AN ANALYSIS ON THE TRANSLATION PROCEDURES FROM ENGLISH TO VIETNAMESE FOR COVID 19 RELATED NEOLOGISMS

The first research question: The most and least frequently used translation procedures in rendering COVID-19-related neologisms 4.2.. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 The comparison of the fre

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

AN ANALYSIS ON THE TRANSLATION

PROCEDURES FROM ENGLISH TO VIETNAMESE

FOR COVID-19-RELATED NEOLOGISMS

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang (M.A) Student: Do Thi Thu Hoan

Year of Enrollment: QH2017.F1.E22

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

PHÂN TÍCH CÁC KỸ THUẬT DỊCH ĐƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG VIỆC DỊCH CÁC THUẬT NGỮ MỚI NỔI TRONG ĐẠI DỊCH COVID-19 TỪ TIẾNG ANH

SANG TIẾNG VIỆT

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Thùy Trang

Sinh viên: Đỗ Thị Thu Hoàn

Khoá: QH2017.F1

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2021

Signature of Approval:

Hanoi, May 2021

ACCEPTANCE

As an applicant for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, I hereby declare that I: Do Thi Thu

Hoan from QH2017.F1.E22 accept the requirements pertaining to the retention and

use of Bachelor's Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for educational purposes only, in compliance with the librarian's customary terms and conditions for the paper's storage, borrowing, or reproduction

Signature

Do Thi Thu Hoan

Date: May, 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

On the completion of this graduation paper, I wish to express my deep gratitude

to many of my lecturers, my family, and friends from whom I have received a great deal

of assistance, guidance, and encouragement

First of all, I would like to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to my supervisor - Ms Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang, M.A for her constant support, clear and organized orientation right from the beginning, comprehensive instruction, and valuable comments on draft chapters, which is instrumental in accomplishing this study

Moreover, I would like to convey my heartiest appreciation for the lectures and translation-majored seniors from Fast-track Program in FELTE, ULIS, VNU for their cooperation and active participation in the current research

Last but not least, my indebtedness is presented to my family and all of my friends for their encouragement, inspiration during the process of completing this paper

Hanoi, May 2021

Do Thi Thu Hoan

ii

ABSTRACT

The current study aims at investigating the perceptions of the two focus groups (translators and readers) of the effectiveness in the application of translation procedures

in translating COVID-19-inspired neologisms The data was collected by using

document analysis method by synthesizing neologisms sharing the same characterists and appearing in official documents and on the Internet Questionnaire and interview

were adopted simultaneously to shed light on the issues in question, especially the

second question The relevant data was analyzed by applying theme-based content analysis on the basis of translation procedures theory proposed by Newmark (1988) The

result of the analysis reveals that there are twelve translation procedures applied in rendering newly developed expressions of the global epidemic with the prevalence of

couplets, transference, literal translation and TL recognized translation Furthermore,

the two groups of participants are of the same opinion when evaluating the comprehensibility and rationality of the given translated versions It has been disclosed that there is a lack of consistency in the adoption of translation procedures within each typology of neologisms, which seems to differ from Newmark’s framework for neologism translation It is apparent that there is no such standard guideline for translating Coronavirus-inspired new words due to the cultural variation, the unique nature of the newly developed lexicon, and the unfamiliarity of the novice translators in addressing those terms Lastly, regarding the approachability and effectiveness of the translation procedures adopted, each translated version would be differently perceived

by the specific readership due to the dissimilarities in the educational background, age, and expertise in this field

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of research problem and rationale for the study 1

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 The first research question: The most and least frequently used

translation procedures in rendering COVID-19-related neologisms

4.2 The second research question: The most effective translation

procedure for target readers and translators, the difficulties facing

novice translators in handling these terms

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4.2.3 Findings 61 4.2.3.1 The similar evaluation of the two focused groups

towards the translation versions

Appendix A The list of collected neologisms

Appendix B The translation procedures of the collected neologisms

Appendix C The results of the questionnaire

Appendix D Questionnaire: for target readers and translators

Appendix E Interview questions

Appendix F Interview transcript

FELTE Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

ULIS University of Languages and International Studies

R1, R2, R3, R4, R5 Reader 1,Reader 2, Reader 3, Reader 4, Reader 5

T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 Translator 1, Translator 2, Translator 3, Translator 4,

Translator 5

2 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 The comparison of the frequency of

COVID-19-related neologism typology

32

Figure 4.2 The allocation of translation procedures used in

rendering COVID-19-related semantic neologisms

37

Figure 4.3 The allocation of translation procedures used in

rendering COVID-19-related neologisms of new forms

Table 4.2 The comparison of the frequency of

COVID-19-related neologism typology

31

Table 4.3 The allocation of translation procedures used in

rendering COVID-19-related neologisms

34

Table 4.4 The frequency of translation procedures used in

rendering COVID-19-related semantic neologisms

35

Table 4.5 The frequency of translation procedures used in

rendering COVID-19-related neologisms of new forms

38

Table 4.6 The evaluation of the two focused groups on the 47

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most rational translations

Table 4.7 The translation procedure used in rendering the most rational translations of semantic neologisms

PART A: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

The study's core problems and primary objectives are presented in this section This chapter also includes a concise presentation of the research questions, significance, scope, and structure of the study

1.1 Statement of research problem & rationale for the study

Language has always been associated with major social changes and is deemed as the representative of a society As the society experiences constant changes, the speed at which language evolves and progresses must be swift and simultaneous enough to keep it updated and contemporary For the last few months, the SARS Coronavirus 2 (also known as COVID-19 for short) pandemic has been a matter of great concern to the general public, triggering a large number of controversial issues and presenting drastic changes to the world community Undeniably, this incident does not only place an undue strain on our healthcare and welfare system, but it also highlights linguistic changes and the emergence of recently developed words and expressions across the globe Emphasizing the interrelation between language and malady, Richard (1977) supposed that “the extensive use of spatial metaphors to express abstract concepts may encourage a more rigid categorization of disease and inhibit the ability to conceive of multiple factors in disease causation” (p.6) In lieu of employing verbs to elucidate the concept of illness, the use of nouns could contribute to a more static view of ailment and tends to distinguish diseases as disparate entities rather than regarding them as aspects of bodily functioning These linguistic features in return can promote the overuse of surgery and present challenges in the observation and perception of social and psychological factors in disease while leading to a conception of disease

as a rigidly specified, unchanging, unicausal thing Language exerts certain influences on the formation and development of the concept of diseases and conversely, diseases do have some impacts on linguistic evolution Therefore,

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likewise, it can be said that detrimental as COVID-19 might be, this pandemic does have some cultural and linguistic implications for the development and adaptation

of the language in particular and the society in general

Initially emerging in Wuhan, China and then quickly spreading throughout every single corner of the world, the novel Coronavirus pandemic with its constantly changing variants is believed to have afflicted more than 148 million people globally, depriving 3.13 million victims of their lives up to April 2021, affecting the economy and politics worldwide, causing widespread insecurity and anxiety among the public Over the last few months, it has constantly made several comebacks with the advent of new virus variants, hitting every nation’s economy, threatening the well-being of millions of Earth inhabitants all over the world That having been said, during this global crisis, the executive editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, Bernadette Paton, shared in a blog in the Oxford forum that “It

is a rare experience for lexicographers to observe an exponential rise in usage of a single word in a very short period of time, and for that word to come overwhelmingly to dominate the global discourse, even to the exclusion of most other topics” (Bernadette, 2020) Although the spread of the disease has exerted numerous devastating impacts on the lives of billions of people, a new system of vocabulary has been correspondingly coined and updated, including specialist terms for the epidemiological and healthcare field, new acronyms as well as words and phrases to reflect the necessity of imposed isolation, distancing, and quarantine From the very first days after the outbreak of the disease, in the documents and reports of the disease issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), “a pneumonia of unknown etiology” had been used to label the pandemic For instance, disease outbreak news published on 5th January 2020 by the WHO states:

“On 31 December 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (also understood as unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China” Five days later, on January 10, the WHO released its first guidebook on the disease, assuming its connection with other precedented coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) From then, the denomination was converted into ‘Novel Coronavirus’ or “nCov” for short Two days later, the WHO developed a different terminological variant, ‘2019-nCoV’ Eventually, on February

11, 2020, the WHO ultimately introduced the official name for the pandemic,

“COVID-19”, an acronym that stands for ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019’ Since then, a variety of newly-coined lexical items has been inaugurated and complemented on a daily basis Hardly a day passes without us coming across some medical terms or phrases relating to the epidemic Due to the urgency of acquiring accurate and reliable information, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lexicographers and many others are relentlessly working from home and contributing to the development of the language of the pandemic The COVID-19 disease has become a dominating global discourse (Asif et al., 2020) Knowledge and notion about it have been discussed, exchanged, and constantly revised since the first days of its outbreak

As a result, translating multilingual medical documents has been regarded as

an integral task and crucial measure in pandemic prevention and impact alleviation campaign Indeed, a multilingual system of COVID-19 lexicon suggested by the WHO has been updated daily, aiming to standardize those terminologies all over the world Those efforts have been recognized and appreciated by the world as a whole However, owing to the rapid emergence of a wealth of pandemic-related neologisms, updating the equivalents of those concepts in bilingual dictionaries has yet to be carried out, which poses countless obstacles and difficulties in translating epidemiological documents from English into Vietnamese, generating the inconsistency of those terms in translated documents Moreover, since this is a novel and unprecedented issue, little has been known about the translation procedures employed in transferring English neologisms of the pandemic into Vietnamese The biggest problem here lies in the fact that there is often a shortage

of ready equivalents for these neologisms in the TL and that these neologisms are mostly culturally loaded or have not been included in the TL dictionaries yet Due

to the cultural and linguistic differences between the Western and Vietnamese culture as well as the limiting exposure to words of this kind, in many cases, young

