Khóa luận tốt nghiệp a study on the translation of noun phrases in the weather forecasts from english into vietnamese

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A study on the translation of noun phrases in the weather forecasts from

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

TIẾNG VIỆT

Student code : 621201

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES

TIẾNG VIỆT

Student code : 621201

Hanoi – 2021

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A study on the translation of noun phrases in the weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in the English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due the acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2021

Ngo Thi Thuy

Approved by SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date: ………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the process of completing this graduation paper, I have received many

necessary assistances, precious ideas and timely encouragements from my teachers, family and friends

I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Tran Thanh Phuong, M.A for her precious advice, practical suggestions and constant encouragement in the preparation and completion of this graduation paper Without her help this graduation paper would not have possibly been completed

I would also like to express my great gratitude to all the teachers at Vietnam National University of Agriculture for their devoted teaching and for giving me gain valuable knowledge during the four years at this university Finally, I wish to extend my special thanks to my family and my friends for their assistance and encouragement in the making of this graduation paper

Sincerely thanks!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABSTRACT v

LIST OF ABBREVIATION vi

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vii

Part 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Significance of the study 2

1.6 Design of the study 3

Part 2: DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

Review of the previous studies 4

1.1.1 Review of the previous studies ( at home) 4

1.1.2 Review of the previous studies ( at abroad) 5

1.2 Review of theoretical background 5

1.2.1 Translation theory 5

1.2.2 Noun phrase theory 11

1.2.3 Summary 17

Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research governing principles 18

2.1.1 Research questions 18

2.1.2 Research hypothesis 18

2.1.3 Research types 18

2.1.4 Research approaches 18

2.1.5 Principles/ criteria for data collection and data analysis 18

2.2 Research methods 19

2.2.1 Major method 19

2.2.2 Supporting method 19

2.3 Summary 20

Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 The similarities and differences of noun phrases in weather forecasts between English and Vietnamese 21

3.1.1 The similarities 21

3.1.2 The differences 21

3.2 The strategies applied into translation of noun phrases in weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese 23

3.2.1 Noun phrases in English weather forecasts 23

a, Weather phenomena noun phrases 23

b, Meteorological nouns and noun phrases 24

3.2.2 Naturalization 25

3.2.3 Shifts or transpositions 25

3.2.3 Sample content 27

3.3 Summary 33

PART 3: CONCLUSION 35

1 Recapitulation 35

2 Limitation of the current research 35

3 Suggestions for further research 35

REFERENCES 37

APPENDIX: Full translation of analyzed sample 38

ABSTRACT

This study aims to identify methods to translate noun phrases in weather forecast from English into Vietnamese and analyze the difference in word order between English noun phrases and Vietnamese counterpoints Furthermore, different translations of strategies proposed by scholars are considered, to lay the foundation for the translation of noun phrases in the weather forecast Above all, it gives thoughtful recommendations for the effective translation of noun phrases in weather forecast from English into Vietnamese Findings from the study can contribute to research in the field of compiling and interpreting the weather forecast literature in general

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

NPs Noun Phrase

TL Target Language

SL Source Language

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1: Structures of NPs 12

Table 1.2: Vietnamese noun phrase 15

Table 1.3: Vietnamese noun phrase 15

Table 1.4: The position of descriptive words position -1 16

Table 3.1: The similarities of English and Vietnamese noun phrases in weather forecasts 21

Table 3.2: The similarities of English and Vietnamese noun phrases in weather forecasts 21

Table 3.3: Noun + noun 23

Table 3.4: Adjective + noun 24

Table 3.5: V-ing + noun 24

Table 3.6: Meteorological nouns 24

Table 3.7: Adj + noun 31

Table 3.8: Noun + noun 32

Table 3.9: Quantifier + noun 33

Table 3.10: ADJ + N + N 33

Table 3.11: N+V-ing+N 33

Table 3.12: V-ing + N 33

Part 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1.Rationale for the study

Today, we cannot deny the important role of translation in work, study or the daily life Especially when the current trend is globalization, Vietnam is opening its doors to attract investment capital as well as economic, cultural and

political cooperation and trade with world powers Translation includes the

study of vocabulary, grammatical structures, communication situations, and the cultural context of the source language text; analyze it to determine its meaning; and then reconstruct this same meaning using vocabulary and grammatical structures appropriate to its perceptual language and cultural context

