Errors In Translation Of Sentences From Vietnamese Into English A Case Study At An English Faculty In Vietnam Ma .Pdf

i Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences & Humanities Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature ERRORS IN TRANSLATION OF SENTENCES FROM VIETNAMESE INTO ENGLIS[.]

Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City

University of Social Sciences & Humanities

Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

ERRORS IN TRANSLATION OF SENTENCES FROM VIETNAMESE INTO ENGLISH: A CASE STUDY AT AN ENGLISH FACULTY IN VIETNAM

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled:

ERRORS IN TRANSLATION OF SENTENCES FROM

VIETNAMESE INTO ENGLISH: A CASE STUDY AT AN ENGLISH

FACULTY IN VIETNAM

is my original work It is based on my own research to meet the requirements for

the thesis in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee

All sources used by me have been documented No other person’s work has been

used without due acknowledgement

This thesis has not previously been submitted for assessment in this or any other

subject or course at this university or elsewhere

Ho Chi Minh City, May 2021

Lam Yen Nhi

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Lam Yen Nhi, being the candidate for the degree of Master in

TESOL, accept the requirement of the university relating to the retention and use

of the Master’s theses deposited in the university library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the

university library should be accessible for the purposes of the studies and research,

in accordance with the normal condition established by the library for care, loan,

and reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, May 2021

Lam Yen Nhi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to those people who provided me with valuable advice and enthusiastic supports during the time I worked on this thesis

I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my research supervisor,

Dr Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc, for providing invaluable guidance throughout this research Her dynamism, vision, sincerity and motivation have deeply inspired me She has taught me the methodology to carry out the research and to present the research works as clearly as possible It was a great privilege and honor to work and study under her guidance I am extremely grateful for what she has offered me

Beside my supervisor, I would like to thank all of the teachers at the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature at the University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City for their interesting and informative lectures throughout my Master course in TESOL My sincere thanks also go to all of my friends in this Master course for their constant encouragement

I am extremely grateful to my parents for their love, caring and sacrifices for educating and preparing me for my future I am very much thankful to my husband and my daughter for their love, understanding, whole-hearted encouragement and continuing support to complete this thesis

My thanks go to all the people who have supported me to complete the thesis directly or indirectly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

ABSTRACT x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 5

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 5

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 5

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 6

1.6 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 DEFINITION OF TRANSLATION 9

2.2DEFINITION OF TRANSLATION ERROR 10

2.3 TRANSLATION ERROR TAXONOMY 11

2.3.1 The taxonomy of Dulay et al (1982) 11

2.3.2 The taxonomy of Pym (1992) 13

2.3.3 The taxonomy of Costa et al (2014) 14

2.4 TRANSLATION ERROR ANALYSIS 16

2.5 ERROR ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 17

2.5.1 The procedure of Pinker (1986) 18

2.5.2 The procedure of Ellis (1994) 18

2.5.3 The procedure of Brown (2007) 19

2.6 HOLISTIC VERSUS ANALYTIC SCORING METHODS 20

2.6.1 Holistic scoring method 21

2.6.2 Analytic scoring method 22

2.7 PREVIOUS STUDIES 24

2.7.1 Studies on translation errors 24

2.7.2 Studies on holistic and analytic scoring methods 26

2.8 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 29

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 31

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN 31

3.3 RESEARCH SITE 33

3.4 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING PROCEDURES 34

3.5 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 35

3.6 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 37

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 42

4.1 ANALYSIS OF TRANSLATION ERRORS 42

4.1.1 Substance 43

4.1.2 Lexis 46

4.1.3 Grammar 51

4.2 COMPARISON BETWEEN HOLISTIC SCORING AND ANALYTIC SCORING 55

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 60

5.1 CONCLUSION 60

5.1.1 Translation errors 60

5.1.2 Holistic and analytic scoring methods 63

5.2 SUGGESTIONS 63

5.2.1 Suggestions for students 63

5.2.2 Suggestions for teachers 66

5.3 LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 69

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A: COURSE SYLLABUS OF BASIC TRANSLATION 77

APPENDIX B: THE FUNCTIONAL HOLISTIC TQA MODEL DEVELOPED IN THE STUDY OF SOFYAN AND TARIGAN (2019) 86

APPENDIX C: FINAL EXAMINATION 90 APPENDIX D: LETTER OF PERMISSION FOR DATA COLLECTION 93 APPENDIX E: THE SUGGESTED TRANSLATION FOR

FINAL EXAMINATION 94

APPENDIX F: EXAMPLES OF THE HOLISTIC SCORING METHOD 96 APPENDIX G: SAMPLES OF TRANSLATION ERRORS EXTRACTED

FROM STUDENTS’ FINAL PAPERS IN BASIC TRANSLATION 98

APPENDIX H: HOLISTIC SCORES AND ANALYTIC SCORES

OF STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION PAPERS 103

APPENDIX I: VOCABULARY LEARNING CATEGORIES

AND STRATEGIES 115

APPENDIX J: A TAXONOMY OF KINDS OF VOCABULARY

LEARNING STRATEGIES 116

APPENDIX K: SOME SPECIAL PURPOSE DICTIONARIES

USEFUL TO ENGLISH TRANSLATORS 117

APPENDIX L: ASSESSMENT TASKS 118

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EF Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

USSH University of Social Sciences & Humanities VNUHCM Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Illustration of the Relationship and Relative Proportions of

the Four Error Types in a Comparative Taxonomy 13

Figure 2.2 The Error Taxonomy of Costa et al (2014) 15

Figure 2.3 Conceptual Framework of the Study 30

Figure 4.1 The Frequency of Students’ Translation Errors 42

Figure 4.2 The Frequency of Substance Errors 43

Figure 4.3 The Frequency of Lexis Errors 46

Figure 4.4 The Frequency of Grammar Errors 51

Figure 4.5 The Differences between Holistic and Analytic Scores 57

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 Students’ Results in the Final Examination in the Course

