Language, Culture, and Identity Loc Quoc Pham University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected]
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 9-2011 Translation in Vietnam and Vietnam in Translation: Language, Culture, and Identity Loc Quoc Pham University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Pham, Loc Quoc, "Translation in Vietnam and Vietnam in Translation: Language, Culture, and Identity" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 476. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/476 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. 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TRANSLATION IN VIETNAM AND VIETNAM IN TRANSLATION: LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY A Dissertation Presented by PHẠM QUỐC LỘC Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2011 Comparative Literature © Copyright by Phạm Quốc Lộc 2011 All Rights Reserved TRANSLATION IN VIETNAM AND VIETNAM IN TRANSLATION: LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY A Dissertation Presented by PHẠM QUỐC LỘC Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________ Edwin Gentzler, Chair _______________________________________ Sara Lennox, Member _______________________________________ William Moebius, Member _______________________________________ Quang Phú Văn, Member ____________________________________ William Moebius, Department Head Languages, Literatures, and Cultures DEDICATION To my big family ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As a convention, the Acknowledgments names those people who in different ways have helped shape the outcome of an academic endeavor. For that matter, it is also a reductive representation of the scope and depth of support that an individual has received throughout his/her graduate career. It is nonetheless a meaningful convention that one could not ignore. In writing this Acknowledgments, I am mindful of its essential reduction, and I understand that as I put down a name, I immediately risk missing someone. My eight years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is simply too long, and I cannot fully recount the kinds of support – academic, emotional, spiritual, administrative – that I received from my generous professors, friends, and colleagues. I should like first of all to thank Professor Edwin Gentzler, whose works, advice, counseling, and support were critical to the formation of the topics under discussion, and their eventual outcome in the form of four essays in this dissertation. I am grateful for his “liberal” instruction and critical reading of my works. For some, he could be a strange advisor who never requires scheduled meetings with his students. But his sheer availability at the Translation Center would invite any student to step in for a casual or serious conversation. I am also grateful to Professor William Moebius, whose rich store of stories, anecdotes, and survival wisdom really eased my first days in Amherst. I have always loved his “track changes” on my papers, which I quickly learned how to “accept all.” My study at UMass Amherst would have been impossible without his continuous support as a v member of my dissertation committee, as Director of the Comparative Literature Program, and as Chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Special thanks also go to Professor Sara Lennox, who generously agreed to serve in the committee despite her busy work in two different programs at UMass Amherst. I particularly appreciate her incisive comments on issues in gender studies. I thank too Professor Văn Phú Quang, who agreed to come all the way from Yale University, Connecticut. His knowledge of Vietnamese language, culture, history, and philosophy was of great value to my thinking. The composition of my Comps topics owed much to Professor Lucy Nguyen-Hong-Nhiem, from whom I learned a lot about the Vietnamese American communities in Massachusetts and the Vietnamese traditional culture. She was also generous enough to hand down to me her course on Vietnamese legends and folktales, which I had the honor to offer as an online class in 2010 and 2011. I am certainly indebted to numerous other professors at UMass Amherst and other institutions: Professors Maria Tymoczko, Julie Hayes, Jim Hicks, David Lenson, Lucien Miller, Elizabeth Petroff, Narrissa Balce, Catherine Portuges, David Fleming, Joseph Skerrett; Professors from other institutions whom I had the chance to talk with about my work, including Sherry Simon, Michael Cronin, Ildikó Bellér-Hann (at the 2008 Summer School on Cultural Translation, Martin-Luther-Universität, Germany); James Maxey, Bob Hodgson, Phil Towner, Phil Noss, David Tuggy (and his charming wife), Valerie Henitiuk, Christian Nord, Theo Hermans, Suzanne Jill Levine (at the 2008 Nida School in Italy and the 2010 Nida School in Spain); Professor