It is a well-known fact that an increasing number large of people all over the world are drawing attention to the weather Human beings make effort to predict the weather informally for millennia and formally since at least the nineteenth century So, the weather forecast is an integral part of the daily living because it provides knowledge and information of future weather conditions The weather forecast supports us to cope with the unusual kinds of climate to maintain the socio-economic innovation Furthermore, there is no doubt that a large number of weather documents are written in English Therefore, understading and knowing English weather documents is necessary in our daily life

Translators often get trouble in conveying the exact meaning of words related to weather phenomena during the process of translating noun phrases from English into Vietnamese When dealing with them, the author feels confused and faces many difficulties Hence, translation techniques of noun phrases in weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese could be taken into consideration in this study For that reason, I would like to carry out a study on the topic “A study on the translation of noun phrases in the weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese” to help learners and translators have deeper knowledge about noun

phrases in translation, more specifically in the weather forecasting

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

In detail, my study aims at finding out translation strategies of noun phrases

in English weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese Pointing out several the similarities and differences of weather forcast noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Giving some translation strategies to translate noun phrases in the weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese

1.3 Research questions

To reach the aims within the scope, the research questions below are solved:

1 What are the similarities and differences of weather forcast noun phrases in English and Vietnamese?

2 Which translation strategies can be used to translate noun phrases in English weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese?

1.4 Scope of the study

Due to the limitation of time, knowledge and experience, my research mainly focuses on the characteristics of English noun phrases in weather forecasts, giving some problems when translating those ones as well as giving some strategies to apply to translating them

1.5 Significance of the study

It is commonly believed that the weather has a significant impact on the agriculture industry as well as in economy Indeed, plants need the basics of moisture, warmth, and sun to grow The weather information details can drive a grower‟s business decisions, helping them to plan efficiently, minimize costs and maximize yield and profits As a result, understading and knowing English weather documents is necessary for our daily life Thus, research is carried out

to help learners and translators know how to translate noun phrases in weather

forecasts from English into Vietnamese

1.6 Design of the study

Apart from abstracts, references & appendices, the study paper consists of three parts, in which the second one is considered the most important

PART 1 - INTRODUCTION presents the rationale of the study, aims and objectives of the study, research questions, the scope as well as the significance

of the study

PART 2 - DEVELOPMENT is divided into 3 chapters:

Chapter 1 - LITERATURE REVIEW – provides the theoretical background for the study including definitions of translation theory, noun phrase theory and weather forecast

Chapter 2 – METHODOLOGY describes the methodology used in the research including the action research, data collection instruments, the procedures employed to carry out the research

Chapter 3 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS - reports and discusses the findings of the study

PART 3 - CONCLUSION summarizes the main issues that have been addressed

in the study, points out the limitations, draws pedagogical implications concerning the research topic and suggests several solutions

Part 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of the previous studies

1.1.1 Review of the previous studies ( at home)

Noun pharse play an importance role in languages like English The European Science Foundation has recognized the importance of the Noun Phrase

in language when this topic was one of the central themes of its Eurotyp Project (Programme in Language Typology, 1990-4; Siewierska 1997)

In “A study on the translation of English terms related to weather forecast”

by Trinh Xuan Xam (2010), she collectes and presentes the basic English terms

in the weather forecast Then, it provides their Vietnamese equivalents or expressions and analyzes translation strategies and procedures employed in the translation of these English terms into Vietnamese

This study helps readers understand and use the weather information

efficiently, and have a certain understanding of some terms in the news letter as

well as the reliability of the forecasts of the weather

In “A discourse analysis of the weather forecasts in English and Vietnamese” by Tran Thi Mo (2011), she describes and compares discourse features of the weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese to seek the similarities and differences of the weather forecasts in terms of the layout, syntactic structures, lexical choice and cohesive devices

This study helps readers have deeper knowledge about discourse features

of the weather forecasts From there, it is possible to choose the appropriate vocabulary or grammatical structures to translate the weather forecast or news about the weather from English into Vietnamese

1.1.2 Review of the previous studies ( at abroad)

In “Deep comprehension, generation and translation of weather forecasts (weathra)” by Bengt Sigurd, Caroline Willners, Mats Eeg-Olofsson And Christer Johansson (1992) This study explores the language and semantics of weather forecasts further and it aims at deep comprehension

of forecasts

In summary, there are a number of theses relevant to translation of noun phrases have been undertaken However, there is a little research about the translation of noun phrases in the weather forecasts from English into Vietnamese so I would like to give some effective methods to help learners and

translators in the process of translating in my thesis

1.2 Review of theoretical background

- As stated by the definition on the website: “Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text, likewise called a translation that communicates the same message in another language The text to be translated is called the source text, and the language that it is to be translated into is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called the target text.”(Wikipedia)

