An analysis of english vietnamese translation of the terminologies in electronics and electrical engineering texts

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OFPOST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HÀ MY AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE TER

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

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN HÀ MY

AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN

ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL

ENGINEERING TEXTS

(Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt các thuật ngữ

chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SAU ĐẠI HỌC

NGUYỄN HÀ MY

AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION

OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS AND

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXTS

(Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt các thuật ngữ

chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử)

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, Nguyễn Hà My, herby claim the originality of my study Unless otherwise indicated, this is my own piece of academic accomplishment.

Signature

On the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my deepest gratitude

to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof Lê Hùng Tiến for his critical comments, helpfulsuggestions as well as her supportive encouragement from the beginning stage ofworking out the research proposal to the final stage of writing up the thesis Withouthis valuable guidance, this thesis would be far from completed

I take this opportunity to extent my special thanks to all lecturers of Faculty

of Post-Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, fortheir useful lectures during my course

Finally, I would also like to thank to my family and my classmates for theirgreat support and encouragement during the time I was conducting this thesis

Hanoi, November, 2018

Translation Studies always draws attention from students of English as a secondlanguage and from translators who are major in Linguistics And terminologytranslation has been also aroused more concern from translators in recent time Inthis research, the analysis of English Vietnamese translation of Electronics andElectrical engineering is studied The purpose of this research is to classifyElectronics and Electrical Engineering terminology, then figure out the strategiesused to transfer them from English to Vietnamese

Terminologies are taken from a dictionary in Electronics and Electrical Engineering.These words were categories into two groups: single (simple) and nominal(complex) After that, the analysis on these groups is made in terms of appliedstrategies For further studies, the related topics are open to many other researchers

in the application of the other majors‟ terminology and the expansion of the scope

of this study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Scope of the study 1

1.3 Aims of the study 2

1.4 Research questions 2

1.5 Organization of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1.Terminology 3

2.1.1 Definition 3

2.1.2 Term creation 4

2.1.3 Classification of EEE term 5

2.2 Translation theory 8

2.2.1 Definition 8

2.2.2 Translation strategies and procedures 9

2.2.3 Technical translation 11

2.3 Translation of terminology 12

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 15

3.1 Design of the study 15

3.2 Research method 15

3.3 Procedure of data collection 16

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 17

4.1 The common strategies and procedures used in the translation of EEE terms 17

4.1.1 Translation of the single terms by literal translation 17

4.1.2 Translation of the single terms by transference (the use of loan words)

18

4.1.3 Transference and naturalization 21

4.1.4 The translation of compound terms by transposition procedure 22

4.1.5 Other strategies and procedures 24

4.1.6 The translation of EEE terms by the use of Sino elements 26

4.2 Possible causes and solutions 26

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 29

REFERENCES 33

APPENDIX I

to be considered seriously and requires to be studied carefully with knowledge andexperience from researchers.

In translation field, terminology is seen as a challenge for translator to convey themeaning from source language into target language depending on the purpose andthe context each terminology is used And that is not exception for translation ofElectronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE) terms As a branch of English forSpecific Purposes (ESP), vocabulary related to each major is very crucial and paid alot of attention from translators also teachers to get the equivalent meaning in targetlanguage with researching or teaching targets And as a very useful tool for thischallenge, dictionary for each field has been developed to assist in transferringmeaning and helping language users save time and have a closer look on theterminology

However, the equivalence of these translation versions has not been studied to build

up an equivalence system or categorize the equivalent levels for terminology Userscan read the word in both source language and target language wondering theconveyed meaning in many circumstances

Therefore, the researcher would like to carry out this thesis research in the hope forstandardizing the equivalence system applied for terminology and classifying thetranslated words into each type of equivalence

1.2 Scope of the study

Due to limitedness of time, experience also knowledge, this paper only covers EEE

terminologies in the dictionary book: “An English – Vietnamese Usage Electricity Dictionary” by Engineer Truong Quang Thien, Quang Hung published in 2004 by

Statistics Publisher

As stated above, the researcher only chooses one book to explore and analyzeappeared terminologies

1.3 Aims of the study

 To draw out the strategies that may apply to the translation of EEE terminologies

 To suggest some implications for translating EEE terminology

1.4 Research questions

To reach the aims above, researcher is going to answer this research question:

What strategies are used to translate EEE terminologies in EEE texts?

1.5 Organization of the study

The paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter provides readers an overview of the study including the reason for choosing the topic, scope, aims, and its organization

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Theoretical background in the light of which the research matters is discussed in this chapter

Chapter 3: Methodology

The chapter describes the strategies applied to investigate the research matters

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion

This chapter presents analyses and discusses the results that the researcher found out from the collected data It also gives answer to the two research questions

Chapter 5: Conclusion

The chapter summarizes the overall study and suggests some forms of further

studies on the field

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This second chapter presents the literature review of the study or the background knowledge of translation, translation of terminology, translation equivalence To begin with, definition of translation and terminology will be shown The second focus of this chapter is on translation methods and strategies applied in transferring technical terminology.

2.1.Terminology

2.1.1 Definition

Several linguists, for a long time, raised a question about the definition ofterminology regarding to establish its structure and meaning According to Dubuc(1997), “Terminology originally referred to the technical terms and expressionsused in art, a science or a specialized subject.” In another sense, “Terminology took

a broader meaning to refer to the investigation of such special or technical terms, itinvolves the systematic research and identification of the terms specific to a subjectand the concepts they present” It has to be differentiated with normal words in dailylife or the ordinary conversation when coming to terminology, a word can has ameaning in normal sense but it can be totally different referring to a concept or aphenomenon in scientific field

Moreover, he also defined terminology as a “discipline aimed at systematicallyidentifying specialized terms in the context in which they are used, analyzing theconcepts the they present in that context, and creating and standardizing terms ifneed be, to meet the user‟s need for means of expression.”

The terminologist mentions three types of terminology: simple terms, complexterms and phrase This is one of the ways researchers can apply to record theterminologies and categorize them

Simple terms

Simple terms are one-word units which can be different parts of speech Each

represents a single concept in a subject field Architecture (n), to query (v),

dedicated (adj) are examples of simple terms in office automation.

Complex terms

Complex terms are made up of two or more words Like simple terms, they represent a

single concept in a given field and can be different parts of speech Desktop publishing (n), computer-aided design (n), integrated services digital network (n), user-friendly

(adj) are examples of complex terms in office automation Elimination of any word in acomplex unit would change the concept: desktop publishing and publishing have quitedifferent meanings, as do user-friendly and friendly

Terminological phrases

Although phrasal units are never used as main entries by the lexicographer, theyhold particular interest for the terminologist, as they constitute turns of phrasecharacteristically used in a special field Examples of phrases in office automation

include to automate office procedures (verbal), in broadcast mode (prepositional)

2.1.2 Term creation

The main purpose of terms is to name concepts When a concept appears, it is made

in a culture, or is transferred to a new culture, it also involves the creation of a newterm to name it

Primary and secondary term formation is pulled by different factors:

+ Primary term formation occurs when a newly created concept has to be namedwhile secondary term formation occurs by either the monolingual revision of a giventerminology for the purpose of producing a standard document, or a transfer ofknowledge to another linguistic community – a process in which the creation of new term

in the target language is required

+ Another fundamental difference between the two formation methods lies in thefact that in primary term formation, there is no linguistic precedent although there arerules for forming appropriate terms In contrast, in secondary term formation, there isalways the precedent of an already existing term in another language with its ownmotivation

+ Secondary term formation focuses more on guidelines than primary term

formation which are on the basis of patterns of terms and word formation alreadyprevalent in the subject field and natural language in question.

2.1.3 Classification of EEE term

Newmark (1981b) states “Neologisms which can be defined as newly coined lexicalunits or existing lexical units that acquire new sense are perhaps the non-literary andprofessional translator‟ biggest problems.” The main reason that leads to the arrival

of neologisms is that new objects and processes are continually created intechnology, new ideas and variations on feelings come to the media and new termsfrom the social sciences, slang, dialect and transferred words come into the mainstream of language Newmark (1981b) also proposes twelve types of neologismsaccording to their structural patterns: single terms and compound terms

 rectify a current (chỉnh lưu dòng điện)

 transmit signal/ wave (truyền tín hiêu / sóng)

 accelerate a beam (gia tốc chùm tia)

b Single terms which appear in the form of a noun

The terms which are nouns can be divided into subgroups as the followings:

Terminologies referring to newly created concepts

These rises a need for neologisms to name newly invented objects or processes intechnology These neologisms are initially used in the culture where the conceptsare invented Later, the concepts are transferred to other cultures, and consequentlythe original name may be transferred together with the concepts:

is applied when the translator cannot fine the true equivalence of a technical term

