The results after analyzing the number and frequency of translation errors for each metaphor type helped to assess the translation quality of Google Translate when dealing with metaphors
INTRODUCTION
RATIONALE
As the world has increasingly globalized in the past few decades, the need for reading literary works in English among Vietnamese people has risen as well However, in the process of reading, readers might encounter some challenges related to figurative languages, one of which is the translation of metaphors
Generally, literary works such as novels are usually featured with figurative languages in order to give special effects on readers Through reading novels, they will get unlimited imagination, pleasure, and enjoyment Gibbs (2008, p 233) states
―the literary writer uses metaphor to go beyond and extend our ordinary linguistic and/or conceptual resources and to provide novels insights and perspectives into human experiences‖ That is to say, by using metaphors, the writers invite readers to read between the lines instead of clinging only to the literal meanings Interesting as it might seem, metaphors can be problematic for translators since they are closely related to the source language culture and requires translators to keep not only the meanings but also the aesthetic values of the story in the novel Besides, they compare one thing to another in a more indirect and subtle manner in which the sign of comparison is not clear as that in simile since metaphors do not use signal words such as like, as, and as though
In an attempt to partly bridge this gap, an obvious tool which has been created to help accommodate the urgent need for instant translation of metaphors within a short timeframe is using online machine translation Among those available on the market, Google Translate is one of the most prominent ones that came out in
However, there has been considerable concern about the quality of Google Translate’s translations as machine translation is known to experience certain problems among which translating metaphors is a significant one This is mainly because the interpretation of metaphorical expressions is strongly culturally conditioned Therefore, its replacement when translating by a literal equivalent expression in the target language does not seem to be sufficient to be trusted blindly
Taking this into account, this study seeks to examine to what extent Google Translate can be a help or a hindrance in the translation process
This research is inspired by some thesis and articles that the author has consulted, one of which is the study ―Translation of metaphors and idioms – Mission impossible?‖ In this study, the findings revealed that although the students’ linguistic competence was relatively advanced, their intercultural competence was still in need of improvement Therefore, the author wants to conduct the study with machine translation to examine the extent to which the machine can handle metaphorical expressions
The novel Kafka on the Shore by Murakami Haruki contains various metaphors It was translated into Vietnamese and published under the name Kafka bên bờ biển Therefore, the researcher opted for this work due to the readiness of the professionally translated version for better and more convenient comparison
The study is entitled The quality of Google Translate‟s translations of metaphors in “Kafka on the shore” by Murakami Haruki into Vietnamese with the main focus on the extent to which Google Translate may aid translators and readers in the process of interpreting the meanings of metaphors used in this literary work.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The study was conducted in order to fulfill the following aim and objectives:
The study aimed to examine the quality of Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations of the metaphors in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki
To attain this aim, the following objectives had to be achieved:
to identify the metaphors in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki
to identify Google Translate’s translation errors of the metaphors in the extracted sentences from Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki
to examine the frequencies of Google Translate’s translation errors of different types of metaphors in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to achieve the above aim and objectives, the researcher collected data and analyzed them to answer the following questions:
1 What are the metaphors used in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki?
2 What are Google Translate’s translation errors of the metaphors in the extracted sentences from Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki?
3 What are the frequencies of Google Translate’s translation errors of different types of metaphors in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki?
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study examined the quality of Google Translate in translating metaphors collected from the novel Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki Firstly, the researcher selected all the metaphors in this novel based on the theory put forward by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) They fell into three types including structural metaphors, orientational metaphors, and ontological metaphors However, it was not only the metaphors that were translated Instead, the entire sentences containing the identified metaphors were processed by Google Translate The researcher selectively picked up the translation errors made by Google Translate Specifically, only the translation of metaphors was focused on but not the whole translated sentences The obtained data were analyzed using Nord (1997) framework to highlight errors made by machine translation in order to explore the error patterns when using Google Translate The errors classified into four groups including pragmatic translation errors, cultural translation errors, linguistics translation errors, and text-specific translation errors.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study has both practical and theoretical significance For theoretical aspect, the research helps to identify the presence and frequency of different metaphor types used in the novel Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki It also provides some insights into the quality of Google Translate’s translation of metaphors by highlighting various translation errors that this tool may commit For practical aspect, the thesis helps students, teachers, and translators get a comprehensive overview of errors made by Google Translate when dealing with metaphors so that they can notice them and have better use of this tool in interpreting the metaphorical meanings As Google Translate is a product using artificial intelligence for translation that has long been debated for quality assurance, the translations of metaphors is not expected to be perfect However, this research might help readers aware of the errors this tool usually commits in order to partly avoid confusion and misinterpretation.
ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS
The study will be constructed with 5 chapters Chapter 1 presents the introduction into the investigation which consists of the rationale providing the justification of the author for choosing the topic, the aim, research questions, scope, and the methods used in the study Chapter 2 deals with the literature review to offer some insight into the theoretical base of translation, machine translation, translation errors, and metaphors Chapter 3 is served to unfold the data collection procedures and the methods adopted in the study Findings and discussion will be presented in chapter 4 with the results of the investigation in an attempt to analyze the collected data discuss the outcomes, while chapter 5 entails the conclusion and implication to summarize the main findings and put forward some pedagogical and practical implications in using Google Translate to translate metaphors Chapter 5 also encompasses the shortcomings and suggestions for further studies.
