A study of english vietnamese translation of journal article abstracts

This paper is intended to look at the theories of translation and the theories oftranslation and the existing translation of scientific texts, and in a more detailedmanner, of journal-ar

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES ******

NGUYỄN THỊ HUYÊN

A STUDY OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF

JOURNAL-ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

Nghiên cứu việc dịch phần tóm tắt của một số bài báo khoa học chuyên ngành

từ tiếng Anh sang tiếng Việt

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Hanoi – 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES ******

NGUYỄN THỊ HUYÊN

A STUDY OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF

JOURNAL-ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

Nghiên cứu việc dịch phần tóm tắt của một số bài báo khoa học chuyên ngành

từ tiếng Anh sang tiếng Việt

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field Code Supervisor

: English Linguistics : 60220201

: Assoc Prof Dr Trần Xuân Điệp

Hanoi – 2015

I , Nguyễn Thị Huyên, hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “A study

of English-Vietnamese Translation of Journal-Article Abstracts”is the study of my

own research to fulfill the M.A Degree at Faculty of Post Graduate Studies,Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and InternationalStudies.The substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to anyother university or institution

Hanoi, 2015Signature

Nguyễn Thị Huyên

First of all, I would like to express my thanks to all my lecturers at theFaculty of Post Graduate Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi University ofLanguages and International Studies, for their lectures and valuable supports duringthe process of doing this paper

To my supervisor, Associate Professor Doctor Trần Xuân Điệp, I owe aspecial debt of gratitude for his guidance, his valuable advice, suggestions,comments and criticism I would also like to show my sincere thanks for hispatience and interest in this paper

I also would like to take this opportunity to thank my friends and colleaguesfor their suggestions, and assistance, during the process of preparing and findingmaterials for this research

Finally, I would like to show my deep gratitude to my parents, my husbandand my little twins for their love, support and encouragement during the time Icarried out this study

This paper is intended to look at the theories of translation and the theories oftranslation and the existing translation of scientific texts, and in a more detailedmanner, of journal-article abstracts which belong to this text type The knowledge,skills and experiences gained is then employed to deal with their English-Vietnamese translation of journal-article abstracts

TABLE OF CONTENS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

TABLE OF CONTENS v

PART A - INTRODUCTION 1

1.Rationale of the study 1

2 Scope of the study 2

3 Research question ……….… 2

4 Aims of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 2

6. Organization of the study ……… ………

……… 3

PART B - DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.What is translation? 5

2 Translation procedures and strategies 5

2.1 Transference 6

2.2 Shifts or transpositions 6

3 Technical translation 7

3.1 Definitions of technical translation 7

3.2 Translation method of technical terms 7

4 Translation of Neologisms 8

4.1 Definition of Neologisms 8

4.2 Types of Neologisms and the translation 8

4.2.1 Old words with new senses 9

4.2.2 Derived words 9

4.2.3 Acronyms 9

5 The translation of non-equivalence at word level 10

5.1 Definition and common problems of non- equivalence at word level 10

5.1.1 The SL concept is not lexicalized in the TL 11

5.1.2.The SL is semantically complex 11

5.1.3.Differences in form 11

5.2 Strategies for non – equivalence by professional translators 12

5.2.1 A calque translation 13

5.2.2 Loan word without an explanation 13

5.2.3 Loan transcription 13

6 Terminology 14

6.1 Definition of terminology 14

6.2.1 Accurateness 15

6.2.2 Systematism 15

6.2.3 Internationalism 16

6.2.4 Nationalism 16

6.2.5 Popularity 16

6.2.6 Creation of terminology 17

6.2.7 The distinction between terms and words 17

7 Journal-article abstracts……… ………… 18

CHAPTER II 20

TERMINOLOGY IN THE TRANSLATION OF SELECTED JOURNAL–ARTICLE ABSTRACTS 20

1 Classification of terminology in the translation of selected journal-article abstracts 20

1.1 One-word terms and Neologisms 20

1.1.1 One-word terms in the form of verbs 20

1.1.2 One-word terms in the form of nouns 20

CHAPTHER III: 25

SOME STRATEGIES IN THE TRANSLATION OF THE SECLECTED JOURNAL-ARTICLE ABSTRACTS 25

1 Calque / Loan translation 25

2 Shift or Transposition 28

PART C – CONCLUSION 31

1 Recapitulation 31

2 Implications of the study ……… 31

3 Concluding remarks ……… ………… 32

4 Limitations of the study……… ……… 33

5 Suggestions for further study 33

APPENDIX I I

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 isessential

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 itself 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 of the translation of scientific texts ingeneral and journal-article abstracts in particular

For these listed reasons, the study is focused to study translation of journal-article abstracts for this MA thesis with the expectation of thatthe study can contribute to translation theory in general view and translation ofjournal-article abstracts in particular

English-Vietnamese-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 Five abstracts are collected to support for the research

journal-More specially, the study focuses on terminology translation; the equivalencearchieved and the process employed in translation of journal-article abstracts Theequivalence for terminology examined in this paper is limited to word level only

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

4 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

5 Methods of the study

In order to achieve the goal of the study, the main method is quantitative dataanalysis The source of data is documented gathered then analyzed to ensure bothqualitative and quantitive properties of the study Data is categorized into patterns

as the primary basis for organizing and reporting results Qualitative data analysisallows the researcher to study terms clearly It also enables multiple analyticstrategies

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, ít developmentbases on clarifying and analyzing journal-article abtracts in particular and scientific

in general 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

journal-article abstracts

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 of journal-article abstracts

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

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

of Translation, defines translation as “the placement of textual material in one

language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language(target language).” Holding the same opinion, Wills (1982a: 112) argues,

“Translation is a procedure which leads from a written source language text (SLT)

to an optimally equivalent target language text (TLT).”

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

2 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:

„EPS‟ (Electrical Power system), „PTC2‟ (Power transmission Company 2),

„HMMs‟ (Hidden Markov Models), „VQ‟ (Vector Quantization),„PES‟ (Potential energy surfaces), „ISO‟ (International Standard Organization).

2.2 Shifts or transpositions

“Shifts” is the term proposed by Catford, whereas “transpositions” by Vinay

& Darbelnet (1958) is the procedure which is applied when the translation involves

a change in grammar from SL to TL There are four types of shifts:

- 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, forexample, the gerund or the active or passive participle construction which are normallytranslated 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 For

instance, the Vietnamese equivalent of the compound noun unsecured stock in English 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 of specializedtranslation; it is primarily distinguished from other forms of translation by terminology,although terminology usually only makes up about 5-10% of a text”

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 ofall, it is necessary to read it first to understand it and then to assess it, its degree offormality, its intention, the possible cultural and professional differences betweenthe readership and the original one The translator also needs to account foreverything, 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 fortranslators 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 followings are the most popular types of neologism which appear in journal-article abstracts

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 byword 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), function

„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 thesekinds such as:

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-article abstract like „WB‟ (World Bank),„WTO‟ (World Trade Organization), „ISO‟ (International Standard Organization) Acronyms

which stand for institutions and names 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 equivalent whichmeet 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 have mentionedthis issue and among them Mona Baker is one of the most prominent with his ownexperience in this problem

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

According to Baker (1994:20) “Non- equivalence at word level means that the TL has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text.” Baker,

M (1994: 20)

Baker states that several problems are found in translation and these problems 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

 The use of loan words in the source text.

Some of these non-equivalence often exist 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 Howeverthere 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: 22)

An example of an English word biosensor,- (cảm biến từ sinh học) for

example, has no equivalent in Vietnamese therefore it is often paraphrased

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: 24)

Several suffixes contributing to the meaning of the words in the textbookinvestigated are easy to paraphrase propositional meaning, but difficult to spell out

other types of meaning, for example, the words which denote people such as vector,

sensor, transferee The –er, -or, -ee in Vietnam have no direct equivalent in

producing such form so it is often replaced by a paraphrase, depending on themeaning they convey

5.2 Strategies used by professional translators in dealing with non-equivalence

In dealing with various types of non-equivalence, a number of strategies havebeen 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

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 called

loan words Throughout the history of any languages, most of the loan words are

professional or technical terms of all branches English itself has thousands of words

borrowed from other languages such as, force majeur from French sauna from Finnish, siesta from Spanish Similarly, in Vietnamese language the number of loan words is remarkable, mostly from Chinese, French and English, for example matxa from French, taxi from English, sơn hào hải vi ̣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 concepts whichare totally strange to users of the borrowing language As in the case of Vietnamese

people, they may be have never eaten pizza, hamburger or drunk whisky before theysee them in foreign country and appropriated them along with their names.

These are the most straightforward types of borrowing, however borrowed

words may appear in the other forms such as the borrowed word m¸t-xa in

Vietnamese Therefore, there are many ways to form borrowed words likeconstructing a calque, or loan translation; loan transcription or borrowing directlywith or without an explanation

5.2.1 A calque translation

A calque or loan translation is the way that a new word is constructed bytaking a foreign word as a model and translating it morpheme by morpheme It issaid to be the most popular and appropriate way to assimilate foreign words For

instance, the word black market is translated as chơ ̣đen, White House as Nhà trắng , supermarket as siêu thi ̣ Yet, the creation of word meaning from English into

Vietnamese in this way is not always possible as it may causes some difficulties inunderstanding the propositional 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 mass media and

understood by hearers widely This is one of the good ways to preserve the sourcelanguage meaning, however, it may cause troubles in writing and pronouncing forVietnamese 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

as well as to write loan words, yet, there is no unique rule to regulate their writing

in target 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 (1960:176), “Terminology is a word or combination of words that is used in science,technology politics, art… and it has a specific meaning, denotes precise conceptsand names of the above-mentioned scientific areas” Do Huu Chau (1998) claims

“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 of wordswhich 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 Theseare “special linguistic units in specialized fields or branches of human knowledge”.Not only that, terminology is also important lexicon in each language Terminologycan show the development of science, technology of that society

6.2 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 the

following qualities: accurateness, systematism, internationalism, nationalism, practicality and popularity

6.2.1 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 not only the sum of itscomponent‟s meanings Luu Van Lang (1977) claimed that each linguistic signalposes one basic nuclear meaning and vice versa a concept also has a typicallinguistic signal in a concrete situation Newmark (1998) also said that concept-words are notorious for their different meanings in various technologies Therefore,when a term is created in a specific field, it is necessary to take into account itshomophone or synonymy which are often seen in linguistics For instance, in

literature title- tiêu đề is understood as name of a book, work of art, whereas, in economic language it is a right to ownership of property with or without possession and quyền sởhữu is typical term in this field In short, it is advisable to bear in mind

the one-to- one equivalent between a concept and a term in the translation ofterminology

6.2.2 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 terms 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 ofterminologies among terminologists Some say the typical characteristic ofterminology is the systematic formation, whilst others claim that it is the feature of

content 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 determines

its position in the system In the system of scientific terms suffixes –er, -or, -ee are

used to indicate people, thus there are employer, creditor, transferee.

6.2.3 Internationalism

As mentioned above, terms are special words expressing common scientificconcepts Together with the development, cooperation and scientific and technologicalexchanges among countries throughout the world, terms are internationalized Theglobalization enables terminology to be used more popularly in different languages so

as to make the international science develop faster As a result of this process, thereexists a number of terms being internationalized in different languages namelymedicine (names of illness, medicines, physics, telecom, computer and especially in

business and commerce such as scientific acronyms including GDP (Gross Domestic Product), WTO (World Trade Organization), CIF (Cost Insurance Freight).etc.,

In a word, these are the important characteristics of terminology in their commonuse Based on the criteria of terminology, each language may require other principles inaccordance with its culture Accordingly, terminology in Vietnamese is not an exception; it

has its typical characteristics including nationalism and popularity.

6.2.4 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

For example:

6.2.5 Popularity

It is this characteristic of terminology which can bring scientific andtechnological progress to all people As a component of linguistics, terminology plays

an important role in pushing up the development of science, hence it should becomprehensible to all people in its way of reading, writing, speaking and memorizing

In summary, the general characteristics of terminology have been reviewed They are the vital principles in the creation and existence of terminologies in science and technology.

It is common knowledge that technological terminology is volatile due to thechanges and continual development of science and technology Both primary andsecondary term formation in technology is affected by a proliferation of variants andsynonyms which occur to satisfy the need for popular versions of scientific termsand product differentiation

6.2.7 The distinction between terms and words