A study on difficulties facing 3rd year english majors, vinh university in translating vietnamese news in brief into english

According to Roger T Bell, “Translation is the expression in anotherlanguage the target language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies”.Or translation in the replacement of a

I owe an inexpressible debt to all of the teachers at Foreign LanguagesDepartment, Vinh University for their lectures that have helped me a lot duringthis study.

Finally, I would like to express my deep thank to my family forencouragements and supports So much help and encouragement received but sIfeel that this study is far from perfect It is, therefore, my responsibility for anypossible shortcomings in the study

Vinh, April 2009 Nguyen Thi Diep

Vinh university

Foreign languages department

- -NguyÔn thÞ ®iÖp

A study on difficulties facing 3rd year english

majors, vinh university in translating

Vietnamese news-in-brief into English

( Khã kh¨n cña sinh viªn n¨m 3 trong viÖc dÞch tin v¾n tiÕng viÖt)

Translators usually meet a lot of difficulties when translating news ingeneral and news in brief, in particular This paper focused on finding somedifficulties facing students in translating news in brief Some suggestions weregiven in an effort to help them overcome these difficulties

In chapter 1, the theoretical background was provided The definitions oftranslation, news and news in brief were given as the basis of the study Somecharacteristics and structures of news in brief were also given to help readersbetter understanding news in brief

In chapter 2, the investigation was carried out to identify students'difficulties in translating news in brief Translating headlines, acronyms,administrative words, restructuring the original text were restated as specificdifficulties

In chapter 3, the author gave some suggestions for these difficulties Theconclusion summarized the issues and suggested some main points for furtherstudy

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Justification of the Study.

Human being’s life was very simple in the past The necessary things fortheir life were only food, clothes and residential places But the time haschanged together with the change of society The requirement forinformation nowadays is rapidly increasing when the globalization,regionalization is taking place all over the world

News – was born to satisfy the Human beings’ demand for information.Day by day, it has become variable in types, forms, and even languages.However, no one can know all languages of Human beings to read all ofthem In addition, the communication within a speech community is notenough in the information age People need to communicate with others indifferent communities Therefore, news translation has played an important

role in the development of mankind And news translators function as bridges

that link people together

Translation in general and news translation in particular, in fact, is one ofthe most difficult and challenging jobs It requires a translator not only goodknowledge of topic issue but also other things such as backgroundknowledge, culture of target community and purposes of translation etc.Translation will be considered to fail if readership misunderstands, disagrees

or feels strange

The author, herself, a student of foreign languages department foundsome difficulties and challenges when dealing with news translation,especially news in brief translation Her ambition in this study is only toidentify some difficulties that students may have and to help them overcomethese difficulties

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study.

The first purpose of this study is to help students better understandingnews and news in brief The author does hope that this study can help foreign

languages’ students identify some of their difficulties in translating news inbrief And some suggestions are given with the purpose of helping themovercome these difficulties.

3 Scope of the Study.

News translations, in fact, are very complicated and have broad coverage

It relates to many other areas and consists of so many aspects In the scale ofthis study, the author can not cover all She only would like to deal with:Difficulties of foreign languages’ students at Vinh university in theirVietnamese – English translation of news in brief

4 Method of the Study.

The author of this study uses some methods to identify some students’difficulties

The quantitative method has been used in this research by using atranslation test to identify students’ difficulties The test is designed in thewritten form, consisting 4 pieces of news-in-brief

The study has also used the qualitative method by using employinginterviews to collect more data from students Interviews were carried outwith 10 students among those who do the translation test The purpose ofinterviews is to collect students’ opinions and thoughts about their difficulties

in translating Vietnamese news-in-brief

5 Design of the Study.

The study includes three main parts:

Firstly, the introduction consists of the justification, aims and objectives,methods, designs of the study

The second part-investigation will cover the content of the study Thispart is divided into three chapters: 1st chapter provides the theoreticalbackground of the study, 2nd chapter presents the survey on students’difficulties And in the last chapter, some suggestiions for these problems aregiven

In the last part, conclusion, the author summaries the study as a wholeand gives suggestions for further researches.

