3.

3 Omission
Although forming a complete phrase or a full sentence would require a variety of grammatical
elements in English language, it is unnecessary for every English small unit to be translated into
Vietnamese equivalents, in order to transfer the exact meaning of that phrases/sentences.
Therefore, some sub-units could be omitted while only key words are transferred into target
language by translators, without distorting the source meaning. Then omission procedure has
been used in the translation. Through our analysis about comparing the translating with the
original, it is clearly noted that the omission procedure was normally employed for English NPs
having the structure of Indefinite Article + Head Noun, Head Noun + Post-modifier and
Indefinite Article + Head Noun + Post-modifier due to that fact that English sub-elements such as
indefinite article and post-modifier would normally be removed in Vietnamese.

3.3.1 Omission of Indefinite Article.

In the translation document, we discovered that indefinite articles “a” and “an” could be
excluded. Basically, “a” and “an” would tend to be translated into “one” as in the following
examples:
English Vietnamese
a slave Một người nô lệ
a cabin Một túp lều

The translation of indefinite articles above is mandatory in order to convey a new information
which is shown for the first time in the context. However, in some cases, “a” and “an” would
intentionally be removed due to their futile impact in translated sentences. These sentences down
below perfectly exemplify this situation:
English Vietnamese
a real handsome boy đứa trẻ kháu khỉnh
modulation
a clever fellow thằng cha thông minh

3.3.2 Omission of Post-modifier

As can be inferred in Literature Review Chapter, post-modifiers in English NPs are often non-
finite clause, relative clause, adjective phrase, preposition phrase, and adverb phrase. Throughout
our study, we noticed that relative clauses and preposition phrases “of” are two most frequently
applied post-modifiers in the translation document.

3.3.2.1 Omission of relative pronoun

Relative Pronouns are normally employed in relative clause so as to modify a head noun in
English NP. There are various typical relative pronouns in the original document such as: which,
where, who, whose, that, etc. The basic structure of a relative clause would probably contain a
clause and a relative pronoun; hereinafter, we would like not to mention the short form of relative
clause due to the fact that translators could not apply omission procedures into it. This procedure
can only be applied for relative clauses which function as NP’s post-modifiers. Thereby, relative
pronoun can be removed while only the following clause is translated into Vietnamese. Here are
some examples:
Head Noun Relative Pronoun Clause
The place Where Everybody was kind
to me
Mr. Symmes that lives a mile past.

In terms of NP with Relative Clause as post-modifier, relative pronoun is grammatically

mandatory to appear as a type of connector. Because without a relative pronoun, a NP could not
have relative clause which is a post-modifier, so the readers might misunderstand the meaning of
the sentence like:…. Therefore, relative pronoun is such an indispensable part of relative clause
composing the NP.
These sentence down below are cases in point:
English Vietnamese
Mr. Symmes that lives a mile past. Anh Ximơ ở cách đây một dặm
indubitable signs, which showed too Đó là tiếng nói tự nhiên, không sức gì
plainly that the man could not become a át nổi: một con người không thể trở
thing thành đồ vật
she drew him into a neat little apartment Chị kéo chồng vào căn phòng nhỏ,
opening on the verandah, where she ngay bên hiên nhà; chị thường khâu vá
generally sat at her sewing ở căn phòng này.

The relative pronouns: that, which, where in the mentioned sentences were removed so as to
make the translation become more nature in Vietnamese context. If not, the translation would
probably sound awkward and lengthy like: “Đó là tiếng nói tự nhiên, cái mà không sức gì át nổi:
một con người không thể trở thành đồ vật” In Vietnamese language, those relative pronouns
which appear as connectors are futile in both grammar and meaning. This strategy to deal with
relative clause in NP is quite simple, translators just need to omit the relative pronoun while
translating all the rest.
3.3.2.2
It is known that prepositional phrase contains prepositions such as “on”, “to”, “of” and “in”.
Those prepositions would play a role as determining parts of a NP to recognize which one is a
head noun, and which one is a modifier. In such case like Noun 1 + of + Noun 2, the first noun
tends to be the head noun while “of + Noun 2” would turn into the prepositional phrase appearing
as a post-modifier for “Noun 1”.
Translators could omit the preposition “of” in NPs with prepositional phrase as post-modifier,
since just like translating relative clauses, turning “of” into “của” in Vietnamese would probably
make sentences become clumsy and redundant.
For instance:
English Vietnamese
Call of her mistress
the vision of the trader Hình ảnh tên buôn người
one of the workmen Một người thợ

Comparing the translation with the original, it is witnessed that many kinds of sub-elements can
be omitted, especially preposition “of” is the most common one. Therefore, we would like to
concentrate on analyzing the ways to deal with this type of NPs in the next part.
Noun 1 Preposition Noun 2
call of her mistress

Preposition “of” function as connecting nouns to make a NP. As a result, we could not consider.
However, when translating into Vietnamese, translator decided to omit preposition to make the
NP sound natural. If not, we would have the Vietnamese equivalent like: “tiếng của bà chủ gọi”,
which would probably sound unnatural and lengthy. As a result, the translator turned this NP into
“tiếng bà chủ gọi”.
There are other similar examples in this document.
English Vietnamese
the skirts of his mother’s dress Những nếp váy của mẹ
 one of these days Một ngày kia

3.4 Modulation
It is already mentioned that modulation translation is applied as translators comprehend the
meaning of the text but want to express differently in the TL context without distorting the
message of SL text. There are two types of this modulation procedure: fixed/obligatory and
free/optional modulation. During our research, we realized that the frequency in which the former
types appear is minimal, therefore, we would like to mention the latter one. There are some NPs
translated by free/optional modulation.
English Vietnamese
any of my hands Nô lệ của tôi
a petted and indulged favorite Yêu thương hơn cả
streams of fire through his Sức phản kháng sôi sục trong
veins lòng
all his little strength đôi chân ngắn ngủi
The curly head Mớ tóc xoăn
No lack of Có đầy đủ
The message of each NP in SL has been reproduced in some other different ways with the
guaranteed meaning conveyance. This could be the transformation from the concrete image
“streams of fire through his veins” into abstract concept “Sức phản kháng sôi sục trong lòng” and
vice versa, abstract concept “all his little strength” into concrete image “đôi chân ngắn ngủi”, or
from one symbol “any of my hands” transferred into other symbol “Nô lệ của tôi”, or one part
“the curly head” into another “mớ tóc xoăn”, or the translator expressed the negative form of the
word “No lack of” by its antonym “có đầy đủ”
The translator had right to do this due to the intact meanings of NPs in TL compared to the
original. Moreover, these translated NPs became more literary favored and natural in Vietnamese
speech. Therefore, it is obvious that modulation procedure plays an indispensable role in
translation.