Basic Translation in the Academic Year 2017-2018

at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM 2

Table 3.1 The Explanation of Translation Errors 36

Table 3.2 Holistic Scoring Rubrics 38

Table 3.3 Examples of the Analytic Scoring Method 39

Table 4.1 Examples of Substance Errors 44

Table 4.2 Examples of Lexis Errors 47

Table 4.3 Examples of Grammar Errors 52

Table 4.4 Examples of Holistic Scores and Analytic Scores 55

Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics of Holistic Score and Analytic Score 58

Table 4.6 Comparison between Holistic Score and Analytic Score 59

ABSTRACT

Making errors is inevitable for any students of translation In Vietnam, students

usually commit errors of many kinds in their translation from Vietnamese into

English and vice versa However, these errors are not paid as much attention as

necessary Besides, holistic scoring method is applied in rating students’

translation products much more than analytic one because it is simple and

time-saving Nonetheless, analytic scoring method brings some advantages thanks to

focusing on translation errors, which gives useful feedbacks for students to

improve their translation quality Therefore, this study is carried out to (1) find out

common errors that students commit in translating sentences from Vietnamese into

English and (2) examine the differences between holistic and analytic scoring

methods in translation quality assessment at sentence level 187 final papers of

students in the course Basic Translation in the second-degree training section at

the EF, USSH, VNUHCM were collected for the error analysis Students’

translation errors were identified and categorized based on the error taxonomy

adapted from the taxonomy of Costa et al (2014) Then, students’ papers were

scored analytically based on the number of errors that students committed in order

to compare with the holistic scores assigned by the teachers in charge of the Basic

Translation course

The results revealed that Wrong-lexical-choice was the most dominant error and

Misselection was the second one with a total of 1,671 and 1,628 errors,

respectively This means that students have difficulties in choosing words and

using grammar appropriately and correctly in translation In addition, the analysis

of the scores showed that students got higher scores in the holistic method than in

the analytic one Based on these findings, recommendations for minimizing

translation errors and assessing students’ translation quality were presented They

serve as a useful reference source for translation teachers and students in Vietnam

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This introductory chapter indicates the importance of translation in communication, the significance of translation education at the tertiary level in

Vietnam’s context as well as the reality of teaching and learning the course Basic

Translation at the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature (EF) at the

University of Social Sciences & Humanities (USSH), Vietnam National University

Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM) The background to the study, aims of the study, research questions, significance, scope and organization of the study are also presented in this chapter

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Along with the industrialization and modernization, Vietnam, a developing country, puts its aim at being integrated into the global economy These days, there have been more and more foreign companies in Vietnam Thus, the demand for translation for international communication is increasingly growing According to Ross (2000), translation is a valuable tool which is used for developing and enhancing communicative competence Fernández-Guerra (2014) confirms that in foreign language teaching, translation can help in displaying many different text types, registers, styles and contexts to students, which shows students the way languages are used for communicative purposes in real situations

Because of various needs for translation, more and more people want to master it For this reason, many universities expand to train translation for the foreign-language majors in their bachelor programs In Vietnam, all the English-majors must participate in at least one or two translation courses Nevertheless, not many students in Vietnam in general and at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM in particular work effectively in translation courses, especially in case of part-time students And not many students find it easy to master translation Especially, they have faced with a

lot of challenges when translating from Vietnamese into English and vice versa At the EF, USSH, VNUHCM, all of the students are required to participate in the

Basic Translation course This is the very first course in the EF’s translation

training program; thus, many students find the course Basic Translation interesting

but challenging when they start to get familiar with some translation foundational theories and professional translation practice Hence, many students commit errors

in their translation products, especially Vietnamese-English translation

For example, Table 1.1 shows the results of the students in their final examination

of the course Basic Translation in the academic year 2017-2018 at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM Except for those from the regular training section, the students from the second-degree training section and the inter-discipline training section did not get high results in their final tests About a half or over a half of the students just managed to get an average or average good score

GOOD (7.0 - 7.9)

AVERAGE GOOD (6.0 - 6.9)

AVERAGE (5.0 - 5.9)

BELOW AVERAGE (3.0 - 4.9)

POOR (0 - 2.9) TOTAL

Inter-discipline

training section 12 10.3 18 15.5 30 25.9 34 29.3 20 17.2 2 1.7 116 100 Second-degree

training section 53 22 59 24.5 68 28.2 50 20.7 11 4.6 0 0 241 100 Regular

training section 105 44.9 66 28.2 30 12.8 24 10.3 8 3.4 1 0.4 234 100 Total 170 28.8 143 24.2 128 21.7 108 18.3 39 6.6 3 0.5 591 100

(N: Number of students, P: Percentage)

Source: The EF, USSH, VNUHCM

In details, there are only 170 of 591 (less than 1/3) students getting 8.0 points or more, accounting for 28.8% and no one got 10 points in the final exam This number is not an encouraging signal for the first course in the translation training program It reveals that most of the EF students have to struggle to get good marks

in their translation exams Otherwise, the number of students gaining the score from 5.0 to 6.9 is the highest one There are 236 students in the ranks of average and average good, accounting for 40% This number displays that nearly half of the students in the three training sections managed to pass their final exams with some certain errors in their translation Another important fact in the researcher’s statistics is that there are 42 students with the scores under 5.0, accounting for 7.1% This means that these students failed in their translation due to their deficiency in knowledge and experience related to translation

