A STUDY OF ENGLISH VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF PRESENTATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AT ICISE

Hence, thisstudy aims at investigating the Vietnamese translation of three common types of sentence inEnglish, namely passive sentences, conditional sentences and sentences containing re

ĐẶNG TRỊNH TRƯỜNG GIANG

TRANSLATIONS OF PRESENTATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AT ICISE

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

BINH DINH - 2019

ĐẶNG TRỊNH TRƯỜNG GIANG

TRANSLATIONS OF PRESENTATIONS AT

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AT ICISE

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

This thesis represents my own work and due acknowledgement is given wheneverinformation is derived from other sources No part of this thesis has or is beingconcurrently submitted for any other qualification at any university except where duereference has been made in the text

Quy Nhon, 2019

DANG TRINH TRUONG GIANG

Without the assistance of many people, this thesis could not have been completed

I would like to express my profound gratitude and respect to those who provide me withadvice and assistance when I carry out this research

First and foremost, I am deeply thankful to Assoc Prof Nguyen Quang Ngoan, mysupervisor, who kindly provides me with appropriate direction, useful suggestions andcritical comments so that I can have a suitable topic to pursue and finish in time

Secondly, I would like to express my thank to Dr Tran Thanh Son, the manager ofthe International Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education, who gives me aninvaluable source of data for collecting and studying Besides, I owe a debt of gratitude to

Mr Vo Ngoc Hoi, a PhD candidate and also my university graduation thesis supervisor.Thanks to the support of Mr Vo, a great number of materials sources are accessible to me,which helps me to have appropriate reference whenever I need

Thirdly, let me express my gratitude to all the lecturers of the Department of ForeignLanguages in specific and to Quy Nhon Univesity in general who have provided me withprecious education, not only in English major but also in other fields of knowledge Withoutsuch knowledge, I cannot make such a far progress in my academic career

Last but not least, my big thank is sent to my family, my friends and my colleagueswho have helped me settle down many difficulties during this period so that I can focus

on the thesis and finish it in due time

Translation in general and interpretation in particular has become more and morepopular in the current trend of integration and internationalization Because English andVietnamese have a different system of grammar and structure, it is believed that thetranslation of certain English types of sentence into Vietnamese are problematic Hence, thisstudy aims at investigating the Vietnamese translation of three common types of sentence inEnglish, namely passive sentences, conditional sentences and sentences containing relativeclause The results of this study are expected to facilitate English-Vietnamese translationprocess, and as a result, help translators and interpreters to perform their job much better Theused qualitative method in this study found that the most used strategy to translate the threeinvestigated types of sentence was to keep using the structure of the original sentence in itstranslation This strategy was proved to be really effective with the highest rate of goodassessment and lowest rate of poor one Nonetheless, this study did not make muchclassification in translation strategies and did not pay close attention to the interrelationshipamong factors in translation work, further studies with larger scale are recommended to becarried out to shed light on these concerns

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 RATIONALE

Translation has long been a popular discipline due to its useful practice in reality Ithelps those whose languages are different to communicate and exchange ideas which is ofvital importance in the current trend of globalisation and integration With an increasingnumber of events in which participants from different language origins are involved, e.g.scientific workshops, business conferences or just simply fan meetings, etc., translation,especially interpretation, is rapidly gaining wide currency and creating enormous demand

in present society Despite the fact that translation alrealdy received awareness fromscholars a long time ago (e.g Cicero, Quintillian, 1st B.C.), it was not until the secondhalf of the 20th century that a lot of research on translation was carried out Typical wereworks by Goldman-Eisler (1972), Barik (1973, 1975), Gerver (1976), Moser (1978),Chernov (1979), Larmbert (1984) (cited in Russell, 2005) However, not many studieshave paid attention to the translation of specific types of sentence which is believed to be

a significant work especially between languages that have dissimilar lexical, grammaticaland cultural system like English and Vietnamese This study, thus, is expected to exert thefirst effort in this concern, i.e investigating translation strategies for English-Vietnamesetranslation of different types of sentence Nevertheless, because this study was given aperiod of 6 months to be done, a large scale study is impossible to be launched Hence,only 3 common types of sentence are investigated in this study, namely passive sentences,conditional sentences and sentences containing relative clauses

