A study of english – vietnamese translation of journal article abstracts

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG ---NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP Sinh viên: Phạm Thị Nghĩa Mã SV: 1312751029 Tên đề tài: A study of English – Vietnamese translation

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG

:Phạm Thị Nghĩa hướng dẫn: ThS Bùi Thị Mai Anh

HẢI PHÒNG - 2019

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG

-A STUDY OF ENGLISH – VIETN -AMESE TR -ANSL -ATION OF

JOURNAL ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐẠI HỌC HỆ CHÍNH QUY

NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH

Giảng viên hướng dẫn:ThS Bùi Thị Mai Anh

HẢI PHÒNG - 2019

2

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG

-NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP

Sinh viên: Phạm Thị Nghĩa Mã SV: 1312751029

Tên đề tài: A study of English – Vietnamese translation of journal

article abstracts

NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI

1 Nội dung và các yêu cầu cần giải quyết trong nhiệm vụ đề tài tốt nghiệp ( về lý luận, thực tiễn, các số liệu cần tính toán và các bản vẽ)

………

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2 Các số liệu cần thiết để thiết kế, tính toán ………

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3 Địa điểm thực tập tốt nghiệp ………

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CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP Người hướng dẫn thứ nhất:

Họ và tên: Bùi Thị Mai Anh

Học hàm, học vị: Thạc Sĩ

Cơ quan công tác: Trường Đại Học Dân Lập Hải Phòng

Nội dung hướng dẫn:

A study of English – Vietnamese translation of journal article abtracts

Người hướng dẫn thứ hai:

Họ và tên:

Học hàm, học vị:

Cơ quan công tác:

Nội dung hướng dẫn:

Đề tài tốt nghiệp được giao ngày tháng

Yêu cầu phải hoàn thành xong trước ngày

năm tháng năm

Đã nhận nhiệm vụ ĐTTN

Sinh viên

Đã giao nhiệm vụ ĐTTN

Người hướng dẫn

Hải Phòng, ngày tháng năm 2019

Hiệu trưởng

GS.TS.NGƯT Trần Hữu Nghị

PHẦN NHẬN XÉT CỦA CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN

1 Tinh thần thái độ của sinh viên trong quá trình làm đề tài tốt nghiệp:

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2 Đánh giá chất lượng của khóa luận (so với nội dung yêu cầu đã đề ra trong nhiệm vụ Đ.T T.N trên các mặt lý luận, thực tiễn, tính toán số liệu…): ………

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3 Cho điểm của cán bộ hướng dẫn (ghi bằng cả số và chữ): ………

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Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng … năm

Cán bộ hướng dẫn

(Ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

I would like to give my sincere thanks those who have taken part in myresearch and those who have given their support and encouragement during thetime I have conducted this study

First of all, I would like express my special thanks to my supervisor BuiThi Mai Anh, M.A for her careful reading, critical and useful comments andcontinental guidance and patience throughout my thesis Her contribution plays

an important role in the completion of my study Without her guidance Iwouldn’t have successfully completed my study

Secondly, I wish to thank the whole English department staff of HaiPhongPrivate University for their useful lectures and advice

Lastly, I also would like to thank my family and friends for theirencouragement and precious time during my study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii

LIST OF TABLES iii

PART A – INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

2 Scope of the study

3 Aims of the study

4 Research questions

5 Methods of the study

6 Organization of the study

PART B - DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Definition of Translation