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translators face certain difficulties when experiencing translating these neologisms

As a result, this issue must be thoroughly examined, and thereby a solid conclusion

on the current approach to COVID-19 neologisms applied by translators in the current context be reached

Therefore, this study is central to elaborating translation procedures of neologisms translation during the outbreak of COVID-19 and their effectiveness and consistency when put in this particular circumstance, thereby suggesting the most feasible and appropriate approach to have those medical terminologies translated

1.2 Research objectives and research questions

The research aims at investigating the consistency and effectiveness of utilizing translation procedures used in converting medical terms of the pandemic and spoken language emerging amid the pandemic from English into Vietnamese, the accessibility and functionality of translated texts, and the practice of translating COVID-19 neologisms To realize the research objectives and gain insight into the formation of those lexical items, an analysis of the classification and typical characteristics of the neologisms studied would be summarized Subsequently, the types of COVID-19-related neologisms were statistically synthesized and meticulously inspected Thereupon, analysis and discussion of translation procedures would be conducted to draw out several implications in translating COVID-19-inspired neologisms The allocation of translation procedures employed, together with the perception towards the effectiveness of the translation procedure, was also attached based on the results gathered from the questionnaire and the interview, which was followsed by the comparison with the suggested translation strategies for a variety of English neologisms by Newmark (1988) and analysis on the consistency in the employment of translation procedures within each typology

With a view to elucidating the translation procedures used as well as proposing the most appropriate set of equivalents for those neologisms, this paper concentrates on addressing two research questions as follows:

Research question 1: What are the most and least frequently used translation procedures in rendering COVID-19-related neologisms?

Research question 2: For target readers and translators, which translation procedure

is considered the most effective in rendering each type of COVID-19-related neologisms? What are the potential difficulties facing novice translators in handling

these terms?

1.3 Significance of the study

The study is expected to provide some insights into the effectiveness of translation procedures applied in transferring English medical new words into Vietnamese Using different instruments to tackle the research questions, the research is expected to provide an overview as to how to construct neologisms of the pandemic as well as how to translate those newly coined words and expressions

in the context of the novel pandemic As a result, readers would grasp a basic understanding about the process of coining a COVID-19-related neologism and translating selected neologisms in the medical field Through investigating the practice of translating neologisms in general and neologisms of the pandemic in particular, problems facing translators in the current context will be disclosed Moreover, it is also supposed to offer a consistent system of Vietnamese terminology of the pandemic by assessing equivalents available at the time, which is considered essential for not only contemporary situations but future references as well It is anticipated that the discussion and implications made from the research findings make valuable and practical contributions to the field of translating COVID-19 neologisms and the battle against the pandemic

1.4 Scope of the study

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The study focuses on probing 132 COVID-19-inspired neologisms coinage and translation procedures applied in rendering those new lexical items into Vietnamese based on Newmark’s model and some criteria specified in Chapter 3 This is considered a reasonable scope for a thesis with regard to temporal and spatial permission

1.5 Research methodology

The researcher utilizes both qualitative and quantitative approach to fulfill the research objectives, focusing on Newmark's theoretical paradigm for translation procedures (1988) The sequential order below demonstrates the way in which the study was conducted

Phase 1: To recognize translation procedures, the collected ST was examined and analyzed basing on Newmark's structure (1988) At this stage, the list of neologisms typology was made as well

Phase 2: To elicit the tendency and distribution of COVID-19-inspired neologisms translation, comprehensive tables of translation procedure in alignment with each neologism type were developed

Phase 3: To explore the implications of the findings, discussion on the effectiveness and accessibility of the studied translation procedures was made

1.6 The structure of the study

The present study is divided into three different parts:

Part A: Introduction

Chapter 1 is also the background introduction, including the statement of the problem, rationale, aims and objectives, significance, scope, method, and the organization of the research Three research questions have been mentioned as well

Part B: Development

This part consists of three chapters

Chapter 2 is the central part of the study The definition of the key terms and the theoretical framework of the study are presented The literature review was clearly documented with the reference to previous existing studies of the same fields Literature related to neologism and its formation as well as translation procedures were added accordingly

Chapter 3 gives information about the methodology and the instruments used

in collecting as well as analyzing the data Research design and subject selection is also included

Chapter 4: Results and discussion: presents, analyzes, and discusses the findings that were obtained from the selected documents and interviews In addition, implications are also made based on the findings

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

The aim of this chapter is to lay the foundation of conceptual background for the entire study This section, therefore, contains a thorough, systematic, and

critical review on the relevant concepts such as translation, translation procedures, neologism, neologism formation