According to Roger T Bell, “Translation is the expression in anotherlanguage (the target language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies”.

Or translation in the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by

a representation of an equivalent text in second language”

How equivalent the text is?

The answers may be very clear:

Text in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (fully orpartially equivalent), in respect of different levels of presentation (in respect ofcontext, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc) and at different rank (word forword, phrase for phrase, sentence for sentence) (Roger T Bell)

However, this classification seems inadequate because languages are verydifferent from each other, especially those do not belong to the same branch asVietnamese and English They are different in form, codes, rules, etc followingthis definition, shifting from one language is changing the forms However,there are some problems when changing the forms because of the redundancy oftarget language or the lack of synonym between languages

According to the Merrian Webster dictionary (1974):

“Translation consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turninto one own or another language”

As mentioned before, translation is basically a change of form The form of

a language refers to the actual words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc The

forms are referred to as the “surface structure” of a language Translators replacethe form of the source language by the form of the target language.

Translation, aims at equivalence between the source language and thetarget language in terms of lexical, grammatical, structure, context ofcommunication and structure identity To this end, translator must use thelexicon, grammatical structure of the target language in an appropriate way inrespects of communicative and cultural context to rebuild the same meaning According to Wilhelm K Weber in "Training Translators and ConferenceInterpreters":

Translation is the transposition of a text written in a source language into atarget language The translated version must be absolutely accurate in meaning,contain all nuances of the original and must be written in clear elegant languagethat can be easily understood by the reader

Needless to say, punctuation, spelling and grammar must be flawless Inaddition, translators have at their disposal dictionaries and reference material inboth languages (p.3)

However, it must be acknowledged that this definition is mostly for thesake of translation theory only Since in practice, it is very rarely to findtranslation versions that can be “absolutely accurate” in meaning, contain allnuances of the original and be easily understood by readers People are different

in all aspects so the message they received may not be identical from each other.Therefore, they may not be the same as the writer’s messages

Bui Tien Bao (lecturer in Hanoi national university) claimed thattranslation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that theauthor intended the text

In summary, these definitions above are considered as the basic of thestudy From these, we can understand that translation is the transferring from thesource language to the target language in appropriate ways, accepted by thetarget people community

1.1.2 Types of Translation

As presented earlier, translation in the change of form while the meaning isremained Accordingly, there are two main types of translation basing on formand meaning; the form based one and the meaning based one.( Larson, 1984)

1.1.2.1 Form Based

Form based translation is known as literal translation It attempts tofollow the form of the source language text When translating, translators mustuse lexicon, grammatical structure of the target language to replace those of thesource language (Larson, 1984)

1.1.2.2 Meaning Based

Brian G Rubchecht in Ten Concepts Students Should Understand Prior toEnrolling in a University Translation or Interpretation Class said, “One of themain goals for translators is to accurately communicative meaning”

He quoted Massoud’s recommendation (1988) that translators should askand keep in mind two basic questions about the source language message:

1 What does it mean?

2 How should it be said in the new (other) language?

…Good translators … do not try to reproduce the formal order of wordsand phrases nor do they try to find one to one sets of verbal correspondence.What they do aim at is a faithful reproduction of the original so that the meaning

of the message and its spirit may be satisfactorily communicated Larson (1984)claimed, “Meaning based translations or idiomatic translations make every effort

to communicate to text receivers, the meaning of the source language text in thenatural forms of the target language”

In fact, to have a good translation version, a translator should combine both

of meaning based one and form based one

1.1.3 Methods of Translation

Peter Newmark, in chapter 5 in A Textbook of Translation presented 8methods of translation They are word for word translation, literal translation,

faithful translation, semantic translation, adaptation translation, free translation,idiomatic translation and communicative translation.

1.1.3.1 Word for Word Translation

In this method, the order of the source language words is preserved and thewords are translated out of the context with their most common meanings.Cultural words are translated literally We use word for word translation tounderstand the structure of the source language and to construe a difficult text as

a pre-translation process

1.1.3.2 Literal Translation

Like word for word translation method, the lexical words are singlytranslated out of the context But the source language grammatical structures arechanged into the nearest target language equivalents

1.1.3.3 Faithful Translation

A faithful translation transfers cultural words and preserves the level ofgrammatical and lexical “Abnormality” in the translation It attempts to producethe precise contextual meaning to the original within the restrictions of the targetlanguage grammatical structures and to be completely faithful to the sourcelanguage writer’s intention and text realization

1.1.3.4 Semantic Translation

This type of translation emphasizes on the source language It demandsthe translation to be absolutely accurate in meaning and contain all nuances ofthe original text It takes more account of the aesthetic value It may translateless important cultural words by culturally neutral third of functional terms butnot by the cultural equivalents and take other small concessions to thereadership Semantic translation is flexible and admits the creative exception to

100 percent fidetly and allows for the translator’s institutive empathy with theoriginal

1.1.3.5 Adaptation Translation

This type of translation is the freest It mainly uses for the plays and poetry,

in which the theme, characters, plots are usually kept constant But the sourcelanguage culture is changed into the target language culture and the written text

1.1.3.6 Free Translation

It produces the matter without the manner, or the content without the forms

of the original And it is longer paraphrased than the original

1.1.3.7 Idiomatic Translation

It reproduces the message or the source language writers But it normallyuses colloquialism and idiom not existing in the original Therefore, it has atendency to distort nuances on meaning

1.1.3.8 Communicative Translation

The purpose of this type is well communicative This means that itemphasizes the target language, the readership It is freer than semantictranslation It “attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original onsuch a way that both content and language are readily acceptable andcomprehensible to the readership (Newmark, p.47)

The author of this study found the following definition of Catford suitablefor the subject matter Catford (1965) claimed that equivalence is distinguished

as an empirical phenomenon and as a theoretical comparing source language and

target language by way of informants and by way of commutation andobservation.

1.2 News

1.2.1 Definitions of News

News is the oldest kind of paper, appearing together with the birth of paper.Nowadays with the development of the mass media, news appears not only innewspaper but also on radio, television and internet, etc Many definitions ofnews have been given so far However, there has not been any common notion

of news

John B Bogart in Frank M O’ Brien’s, the story of the sun said: “When adog bites a man That is not news Because it happens so often But when a manbites a dog That is news” This definition is like a joke, but from this, we canunderstand that news is something new, strange, and attractive to the readership Here are some definitions of news quoted from various references:

- News is something attractive and real

- News is something reflected

- News is the difference between the world yesterday and the worldtoday

- News is anything and everything interesting about life and materials

in all their manifestation

(Translated from “Các thể loại thông tấn báo chí,Đinh Văn Hường, P.22)

- News is the same thing happening to different people

(Michael Short)

According to Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, “News is the report accounts ofrecent evens or occurrences brought to or coming to man as new information Itappears as a subject of report of talk”

Or “News is information from which readers or listeners derive satisfaction

or stimulation” (P.7-8)

Although these definitions are very different from each other, the commonfeature is that news is prompt, having some certain socio-political significance The author of this study found the following definition of Ken Metzler,Journalism professor of University Oregon seems to satisfy all above “News isprompt, “bottom line”, recounting of factual information about events, situationsand ideals (including opinions and interpretations) calculated to interest anaudience and help people cope with themselves and their environment” (P.12).

1.2.2 Functions and Characteristics of News

This function of news is clearly shown in news in sections “Tin đọc nhanh,tin giờ chót, tin mới nhận, thế giới trước 0 giờ” (in Vietnamese newspapers suchas: Nhân Dân newspaper, Tuổi Trẻ and Sài Gòn giải phóng newspaper)

News also has the entertaining function This can be easily understood Noone wants to buy a newspaper without any entertaining news about his or herfavorite football teams, singers, actors, etc News in sections “Chuyện nhữngngười nổi tiếng, góc nhìn thời trang, thể thao cuối tuần, etc.” in newspapersusually shows this function

News also provides information about kinds of products, which is good andwhich is not It, therefore, is a useful tool for people The programs “Thươnghiệu và hội nhập, thông tin sản phẩm” on radio show this function of news There may be some other functions of news such as maintaining the socialrelationship, getting something done, etc However, here we only mention threemain functions of news “informing, entertaining and guiding people, agreed andaccepted by most people working in the field of journalism Giving the functions

of news here helps news-translators to understand the intention of the news givermuch better, to form his intention over the translation of news and to find out thereadership’s interest and what would benefit them.

1.2.2.2 Characteristics of News

According to the textbook of training Vietnamese journalist:

“Các thể loại thông tấn báo chí” Characteristics of news are accuracy, interest,timeliness and attraction (P.22 quoted from Giáo trình nghiệp vụ báo chí, tập 2,trường tuyên huấn trung ương HN, 1978)

News also has instructing function News is a form to inform events orreflect what people concern serving their need in information It, therefore, must

be interesting or equally important to them

The accuracy and timeliness of news is determined by 5Ws or 5Ws + H:What? Who? Where? When? Why? and How? (P.23)

The classical order of the 5Ws and H is “when, where, who, what, why andhow” However, the subject matter of a piece of news today is the first andforemost thing readers concern, the “what” can be put in the first place to drawattention from readers

The author will take examples to demonstrate the accuracy and timeliness ofnews:

+ Vietnamese news: Sáng 16/6/2004, tại Hà Nội đã diễn ra cuộc hội đàm giữachủ tịch nước Cộng Hoà xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam Trần Đức Lương với chủtịch nước Cộng Hoà nhân dân Trung Hoa Hồ Cẩm Đào Tại cuộc hội đàm, haibên đã trao đổi về quan hệ 2 nước và các vấn đề quốc tế mà 2 bên cùng quantâm” (collected from “Các thể loại thông tấn báo chí, P.24)

This news is accurate and timely because it answers 5Ws:

What?: Hội đàm trao đổi (a meeting)

Where?: tại Hà Nội (in Hanoi)

When?: ngày 16/6/2004 (on june 16th,2004)

Why?: 2 bên cùng quan tâm (both countries care about)

+ English news: Spanish King, Queen to visit

Hanoi-Spanish King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia de Grecia will make

a two-day visit to Vietnam from February 20th The King and the Queenaccepted an invitation to come to Vietnam made by President Tran Duc Luong(VNS, 2006, Feruary, 15th)

This news is accurate and timely because it answers 5Ws:

What?: a two day visit

Who?: Spanish King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia de Grecia

When?: from February 20th

Where?: Vietnam

Why?: accepted an invitation made by President Tran Duc Luong

In general, news characteristics are typical In practice, it is necessary fornews translators to identify them before doing a translation Thus, this will helpthem to have a good translation product

1.2.3 Language of News

Any text is expressed through some languages The language of news isobviously clear, direct and accurate on account of its characteristics mentionedearlier When reading or listening to news, people tend to get the main point atthe first sight and thus, its language must be clear and direct to catch the mainideas of events For example, in the news Spanish King, Queen to visit above.The news writer used clear and direct language: “a two day visit to Vietnam,February 20th, accepted, an invitation, made by President Tran Duc Luong”.These words and phrases help the readers catch the main ideals of the news atthe first sight: “two day visit to Vietnam of Spanish King and Queen”

However, accuracy does not mean to be secured In fact, words and phrasesused in news are popular to the public For example: These words and phrasesfrom the news “Spanish King, Queen to visit” are very popular to readers Theyare not too formal words

In summary, an effective language must contain a high rate of popular words

to the public in order that they can easily catch the main ideals at the first sight

1.2.4 Types of News

Although news appeared together with the birth of paper, it has far muchdeveloped In the past, news was mainly about commercial activities Today,both form and content of news are much richer It has been classified intovarious types based on many criteria (content, meaning, purpose etc.)

News was divided into two main types: favorite news (that is the kind ofnews people like to read) and necessary news (that is the kind of news the publicought to be given) Some years ago, favorite news referred to the newssatisfying the demand of those who were interested in such as sport news,fashion news etc In addition, the second one was described as an essential thing

in people’s life like news of weather, news of market prices

Nowadays, based on the form and content, news is classified into manytypes: news-in-brief, general news, news of event, wrap-up news, situationer(news describes background of events), gazette news, forecast news, reportingnews, picture news (Dinh Van Huong, P.35-50) Nowadays, news is rich in bothform and content Therefore, its types are various based on differentclassification and criteria

1.3 News-in-brief

1.3.1 Definitions of News-in-brief

According to Tierky and Chernoff, news stories of which news-in-brief isone subtype is a concept widely used by the most pressmen and pressresearchers to refer to a type of news in which the reporters usually inform thereaders only about the facts without overtly expressing their opinions (P.48) Dinh Van Huong claimed that news-in-brief is a kind of reporting news,restating the daily events promptly and briefly The length of news-in-brief isabout 60-100 words in 3-4 lines (P.35)

From two definitions, we can obviously see that news-in-brief is short newswithout the writer’s opinions.

For example, news “Spanish King, Queen to visit” is news-in-brief because it

is very short (46 words) It is about the two-day visit to Vietnam of SpanishKing and Queen without any writer’s personal opinions

1.3.2 Functions and Characteristics of News-in-brief.

1.3.2.1 Functions

There may be some other functions of news-in-brief However, its mainfunction is to provide information about the fact and these events (that isinforming function)

For example: The function of the news-in-brief “Spanish King, Queen tovisit” is to inform the important events: Spanish King and Queen will visitVietnam in 2 days from February, 20th

Because of its typical feature of content, the form must be neat and accurate.Thus, abbreviations, short-forms are used appropriately The structure ofsentence is also clear and easy for readers to understand Simple sentence isencouraged to use

For example, news-in-brief

Tourism authority promotes Vietnam’s attractions

Hanoi: The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) hascarried out a series of tourism promotion events at home and abroad modeled

after the successful APEC Tourism Year campaign and a campaign conducted

by Quang Nam province

VNAT has conducted such promotions abroad at the ASEAN Forum, TheTravel and Fair in the Philippines, ITB Fair in Germany, Jata and TOPRESAfairs in France and gastronomy festival in India

In this news-in-brief, the writer used abbreviations: VNAT, APEC, ASEANand single sentences

In summary, news-in-brief has all characteristics of news In addition, it hassome unique features: directness, use of abbreviation, short-forms

1.3.3.1 The Headline

Not only news-in-brief but also other kinds of news, the headline plays a veryimportant role It is a decisive factor whether the readers continue reading ornot It, therefore, must be organized in an attractive way to draw attention ofreaders and make them interested in it often contains the main idea of the wholenews It can be a narrative sentence with the omission of article, auxiliary, someprepositions It contains almost content words It must be brief and interesting.The headline usually uses present tense for past events, present participle forevents in progress, to infinitive for future events, past participle for passivevoice (“How to deal with news-paper headline?”- main characteristics ofnewspaper headline)

For example, in the news-in-brief: “Spanish King, Queen to visit” Itsheadline is “Spanish King, Queen to visit” It is a narrative sentence with theomission of article “the”, containing all content words “Spanish, King, Queen,visit” The full form of this headline is “The Spanish King and Queen will visit”.

In this headline, the writer uses “to-infinitive” to denote future reference

In addition, this headline gave the general topic issue of the news: SpanishKing and Queen to Vietnam

1.3.3.2 The Lead (Opening Paragraph)

The theme of news or the topic issue is more fully restated in the headline It isoften the 1st sentence (or the 1st paragraph of news) The headline is oftenrestated but in more details

The lead is usually intended to provide information of the 5Ws and H of anevent: what, who, when, where, why, how (Nguyen Hoa: 2003)

Normally, the lead answers 4Ws in the formula “5Ws + H” or “5Ws”

+ what?

