A study on common errors in vietnamese english translation of labels and photo captions in tourist attractions in ho chi minh city vietnam

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY --- A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS IN VIETNAMESE - ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF LABELS AND CAPTIONS IN TOURIST ATTRA

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

-

A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS IN

VIETNAMESE - ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF

LABELS AND CAPTIONS IN TOURIST

ATTRACTIONS IN HO CHI MINH CITY,

VIETNAM

Submitted to the Faculty of English Language

in partial fulfilment of the Master’s degree in English language

Course code: 1641900007

By

LUONG KIM HOANG

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI NHU NGOC, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, June 2018

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

A Study on Common Errors in Vietnamese – English Translation of Labels and Photo Captions in Tourist Attractions in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In terms of the statement of requirements for theses in Master’s programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Faculty of English Linguistics, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology

Ho Chi Minh City, June 2018

Lương Kim Hoàng

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Luong Kim Hoang, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (English Linguistics), accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction for theses

Ho Chi Minh City, June 17th, 2018

Signature:………

Lương Kim Hoàng

Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc for her great support, constant guidance, and continuous encouragement through the whole research process Her prompt, insightful advice was a light which led me to solutions whenever I was in dilemma I am so admired and grateful for her professional knowledge and guidance which have been a great value for me in the process of doing my research

I am also thankful for Dr Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu’s huge devotion, suggestion and assistance throughout my thesis process She is a devoted dean and a professional lecturer who always occupies a certain respect in my heart

In addition, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the management and all the staff of the War Remnants Museum, Fito Museum, the Reunification Palace, and the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City for their great support in my research data collection

Besides, my special gratitude is intended for one expert in translation industry and professional editors working for Foreign Science Journal, University

of Foreign Language in Hanoi and Translation Journal in Australia who helped me increase the validity and reliability for my research

The ones can be missed out of my thankful list are the lecturers, Hutech President together with all the school staff who have created a very friendly and

favorable environment for my study

Last but not least, my sincere and warm thanks are for my family and friends who have supported me and been my companions during a long journey of doing

my research

Museums are fascinating, important tourist attractions which not only conserve and display historical, scientific, or artistic objects but also satisfy visitors’ demand of leisure, education and research However, international visitors may get confused with the low quality of translation since a lot of errors are found in museum texts The thesis investigated common Vietnamese-English translation errors in photo captions and labels at three most international tourist-attracted museums and one historical gallery in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 450 photo captions and labels were randomly collected from the museums, and processed into

a bilingual Vietnamese and English parallel corpus Based on some popular models

in translation, linguistic errors, currently used in the world, a hybrid erorr-analysis model was developed and applied to classfify the data in the corpus into 16 error types affiliated to 4 major error categories The findings revealed that 96.6% of the corpus was found erroneous; and the most common errors were grammar, punctuation, usage, spelling, omission, addition, word choice, mistranslation, text type and inconsistency Then, some recommendations were provided for translation

of photo captions and labels in the hope to provide a useful reference for translation training as well as improve the translation quality for tourism texts in Vietnam

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ix

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Problem statement 2

1.3 Purpose of the study 3

1.4 Research questions and Hypothesis 4

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Definition of key terms 5

1.8 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Museums as favorite tourist attractions 7

2.2 Labels and captions in museums and their language features 8

2.2.1 Labels and captions as main types of museum texts 8

2.2.2 Language features of museum labels and captions 11

2.2.2.1 Language features of exhibit labels 11

2.2.2.2 Language features of photo captions 16

2.3 Translation and its function in museum communication 20

2.3.1 Translation 20

2.3.2 Translation functions in museum communication 21

2.4 Translation errors and error analysis 22

2.4.1 Translation errors 22

2.4.2 Error analysis 24

2.5 Models of error analysis in translation 25

2.5.1 Error analysis procedure 25

2.5.2 Models of error taxonomy 28

2.6 A review on previous studies in translation errors of tourism texts 35

2.7 The conceptual framework for the thesis 36

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 38

3.1 Research design 38

3.2 Research site 38

3.3 Samples and sampling procedure 40

3.4 Research instruments 43

3.5 Data collection procedure 45

3.6 Data analysis procedure 45

3.7 Validity and reliability 46

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 48

4.1 The statistics of common translation errors 48

4.2 The analysis of error categories and types 50

4.2.1 Syntactic errors 50

4.2.2 Semantic errors 56

4.2.3 Pragmatic errors 62

4.2.4 Translation-specific errors 65

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 69

5.1 Major findings 69

5.2 Implications and recommendations 70

5.3 Limitations and suggestions of further research 72

REFERENCES 75

APPENDICES 84

Appendix A: The Bilingual Vietnamese - English Text of the Thesis 84

Appendix B: The Translation Error Report by a Professional Translation Editor 146 Appendix C: Explanation of Error Categories by ATA (2017) 161

Appendix D: Definitions of Error Categories in the Developed Model in the Thesis by the thesis author 167

Appendix E: The Thesis Author’s Article Publication Certificate 171

Appendix F: The Plagiarism Check Report of the thesis 173

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 The Error Categories proposed by LIZA in 200 28

Table 2.2 The Error Categories of Liao (2010) 30

Table 2.3 The Hybrid Model of Error Types by Dastjerdi & Abdolmaleki (2012) 32 Table 2.4 The Model of Translation Error Categorization adapted from that of Dastjerdi & Abdolmaleki (2012) 33

Table 3.1 The Table for determining sample size from a give population by Morgan and Krejcie (1970, p 607) 41

Table 3.2 Samples collected from the four research sites 43

Table 3.3 The Bilingual Vietnamese-English Text Corpus 43

Table 4.1 The Error Types and Their Frequency 48

Table 4.2 The Frequency of Semantic Errors 56

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig 2.1 The Error Analysis Procedures adapted from Pinker (1986)’s 27

Fig 2.2 The Conceptual Framework for the thesis 36

Fig 4.1 The Frequency of All the Errors in the Corpus 49

Fig 4.2 The Frequency of Syntactic Errors 50

Fig 4.3 The Frequency of Pragmatic Errors 62

Fig 4.4 The Frequency of Translation-specific Errors 65

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

ID Identification

NAATI National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters NSW New South Wales

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

The growing world economy has created a number of intercultural communications involving various languages that commit people to communicative obstacles Therefore, the birth of translation studies brings an effective solution for these problems Over the past decades, the field of translation studies has played a crucial role in all sectors, especially in tourism industry This industry appeals international tourists to a certain country every year and translation practice is compulsory As a result, translation quality assessment treated as a sub-field in translation studies is beneficial to both individuals and organizations in the field of tourism

The growth of the international travel industry has led to the increase of opportunities for intercultural communication However, the barrier due to distinct languages which hinders international visitors from communicating with local people, searching and collecting information consequently affects these guests’ satisfaction In order to tackle with the problem, tourism translation has become essential Webster (2002) defines “tourism translation is an activity which will cross culture, language, society and space” and the role of tourism translation is to help transfer communication messages between foreign visitors and local people (Leclerc & Martin, 2004) In other words, tourism translation bridges the gap in intercultural tourism communication

In particular, tourism communication as a type of business communication is categorized into three basic forms: Verbal communication, nonverbal communication and written communication which is defined as printed messages including memos, brochures, emails, letters, proposals, signs, captions and labels (University of Minnesota, 2015, p 523) They are generally referred as tourism texts These tourism- written materials are very important in providing information about tourist destinations, promoting tourist attractions, instructing travelers in tourism areas and describing

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historical objects, and explaining events in historical sites However, these special texts printed in the language that is unfamiliar to intended readers, and visitors to a specific country are multicultural Therefore, English translation of these tourist texts is an integral part of tourism communication

On the other hand, in terms of tourist attractions, Robinson (2013) defines tourist attractions are natural places or features, objects and man-made buildings and structures for appealing tourists and local residents Also, Tourism Western Australia (2009) explains that tourist attractions are cultural features of a specific place that meet tourists’ entertainment and leisure-related needs and these features may be particular to a location such as theater, museum, or waterfall In this respect, museums and historical sites are considered tourist attractions The written communication takes place in these cultural and historical places and museums through special materials generally called museum texts Therefore, museum texts are crucial and the translation of this text type is essential in museum communication because these written messages represent cultural and historical values of a nation that are unfamiliar to visitors from another country However, there is a fact that some of the museum materials are produced with low quality due

to various reasons, so it is an urgent need of tourism-specialized text assessment

1.2 Problem statement

In respect to tourism, this non-smoking industry has globally become the primary international sector because it is the most rapidly growing and profitable industry in the world In line with the world’s tourism development, Ho Chi Minh City has made a great progress in growing its tourism recently Cable News Network (CNN) channel in United States of America (USA) has released that Ho Chi Minh was voted as one of the 10 top fastest tourism growing cities in the world (Thu Giang, 2015) According to Tuoi Tre News (2016), the number of foreign visitors to Ho Chi Minh has annually increased 8.2% on average and there has been a yearly

However, errors in the inapproriate, inconsistent translation of museum texts cause embarassing messages, cultural, historical and social misunderstandings, and confusion for visitors, especially international ones This can lead to negative images to visitors in Vietnam’s museums, reduces the attractiveness of these tourist attractions, and so declines the competitiveness of tourist destinations in comparison with other international tourist places In additon, museums in Ho Chi Minh City are open to the local people, especially vietnamese students for one of the purposes that is education Translation errors in the captions and labels lead to negative impacts on their English language learning and proficiency and hence, there is a desirable evaluation of these museum texts

In Vietnamese context, there is a lack of studies on the assessment of tourism texts, particularly photo captions and labels in museums In this thesis, a proposed conceptual framework is developed for evaluating the quality of these special toursim texts This thesis, focusing on translation errors in Vietnamese-English bilingual captions and labels in museums, will be a new research direction in Vietnam Thus it is quite essential and useful

1.3 Purpose of the study

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The study aims to discover translation errors in translated versions of Vietnamese photo captions and labels in some major museums in Ho Chi Minh City with the application of the most appropriate conceptual framework proposed in chapter 2 of the thesis

1.4 Research questions and Hypothesis

To complete the aim above, the study is conducted under the guidance of the following research question:

What are common translation errors in Vietnamese - English bilingual photo captions and labels in museums in Ho Chi Minh City?

The hypothesis is that the thesis author will figure out the most appropriate model for the analysis of translation errors and based on the proposed model of the translation error analysis, translation errors will be identified and categorized

effectively

1.5 Scope of the study

The study only covers translation errors relevant to Vietnamese and English linguistic features; and it is applicable to tourism texts in museums Specifically, the thesis author mainly addresses on labels and captions generally referred as museum texts in major museums in Ho Chi Minh City and therefore, tourism texts in other tourist sites are not bound in this research

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study contributes to verifying language features in photo captions and labels in museums Practically, the study sets up some criteria for identifying, evaluating and categorizing translation errors in bilingual museum photo labels and captions as tourism-specialized texts

The results of this thesis are applicable to the evaluation of translation product, helping improve the quality of tourism translation in Vietnam; and they are

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able to used as a useful reference for courses of translation and English for Tourism

at university in Vietnam

1.7 Definition of key terms

Some important terms and concepts are used in this thesis They are: tourism, museum texts, museum language, translation, translation errors Their definitions and interpretation are presented in detail in Chapter 2

1.8 Organization of the study

The study consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 Introduction states the background of the research problem from

which some solutions related to translation error analysis in photo captions and exhibit labels (museum texts) in several museums in Ho Chi Minh To make it more specific, the aims and the research questions with hypotheses are proposed; then the structure of the study is introduced

Chapter 2 Literature Review gives relevant theories and literature that form

and strengthen the conceptual framework for the study It handles with discussions

of the concepts of tourist attraction, translation and its role in tourism communication, especially in museum communication, photo captions and exhibit labels (museum texts), language features of museum texts, translation errors, error analysis and eventually figures out a concept-specific foundation for this thesis The model of error analysis in translation as the conceptual framework is developed Also, a review on previous studies of translation errors in tourism texts, especially photo captions and labels is negotiated to identify the gap for the research

Chapter 3 Methodology presents the qualitative method for this thesis

Accordingly, a detail description of research design, research site, samples, and research instruments is provided; and the data collection and data analysis procedures are discussed in detail

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Chapter 4 Findings and discussions figures out translation error categories

and their frequency They are discussed and interpreted to reveal some significant results

Chapter 5 Conclusion summarizes the main findings and draws relevant

implications Also, limitations of the study are discussed; then some recommendations

on further research regarding translation errors are provided

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter consists of six sections highlighting literature review and conceptual

framework for this thesis which are presented as follows:

2.1 Museums as favorite tourist attractions

Cambridge University Press (2018) defines tourist attraction as a place where tourists visit for their leisure and other interests when they are on vacation This definition is quite general to identify a tourist attraction and in this view, tourist attractions may include some places reached by tourists occasionally such as sport venues, theaters, cinemas, and other locations for entertainment that mainly serve local residents In the same line, Tourism Western Australia (2009) explains tourist attraction through following definitions: 1 Tourist attraction is a physical or natural feature of a specific destination that meets each traveler or tourist’s leisure-related needs These features refer to inner or outer components (eg climate, scenery, culture, history, vegetation) of a particular location such as museum, waterfall, or theater performance 2 Tourist attraction is advantageous aspects of a place for an activity or sets of activities as wanted by a consumer, service user or market, consisting of climate, scenery, culture, history and vegetation In particular, man- built attractions are physical buildings, sites and events; meanwhile, natural attractions are physical phenomena considered extraordinary and spectacular In this research, tourist attractions are meant to be man-made cultural, historical sites and buildings which are open to tourists and local residents for purposes of leisure, education and other interests Specifically, museums and historical sites were primarily researched

A museum is defined as a permanently established institution which is open

to the public and where cultural, historical value conservation and exhibitions are held for the purpose of leisure, study and education but not for profit gaining (International Council of Museums (ICOM), 2010) Museums play an important

Ho Chi Minh City has a rich source of culture and heritage which establish a foundation for its heritage tourism development According to the report on heritage sites ranked in Ho Chi Minh by May 2017, there are total 172 recognized heritage structures including 02 archeological sites, 96 art architecture works, 74 historical sites (Department of Culture and Sports of Ho Chi Minh City, 2017) The precious valuable heritages largely contribute to the success of cultural tourism in Ho Chi Minh City, especially historical sites

In this research, both private and government museums which are connected with archeological, historical, art, cultural studies in Ho Chi Minh were researched

It means that their labels and captions have contents about archeological, historical, art, cultural studies

2.2 Labels and captions in museums and their language features

2.2.1 Labels and captions as main types of museum texts

Museum texts are referred as texts in museums whose either spoken or written language form is produced by the museum for the consumption of visitors, and which commit to the interpretation within the museum (Ravelli, 2006, p 1) The author argues museum texts take their different forms called labels, brochure descriptions, extended texts, wall texts, catalogue entries, and explanatory texts

Otherwise, Dordová (2016) categorizes museum texts into two basic types called panel texts and exhibition labels He explains panel texts are often written with full sentences and paragraphs and provide some information about an entire

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museum or exhibition, including the introduction and context to a particular field

On the contrary, exhibition labels carry details describing a specific object in a museum

Moi (2013, p 4) refers texts in art museums as wall texts, hand-outs and interpretive labels next to the art works, which apparently negotiate the art and allow visitors’ interpretive experiences In some museums specializing in art, science, history and other specific disciplines, the terms “label” can be referred to

“caption” which is embedded in a displayed painting or a photo to provide information about them In this thesis, both terms “label and caption” were used Particularly, they were called exhibit labels (object labels, exhibition labels, or museum labels) and photo captions (painting captions or cutlines)

The Tradition Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) (2003) explains an object label whose information illustrates its artist, title and dimensions, media, owner and date of creation, and accession number and they add that label is also referred as caption or tombstone Dordová (2016, p 9) defines label as a description with detail information about a particular exhibit or object in the museum or museum displays

Collins (2014) as cited in Farlex (2018)’s The Free Dictionary states a label is “a

piece of paper, card, or other material attached to an object to identify it or give instructions or details concerning its ownership, use, nature, destination, etc.”

In short, in this thesis, “label” is understood as a text attached to an exhibited object in a museum, an exhibition or a historical site, which provide identifying information about it and also draw visitor’s attention

Collins (2017) defines “a caption is the words printed underneath a picture or cartoon which explain what it is about” Similarly, Webster (2017) characterizes a caption as “the explanatory comment or designation accompanying a pictorial illustration” And Oxford University Press (2017) explains “a caption is words printed underneath a picture, cartoon, etc to explain or describe it” In detail, some researchers affirm that photo journalism relies on a polysemiotic text of visual and

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verbal signs and verbal signs are usually shaped as captions and cutlines (Park,

2015, p 498); a caption helps describe the content of a picture and the picture with its caption tells a story (Ijeh, 2015, p 58)

In brief, all these statements share a common view, helping us to get a simple definition that a caption is a kind of texts used as an explanatory comment to clarify

a photo or picture for a specific purpose in a certain place Lewis (1994), a journalism professor in California University, depicts that photos and words work together, and the words of the caption are a vital part of the communications package Words explain, clarify, and are added to a photo Captions are to interpret the photo, and provide information not found within the image

For the concept of tourist texts, Kelly (1998) defines that tourist text is any kind of writings released by a public or private tourism-intended organization to provide visitors with information, to transfer advertisement of a destination and to appeal travelers to a particular tourist attraction In this view, texts in museums can

be referred as tourist texts because they perform the roles of museums in helping visitors be exposed to a great amount of cultural, historical information, transferring communication in these special tourist attractions, and attracting tourists Samson (1995), McManus (2000) (as cited in MacLulich, 2000), Schiele (1995), and Jacobi and Poli (1995) all confirm this educational goal of exhibition texts

Also, Ravelli (2006, p.3) states that museum texts, especially exhibition labels are crucial because they form a main part of communication in a museum In the same line, Calvi (2012, p 8) (as cited in Dordová, 2016) argues that informative and persuasive are the two crucial functions of museum texts, which give a specific description of exhibited object and catch the readers’ attention respectively

In case of the language use in museums, Schmidt and Bui (2013, pp 53 - 54) impart that the text used in museums, like other communicative medium, is a means

of public communication to facilitate visitors’ need of understanding the cultural and historical values; and its functions are to provide relevant information and

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explanation of displayed objects, photos and other things to visitors In respect to the museum language in Vietnam, they emphasize the museum texts play a fundamental role in conducting communication and attracting visitors to have deeper research for exhibited objects, help create favorable and independent conditions to perceive and understand the information released.

The labels and captions found in the photos at the research museums and historical sites are to provide its visitors with specific information and explain them the meaning of captured historical events and objects associated with the past events They are, therefore, considered as a type of tourist texts and have full functions of tourist texts

2.2.2 Language features of museum labels and captions

In this section, the thesis author separately and specifically discusses and analyses language features of the two genres of museum texts called exhibit labels and photo captions

2.2.2.1 Language features of exhibit labels

Serrell (1996, p 234) states that labels become effective when they are in a tight combination with exhibitions and therefore, they together enhance and deter communication She adds a useful, friendly label should start with information related to the exhibit that visitors can experience at where they are standing A label should be varied in the length of sentences and often written with short sentences and small chunks Using an informative paragraph title or subtitle, exclamation marks for emphasis, and a snappy ending is an advice for writing a helpful label (Serrell, 1996, pp 84-91) Moreover, the Powerhouse Museum (n.d) in Sydney proposes a guideline for writing exhibition labels and advises that a label should be appropriate to the exhibition and its purposes and visitors, concise but relevant to the intended object, and contain accurate information and contents that are simply and clearly explained

Example 1:

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Collier Flintlock Revolver

English, early 19th century This ingenious five-shot revolver was well-ahead of its day The inventor, E

H Collier, an American living in England, tried to sell it to the military, but it was rejected as being too complicated and unlikely to stand up in battle Collier also made a musket with

a revolver chamber

(Source: Glenbow Museum, Canada)

In this label, the title is informative of notifying visitors the name, origin, day

of creation of the exhibit The first sentence is an introduction and the following sentences provide its contextual information The label is written in short sentences and chunks with simple contents to facilitate the readers’ understanding

In terms of a label organization, the Powerhouse Museum (n.d) in Sydney suggests that a label should be structured similarly to writing a newspaper story The label writer should start a label with a heading and move from the specific to general information He should begin the label with information about the object but should not describe the object because its audiences are standing next to it, they clearly see it Instead, the writer should provide relevant information that appeals the visitors with its significance and engages them with better understanding After finishing writing some specific information about the object, the writer can move on something general There is an acknowledgement to include the person or organization that provides the object and their permission to the display of it This information is often listed at the bottom of the label in a smaller type size

In addition, the Museum and Galleries of New South Wales (NSW) (n.d) suggests basic information of a label structure including its artist or maker, title, date, medium or materials, dimensions, provenance or collection, and description Serrell (1996, p 26) mentions that an exhibition label consists of two primary parts called the title and the brief description She adds the title should be clear and concrete,

The linga is the most important icon in temples for shiva and the god in this form is worshiped through ritual offerings of water, milk, purified butter, or flowers The darkened top of this linga shows it was once

an object of such ritual worship

Collection of Glenbow Museum, DE 22

Gift of the Bumper Development Corporation Ltd

(Source: Glenbow Museum, Canada)

This label begins with the title, origin, day of creation and material of the object It was written with two primary paragraphs and the first one provides visitors with specific information about the object and its significance and the second one is general information of it At the bottom of the label, there is a highlight of the donor of the object

In reality, a label structure is different in the length concerning its types and objectives Serrell (1996) suggests a label should be written with two or three short

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sentences or chunks For instance, an ID label embedded to a book or an artifact is often produced to identify the author, the title, the origin, the day of creation, the source of the object and no description (Serrell, 1996) The example below is a demonstration

Example 3:

Club

Anishinabeg, 1800s Wood, brass, feathers

AP76

(Source: Glenbow Museum, Canada)

However, Romanowski (2015, p 6) suggests that based on its type, a label can lengthen from one to three paragraphs but the number of word does not exceed

150 (see example 1, 2)

In regard to language style in a label, the J Paul Getty Museum (2011, pp 4

- 16) in its proposed complete guideline to adult audience interpretive materials suggests that a label should be written with language that attracts looking and thinking and stimulates visitors’ sense of discovery Its title is informative and visitor-friendly The label maker should translate inscriptions and define specialized terminology, avoid using infrequently words, use strong verbs and active voice, use the simple present tense when referring the immediacy sense of the object and the past tense for its contextual information The example below is an illustration

Example 4:

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(Source: J Paul Getty Museum, LA, USA)

In the Vietnamese context, object labels in Vietnam’s museums should be written in compliance with the mentioned points Their structure should be organized consistently, formed with the language that fosters visitors’ discovery, used with active, conversational sentences, and included an explanation whenever there are terms (Schmidt & Bùi, 2013)

Example 5:

Cờ: Bà Nguyễn Thị Định dùng để trao tặng các đơn vị, Hội liên hiệp phụ nữ xuất sắc trong các kỳ Đại Hội Flag: Ms Nguyen Thi Dinh used to give units, Association

of excellent women in the Congress meetings

(Source: The War Remnants Museum, HCMC, Vietnam)

This label is written with a title and one simple active sentence that gives specific information about it

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2.2.2.2 Language features of photo captions

Smith et al (2005, p 413) emphasizes that a caption must provide all background information, usually in a complete sentence, if not a paragraph, that is not visually manifest in the image; in other words, the context in which an image can be understood The caption can point out siginificant details Narrative information might be small or hidden but it is necessary to be able to “read” the

image correctly The caption can point out potentially misleading information

Obviously, the language in a photo caption must not be ambiguous because its mission is to clarify the image in the photo Smock (2008), in the guidelines on writing photo captions published on the International Journalists’ Network, opines that a photo caption should provide the reader with basic information essential to understand a photograph and its relevance to the news It should be written in a consistent, concise format In most photo captions, the first sentence identifies the people, thing(s) and place in the photograph and supplies the date and location where it was taken The second (and perhaps third) sentence should provide contextual information to help readers understand what they are looking at

Example 6: “New York City Police Officers check subway cars at Columbus Circle

on Friday, Oct 7, 2005 Security in the city's mass transit system has been increased following yesterday's announcement of a specific terrorist threat to the subway system (AP Photo/John Smock)” (Smock, 2008)

A photo caption may have as many as 4 parts, namely lead-in (photo headline), present tense sentence, past tense sentence, and quote: The lead-in is a

catchy phrase or clause, immediate relates the caption to the photo with a verbal connection; the present tense sentence provides quick and easy-to-read information about whom/what in the photo; the past sentence adds more information about the situations/background of the picture’s event (these sentences are aslo called as cutlines); and the quote can be either from a person in the photo or

visual-a person relvisual-ated to the visual-action of the photo, visual-as illustrvisual-ated in the following exvisual-ample

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Example 7:

Source:http://edition.cnn.com/201 3/07/01/world/Vietnam-war-fast- facts

In the reality of language use, according to Smock (2008), photo captions should be brief In basic photo captions, a sentence or two is usually sufficient Most photo captions consist of one or two short, declarative sentences; and they should be written in complete forms and in the present tense The present tense gives the image a sense of immediacy It is not always logical to write the entire caption in the present tense Often the first sentence is written in the present tense and following sentences are not Some may extend to a third sentence if complex contextual information is needed to explain the image completely

Example 8:

President Trump spoke to reporters in the East Room during a news conference with Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway Credit Tom Brenner/The New York Times

(Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/-10/-18

interference)

us/politics/trump-russia-election-Example 9: “9 Nov - Cairo, Egypt - A woman displays her ink-stained finger after

voting Egyptians took to the polls today for the first round of parliamentary election President Hosni Mubarak and his ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) have allowed several opposition groups, most notably the formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood party, to be among the 5,000 candidates campaigning for more than

400 seats Photo credit: John Smock/SIPA” (Smock, 2008)

In Example 8, there is a past tense sentence and it is considered as a basic photo caption Whereas, Example 9 consists of three sentences: the first is in the simple present tense, the second simple past and the third present perfect; the third sentence is rather long but still a simple sentence, not a compound or complex sentence

Smock’s view point is quite consistent with that of Lewis (1994), who states that there are several styles of captions One of his writing tips is keeping tenses logical, i.e we use the present tense when referring to the photo, the past tense when providing background information not contained in the photo; and another tip

is keeping sentences and cutlines short

According to Irby (2002), if the photograph is a historic or file photo, we

should include the date that it was taken, e.g Mayor David Dinkins, 1993 He

agrees with the previous authors that a photograph captures a moment in time so whenever possible, use present tense This helps create a sense of immediacy and impact He also advises that the conversational language works best, and we should write the caption in the way we are telling a family member a story

Their views are quite accurate for photo captions in English, especially those used in international newspapers Most newspapers use a caption writing style in which the first sentence is in the present tense and subsequent sentences are in the past tense The rationale is that the first sentence tells the reader what is happening

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in the photo Subsequent sentences tell the context and background for what happened And an important language feature of photo captions is that we should write them in complete and short sentences

Example 10:

In 1966, a soldier savors the scent of a letter from a girl back home His company would participate in an assault on a tunnel-filled Vietcong position Credit John Nance/Associated Press

(Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/arts/de sign/images-of-the-vietnam-war-that- defined-an-era.html)

Besides, in my observation of photo captions written in English, both active voice and passive voice can be used when appropriate, and photo captions often benefit from present tense Numbers are preferred to be written with full letters

“one”, “twenty”, “3 million” rather than 3,000,000 if possible, and dates “20th century” rather than “20th” or “twentieth”, “8 November 2016” or “November/Nov 8th, 2016” rather than “November/Nov 8th, 2016”…

2.3 Translation and its function in museum communication

2.3.1 Translation

Many linguistics and translation professionals have had different views of translation Rabin (1958, p 123) views translation is a process in which either the verbal or written form of a language is conveyed with the same meaning in another language Nida and Taber, (1969, p 20) defines translation is the reproduction of message equivalents concerning meaning and style of the source language to the target language Tanke (1975) depicts translation is a communicative process in which translator is performing the interpolation between two different language- speaking persons who try to figure out the code of their conversation And later he suggests a complete definition (Tanke, 1976, p 22) that translation is the transfer of meaning equivalent from the source language to the target language Newmark (1988, p 5) defines “Translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text”

As can be seen, these authors share a common view regarding the based concept that translation is the transfer of meaning of a message in the source language to the target language; and the translation in this thesis is assessed on the base of this concept of translation In concrete, translation is understood as the transfer of meaning of messages conveyed in the exhibit labels and photo captions from Vietnamese into English

meaning-21

Furthermore, a specific term addressed in this thesis is “museum translation” Sturge (2007) views museum translation as the concept involving source texts and target texts but verbal texts are not necessarily referred here She also adds translation can be identified as a process by which objects are selected, relocated, exhibited and interpreted In this view, objects can be referred as both source texts and target texts (Sturge, 2007, p 153)

Liao (2018, p 47) argues that exhibited objects can be seen as source texts and the verbal interpretation is referred as target texts Hence, translation can be deemed to be the transfer between different cultures and modes Moreover, museum translation can be considered as the inter-lingual transmission between source texts and target texts in museum exhibitions (Liao, 2018, p 47) Translation certainly exists under different modes and each one is equally important because it finally dedicates to the success of theoretical and professional practices in museums

There is a limited area of translation in this research The thesis author only concentrates on inter-lingual translation of exhibit labels and photo captions in museums It also means that translators should have a careful look at the exhibits and photos for better understanding for their translation analysis

2.3.2 Translation functions in museum communication

Liao (2018, p 48) conducts a study of the contribution of translation in museums and suggests five functions of museum translation:

(1) Informative function: Museum translation engages visitors who are not

acquainted with the source text with information provision

(2) Interactive function: Museum translation creates communicative

interaction for the target readers by welcoming and involving them and by bridging the gap between the museum and the international visitors who depends on the translations

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(3) Political function: Museum translation can be considered as ideological

means of the transferring process of what and how the museum wants to express its view in the communication with its visitors

(4) Social-inclusive function: Museum translation gains the equality of

language use in a community of different languages since the dominant language of society is only spoken in a lot of museums nowadays As a result, members of other languages are not included in the language-specific community

(5) Exhibitive function: Translation can be considered as exhibited objects

because its presence exists in a variety of texts embedded to displayed objects

Besides, Sonaglio (2016, p 64) points out that translations help visitors realize the historical and cultural values of the displayed objects This emphasizes functions (1) and (4) as Liao’s confirmation

Obviously, these two authors reveal different translation functions in museums, focusing on communicative aims Translation facilitates visitors’ communication and helps them be exposed to the real language use, values of displayed objects, the desired views of the museum, and gain some inter-language encounters

2.4 Translation errors and error analysis

2.4.1 Translation errors

In general view, Collins Dictionary (2018) defines “an error is something

which you have done and is considered to be incorrect or wrong, or which should

not have been done” and indicates its synonyms are fault, slip, blunder or mistake

In the field of second language studies, Corder (1967) proposes the concept

of “the systematic errors of the learner from which we are able to reconstruct his knowledge of the language to date, i.e his transitional competence” Also, Larsen (1992) (as cited in Rustipa, 2011) reveals that error is a deviant difference

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from conventional rules that is made by learners due to their lack of mastering the rules of the target language and the error is as evidence proving their low proficiency at his or her current stage of language development

From translation perspective, in Pym (1992, pp 279-281), errors in translation are considered as a manifestation of a defect in any factors entering into the skills in translation He then categorizes translation errors as two types: Binary translation errors are complete incorrectness of translation; and non-binary translation errors are not totally wrong, and can be improved He adds that there are various causes of translation errors such as lack of comprehension, inappropriateness to readership and misuse of time, and they involve different levels

as language, pragmatics and culture

Pham (2018, p 23) argues translation errors can be viewed from two different standpoints:

(i) In the standpoint of equivalence: Translation errors can be considered as non-equivalence between source text and target text, or non-adequacy of the target text (Koller, 1979), and then translation errors are described as (1) significant (unmotivated) mismatches of denotational meaning between source and target text (subdivided into omissions, additions and substitutions), and (2) breaches of the target-language system (e.g orthography, grammar) (Hatim & Mason, 1997);

(ii) In the functionalistic approach: Translation errors are defined as “an offence against (1) the function of the translation, (2) the coherence of the text, (3) the text type or text form, (4) linguistic conventions, (5) culture- and situation-specific conventions and conditions, (6) the language system” (Seguinot, 1990)

In this study, the thesis author addresses both binary and non-binary translation errors in assessment of errors’ seriousness based on Pym’s view; and for

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the academic training purpose, the research data are processed in the viewpoint of equivalence

In regard to a distinction between error and mistake, Bartram and Walton

(1991, p 21) argue that a mistake is the incorrect language use which is not often produced by native speakers, which is caused by the learners due to their wrong application of language rules they have already acquired; on the contrary, error is caused by the learners when they are exposed to something completely new in the language field In support of this view, Ellis (1997) states that an error is an evidence of a gap in learners’ knowledge and competence, and this gap is supposed

to occur when the learners cannot make a decision on the correctness of a new issue

in language learning; on the other hand, a mistake is the failure of the learners when they are not able to make use of what they have known The thesis author also concludes that in the language learning environment, learners’ mistakes or errors cannot be immediately identified, so a transparent differentiation between the two

concepts of error and mistake may not be impossible

In Translation Studies, there is a justification of the equivalence between the two concepts proposed by Palazuelos et al (1992) (as cited in Jiménez et al (2014,

p 15)) and Nord (1996)

In this research, translation involves texts embedded to displayed objects and photos in museums The translated samples available have been already translated

by translators who are supposed to be equipped with some certain professional

knowledge of language and translation Therefore, a clear distinction between error and mistake seems to be unnecessary In this research, the terms “error” and

“mistake” are equally interchanged

2.4.2 Error analysis

Corder (1967) argues that analyzing learners’ errors is really meaningful because it reveals how the learners achieve the language and what strategies and procedures are applied by the learners in discovering the language According to

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these perspectives, error analysis in the field of translation is no exception It involves sample collection, error identification, error taxonomy, explanation of error causes and error severity assessment This procedure is significant to both translators and translation practitioners because it helps them review and improve their translated products and also provide them with experience of avoiding frequent mistakes they may make in the translation process

Also, Quine (1975) explains that the logic causes of error made by translators can be investigated through the analysis As a result, the evaluation of error severity

is considered a significant benefit obtained from the error analysis

Keshavarz (2012) highlights error analysis as “a procedure used by both researchers and teachers which involves collecting samples of learners’ language, identifying errors, classifying them according to their nature and causes, and evaluating their seriousness” Then, Jiménez et al (2014, p 18) states that error analysis is a method for analyzing errors, which is broadly used in the field of language learning, especially EFL or ESL

In the field of translation training and practice, the benefits from error analysis have been proved obvious to would-be translators and translators For instance, the problems of a translator can be detected through of process of error analysis The levels and natures of errors can be exposed after the application of error analysis and the discovery of error patterns is another benefit

2.5 Models of error analysis in translation

2.5.1 Error analysis procedure

Corder (1974) suggests five stages comprised in the analysis procedure as follows: 1 Selecting a language corpus, 2 Identifying errors in the corpus, 3 Classifying the errors identified, 4 Explaining the causes of the error, and 5 Evaluating the seriousness of the errors

In the same line, Pinker (1986) makes it shorter and proposes four steps for

an appropriate analysis procedure: 1 Collecting suitable samples from the language,

However, some longer error analysis procedures are provided One of them

is the procedure with six steps suggested by Gass and Selinker (1994), including data collection, error identification, error taxonomy, error quantification, analysis of sources of errors, and error remediation

Although the number of steps in the procedures above is varied, they share a common view that the acts of data collection, error identification, error classification, explanation of error causes, and evaluation of error severity are required in the procedure

In the field of translation, causes of errors are various and affected by a number of factors such as negative influence of the mother tongue (Lado, 1964), negative effects of habit in the source language on the target language (Corder, 1971), language influence, intrinsic difficulties, communicative strategies (Lennon, 2008), translators’ inadequate ability and the inability of transfer of texts (Muñoz, 2012)

In order to identify the causes of errors, there must be an insight, dedicated, time-consuming investment into the translation process and translators’ competence In this thesis, the collected samples are completed translation products available in museums, and the translators are not publicized so it is not easy to the thesis author evaluate their real competence and translation procedure Therefore,

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the accurate identification of error causes is quite difficult As a result, the step of explaining causes of errors is excluded in this research

In terms of error evaluation, Lennon (2008) argues that there is problematic

to judge and rank the level of error severity because individual assessors may employ different sets of criteria In this view, the evaluation of the seriousness of translation errors depends on the criteria applied by native language readers, translation experts, translation editors, other translation products-intended professionals Therefore, sets of questionnaires, surveys and interviews have to be conducted with their involvement to unify an appropriate set of criteria This is time-consuming and beyond the scope of this thesis

To deal with the research question raised in section 1.4, the thesis author decides to employ the error analysis procedure by Pinker (1986) However, the two separate steps for detecting errors and identifying and describing errors are inter- related, and they are subject to a merge into a single step in this thesis Therefore, the final error analysis procedure employed for the research comprises the appropriate data collection then followed by the language corpus production, the

error identification, and the error classification as follows:

Fig 2.1 The Error Analysis Procedures adapted from Pinker (1986)’s

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2.5.2 Models of error taxonomy

The categorization of errors has also been found problematic because there has been no unified model for the error classification due to the application of different criteria by scholars and researchers (Pinker, 1986; Lennon, 2008; Dastjerdi

& Abdolmaleki 2012; Mateo, 2014)

The linguistic taxonomy of errors by Keshavarz (1993) (as cited in Dastjerdi

& Abdolmaleki, 2012, p 76), provides a classification including morphological errors and lexico-semantic errors This taxonomy is somehow similar to that of Hendrickson (1979), in which he categorizes errors into grammatical errors and semantic errors Thus, Keshavarz (1993)’s linguistic taxonomy of errors focuses on the meaning and the structure of the original and translated texts

syntactic-In 1995, a flexible model by the Localization syntactic-Industry Standards Association (LISA), called the LIZA Quality Assurance, was applied for localization projects It

is criticized user-friendly for assessing the quality of templates, forms and reports (Stejskal, 2006) It consists of an explained list of error categories, the degree of error severity, a list of tasks for revisers, and an illustrated template for judging translation as pass or fail (Mateo, 2014) Para (2005) shows that it is also believed

to be so flexible that translators can make a prior deal with their customers on two criteria: error type and error seriousness (as cited in Mateo, 2014) This model was upgraded to version 2 in 1999, and completely revised version 3 in 2004 Its capacities are applicable to deal with several translation issues in various fields such

as linguistics, physics, business and culture, etc (LISA 2007, pp 12-14) In Para (2005, pp 280-281), the latest LIZA model comprises seven error types and described as follows

Table 2.1 The Error Categories proposed by LIZA in 2004

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1 Mistranslation No description

2 Accuracy The meaning of the original is kept and

unchanged

3 Terminology The application of appropriate word choice

and terms is followed

The conventions of target language rules are followed Grammatical and syntactic rules are adhered to the target language No typos and misspelling

5 Style Style and register are conformed to the text

specific-field

6 Country Country standards, local suitability, and

company standards are followed

7 Consistency Style guide, glossary, and project instructions

are abode by

However, it is commented not empirical, and its error types are overlapped and not clearly defined (Para, 2005; Jiménez & Miguel, 2009)

Eftekhar and Nouraey (2013) develop a model of error classification based

on the combination of error taxonomies by Keshavarz (1993) and Miremadi (1991)

It consists of three categories of errors: 1 Grammatical errors identified as the

violation of using tenses, prepositions, articles, the wrong use of plural morphemes

and parts of speech, 2 Semantic errors defined as the wrong transfer of meaning such as word choice, word form, and pronounce reference, and 3 Pragmatic errors

recognized as the breach of pragmatic rules including ambiguity, misunderstanding and mistranslation This developed model is quite concise and practical, and applicable to translation field In their study, it is used for classifying errors in

Table 2.2.The Error Categories of Liao (2010)

R1

Rendition Errors

Mistranslating the source text

translation different from the original

translation different from the original

R4

Unclear distinction of meaning between the source text and the target text, inadequate accuracy

terminologies L1