It can be seen in Table 1.1 that there was a total of 118 students in the degree training section got the score from 5.0 to 6.9, accounting for 49% of 241 students in this training section and 50% of 236 students in the three training sections This number indicates that of all the three training sections, the second-degree training section is the one whose students gained the average and average good scores the most This means that these students have some certain difficulties

second-in translation They must struggle to get the scores that meet the demand of passsecond-ing the course

At the USSH, VNUHCM, the number of students in the second-degree training section has been on increase in recent years due to the need of international communication Also, in the VNUHCM system, the full-time dual degree undergraduate programs have just been in operation and attracted a lot of students

In these dual degree programs, students of member universities of VNUHCM can join two majors at the same time at one school According to the Annual Report (2020), the dual-major training courses have been opened at the University of Economics and Law and the USSH with an admission target of more than 20,000 students from 165 majors in 6 disciplines Particularly, at the USSH, the English

Language program is one out of five dual degree programs (i.e., International Relations, English Language, Journalism, Tourism and Travel Management, Psychology) approved by VNUHCM Therefore, a study on the students of the second-degree training section is extremely useful for the development of the USSH in general and the EF in particular

Another issue that needs more attention is the way of scoring students’ translation products because through students’ scores teachers can know students’ strengths and weaknesses in translation Amini (2018) assumes that the degree of the efficiency of the teaching approaches and language learners’ improvement can be exposed thanks to the reliable assessment There can be three approaches for the assessment of translation quality which are analytic approach, holistic approach and a combination of these two approaches However, the teachers in charge of the

Basic Translation course at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM just put emphasis on the

holistic scoring method for the final examinations A question to be posed is whether they should combine the analytic scoring method with the holistic one for assessing students’ translation at sentence level so that students’ errors will be more exactly identified Hence, there is a need of conducting a study that applies analytic scoring method in rating students’ translation in the purpose of comparing between holistic and analytic scoring methods

In conclusion, it can’t be denied that many students at the EF, especially those in the second-degree training section in the academic year 2017-2018 have difficulties in practicing translating They have not been well-equipped with knowledge and skills in translation; hence, they commit many translation errors in

their exams Furthermore, courses of translation in general and the course Basic

Translation in particular have been put into the EF’s curriculum since its

establishment in 1957 However, there has been a few studies conducted on students’ errors in translation and teachers’ methods in evaluating students’ translation products Consequently, it is quite essential to carry out a study about the types of translation errors and the ways of translation quality assessment

(TQA) in the course Basic Translation so that teachers and learners in this course,

especially those in the part-time training sections like the second-degree training section, can have a better vision and achieve better results in their teaching and learning in future

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The first aim of the study is to find out common errors that students in the degree training section at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM commit in translation of

second-sentences from Vietnamese into English in the course Basic Translation Then,

these errors are categorized into groups for counting their frequency The second aim is to examine the differences between holistic and analytic scoring methods in the assessment of students’ translation From that, some useful and applicable solutions are recommended for teachers and students to recognize and reduce common errors in sentence translation and find out better ways in assessing students’ products

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To achieve the aims set out above, the study is guided by the following questions:

1 What are common errors that students in the second-degree training section at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM commit in Vietnamese-English translation of

sentences in the course Basic Translation?

2 Are there any differences between holistic and analytic scoring methods

in translation quality assessment at sentence level? If yes, what are their statistical impact on the assessment of students’ translation errors?

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

On the one hand, the study is a good review of literature on relevant aspects of error analysis and the assessment in translation In details, the review of literature

presents comprehensive definitions of translation, models of error analysis, holistic and analytic scoring methods Additionally, the analysis reveals some types of translation errors and the differences between holistic scoring and analytic scoring which may be seldom mentioned in previous studies Moreover, it is a strong hope that the study can be a useful reference in helping improve translation skill for not only the students majoring in English at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM but also all Vietnamese learners who feel interested in the field of translation and really want

to become professional translators

On the other hand, the study has some certain contributions to the field of teaching and learning translation With a focus on the current situation of the errors made by the English-majored students in their Vietnamese-English translation, in which Vietnamese is their mother tongue, this study provides a practical overview and

detailed guidelines for translation teachers in the course Basic Translation at the

EF, USSH, VNUHCM in order to deal with these groups of errors In addition, some suggestions drawn from the findings hope to help the teachers and the English-majors at the USSH and other universities in Vietnam reduce similar errors in translation and find out suitable methods for TQA

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study focuses oncommon translation errors that the students at the EF, USSH,

VNUHCM commit in the course Basic Translation In concrete, the researcher

emphasizes on the errors when students translate sentences from Vietnamese into English in form of written language The analysis of students’ errors is carried out

at sentence level according to one of the objectives of the Basic Translation course

which is to train students to be able to translate texts of various types at sentence level (see Appendix A) The data used in the study is collected from 187 final papers of the students in the second-degree training section at the end of the course

Basic Translation in the academic year 2017-2018

The present study is conducted in the second-degree training section since this training section is now put much focus in Vietnam These days, many students who already have one Bachelor’s Degree want to study for a second one so they enroll in second-degree training programs They expect that after completing the two-year course, they will be awarded a full-time degree which will be equally as valuable as their first For this reason, more and more universities have prospered their own second-degree training programs in many different fields and USSH, VNUHCM is not an exception as mentioned earlier in this chapter

Nonetheless, most of the students in the second-degree training section at the EF, USSH, VNUHCM committed the errors in translation and just achieved the scores

of average or average good Thus, this study hopes to help them realize and reduce their errors in translation practice so as to gain the success in translation courses

1.6 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS

The study includes five chapters

Chapter 1 – Introduction displays the general and specific contexts of the study

which necessitate the need to carry out the current research It also introduces research aims and questions, significance, scope as well as the outline of the thesis

Chapter 2 – Literature Review provides a critical review of the relevant literature

