ENGLISH TRANSLATION STRATEGY FOR VIETNAMESE MODAL VERBS IN LEGISLATIVE TEXTS: A CASE STUDY
Main Article Content
Abstract
The article examines how Vietnamese modal verbs are translated into English in legislative discourse, using the Law on Enterprises 2020 as a case study. It builds a parallel corpus of the Vietnamese statute (71,085 words) and its official English translation (48,513 words), then applies descriptive and contrastive analyses to map modal functions and their English realizations. Results show phải (387 occurrences) primarily marks binding obligation and is translated mostly as “shall” (336; 86.8%). Có thể (82 occurrences) signals permission/possibility and is rendered mainly with English modals, especially “may” (47). Although cần occurs 45 times, only one instance is truly modal, translated as “have to”. Muốn is lexical (desire) and translated as to want/to wish. Sẽ becomes “will” twice. Không thể appears three times but is modal only once, also translated as “will”. Findings are indicative due to the single-text scope.
Keywords
Modality, modal verb, legal discourse, legislative text
Article Details
References
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Nguyen, T. N. L. (2024). A contrastive analysis of modality in the Vietnamese Law on Enterprises and the Singapore Companies Act from systemic functional perspective. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 40(6), 49–64.
Nguyen, T. N., & Phan, T. T. (2014). Nghĩa tình thái về đạo nghĩa trong câu văn tác phẩm Tắt đèn (Ngô Tất Tố) / Deontic modality in Tat Den (Turn Off the Light) (Ngo Tat To). Ngôn Ngữ & Đời Sống, (5[223]), 11–17.
Nguyen, T. T. (2003). Các động từ tình thái nên, cần, phải, bị, được trong câu tiếng Việt [Modal verbs nên, cần, phải, bị, được in Vietnamese sentences] (Doctoral dissertation). Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.
Nida, E. A. (1964). Toward a science of translating: With special reference to principles and procedures involved in Bible translating. Brill.
Palmer, F. R. (1990). Modality and the English modals (2nd ed.). Longman.
Palmer, F. R. (2001). Mood and modality. Cambridge University Press.
Pei, J., & Li, J. (2018). A corpus-based investigation of modal verbs in Chinese civil-commercial legislation and its English versions. International Journal of Legal Discourse, 3(1), 77–102.
Thomson, A. J., & Martinet, A. V. (2015). A practical English grammar. Oxford University Press.
To, M. T. (2018). The English modal “can” and its Vietnamese counterpart “có thể”. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 6(3), 61–69.
Tran, T. T. L. (2015). Nghiên cứu ngôn ngữ văn bản hợp đồng tiếng Việt từ bình diện phân tích diễn ngôn [The study of Vietnamese contract language on the aspect of discourse analysis] (Doctoral dissertation, Vietnam National University). (Publication No. 62 22 01 15)
Triebel, V. (2009). Pitfalls of English as a contract language. In Translation issues in language and law (pp. 147–181). Palgrave Macmillan.
Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. Routledge.
Williams, C. (2007). Tradition and change in legal English: Verbal constructions in prescriptive texts (Vol. 20). Peter Lang.
Šolienė, A. (2016). (Non) epistemic modality: English must, have to, and have got to and their correspondences in Lithuanian. Kalbotyra, 69, 223–245.
Bassnett, S. (2014). Translation studies (4th ed.). Routledge.
Bui, T. N. (2004). Khảo sát các động từ tình thái trong tiếng Việt [A survey of modal verbs in Vietnamese] (Doctoral dissertation). Ha Noi National University.
Bukarica, A. E. (2019). The use of modal verbs in English legal texts and their Serbian equivalents. Zbornik za jezike i književnosti Filozofskog fakulteta u Novom Sadu, 9(9), 73–96.
Cao, D. (2007). Translating law. Multilingual Matters.
Cao, X. H. (1991). Tiếng Việt – Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng, Quyển 1 [Vietnamese – Functional grammar outline, Volume 1]. Social Science Publishing House.
Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (2006). Cambridge grammar of English. Cambridge University Press.
Coates, J. (1983). The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. (Publisher information missing).
Cooper, P. K. (2011). Is there a case for the abolition of “shall” from EU legislation? RGSL Research Papers, 1.
Diep, Q. B. (1996). Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, Tập 2 [Vietnamese grammar, Volume 2] (Vol. 2). Education Publishing House.
Downing, A., & Locke, P. (2002). A university course in English grammar. Psychology Press.
Eastwood, J. (1994). Oxford guide to English grammar. Oxford University Press.