LITERATURE REVIEW
METAPHORS
The term metaphor that comes from Greek means ―transference‖ With the development of cognitive linguistics and the publication of Metaphors We Live By by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the understanding of metaphor has been changed dramatically Metaphor is a major and indispensable part of our ordinary, conventional way of conceptualizing the world, and that our everyday behavior reflects our metaphorical understanding of experience
Metaphor is defined as the substitution of one idea or object with another, used to assist expression or understanding Some theorists have suggested that metaphors are not merely stylistic, but that they are cognitively important as well Lakoff and Johnson also argued that ―metaphors are pervasive in everyday life: not just in language, but also in thought and action.‖ (1980, p 3) Metaphors are around us Metaphors are not a matter of language, but they also exist in the way we think and act
A common definition of metaphor can be described as a comparison that shows how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in another important way They explain how metaphor is simply being understood and experienced one kind of thing in terms of another The authors call this concept a
―conduit metaphor‖ By this, they mean that a speaker can put ideas or objects into words or containers, and then send them along a channel, or conduit, to a listener who takes that idea or object out of the container and makes meaning of it
Lakoff and Johnson give several examples of daily metaphors we use, such as ―argument is war‖ and ―time is money.‖ Metaphors are widely used in context to describe personal meaning As metaphors can convey the imagination of the language users so it is more persuasive and effective in communication
In Oxford Advanced Leamer’s Dictionary (1995, p 734), metaphor is defined as ―the imaginative use of a word or a phrase to describe somebody, something as another object in order to show that they have the same qualities and as to make the description more forceful‖, so metaphors not only explain by making the abstract or unknown concrete and familiar, but it also enliven by touching the reader’s imagination Further, they affirm one more interconnection in the unity of all things by showing a relationship between things seemingly alien to each other Let’s have a look at this advertisement of an investment company: ―You are the traveler Your investments are the terrain We are the map‖ From this example, we can easily identify the meaning that the advertisement intends to convey and find out what the metaphor refers to
There are two main approaches in the study of metaphors: the traditional approach and the cognitive approach Although the traditional approach embraces various theories, they share some fundamental presumptions The traditional theory of metaphors is based on Aristotle’s that metaphor is ―the application of an alien name by transference‖ (350 BC) The most important views of metaphors within this approach are further explained as follows:
The substitution theory describes metaphors as expressions which are simply substitutes for literal expressions (Black, 1995) Thus, for example, the speaker who uses the metaphorical expression ―You are my sunshine‖ could, according to the substitution view, have used a literal expression ―You are an important person to me‖ that means the same The word ―sunshine‖ in this case communicates something that could have been expressed literally and the metaphor here is simply used in a novel or poetic way to decorate and embellish one’s speech The substitution view implies that metaphorical expression performs no greater function than to please and amuse readers or listeners The problem with this view is that a metaphor may evoke a larger number of connotations and it would be difficult to paraphrase them all, and the paraphrasing of a metaphorical expression cannot present all the meanings that the original metaphorical expressions have (Ohkura, 2003)
The comparison view is one of the most popular dualistic theories of metaphors According to comparison theory, metaphors are grounded in the similarity existing between two concepts involved in it, so a metaphor is considered to be an implicit comparison between principal subjects and subsidiary subjects (Black, 1995, Hoang Tat Truong 1993) On such a view, the interpretation of a metaphor is a matter of interpreting the corresponding simile, and the truth of the metaphor is thus reduced to that of the simile
The problem with this view is that similarity is a symmetric relation, whereas, in reality, metaphors are often asymmetric For example, saying ―Surgeons are butchers‖ means describing surgeons’ work metaphorically as butchers’ one, but does not mean that ―Surgeons are like butchers‖
To sum up, the main problems with all these views are that they fail to explain the creation of similarity that a metaphor is capable of, that many metaphorical expressions, such as to defend a position, are so conventional that they cannot be regarded as anomalous language use, and that metaphors are described as a decorative element without cognitive importance and metaphors are not necessary, it just nice In other words, metaphors are considered a mere matter of language
While the traditional approach places metaphors as secondary to or derived from literal meaning, cognitive linguistics aims to show that metaphors should not be considered as a mere matter of language but a matter of thought According to this approach, metaphors do not express existing similarities Instead, they create them by metaphorical mapping from a source domain to a target domain
For Lakoff and Johnson (1980) metaphos are not a matter of language but of thought processes Therefore, they are not interested in metaphors as linguistic expressions but as concepts behind the expressions They do not even attempt to provide an adequate definition for metaphors but describe the use of them as
―understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another‖ (p 5) They use the term ―conceptual metaphor‖ when discussing metaphors which are part of our ordinary conceptual system therefore reflected in our every language
Metaphors are not just the notion of similarity and comparison between the literal and figurative meanings in an expression The transference of metaphors in meaning is realized by constructing mapping between two domains (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980)
TRANSLATION THEORY
Translation has been defined in many ways by different writers in the field, depending on how they view language and translation The main concern of this section is to present the various translation theories, translations methods and translation equivalence
Newmark (1981) defines translation as a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same language and/or statement in another language His definition of translation is then understood as ―rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the same way that the author intended the text‖ (1988, p 5)
House (1977, p 29) defines translation, specifically written translation as
―the replacement of a text in the source language by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the target language‖
It can be seen that though definitions of translation are quite diverse, they all seem to imply that translation does not refer to language as a system but refers to language in use In addition, the necessity to reach some kind of equivalence between the two languages is emphasized in translation