It starts with a review of definition of translation This chapter also presents the concepts and theories in translation error analysis along with the procedure for error analysis in translation Besides, it provides some background knowledge concerning the two ways of scoring which are holistic and analytic scoring methods

Chapter 3 – Methodology restates the research questions and exposes clearly the

research design The research site, the samples, the data collection and analysis procedures are exhibited in detail

Chapter 4 – Results and Discussion reports the results of the study and discusses

these results in relation to previous studies

Chapter 5 – Conclusion presents a summary of research results and some

pedagogical recommendations for teaching translation, points out some limitations and contributions as well as suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, some literature related to the field of the current research is reviewed It serves as the theoretical framework for the researcher to conduct the study at the EF, USSH, VNU-HCM The literature then includes the discussion on

definition of translation and translation error, the review of some error taxonomies and translation error analysis, and the procedure for error analysis in

translation Additionally, the differences between holistic and analytic scoring methods and the development of the conceptual framework are fully described

Even though different authors have different opinions on translation, they all share the idea that translation is the act of transferring a text’s meaning from the source language to the target one In the concept of this study, translation is understood as the transfer of meaning of a text from Vietnamese into English in which the aspects of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic are well considered Hereby, the researcher calls it “Vietnamese-English translation”

According to Munday (2001), the role of translators is to facilitate communication between people who speak different languages and have various cultural points of view Also, Wongranu (2017) states that translators have a role of interpreting a source text and putting it into another language without making any changes in the meaning, style, and purpose of the source text Since the main purpose of this study is to discover students’ errors in Vietnamese-English translation, it is necessary to recognize that the role of student-translators here is to successfully transfer the message of a text from Vietnamese into English in term of language and culture

Nevertheless, to be successful in translation, students need to meet many factors They need to have special competence in both the foreign language and the mother tongue, as well as specialized and cultural knowledge Sowndarya and Lavanya (2009) suggest that a good translator should have not only the equal expertise in the source language and the target one, but also the writing ability in the target language and be knowledgeable about the socio-cultural context of the translated text Bernacka (2012) indicates that translators need to be intermediaries between different language systems as well as intercultural mediators

In conclusion, so as to translate successfully, the translators need to have good experience and knowledge in the field they translate They also need to understand exactly the differences about culture and linguistic features between the source language and the target one Besides, the translators must have proficiency in writing and searching the information related to the translated topic All these theoretical aspects are used as foundation to explain possible causes of students’ translation errors

2.2 DEFINITION OF TRANSLATION ERROR

The concept of “error” in translation can be expressed in many different ways Mossop (1989, p 56) describes a translation error as “a given rendering will be

deemed to be non-translation if it fails to conform to the concept of translation predominant in the target culture” Pym (1992) considers an error in translation as

a demonstration of a drawback in any aspects of translation Nord (2001) argues that a translation error is an obstacle to achieving a particular function in translation Elmgrab (2013) also confirms that a translation error occurs when translators have done the translation differently from what should have been done

In sum, translations errors are defined differently depending on translation theories and norms Nevertheless, all of the authors mentioned above agree that translation errors are related to students’ deficiency in translation skills and knowledge In addition, students who commit errors in translation can’t realize and correct the errors by themselves Therefore, teachers should help them to identify errors and have some effective strategies to help the students improve their translation

In this study, translation errors refer to the errors which students commit in their written translation at sentence level These errors occur in Vietnamese-English translation due to students’ lack of knowledge and skills The errors are then classified into sub-types in terms of linguistic and cultural factors in the English language

2.3 TRANSLATION ERROR TAXONOMY

The classification of translation errors seems hard to obtain due to many different translation theories Furthermore, the fact that there are many different definitions

of translation errors leads to no universally accepted translation error classifications Below are some commonly-used in the world

2.3.1 The taxonomy of Dulay et al (1982)

Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982) propose the descriptive classification of errors which consists of linguistic category, surface category, comparative analysis, and

communicative effect They suggest that students’ errors can be categorized in four ways as follows

The first way to classify students’ errors is in relation with the linguistic categories and groups errors according to either or both the language components or linguistic constituents Phonology (pronunciation), syntax and morphology (grammar), semantics and lexicon (meaning and vocabulary) and discourse (style) are listed as language components Whereas, the elements that comprise each language component are linguistic constituents

The second way of error categorization is the surface strategy taxonomy This taxonomy considers the differences about surface structures of the source text and the target text In this way, errors are divided into four main types: omission, addition, misformation, and misordering

The third way classifies the errors depending on the differences between the structure of second language errors and other structure types This way of analysis divides errors into four categories, noted as developmental errors, interlingual errors, ambiguous errors and other errors (see Figure 2.1)

The fourth way is related to the effect of communication In this way of classification, students’ errors are sorted based on their effect on the listeners or readers Therefore, there is a clear distinction between errors that cause miscommunication and those that don’t According to this way of division, there are two main types of errors, i.e., global errors and local errors

Figure 2.1

Illustration of the Relationship and Relative Proportions of the Four Error Types

in a Comparative Taxonomy (Dulay et al., 1982)

In the error classification of Dulay et al (1982), the descriptive aspects of error taxonomies are the main focuses This error taxonomy supports the idea that the accurate description of errors is not relevant to the activity of inferring the sources

of those errors Dulay et al (1982) refer the observable surface features of the errors as the criteria for categorizing the errors without paying any attention to their underlying causes or sources Moreover, the final way to categorize errors which considers communicative effect pays more attention to the spoken form of translation, which is unsuitable for this study since its focus is on written translation

2.3.2 The taxonomy of Pym (1992)

Pym (1992) classifies errors into two main types: binary errors and non-binary errors He indicates that in a binary error, there is a clear distinction between the wrong answer and the right answer Otherwise, a non-binary error means the translation error, which “requires that the target text actually selected be opposed

to at least one further target text, which could also have been selected, and then to