Famina, N. V., & Osminkin, A. I. (2022). Modality in legal discourse: Must, can, may, will and shall: Between obligation and permission. Современное педагогическое образование, (4), 251–265.
Fan, H. (2020, November). A corpus-based study on the English translation of modal verbs in Chinese legislative texts. In 2020 Conference on Education, Language and Inter-Cultural Communication (ELIC 2020) (pp. 461–465). Atlantis Press.
Goodrich, P. (1990). Legal discourse: Studies in linguistics, rhetoric and legal analysis. Springer.
Huynh, C. N. (2022, November). Analysis of Translation Trends of the Modal Verb “Can” and Its Alternatives in Vietnamese Based on Corpus-Based Study. In ICTE Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1, pp. 64-79).
Huynh, C. N. (2022, November). Analysis of translation trends of the modal verb “can” and its alternatives in Vietnamese based on corpus-based study. In ICTE Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1, pp. 64–79).
Jakobson, R. (1959). On linguistic aspects of translation. In R. A. Brower (Ed.), On translation (pp. 232–239). Harvard University Press.
Konjarević, D. (2023). Modality shifts in translating English modal verbs into Croatian in legal and literary texts (Doctoral dissertation, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences).
Kozobolis, S. (2020). A corpus-based study on deontic modality in competition law: Insights from the English–Greek language pair. Estudios de traducción, 10. (Page range/DOI missing)
Lian, Z., & Jiang, T. (2014). A Study of Modality System in Chinese-English Legal Translation from the Perspective of SFG. Theory & Practice in Language Studies (TPLS), 4(3).
Lian, Z., & Jiang, T. (2014). A study of modality system in Chinese–English legal translation from the perspective of SFG. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(3). (Page range/DOI missing)
Mahdi, S., & Husain, A. (2012). Translating modality of English legal texts into Arabic. The Journal of the Faculty of Basic Education, 76, 67–82.
Nguyen, Q. (2002). Tình thái và các góc độ nghiên cứu. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 18(2), 18–32.
Nguyen, T. L. N. (2019). Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ pháp luật trong các bản Hiến pháp của Việt Nam [Linguistic features of legal language in the constitutions of Vietnam] (Doctoral dissertation, Graduate Academy of Social Sciences).
Nguyen, T. L., & Tran, H. (2019). The modality and the meaning of modality of the Vietnamese verdicts. Ho Chi Minh City University of Education Journal of Science, 16(5), 69–79.
Nguyen, T. N. L. (2024). A contrastive analysis of modality in the Vietnamese Law on Enterprises and the Singapore Companies Act from systemic functional perspective. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 40(6), 49–64.
Nguyen, T. N., & Phan, T. T. (2014). Nghĩa tình thái về đạo nghĩa trong câu văn tác phẩm Tắt đèn (Ngô Tất Tố) / Deontic modality in Tat Den (Turn Off the Light) (Ngo Tat To). Ngôn Ngữ & Đời Sống, (5[223]), 11–17.
Nguyen, T. T. (2003). Các động từ tình thái nên, cần, phải, bị, được trong câu tiếng Việt [Modal verbs nên, cần, phải, bị, được in Vietnamese sentences] (Doctoral dissertation). Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.
Nida, E. A. (1964). Toward a science of translating: With special reference to principles and procedures involved in Bible translating. Brill.
Palmer, F. R. (1990). Modality and the English modals (2nd ed.). Longman.
Palmer, F. R. (2001). Mood and modality. Cambridge University Press.
Pei, J., & Li, J. (2018). A corpus-based investigation of modal verbs in Chinese civil-commercial legislation and its English versions. International Journal of Legal Discourse, 3(1), 77–102.
Thomson, A. J., & Martinet, A. V. (2015). A practical English grammar. Oxford University Press.
To, M. T. (2018). The English modal “can” and its Vietnamese counterpart “có thể”. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 6(3), 61–69.
Tran, T. T. L. (2015). Nghiên cứu ngôn ngữ văn bản hợp đồng tiếng Việt từ bình diện phân tích diễn ngôn [The study of Vietnamese contract language on the aspect of discourse analysis] (Doctoral dissertation, Vietnam National University). (Publication No. 62 22 01 15)
Triebel, V. (2009). Pitfalls of English as a contract language. In Translation issues in language and law (pp. 147–181). Palgrave Macmillan.
Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. Routledge.
Williams, C. (2007). Tradition and change in legal English: Verbal constructions in prescriptive texts (Vol. 20). Peter Lang.
Šolienė, A. (2016). (Non) epistemic modality: English must, have to, and have got to and their correspondences in Lithuanian. Kalbotyra, 69, 223–245.