In ―A textbook of translation‖, Newmark (1995) mentioned eight translation methods In word-for-word translation, SL order is preserved; words are translated by their most common meaning and out of context The SL grammatical structures are converted to the nearest equivalent in the TL in literal translation, but words are still translated singly and out of text In faithful translation, words are translated in context but uncompromising to the TL Semantic translation is more flexible than faithful translation and greatly focuses on the aesthetic beauty of the SL text Communicative translation is freer than semantic translation and gives priority to the effectiveness of the message to be communicated Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner or the content without the form of the original Idiomatic translation reproduces the ―message‖ of the original but tends to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original Adaptation is the ―freest‖ form of translation and used mainly for the translation of plays (comedies) and poetry
2.2.3 Different theories of translation equivalence
Translation equivalence is undeniably the central issue of translation studies The definition, categorization, and applicability of equivalence have been discussed, analyzed, synthesized from different perspectives
Nida’s theory of translation developed from his practical work since the 1940s when he was translating the Bible, with the two core books: ―Toward a science of translating‖ (1964) and ―The theory and practice of translation‖ (1969) co-authored with Taber Basing on Chomsky’s work on the syntactic structure which formed the theory of generative-transformational grammar in 1957 and 1965, Nida generated the two basic types of equivalence: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence
- Formal equivalence focuses on the message itself in both form and content and the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language Thus, this type is keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts a strong influence in determining accuracy and correctness
- Dynamic equivalence is based on what Nida calls ―the principle of equivalent effect‖ where the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same at that which existed between the original receptors and the message‖ (Nida, 1964, p 159) The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs and cultural expectation and aims at complete naturalness of expression Indeed, he defines the goal of dynamic translation as seeking the closest natural equivalent to the source-language message
The two types of equivalence by Nida are crucial in introducing a receptor- based (or reader-based) orientation to translation theory However, the principle of equivalence is heavily criticized for a number of reasons Lefevere (1993) claims that equivalence is still overly concerned with the word level, while Van De Broeck
(1978) and Larose (1989) consider equivalent effect to be impossible (how is the
―effect‖ to be measured and on whom? how can a text possibly have the same response in two different cultures?)
In his books of ―Approaches to Translation‖ (1981) and ―A textbook of Translation‖ (1988), Newmark departs from Nida’s receptor-oriented line, claiming that the success of equivalent effect is ―illusory‖ and ―the gap between the emphasis on source language and target language will remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice‖ (1981, p 38) He suggests narrowing the gap by replacing the old terms with ―semantic translation‖ and ―communicative translation‖ in which the former aims at rendering as closely as ―the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original‖ while the latter attempts to ―produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original‖ (1981, p 39)
Important work on equivalence is also carried out by Werner Koller (1979) in his ―Research into the science of translation‖, where he differentiates the two terms
―correspondence‖ and ―equivalence‖ Correspondence falls within the field of contrastive linguistics which compares two language systems and describes contrastively differences and similarities Equivalence, on the other hand, relates to equivalent items in specific ST-TT pairs and contexts Koller points out that while knowledge of correspondences is indicative of competence in the foreign language, it is knowledge and ability in equivalence that are indicative of competence in translation However, the question still remains as to what exactly has to be
―equivalent‖ In an attempt to answer the question, Koller goes on to describe 5 types of equivalence:
- Denotative equivalence: related to the equivalence of the extralinguistic content of a text
- Connotative equivalence: related to the lexical choices, especially between near synonyms
- Text-normative equivalence: related to text types, with different kinds of text behaving in different ways
- Pragmatic equivalence: oriented towards the receiver of the text or message
- Formal equivalence: related to the form and aesthetics of the text, includes word plays and the individual stylistic features of the ST
The concept of equivalence has had its share of criticism and challenges If equivalence is considered the essence of translation, the next question is what about cases of non-equivalence in translation? Snell-Hornby (1988) criticized the concept of equivalence by comparing the meaning of the word ―equivalence‖ in English and German, which she considered as ―non-equivalent‖ The meaning of this term she claimed ―oscillates in the fuzziness of common language between two things: ―of similar significance‖ or ―virtually the same thing‖ Equivalence itself is not equivalent
In a paper by Varadi T and Kiss G (2001), under the title ―Equivalence and Non-equivalence in Parallel Corpora,‖ the authors discussed how an aligned parallel corpus can be used to investigate the consistency of translation equivalence across the two languages in a parallel corpus The particular issues addressed are the bi- directionality of translation equivalence, the coverage of multi-word units, and the amount of implicit knowledge presupposed on the part of the user in interpreting the data Non-equivalence is a fact among languages
As Baker (1992) puts it, the difficulty and problem in translating from one language into another are posed by the concept of non-equivalence or lack of equivalence This problem appears at all language levels starting from the word level to the textual level Baker discusses various equivalence problems and their possible solutions at word, above word, grammatical, textual, and pragmatic levels She takes a bottom-up approach for pedagogical reasons Baker proceeds with her equivalence discussion from word to further upward levels She claims translators must not underestimate the cumulative effect of thematic choices on the way we interpret text Baker also acknowledges the fact that there are translation problems caused by non-equivalence She outlines some common types of non-equivalence at word level which pose difficulties for the translator due to ―culture-specific concepts‖, differences in physical or interpersonal perspective, differences in expressive meaning; differences in form, differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms, the use of loan words in the source text or because the source language concept is not lexicalized in the target language, the source language word is semantically complex, the source and the target languages make different distinctions in meaning, the target language lacks a super-ordinate, the target language lacks a specific term (hyponym) Then she proposes several strategies to deal with specific cases
Hervey and Higgins (1995) believe that the principle that a translation should have an equivalence relationship with the source language text is problematic For supporting their idea, they say that there are three main reasons that an exact equivalence or effect is difficult to achieve Firstly, it is impossible for a text to have constant interpretations even for the same person on two occasions Before one could objectively assess textual effects, one would need to have referred to a rather detailed and exact theory of psychological effect, a theory capable, among other things, of giving an account of the aesthetic sensations that are often important in response to a text Secondly, translation is a matter of subjective interpretation of translators of the source language text Thus, producing an objective effect on the target text readers, which is the same as that on the source text readers is an unrealistic expectation Thirdly, it may not be possible for translators to determine how audiences respond to the source text when it was first produced
Another scholar, Mehrach (1997), also considers equivalence ―an impossible aim in translation‖ He supports his saying by the idea that no two languages share the same linguistic structures, social, or cultural aspects Instead, he proposes the use of the term ―adequacy‖ for the ―appropriate‖ translation, that is, a translation that has achieved the required optimal level of interlanguage communication under certain given conditions
TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT
Much attention has been paid to translation quality by researchers in the field with attempts to work out proper criteria and similar in order to determine how a translation should be evaluated as satisfactory These criteria range from basic to advanced level as well as corresponding requirements of the assessor’s competence
In his paper, Benjamin (1923, p 169) made a rather abstract statement on the characteristics of a ―real translation‖, which is ―transparent‖ and ―does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.‖ Newmark (1988, p 192) later made it brief as he described ―a good translation fulfills its intention‖
Reiss (1976) concluded that in the process of translation assessment, the assessor must do three tasks, which are (1) determining SL text’s kind of texts (text type and text variety), (2) finding the translator’s conception of the translation (expressed in translator’s translating manner or preface statement) and (3) defining the aim of the translated text In Reiss’s opinion, by doing so, one can avoid the risk of taking absolute and biased criterion for translation assessment from one among ten translation principles listed by Savory (1957) These principles, according to Reiss (1976, p 112), are ―directly contradictory‖ and ―mutually complementary‖ but created ―an impressive picture‖ to describe ―what a correct translation should be like‖ The list is as follows:
1 A translation must give the words of the original
2 A translation must give the ideas of the original
3 A translation should read like an original work
4 A translation should read like a translation
5 A translation should reflect the style of the original
6 A translation should possess the style of the translation
7 A translation should read as a contemporary of the original
8 A translation should read as a contemporary of the translation
9 A translation may add to or omit from the original
10 A translation may never add to or omit from the original
Until now, some great names in the field such as Newmark, House, Koller, Reiss, Wilss, and others have shown concerns in translation quality and spent much effort on creating a framework for translation assessment Two outstanding and comprehensive models are that of Newmark (1988) and House (1977), which will be further discussed in the next lines
Newmark (1988, p 186) used the term ―translation criticism‖, of which a comprehensive one, in his opinion, must cover five topics:
[1] a brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional aspects;
[2] the translator's interpretation of the SL text’s purpose, his translation method, and the translation’s likely readership;
[3] a selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with the original;
[4] an evaluation of the translation - (a) in the translator's terms, (b) in the critic's terms;
[5] where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in the target language culture or discipline
His model has been evaluated as having practical basis and clear path and thus adopted widely due to its advantages over other models Its practical application originated, according to Lê Hùng Tiến (2006), perhaps from its author, who has a lot of practical experience as a translator However, Lê Hùng Tiến (2006) also noted that the theoretical background that this model was established on is not as firm as in the case of House’s model
Juliane House’s model was first designed in the mid-1970s (House, 1977) and recently revisited (House, 1997) In House’s functional-pragmatic model of translation evaluation which is based on a theory of translation as re- contextualization, translation texts are undoubtedly contextually bound to their originals and to the new recipients’ contextual conditions This double linkage is the basis of the equivalence relation – the conceptual heart of translation Since appropriate use of language in communicative performance is what matters most in translation, it is functional pragmatic equivalence which is crucial This type of equivalence underpins this functional translation model The model explicates the way semantic, pragmatic, and textual meanings are re-constituted across different contexts
- Translation is conceived as the replacement of an SL text by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent TL text An adequate translation is then a pragmatically and semantically equivalent one
- The first requirement for this equivalence is that a translation text has a function equivalent to that of its original
- The function of a text – with its ideational and interpersonal components – is simply the application of a text in a particular context, and there is a systematic relationship between context and the functional organization of language-in-text, which can be revealed by breaking down context into a manageable set of
―contextual parameters‖ To grasp a text’s meaning, it must be referred to the particular ―context of situation‖ which envelops it
According to Lê Hùng Tiến (2006), the model of translation quality assessment has a clear linguistically theoretical base and concrete, detailed steps However, this model also requires linguistic knowledge and high professional skills of the critics, and the criticism mainly aims at researching languages and translation Therefore, this model has not been applied widely and just at experimental level in translation studies As this study aims to investigate the translation errors made by machine translation, a closer look will be paid to translation errors specifically with a view to translation quality assessment.