AMBIGUOUS DEVELOPMENTAL

L2 ERRORS L1 ERRORS

INTERLINGUAL

possible wrong answer” (Pym, 1992, p 4) In short, binary translation errors are completely incorrect, whereas non-binary translation errors are not totally wrong and can be improved

Pym’s taxonomy takes the level of errors into consideration This means that when classifying errors, he puts the emphasis on whether these errors are seriously wrong In Pym’s error analysis, the question whether the errors can be corrected or not is the main focus

2.3.3 The taxonomy of Costa et al (2014)

Based on the researches of Vilar et al (2006) and Bojar (2011), Costa, Luis, and Coheur (2014) divide errors into five categories which are substance, lexis, grammar, semantic and discourse level errors (see Figure 2.2)

Firstly, substance level errors include three types: punctuation, capitalization and spelling These kinds of errors occur due to misusing of punctuation and capital letters or misspelling of words Secondly, lexis level errors concern the way each word is translated This level of errors consists of four main types: omission, addition, untranslated and wrong-lexical-choice Thirdly, there are two kinds of errors related to grammar level, namely misselection errors and misordering errors Misselection errors refer to the errors of word-class, verbs-type, concordance-type and contraction Misordering errors are in connection with syntactical problems that the sentences may demonstrate Fourthly, the meaning of the words and wrong word selection are the two main things relevant to semantic level errors In this case, we care about confusion of senses, collocational errors and idioms Finally, discourse level errors deal with the phenomenon that could be considered as a discursive option more than an error Discourse errors comprise three sub-types: style, variety and should-not-be-translated

Figure 2.2

The Error Taxonomy of Costa et al (2014)

This translation error taxonomy covers linguistic and cultural factors in details in

terms of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, which are all included in the language

education Thus, it is quite appropriate for the research context in this study

However, the translation papers used for the analysis in the present study were at

the basic level which included translation of sentences in short paragraphs The

topics for this translation varied based on the requirement of the course syllabus

(see Appendix A) In addition, students’ errors were simply figured out at word

level Therefore, the researcher didn’t emphasize on the issues of collocations,

idioms, style or culture She omitted the last two types in the translation error

omissionadditionuntranslatedwrong-lexical-choice

misselection

misordering

substance

lexis type

concordance concordance

type

numbergender

person_1blendcontraction

semantics type

confusion-of-senses collocational-errors idioms

type

style variety should-not-be-translated discourse

taxonomy by Costa et al (2014) and reconstructed her modified taxonomy which classify students’ translation errors into three main types, namely substance, lexis and grammar In the present study, the errors related to choosing the appropriate words in collocations, idioms or style were counted as Wrong-lexical-choice Further details of the taxonomy will be presented on Chapter 3 of this study

2.4 TRANSLATION ERROR ANALYSIS

Error is an integral and unavoidable part of English learning due to students’ incomplete awareness of the existence of the particular system or rule in this language According to Corder (1967), errors are essential for three causes: 1) they can supply teachers with useful information about how much learners have progressed and what they need to learn more; 2) they provide researchers with the way the language is learnt and the strategies or procedures that learners use in their second language acquisition process; 3) they help learners discover the rules and structures of the target language For this reason, error analysis has been a useful tool in teaching and learning English as a second language in general and translation in particular for a long time

James (1998) describes error analysis as the procedure of figuring out the incidence, nature causes and effects of the errors Especially, Crystal (2003) claims that in the process of error analysis, the unacceptable forms produced by foreign language learners are systematically identifying, classifying, and interpreting Likewise, in Khansir’s point of view (2012), error analysis is a process of linguistic analysis that learners’ errors are paid much attention on The main idea

of this process is the comparison between the errors made in the target language and that target language itself Also, Mahmoodzadeh (2012) determines error analysis is a procedure used to identify, categorize, and explain the errors committed by foreign language learners In sum, error analysis is an activity to recognize, classify and describe the errors made by learners in speaking or in

writing a foreign language and it is carried out to obtain information on learners’ common difficulties in producing a composition

The analysis of students’ errors offers many advantages for both teachers and students It provides teachers with useful information that serves the assessment in learning and teaching second language as well as the decision on future effort Dulay et al (1982) identifies two main purposes of error analysis First, it supplies data from which learners can made some changes in their language learning process Second, it helps teachers and curriculum developers realize which parts learners have most difficulty in producing correctly and which types of errors most influencing learners’ ability in communication Norrish (1995) also shares the same opinion by stating that an error analysis can give a picture of the difficulties learners are facing He further explains that teachers can apply error analysis in evaluating objectively how teaching is helping their students

In translation, Jahanshahi and Kafipour (2015) define error analysis as a procedure

of detecting the errors of a translator and revealing the degrees of error, the nature

of errors and the patterns of error as well Besides, error analysis can help teachers find out not only the errors which learners commit in translation but also the causes of these errors From that, teachers can design suitable activities and exercises so as to help learners recognize and fix their own errors

2.5 ERROR ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

Many different authors have suggested many different procedures for analyzing students’ errors Below are some error analysis procedures that are commonly applied in the field of translation

2.5.1 The procedure of Pinker (1986)

Pinker (1986, as cited in Jahanshahi and Kafipour, 2015) suggests four steps for an error analysis In Pinker’s, the first step of error analysis is collecting appropriate samples from the language and it can be done by gathering written samples The detection of the errors in the sample according to different levels of errors is the second step The third step is referred to the error identification and description as well However, there are a lot of problems related to this step as there’s no well-defined and universal criterion for the errors in linguistic categorizations The last step in the error analysis procedure of Pinker (1986) is classifying the errors thanks

to their hypothesized cause Some of the causes for errors occurring in a translation include: language transfer, sociolinguistic situation, the modality of being exposed

to the target language and the modality of producing a text, etc

There are four steps in the error analysis procedure of Pinker (1986) Nonetheless, the second step (detecting the errors in the sample) and the third step (identifying and describing the errors) are similar and inter-related These two separate steps should be merged into one step