- According to Bell (1991: 5): “Translation is the expression in another

language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language) preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences”

-Newmark‟s (1988: 5) claim is that: “Translation is rendering the meaning

of a text into another language in the way that author intended the text”

- Bui Tien Bao (1997) from Ha Noi National University defines that

“Translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text”

In general, the tranlation is translating the source language into the target language or vice versa The translation is the replacement of a text document in

a source language with its equivalent in the target language

1.2.1.2 Translation methods

According to Peter Newmark (1988: 45-47), there are eight methods of translation namely: word-for-word, literal translation, faithful translation, semantic translation, adaption, free translation, idiomatic translation and communicative translation

Newmark briefly explaines these methods as:

a, Word-for-word translation

The SL word order is preserved and the word is translated by their most common meanings, no context is considered when using this method

Ex:facebook => mặt sách; Hôm qua tôi đi chợ => Yesterday I go market; He is

a small boy => Anh ấy là một nhỏ cậu bé (Nguyen Thu Hang (2018) Strategies

Dealing With Translating Technical Noun Phrases In Electronics Texts, The

University of Da Nang)

b, Literal translation

The SL syntactic structures are converted to their nearest TL equivalents, but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context

Ex: He looked up at the Milky Way  Anh ấy nhìn lên vào con đường màu sữa (Nguyen Thu Hang (2018) Strategies Dealing With Translating Technical Noun

Phrases In Electronics Texts, The University of Da Nang)

c, Faithful translation

It attempts to create the precise contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures Some cultural words are translated directly by copying from the source text to the target text

Ex: He was a fast as a kangaroo

=> Anh ấy nhanh như một con kangaroo ( Ngo Thi Huyen (2016) Translation

Methods- A Survey From “Vừa Nhắm Mắt Vừa Mở Cửa Sổ”, Hanoi University)

=> Nằm ngay giữa trung tâm Hà Nội, hồ Hoàn Kiếm là một hồ nước đẹp

mê hồn, một ốc đảo bình yên tách biệt với sự hối hả bận rộn của thành phố

Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation; almost half

of the panda‟s habitat has been cut or degraded since 1975

=> Tình trạng nghiêm trọng được thể hiện qua hình ảnh vệ tinh, gần một

nửa môi trường sinh sống của gấu trúc đã bị thu hẹp hoặc thoái hóa kể từ năm

1975 đến nay (Biên Dịch Tiếng Anh - Bài 6: Các Kiểu Biên Dịch - Phần 2(

2016) from anh-bai-6-cac-kieu-bien.html)

http://hocngoaingukhongkho.vietuytin.vn/2016/04/bien-dich-tieng-e, Adaptation

The freest form of translation, and is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture is converted to the TL culture and the text is rewritten

Ex: Trăm năm trong cõi người ta/ Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau

=>Within a span of one hundred years

Of human life and tragedy

What a bitter struggle it wagged

Between talent and destiny

(Le Xuan Thuy)

f, Free translation

It produces reproduces the general meaning of the original text It may or may not closely follow the form of organization of the original

Ex: Your wild heart will live for younger days

=> trái tim nhiệt huyết của con sẽ tiếc nuối những ngày thanh xuân ( song

“The nights- Avicii” )

g, Idiomatic translation

It reproduces the 'message' of the original but tends to distort nuances of meaning by favoring colloquial words and idioms that do not exist in the original

Ex:

He was as quiet as a mouse => Anh ta im như thóc ( Ngo Thi Huyen

(2016) Translation Methods- A Survey From “Vừa Nhắm Mắt Vừa Mở Cửa

Sổ”, Hanoi University)

h, Communicative translation

It attempts to express the exact contextual meaning of the original in such

a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible

to the readership

Ex: Keep off the grass => không được dẫm lên cỏ (Biên Dịch Tiếng Anh -

http://hocngoaingukhongkho.vietuytin.vn/2016/04/bien-dich-tieng-anh-bai-6-Newmark (1991: 10-12) writes of a continuum that existed between

"semantic" and "communicative" translation Any translation can be "more, or less semantic-more, or less, communicative-even a particular section or sentence can be treated more communicatively or less semantically." Both find an

"equivalent effect." Zhongying (1994: 97), who prefers literal translation to free translation, writes that " in China, it is agreed by many that one should translate literally, if possible, or appeal to free translation."

