussed in terms of the conflict between free and
literal translation, and the contradiction between its inherent impossibility and its
absolute necessity. A translator must be either an interpreter or a rhetorician. A
good translation is one in which the merit of the original works is so completely
transfused into another language as to be as distinctly apprehended and as
strongly felt by a native of a country to which that language belongs as it is by
those who speak the language of original work. Recommending literal
translation of syntax as well as words, it was said that the sentence is a wall
blocking out the language of the origin, whilst word for word translation is the
arcade.

Before, people thought that translation is the replacement of a textual
material in one language (source language – SL) by equivalent textual material


in another language (target language – TL). The equivalent here is the
grammatical factors between the SL and the TL. Therefore, at the time with this
view the grammatical equivalent became one of the criteria for assessing the
quality of a translation.
Later, according to Newmark (1980) [17, p7], “translation is a craft
consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one
language by the same message and/or statement in another language”. So, the
textual material now changes into the message – more communicative.
Basing on the translation theory on transformational generative grammar,
the translators need to “go beyond” explicit text structures and should consider
the text as a mere comparison of corresponding structures. This leads to another
important awareness the language is really a generative device, which helps the
translators take shape in their mind the technique for analyzing the text. This is
not only a technique used in decoding the source text but also the procedure for
choosing the suitable corresponding structures in the target language.
In addition, translation is a term covers on three distinguishable meanings.
That is “translating”, the process (to translate), the activity rather than the
tangible object. “A translation” is the product of the process of translating (e.g.
the translated text), and the “translation”, the abstract concept which
encompasses both the process of translating and the product of that process. [1,
p13]
Furthermore, translation is also a communication bridge of two languages.
Obviously, language is various and different from country to country as the
sameness cannot exist between two languages.



Danica Seleskovitch (2009) [7], a brilliant interpreter and writer, has said:
“Everything said in one language can be expressed in another one - on condition
that the two languages belong to cultures that have reached a comparable
degree of development”. The condition she makes is false and misleading.
Translation is an instrument of education as well as of truth precisely because it
has to reach readers whose cultural and educational level is different from, and
often “lower” or earlier, than, that of the readers of the origin. Beside that,
translation has been instrumental in transmitting culture, sometimes under
unequal conditions responsible for distorted and biased translations, ever since
countries and languages have been in contact with each other.
As a means of communication, translation is used for multilingual notices,
which have at least appeared increasingly conspicuously in public places; for
instructions issued by exporting companies; for tourist publicity, where it is too
often produced from the native into the “foreign” language by natives as a matter
of national pride; for official documents, such as treaties and contracts; for
reports, papers, articles, correspondence, textbook to convey information, advice
and recommendations for every branch of knowledge. As a technique for
learning foreign languages, translation is a two-edged instrument: it has the
special purpose for demonstrating the learner’s knowledge of the foreign
language, either as a form of control or to exercise his intelligence in order to
develop his competence.
2.1.2. What is equivalence?
Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) [28] view equivalence-oriented translation as a
procedure which replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using
completely different wording. They also suggest that, if this procedure is applied


during the translation process, it can maintain the stylistic impact of the SL text
in the TL text. According to them, equivalence is therefore the ideal method
when the translator has to deal with proverbs, idioms, clichés, nominal or

adjectival

phrases

and

the

onomatopoeia

of

animal

sounds.

With regard to equivalent expressions between language pairs, Vinay and
Darbelnet claim that they are acceptable as long as they are listed in a bilingual
dictionary as full equivalents. However, later they note that glossaries and
collections of idiomatic expressions can never be exhaustive. They conclude by
saying that the need for creating equivalences arises from the situation, and it is
in the situation of the SL text that translators have to look for a solution. Indeed,
they argue that even if the semantic equivalent of an expression in the SL text is
quoted in a dictionary or a glossary, it is not enough, and it does not guarantee a
successful translation.
Roman Jakobson's (1959) [12] study of equivalence gave new impetus to
the theoretical analysis of translation since he introduced the notion of
'equivalence in difference'. On the basis of his semiotic approach to language and
his aphorism 'there is no signatum without signum' [12, p232], he suggests three
kinds of translation:

•

Intralingual (within one language, i.e. rewording or paraphrase)

•

Interlingual (between two languages)

•

Intersemiotic (between sign systems)

Jakobson claims that, in the case of interlingual translation, the translator
makes use of synonyms in order to get the ST message across. This means that in
interlingual translations there is no full equivalence between code units.
According to his theory, translation involves two equivalent messages in two


different codes. Jakobson goes on to say that from a grammatical point of view
languages may differ from one another to a greater or lesser degree, but this does
not mean that a translation cannot be possible, in other words, that the translator
may face the problem of not finding a translation equivalent. He acknowledges
that whenever there is deficiency, terminology may be qualified and amplified by
loanwords or loan-translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and finally, by
circumlocutions. Jakobson provides a number of examples by comparing English
and Russian language structures and explains that in such cases where there is no
a literal equivalent for a particular ST word or sentence, then it is up to the
translator to choose the most suitable way to render it in the TT.
There seems to be some similarity between Vinay and Darbelnet's theory of
translation procedures and Jakobson's theory of translation. Both theories stress

the fact that, whenever a linguistic approach is no longer suitable to carry out a
translation, the translator can rely on other procedures such as loan-translations,
neologisms and the like. Both theories recognize the limitations of a linguistic
theory and argue that a translation can never be impossible since there are
several methods that the translator can choose. The role of the translator as the
person who decides how to carry out the translation is emphasized in both
theories. Both Vinay and Darbelnet as well as Jakobson conceive the translation
task as something which can always be carried out from one language to another,
regardless of the cultural or grammatical differences between ST and TT.
Nida argued that there are two different types of equivalence,
namely formal equivalence - which in the second edition by Nida and Taber
(1969/1982) [20] is referred to as formal correspondence - and dynamic
equivalence. Formal correspondence 'focuses attention on the message itself, in


both form and content', unlike dynamic equivalence which is based upon 'the
principle of equivalent effect' [20, p159]. In the second edition (1982) or their
work, the two theorists provide a more detailed explanation of each type of
equivalence.
2.1.3. Types of equivalence
Formal correspondence consists of a TL item which represents the closest
equivalent of a SL word or phrase. Nida and Taber make it clear that there are
not always formal equivalents between language pairs. They, therefore, suggest
that these formal equivalents should be used wherever possible if the translation
aims at achieving formal rather than dynamic equivalence. The use of formal
equivalents might at times have serious implications in the TT since the
translation will not be easily understood by the target audience. Nida and Taber
themselves assert that, typically, formal correspondence distorts the grammatical
and stylistic patterns of the receptor language, and hence distorts the message, so
as to cause the receptor to misunderstand or to labor unduly hard.

Dynamic equivalence is defined as a translation principle according to
which a translator seeks to translate the meaning of the original in such a way
that the TL wording will trigger the same impact on the TC audience as the
original wording did upon the ST audience. They argue: ‘Frequently, the form of
the original text is changed; but as long as the change follows the rules of back
transformation in the source language, of contextual consistency in the transfer,
and of transformation in the receptor language, the message is preserved and the
translation is faithful' [20, p200].
One can easily see that Nida is in favor of the application of dynamic
equivalence, as a more effective translation procedure. This is perfectly


understandable if we take into account the context of the situation in which Nida
was dealing with the translation phenomenon, that is to say, his translation of the
Bible. Thus, the product of the translation process, that is the text in the TL, must
have the same impact on the different readers it was addressing. Only in Nida
and Taber's edition is it clearly stated that dynamic equivalence in translation is
far more than mere correct communication of information.
Despite using a linguistic approach to translation, Nida is much more
interested in the message of the text or, in other words, in its semantic quality. He
therefore strives to make sure that this message remains clear in the target text.
Catford's (1965) [5] approach to translation equivalence clearly differs from
that adopted by Nida since Catford had a preference for a more linguistic-based
approach to translation and this approach is based on the linguistic work of Firth
and Halliday. His main contribution in the field of translation theory is the
introduction of the concepts of types and shifts of translation. Catford proposed
very broad types of translation in terms of three criteria:
 The extent of translation (full translation vs. partial translation);
 The grammatical rank at which the translation equivalence is established
(rank-bound translation vs. unbounded translation);

 The

levels

of

language

involved

in

translation

(total

translation vs. restricted translation).
In rank-bound translation an equivalent is sought in the TL for each word,
or

for

each

morpheme

encountered

in


the

ST.