2.5.2 The procedure of Ellis (1994)

Based on the error analysis procedure of Corder (1974) and the error analysis development in 1970s and 1980s, Ellis (1994) recommends five steps in error analysis

The first step is sample collection There are three types of error analysis based on the sample size, namely massive sample, specific sample and incidental sample The second step that Ellis mentions is identification of errors in the sample Ellis (1994) reveals that the determination of error elements and the establishment of a procedure for recognizing errors is necessary The third step in the error analysis procedure by Ellis is description of errors He displays that the description

“involves a comparison of the learner’s idiosyncratic utterances with a reconstruction of those utterances in the target language” and “requires attention to the surface properties of the learners’ utterances” (Ellis, 1994, p 54) The fourth step in his procedure is explanation of errors which aims to find out the reason why the errors were made He states that transfer, intralingual and unique processes are possible reasons for competence errors Error evaluation is the fifth step in carrying out an error analysis This step considers the effect that errors have on the person(s), either in terms of comprehension or affective response

To sum up, the error analysis procedure by Ellis (1994) involves five steps which are sample collection, error identification, error description, error explanation and error evaluation In the last three steps of this procedure, Ellis focuses much on the cause of the errors rather than the common error types

2.5.3 The procedure of Brown (2007)

In the same line, Brown (2007) makes it shorter and divides the procedure of error analysis into two steps only The first step is identifying errors and the second steep is describing them Brown’s procedure doesn’t include the step of collecting the sample

However, the practice in the course Basic Translation is liaison translation That

means there are two sections, namely English-Vietnamese translation and Vietnamese-English translation, in all the students’ assignments and tests (mid-term and final) In this study, the Vietnamese-English translation section in the final tests is chosen for the error analysis In addition, so as to collect the appropriate samples for this research, specific principles or criteria for the data collection procedure are indispensable Thus, Brown’s procedure is not a good choice for the study even though it is simple and easy to carry out

In this thesis, the error analysis procedure by Ellis (1994) will be employed as a part of conceptual framework to study students’ errors in translation However, as the main aim of this thesis was to investigate the common types of students’ errors

in Vietnamese-English translation rather than examine the reasons why students commit these errors, the writer decided to omit the last three steps in Ellis’ procedure and add the step of error classification based on the taxonomy proposed

by Costa et al (2014) as mentioned in 2.3.3

2.6 HOLISTIC AND ANALYTIC SCORING METHODS

It is essential for both students and teachers to have the assessment in translation in the educational context For students, the assessment helps them realize what aspects they need to improve to reach the success in translation Based on teachers’ feedback, students recognize their own errors and revise their translation products For teachers, they can determine the goals which have been achieved and the ones which need more efforts to gain Besides, they can comprehend students’ problems

in translation process and give out some solutions for these problems Angelelli and Jacobson (2009) mention that the implementation of the assessment in translation is to select applicants for educational programs or courses; provide useful feedback for students; examine knowledge and skills students gain at the end of a course; certify students’ level of professional competence in translation Similarly, Sonia (2015) indicates that translation quality evaluation is a crucial since it (1) guides students along the process of acquisition of translation skills and competence; (2) helps teachers determine whether educational goals have been achieved or not; (3) serves as a diagnostic tool for teachers; and (4) serves as a learning tool for students

One of the first issues that need to be concerned in the assessment is determining the type of rating scale to be applied Weigle (2002) suggests three main types of scoring scale which are primary trait scales, holistic scales, and analytic scales Whereas, Sonia (2015) makes a distinction between summative evaluation and

formative evaluation In the context of this study, scoring students’ products based

on holistic and analytic scales is taken into consideration The definitions, advantages and disadvantages of holistic and analytic scoring methods are discussed in more details below

2.6.1 Holistic scoring method

Holistic (also called global or unitary) scoring takes the composition as a whole into consideration According to Mullis (1984), in the holistic rating method, readers are asked to make a single, global quality judgment about each paper by reading rapidly for total impression She clarifies that the raters purposely do not focus upon particular aspects of a paper such as organization, mechanics or ideas Carr (2000) supposes that holistic scoring occurs when a single global numerical rating is used to score students’ composition Likewise, Johnson, Penny and Gordon (2009) discuss that by using a holistic rubric, raters need to consider all aspects of literacy simultaneously and award one overall score In short, holistic scoring method requires raters to consider students’ translation as a unified whole instead of dividing it into separate parts The aim of holistic scoring is to give an overall score based on an individual scale In translation, students’ products are not given low scores just because they contain many mechanical errors Instead, teachers consider the overall impression created by the students’ translation and assign a score consistent with that overall impression

Holistic scoring method offers a number of advantages It takes less time and money to apply holistic method in scoring Practicality is one of the advantages of holistic scoring that Weigle (2002) points out in her book She supposes that reading a composition once and then scoring it is faster and cheaper than reading it several times and focusing on different aspects of writing Also, Johnson, Penny and Gordon (2009) suggest that holistic rubrics are advantageous for making scoring efficient and economical The authors state that training and scoring are simplified because raters only need to learn to make a single kind of judgment

Furthermore, the focus of holistic scoring is students’ strengths, instead of weaknesses Therefore, what students do well in their translation are highly appreciated