In general, translation methods are reproduced of different types of texts - including religious, literary, scientific and philosophical texts - in another language and making them easily accessible to a wide range of people

1.2.1.3 Translation strategies and procedures

Newmark (1988: 45-47) mentions the difference between translation methods and translation procedures He writes that “while translation methods relate to whole texts, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units

of language"

The research is mainly based on Newmark's strategies proposed in 1988b in which he proposes a number of different strategies Because of the scope and purpose of the study, four translation strategies by Newmark (1988b) were applied to the translation of NPs as mentioned below

a,Naturalization

This translation procedure involves adapting the source language (SL) word to the normal pronunciation and then to normal morphology

Ex: Kangaroo => kăng-ga-ru

In general, these are simple techniques without consideration complexity

b,Functional- Descriptive Translation

+Function translation is the method which is applied to cultural words, requires the use of a culture-free word to ensure readability of the translation Such

words as “the White House” or “the Pentagon” can be substituted by “Dinh cơ

Tổng thống Mỹ” or “Bộ Quốc Phòng Mỹ” respectively ( Ngo Thi Huyen (2016) Translation Methods- A Survey From “Vừa Nhắm Mắt Vừa Mở Cửa Sổ”, Hanoi

Ex: Request of Discussion- Đề xuất để khởi tạo những nhóm tin tức và bắt đầu

thảo luận trên chủ đề mà bạn chọn (Nguyen Thu Hang (2018) Strategies

Dealing With Translating Technical Noun Phrases In Electronics Texts, The

University of Da Nang)

c, Reduction and expansion

This translation strategy involves adding or removing elements in translation.These two procedures are usually used in poorly written texts and change lexical and stylistic aspects

Expansion refers to the case where the translator exceeds the number of words

of the SL in translation, as the following example shows:

(1) Expansion ex : - SL Adjective > TL Adverb + Past participle of Present

participle + Object (Natalia Nainggolan (2014) Procedures Of Translation

According To Newmark, Indonesia.)

In the reduction , the translator is more likely to reduce the number of elements that make up the SL This procedure should respect the principle of conformity That is, the translator must ensure that no important information is left out in the translation

(2) Reduction ex :- SL Adjective of substance + Noun > TL Noun (Natalia

Nainggolan (2014) Procedures Of Translation According To Newmark,

d, Shifts or transpositions

A shift or transposition is a translation procedure needed when there is a change

in the grammar form SL to TL This translation strategy is line in with that the strategy called “rank-shift” by Catford (1965) or “Transposing” by Vinay and Darbelnet (1988), both of which can be applied as important and useful methods, especially in dealing with the nonequivalence of the two languages

As Vinay and Darbelnet (1988) suggest some transpositions to deal with this obstacle, the transposition can be the change of word forms or sentence‟s level; Ex: SL verb => TL noun

SL clause => TL noun phrase

Ex Transducer that measures position - bộ cảm biến đo vị trí (Nguyen Thu

Hang (2018) Strategies Dealing With Translating Technical Noun Phrases In

Electronics Texts, The University of Da Nang)

1.2.2 Noun phrase theory

1.2.2.1 Definition

Morley (2000) thinks that “a noun phrase is a phrase, which has noun or pronoun as its head” Halliday (1985) claimed that constituents which modify the head noun and appear before the head noun are called pre-modifiers whereas the modifiers placed after the head of a noun phrase are called post-modifiers According to Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (1972), the noun phrase

is the element in the sentence which typically functions as subject, object or complement

Diep Quang Ban (2008) argument is that a Vietnamese noun phrase consists of three constituents: pre-modification, the head, post-modification Generally a phrase with a noun acting as the main element, modified by modifiers, preceded (called pre-modifiers) and/or followed (called post-modifiers)

1.2.2.2 Noun phrase constituent

a, Noun phrase in English

In the book “Analyzing English” (1980), Howard claims that “The noun phrase in English is composed potentially three parts” A noun phrase normally including three elements: the head, pre-modification and post-modification The head is obligatory but the pre-modification and the post-modification are optionally occurring

Table 1.1: Structures of NPs

 Pre-modification (or pre-modifiers) comes before the head noun (it is pre-modification because it precedes the head noun, and it gives the new information modifies or adds meaning to the head noun)