1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

With the major aim of investigating how 3 types of sentences, viz passivesentences, conditional sentences and sentences containing relative clauses, are translatedfrom English into Vietnamese, the following objectives are aimed at:

1. To find out how English sentences containing relative clauses in the

investigated presentations are translated into Vietnamese

2. To find out how English passive sentences in the investigated presentations are translated into Vietnamese

3. To find out how English conditional sentences in the investigated presentations are translated into Vietnamese

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Based on the aims of the study, the following questions are expected to be answered:

1. How are English sentences containing relative clauses in presentations at an ICISE’s international conference translated into Vietnamese?

2. How are English passive sentences in presentations at an ICISE’s international conference translated into Vietnamese?

3. How are English conditional sentences in presentations at an ICISE’s

international conference translated into Vietnamese?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The three main concerns of this study are translation strategies for sentencescontaining relative clauses, passive sentences and conditional sentences Data for this studyare records of presentations at international conferences held at the International Center forInterdisciplinary Science and Education (ICISE) in Vietnam and their Vietnamese translationrecords Only three types of sentence are covered in this study because of the time limitationallowed for this study to be done within a 6-month period The reason why only presentations

at ICISE are chosen is three-fold First, other sources of data were inaccessible and onlyICISE had the record system that made translation records available for this study Second,the conferences held at ICISE were scientific conferences which were believed to be a goodcontext for data collection More specifically, the ICISE hosts between 10 and 12 high levelinternational scientific conferences on an annual basis Having already covered disciplines inthe scope of fundamental or applied science mainly

in the field of physics, the program was expected to cover a larger array of scientificdisciplines such as biology, medicine, social and human sciences Finally, the interpreterfor the investigated conference was the director of the Vietnamese National Center forTranslation and Interpretation, so his translation could be considered as a reliable source

of samples, which could be somehow regarded as the model of English-Vietnamesetranslation for English relative clauses Although only presentations at ICISE are taken forexamination, the number of samples of each type of the three investigated sentences aresufficient for analysis with about 120 samples for each one

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

First, the study is expected to somehow contribute to the recognition of possibledifficulties and challenges that an interpreter are likely confronted with during histranslation work in the context of a conference Besides, after examining the waysentences containing relative clauses, passive sentences and conditional sentences aretranslated from English into Vietnamese by the investigated interpreter, recommendationtranslations are made for each poor-assessed and average-assessed translation made byhim Finally, general recommendations for the translation of each type of sentence areprovided to facilitate the work of English-Vietnamese conference interpretation

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This study consists of 5 chapters as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, includes the rationale, aim and objectives of the study,

research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and organization of thestudy

Chapter 2, Literature Review and Theoretical Background, provides some previous

relevant studies and relevant theoretical background for the study

Chapter 3, Research Methodology, gives information about the data sources and

samples, data collection, research methods, the translation quality assessment approach,research procedures and the reliability and validity of the study

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion, presents the findings of the study which is

followed by a discusion

Chapter 5, Conclusions and Implications, provides a summary of the major

findings from which conclusions are drawn and implications are stated After that,limitations of the study are indicated to make suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND

in another language

Nida (1969), an American scholar, stated that translation was a science, he said:

Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent

of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.But this relatively simple statement requires careful evaluation of several seeminglycontradictory elements (1969, p.12)

In 1984, Larson claimed that a translation included transferring the meaning of thesource language into the receptor language This process was done by going from theform of the source language to the form of the receptor language thanks to semanticstructure He said that it was the meaning which was being transferred and must be heldconstant because the meaning was the most important thing in a translation process Hemeant that in the process of translation, only the form changed, while the meaning of thesource text should be re-expressed and maintained in the target form These meaningsshould then be transferred, encoded and recorded into the receptor language

In 1988, Mary Snell-Horby, by focusing on the interaction process between theauthor, the translator and the reader, defined translation as follows:

Translation is a complex act of communication in which the SL-author, the reader astranslator and translator as TL-author and the TL-reader interact The translator startsfrom a present frame (the text and its linguistic components); this was produced by anauthor who drew from his own repertoire of parly prototypical scenes Based on the frame

of the text, the translator-reader builds up his own scenes depending on his own level ofexperience and his internalized knowledge of the material concerned (1988, p.81)

From another point of view, Carbonell (2006), a Spanish language scholar, definedtranslation as a form of communication and a means of achieving things Nevertheless, hecontinued, the original communicative act was relocated to a different setting wheredifferent actors performed for different purposes; thus, accordingly, there was a mediationqualifying the whole act at different levels

In the same year, Marie Karlsson (2006) carried out a study on the translation of

hedging, adjectives and non-finite ing-participles in the book Horse Talking of Margrit

Coates In her work, she pointed out that the translation process consisted in conveying amessage from a language to another language; therefore, she said “the optimal aim is tocreate a text that will have the same effect on the target reader as on the readers of the sourcetext” (p 5) By this perspective, she meant that not only the process of translation but also theeffect it produced on readers from different languages was of great importance

In his Introducing Translation Studies (2001), Jeremy Munday, a notable lecturer

in Spanish Studies, a freelance translator, a lexicographer and also a materials writer,stated that the term “translation” itslef contained several meanings, i.e “it can refer to thegeneral subject field, the product (the text that has been translated) or the process (the act

of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating)” (pp 4-5) The process oftranslation, as he mentioned, involved the change of a written text in the original verballanguage into a written text in a different verbal language

2.1.2 Translation assessment approaches

There have been numerous approaches used by researchers and practitioners toassess translation works It goes without saying that it is impossible to mention all suchapproaches In this section, only some dominant approaches are reviewed

Sonia Colina (2008) categorized translation approaches into 4 major ones namelyexperience-based & anecdotal approaches, theoretical & research-based approaches,reader-response approaches, and textlinguistic & pragmatic approaches Regarding

experience-based & anecdotal approaches, they are often ad hoc translation rating

scales established to be used for a particular professional organization or industry, such as

the American Translators Association certification exam, the Society of AutomotiveEngineers Translation Quality Metric for the automotive industry, and the LocalizationIndustry Standards Association Quality Assurance model for localization Although beingadequate for specific purposes of such users, experience-based & anecdotal approachesare often found difficult to transfer to other environments because they lack a cleartheoretical framework or empirical evidence to be based on The lack of an explicittheoretical framework and/or empirical findings also makes it impossible to ensure thereplicability and inter-rater reliability of the approaches There is no clear description forerrors recognized in translation process leading to another problem in individual rater’sjudgement In a culturally dependent field like translation, the absence of clearly definedtranslation criteria is claimed to cause significant variation and increased subjectivitybetween raters In short, the experience-based & anecdotal approaches hardly havereplicability and inter-rater reliability due to the lack of an explicitly formulatedtheoretical model and/or empirical evidence

With regard to theoretical and research-based approaches, as their name reveals,

these approaches are based on a theoretical framework or assumptions They tend to takethe user of translation works into account Despite arising out of a theoretical framework

or assumptions, theoretical and research-based approaches also have some inadequaciesthat have frustrated their success and widespread application Colina (2008) stated thatbecause these approaches focused only on aspects of quality, while translation was aninterdisciplinary field, they were often difficult to apply in numerous other areas such as

in professional and teaching situations

Reader-response approaches, however, “assess the quality of a translation by

determining whether readers of the translation respond to it as readers of the source wouldrespond to the original” (Nida, 1964, Carroll, 1966, Nida and Taber, 1969, cited in Colina,

2008, p 100) There are two sub-types of these approaches, namely behavioristic approachesand functionalist approaches In 1960s, being affected by the behavioristic views arisen in theUnited States, Nida (1964) proposed some response-based tests (behavioristic approaches)with the aim at reaching a conclusion on the quality of translation works He mentioned sometypes of assessment such as reading aloud techniques, cloze tasks and rating tasks In linewith this idea, Nida and Taber, in their study in 1969, suggested three criteria to assess atranslation work viz how far TL readers understand the message in SL, how comprehensiblethe translation work is, and to what extent the readers are involed Nevertheless, these kinds

of test did not become so popular due to the fact that the response of the readers solely wasinsufficient to make a claim on the quality of the translation work (House, 2015).Furthermore, another limitation of this approach was the lack of consideration on the sourcetext in the assessment process (Hằng, 2017) Regarding the second branch of reader-responseapproaches, Functionalism arouse with German scholars like Hans J Vermeer and KatharinaReiss These approaches are called “skopostheorie” or “skopos theory” in English Skoposmeans “aim” or “purpose” in Greek, so it is the aim or purpose of the translation work which

is the major focus of these approaches (Nord, 1997) One of the most important elementswhen recognising the purpose of a translation is the receiver of the translation work, and due

to the fact that translation is seen as a purposeful activity, there is always an intended receiver

of the message “With functionalism, translation was no longer seen as a mere act oftranscoding, but instead as an act of communication” (Jensen, 2009, p 15) The strong point

of Skopos theory is that a source text can be translated with a variety of methods dependent

on different purposes of the translations Moreover, the translator is given freedom and spaces

in the choice of strategies or translation approaches to fulfill different purposes that thetranslator aims at (Ân, 2017) However, the skopos theory is not considered as a real theory

because a real scientific theory must per definition be formulated as a hypothesis that can

be empirically tested (Schjoldager, 2008) Indeed, the skopos theory sets up prescriptions,nonetheless, these prescriptions have not been empirically tested, and they therefore onlydescribe ideals

The reader-response approaches are claimed to be controversial because, inaddition to the impossibility of capturing/measuring reader response, the reader-responseitself is not equally important for all translation situations, especially for those that are notreader-oriented like legal texts, etc Another problem is that these approaches areconcerned with only one small aspect of a translated text, i.e equivalence of effect on thereader, ignoring other aspects, such as the purpose of the translation, context, etc.Furthermore, it is also challenging to consider whether two responses are equivalent ornot because even with a text in the same language, slightly different groups of readers canhave non-equivalent responses Finally, the assessment of the quality of a translation workbased on reader response is a time-consuming activity Careful selection of readers isrequired to ensure that they are the intended audience for the translation Despite all thesechallenges, reader-response approaches are given credits for taking account of the role ofthe audience in translation, and more specifically, of translation effects on the reader as atranslation quality measure

Textual and pragmatic approaches play an important role in the field of translation

assessment by changing the focus from counting errors to assessing texts and translationgoals, which gives the reader and the communication itself a much more prominent role.However, these approaches have not been widely adopted by either professionals or scholars.Different proposals or models have been criticized because they pay too much attention to thesource text (Reiss, 1971, as cited in Colina, 2008) or to the target (Reiss and Vermeer, 1984;Nord, 1997; as cited in Colina, 2008) House’s (1997, 2001) functional pragmatic model is asymbolic example for these approaches It is based on the analysis of the linguistic-situationalfeatures in the original and its translation, the comparison of the original and its translationand the assessment of their match The fundamental requirement

of House’s model is that the textual features and function of the translation match those ofits original, i.e the final goal is to create a functional equivalence of the original and itstranslation.

Nonetheless, textual and pragmatic approaches are also problematic due to theirdependence on the notion of equivalence which is often an unclear and debatable term intranslation studies (Hönig, 1997, as cited in Colina, 2008) This is an obstruction because

a particular translation sometimes serves different functions from that of the originaldepending on the oriented audience and the time it happens To clarify the same point ofview, Colina (2008) gave the following example:

…one could imagine at least two slightly different purposes for the translation of a physicstextbook written in the US for college audiences: (1) for a college audience in Mexico; (2)for a publisher of college textbooks in Argentina to study educational and presentationalstrategies used in the US for the same content A good translation for (2) would requirenon-equivalence of function, as the translation’s main function would not be to teachcollege students, but to show the publisher how these textbooks are structured and written

in the source culture (2008, p 6)

Besides, another impediment in using textual and pragmatic approaches is the factthat there is not clear assessment criteria for making translation decision after the texualfeatures have been analyzed and the function of the translation has been indentified

In addition to the four mentioned major approaches, the use of analytic rating scales

is a relatively new approach of assessing translation and interpretation in recent decades Infact, there has not been absolute certainty about the usefulness of using analytic rating scales

in assessing interpreting This mainly derives from the unavailability of rigorous empiricalevidence in available literature (Angelelli, 2009; Bontempo & Hutchinson, 2011; Clifford,2001; IoL Educational Trust, 2010; Jacobson, 2009; Wang, 2011, cited in Han, 2017) to provethe effectiveness of this approach Despite the uncertainty about its usefulness, the utility ofanalytic rating scales to assess translation quality is beginning to increase in interpretercertification testing (Angelelli, 2009; Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters,2011; Han, 2015a, 2016a; IoL Educational Trust, 2010; Jacobson, 2009; Liu, 2013; Turner etal., 2010; Wu, Liu, & Liao, 2013, cited in Han, 2017), in

interpreter educational assessment (Bontempo & Hutchinson, 2011; Lee, 2008; Tiselius,2009; Wang, 2011; Wang, Napier, Goswell, & Carmichael, 2015; Zhao & Dong, 2013,cited in Han, 2017) and in interpreting research (Cheung, 2014; Lin, Chang, & Kuo,2013; McDermid, 2014, cited in Han, 2017) The popularity of this approach seems toderive from abundant psychometric evidence of the general value of rating scales reported

in psychological, educational and language-testing literature (e.g., Xi & Mollaun, 2006)

A rating scale is often composed of three major components: (a) scale categories which is identified with assessment criteria, (b) scale bands which are used to differentiate a continuum of translation performance, and (c) scale descriptors which are used to present

salient features of translations at every certain level (Han, 2018)

a Scale categories

Many studies have been carried out on different criteria for interpretation qualityassessment (e.g., Grbić, 2008; Pöchhacker, 2001, as cited in Han, 2018) There are threemajor criteria that scholars and practitioners have gradually converged, namely (1) content,

(2) delivery, and (3) language quality (Chen, 2009; Han, 2016; J Lee, 2008; Liu, 2013,cited in Han, 2018) Despite the fact that these criteria are widely used as qualityassessment parameters, there are no broadly accepted definitions for them (PradasMacías, 2006, cited in Han, 2018) Normally, the number of criteria used in an assessmentscale ranges from two to four; however, there are also some cases in which only onecriterion is used (e.g., Meuleman & Van Besien, 2009, cited in Han, 2018)

b. Scale bands

Scale bands are used to differentiate a continuum of interpreting performance Thenumber of scale bands used shows the degree of differentiation that the interpretingassessors wish to have In his study in 2018, Chao Han reviewed some previous studiesand found out that the number was typically seven plus or minus two

c Scalar descriptors

Scalar descriptors are utilized to give more details about the features of interpretations

at each level of development in order to describe how that interpreting performance develops

on a continuum from bad to good quality Chao Han (2018) mentions three major methods to

build up performance descriptors for interpretation works They are called experience-based;

borrowed or adapted; and data-driven or evidence-based method.