Besides, holistic scoring method has its own disadvantages First of all, as the main feature of holistic scoring is a single score for the whole composition, it cannot provide useful information about the student’s writing ability Weigle (2002) states that raters cannot distinguish between various aspects of writing (content, organization, depth of vocabulary, grammatical control…) based on the single score This prevents teachers from grasping the areas that students have acquired and the ones that students need more practice This is really the major drawback of holistic scoring when it can give teachers useful ranking information but no details about students’ ability Second, it is not easy to interpret the holistic scores because raters unnecessarily use the same criteria to assign the same scores Mullis (1984) reveals that raters score papers according to their own standards for the population being assessed and the topic included in the assessment For this reason, a paper can be given the same score by different raters but actually this doesn’t mean that these raters score the paper based on the same criteria For instance, a paper can be holistically scored 9 by one rater because of its good organization while another rater also gives the same paper a score of 9 because of its effective choice of vocabulary Last, Weigle (2002) introduces another drawback of holistic scoring system is that the scores can be influenced by superficial characteristics such as length and handwriting That is to say, papers which are too long or badly handwritten can get low scores Meanwhile, papers with the beautiful handwriting

or the suitability in length can make good impression on the raters and therefore get high scores

2.6.2 Analytic scoring method

Analytic (sometimes called componential) scoring method is defined as the judgement of independent components of students’ performance based on different

criteria In this case, students’ compositions are broken down into component parts and each part is scored independently Then, the total score is the sum of the rating for all of the parts Carr (2000) states that raters use several subscales to rate characteristics of students’ composition separately when applying the analytic rating method In translation, students’ product is analytically rated on such features as vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, spelling, mechanics and so on

The first benefit of analytic scoring is its reliability Because reliability tends to increase when subscales are added to the scoring rubrics, the analytic rating which consists of multiple scores tends to be more reliable (Weigle, 2002) By using the analytic system, raters score students’ performance based on some certain criteria and are not interfered by superficial characteristics such as length and handwriting Secondly, because of the particular subscales in scoring, it is possible for analytic scoring to provide useful information for teachers about students’ ability This kind

of assessment can clearly describe the strengths and weaknesses of students Hence, teachers can design appropriate instructions to meet the needs of their students In line with this, Hamp-Lyons (2003) informs that analytic scoring is an essential tool for second language teachers, placement officers, and admission program personnel because it provides them with rich information that is helpful in making decisions about remedial courses, selection of course types, and other choices Thirdly, analytic method has been found to be particularly useful for raters who are inexperienced (Weir, 2005) In this sense, it is easier to train raters

in using the analytic scoring since inexperienced raters can more easily understand and apply the criteria in separate scales than in holistic scales

Although the analytic method of the assessment presents various considerable advantages, it likewise has a few drawbacks So as to be successful in applying analytic assessment, raters need to employ more detailed rating scales in scoring various parts of students’ composition Hence, it takes them more time and effort

to use Johnson, Penny and Gordon (2009) support the idea that analytic scoring sessions are more costly and longer as more time is required up front to develop

the training materials For this reason, holistic scoring method will be more advantageous than analytic scoring one in large scale examinations

2.7 PREVIOUS STUDIES

In the world, there have been some researches on the errors in translation as well

as the assessment of translation quality These researches emphasize on students’ errors in translating English noun phrases, the linguistic errors in translation together with the types and causes of students’ translation errors Besides, the contrast between holistic and analytic assessment is one of the issues that is under consideration in many previous studies In this part, the authors and studies related

to translation errors and TQA are reviewed

2.7.1 Studies on translation errors

Krisetyawati (2010) conducted an inquiry into the students’ errors in translating English noun phrases into Indonesian To get the data, the writer used an essay test for 30 students as the instrument This study figured out students’ errors in translating English noun phrases which were omission, misformation, misordering and addition errors It described the frequency of each type of errors and suggested some implications for students and teachers as well The analysis from the study helped the students know their weaknesses and difficulties in translating English noun phrases into Indonesia The numbers of errors showed the effectiveness of teachers’ teaching material and teaching technique Teachers could also plan and determine an effort in teaching to minimize the errors

Farrokh (2011) examined the linguistic errors of Iranian translation trainees to find out the most frequent linguistic errors of English translation students 50 junior students of translation training program from the Islamic Azad University of Lahijan participated in the experiment They were asked to translate 20 Persian sentences which were simple (contain one full subject and predicate), declarative,

affirmative and active into English The researcher used Corder’s taxonomy for the analysis of errors The analysis indicated that the errors resulting from wrong selection of words, permutation and errors of incorrect use of tenses were the most frequent errors respectively The root cause of these errors was students’ lack of language knowledge

Wongranu (2017) started a research on types and causes of translation errors which Thai English-majored students made when translating Thai texts into English The research writer collected the data from 26 third-year English-majored students at Kasetsart University The results showed that students’ translation procedures, carelessness, low self-confidence, and anxiety were the causes of errors Some suggestions, namely more class time should be spent to address the problematic points; more authentic translation and group work should be implemented to increase self-confidence and decrease anxiety were displayed at the end of the study

In Vietnam, there are some researches on the field of translation They mainly focus on the causes and cures of students’ unnatural translation, the translation of topic-comment structures of Vietnamese into English and the identification of common Vietnamese-English translation errors as well

Le (2006) conducted a study on the major causes and cures of unnaturalness in English-Vietnamese translation by not only students of English but also people who practice translating as their profession Some typical examples taken out from published materials like newspaper articles, translated literary works, and students’ translation exercises as well as assignments were employed to present the causes After that, the author suggested some possible solutions for the improvement of the quality in translation She recommended a number of strategies that translators and would-be translators could employ to address or, at least, minimize these common mistakes