Christopher Larkosh from UMass Dartmouth for including one of my essays in his new volume on translation and gender; vi Professor David Damrosch from Harvard University, who read and commented on part of Chapter 2 as I presented it at a conference in Hanoi; Cô Phan Chấn from the Harvard- Yenching Library, who gave me valuable access to the collection of materials on Vietnam. My friends and colleagues in the Comparative Literature Program were a great source of support and pride. I thank Aaron Sulko for his proofreading of the first draft of Chapter 4, and Shannon Farley for promising to read the entire dissertation and for her relaxing, at times highly academic, conversations on the 22nd floor of Dubois Library during my writing. Jorge, Daniel, Kanchuka, Anna, Carolyn, Scott, Cris, Antonia, Elena, Erica, Xufei, Yon Joo, Hongmei, and Bob (from the English Department) have all been very resourceful. I especially thank Gorkem and Shawn at the Translation Center, whose assignments helped support me financially and sharpen my translation skills and understanding of the Vietnamese American communities. At Comparative Literature, I am also grateful to two enthusiastic administrative staff, Linda and Alice. Thank you very much for your wonderful services. This project would have been irreparably deficient had it not been informed by the valuable input from my Vietnamese colleagues, including Trần Ngọc Hiếu, Lê Nguyên Long, Cao Việt Dũng, Dr. Trần Văn Toàn, and Dr. Nguyễn Nam. I thank the Vietnam Institute of Literature in Hanoi, Dr. Trần Hải Yến in particular, for always welcoming me in various roles: speaker, translator, and interpreter; Professor Trần Lê Bảo and Professor Nguyễn Thị Bích Hà for their insightful conversations during my stay in Hanoi. vii My eight-year study in the United States has been interpolated with the sweetest memories and the deepest sorrows. I name here all that played a part. My Vietnamese friends in Amherst have really been a home away from home for me. I will miss you all, Anh Hùng, chị Thanh, Hiền, Hoa, Quân, Việt Quân, Dương, Phương, Dũng, Minh Bùi, YP, Hung An Kim, Long, Thanh, Minh Phạm, Thiện, Anh, Hoàng, Nga, Hằng, Văn, Ngân, Hương, Sơn, Vân, Duy. I have another home in Providence, R.I., called Vietplus PVD, an interesting collection of rare individuals. With love and appreciation, I mention here Nguyễn Văn Tiến Dũng. Also, Trúc, Nguyên, Chung and Tú, Hưng, Cương and Hằng, Hoàng and Trang, Vân, Cường and Hải, Dương, Nam and Hà, Phong, Nhiệm and Misa, Rotor, Sơn Lê, Sơn Ca, Trâm, Linh, Hùng, Huy, Khanh. I also appreciate the care that I have received from chị Hương from Washington, and her family in Vietnam. My Acknowledgments would be incomplete – but it could never be complete – without my closest friends and colleagues in Vietnam on the list. They have given me the warmest summer welcomes: Quang, Uyên, Sơn, Hào, Tâm, Mai, Thiện, Thuận, Bình, Phương, Chân, Diệp, Hưng, Cường, Quỳnh, Giao and also my Cefalt and Fulbright friends. In Vietnam, I am fortunate to be loved and missed by my former professors and colleagues, cô Phương Anh, cô Bích Hạnh, cô Thanh Hà, cô Kim Thư, thầy Huy, chị Ngọc. And last but not least, I am grateful to my family, who has endured my long absence with pride and humor. My parents have been much older since I left for my study, and I have had more nieces and nephews. In its continuation of birth, growth, and demise, life and death, my family has been a great source of love and inspiration for me. viii Every time I returned home for the summer, I was delighted to see the beautiful kids growing, just as I was saddened to see my parents aging. After all, they are my life and I love them. To them, this first achievement of mine is dedicated. ix ABSTRACT TRANSLATION IN VIETNAM AND VIETNAM IN TRANSLATION: LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY SEPTEMBER 2011 PHẠM QUỐC LỘC, B.A., HỒ CHÍ MINH CITY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Edwin Gentzler This project engages a cultural studies approach to translation. I investigate different thematic issues, each of which underscores the underpinning force of cultural translation. Chapter 1 serves as a theoretical background to the entire work, in which I review the development of translation studies in the Anglo-American world and attempt to connect it to subject theory, cultural theory, and social critical theory. The main aim is to show how translation constitutes and mediates subject (re)formation and social justice. From the view of translation as constitutive of political and cultural processes, Chapter 2 tells the history of translation in Vietnam while critiquing Homi Bhabha’s notions of cultural translation, hybridity, and ambivalence. I argue that the Vietnamese, as historical colonized subjects, have always been hybrid and ambivalent in regard to their language, culture, and identity.