+ who?

+when?

+ where?

(Dinh Van Huong, p.35)

This is demonstrated clearly in the news-in-brief “Spanish King, Queen tovisit”

The lead is the opening sentence: “Hanoi-Spanish King Juan Carlos I andQueen Sofia de Grecia will make a two day visit to Vietnam from February 20th The lead repeats the headline but in more detail Spanish King and Queen’stwo day visit to Vietnam from February 20th It provides more information aboutthis visit: “How long will it last?, where will the Spanish King and queen visit?When will it start?”

The lead answers 4Ws in the formula 5Ws + H or 5 Ws

+ what?: A two day visit

+ who?: Spanish King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia de Grecia

+ when?: from February 20th

Chapter 2 the study

There have been many researches relating to the topic issue: “Translatingnews-in-brief” Some of them gave some techniques for translating news-in-brief Others gave the cultural interference to news-in-brief translation, etc Thisresearch only investigates some of students’ difficulties in translating news-in-brief and gives some suggestions for these problems There may be some otheraspect relating to news-in-brief, not mentioned here

2.1 Research Questions

This research aims to answer the three following questions:

1 what are students' difficulties in Vietnamese- English translation of news- brief?

in-2 what are causes of these problems?

3 what suggestions can be given to help students ease these problems?

2.2 Research Setting

The research was carried out with a help of a translation test andinterviews participated by 47B English students from Foriegn LanguageDepartment, Vinh University The translation test consisted of 4 pieces of news

in brief, collected from Nhan Dan newspape, Tuoi Tre, Sai Gon Giai Phongnewspaper and Vietnam News The test environment was made sure to benatural so that the subjects' performance can reach the best

2.3 Description of Subjects

The participants of the research were 60 students from 47B English, whohave studied general English for a long time (at least for 8 years) and translationfor 4 terms at university

2.4 Data Instrument

To collect data, this research was conducted in form of a translation test,designed to be at average degree of length and difficulty Besides interviews wasalso employed to support the quantitative data Students' opinions and thoughtsabout translation of news in brief and their perceived difficulties in this field

(both are collected from interviews) will help the process of analyzing andinterpreting data

2.5 Procedure

The research was carried out in 4 steps:

In the first step, the author reviewed some theories of translation andrelated aspects in news and news in brief The literature served to lay a firmground for the study

The next step is data collection First, the tests were handed out to 60students and handed in after 50 minutes under the observation of the author.Then, 10 out of the 60 students were randomly chosen for interviews Theinterviews help the author get additional dada for the study

In the third step, a careful and thorough analysis was conducted toidentify students' difficulties and find out their reasons

In the last steps, exhaustive suggestions were offered so that studentsdifficulties can be ease in their future translations

2.6 Analysis of Data

2.6.1 News-in-brief No1

"Sáng 28-1 tại Văn miếu Trấn Biên, UBND thành phố Biên Hòa phối hợp

Sở Giáo dục vào Đào tạo tỉnh Đồng Nai tổ chức trọng thể “Lễ Tết thầy, cô giáo”,với sự tham gia của hàng trăm sinh viên, học sinh tiêu biểu thuộc các trờng đạihọc, cao đẳng, THPT, THCS, tiểu học Đây là sinh hoạt văn hóa truyền thốngnhằm giữ gìn và phát huy truyền thống “tôn s trọng đạo” của dân tộc Việt Nam

đợc tỉnh tại Văn miếu Trấn BiênĐồng Nai tổ chức đều đặn vào mỗi dịp TếtNguyên Đán."

This news in brief was collected from Nhan Dan Newspaper with noheadline included It has typical form of vietnamese news in brief with the lead(the main information of news) (nhằm giữ gìn và phát huy truyền thống “tôn strọng đạo” của dân tộc Việt Nam) introduced after a number of details (với sựtham gia của hàng trăm sinh viên, học sinh tiêu biểu thuộc các trờng đại học, cao

đẳng, THPT, THCS, tiểu học )