Pham (2007) carried out an investigation into the extent to which the typological differences between the two languages influenced the process of translating authentic Vietnamese sentences into English The subjects involved 15 students from the Department of English Languages and Literature at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam They translated the texts from the source language (Vietnamese) into the target language (English)

to support the data for the study Furthermore, this paper offered some practical guidelines and revealed some strategies for students to produce intelligible translations of the Topic-Comment structures of Vietnamese

Nguyen, T T H and Trieu (2015) worked together on the topic of the identification of common Vietnamese – English translation errors made by second-year students majoring in Translation and Interpreting This study applied both quantitative and qualitative methods and gathered the data through the means of document observations, questionnaires and interviews The results revealed that the most common errors students made were lexical choice in terms of linguistic errors and lengthy and awkward expressions in terms of translational errors Then, some possible causes such as the lack of accessibility to translation theories, the poor command of vocabulary and the shortage of translation skills were pointed out In the last part, some recommendations were presented to benefit not only would-be translators but also translation teachers at Vietnam National University, Hanoi

2.7.2 Studies on holistic and analytic scoring methods

Waddington (2001) carried out an experiment to examine the quality of analytic, holistic and combined approaches when applied to the correction of a second-year exam of translation from Spanish into English 64 students on the undergraduate degree course of Translation and Interpreting at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid translated an editorial from a Spanish newspaper within three hours Then, five correctors applied the three assessment approaches above to rate

students’ translation in a different order The statistical analysis indicated that though the superiority of analytic method over holistic one, it also showed the limitations of the method based on error analysis by itself, and the benefits of combining both methods

Phelan (2017) conducted a case study in order to examine the appropriateness for applying the American Translators Association (ATA) method to the assessment

of legal translation The sample of the study was a judgment from the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in England It was translated into Spanish by a student at Qualetra partner Alcalá de Henares University in Spain Ten assessors, all of whom were experienced translators and native speakers of Spanish and two of whom were also experienced ATA graders, applied the ATA framework for standardized error marking and the associated flowchart for error point decisions to the translation Assessor feedback indicated that some error categories of the ATA framework overlapped or were not clear enough while the flowchart for error point decisions was difficult to implement, in particular when deciding the level of seriousness of errors.This study drew a conclusion that the ATA framework could

be adapted slightly and applied to legal translation with some further refinement for specific text types such as judgments, contracts, letters of request, divorce papers, so on

Amini (2018) evaluated the quality of the written translation of EFL students through three different approaches to TQA which are analytic, holistic and combined methods This writer aimed to examine the efficiency and reliability of the three methods and ultimately suggest the most reliable one.Thirty Bachelor of Arts EFL university students translated a text from English into Persian, and three raters scored the translated texts through three different methods of assessment as mentioned above.Based on the results of the statistical analysis, it was found that analytic method was more reliable than holistic method and less reliable than combined method Therefore, the combined method was suggested as the most reliable method for evaluating and scoring the EFL students’ translations

The study of Sofyan and Tarigan (2019) aimed at developing a holistic TQA which

is applicable for assessing translation from English to Bahasa Indonesia It

consisted of two phases called research and development In phase 1, the research

was conducted to get the qualitative data concerning the application of the three previous models of TQA which are Hurtado’s error analysis-based TQA model, Waddington’s holistic method-based TQA model, and Nababan’s holistic method-based TQA model The data used in phase 1 were the results of the interview, the forum group discussion, and the research report In phase 2, the research results from phase 1 were used as the basis of developing the new TQA model concluding five aspects (i.e., accuracy, meaning equivalence, translation skill, text function, and grammar and style) (see Appendix B) This study concluded that (1) TQA should be based on a holistic method, (2) a holistic-based TQA model should provide clearly distinguishing quality criteria, and (3) the TQA model developed in this study assesses both translation and linguistic skills

In conclusion, regarding students’ errors in translation, the previous studies focused on specific aspects of translation such as translating English noun phrases

or translating of topic-comment structures Besides, the linguistic errors and the unnaturalness in translation were the topics of interest in the antecedent researches These researches mainly investigated the reasons why students commit the errors

in their translation, but they didn’t pay much attention to the classification of translation errors and solutions for these errors Regarding the holistic and analytic scoring methods, the previous studies examined the effectiveness of applying the holistic, analytic and combined methods in rating students’ translation products by figuring out the differences between these three

In Vietnam, teachers usually focus on students’ products at the end of the translation courses They score the products holistically and students will pass or fail the course based on the score they gain in the final exam In this situation, students’ errors in translation are neglected and consequently the quality of translation cannot be enhanced Hence, it is necessary for teachers to find out,

classify and evaluate students’ translation errors, which help students realize their own strengths and weaknesses in translation This leads to the conduct of the present study which analyze students’ errors and suggest the appropriate way for assessing students’ translation It will be a supplementary trait for the whole picture of error analysis and TQA in the translation education in Vietnam

2.8 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This section aims to further explain the conceptual framework (see Figure 2.3), which is used to orientate the researcher towards the achievement of the research goals The framework is formulated based on the above theories

On the one hand, as the present study lays its emphasis on error analysis, the procedure of error analysis proposed by Ellis (1994) is chosen as an important component in the conceptual framework To make it shorter, the researcher adapts and reduces Ellis’ procedure from five steps to three steps of error analysis They are (1) the sample collection, (2) the error identification and (3) the error taxonomy Additionally, the researcher adds the (4) step of scoring students’ papers to the procedure which is called the analytic assessment This error analysis procedure is employed as a comprehensive instruction on how to collect, analyze and interpret data

On the other hand, this research aims to explore common types of errors that students usually commit in Vietnamese-English translation; hence, error taxonomy

by Costa et al (2014) is applied However, as discussed above in this chapter, due

to the scope of this study which is limited at the basic level of translation, students’ errors are shortly divided into three main types that are Substance, Lexis, and Grammar