2 Translation procedures and strategies

2.1 Transference

2.2 Shifts or transposition

3 Technical translation

3.1 Definitions of technical translation

3.2 Translation method of technical terms

4 Translation of Neologism

4.1 Definition of Neologism

4.2 Types of Neologisms and the translation

4.2.1 Old words with new senses

4.2.2 Derived words

4.2.3 Acronyms

5 The translation of non-equivalence at word level

5.1 Definition and common problems of non- equivalence at word level

5.1.1 The SL concept is not lexicalized in the TL

5.1.2 The SL is semantically complex

5.1.3 Differences in form

5.2 Strategies for non-equivalence by professional translators

5.2.1 A loan translation

5.2.2 Loan word without an explanation

5.2.3 Loan transcription

6 Terminology

6.1 Definition of terminology

6.2 Accurateness

6.3 Systematism

6.4 International

6.5 Nationalism

6.6 Popularity

6.7 Creation of terminology

6.8 The distinction between terms and words

7 Journal-article

CHAPTER II: TERMINOLOGIES IN THE TRANSLATION OF SELECTED JOURNAL ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

1 Classification of terminology in the translation of select journal-article abstract

1.1 One-word terms and Neologisms

1.2 One-word terms in the form of verb

1.3 One-word terms in the form of noun

1.3.1 Subtechnical terms

1.3.2 Scientific acronyms

CHAPTER III: SOME STRATEGIES IN THE TRANSLATION OF THE SELECTED JOURNAL-ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

1 Loan translate

2 Literal Translation

3 Tranposition

4 Modulation

PART C: CONCLUSION

1.Recapitulation

2.Implications of the study

3 Concluding remarks

4.Limitations of the study

5 Suggestions for further study

REFERENCES

PART A - INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Translation nowadays plays a more and more important role as a bridgeshortening the gaps between two or more languages Whether for daily interaction

to entertainment or academic purposes, it is undeniable that bi-lingual text/speech

is essential

As an introduction and vital part of a research article, journal-article abstractand its translation and the translation of scientific texts in general is a guide toacademic readers before the articles themselves However, the study of this kind oftranslation is still limited to individual researches Moreover, in an introductorysummary as abstract, many of the concepts, or in other words, terminology cannot

be fully explained; therefore, a study into how the translators deal with this matterwould be worth looking at

This present study has made an attempt to study English-Vietnamesetranslation of journal-article abstracts which embraces its most important aspects,namely, the translation method of the terminology

The study starts with some related concepts in translation to lay thefoundation for the research, particularly, the translation methods, procedures andequivalence are of great importance Then, in the main part, the study comes toinvestigate the translation of selected journal-article abstracts with focus on theirterminology and translation strategies The main part deals with the strategies ofthe translation of scientific texts in general and journal-article abstracts inparticular

For these listed reasons, the study is focused to study English-Vietnamesetranslation of journal-article abstracts for this final graduation thesis with theexpectation of that the study can contribute to translation theory in general viewand translation of journal-article abstracts in particular

2 Scope of the study

The study is limited to the revisit of theories of translation, especially those

of scientific texts and the application of them to look at the translation of article abstracts Four abstracts are collected to support for the research

journal-More specially, the study focuses on terminology translation; theequivalence archieved and the process employed in translation of journal-articleabstracts The equivalence for terminology examined in this paper is limited toword level only

3 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at:

- Revisiting translation study, especially translation theory of scientific text and terminology to avoid the confuse at meaning of terms on word level only

- Looking at the procedure and equivalence of terminology translation of

terminology of the chosen journal-article abstracts from English into Vietnamese

- Providing some suggestions for translating term in journal-article abstract to achieve an accurate, unambiguous translation based on the results of the study

4 Research questions

The objectives above will be achieved through answering the following questions:

- What are the common types of equivalence used in the translation of the chosen journal-article abstracts?

- What are the strategies employed to achieve these types of equivalence?

