A study on english vietnamese translation of compound nouns in information technology

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ OANH A STUDY ON ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION O

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NGUYỄN THỊ OANH

A STUDY ON ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF COMPOUND NOUNS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DỊCH ANH-VIỆT CÁC DANH TỪ GHÉP

CHUYÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Hanoi - 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

NGUYỄN THỊ OANH

A STUDY ON ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF COMPOUND NOUNS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DỊCH ANH-VIỆT CÁC DANH TỪ GHÉP

CHUYÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Kiều Thị Thu Hương

Hanoi - 2016

Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The

substance of this research has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution

Hanoi, 2016 Signature

Nguyen Thi Oanh

I would also like to send my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures during my M.A course

Finally, my special thanks go to my family and friends for their considerable assistance during the time of the research conduction Without their help and support, this study could not have been completed

ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on the translation of English compound nouns in the information technology (IT from now on) into Vietnamese It aims at investigating the five common strategies normally applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese

The study starts with the theoretical background that elaborates on the notion of translation, translation methods as well as translation procedures and equivalence Then it touches upon the typical features of English compound nouns in information technology In the main part, a detailed investigation and examination of the translation of these English compound nouns is carried out, from which it identifies the common translation strategies used in this field The five common strategies, namely transposition, transference, naturalization, couplets procedure (combining both transference and naturalization) and communication methods are common choices that translators often make in different situations or for different types of compound nouns, through each procedure embodies in itself both advantages and disadvantages

Hopefully, the results of the study will be of some help to people who are in charge

of teaching, studying and translating English IT terms into Vietnamese

LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

ABBREVIATIONS

IT: Information technology

TABLES

Table 1: Classification of compound words according to part of speech

Table 2: Formations of compound nouns

Table 1: Acronyms in information technology

Table 2: Compound nouns formed by Noun and Noun

Table 3: Compound nouns formed by Adjective and Noun

Table 4: Compound nouns formed by Preposition and Noun

Table 5: Compound nouns formed by Verb and Noun

Table 6: Translation of compound nouns by transposition procedure

Table 7: Translation of compound nouns by transference procedure

Table 8: Translation of IT acronyms by transference procedure

Table 9: The translation of IT compound nouns by naturalization procedure

Table 10: The translation of IT compound nouns by both transference and naturalization procedure (couplets)

Table 11: The translation of IT compound nouns by communicative method

FIGURES Figure 1: The two main parts of information technology

Figure 2: The five functions of information technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6 Design of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 Translation Theory 4

1.1 Definition of translation 4

1.2 Definition of translation equivalence 5

1.3 Technical translation 5

1.4 Translation methods 6

1.5 Translation procedures 8

2 Compound nouns in English 10

2.1 Compound words 10

2.2 Classification of compound words 11

2.3 Compound nouns 12

3 An overview of information technology 16

3.1 What is information technology? 16

3.2 What are the main parts of information technology? 17

3.3 What are the main functions of information technology? 20

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 22

1 Introduction 22

2 English IT compound nouns in some IT documents and their Vietnamese equivalents in the dictionary or on the Internet 22

3 Translation strategies applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese 26

3.1 Translation of compound nouns by transposition procedure 27

3.2 Translation of compound nouns by transference procedure (use of loan words) 28

3.3 Translation of compound terms by naturalization procedure 32

3 4 Translation of compound nouns by both transference and naturalization procedure (couplets) 33

3.5 Translation of compound nouns by communicative method 34

4 Summary 35

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 44

1 Conclusions 44

2 Limitations of the study 46

3 Suggestions for further research 47

REFERENCES 48 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 XV

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

In the globalized world, translation has played an important role and has had remarkable influences on facilitating international exchanges and cooperation

in various fields, particularly in information technology Information technology (IT) has been crossing geographical boundaries in serving clients and other industries

In Vietnam, information technology has an indispensable role in the country’s industrialization and modernization Information technology with its superhighway has revolutionized man’s ways of working In the situation of an open market economy with international cooperation and fast-pace development of IT, translation of IT terminologies, therefore, has become an urgent need to exchange information and update modern technology

Being a project assistant in the FPT Corporation, one of the biggest IT corporations in Vietnam, I am fully aware that the translation of IT terms is a difficult job It requires translators to continuously improve knowledge in the

IT field as well as translation skills That is the main inspiration to me to carry out this research

All the things concerned above have offered the researcher an opportunity to

conduct a study on “English-Vietnamese translation of compound nouns in

information technology Hopefully, the thesis will bring benefits to

translators/interpreters, researchers, IT engineers, and those who are interested

in the field

2 Aims of the study

In brief, the study is aimed at:

 Identifying common English compound nouns in information technology and their Vietnamese equivalents;

 Analyzing the translation strategies applied to translate these terms

3 Research questions

To achieve the above-stated aims, the following research questions are raised:

1 What are English IT compound nouns in some IT documents and their Vietnamese equivalents in the dictionary or on the Internet?

2 What are translation strategies normally applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese?

4 Scope of the study

The English compound words in information technology are innumerous and diverse in many materials and documents Due to the author’s limited time and experience, it would be impossible for her to cover all compound terms Moreover, among different types of IT compound words such as compound adjectives compound adverbs and compound verbs, compound nouns are considered to be the largest in number and variety Thus, the study only focuses

on the English compound nouns mainly in computer technology section

5 Methods of the study

Since the aim of the study is to analyze and pinpoint some common translation strategies used in the translation of English IT compound nouns into Vietnamese, the main method of the study is descriptive Also, some other additional methods have been used, namely analytic, statistical, comparative and contrastive methods

In the research, a number of IT compound nouns in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese are collected, and processed with various activities

of sub-group classification, description, analysis, and compare and contrast

6 Design of the study

The present thesis is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

 Part A entitled INTRODUCTION, which gives the rationale, aims, research

questions, scope, method and design of the study

 Part B with the title of DEVELOPMENT, is divided into three chapters:

Chapter 1 reviews theoretical background of the study Some concepts of

translation theory such as translation definition, translation methods, translation equivalence and translation procedures have been reviewed The chapter also

provides theories of compound words and compound nouns in English

Chapter 2, entitled “The translation of compound nouns in information

technology from English into Vietnamese”, investigates typical translation

strategies employed in the translation of IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese Analysis and discussion are made to bring out more insight to those translation patterns and some methods are drawn out for better translation

of these terms in the information technology field

 Part C, namely CONCLUSION, presents major findings as well as some

limitations of the study Suggestions for further study are also included

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

To support the analysis, this chapter discusses relevant concepts and theories that help build the theoretical aspect of the study The first part of this chapter mainly addresses the conceptions concerning translation, its types and the translation methods or procedures; and the second part devotes to features of compound noun and its classification

Catford (1965: 20) defines translation as the replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language)

According to Newmark (1988), translation is a craft consisting of the attempt to replace a written message and statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language

Bell (1991) simply provides the goal of translation as the transformation of a text originally in one language into an equivalent text in a different language retaining,

as far as possible, the content of the message and the formal features and functional roles of the original text

Although these definitions have some differences, they still have common features that translation is considered as the conversion from a source language to a target language to find appropriate equivalents

1.2 Definition of translation equivalence

Translation equivalence is considered as a principal concept in Western translation theory As Catford (1965) concludes, “the central problem of translation-practice is that of finding target language equivalents A central task of translation theory is that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence” (p.21)

Translation equivalence is the similarity between a word (or expression) in one language and its translation in another This similarity results from overlapping ranges of reference

1.3 Technical translation

In terms of nature of SL text, Sofer (1991) classifies translation into translation of literary works and translation of scientific and technical matters According to him, literal translation covers such areas as fiction, poetry, drama and humanities in general Meanwhile, technical translation covers scientific and technical matters such as books written on science, techniques like books on computers, instruction manuals on TV, washing machine, etc Technical translation is normally done by the one with significant knowledge of linguistics and technical field To define it

he writes:

One way of defining technical translation is by asking the question, does the subject being translated required a specialized vocabulary, or is the language non-specialized? If the text being translated includes specialized terms in a given field, then the translation is technical

According to Newmark (1981), “technical translation is one part of specialized translation; institutional translation, the area of politics, commerce, finance, government etc.…is the other” He also gives the following definition:

Technical translation is primarily distinguished from other forms of translation by terminology Its characteristics, its grammatical features merge with other varieties of language Its characteristic format is technical report, but is also includes instructions, manuals, notices, publicity, which put more emphasis on forms of address and use of the second person

According to him, technical translation has three levels: academic, professional,

and popular

Technical translation is primary distinguished from other forms of translation by

terminology, its characteristics, grammatical features (passive, nominalization,

third person, empty verb, present tense) and its technical format (technical report)

In his opinion, the central difficulty in technical translation is usually the new

terminology As a result, the very first requirement of translating technical texts or

documents is to comprehend and translate technical terminology exactly, which is

really a challenging task In order to become a competent technical translator, one

of the most important requirements for a translator is to have sufficient linguistic

knowledge and background knowledge of a specific field

1.4 Translation methods

The translation methods are divided into two main groups called semantic

translation and communicative translation (Newmark, 1988) He put these methods

in the form of a flattened V diagram that demonstrates the relationship between the

source language (SL) and the target language (TL)

SL emphasis TL emphasis

Word-for-word translation Adaptation Literal translation Free translation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

According to his V diagram, the method of word-for-word translation is the closet

with SL and semantic translation is further and closer with the emphasis of TL

Similarly, the adaption method is the one concerns the TL most and the

communicative is the method nearest to SL but furthest to TL

 Word-for-word translation is demonstrated as interlinear translation in which

words are translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context For

this method, the SL word order is preserved

 Literal translation is a translation that follows closely the form of the source

language In literal translation method, lexical words are translated singly, out of context The SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL

equivalent

 Faithful translation attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the

text-realization of the SL writer It is used when translators want to reproduce precise contextual meaning within the constraints of TL grammatical structures

It transfers cultural words and preserves the grammatical and lexical

“abnormality”

 Semantic translation is somehow similar to faithful translation However, it takes

more account of the aesthetic value of SL text It is more flexible, less dogmatic than faithful translation Semantic translation admits the creative exception and

makes some small concession to the readership

 Communicative translation attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of

the original, in such a way that, both content and language is readily acceptable

and comprehensible to the readership

 Idiomatic translation reproduces the message of the original but tends to distort

nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialism and idioms where these do not exist in the original Therefore, the translation product of this method is more

flexible, natural and acceptable with the readership

 Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content

without the form of the original It is usually a paraphrase much longer than the

original

 Adaption is considered as the freest form of translation It is mainly used for

plays and poetry in which the themes, characters and plots are usually preserved,

the SL converted to the TL culture and text rewritten

As can be see, each method exposes its own features and advantages although many people have considered some methods more advanced or qualified than others Thus, the different and relevant methods of translation can be applied flexibly and effectively due to different contexts and purposes

1.5 Translation procedures

Newmark (1988b) 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" (p.81)

The concept of translation strategy can be basically understood as ways of choosing appropriate translation methods and procedures applied in particular cases

The following translation procedures by Newmark (1988b: 81-93) are typical ones

in translation theory

The following are the different translation procedures that Newmark (1988b) proposes:

 Transference is the process of transferring an SL word to a TL word The word

then becomes a “loan word” It includes transliteration and is the same as what Harvey (2000: 5) names "transcription." Words and expression that are normally transferred are: names of all living and most dead people; geographical and topographical names including newly independent countries unless they already have recognized translations; name of periodicals and newspapers; titles of as yet untranslated literary works, plays, films; names of private companies and institutions; names of public or nationalized institutions; street names, addresses,

etc

 Naturalization adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the

normal morphology of the TL (Newmark, 1988b: 82)

 Cultural equivalent means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one,

however, "they are not accurate" (Newmark, 1988b: 83)

 Functional equivalent requires the use of a culture-neutral word (Newmark,

1988b: 83)

 Descriptive equivalent: According to Newmark (1988b: 84), “in translation,

description sometimes has to be weighed against function” Moreover, functional procedure and descriptive one can be simultaneously used in translation It is

reasonable when he says “description and function are essential elements in explanation and therefore in translation” and “in translation discussion, function used to be neglected; now it tends to be overplayed”

 Synonymy is a "near TL equivalent." “This procedure is used for a SL word

where there is no clear one-to-one equivalent, and the word is not important in the text, in particular for adjectives or adverbs of quality” The procedure is only appropriate where literal translation is not possible and because the word is not important enough for componential analysis “Here, economy precedes accuracy.” (Newmark, 1988b: 84)

 Through-translation is the literal translation of common collocations, names of

organizations and components of compounds It can also be called: calque or loan translation (Newmark, 1988b: 84) “The most obvious examples of through-translations are the names of international organizations which often consist of universal words which may be transparent for English and Romance languages, and semantically motivated for Germanica and Slavonic.” In addition,

“international organizations are often known by their acronym”

 Shift or transposition involves a change in the grammar from SL to TL, for

instance, (i) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TL word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth (Newmark, 1988b: 86) As it is stated by Newmark (1988b: 85), “transposition is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and most translators make transpositions intuitively”

 Modulation occurs when the translator reproduces the message of the original

text in the TL text in conformity with the current norms of the TL, since the SL

and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective (Newmark, 1988b: 88)

 Paraphrase is “an amplification or explanation of the meaning of a segment of

the text It is used in an “anonymous” text when it is poorly written, or has important implications and omissions” (Newmark, 1988b: 90)

 Couplets occurs when the translator combines two different procedures

(Newmark, 1988b: 91)

 Translation label is regarded as “a provisional translation, usually of a new

institutional term, which should be made in inverted commas, which can later be discreetly withdrawn”

In general, translation procedures are useful to a translator He/ She may apply them flexibly in a particular context or combine two, three or four procedures (couplets, triplets, quadruplets) to deal with a single problem

2 Compound nouns in English

2.1 Compound words

One of the most common sources of new words in English is a morphological process named compounding The result of this process is compounds or compound words

Quirk (1972) states that a compound word is a unit consisting of two or more bases The similar definition is given by Jackson and Amvela that compounds may be defined as stems consisting of more than one root (2000:79)

According to Selkirk (1982:13), “Compounds in English are a type of word structure made of two constituents, each belonging to one of the categories noun, adjective, verb or preposition”

In other words, it can be concluded that a compound word is joining two or more separate words to produce a word with a new meaning

For examples:

bed + time => bedtime eye + sight => eyesight black + board => blackboard silk + worm => silkworm

2.2 Classification of compound words

There are a number of ways to classify compounds according to certain criteria such

as word class, syntactic, and semantic relationship between the roots

The most accessible way of approaching the study and classification of compound words is to classify them according to the part of speech, as the following list of compounds shows:

(Adj)

Preposition (P)/ Adverb (Adv)

Table 1: Classification of compound words according to part of speech

Another possible approach is to classify compounds in terms of the semantic relationship between the compound and its head According to Spencer (1991),

compounds are classified into three types: endocentric, exocentric and appositional

 Endocentric compounds are compound words containing a head that carries the sematic load of the whole compound, making them semantically transparent A word like blackboard is an endocentric compound word, whose head is board

 Exocentric compounds are compound words with no clear head inside them,

giving rise to semantic arbitrariness and opaqueness It is thought that the head and

underlying semantics lies somewhere outside the compound or is generally absent For this reason, Exocentric compounds are called as headless compounds “Pick-pocket” is an example of the exocentric that refers to a kind of person not a kind of pick or a kind or pocket However, its meaning or any assumptions about its semantic properties cannot be found from looking at the compound word itself

 Appositional compounds are compound words, whose both constituents

contribute equally to the meaning of the compound in denoting an entity or

property For example, bittersweet refers to a quality, which is both bitter and

sweet The two elements seem to modify each other

2.3 Compound nouns

2.3.1 Definition of compound nouns

Compound noun is a noun that is made up of two or more words Each compound noun acts as a single unit and can be modified by adjectives and other nouns A compound noun is one comprising at least two words, which has nouns as head and involves nouns, verbs, or adjectives, prepositions as modifiers However, there are some rare cases where the noun head does not exist The table below will illustrate how other word classes combine to make a compound noun:

Preposition + Verb output

Table 2: The formations of compound nouns

The compound noun structure is extremely varied in the types of meaning relations

it can indicate A compound noun can be used to indicate what someone does

(language teacher), what something is for (waste-paper basket, grindstone), what the qualities of something are (whiteboard), how something works (immersion heater), when something happens (night frost), where something is (doormat) or what something is made of (woodpile)

There are three forms of compound nouns:

 Open or spaced that is when there is space between words (tennis shoe)

 Hyphenated that is when there is hyphen between words (six-pack)

 Closed or solid that is when there is no space or hyphen between words

(bedroom)

2.3.2 The distinction between a compound noun and a noun phrases

One of the most problems to deal with compounding is the criteria for distinguishing between a compound and a phrase The problem arises most when it

is a compound noun rather than a compound verb or a compound adjective With

adjective, for example, tax-exempt is clearly a compound, there is no contrasting

syntactic construction where an adjective has a noun (tax) as modifier Similarly, it

is unproblematic to distinct between the compound verb “baby-sit” and a construction “baby sit” In general, there are three criteria that we can base on to

distinguish a compound noun with a noun phrase: phonological, syntactic, and semantic These criteria are also used to distinguish the other types of compounds and a phrase in general

Phonologically, most compound nouns can be identified as having a main stress on the first element meanwhile a phrase often has stress on the last Consider the following examples:

Compound nouns Noun phrases

Syntactically, Jackson (2000) considers the specific syntactic features to make a compound noun different from a noun phrase, namely, word order, interruptibility, modification and inflexibility By word order, he refers to the position of the different elements of a compound in relation to one another Some compounds have

ungrammatical or unusual word order in English For example, dry-cleaning, output, or haircut etc

Compound nouns have non-interruptible characteristic, i.e., their constituents are note interrupted by extraneous elements This again confirms the assumption that a

compound is indeed a single lexical unit For example, the compound blackbird cannot be inserted extra elements as in the black naught bird which is a noun

phrase

By modifications he means the use of other words to modify the meaning of a compound As a compound is a single unit, it can only be modified by other words

as a whole but cannot be modified independently each of its constituents

Inflexibility is the use of inflections to present the grammatical function of

compound To make the compound noun bottle-neck plural, for example, its constituents cannot be inflected as bottles-necks Instead, bottle-necks must be used Similarly, we have the other compound nouns in plural as ash-trays, dishwashers, water paper baskets

Semantically, most compounds tend to acquire special meanings like idiom And

some authors take this special characteristic as their defining features: “If the meaning of the whole cannot be deduced from the meaning of the elements separately, then we have a compound” (Jesperson 1942:137) Each compound

conveys only one concept even though it may consist of more than two stems Take

the word tallboy as an example; it does not denote a person, but a piece of furniture,

a chest of drawers supported by a low stand Tallboy expresses only one concept whereas a tall boy, a noun phrase, conveys two concepts: a young male person and

big in size

Although all the criteria above seem to be convincing, it is insufficient to base on a criterion alone, it is advisable to combine all three criteria to distinguish a compound noun from a noun phrase

2.3.3 Classification of compound noun

a According to the meaning

In terms of meaning, a compound noun can be idiomatic or non-idiomatic

Meaning of idiomatic compound is hardly deduced from the constituents’ meaning such as blackbird, minute steak or butter-finger Meanwhile, non-idiomatic compound nouns are compound nouns of which meaning can be deduced from the constituents, i.e the meaning is the sum of its part and it can be guessed even they are out of context Some examples of non-idiomatic compound nouns are

doorkeeper, working man or dining table

b According to componential relationship

Compound nouns can be classified as coordinative or subordinative according to componential relationship

Coordinate compound nouns are compounds whose constituents are both semantically and structurally independent The constituents are often of the same part of speech or of the same sematic group Coordinate compound nouns are like

in these following examples: actor-manager, bye bye, or chitchat

On the other hand, subordinative compounds are those that characterized by the domination of one component over the other semantically or structurally The second component, which is also called the determenatum, is the structural center and the dominant part of the word The first component is called the determinant

which modifiers the second For examples: honey-bee, oil well, table leg, piano keys, pine tree, sandwich-man

c According to the relation of the compound noun as a whole to its constituent

Jackson and Amvela states that compound nouns can be classified into two different types, namely, endocentric and exocentric

 Endocentric: is a type of compound in which one member functions as the head

and the other as its modifier, attributing a property to the head “ Blackboard” is considered as an endocentric in that it refers to a type of board

 Exocentric: is a type of compound words where the thing that the compound

refers to is not the same as the head “Pick-pocket” is an example of the exocentric which refers to a kind of person not a kind of pick or a kind or pocket

3 An overview of information technology

3.1 What is information technology?

Information technology (IT) is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate and/or disseminate information According to Gay and Blades (2005),

Information Technology (IT) is the term used to describe the equipment, hardware and computer programs (software) that allows us to access, present data and information

IT is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise In other words, IT refers to the creation, gathering, processing, storing, protecting, presenting and dissemination of information using hardware, software and telecommunication technology

Many companies now have IT departments for managing the computers, networks, and other technical areas of their businesses IT jobs include computer programming, network administration, computer engineering, Web development, technical support, and many other related occupations As the results, information technology has become a part of our everyday lives

3.2 What are the main parts of information technology?

According to Senn (2004), two different parts of IT are computer technology and communication technology

Figure 1: The two main parts of information technology

3.2.1 Computer technology

The first component is computer which is an electronic device or flexible machine

that can accept data-raw facts, figures, processes, or manipulates, and convert it into information The computer is programmable, meaning that it all depends upon what program it is using for performing a particular function

 Classifications of computers:

Computer can be classified into four different types according to the size, speed and cost The four main types of computers includes Supercomputer, Mainframe computer, Minicomputer and Microcomputer The most powerful and the largest

computer is supercomputer which allows multiprocessing and lots of users to

access at the same time Supercomputer is normally used for special tasks in aerospace, satellite, chemical, electronics, weather forecasts and nuclear power

industries Mainframe computer is designed to meet the needs of large organization with large databases Minicomputer is smaller than a mainframe

computer, but big enough to cater a medium sized organization or a small-scale

business Microcomputer is designed to meet the needs of an individual and thus is

also called as Personal Computers Microcomputers could be PCs or desktops or laptops or even notebooks

 Elements of computers:

The all types of computers mentioned above may different in shapes, sizes and purposes but all of them have certain characteristics in common

 Hardware refers to the physical parts of the computer or includes anything in

the computer that we can touch Hardware can be divided into four main categories They are processor, memory, input and output devices, and storage devices

 Software brings life into the computer Software guides the hardware how to do

its job by different programs System software and application software are two categories of software

 People are a part of the computing process The people are sometimes directly

or indirectly involved in the computing process Therefore, the computer works under the control of human and can never be the boss People involved in the

computing process can broadly classified into users (end users), power users, and

computer professionals

 Data includes all the information that can be accepted, processed or stored by a

computer This information may be in the form of text documents, images, audio

clips, software programs, or others

 Procedures are the steps that a user follows to make the computer work, and the steps that the computer follows to accomplish the instructions given by the user

All these elements have to be organized in such a way that each element works smoothly and efficiently, both individually and in coordination with others During the computing process, computers integrate all these five elements

 Characteristics of computers:

According to Deepak Bharihok (2000), there are seven main features of computers

 Speed: A computer can perform billions of calculations in a second It takes

only few seconds for calculations that we take hours to complete The speed of a

computer is measured in Mega Hertz (MHz) or Gega Hertz (GHz)

 Storage: A computer can store massive amount of data This data can be used

and reused for years (unless something goes wrong with the hardware) The storage capacity of a computer is measured in Mega Byte, Gega Byte or Tera

Byte

 Accuracy: Computers can perform operations and process data with accurate

results and no errors The errors in computer are due to human and incorrect

data

 Versatility: A computer is versatile that means it can perform different types of

tasks and be used in various fields such as at schools, universities, hospitals,

government organization or at home for entertainment and work purposes

 Automation: A computer is an intelligent device and it is capable of functioning

automatically, once the process is given to the computer When it is programmed for an activity in advance, it keeps doing it till it finishes, without

any human intervention

 Diligence: Human beings normally suffer from physical and mental fatigue, so

they cannot perform work with the same speed and accuracy Unlike a human, a computer is free from tiredness, lack of concentration or fatigue It can work for

hours or perform tasks with the same speed and accuracy

 Reliability: All the above qualities of computers make them reliable and also

make us too dependent on them

3.2.2 Communication technology

The second component is Communication technology or Telecommunication

technology, consists of electromagnetic devices and systems for communicating over long distances Communication technology refers to all the technology used to handle telecommunications, broadcast media, intelligent building management systems, audiovisual processing and transmission systems, and network-based control and monitoring functions.
 It contains three sub-parts as following:

 Communication: the sending and receiving of data and information over a

communications network

 Communications Network: a set of locations, or nodes, consisting of hardware,

programs, and information linked together as a system that transmits and receives data and information

 Data Communication: the transmission of data and information through a

communications medium

3.3 What are the main functions of information technology?

Figure 2: The five functions of information technology

 Capture: The process of compiling detailed records of activities

 Processing: The process of converting, analyzing, computing, and synthesizing

all forms of data or information including: Data Processing, Information Processing, Word Processing, Image Processing, Voice Processing

 Generation: The process of organizing information into a useful form, whether

as numbers, text, sound, or visual image

 Storage and Retrieval: Storage is the computer process of retaining information

for future use Retrieval is the process by which a computer locates and copies stored data or information for further processing or for transmission to another user

 Transmission: The computer process of distributing information over a

communications network like Electronic Mail, or E-Mail, Voice Messaging, or Voice Mail

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

1 Introduction

This chapter presents the result of the data analysis of common English compound nouns in information technology and the translation strategies applied to translate these compound nouns into Vietnamese The chapter will be divided into three main sections Apart from the chapter introduction, the second and third sections serve to present the findings of data analysis to find the answers to the two research questions Finally, a brief chapter summary will be given

The data involved in the study are taken mainly from three books: “Oxford English for Information Technology” and “Oxford English for Computing”; and Microsoft Computer Dictionary (e-book format)

2 English IT compound nouns in some IT documents and their Vietnamese equivalents in the dictionary or on the Internet

The three books: “Oxford English for Information Technology” and “Oxford English for Computing”; and “Microsoft Computer Dictionary” are the main

resources for the study’s data Most IT compound nouns presented in this study are largely collected from the three books mentioned above and their Vietnamese

meanings or equivalents are found in some dictionaries or searched on the Internet

The development of information technology entails increasing occurrence of terms, especially compound terms to describe new concepts or new objects, which requires that readers have understanding of the formation and structure of compound terms

so that they can really get benefit from what they deal with

It is a fact that in compound nouns, the exact relationship between the words depends on the particular expression, but all these expressions have one thing in common: the last word in the chain says what the thing is, while the preceding word

or group of words describes the thing, which is termed “classifier” This order is opposite in Vietnamese For example,

 Network configuration information => Thông tin cấu hình mạng

2.1 Compound nouns formed by Noun and Noun

The most common structure or formation of a compound noun is noun and noun The head noun (last noun) tells us about the thing is mentioning and the first noun

or group of nouns can tell us what the second noun is made of, what it is for, or what it is part of

17 bootstrap program chương trình tự khởi động

19 character generator bộ tạo ký tự

20 character generator bộ tạo ký tự

24 visual display unit bộ hiển thị

Table 4: Compound nouns formed by Noun and Noun 2.2 Compound nouns formed by Adjective and Noun

A compound noun including an adjective and a noun is the second popular structure

of a compound noun In this case, the preceding adjective modifies the noun to

create a compound terms such as binary number (số nhị phân), hierarchical database (cơ sở dữ liệu phân cấp), active window (cửa sổ hiện hành, computer- based training (đào tạo trên máy tính), etc

1 absolute address địa chỉ tuyệt đối

the computer's power button)

12 fake code mật mã giả

22 integramming language mạch tổ hợp

25 programming language ngôn ngữ lập trình

Table 5: Compound nouns formed by Adjective and Noun

2.3 Compound nouns formed by Preposition/ Adverbs and Verb