The class of identifiers comes after a pre-determiner Identifiers consist of articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), and possessives (my, your, his, her, its, our, their), only one of which can appear in a noun phrase One special thing about noun phrases is that the article “the” can go with any head either singular or plural (a) In contrast, demonstratives have to “agree

in number with the common noun phrase” (Baker (1995: 153)) (b) For example: (a) The picture, the pictures

(b) This picture, that picture but these pictures, those pictures

The identifier can be followed by a numeral/quantifier Unlike the identifier, the numeral/quantifier can have more than one element In general, this constituent of noun phrase can have the three preferred sequences:

(a) Ordinal numeral + indefinite quantifier, e.g the first few students

(b) Ordinal numeral + cardinal numeral, e.g the first two students

(c) Indefinite quantifier + cardinal numeral, e.g several thousand students

numerals/quantifiers as following “Opinion – size – shape – age – color – origin – material – purpose” He gave an example, of the sequence of the adjectives in

a noun phrase: 1 Epithet (charming), 2 Size (small), 3 Shape (round), 4 Age (old), 5 Color (brown), 6 Origin (French), 7 Substance (wooden), 8 Present participle (writing) He refers to the case of noun modifiers which come between the adjective and the head noun and noun phrase in the genitive case It means a noun phrase that is usually used to indicate possession Ex: “The bike‟s (noun phrase genitive), low (adjective) saddle (head noun)

 Head

The head noun means a noun is the central component of a noun phrase Moreover, the head of the noun phrase can be a pronoun Without a noun or a pronoun, it cannot be called “noun phrase” There are four types of pronouns functioning as heads:

- Personal pronoun (Ex: She in she is cooking.)

- Indefinite pronoun (Ex: Someone in someone arrived.)

- Possessive pronoun (Ex: her in her are low.)

- Demonstrative pronoun (Ex: That in that makes me crazy.)

 Post- modifier (post-modification)

Post-modifier appears after the head noun It can be an adjective, an adverb or a phrase such as prepositional phrase or a clause such as relative clause, non-finite clause

+Usually, when people need an adjective to complement the head noun, they put it in the pre-modification position However, in some cases, an adjective can come after the head noun, especially in some phrases placed like something old, something new

+Adverbs are more frequent place after post-modification and they can be considered a contraction of a prepositional phrase For example, the time after can be understood as the time after this one

+A relative clause is a clause consisting of a heading relative pronoun that mentions back to the head noun of the noun phrase The relative pronoun “who” and “whom” are used to refer to people The relative pronoun “which” is used for animals and plants If the relative pronoun is an index of an object, it may be omitted For example: in the noun phrase the man whom I met two days ago,

“whom” is optional

+A Non-finite clause can also pact as post-modification There are three types of non-finite clauses: Infinitive Clause (a), Present Participle Clause (b) and Past Participle Clause (c) For example:

(a) a song to listen

(b) the boy talking to the police

(c) the pictures chosen by the teacher

+An infinitive clause is introduced by a to-infinitive Likewise, a present and a past participle clause are introduced by a present and a past participle respectively Non-finite clauses can be reconstructed into complete relative clauses For example:

(a) a song to listen a song that we should listen

(b) the boy talking to the police the boy who is talking to the police (c) the picture chosen by the teacher the picture that is chosen by the teacher

+A prepositional phrase is formed by a preposition + a noun phrase, e.g in the corner Prepositional phrases are said to be the most frequently used modifiers in post-modifiers in noun phrases For example: the man in the corner

A prepositional phrase can also be reconstructed into a relative clause, e.g the man who is in the corner

b,Vietnamese noun phrase

 In the book Vietnamese grammar (Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt), Nguyen Tai

the modification consist of the pre-modification and post-modification He discovered a new point of the noun head His argument is that if a classifier precedes the noun, both the noun and the classifier are the head So the head is the combination of T1 and T2 For example:

Pre-modification

Post-modification T1(Classifier) T2 (Noun)

Table 1.2: Vietnamese noun phrase

Diep Quang Ban (2008) claims that a noun phrase composes of three elements: pre-modification, the head and post-modification In the pre-modification, the elements add more quantity information of the nucleus In contrast, the elements of post-modification give more quality information of the nucleus The head of a noun phrase can be a word or a group of words where a classifier is followed by a noun, a verb, or an adjective For instance:

Pre-modification Head Post-modification

is worth noting that even though “người” refers to human being, we say "con"

người

If a noun phrase have two or more coordinate nouns, they will together