TRANSLATION ERRORS
The study was conducted with an aim to evaluate the translation quality of Google Translate; therefore, how translation errors were defined and classified is of important to for the researcher to collect and analyze the data
There are various opinions on defining errors in translation Errors in translation are referred to as defects (Pym, 1991), mistranslations (Lauscher, 2000), and mismatches (Hatim and Mason, 1997) Pym (1992, p 281) defines errors as a manifestation of a defect in any of the factors entering into the two skills of including the ability to generate a target-text series of more than one viable term for a source text and the ability to select only one target text from this series According to Barker (1992), errors in translation mostly result from the non-equivalence between the source and the target languages
Neubert (1995) describes a translation error as what rightly appears to be linguistically equivalent may very frequently qualify as ―translationally‖ nonequivalent And this is so because the complex demands on adequacy in translation involve subject factors and transfer conventions that typically run counter to considerations about ―surface‖ linguistic equivalence (1995, p 415) This statement partially describes the complication and difficulty in defining and identifying translation errors In the case of second language learners, identifying translation errors is harder, as translation errors may be mixed up with linguistic errors
Sager (1983) agrees that the most serious errors are those resulting from incompetence in a second language He also claims that in the field of written translation, errors resulting from misinterpretation of the text are one of the two major concerns of quality assessment
Albir (1995) suggests a list of possible errors in translations as follows:
- Inappropriate renderings, which affect the understanding of the source text These are divided into eight categories: countersense, faux sense, nonsense, addition, omission, unresolved extralinguistic references, loss of meaning, and inappropriate linguistic variation (register, style, dialect, etc.)
- Inappropriate renderings, which affect expression in the target language These are divided into five categories: spelling, grammar, lexical items, text, and style
- Inadequate renderings, which affect the transmission of either the main function or secondary function of the source text
Errors in translation influence the quality of the final product and the degree of miscomprehension from the reader Accordingly, translation errors are often judged based on their importance and frequency
There is no unified framework to classify translation errors One list suggested by the American Translation Association (ATA), is intended for standard error marking and explanation of work done by professional translators In this framework, there are 22 types of errors which should be used as criteria for error marking and grading:
1) Incomplete passage, 2) Illegible handwriting, 3) Misunderstanding of the original text, 4) Mistranslation into target language, 5) Addition or omission, 6) Terminology, word choice, 7) Register, 8) Too freely translated, 9) Too literal, word-for-word translation, 10) False cognate, 11) Indecision in word choice, 12) Inconsistent, 13) Ambiguity, 14) Grammar, 15) Syntax, 16) Punctuation, 17)
Spelling, 18) Accents and other diacritical marks, 19) Case (upper case/lower case),
20) Word form, 21) Usage and 22) Style
Although this list tries to include all different types of possible errors coming up from error corpus of translators, the problem of using this list for error marking is that it seems to focus more on the linguistic aspect of the translation tasks It focuses more on sentence-level errors, rather than text-level errors This list, therefore, should be used only in the context where translators are language learners, who tend to focus more on the linguistic aspect of the task As for professional translators or translators who receive professional training, this list fails to reflect a certain level of their skill, as it does not take other kinds of errors at discoursal and text-level into discount
Nord (1997, pp 73-75) defines translation errors, based on the purpose of the translation process and product, as ―a failure to carry out the instructions implied in the translation brief‖, or more specifically, ―If the purpose of a translation is to achieve a particular function for the target addressee, anything that obstructs the achievement of this purpose is a translation error.‖ This broad definition is then followed by a functional model of translation errors which are classified into four categories including pragmatic translation errors, cultural translation errors, linguistic translation errors, and text-specific translation errors (Nord, 1997, pp 75-
78) Nord’s model, which applies particularly to non-literary translation, is a challenge to the traditional criterion for evaluating mistakes in literary translations Anything in the TT that is not ―faithful‖ to the ST is deemed as a translation mistake Wilss (1999, p 201), for example, describes a translation error as ―an offence against a norm in a linguistic contact situation.‖ Obviously, a functionalist perspective allows us to identify many translation errors that would not be considered as such according to the traditional approach In the following part, four types of translation errors based on this model will be analyzed and discussed in more details
Pragmatic translation errors are caused by inadequate solutions to pragmatic translation problems such as a lack of receiver orientation The main reason that leads to all kinds of pragmatic translation errors is that in the process of translation, translators ignore the function of target text or the audience of translation and thus fail to remove information in the source text that is redundant or irrelevant or fail to include important information that is implied in the source text (Baorong, 2009) In other words, pragmatic translation errors occur when translators fail to understand the expected readers and fail to tailor the translation to the needs of target audience Typical pragmatic translation errors are the following: 1) The useless information to the target text in the original one is not reduced or simplified in the translation, resulting in the informative function jeopardized; 2) The useful information to the target text in the original one is deleted or simplified in the translation, resulting in the information deficiency; 3) Inflexible and inefficient word-for-word translation or literal translation; 4) Lack of necessary explanatory notes to terminology from the original text, resulting in deficiency of information sharing function
Therefore, attention should be paid to the appropriate cut or simplification of the original passage, avoiding mechanical word-for-word translation or literal translation It is sometimes a necessity to make explanatory notes to terminology in the original passage, acting as a complement of shared information and background knowledge that are unknown by readers
Cultural translation errors are errors brought by cultural differences in selecting language forms in communication Due to translators’ lack of understanding of the cultural background of the target language, namely, the conflict of norms and practices between the source language and target language, this type of error occurs Cultural translation errors are due to the translator’s
―inadequate decision with regard to reproduction or adaptation of culture-specific conventions‖ (Nord 1997, p 75) This ―inadequate decision‖ is often attributable to fact that the translator ignores the culture-specific knowledge, needs and expectations of the target audience, which in turn results from an insufficient awareness of the TT’s function
MACHINE TRANSLATION
Machine translation is becoming an important technology socio-politically, commercially and scientifically, despite many misconceptions about its success or lack of it over the decades (Douglas, 1994) Quah stated in his book, Translation and technology (2006, p 58), that the emergence of the internet as one of the main media of modern communication has turned translation into a bridge that connects speakers of different languages The endless traffic of communication between different language groups requires translation, but when instant translations are needed, human translators are not able to supply them fast enough A highly skilled profession like translation using human translators is expensive and also slow, especially when a large number of languages and subject fields are involved In order to meet the growing translation demand, machine translation systems are seen as a cost-effective alternative to human translators in a variety of situations
Whitelock and Kilby (1995, p 2) described machine translation as an interdisciplinary process that combines a number of fields of study such as lexicography, linguistics, computational linguistics, computer science and language engineering It is based on the hypothesis that natural languages can be fully described, controlled and mathematically coded (Wilss, 1999, p 140)
The term ―Machine Translation‖ itself can be misleading It has a long history and, as a result, many interpretations are accounted According to Sager (1994, p
326) the term originally referred to automatic systems with no human involvement The European Association of MT defines it as ―the application of computers to the task of translating texts from one natural language to another‖ while International Association of Machine Translation (IAMT) defines MT as taking ―input in the form of full sentence at a time and generating corresponding full sentences (not necessarily of good quality)‖ (Hutchins, 2000, p 148) These definitions are essentially the variance of the same concept focusing on source or ―input language‖ and target or ―output-language‖ texts
Google Translate is one of several machine translations most commonly used by people around the world to translate texts over 100 different languages Not only can it translate words, but also phrases, sections of a text, or a web page To translate a text, Google Translate detects patterns in documents that have already been translated by human translators It makes intelligent guesses to choose which an appropriate translation should be This pattern searching is called Statistical Machine Translation It is based on training statistical models from large corpora of human translations It has the advantage of training rapidity, if there are available corpora, compared to rule-based systems However, since the number of translated texts varies from users to users, consequently, the quality of Google Translate depends on the number of human translated texts searched by Google Translate (Karami, 2014) Quite recently, an assessment to the study of Google Translate has been proposed by Bozorgian and Azadmanesh (2015) In case of subject-verb agreement, they considered both Google Translate and human translators and finally they concluded that Google Translate does not handle subject-verb agreement very well while translating English sentences compared to human translators According to Stymne (2011), statistical machine translation systems have a large drawback because they use no or limited grammatical knowledge and relying on a target language model to produce correct target language texts, often resulting in ungrammatical output Fem (2011) also states that this translation tool is completely blind when it comes to translating texts that use a special kind of structure or grammar, context, and even ambiguity These mistakes commonly happen when translation tool is given a task to translate sentences
Because of the increasing significance of Google Translate, many studies have been carried out to evaluate its quality in translating different kinds of text and linguistic elements Below are some researches that were referred to when conducting this investigation.
PREVIOUS STUDIES ON GOOGLE TRANSLATE
Google Translate has becoming a useful tool in assisting the interpretation of different languages and narrowing the language barrier among people around the world; therefore, various researches have been conducted to examine its effectiveness in translation In 2015, Tya Vidhayasai, Sonthida Keyuavong, and Thanis Bunsom initiated a research to investigate ―The use of Google Translate in
“Terms and conditions” in an airline‟s official website” The results of the study showed that Google Translate’s most frequently occurring errors could be found at the lexical level The most common errors found at this level are the results of non- equivalence between the source (English) and the target language (Thai) leading to choosing the wrong alternate meaning of a word or using the wrong part of speech Another study by Milam Aiken and Shilpa Balan on ―An analysis of Google
Translate accuracy” indicated that although Google Translate provided translations among a large number of languages, the accuracies varied greatly This study gave for the first time an estimate of how good a potential translation might be using the software The analysis showed that translations between European languages were usually good, while those involving Asian languages were often relatively poor Further, the vast majority of language combinations probably provided sufficient accuracy for reading comprehension in college
In Vietnam, there are not many researches on the accuracy of Google Translate, but studies on its application are becoming increasingly appealing to researchers to investigate the effectiveness this tool In her study of “How can Google Translation Machine (GTM) assist Vietnamese learners of English? - a case study of translating interrogative sentences and some suggestions for improvement‖, Nguyễn Thị Châu Anh discovered that machine translation was much faster than human translation and its lexical resources were huger that those of human Although post-editing was still needed by translators, they only needed to adjust some words or grammar according to the ready-made target texts from machine translation This would greatly improve the speed and efficiency of translators As a result, it was undoubtedly that human translation should integrate with machine translation to make up for each other’s deficiencies And this might be an effective tool for learning a foreign language to Vietnamese students of English At Quy Nhon University, in 2019, research on the accuracy of Google Translate was conducted by Trần Thị Ngọc Giàu for her Master’s thesis The study contributed to comparing the level of accuracy of Google Translate when dealing with literary and technical texts
Since there has not been any study on the quality of Google Translate in translating English metaphors into Vietnamese before, the author hopes that this thesis can contribute to bridge this gap.
RESEARCH METHODLOGY
RESEARCH METHODS
This research was conducted with an attempt to answer three questions: (1) What are the metaphors used in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki?; (2) What are Google Translate’s translation errors of the metaphors in the extracted sentences from Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki?; and (3) What are the frequencies of Google Translate’s translation errors of different types of metaphors in Kafka on the shore by Murakami Haruki? In order to achieve the expected objectives of the study, content analysis was employed along with qualitative research method and quantitative research method
Content analysis is a research method with high flexibility that has been widely used in many fields with varying research goals and objectives Content analysis refers to a method used for analyzing and tabulating the frequency of occurrence of topics, opinions and other aspects of the content of written or spoken communication
Neuman (1997, p 272) defines content analysis as ―a technique for gathering and analyzing the content of the text‖ in which content refers to any messages that can be communicated such as words, meanings, symbols, or themes; text is anything written, visual or spoken that serves as a medium for communication such as books, articles, photographs, and so on and add text includes books, newspapers, speeches, or films, and so on Content analysis uses a set of categorization procedures for making valid and replicable inferences from the data to their context Since it can be applied to examine any piece of writing or occurrence of recorded communication, content analysis is now used in a variety of fields In analysis, the researcher uses systematic and objective counting to produce a quantitative description on the text content analyzed (El Shawa, 2011) On the other hand, there is also a qualitative approach of content analysis conducted for exploratory purposes Yen (2000, p 66) concludes that content analysis is ―a systematic and objective technique, which can be used to identify specific characteristics of the message and to make inferences‖ In this sense, content analysis can be qualitative in nature Moreover, by systematically evaluating texts the qualitative data can also be converted into quantitative data
Content analysis can be applied in both qualitative and quantitative research
A qualitative research featured examples of a particular aspect of language, whereas a quantitative research represented language behavior numerically
According to Cresswell (1998), qualitative method is defined as an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem by developing complex and holistic pictures formed with words and by reporting detailed views of informants from the natural setting It is applied to collect non-numeric data as it tended to be concerned with words rather than numbers In the process of gathering the data, the researcher plays the role of a key instrument That is to say, in this research, qualitative method was employed in identifying different types of metaphors and putting them in their corresponding categories as well as sorting out various translation errors made by Google Translate and grouping them for further investigation
Aliaga and Gunderson (2002, p 81) stated that quantitative method explained phenomena by collecting numerical data which were analyzed using mathematically based methods In another definition by Muijs (2004, p 2), quantitative approach is essentially about collecting numerical data to explain a particular phenomenon It is used to examine in a particular population or sample and data collection using research instruments, quantitative data analysis/statistics in order to test the hypothesis set Quantitative method emphasizes objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numeral analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques The study under investigation employed quantitative method to calculate the frequencies of different types of translation errors found in Google Translate’s translations Quantitative method also assisted the researcher to explore which type of metaphors was better translated by Google Translate.
DATA COLLECTION
The data for analysis were taken from the novel Kafka on the shore by
Murakami Haruki He is an iconic figure of Japanese postmodern literature, who has received several noted awards for his fiction and non-fiction works He was also referred to as one of the world’s greatest living novelists by The Guardian ―Kafka on the shore‖ was selected as the subject to get the derived data for the analysis because it was contented with a diversity of metaphorical expressions With the richness of metaphors, the presence of all its sub-types was guaranteed so that there was enough data for translation quality assessment Therefore, this material was an excellent source to extract the target sample needed for the analysis Moreover, this novel had already been translated into Vietnamese by Duong Tuong, who was a renowned translator with a significant number of translation works such as Magaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, Claude Simon’s The Flanders Road The researcher could make use of this advantage to have a better reference when encountering challenging English expressions that she could not easily render
The researcher collected all the metaphors in the novel and put them into three types, namely structural metaphors, ontological metaphors, and orientational metaphors based on the theory put forward by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) All the sentences containing metaphorical expressions used in the novel were also sorted out according to this framework The characteristics of each type of metaphor are as follows:
- Structural metaphors: one basic domain of experience can be transferred to another basic domain with expression such as: TIME IS RESOURCE, ARGUMENT IS WAR, and LIFE IS JOURNEY
- Ontological metaphors: intangible concepts are transformed to concrete entities or substances that can be categorized, grouped, and quantified with expression such as: MIND IS ENTITY, VISUAL FILED IS CONTAINER, and INFLATION IS PERSON
- Orientational metaphors: metaphorical concepts are given spatial orientation with expression such as: HAPPY IS UP, SAD IS DOWN, CONSCIOUS
IS UP, and UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN
After the researcher had identified all the metaphors present in the novel, the data were processed in the following order Firstly, English sentences containing metaphors were put into column (2) Secondly, each sentence in column (2) was copied and pasted in the left box of Google Translate interface in order to be translated into Vietnamese The corresponding Vietnamese sentence appearing in the right box was then copied and pasted in the similar row with the source sentence but in the position of column (4) The collected data were displayed in Table 3.1, which was divided into four columns Column (1) marked the order of the data Column (2) showed the sentences containing metaphors in which the metaphors were bolded and underlined The types of the identified metaphors were then put in column (3) with their corresponding abbreviations (STR: structural metaphors, ONT: ontological metaphors, ORI: orientational metaphors) Vietnamese translations of the whole sentences in column (2) were presented in column (4) The sample data were arranged in the following table:
No English sentences containing metaphors
Vietnamese sentences translated by Google Translate
1 Supply routes from Taiwan and the continent had been cut off by this time and urban areas were suffering terribly from a lack of food and fuel
STR Các tuyến đường cung cấp từ Đài Loan và lục địa đã bị cắt đứt vào thời điểm này và các khu vực đô thị đang phải chịu đựng khủng khiếp vì thiếu lương thực và nhiên liệu
2 I just want to catch a few winks before we arrive, and you seem like a nice guy
ONT Tôi chỉ muốn bắt một vài cái nháy mắt trước khi chúng tôi đến, và bạn có vẻ như là một chàng trai tốt.
