Cover not available

Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 15:2 (2015) ► pp.208–229

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

A comparative account of the interpretation of temporal relations in narrative in Vietnamese and English

 | Discipline of Linguistics, The University of Western Australia, Australia
Published online: 19 November 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.15.2.03ngo
This paper provides a comparative account of the interpretation of temporal relations in Vietnamese and English narrative, using a bi-directional corpus of 3,082 clauses of narrative passages originally written in Vietnamese and their English translations and 3,124 clauses of narrative passages originally written in English and their Vietnamese translations. It is shown that the principles for the interpretation of temporal relations between situations in narrative are similar for both English and Vietnamese despite the fact that English has a well-developed tense system, while Vietnamese is a widely-known tenseless language. The principles are based on the temporal properties of situation aspect and the discourse relations between the clauses, which are elicited from pragmatic inferences.
References (48)
Asher, N. and Lascarides, A. 2003. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cao, H. 1998. “Về Ý Nghĩa “Thì” và “Thể” Trong Tiếng Việt” (‘On Temporal and Aspectual Meanings in Vietnamese’). Ngôn Ngữ, 51:1–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlson, G. 1977. “Bare Plurals and the English Kind”. Linguistics and Philosophy 11:413–457. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, B. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, E. 1987. “Temporal Relations and Reference Time in Narrative Discourse”. In Essays on Tensing in English (Vol. 11), A. Schopf (Ed.), 7–26. Tubingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Depraetere, I. 1995. “On the Necessity of Distinguishing between (Un)boundedness and (A)telicity”. Linguistics and Philosophy 18 (1):1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Do-Hurinville, T. 2004. “Thời và thể Trong Tiếng Việt — So Sánh Với Tiếng Pháp” (‘Vietnamese Tense and Aspect, Compared to French’). Luận Án Tiến Sĩ, Đại Học Paris VII. Pháp.
. 2007. “Tính Đơn Nghĩa Của Đã Trong Tiếng Việt So Sánh Với Các Thì Trong Tiếng Pháp” (‘Single Meaning of Vietnamese Đã, Compared with Tenses in French’). Ngôn Ngữ, 21:17–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dowty, D. 1986. “The Effects of Aspectual Class on the Temporal Structure of Discourse: Semantics or Pragmatics”. Linguistics and Philosophy 91:37–61.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dry, H. 1981. “Sentence Aspect and the Movement of Narrative Time”. Text 1 (3):233–240. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1983. “The Movement of Narrative Time”. Journal of Literary Semantics 121:19–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fleischman, S. 1990. Tense and Narrativity: from Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction (1st ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hatav, G. 1989. “Aspect, Aktionsarten, and the Time Line”. Linguistics 271:487–516. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hinrichs, E. 1981. “Temporal Anaphora in Englischen”. Unpublished Zulassungarbeit, University of Tubingen.
. 1986. “Temporal Anaphora in Discourses of English”. Linguistics and Philosophy 91:63–82.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kamp, H. and Reyle, U. 1993. From Discourse to Logic: Introduction to Model Theoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory (Vol. 21). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. 1972. “The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax”. In Language in the Inner City, 354–396. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. 1966. “Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience”. In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Meeting of the American Ethnological Association, J.Helm (Ed.), 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moens, M. 1987. “Tense, Aspect and Temporal Reference”. Ph.D. Dissertation, Edinburgh University.
Ngo, T. 2011. “Translation of Temporal and Aspectual Information in Literary Texts between Vietnamese and English”. Ph.D Thesis, University of Western Australia.
Nguyễn, K.T. 1977. Động Từ Trong Tiếng Việt (‘Vietnamese Verbs’). Hà Nội: NXB KHXH.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nguyễn, H.T. 2006. “Aspect in Vietnamese (in Comparison with French and English)”. PhD Thesis, Vietnam National University.
Smith, C. 1997. The Parameter of Aspect (2nd ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. “Activities: States or Events”. Linguistics and Philosophy 221:479–508. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Modes of Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, C. and Erbaugh, M. 2005. “Temporal Interpretation in Mandarin Chinese”. Linguistics 43 (4):713–756. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taboada, M. 2006. “Discourse Markers as Signals (or not) of Rhetorical Relations”. Journal of Pragmatics 381:567–592. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tran, B. and Sachs, D. 1997. “Translators’ Note”. In The Stars, the Earth, the River: Short Fiction by Le Minh Khue, xix–xxi. Willimantic: Curbstone Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vendler, Z. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verkuyl, H. 1989. “Aspectual Classes and Aspectual Composition”. Linguistics and Philosophy 121:39–94. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. A Theory of Aspectuality (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dương, Thu Hương, 1991. Tiểu Thuyết Vô Đề (‘Novel Without a Name’). California: Van Nghe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 1996. Novel Without a Name, translated from Vietnamese by N. McPherson, and H.D. Phan. New York: Penguin Group.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bảo Ninh, 1991. Thân Phận Của Tình Yêu (‘The Fate of Love’) or Nỗi Buồn Chiến Tranh (‘The Sorrow of War’). Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Van Nghe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 1994. The Sorrow of War, translated from Vietnamese by Vo Bang Thanh and Phan Thanh Hao with Katerina Pierce. London: Secker and Warburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gallico, Paul, 1944. The Snow Goose. London: Joseph; Melbourne: Wyatt and Watts.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 2008. “Con Chim Trốn Tuyết” (‘The Snow Goose’). In Con Chim Trốn Tuyết: Những Truyện Tình Lãng Mạn Nổi Tiếng Thế Giới, translated from English by Trần Tiễn Cao Đăng. Hanoi: NXB Văn Học.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greene, Graham, 2004. The Quiet American. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 2007. Người Mỹ Trầm Lặng (‘The Quiet American’), translated from English by Vu Quoc Huy. Hanoi: Nhà Xuất Bản Lao Động.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hemingway, Ernest, 1955. The Old Man and the Sea. London: Cape.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 1998. Ông Già và Biển Cả (‘The Old Man and the Sea’), translated from English by Mac Do. Hanoi: NXB Quân Đội Nhân Dân.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lê, Minh Khuê, 1990. “Một Chiều Xa Thành Phố” (‘An Evening away from the City’). In Truyện Ngắn Chọn Lọc: Những Dòng Sông, Buổi Chiều, Cơn Mưa (Selected Stories: the Rivers, the Afternoon, the Rain), Thu Ha (ed. 2003), 185–306. Hanoi: Nhà Xuất Bản Phụ Nữ.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 1997. “An Evening way from the City”. In The Stars, the Earth, the River: Short Fiction by Le Minh Khue, translated from Vietnamese by Tran, H.B. and Dana Sachs, 158–177. Willimantic: Curbstone Pres.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nguyễn, Huy Thiệp, 1986/2004. “Tướng Về Hưu” (‘A General Retires’). In Những Truyện Thành Thị (‘Stories of the City’), 7–34. Hanoi: Nhà Xuất Bản Hội Nhà Văn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 1992. “The General Retires”, translated from Vietnamese by Greg Lockhart. In The General Retires and other stories, 114–136. Singapore, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maugham, Somerset, 1951. “The Fall of Edward Barnard”. In The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham, 38–68. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, 2007. “Sự Sa Ngã Của Etuốt Banớt” (‘The Fall of Edward Barnard’). In 5 Truyện Ngắn Hay Nhất (của Somerset Maughan), translated from English by Nguyễn Việt Long. Hanoi: Nhà Xuất Bản Hội Nhà Văn.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue