Translation errors made by senior students at university of languages and international studies in their english translation of vietnamese collocations in the final examination of advanced translation

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI University of Languages and international Studies FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION Graduation paper TRANSLATION ERRORS MADE BY SENIOR ST

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI University of Languages and international Studies FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

Graduation paper

TRANSLATION ERRORS MADE BY SENIOR

STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES

AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THEIR

English translation of Vietnamese

collocations in the final examination

of advanced translation

Supervisor: nguyen thi dieu thuy

Student: tran ngoc hang

Year of ENROLLMENT: QH09 E25

HA NOI, MAY 2013

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

CÁC LỖI DỊCH THUẬT SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ TƯ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ MẮC PHẢI TRONG QUÁ TRÌNH DỊCH CÁC CỤM KẾT HỢP

TỪ TIẾNG VIỆT SANG TIẾNG ANH TRONG BÀI THI CUỐI KỲ MÔN BIÊN DỊCH NÂNG CAO

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy Sinh viên: Trần Ngọc Hằng

Khóa: QH09 E25

HÀ NỘI, NĂM 2013

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ACCEPTANCE

r y st t t t r n n , class: QH2009.F.1.E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the Univ rsity r l tin to t r t ntion nd us of B lor’s Gr du tion P p r d posit d

in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Tr n Ng c H ng Hanoi, April 30th 2013

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to show my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy, BA for her critical comments, tremendous encouragement and explicit guidelines during the time I prepared and conducted this study Without her support, it would be extremely difficult for me to complete this graduation paper

Apart from that, I also owe many sincere thanks to Ms Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Linh,

Ms Ngô Hà Thu and Mr Tr n Hoàng Anh for their precious assistance If there had not been their help, I could not have collected enough necessary materials for my paper and acquired enough academic knowledge for the research, which are among the key things for my thesis completion

Besides, I want to show my greatest love to my grandmother, my parents, my aunt, my cousin Le Quang Anh and my younger brother for their inspiration during the time I carried out this research

Last but not least, I also want to say thank you to friends from class 09E25 for being besides me and encouraging me to try together to reach the final goal of our four years studying at the University of Languages and International Studies

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ABSTRACT

Collocation is one of the most challenging problems to most of foreign language learners in general and translators in particular It is pretty demanding for both translation professionals to practitioners to render a collocation from the source language into the target language due to many subjective and objective reasons from linguistic to translators‟ competence ones As a result, students with limited linguistic competence and knowledge often make errors in their collocations translation It is necessary for them to be aware of these errors and know how to avoid as well as correct them next times

This study is aimed to investigate translation errors in the English translation of Vietnamese collocations made by senior students majoring in English translation and interpreting at the University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU) in their final examination of the subject named Advanced Translation The study also comes up with suggested translations for some difficult collocations

The results of the study show that even senior students made many translation errors in their translation exam Findings from data analysis reveal that omission, inappropriate linguistic variations are the most frequent errors made by the students The conclusion can also be drawn that students should get greater access to both authentic Vietnamese and English resources so that they will have better understanding about the languages they use and learn as well as improve their knowledge about different issues to produce better translations

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS PAGE

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii List of figures, tables, and abbreviations v

Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Organization 3

Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1 An overview of translation quality assessment 5

2.1.1 An overview of translation quality assessment 5

2.1.2 An overview of translation errors 6

2.2 An overview of collocations 8

2.2.1 Definition of collocation 8

2.2.2 Classification of collocations 9 2.2.3 Studies related to collocations and collocations translation 11

2.2.4 Procedures in collocations translation 13

2.3 Summary 17

Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1 Selection of subjects 19

3.2 Data collection instrument 19

3.3 Procedures of data collection 19

3.4 Procedures of data analysis 20

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Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

4.1 Findings 22

4.1.1 Translation errors 22

4.1.1.1 Contresens (Opposite sense) 22

4.1.1.2 Faux sens (Wrong sense) 24

4.1.1.3 Nonsens (Nonsense) 26

4.1.1.4 Addition 27

4.1.1.5 Omission 27

4.1.1.6 Loss of meaning 29

4.1.1.7 Inappropriate linguistic variation 29

4.1.2 Good translation and procedures employed

4.1.2.1 Shift or transposition 32

4.1.2.2 Paraphrase 33

4.1.2.3 Reduction and expansion 34

4.1.2.4 Lexical synonymy 35

4.1.2.5 Other translation procedures 37

4.2 Pedagogical implications and suggestions 38

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ABBREVIATION

EFL English foreign language

ST Source text TQA Translation quality assessment

TT Target text ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VNU Vietnam National Studies

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

Translation is said to be the second oldest science in the history and play a prominent role in every society since the introduction of languages and communication Especially in the context of globalization and international integration, the twenty first century has seen an increasing number of translators and interpreters as well as increasing demands of translating documents It is understandable that translation work is capturing special attention of the whole society as a result of accelerated economic, scientific and technological development Together with the rapid development of translation work, translation studies as

a science also witnesses great development with many in-depth researches such as those of Peter Newmark, Nida, Wilss, Nida & Taber and so on Among numerous areas of translation research, translation quality assessment is one of the most popular branches with a large number of projects carried out by professional researchers, translators as well as nonprofessional ones

In linguistics, collocation is an important part of every language including English and Vietnamese As a translator, it is unavoidable to face with countless collocations during their translation Translators of different levels and experiences might come up with different ways to translate collocations, students majoring in translation and interpreting also have their own ways to deal with various types of collocations

Acknowledging the demand of translation, many Vietnamese universities have adopted translation training and teaching curriculum, among which is University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) of Vietnam National University (VNU) Students of the examined university must have been taught some translation skills and techniques to ensure their performance, one of which is collocations translation

in the target language which is expected to be natural and equivalent

From the reasons mentioned above, the researcher attempts to conduct a study

on translation errors made by senior students at ULIS, VNU in their English translation of Vietnamese collocations in their final examination

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study is designed to examine translation errors committed by senior students at the University of Languages and International Studies in their English translation of Vietnamese collocations in the final examination of Advanced Translation At the same time, the study tries to have an insight look on the students‟ translation and procedures employed in good translations Last but not least, suggested translations for all Vietnamese collocations taken from the test will be given for students‟ consideration and reference

To achieve these goals, the current research tries to answer the following questions:

1 What are translation errors made by senior students at ULIS, VNU in their English

translation of Vietnamese collocations based on the classification of Hurtado (1995) (contresens, faux sens, nonsense, addition, omission, loss of meaning, inappropriate linguistic variations, and unresolved extra-linguistic references)?

2 What is/are procedure(s) employed by students in some good translations?

3 What are suggested English translations for those Vietnamese collocations from the

perspectives of the researcher and the teacher?

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1.3 Significance of the study

This study is hoped to be beneficial for students as well as teachers in collocations learning Besides, it is expected that the result of this research will also be useful for translators and other researchers who are interested in the same subject

 Students: this study will help students realize their common collocations

translation errors and how to avoid such mistakes In addition, the result of this research will provide them with appropriate strategies in dealing with various kinds

of Vietnamese collocations at different levels of difficulty Thanks to the outcome

of the study, students will be well-equipped with knowledge about collocations and skills in tackling collocations in their examinations in short term and their translation work in the longer term

 Teachers: this study helps teachers acknowledge students‟ problems in dealing

with collocations so that teachers can raise students‟ awareness of using of collocations more frequently and appropriately Moreover, it is expected that from the study, translation teachers will come up with more teaching methods to help their student improve their linguistic and translation competence

1.4 Scope of the study

The researcher examined the translation papers made by senior students majoring in English translation and interpreting at ULIS, VNU in their final examination of the subject Advanced translation About 53 examination papers of students with around 40 Vietnamese collocations in the part of Vietnamese – English translation were investigated in order to find out the results

1.5 Organization of the study

The rest of the paper consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 2 (Literature Review) presents the theoretical background of the study, including the definition of translation quality assessment in general and an overview of

Chapter 5 (Conclusion) summarizes all problems discussed in the paper, the limitations of the research, some pedagogic recommendations for translation teachers, students and other researchers in this field

The final part of the study will provide references and appendices for the whole paper

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 An overview of translation quality assessment

2.1.1 An overview of translation quality assessment

Newmark (1995) considers TQA as an important link between translation theory and translation practice Unfortunately, there have no clear criteria for TQA; therefore, it is harsh to confirm a translation product is “good” or “bad” House (1986) believes it can be assessed by the faithfulness of the target text to the source text and the preservation of the source text‟s “specific flavours”

Differently, Nida (1964) thinks that the responses of the audience of the target texts and source texts should be similar Some other linguistics and researchers like Wilss (1974) use the source text as the basis to evaluate any translation text in terms of function and type Last but not least, House (1986) bases on pragmatic theories of language use to assess translation quality

Out of different approaches to TQA, Newmark‟s is thought to be applied more widely He proposed a process of six main steps to evaluate translation product which are source text analysis, translator‟s purpose analysis, source text-target text comparison, translation evaluation and translation‟s future application predication

Another method to assess translation quality is taken from Hurtado (1995) which is based on error analysis and possible mistakes are grouped under three headings They are inappropriate rendering affecting the understanding of the source text such as addition, omission, loss of meaning; inappropriate renderings affecting expression in the target language (spelling, grammar, lexical items and style)

The work of assessment also can be based on error analysis and was designed to take into account the negative effect of errors on the overall quality of the translation (Cf Kussmaul 1995: 129) Besides, we also have a holistic method to assess translation quality which includes five levels to reflect the accuracy of transfer of

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source text content, the quality of expression in target language and the degree of task completion It is also possible to have the combination of the second and the third methods with the former being the major method

2.1.2 Translation errors

Although translation quality assessment has become a growing trend of translation studies, it is still controversial to categorize translation errors

Neubert & Shreve (1992) describes translation errors as what rightly seems to

be linguistically equivalent may very frequently qualify as “translationally” nonequivalent It can be inferred from this that it is sophisticated and difficult to define and identify translation errors which sometimes can be mistaken with linguistic errors

Albir (2001) gives some translation errors including inappropriate renderings affecting the understanding of the source text, the expression in the target language and the transmission of the main and secondary function To be more specific, they can be errors of sense, references, meaning loss, inappropriate linguistic variation, spelling, grammar, style, text and so on

Simply, Newmark (1995) believes there are two types of translation errors which are referential and linguistic while American Translation Association suggests a list of 22 types of errors consisting of misunderstanding of the original text, mistranslation into target language, addition or omission, word choice/terminology, too freely translated, too literal or too word-for-word translation, ambiguity, grammar, syntax, punctuation, spelling, word form, style and so on

Albir and Melis (2001) do not provide clear-cut categorization of translation errors but the authors present major questions that should be taken into consideration

in translation errors researches They are: difference between errors relating to the ST and errors relating to the TT, difference between functional errors and absolute errors, difference in individual translators between systematic errors and random errors, difference between errors in the product and errors in the process

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Generally speaking, the thesis was based on the theory of Hurtado (1995) to analyze translation errors in this paper This group of errors consists of different sub groups which are contresens, faux sens, nonsens, addition, omission, unresolved extra-linguistic references, loss of meaning and inappropriate linguistic variation

Because due to the researcher‟s limit ability as well as the framework of this paper, it is not possible to discuss about these error types in detail, the researcher has chosen to cite the definition from Delisle (1993) for each of them only

- Non-sens (absence of meaning): translation error that implies the use of a TL information that is completely meaningless or absurd rendering of the SL” (Delisle 1993: 37)

- Misinterpretation (contresens): translation error that attributes a wrong meaning to

a word or words or that, more in general, betrays the ST author‟s thoughts” (Delisle 1993: 25)

- Incorrect meaning (faux sens): translation error resulting from the erroneous interpretation of a word, words or utterance in context The resulting in meaning does not, however, result in misinterpretation or absence of meaning.” (Delisle 1993: 32)

- Linguistic variation errors refer to morphological variation, lexical variation, semantical variation and syntactical variation

- Extra-linguistic reference means cultural, thematic and encyclopaedic references

Following the development of studies about translation errors, many linguistics and researchers have rated the impact of translation errors on translation quality About the seriousness and impact of the errors on students‟ translation performance, some authors classify errors on a scale of more to less serious like in Nord‟s opinion (1996), the most serious are pragmatic errors, followed by cultural and linguistic errors

Other authors consider that errors of sense relating to the original text (opposite sense, wrong sense, nonsense) and those affect the coherence and cohesion of the

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target text are the most serious (Hurtado, 1995); Honig (1987) and Gouadec (1989) maintain that the seriousness of the error depends on the extent to which it infringes on the effectiveness of the target text

2.2 An overview of collocations

2.2.1 Definition of collocation

If grammar is the bones of a text, collocations are the nerves, more subtle and multiple and specific in denoting meaning, and lexis is the flesh

As simply defined in the Oxford Adv n d L rn r’s Di tion ry of Current

English (1974), collocation is “words combining or coming together in a way

characteristic of language” or “the co-occurrence of two or more lexical items” (Cowie, 1978)

While Palmer (1993) defined it as “successions of two or more words the meaning of which can hardly be deduced from a knowledge of their component words”, Firth (1957: 196) was the first to introduce collocations as a technical term in linguistic research About four decades later, Benson (1990) defined a collocation is an arbitrary and recurrent word combination Meanwhile, the BBI Combinatory Dictionary (Benson et al, 1997) defines collocations as “words which regularly combine with other words or grammatical constructions.”

It is also said that collocations are phraseologically bound units, thus they are classified as a subgroup of set phrases (cfGläser 1988; Howarth 1996; Mel'čuk 1998) while Mitchell (1971) considered collocations as association of two or more lexemes recognized in and defined by their occurrence in a specific range of grammatical constructions

Moreover, Newmark (1981) defined collocations as consisting basically of two

or three lexical words, usually linked by grammatical words and showed the structural

co-Generally speaking, collocations should be distinguished from words in a semantic field (colours, ranks, etc) or from the frame of a topic which, if they are on the same level, do not immediately collocate with each other

2.2.2 Classification of collocations

It is the fact that many researchers have given out various suggested classifications of collocations According to Huang (2001), there are four types of collocations namely free, restricted, figurative and idiomatic while some researchers like O‟Dell and McCarthy 2008 emphasize a formal and an informal typology

In related field, Newmark (1981) divides syntagmatic collocations into seven main groups, among which are verb-verbal noun, determiner-adjective-noun, adverb-adjective, verb-adverb/adjective, subject-verb, count noun-of-mass noun, collective noun-of-count noun

To Crystal, a collocation is typically denned as the “habitual co-occurrence of individual lexical items” For the translator, for whom the collocation is the most important contextual factor collocation, in as far as it usefully affects the translation, is considerably narrower, it consists of lexical items that enter mainly into high-frequency grammatical structures Collocation can be grouped into different categories

as below:

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(1) Adjective plus noun: heavy labour, economic situation…

(2) Noun plus noun: government securities, eyeball…

(3) Verb plus object: pay a visit, attend a lecture…

While in reference to Vietnamese syntax, Dinh-Hoa Nguyen mentioned several types of noun phrase which are noun-noun, noun-preposition-noun, noun-place-noun, noun-numeral, noun-verb/adjective, noun-demontrative and noun-relative clause and the verb phrase, namely verb-noun, verb-noun-noun, verb-noun-verb, verb-place-noun, verb-numeral, verb-verb, verb-adjective, adjective-noun, adjective-verb and adjective-adjective

Types of collocations Vietnamese collocations

Noun-noun Bề dày lịch sử

Đàn gà Mặt trái xoan Adjective-noun Buồn mồm

Chối tai Noun-adjective H c sinh giỏi

Gia đình hạnh phúc Mặt tròn

Verb-noun Bẻ cong ngòi bút

Lấy khẩu cung Verb-adjective Chết ngay

Chơi khăm

2.2.3 Studies related to collocations and collocations translation

It is well-known that researchers have different ways to approach collocations due to their personal interests and perspectives Numerous tests are applied such as multiple choice, blank filling, translation of certain types of collocations in order to assess language learners and users‟ proficiency

For example, Huang (2001) carried out a study about Taiwanese students‟ knowledge of English collocations and came to the conclusion that free collocations was the least challenging to examined students, the opposite is true to pure idioms More recently, Kharma and Hajjaj (2005) used a multiple-choice task focusing on verb-noun clusters only Sharing the same approach, Fan (2009) showed that it is necessary to apply more effective approach to lexical learning, especially the teaching

of collocations at all levels

Similarly Abdul-Fattah (2001)conducted a multiple choice test consisting of about 20 collocations to test students at Jordanian school and found that students are really weak at linguistic, particularly collocations translation Two years later, Zughoul

Generally speaking, it can be inferred from the mentioned researches that there

is a trend of weakness of EFL learners and users in learning and using English collocations global wide

Understanding this universal trend, many researchers have been examining this issue For example, in a study named Native speakers of Slovene and Their Translation of Collocations from Slovene into English: A Slovene-English Empirical

Study, MarjetaVrbinc found some major mistakes made students when translating

lexical collocations which are related to the collocator, the base or misinterpretation of the entire collocation

His paper shows that very often use a word combination which can be classified

as a collocation but whose meaning does not correspond to that in the source language which can be attributed to the fact that students were aware of their task, but paid scant attention to the appropriate semantic meaning He also suggests the reasons why students mistranslate the entire collocation or sentence which is they misinterpreted the meaning of the collocation/sentence in source language After the study, he found that although many people believe that literal translation would be by far the most frequent type of mistake, in fact, most of lexical collocations in this study were not translated word for word

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More recently, in the very beginning of 2011, Hussein Abdul-Fattah published

a paper named Translatability of collocations: a constant challenge to EFL learners In this paper, the researcher found out some errors made by MA students majoring in translation in their translation of English collocations The findings indicate that besides some errors in terms of grammar, spelling and style, there are numerous collocational type errors such as wrong preposition, wrong verb, phraseology, paraphrase, wrong lexical choices and gaps, among which wrong lexical choices is the most frequent one Interestingly, the paper showed that adjective-noun collocational type is the most challenging to students

Moreover, Abdul-Fattah also points out some major causes of translation errors which are L1 transfer or literal translation, substitution/paraphrase, assumed synonymity, quasi-morphological similarity, analogy/overgeneralization, idiomaticalness, formal/semantic association and avoidance/abandonment It is found that literal translation strategy draws on the student translators‟ tendency to manipulate their mother tongue in their English collocation translation whenever they felt defective in authentic linguistic resources It is also displayed that foreign language uses tend to escape to his/her mother tongue when failing to find the appropriate collocant

Newmark believed that sensitiveness to collocations is most useful when considering SL collocations and relating them to transparent TL collocations

2.2.4 Procedures in translation

Some general procedures can be applied in the translation of collocation Newmark (1988, p 81-93) points out the following procedures

 Transference: it is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text or in

other words, a SL word us directly taken into TL text with no translation It includes transliteration and is the same as what Harvey (2000: 5) named

“transcription” or Catford‟s transference, and includes transliteration, which relates

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to the conversion of different alphabets The word then becomes a “loan word” Generally, only cultural objects or concepts related to a small group or cult should

be transferred Newmark argues that the following are normally transferred: names

of all living and most dead people, geographical and topographical names including newly independent countries, names of periodicals and newspapers, titles

of as yet untranslated literary works, plays, films; names of private companies and institutions, names of public or nationalized institutions, street names, addresses, etc

 Naturalization: this procedure succeeds transference and adapts the SL word

first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology of the TL

 Cultural equivalent: it means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one;

however, “they are not accurate” For example, the ST “He graduated after obtaining a degree with (high) distinction” is translated as “Anh ta tốt nghiệp loại giỏi (xuất sắc)” It is used in general texts, publicity and propaganda, as well as for brief explanation to readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture

 Functional equivalent: this common procedure, applied to cultural words,

requires the use of a culture-free word, sometimes with a new specific term Therefore, it neutralizes or generalizes the SL word; and sometimes adds a particular thus This procedure, which is a cultural componential analysis, is the most accurate way of translating deculturalising a cultural word

 Through–translation (calque, loan translation): it is the literal translation of

common collocations, names of organizations, the components of compounds and perhaps phrases It can also be called calque or loan translation

 Lexical synonymy: it means translation to the closest or most appropriate TL

equivalent due to abundance of synonyms Newmark (1988, p.84) acknowledges that this strategy “is only appropriate where literal translation is not possible and because the word is not important enough for componential analysis.” This

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procedure is used for a SL word where there is no clear on-to-one equivalent, and the word is not important in the text, in particular for adjectives or adverbs of

quality

 Componential analysis: This strategy is “the splitting up of a lexical item into its

sense components, often one – to – two, - three or – four translations.” When the lexical item is important in the text, for example it is a key-word, componential analysis is more preferred than synonymy According to the componential model, words display what is called distinctive features or distinctive semes, which are, in any way, the building blocks that words consist of and can be broken down into This applies to all aspects of a word, including its semantic content Imagine if you had to translate the Vietnamese word “nướcsạch” into English, which could be translated into any item in this lexical set, depending on the textual context A componential analysis can be very helpful in figuring out which target language

word to choose

“Nướcsạch”

 Pure water: water not mixed with any other substance

 Clean water: water that has been purified

 Clear water: water you can see through

 Translation label: an approximate equivalent or a new term that is usually a

collocation for a feature particular to the SL culture This is a provisional translation which should be made in “inverted commas.” It can be later be discreetly withdrawn

 Paraphrase: in this procedure, the meaning of the culture-bound terms is

explained It is used in poor written text or when it has important applications and omissions

 Reduction and expansion: it is grammatical contraction without changing or

destructing the meaning of the original These two procedures are usually used in

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poor written texts, and lead to a change in lexical and stylistic aspects Expansion refers to the case where the translator exceeds the number of words of the ST in translation Expansion also occurs when the translator tries to move from the implicit into the explicit Meanwhile, in reduction procedure, the translator is more likely to reduce in the number of elements that form the ST this procedure should respect the principle of relevance, that is, the translator should make sure that no crucial information is dropped in translation

 Shift or Transposition: it involves a change in the grammar from SL to TL such

as change from singular to plural, the change in the position of the adjective, the change required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, change of an

SL verb to a TL word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth It is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and most translators make transpositions intuitively

 Translation couplets: It occurs when the translator combines two different

procedures

 Modulation: it occurs when the translator reproduces the message of the original

text in the TL text in conformity with the current norms of the TL, since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective Some modulation procedures are abstract for concrete, cause for effect, one part for another, reversal of terms, active for passive, intervals and limits and change of symbols

 Notes: when the term in the SL is unfamiliar or difficult to understand in the target

text, translators create „additional information‟ to the target text to make readers have better understanding about theterm

2.3 Summary

It can be drawn from many reviewed researches and viewpoints above that there have been many studies on collocations in general and collocations translation in particular It is worth noting that some linguistics and scholars also have studied about

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Vietnamese-English translation and vice versa, including the translation of Vietnamese and English collocations into each other

In this paper, the researcher only attempts to focus on translation errors made

by a specific group of students in a linguistic university in Hanoi when translating Vietnamese collocations into English After having considering different approaches in

the related field, the researcher has decided to conduct a study entitled Translation

errors made by senior students at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University in their English translation of Vietnamese collocations in the final examination of Advanced Translation

After having reviewed and studied different models of translation quality assessment, the researcher finds that the theory of Hurtado (1995) seems to be more applicable than others in this study It is suitable for the purpose and the material of the study besides the clear-cut classification of both translation errors and the seriousness

as well as impacts of translation errors

To be more specific, Hurtado (1995) draws up a list of possible errors which are divided into three categories The first one consists of inappropriate renderings which affect the understanding of the source text and is divided into eight categories which are contresens (misinterpretation), faux sens (missense), nonsense (nonsense), addition, omission, unresolved extralinguistic references, loss of meaning and inappropriate linguistic variation (register, style, dialect, etc) The next category includes inappropriate renderings which affect expression in the target language and is divided into five categories covering spelling, grammar, lexical items, text and style Last but not least, it is inadequate renderings which affect the transmission of either the main function or secondary functions of the source text However, due to the researcher‟s intention and interest, only the first group of errors will be studied in this paper All errors related to linguistics like spelling, syntax and lexis and functions, style of the translation texts will be studied

As all students have to finish their translation within the same period of time with the same conditions (printed dictionary usage only, no reference and help from other sources), it is guaranteed that all are their own translation products As a result, the analysis and results of the study would be more objective and reliable

3.2 Data collection instrument

With the permission of the head of Translation and Interpreting Division of English Department, ULIS, VNU, 53 examination papers in Advanced Translation final exam were collected and only the Vietnamese – English translation part is copied for the purpose of the study

3.3 Procedures of data collection

Step 1: The researcher asked for permission from the Dean of the Faculty and

the Translation Division to have a look at the marked translation papers of students in their last final examination

Step 2: 53 papers of senior students in the final examination of Advanced

Translation were collected with the permission and observation of involved teachers and school staff but only the Vietnamese – English translation texts will be recorded

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The researcher took the examination papers to photocopy Vietnamese – English translation parts under the guideline and observation of the teachers

3.4 Procedures of data analysis

Data analysis method

The researcher decided to apply the qualitative method to collect and analyze the data for this study and the final results would be presented by tables for the types

of collocation translation errors

Qualitative method

Translation errors in students‟ translation paper were identified and coded into different categories for easier analysis

Procedures of data analysis

Step 1: The researcher worked on the translation papers to pick out Vietnamese

collocations in the two texts basing on the theory about definition, characteristics and classification of Vietnamese collocations as mentioned above in the Literature review Simultaneously, translations of those collocations of 53 students were recorded faithfully to be studied later After collecting enough necessary materials for the study, the researcher had general evaluation about translation products of the students by herself first

Step 2: Based on the theory of Hurtado Albir (1995), translation errors made by

students were grouped into different categories

At the same time, the research read the papers carefully and based on her experience as well as knowledge to find out good translation papers and studied the procedures employed in such translations

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The researcher also counted their occurrence to identify which mistakes are the most frequent ones In addition, the researcher will also investigate the most common strategies used in good translations of collocations by students

Step 3: After self-evaluation, the researcher finalized the results of the study

and made a conclusion about translation errors made by the students From her experience and knowledge about collocations and translation, the researcher gave out some suggested translation for Vietnamese collocations in this study To be more subjective and reliable, an experienced English teacher who has been teaching at the university and has much knowledge and understanding about English was invited to give out some suggestions for translating the Vietnamese collocations

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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 Translation errors

In this part, the researcher will try to find the answer for the first question which

is about translation errors made by students in their English translation of Vietnamese collocations

After studying 53 papers of students with forty Vietnamese collocations, the researcher can see that even senior students all made several errors in Vietnamese collocations translation Major errors belong to the group of faux sens, omission, loss

of meaning, inappropriate linguistic variation, addition, contresens and nonsense It is amazed that no student made any error related to unresolved extra-linguistic references It is worth noting that in many cases, at the same time, translation of one collocation can make more than one error

In this paper, the researcher also based on the theory of Hurtado (1995) to rate the seriousness of student‟s translation errors The findings of the study were placed in the descending order of seriousness of translation errors from opposite sense, wrong sense, nonsense to other errors

4.1.1.1 Contresens (Opposite sense)

Delisle (1993: 25) defined misinterpretation or contresens as a type of translation error that attributes a wrong meaning to a word or words or that, more in general, betrays the ST author‟s thoughts It means that any translation conveys the opposite meaning with the ST is considered as contresens:

For example, some students translated Vietnamese collocation “con p ốn ỏ” into “small roads” Although many Vietnamese people do not think there is any difference between “đườn ” and “p ố”, in fact, “đườn ” is defined as “lối đi n ất

địn đượ tạo r để nối liền i đị điểm, i nơi” and “p ố” as “đườn ở t àn p ố,

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thị trấn, d i ên ó n à ử ủ dân ư sin sốn ” In English, there are two terms

sharing some confusion to English learners which are “road” and “street”, but according to Oxford Advanced Leaner Dictionary, “street” is “a public road in a city

or town that has houses and buildings on one side or both sides” – equal to “p ố”

while ”road” is a hard surface built for vehicles to travel on – equal to “đườn ” Considering the context given in the exam, “road” is not the equivalent of “ on p ố”,

it should be “street” instead

Moreover, when translating “cà phê đá” into English, even two students gave

out the equivalent of it is “ro k off (styl )” In English, “rock” is defined as “the

hard solid material that forms part of the surface of the earth and some other planets”

which is totally different from what the source text mean – “a piece of ice used to keep

food and drinks cold”

Causing this type of errors in such translation is due to students‟ wrong assumed synonymity Blum and Levenston (1987)argued that FL users may not be fully aware of the complete collocational distribution of synonymous words in certain linguistic contexts Their knowledge is restricted by the type and amount of instructional input and the impact of the dictionary they usually use which presenting some words as synonymous and some other words with a few collocants without much detailed contextual distinction Thus, when on the way to figuring the appropriate collocant, the students looked for a synonym or a near synonym – the result was a non-idiomatic, unnatural TL expression

According to Dulay and Burt (1973), the main reason for making such type of translation error is L1 transfer/literal translation This strategy draws on the student translators‟ tendency to manipulate their NL in their English translation whenever they felt defective in authentic linguistic resources Kellerman (1973: 38) argues that L1 transfer is the product of the user‟s cognitive system, psychological structure, perception of the SL-TL distance, and his actual knowledge of L2.That is the reason

Vietnamese collocations English translation

Cà phê đá Rock coffee

Cơ quan quản lí Legislative agencies

Corporations Tax collectors

Mạnh về nhạc The strong point of students is music

4.1.1.2 Faux sens (Wrong sense)

According to Delisle (1993: 32), incorrect meaning (faux sens) is a type of translation error resulting from the erroneous interpretation of a word, words or utterance in context The resulting in meaning does not, however, result in misinterpretation or absence of meaning

The students seem to change the meaning of the source text freely without any idea of whether their translations convey the same and full message of the source text

or not Many students misinterpreted some parts of the collocations and gave incorrect translations for them

Let‟s have a look at some typical example in the above below For instance,

“excellent dish performances” is not the equivalent of “sự ắt mắt tron á ày

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iện” as illustrated In these cases, students have extended the meaning of a certain

word to other semantic situations where that word does not reasonably appeal like

“cách bày biện nội thất, trang trí” to “cách bày thức ăn”, “original” to “độc đáo” or

“noisy” – “ồn ào” to “náo nhiệt”

However, luckily, this type of misinterpretation and translation error does not lead to nonsense translations or betray the authors‟ thoughts as the above and the next type of translation errors

Vietnamese collocations English translation

Đặt vấn đề Focus on

Emphasize Concern about

Sự bắt mắt trong cách bày biện Excellent dish performances

Nét độc đáo th m Hidden original beauty

Sài Gòn náo nhiệt Noisy Saigon

Analogy and overgeneralization is one of major causes to this translation error which are characteristics of interlanguage errors as well as a psychological tendency of the FL users to extend the meaning of a certain word Besides, when failing to produce

the commonly used collocations, students resorted to false interlanguage assumptions

as a compensatory strategy based on some sense relationship or some kind of

“semantic approximation” (c.f Hamdan 2005: 147) This is when paraphrase or substitution action causes translation errors