DATA ANALYSIS
After collecting data for metaphors, the researcher continued to identify the translation errors committed by Google Translate when dealing with these items Since the focus of the study is solely on the quality of Google Translate’s translations of metaphors, the translation errors related to other linguistic elements were ignored The framework employed to identify and classify translation errors was put forward by Nord (1977) The errors would fall into four groups including
Pragmatic translation errors, Linguistics translation errors, Text-specific translation errors and Cultural translation errors If the metaphors were translated correctly, they were categorized as No translation errors For further analysis, each type was coded as follows:
1 PE for Pragmatic translation errors
2 LE for Linguistics translation errors
3 TE for and Text-specific translation errors
4 CE for Cultural translation errors
5 NE for No translation errors
The characteristics of the four types of translation errors were described as follows:
- Pragmatic translation errors: 1) The useless information to the target text in the original one is not reduced or simplified in the translation; 2) The useful information to the target text in the original one is deleted or simplified in the translation; 3) Inflexible and inefficient word-for-word translation or literal translation; 4) Lack of necessary explanatory notes to terminology from the original text
- Cultural translation errors: there is a conflict of norms and practices between the source and target language
- Linguistic translation errors: 1) Wrong lexical choice; 2) Inflexible use of grammar structure; 3) clumsy structure due to excessive use of passive voice
- Text-specific translation errors: intended function of the text is overshadowed or given lower priority than secondary functions of the text
Once the researcher identified and coded the translation errors, the Table 3.1 was expanded with two more columns Column (6) contained the translation error types (PE, CE, LE, TE, and NE) and the column (5) was contented with Vietnamese sentences translated by Duong Tuong as a reference for rendering the correct meanings of the selected metaphors in column (2) Below is the sample for analyzing translation errors:
Table 3.2 Metaphor and translation error samples
No English sentences containing metaphors
Vietnamese sentences translated by Google Translate
Vietnamese sentences translated by Duong Tuong
1 Supply routes from Taiwan and the continent had been cut off by this time and urban areas were suffering terribly from a lack of food and fuel
STR Các tuyến đường cung cấp từ Đài Loan và lục địa đã bị cắt đứt vào thời điểm này và các khu vực đô thị đang phải chịu đựng khủng khiếp vì thiếu lương thực và nhiên liệu
Các tuyến đường tiếp tế từ Đài Loan và lục địa hồi ấy bị cắt đứt và các vùng đô thị bị thiếu lương thực và chất đốt ghê gớm
2 I just want to catch ONT Tôi chỉ muốn Tôi muốn chợp PE a few winks before we arrive, and you seem like a nice guy bắt một vài cái nháy mắt trước khi chúng tôi đến, và bạn có vẻ như là một chàng trai tốt mắt chút trước khi tới nơi, và tôi thấy cậu là người tốt
When the sample above was completed, the researcher continued to count the number of metaphors and translation errors in order to calculate the frequency of errors for each type of metaphors The number and frequency were then put into the Table 3.3 below for further analysis and comparison
Table 3.2 The number and frequency of translation errors made by Google Translate
Structural metaphors Ontological metaphors Orientational metaphors
Number Frequency Number Frequency Number Frequency
The results offered a clear picture of which type of translation errors is frequently committed by Google Translate The results were useful to partly determine which type of metaphor was better translated by Google Translate and which one could be obscure to readers if using this translation tool From the results of the data analysis, the researcher could have a closer insight into the quality of Google Translate in translating metaphors and examine whether this tool was able to provide readers and translators a general meaning about metaphors so that they might interpret them at more ease
To sum up, Chapter 3 clarifies the research methods which were utilized for collecting and processing the data as well as how the data were collected and analyzed Following is Chapter 4, where the findings and discussion of the study are presented.