In unbounded

translation equivalences are not tied to a particular rank, and we may
additionally find equivalences at sentence, clause and other levels. Catford finds


five of these ranks or levels in both English and French, while in the Caucasian
language Kabardian there are apparently only four.
Thus, a formal correspondence could be said to exist between English and
French if relations between ranks have approximately the same configuration in
both languages, as Catford claims they do.
One of the problems with formal correspondence is that, despite being a
useful tool to employ in comparative linguistics, it seems that it is not really
relevant in terms of assessing translation equivalence between ST and TT. For
this reason we now turn to Catford's other dimension of correspondence, namely
textual equivalence which occurs when any TL text or portion of text is observed
on a particular occasion to be the equivalent of a given SL text or portion of text.
He implements this by a process of commutation, whereby 'a competent
bilingual informant or translator' is consulted on the translation of various
sentences whose ST items are changed in order to observe what changes if any
occur in the TL text as a consequence.
House (1977) [9] is in favour of semantic and pragmatic equivalence and
argues that ST and TT should match one another in function. House suggests that
it is possible to characterize the function of a text by determining the situational
dimensions of the ST. In fact, according to her theory, every text is in itself is
placed within a particular situation which has to be correctly identified and taken

into account by the translator. After the ST analysis, House is in a position to
evaluate a translation; if the ST and the TT differ substantially on situational
features, then they are not functionally equivalent, and the translation is not of a
high quality. In fact, she acknowledges that a translation text should not only


match its source text in function, but employ equivalent situational-dimensional
means to achieve that function.
Central to House's discussion is the concept of overt and covert translations.
In an overt translation the TT audience is not directly addressed and there is
therefore no need at all to attempt to recreate a second original since an overt
translation must overtly be a translation. By covert translation, on the other hand,
is meant the production of a text which is functionally equivalent to the ST.
House also argues that in this type of translation the ST is not specifically
addressed to a TC audience.
House's theory of equivalence in translation seems to be much more flexible
than Catford's. In fact, she gives authentic examples, uses complete texts and,
more importantly, she relates linguistic features to the context of both source and
target text.
New adjectives have been assigned to the notion of equivalence
(grammatical, textual, pragmatic equivalence, and several others) and made their
appearance in the plethora of recent works in this field. An extremely interesting
discussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker (1992) [2] who
seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of
equivalence can be defined. She explores the notion of equivalence at different
levels, in relation to the translation process, including all different aspects of
translation and hence putting together the linguistic and the communicative
approach. She distinguishes between:
•


Equivalence that can appear at word level and above word level, when

translating from one language into another. Baker acknowledges that, in a
bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element


to be taken into consideration by the translator. In fact, when the translator starts
analyzing the ST s/he looks at the words as single units in order to find a direct
'equivalent' term in the TL. Baker gives a definition of the term word since it
should be remembered that a single word can sometimes be assigned different
meanings in different languages and might be regarded as being a more complex
unit or morpheme. This means that the translator should pay attention to a
number of factors when considering a single word, such as number, gender and
tense.
•

Grammatical equivalence, when referring to the diversity of grammatical

categories across languages. She notes that grammatical rules may vary across
languages and this may pose some problems in terms of finding a direct
correspondence in the TL. In fact, she claims that different grammatical
structures in the SL and TL may cause remarkable changes in the way the
information or message is carried across. These changes may induce the
translator either to add or to omit information in the TT because of the lack of
particular grammatical devices in the TL itself. Amongst these grammatical
devices which might cause problems in translation Baker focuses on number,
tense and aspects, voice, person and gender.
•

Textual equivalence, when referring to the equivalence between a SL text


and a TL text in terms of information and cohesion. Texture is a very important
feature in translation since it provides useful guidelines for the comprehension
and analysis of the ST which can help the translator in his or her attempt to
produce a cohesive and coherent text for the TC audience in a specific context. It
is up to the translator to decide whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties as
well as the coherence of the SL text. His or her decision will be guided by three