5 Methods of the study

In order to achieve the goal of the study, the main method is quantitativedata analysis The source of data is documented gathered then analyzed to ensureboth qualitative and quantitive properties of the study Data is categorized intopatterns as the primary basis for organizing and reporting results Qualitative dataanalysis allows the researcher to study terms clearly It also enables multipleanalytic strategies

Firstly, the study goes through a number of theories on translation to build

up a theoretical background for the paper

Then, as it was stated in the aims and scope of the study, development bases

on clarifying and analyzing journal-article abstracts in particular and scientific ingeneral Therefore, to accomplish the thesis, a flexible combination of methods isemployed, which embraces reference to publications, and description of results

6 Organization of the study

The study consists of three main parts:

Part A - Introduction

The rationale of the study is given in this part It also explains the scope,aims, method and organization of the study

Part B - Development

Chapter I: Theoretical background

This chapter forms the theoretical background of the study, which looks atthe theory of translation, terminology and translation equivalence, translationmethod and procedures to study English-Vietnamese translation of journal-articleabstracts

Chapter II: Terminology achieved in English-Vietnamese translation of article abstracts

journal-This chapter provides details of terminology achieved during the translation

of English-Vietnamese of journal-article abstracts

Chapter III: Some strategies employed for the translation of English-Vietnamese ofjournal-article abstracts

This chapter looks at some strategies professional translators employ totranslate the selected English-Vietnamese journal-article abstracts

Part C – Conclusion

This part summarizes the study, its theoretical background, data analysis andfindings Moreover, the limitations of the study and suggestions for furtherresearch to tackle these limitations are also provided

PART B - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In a more detailed manner, Catford (1967), in his book A Linguistic Theory ofTranslation, defines translation as the placement of textual material in onelanguage (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language(target language).Holding the same opinion, Wills (1982) argues, Translation is aprocedure which leads from a written source language text (SLT) to an optimallyequivalent target language text (TLT)

Nida, E.A (1975) claimd: “translating consists in producing in the receptorlanguage that closest natural equivalent to the message of the SL, first in meaningsecond in style”

Those definitions above though differ from their expressions; they all share thesame essence of translation which lies in the preservation of semantic, pragmatic,and textual aspects of meaning across two different languages

1 Translation procedures and strategies

According to Newmark (1988), translation procedures are used for thetranslation of sentences and the smaller units of language The followings are thetranslation strategies and procedures proposed by Newmark:

- Transference

- Naturalization

- Cultural equivalent

For example: EPS (Electrical Power system), PTC2 (Power transmissionCompany 2), HMM (Hidden Markov Models), VQ (Vector Quantization), PES(Potential energy surfaces), ISO (International Standard Organization).

2.2 Shift or transpositions

Shift is the term proposed by Catford, whereas transpositions by Vinay;Darbelnet (1958) is the procedure which is applied when the translation involves achange in grammar from SL to TL There are four types of shifts/ tranposition:

- The change from singular to plural or in the position of the adjective;

- The change when the SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL,for example, the gerund or the active or passive participle construction which arenormally translated by a clause in TL;

- The change where the literal translation is grammatically possible but may not accord with natural usage in the TL;

- The replacement of a virtual lexical gap by a grammatical structure Forinstance, the Vietnamese equivalent of the compound noun unsecured stock inEnglish is the clause chứng khoán không được bảo đảm

In summary, above are popular procedures used in the translation ofterminology from English into Vietnamese

3 Technical translation

3.1 Definitions of technical translation

According to Newmark (1988) Technical translation is one part ofspecialized translation; it is primarily distinguished from other forms of translation

by terminology, although terminology usually only makes up about 5-10% of atext

Sofer (1999) claims that the translation of a text may be called technicalwhen it requires specialized terms in a particular field

From the definitions given by Newmark and Sofer, it is clear that specializedterminology in a text being translated is the first signal of technical translation

3.2 Translation method of technical terms

Newmark (1988) suggests some useful steps for technical translation First

of all, it is necessary to read it first to understand it and then to assess it, its degree

of formality, its intention, the possible cultural and professional differencesbetween the readership and the original one The translator also needs to accountfor everything, every word, every figure, letter and punctuation mark

During the process of translation there may be words and structurescontaining existential problems Therefore, Newmark recommends that translatorsshould pay attention to words with prefixes or suffixes Also, it is essential for

translators to take into account semi-empty words; verbs required a recasting of the

TL sentence and pun words

4 Translation of Neologisms

4.1 Definition of Neologisms

As Newmark (1988) claimed: “Neologisms can be defined as newly coinedlexical units or existing lexical units that acquire new sense” The main reason thatleads to the arrival of neologisms is that new objects and processes are continuallycreated in technology, new ideas and variations on feeling come to the media andnew terms from the social science, slang, dialect and transferred words come intothe main stream of language Newmark also proposes twelve types of neologismsand the translation of each type

4.2 Types of Neologisms and the translation

- Old word with new senses: words, collocation

- The creation of neologisms

The followings are the most popular types of neologism which appear in article abstracts

journal-4.2.1 Old words with new senses

These words do not normally refer to new objects or processes and arenormally non-cultural, so they are rarely technological They are translated either

by word that already exist in the TL, or by a brief functional or descriptive term

For example: conveyer (băng tải), backstepping (chuyển động bám quỹ đạo),and function (hàm)

Existing collocations with new senses may be cultural or non-cultural; if theconcept exists in the TL, there is usually a recognized translation or through-translation

For example: break – sự sụt giá

If the concept does not exist

For example: call money – tiền gửi không kỳ hạn or the TL speakers are notyet aware of it, an economical descriptive equivalent has to be given

4.2.2 Derived words

Newmark (1988) claims that: “The great majority of neologisms are wordsderived by analogy from ancient Greek and Latin morphemes usually with suffixessuch as: ismo, -ismus, -ija, etc., naturalized in the appropriate language”

This word-forming procedure is employed mainly to designate scientific andtechnological rather than cultural institutional terms A great number of scientificterms investigated are noun with suffixes -er, -or, -ee to indicate people, employer,creditor, transferee

4.2.3 Acronyms

Newmark (1988) defines an acronym as the initial letters of words that form

a group of words used (vertiginously) for denoting an object, institution orprocedure Sometimes, the acronyms can be typically coined for the text and can

be found within the text therefore it is not necessary to look for it in the variousreference books

In journal-article abstracts, there are several acronyms of these kinds suchas: WMO (World Meteorological Organization), CPSC (Consumer Product

Commission), FTC (Federal Trade Commission), FRB (Federal Reserve Bank).Besides, we can find several terms being internationalisms in some journal-articleabstract like: WB (World Bank), WTO (World Trade Organization), ISO(International Standard Organization) Acronyms which stand for institutions andnames like these are usually transferred.

5 The translation of non-equivalence at word level

When doing the translation in general and translation of terminology inparticular, it is really necessary to find out whether the term has an equivalentwhich meets the criteria of terminology In fact there are many cases in which it isimpossible to find equivalent for certain terms and this is one of the difficulties thattranslator often meet in their translation Many linguistic translators havementioned this issue and among them Mona Baker is one of the most prominentwith his experience in this problem

5.1 Definition and common problems of non- equivalence at word level

According to Baker (1994) - equivalence at word level means that the TLhas no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text Baker, M.(1994)

Baker states that several problems are found in translation and theseproblems lead to the appearance of non-equivalence:

 Culture-specific concepts

 The SL concept is not lexicalized in the TL

 The SL is semantically complex

 The source and TL make different distinctions in meaning

 The TL lacks a super-ordinate

 The TL lacks a specific term

 Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective

 Differences in expressive meaning

 Differences in forms

 Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms

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 The use of loan words in the source text.

Some of this non-equivalence often exists in dealing with the translation ofterminology

5.1.1 The SL concept is not lexicalized in the TL

The concept expressed in the SL is understood by people in the TL.However there has been no specific word that is it has not been “lexicalized” in the

TL The word marketing, for example, has no really equivalent in Vietnamese,although it is understood as “gathering of buyers and sellers of provisions”

5.1.2 The SL is semantically complex

A single word which consists of a single morpheme can sometimes express amore complex set of meanings than a whole sentence We do not usually realizehow semantically complex word is until we have to translate it into a languagewhich does not have an equivalent for it

Baker, M (1994) an example of an English word “biosensor” - (cảm biến từsinh học) for example, has no equivalent in Vietnamese therefore it is oftenparaphrased

5.1.3 Differences in form

There is no equivalent in the TL for a particular form in the SL Certainsuffixes and prefixes which convey propositional and other type of meaning inEnglish often have no direct equivalent in other language

Baker, M (1994) several suffixes contributing to the meaning of the words

in the textbook investigated are easy to paraphrase propositional meaning, butdifficult to spell out other types of meaning

For example: The words which denote people such as vector, sensor, andtransferen The -er, -or, -ee in Vietnam have no direct equivalent in producing suchform so it is often replaced by a paraphrase, depending on the meaning theyconvey

5.2 Strategies used by professional translators in dealing with

non-equivalence

In dealing with various types of non-equivalence, a number of strategies have been employed as follows:

- Translation by a more general word

- Translation by a more neutral, less expressive word

- Translation by cultural substitution

- Translation using a loan word or a loan word plus an explanation

- Translation by paraphrase using a related word

- Translation by paraphrase using unrelated word

- Translation by omission

- Translation by illustration

(Baker, 1994) Of these strategies, translation using a loan word or a loanword plus an explanation, translation by paraphrase using a related word,translation by paraphrase using unrelated word and translation by omission are themost common in translation of scientific terms

Loan translation is most preferable in dealing with terminology This is alsoknown as the process of “borrowing” and the words which are borrowed are calledloan words Throughout the history of any languages, most of the loan words areprofessional or technical terms of all branches

English itself has thousands of words borrowed from other languages suchas: “force majeur” from French “sauna” from Finnish, “siesta” from Spanish.Similarly, in Vietnamese language the number of loan words is remarkable, mostlyfrom Chinese, French and English

For example: “matxa” from French, “taxi” from English, “sơn hào hải vị”from Chinese, “su mô” from Japanese, etc.,

There are many reasons to explain why one language borrows words fromthe other but the most noticeable is that these words denote specific conceptswhich are totally strange to users of the borrowing language As in the case of

Vietnamese people, they may be have never eaten pizza, hamburger or drinkwhisky before they see them in foreign country and appropriated them along withtheir names.

These are the most straightforward types of borrowing; however borrowedwords may appear in the other forms such as the borrowed word “mát-xa” inVietnamese Therefore, there are many ways to form borrowed words likeconstructing a loan translation; loan transcription or borrowing directly with orwithout an explanation

5.2.1 A loan translation

A loan translation is the way that a new word is constructed by taking aforeign word as a model and translating it morpheme by morpheme It is said to bethe most popular and appropriate way to assimilate foreign words

For instance: the word “black marke”t is translated as “chợ đen”, “WhiteHouse” as “Nhà Trắng”, “supermarket” as “siêu thị”

Yet, the creation of word meaning from English into Vietnamese in this way

is not always possible as it may causes some difficulties in understanding thepropositional meaning of the word

5.2.2 Loan word without an explanation

It is easy to realize that many Vietnamese people like using loan words fromother languages directly without an explanation These words are written in thesame way as in the source language and pronounced as the native words

For example: the words “fax”, “bar”, “computer” are spoken on the massmedia and understood by hearers widely

This is one of the good ways to preserve the source language meaning;however, it may cause troubles in writing and pronouncing for Vietnamese users.5.2.3 Loan transcription

In order to avoid borrowing directly, translators use another way to solve outthe problem of loan words, that is, loan transcription

For example, the loan words in Vietnamese “check” – “séc”, “massage” –

“mát – xa” are normally written with or without a hyphen

This translation seems to be easier for users of the target language to read aswell as to write loan words, yet, there is no unique rule to regulate their writing intarget language resulting to the free-style of writing

6 Terminology

6.1 Definition of terminology

Up to now there are various definitions of terminology by many linguists Inthe Russian Encyclopedia (1976) terminology is defined as “a word or acombination of words that denotes the concept precisely and its relationship withother concepts in a specific area Terminology is a specialized and restrictedexpression on things, phenomena, characteristics, and the relationship in a specificprofession”