Eponyms derived from the names of inventors or discoveries

These are terms that designate objects, processes, laws, theorem, which are labeledafter the inventors or discoveries

For example, Morse code (Mã morse) is named after Samuel Morse (1791-1872), the U.S inventor of the first electric telegraph and the Morse code Other examples:

 Zener diode (điôt Zenơ)

 Zener effect (Hiệu ứng Zenơ)

 Kevin degree (Độ Kevin)

 Edison cell (Pin Edison)

Eponyms derived from objects

Some terms are proper names, brand names, trade names and proprietaries ofdevices, instruments, substance…For example, the term Greenfield is the trademark

of a gas-filled tube that has three electrodes and can be switched between an “off”state and an “on” state

Example:

 Geiger counter tube: Ống đếm Geiger

c Single terms which appear in the form of an adjective

Besides noun and verb, terminology is created as a form of adjective which canshow the characteristics of an object or a phenomenon, it can precede the noun also.Example:

Asymmetrical (không đối xứng)

Aperiodic (không có tính chu kỳ)

Athermic (không thấm nhiệt)

2.1.3.2 Compound nouns

a Terms consisting of Classifier (noun) + thing

A term of this group consists of two nouns, the first noun acts as Classifier

differentiating the Thing (the second noun) from other concepts of the same group For example, there are many types of capacitors (Thing) that can be distinguished from one another by different Classifiers that precede them, e.g., air capacitor (tụ không khí)>< ceramic capacitor (tụ sứ) >< filter capacitor (tụ lọc)

 Barrier region: vùng chắn

 Banana plug: phích cắm điện

 Absorption machine: máy hấp thu

b Terms consisting of Classifier (Adjective) + Thing

A term of this group consists of an adjective that functions as Classifier and the head noun (Thing)

 Electrical energy (năng lượng điện)

 Chemical energy: năng lượng hóa học

 Black box: hộp đen

 Binaural tape : băng từ kép

The Classifier can be further modified by another Subclassifier which takes on the form of a noun, or an adjective:

 Surface leakage current (dòng điện rò bề mặt)

 Insulation resistance value (giá trị điện trở cách điện)

 Error frequency limit (giới hạn tần số sai sót)

c Terms consisting of Classifier(past participle) + Thing

In this group, some V-ing function as Classifier, e.g transmitting antenna = antennawhich transmits signal In this example, the scanning beam means the beam which

is scanning the electrode Still, others can be Classifier when interpreted in differentsituation:

 Modulating wave (sóng điều biến)

 Decoupling capacitor (tụ tách rời)

 Conducting band (dải dẫn điện)

 Bucking coil (cuộn biến điện)

d Term consisting of Classifier (Past participle) + Thing

Like V-ing participle, some V-en function as Classifier:

 Printed circuit (mạch in)

 Inverted speech (âm tần nghịch)

 Distilled water (nước cất)

 Balanced circuit (mạch đối xứng)

2.2 Translation theory

2.2.1 Definition

Newmark (1995) defined translation as “rendering the meaning of a text intoanother language in the way that the author intended the text” Another definitiongiven by Thomas G Mansella (2005) is that “translation is the rendering of writtencommunication across barriers created by different languages and cultures.”

Obviously, these two concepts mention “rendering” which can be understood asinterpret from original language (source language) into another language (targetlanguage) It can be seen that in Newmark‟s definition, he focuses on the meaning

or the nature of language when it is translated Thomas, in the second explanation,states “culture” together with “language” as barriers of translation In a nutshell, itcan be stated that translation is transferring both language and the “soul” of textfrom one language into another language

Gentzler (1993) says that “a translation should have the same or similar impact andeffect on TL readers as the original on SL readers” Therefore, the role of translators

is very crucial They have to create the link between countries and countries,cultures and cultures Translators not only transfer the language but also transfer thewriter‟s perspective and emotion, and make it natural in target language

In conclusion, in the scope of this paper, translation can be understood as theprocess of conveying the accurate meaning and the intended effects of writers fromsource language to targeted language

2.2.2 Translation strategies and procedures

Newmark distinguishes between translation and translation strategies in the way that

“[While] translation methods relate to the whole text, translation procedures areused for sentences and smaller units of language.” Newmark (1981)

Newmark (1988) also points out translation strategies as follow:

1 Transference: it is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text It is also

called “emprunt”, “loan word” or “transcription” It is the same as Catford‟stransference which includes transliteration, relating to the conversion of differentalphabets like Arabic or Chinese into English Harvey (2000, p 5) also calls thisstrategy as “transcription”

2 Cultural equivalent: It means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one.

The translation uses of these approximate equivalents are limited because they are notaccurate, but they can be used in general texts, publicity and propaganda

3 Synonymy: it is a “near TL equivalent” This is the translation procedure used for

a SL word where there is lack of clear one-to-one equivalent and the word is not important in the text.

4 Naturalization: according to Newmark (1988), this procedure succeeds

transference and adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normalmorphology (word forms) of the TL

5 Recognized TL Translation: Newmark (1988, p 89) suggests that the translators

“should normally use the official or the generally accepted translation of anyinstitutional term” He believes that in translating it is not good to give translators‟own titles or a brief explanation and just the accepted term should be used in thetranslation because changing the term may cause confusions especially in official orserious informative texts

6 Functional equivalent: it is a common procedure which is usually applied to

cultural words It requires the use of a cultural free word, sometimes with a new specificterm, therefore, it “neutralizes or generalizes the SL word; and sometimes adds aparticular thus” (p 83) This procedure is a cultural componential analysis and based onNewmark (1988) is “the most accurate way of translating i.e., deculturalising a culturalword” (p 83) According to Hegedus (2005), neologisms can also be considered in thiscategory since they do not exist even in the SL culture but just belong to the culture ofthe imaginative world created by the SL author

7 Descriptive equivalent: in this procedure the description has to be weighed

against function Both description and function are essential elements in the explanationand therefore translation

8 Literal Translation: to Newmark (1988) this procedure is approximately a

word-for-word representation of the original word which transfers the primary (isolated, out-ofcontext) meaning of the SL word; however the syntactic structures of the target languageare respected

9 Translation Procedure Combinations (couplets etc): Newmark (1988) refers to

couplet as “the combination of two translation procedures for one unit” (p 83)

Moreover, triplets and quadruplets combine three or four of the procedures for dealing with a single problem

10 Through – Translation: Newmark (1988, p 84) uses this term for the literal

translation of common collocations, names of organizations, the components ofcompounds and phrases which is known as “calque” or “loan translation” Also, Vinayand Darbelned (1995, as cited in Venuti, 2000, p 85) define „calque‟ as a

special kind of borrowing whereby a language borrows an expression from another,but then translates each of its elements literally This translation is supposed to fill

in the gaps in contiguous cultures The most typical examples of translations are the names of international organizations which consist of universalwords which may be transparent for some languages and semantically motivated forsome other languages

through-11 Shifts or transpositions: it involves a “change in the grammar from SL to TL,

for instance, (i) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when aspecific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TLword, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth” (Newmark, 1988, p.86) 12 Modulation: this strategy appears when “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,

1988, p.88)

13 Compensation: this strategy is applied when “low of meaning in one part of a

sentence is compensated in another part” (Newmark, 1988,p.90)

14 Paraphrase: In this strategy, the “meaning of the corpus based translation is

explained Here the explanation is much more detailed than that of descriptiveequivalent” (Newmark, 1988, p 91)

2.2.3 Technical translation

Sofer (1991) reaches technical translation by distinguishing it from literarytranslation “The main division in the translation field is between literary andtechnical translation” He claims that technical translation is done by a much greaternumber of practitioners and is an ever growing and expanding field with excellentopportunities In contrast, literal translation covers such areas as fictions, poetry,

drama and humanities in general and is done by writers of the same kind in thetarget language.

Newmark (1981) considers this kind of translation as “one of specializedtranslation; institutional translation, the area of politics, commerce, finance,government ect., is the other”

2.3 Translation of terminology

Newmark (1988, p 150) proposed 12 types of neologisms and goes into thetranslation of particular instances as follows:

1 New Words: according to Newmark (1988) “old words with new senses tend to

be non – cultural and non – technical” Since these words do not normally refer tonew objects or processes they are rarely technological They are usually translated

“either by a word that already exists in the TL or by a brief functional or descriptiveterm” (p 142)

2 Old words with new sense: existing collocations with new senses can be technical

or non – technical Newmark (1988) believes that existing collocations with new sensesare a translator‟s trap They are usually “normal descriptive terms which suddenlybecome technical terms” and therefore “their meaning sometimes hides

innocently behind a more general of figurative meaning” (p 142) Further, for theirtranslation, based on Newmark (1988) if the concept exists in the TL, a recognizedtranslation or through translation can be used If the concept does not exist like “tug– of – love” of the TL speakers are not yet aware of it, a journalistic descriptive equivalent can be given

3 New Coinages: they can be brand of trade names like “Oxo” or “Bisto” which are

usually transferred unless the product is marketed in the TL culture under anothername According to Newmark (1988) if the trade name has no cultural oridentifying significance “the proper name may be replaced by a functional orgeneric term” For example, “Revlon” may be translated by different components as

“Revlon”, “Lipstick”, or “Fashionable American” (p.142) Therefore, if they areoriginal, they should be transcribed, and recreated, if they are recently coined and

are brand names they should be transcribed, or given their TL brand names.

4 Derived Words (including blends): based on Newmark (1988) most neologisms

are words derived by analogy from ancient Greek and Latin morphemes with suffixessuch as –ismo etc which were naturalized in the appropriate language For

example, “Bionomics” has given way to “ecology” and “ergonomics” to

“biotechnology” (p.143)

5 Abbreviations: like “Video” and “Uni” Unless they coincide (“prof”) they are

written out in the TL (p 145)

6 New Collocations: based on Newmark (1988), in linguistics a collocation is “the

habitual co-occurrence of individual lexical items” while for a translator it “consists

of lexical items that enter mainly into high frequency grammatical structures” (p.212) Collocation has three common types: A) adjective plus noun (e.g heavylabor), B) noun plus noun (eyeball), and C) verb plus object (score a victory)

7 Eponyms: to Newmark (1988), it is any word derived from a proper name like

“Hallidayan” and “Joycean” Whenever they directly refer to the person, they aretranslated without difficulty But, when they refer to the referent‟s ideas or qualitiesthe translator may need to add some comments

8 Phrasal Words: “new phrasal words are restricted to English‟s facility in

converting verbs to nouns” like “work-out” and “knock-on effect” They are

translated by their semantic equivalents They are often more economical than theirtranslation and “occupy the peculiarly English register between “informal” and

“colloquial”, whilst their translation are more formal” (p 147)

9 Transferred (new and old referents): newly transferred words keep only one

sense of their foreign nationality They are the words their meanings are least dependent

on their contexts If they are frequently used, they change or develop additional senses,and can sometimes no longer be translated back straight into their

languages of origin Some examples are “Adidas” and “Levi” (p 147)

10 Acronyms (new and old referents): to Newmark (1988), acronyms refers to “the

initial letters of words that form a group of words used for denoting an object,

institution (like „UNESCO‟) or procedure” (p 200) With regards to the translation,there is either a standard equivalent term or, if it does not exist, a descriptive term.Also, acronyms for institutions and companies‟ names are usually transferred.

11 Pseudo-neologisms: when “a generic word stands in for a specific word e.g

“rapports (d‟engrenage) – “gear rations” (Newmark, 1988, p 148)

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter represents the methodology of the research in which research design will be defined It also provides the description of the subject, sampling steps, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure.

3.1 Design of the study

In this study, qualitative approach is chosen to decide the way of collecting andanalyzing data First of all, “qualitative approach is a type of research that focuses

on qualities such as words or observations that are difficult” (Glesne‟s, 2011), itsaim is to “emphasize understanding the subjects point of view” (Bogdan and Biklen,2007) On this approach, Stake (2010) is more specific when she writes that “allresearch requires interpretations Qualitative research relies heavily on interpretiveperceptions throughout the planning, data gathering, analysis, and write-up of thestudy to quantify and lend themselves to interpretation or deconstruction”.Therefore, it can be seen that qualitative research involves visible materials liketexts, sound and images which can be collected and analyzed and interpretedthrough several steps at the same time (Nelson et al.‟s, 1992g) That is the reasonwhy it requires certain competences from researcher to conduct a good qualitativeresearch

The role of qualitative approach is undeniable for helping researcher to understandthe issues accurately and comprehensively More important, “it encourages us asinvestigators to be mindful of who we are and how our perspectives can influencehow we interact with others and make sense of the world around us” (Chenail,2010) In conclusion, the choice of qualitative research is appropriate whichdetermines the choice of subject, sample selection method and data analysisprocedure in the study

3.2 Research method

Due to the aim of the study to investigate of strategies applied in translating EEEterminologies in the dictionary from English to Vietnamese, the researcher chose