2.1 Definition of key terms

2.1.1 Neologism

A body of existing literature has successfully investigated and proposed some notions concerning the concept of neologism In fact, the term neologism is a Greek word: “neos” means “new” and “logos” means “word” so that a neologism signifies a new word Newmark (1988) associated neologisms with “newly coined lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense” (p 140) Additionally, as Oxford English Dictionary (2003) specified, a neologism is described as “a newly generated word or lexical item that may be in the process of switching in common life” Nevertheless, in formal circumstances, it will not be universally accepted For example, the acronym WFH which stands for “working from home” or “work from home” has been put into practical use regularly since the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic “WFH” is widely applied in everyday conversation but when it comes to situations in which formality and politeness are highly appreciated, that word is hardly employed In fact, this acronym was coined

a long time ago, but only in recent context when working at home is encouraged so

as to diminish the risk of the cross infection of the novel coronavirus within the community has it been widely utilized and accepted

With respect to the universal acceptance of neologism, Usevics (2013) stipulated that for a word to be perceived as a neologism, it should not be lasting for more than twenty-five years Exceeding that limitation, the word is more likely to

be left out and forgotten by people since it is no longer in compliance with the

current situation and obviously, it will be deemed as either an old or widely-used word Crystal (2001) links the neologism creation with new lexical items foundation which is only accepted within a community at a particular time, discussing that “the creation of a new lexical item is a response to changed circumstances in the external world, which achieves some currency within a speech community” Stenetorp (2010) also agreed with that statement, explaining that "a neologism is a lexeme that

is not described in dictionaries" Interestingly, according to Peprnik (2010), neologism is not only counted as a part of the language but it also represents other parts of life He presented his idea that is "a neologism is a new word or sense of a word" (Peprnik, 76) Overall, it can be said that a neologism is a newly generated lexical item playing a significant role in the drastic development of not only linguistic patterns but also of the whole society

Moreover, when it comes to the linguistic and societal effects, neologism makes it easier for the public to approach the process of coining new words Qaisar (2015) suggested that neologism is greatly contributing to generating the form of words and coinage of new words Apart from experts and specialists, it is the language users all around the world that play an enormous role in creating new words and expressions to satisfy their interest and need Besides non-verbal cues and body language, those terminologies play a central role in getting ideas exchanged and emotions successfully reflected However, neologism is not necessarily a new word; instead, it can be an already established word with a newly discovered meaning With more people getting involved in creating new words, the number of neologisms, especially the ones relating to the COVID-19 has been rapidly increasing over the last few months As mentioned earlier, language represents the society; therefore, a probe into the way linguistic pattern in general and neologism in particular is converted in different speaking languages is imperative and advantageous to the discovery of societal and linguistic patterns

2.1.2 Translation

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As this study is central to investigating the use of translation procedures in rendering COVID-19-inspired neologisms, clearly defining the notion of translation

is of great importance The concept of translation has been studied and approached

by several linguists and scholars around the world, including Newmark, Nida, and others Each definition is distinct and contributes significantly to the implication of the term Here are some ideas extracted from the work of a variety of theorists aforementioned:

Newmark (1988) defined translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the same way that the author intended the text” Nida (1969) specified the nature of translation, stating that translating involves reproducing the closest equivalent in the target language to guarantee the intended messages and ideas in the source language, particularly the semantic and stylistic effects Bell (1991) also agrees on that statement, saying that translation is the expression in another language of what has been in source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences By this, the two most critical criteria for translation are clearly identified: the completeness of the conveyed message and the style of the source text

Overall, despites the striking differences in rendering the notion of translation among those academics, it is widely accepted that translation is the process of reproducing the message involved in the source language into the target one by identifying the equivalent of the words, phrases, and sentences or the whole text in the two languages

great extent, which is instrumental in discerning the nature of translation in general and neologism in particular

2.2.1.1 Newmark’s taxonomy

Peter Newmark (1988) categorized neologisms into two following types:

2.2.1.1 Semantic neologisms (existing lexical items with new senses)

a Old words with new senses

A new approach to understand an existing word or phrase in accordance with the current context has been flexibly developed According to Newmark (1988), lexical items are often “non-cultural and non-technical” As these words hardly refer to new objects or processes, they are rarely technological In some cases, in order to convey the exact messages in the source text, the translator tends to purposefully employ an existing word to express a new meaning in the target language or briefly describes its appearance or function, which diversifies the nuance of the meanings of the lexical items

b Existing collocation with new senses

Newmark (1988) speculated that existing collocations with new senses can

be “technical or non – technical” Saying that existing collocations with new senses are actually “a translator’s trap”, he believed those phrases are usually “normal descriptive terms which suddenly become technical terms” and therefore “their meaning sometimes hides innocently behind a more general figurative meaning” (p 142) Therefore, for their translation, based on Newmark (1988) if the concept exists in the TL, the translator tends to prefer a recognized translation or through translation In case there is no equivalent in the TL, an economical descriptive equivalent has to be provided

2.2.1.2 New forms

a New Coinage

New coinage is a method usually applied to brand or trade names which are normally transformed unless the product is brought out to the targeted culture under another name Based on Newmark’s model (1988), if the brand label is of no

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cultural or identifying significance, “the proper name may be replaced by a functional or generic term” Thus, as long as they are original, they ought to be transcribed and reiterated; likewise, in case of recently coined brands, those names should be transcribed, or given their TL brand names

b Derived Words (including blends)

In most cases, neologisms are words derived by analogy from ancient Greek and Latin morphemes with naturalized suffixes in the appropriate language

c Abbreviations

By this process, previously nonexistent words or initialisms have come into use These alphabetic abbreviations are characterized by the fact that each of their letters is individually pronounced (as opposed to acronyms whose whole group is pronounced all together) Newmark (1988) discussed that “unless they coincide (“prof”) they are written out in the TL.” (p 145)

d New Collocations

From a linguist’s viewpoint, a collocation is “the habitual co-occurrence of individual lexical items” while from a translator’s perspective, it “consists of lexical items that enter mainly into high frequency grammatical structures” (p 212) Out of the collocation coinages, three most common types of collocation formation are adjective plus noun, noun plus noun, and verb plus object

e Eponyms

Newmark (1988) viewed eponyms as “any word that is identical with or derived from a proper name which gives it a related sense” (p 198) He also divided eponyms into three different categories: derived from persons, objects and animals When eponyms are considered direct referents to the person, they are translated at ease but if they are used to mention the ideas or qualities of the referents, further explanations must be supplemented accordingly Being derived from objects, eponyms are usually brand names, and can be transferred only when they are as well known and accepted in the TL as in the SL Eponyms deriving from geographical names represent just a minor part of the new coinages

f Phrasal Words

Newmark defined phrasal words as “new phrasal words are restricted to English’s facility in converting verbs to nouns” Most of the time, those words are transferred by their semantic equivalents in the TL culture

g Transferred (new and old referents)

According to Newmark (1988), transferred neologisms are “newly transferred words keeping only one sense of their foreign nationality” They are the lexical items whose meanings are least dependent on their contexts Frequently used

in contemporary circumstances, those words change or develop additional senses, and might no longer be translated back into their original languages in some cases

h Acronyms (new and old referents)

Based on Newmark’s perspectives, acronyms are “the initial letters of words that form a group of words used for denoting an object, institution (p 200) Therefore, there is already either an established standard equivalent or descriptive term to render its meaning in the TL When it comes to acronyms for institutions and companies’ names, they are usually transferred

2.2.1.2 Silvia’s taxonomy

a Expansion: a shift either from the concrete to the abstract or

from the abstract to the concrete

b Metaphor: ‘the process whereby a word or phrase is used to

refer to something other than what it was originally applied to, or what it ‘literally’ means, in order to suggest some resemblance

between the two things’

c Conversion of grammatical features where a word changes

form and function The four most common types are: Noun-to-Verb, Verb-to-Noun, Adjective-to-Verb, and Adjective-to-Noun

d Adoption from another field: An established lexical item in this field is reapplied in another

It is apparent that Silvia has embraced Newmark’s theory and promoted it in

a divergent way The hypothesis presented in this theory is intricate, perceptive and rational enough to make it a prominent one, which accounts for its popularity in the field of linguistics However, when compared with the model proposed by Newmark (1988), the variety of neologism creation methods is not so remarkable

2.2.1.3 Krishnamurthy’s taxonomy

First of all, according to the neologism model of Krishnamurthy in 2010, the neologism creation process is constituted by three major components

The first component is word formation Compounding, blending, affixation, coinage, and acronym are typical processes included in this component

The second component suggested by Krishnamurthy is borrowing which usually involves the process of naturalization of foreign words and phrases Lexical

items with no one-to-one equivalent in the source language are preserved intact in the target language, which serves the purpose of facilitating the conversation and making it more effective

Lastly, the third component of the model is called lexical deviation Lexical

deviation refers to the process of coining new words by applying the existing rules

of word formation in conformity with the principle of generalization

Krishnamurthy (2010) provided some useful insights into how neologisms were created, which effectively set the foundation for further investigation into the issue in the future

2.2.1.4 Shahlee and Ahmad’s taxonomy

Shahlee and Ahmad (2019) also proposed some theories concerning the creation of neologisms based on morphological analysis

The first process by which neologism is created is compounding By

compounding, a new word is formed by combining two or more roots or free morphemes

The second process is reduplication By this process, a free morpheme is

repeated or duplicated so that a new word with a different meaning is generated

The third one is borrowing Borrowing refers to the process in which words

from one language are adopted and used in another either with or without some phonological and orthographic modification

Another process is affixation in which affixes such as prefix, infix, or suffix

are inserted in order to form new words Notwithstanding, the supplement of the affixes does not necessarily affect the meaning of the original expression

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The fifth process is conversion This type refers to the functional shift of a

word without overt alteration of the word form

The sixth process of neologism formation is abbreviation which is

synonymous with a shortened form of a written word or phrase without altering its meaning

The seventh one is acronym, in which the initials or first few letters of each

word are combined to represent the old words

The eighth process is clipping in which a multisyllabic word is simplified by

subtracting one syllable or more

Another is the blending process This process is defined as the combination

of two or more morphemes after the shortening of at least one of the two and the connection of some syllabic parts between them

The tenth morphological process is onomatopoeia This type describes the

use of morphemes expressing the sounds involved in the meaning of that morpheme which is called echoism

Finally, the process named antonomasia occurs when a proper name, a

location, or a brand name generates a new meaning

These four processes suggested by Shahlee and Ahmad are just similar to the model proposed by the previous researcher Krishnamurthy in 2010, the only difference lies in the focus of the two studies: one on morphological analysis and one on the general word formation only Through employing different research approaches, the model proposed by Shahlee and Ahmad in 2019 has flexibly applied the insights given by the previous study and supplemented new details as the researcher observed and discovered through the development of languages Not only is the later model more detailed and standard but it also has a higher level of sophistication

After a thorough comparison has been made, it can be said that the model suggested by Newmark in 1988 and the one by Shahlee and Ahmad in 2019 offer broader senses of neologism creation by better diversifying processes of coining new words However, the current study is taking Newmark’ hypothesis on

translation procedures into account as well, applying Newmark’s discovery on neologism is expected to illustrate uniformity and close connection For these reasons, this model will serve as a basis for the researcher to identify neologisms and analyze their types

2.2.2 Translation procedures

Peter Newmark (1988) is one of the most influential researchers with substantial contributions to the formation as well as the development of translation theory, especially matters relating to translation procedures By the most common way of understanding, translation procedures are the rational procedures or methods used by the translator in transferring the source language into the target language According to the Oxford dictionary, procedures are seen as usual or proper ways of doing something Gallagher (1996) also concluded that “translation procedures are the technical devices to convey the message of a text in one language into another language.” Serving as technical devices, translation procedures are the methods that are simply employed in smaller units such as the sentences, clauses, phrases, and words Newmark (1988) also suggested that there exists a striking difference between translation procedure and translation method, specified as follows

“Translation methods relate to the text as a whole while translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language.” The researcher applied the translation procedures proposed by Peter Newmark as the translation strategies used for examining the data He classified translation procedures (for translating both literary and non-literary texts) into nineteen types as follows:

2.2.2.1 Transference Transference is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL word as a translation procedure Normally, there will be no change in the spelling of the words

or phrases recorded Emprunt, loan word, and transcription are representative processes in transference The suggested model of transference presented by Newmark is the same as Catford's The only difference lies in transliteration which

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relates to the conversion of different alphabets This procedure is applied to translate new technical terms with no equivalent in the SL with a view to creating some particular stylistic effects

For example, the word “Chanel” which is a renowned brand name is kept as

“Chanel” when it is being rendered into Vietnamese In this case, the way the word

is written and spelled is barely affected

2.2.2.2 Naturalization

As a continuation of transference, naturalization adapts the SL word according to the rules of the language, first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL word

For example, the word “radio” in English is transferred to “ra-đi-ô” in Vietnamese Both the pronunciation and the original word form are changed drastically in order to make it easier for Vietnamese people to understand and recognize it

2.2.2.3 Recognized Translation Newmark (1988) emphasizes that the translators “should normally use the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term” He hypothesizes that providing translators’ own titles or a brief explanation rather than widely accepted terms may cause certain confusions for others to understand, especially when it comes to some official or serious informative texts

2.2.2.4 Cultural equivalent

By this procedure, an SL cultural word is replaced by a TL cultural equivalent The equivalent in the SL must be culturally dominant and paradigmatic enough to represent the culture so that once it is heard and recognized by other people, its representativeness of culture will be displayed

For example, the word “an A student” in Western culture is translated into

“Một học sinh xuất sắc” in the Vietnamese language due to the cultural difference

2.2.2.5 Functional equivalent Function equivalent refers to the use of a culture-free word or expression in a translation for a cultural word or expression with no one-to-one TL equivalent in the

SL In other words, this procedure is also demonstrating the process of culturalizing a cultural word, which is aimed at neutralizing or generalizing an SL word Taking the case of neologisms into consideration, it should be noted that they may also belong to this category since some of them just exist in the culture of the imaginative world created by the SL author but not in the real world (Hegedus, 2005)

2.2.2.7 Synonymy This procedure refers to the replacement of an SL word in a context with a near TL equivalent It is often employed for an SL word where there is no clear one-to-one equivalent Synonyms for each word or phrase may vary significantly

For example, there are a large number of ways to address a “text” in Vietnamese There are “văn bản”, “đoạn văn”, “bài văn”, etc

2.2.2.8 Through translation Through translation refers to the literal translation of words and phrases It is often applied to common collocations, names of organizations, the components of

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compounds and perhaps phrases or phrases when they are already recognized terms

In other words, it is called calque or loan translation

For example, the phrase “Nước Cộng hòa Xã hội Chủ nghĩa Việt Nam” is understood as “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam” Or the phrase United Nations (UN) had the one-to-one already-recognized equivalent in Vietnamese as “Liên hợp quốc”

2.2.2.9 Literal translation This procedure can be seen as a word-for-word representation of the original word which “transfers” the primary (out-of-context) meaning of the SL word while the syntactic structures of the TL are well preserved

2.2.2.10 Shift or transposition

“Shift” in Catford’s term or “transposition” in Vinay and Darbelnet’s term is

a translation procedure which involves a change in the grammar or part of speech from SL to TL There are four types of shifts or transpositions suggested by Peter Newmark (1988); the change of the word form from singular to plural, the change when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, when literal translation is possible but not appropriate for the TL, and the change in which a lexical gap is replaced with the grammatical structure In addition to those methods, there are also the change of the source language verb to the target language word and the change

of a source language noun group to a target language noun

2.2.2.11 Modulation Modulation refers to the process when the translator looks at the messages in the SL from a different angle, a different viewpoint This strategy is used when the translation of words with literal meaning does not produce a feasible translation

2.2.2.12 Reduction and expansion

These two procedures are often seen in poor written original texts Regarding reduction, the translation tends to reduce the number of factors constructing the ST

On the contrary, by expansion, the translations are more likely to further clarify what is written in the ST, leading to an increase in the number of words in the TT

2.2.2.13 Paraphrase Paraphrase refers to the process when some parts of the original text are rewritten in a different way but its meaning must be well preserved

2.2.2.14 Couplets Couplets refer to the process when two translation procedures are combined

so as to tackle the SL word or phrases It can be triplets or quadruplets, with a combination of three or four procedures

2.2.2.15 Notes, additions, glosses These procedures are employed by translators to provide additional information about cultural or technical words that are related to a specific topic

2.2.2.16 TL Neologism This procedure is often applied in literary texts where a TL neologism is recreated on the basis of the SL neologism (Newmark, 1988)

2.2.2.17 TL Derived Word This procedure is aimed at coining new words in TL by adding productive affixes

2.2.2.18 Translation label Translation label is a temporary translation of the source language word

2.2.2.19 Componential analysis

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To Newmark, this procedure is synonymous with analyzing or splitting up diverse senses of a word into its sense-components, mostly one to two, three or four terms

Generally, the use of translation procedure mostly derives from and depends

on the special requirements of ST and TT In a translated version, there can be just one translation procedure found or several translation procedures detected Translation procedures are needed to get a thorough comprehension or make the readers easily understand the text of which the ideas are from the foreign cultures Foreign culture can be introduced in the target culture by the translator If the translator is the carrier, translation procedures are the carriage of the language and culture

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology employed in the research, including research design, sampling, research subject selection, research instruments to collect and analyze data, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures

3.1 The research design

The study primarily employed descriptive qualitative methods and instruments to investigate the two above-mentioned research questions Descriptive qualitative is a method which describes and observes the characteristics of a

phenomenon being studied According to Cresswell (1994), “a qualitative study focuses on participants’ perceptions and experiences which are presented with words” The researcher utilized this method to describe the translation procedures of COVID-19-related neologisms gathered from materials and documents issued by the WHO, Oxford Dictionary and international journals as well as people’s perceptions towards the effectiveness of the procedures applied Data, after being

collected through document analysis, questionnaire and interview, would be

analyzed to elucidate two forementioned research questions

3.2 Selection of subjects

In this study, 132 English neologisms of the pandemic and its Vietnamese equivalents have been selected and scrutinized in accordance with the model of neologism presented by Newmark in 1988 to reveal the theories concerning the procedures used in rendering those lexical items The research subject has been selected on the basis of the purposive sampling strategy The strategy, according to Oliver (2006), is “based on a variety of criteria, which may include specialist knowledge of the research issue, or capacity and willingness to participate in the research.” Sugiyono (2007) also presumed that purposive sampling enables the researcher to gather data or intentionally choose the data source based on certain criteria, which is central to the clarification of the research issues

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The research employs this method of sampling for the purpose of sorting out neologisms of the Coronavirus pandemic based on the neologism classification model suggested by Newmark (1988) and the following criteria proposed by the Dutch linguist M Janssen

Psychological neologism is a word that is perceived as new by the language community;

Any word that does not appear in the dictionary is considered a lexicographic neologism;

Regarding exclusive definition, a word not appearing in a pre-determined exclusion lexicon is a neologism;

Diachronic definition reveals that any word-form that appears in a recent general language text, and was not previously part of that language is a neologism;

Based on reference corpora definition, any word-form, appearing in a recent general language text but not in an established reference corpus of that language is a neologism

The striking similarity between those lexical items lies in the fact that they are all newly generated words or old words with new meanings emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic Moreover, all of them have gained high popularity on newspaper and TV programs for the last few months What’s more, all of them are comprehended and widely employed not only by scientists or healthcare professionals but also by people from all walks of life in both daily conversations and documented texts Those words and expressions are all influential and contribute significantly to the development of the pandemic language

3.3 Data collection instruments

3.3.1 Document analysis

To adequately address the research problem, the descriptive qualitative

research method was adopted for this study To be more specific, document analysis

was employed with a view to identifying the sample size and giving an answer to the first research question Document analysis is a form of qualitative research in which documents are interpreted by the researcher to give voice and meaning around an assessment topic (Bowen, 2009) There are three primary types of documents (O’Leary, 2014):

Public Records: The official, ongoing records of an organization’s activities Personal Documents: First-person accounts of an individual’s actions, experiences, and beliefs

Physical Evidence: Physical objects found within the study setting

Analyzing documents incorporates coding content into themes similar to how focused group or interview transcripts are analyzed (Bowen, 2009) In this case, the types of document are mainly public records and personal documents The Vietnamese equivalents of the neologism system were compared and analyzed meticulously based on the neologism categorification proposed by Newmark to draw the conclusion on the allotted typology as well as the frequency of translation procedures used

3.3.2 Questionnaire

The nature of this study (self-reflected experience) required the handling of two different groups of participants; therefore, for generalizable findings to be achieved, a questionnaire should be employed to gather data from a large population about their evaluation and perception towards the effectiveness of translation

procedures used Besides cost and time effectiveness, an online questionnaire was

considered to be of paramount importance because it facilitated the informants approaching process and statistical analysis The questionnaire was designed to

gathered through document analysis After revising the drafts several times, the

researchers submitted the questionnaire to the supervisor for comments and afterwards piloted the corrected survey to five English-majored students who shared the same features as the target participants to check whether it was comprehensible and error-free and then asked for extra feedback from the participants Modifications and adaptations were made accordingly

3.3.2.2 Questionnaire description

At the beginning of the questionnaire is the researcher’s brief introduction, followed by the commitment to keep the collected data confidential Right after that part, there were some questions about the participants’ personal information, including their individual experiences and details At the end of the survey, there is

a thank-you note and recognition for their contribution The questionnaire was divided into two major parts A and B with 34 items and different instructions for each part Part A was mainly designed as multiple choice questions to obtain some background knowledge about the participants as well as their tendency to keep track

of the COVID-19-related news Part II includes 8 smaller sections with a total of 31 questions, investigating the acceptability and functionality of translation versions for each type of neologisms

3.3.3 Interview

Moreover, the semi-structured online interview was utilized and deployed to

shed light on the second research question and reveal what remains unanswered in the questionnaire In order to investigate self-reported attitudes towards translation

of medical documents and translation procedures used in rendering

COVID-19-related neologisms, the interview was regarded as a preferable data collection method (Opdenakker, 2006) It was mainly utilized to capture the complexity of individual perceptions and experiences as well as guarantee the quality of the responses Moreover, during interviews, additional research-relevant and content-specified details missed out in the survey would be elicited through verbal interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee, which enhanced the validity and reliability of the findings Besides, taking the current situation into serious consideration, online interviews were considered safe and convenient for both parties (interviewers and interviewees)

3.3.2.1 Interview design

Interview was targeted at two main groups, including the target readers (five ordinary people who keep track with the developments of the pandemic frequently), the translators (three seniors majoring in translation in University of Languages and International Studies), and two professional translators who have been teaching translation theory in University of Languages and International Studies and acquired a wealth of experiences in this field For different groups of subjects, there was a flexible set of interview questions modified accordingly to gather desired results and the diverse evaluation towards the effectiveness of translation procedures in rendering COVID-19-related neologisms

In the study, the researcher designed two different sets of question items for two different groups with a view to bringing what remains unsolved in the questionnaire to light In addition, the information obtained from the interviews could help the researcher to construct such a useful framework for the recommendation section The participants were encouraged to use both English and their mother tongue, Vietnamese (if necessary) to confidently and comfortably express personal viewpoints most of the time All of the interviews were based on the same list of questions prepared by the researcher beforehand, which would facilitate the process of comparing and contrasting data later on The question order

Step 2: A database of English COVID-19-related terms was established Step 3: As long as neologisms without Vietnamese equivalents were omitted, the list of COVID-19 neologisms would be finalized

3.4.2 Questionnaire

The data-gathering process in the form of the questionnaireinvolved three

major steps as follows

Step 1: Establish and edit the content of the questionnaires There would be two different sets of question items for the two focus groups

Step 2: Use Google Form to collect data The questionnaires were distributed

to two distinct groups, namely the target readers and the translators, with the participation of twenty seven and twenty two people in each group respectively

Step 3: Check and categorize the acceptable answers

3.4.3 Interview

Pre-interview