AN INVESTIGATION INTO METHODS OF TRANSLATING DEATH EUPHEMISMS IN ENGLISH PUBLIC SPEECHES INTO VIETNAMESE

Abstract

Death euphemisms in different languages are an interesting topic for many studies. Death euphemisms in English and Vietnamese are indicated in some research, however, there have not been many publications about the methods of English death euphemism translation into Vietnamese. This study, with the data taken from 63 English public speeches, has compared and analysed death euphemisms in English and their translations in Vietnamese, with the analytic framework based on the methods of euphemism translation proposed by Barnwell (1980), Duff (1989), and Larson (1998). The findings show that translating English death euphemisms into Vietnamese equivalent ones is the most popular method (accounting for 67.56% of the data), while translating death euphemisms into non-equivalent euphemisms is less popular (21.62%), and direct translation is the least common method (10.81%). English death euphemisms being translated into non-comparable ones often carry formal nuances and fit well into the translated sentence structure, while those being directly translated have neutral nuances.