This definition has many features in common with those approached bymany Vietnamese linguists such as the one proposed by Nguyen Van Tu (1960):

“Terminology is a word or combination of words that is used in science,technology politics, art and it has a specific meaning, denotes precise concepts andnames of the above-mentioned scientific areas” Do Huu Chau (1998) claimd:

“Terms are specialist words used within a scientific field, a profession or anytechnological field” According to Nguyen Thien Giap (1981), “Terminology is asection of special lexis of a language It consists of fixed words and groups ofwords which are accurate names of concepts and subjects belonging to differentspecialized fields of human beings”

It is clear that though these definitions are given at different times and fromdifferent situations, they all share the common characteristics of terminology.These are special linguistic units in specialized fields or branches of humanknowledge Not only that, terminology is also important lexicon in each language.Terminology can show the development of science, technology of that society

6.1.2 Characteristics of terminology

As a special unit in the lexical system of language, terminology has its owndistinctive features According to many linguists, terminology should have thefollowing qualities: accurateness, systematism, internationalism, nationalism,practicality and popularity.

6.2 Accurateness

The first quality of terminology is accurateness, that is, it expresses ascientific concept or definition concretely and precisely so that it can help to avoidthe misunderstanding one concept for another It is necessary for each term in atypical professional scale, denotes only one concept in that system

The meaning of a term is normally the combination of linguistic signals notonly the sum of its component’s meanings Luu Van Lang (1977) claimed thateach linguistic signal poses one basic nuclear meaning and vice versa a conceptalso has a typical linguistic signal in a concrete situation Newmark (1998) alsosaid that concept-words are notorious for their different meanings in varioustechnologies

Therefore, when a term is created in a specific field, it is necessary to takeinto account its homophone or synonymy which is often seen in linguistics Forinstance, in literature “title” – “tiêu đề” is understood as name of a book, work ofart, whereas, in economic language it is a right to ownership of property with orwithout possession and “quyền sở hữu” is typical term in this field

In short, it is advisable to bear in mind the one-to- one equivalent between aconcept and a term in the translation of terminology

6.3 Systematism

Systematism is the second criterion of a scientific term As a part of alanguage, each term has its own position in the system of concepts and belongs to aterminological system Each term requires its meaning in the relationship withother terms in its system Once separated from its system, its meaning is vague

Therefore, systematism is seen as one of the most important features ofterminology There is the difference in the viewpoints about the characteristics of

terminologies among terminologists Some say the typical characteristic ofterminology is the systematic formation, whilst others claim that it is the feature ofcontent However, it is the combination of both content and expression form It isimpossible to separate a concept from the system to make a term but it determinesits position in the system.

In the system of scientific terms suffixes -er, -or, -ee are used to indicatepeople, thus there are employer, creditor, transferee

6.4 Internationalism

As mentioned above, terms are special words expressing common scientificconcepts Together with the development, cooperation and scientific andtechnological exchanges among countries throughout the world terms areinternationalized The globalization enables terminology to be used more popularly

in different languages so as to make the international science develop faster As aresult of this process, there exists a number of terms being internationalized indifferent languages namely medicine (names of illness, medicines, physics,telecom, computer and especially in business and commerce such as scientificacronyms including GDP (Gross Domestic Product), WTO (World TradeOrganization), CIF (Cost Insurance Freight).etc.,

In a word, these are the important characteristics of terminology in theircommon use Based on the criteria of terminology, each language may requireother principles in accordance with its culture Accordingly, terminology inVietnamese is not an exception; it has its typical characteristics includingnationalism and popularity

6.5 Nationalism

It is undeniable that term is special linguistic unit of a language used inspecific profession; it clearly belongs to national language As a result,terminologies in Vietnamese should be imbued with Vietnamese culture andcharacteristics of Vietnamese language They should be appropriate to Vietnamesepeople from the lexicology to the grammatical composition