A Comparison of the English and Vietnamese Translation of Romeo and Juliet in Terms of Rhythm and Speech Patterns

Translation is the bridge connecting languages, cultures, and people around the world throughout history, from past to present, in time and space. The quality of translation affects the closeness and tightness of those connections. A translation can cause misconceptions, contort tone, and misinterpret cultural references, while a translation can also bring a positive impression to foreign readers not only of the text, but also of the country, people, and culture of origin. In Translation Studies, faithfulness is the central concern of philological theories that focus on literary genres, stylistics, and rhetoric between the Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL). Translating literary and dramatic texts for stage performance, especially Shakespeare’s plays, always requires specific criteria to convey the original meanings as well as the performability, in which the poetic feature is the most difficult task for any translator. This study, based on this fundamental principle, compares and contrasts the original text of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with its Vietnamese translation by Dang The Binh to examine how much the translator has done to maintain the rhythmic and speech patterns. It is concluded that the Vietnamese translation was unable to maintain the Iambic Pentameter of the Source Text (ST) while other rhythmic syllables were conveyed randomly