In general, all the mentioned-above translation approaches have their ownstrengths and weaknesses Hence, it seems that the choice of translation approach toassess translation works should be dependent on specific cases

2.1.3 Conference interpretation

According to Bill Moody (2011), it was not unil 1919, when peace treaty negotiationsafter the World War 1 took place, that the modern interpretation profession was born At thattime, there was an increasing demand in the number of interpreters who can fulfil the tasks ofinternational politics and global trade As a result, institutions for training interpreters wereestablished in great numbers at the beginning of the 1930s to fill the need At first, conferenceinterpreters performed consecutive interpretation, i.e they made interpretation after thespeaker had finished his speech In international organizations, it is usual for an interpreter totake notes of the whole speech and then take the speaker’s place and deliver theinterpretation Simultaneous interpretation, another kind of conference interpretationappeared after the World War 2 when a number of facilities for this kind of interpretationwere made available such as headsets and microphones After proving its effectiveness at theNuremberg trials, simultaneous interpretation became the model method of interpreting atUnited Nation meetings or formal conferences of diplomats and business leaders (Baigorri-Jalón, 2005, cited in Moody, 2011, p 2) Today, both consecutive interpretation andsimultaneous interpretation exist in the context of a conference dependent on the nature ofthat conference However, it is a matter of fact that

simultaneous interpretation is more preferrable to rather formal and importantconferences, while consecutive is often chosen for small and less important ones.

2.1.4 Factors affecting conference interpretation

It is obvious that the performance of interpreters in a particular conference can beinfluenced by a huge number of factors, namely setting, context, speakers, participants, noise,the personal style of the interpreter, his/her mood, his/her note-taking skill or level ofconcentration on the day of the event, etc (Gercek, 2008) some of which are consideredminor factors to the process of interpretation while others play a vitally important role in thequality of the outcome of interpreting In this section, two major factors that receive muchattention from various studies are introduced, viz the role of the interpreter and the culturaldifferences between the source language country and the target language country

a The role of the interpreter

The role of the interpreter was first discussed by Anderson (1976, cited in Gercek,2008) who considers interpreter as the man in the middle with responsibilities to both parties

in the communicative event He referred to the interpreter and his/her influence and controlover the situation by acting as a faithful echo of the parties assuming the nonpartisan role orjust choosing not to do so From his discussion, there arose the question of the interpreter’sneutrality and his/her conflicting role in a particular communicative event Anderson arguedthat interpreting took place in social situations which was easily affected by sociologicalanalysis He also claimed that in any such setting, setting the role of the interpreter was likely

to have considerable influence on the outcome of the interaction

Per Linell (1997, cited in Gercek, 2008) also supported this idea by making a claimthat interpreters went beyond mere translating and acted as “chairpersons and gatekeepers” who monitored the social and discursive situation Linell also stated that norms

on interpreting such as “what is considered to be neutral or correct interpreting” have animpact on actual conduct Nevertheless, he doubted whether and/or to what extent thesenorms would be valid in interpreting contexts and situations

Another study that went in the same line was the study on dialogue interpretingwhich was carried out by Cecilia Wadensjo (1998, cited in Gercek, 2008) In his study,Wadensjo considered “interpreter-mediated conversations as a mode of communication”besides discussion on interpreters, their responsibilities, what they do, what they thinkthey should do and what they are expected to do in face-to-face, institutional encounters.

The role of interpreters was also the topic of discussion in an ethnographicconference case study carried out by Ebru Dirike (2004, cited in Gercek, 2008) In herstudy, she found out that conference interpreters were actively involved and visible in thetalk via taking different speaker-positions, managing turn-taking, addressing the speakersand listeners directly and presenting their concerns and criticism

With regard to the expectations of the role of the interpreter, Stefano Marrone (1993,cited in Gercek, 2008), in his questionnaire-based study among end-users, mentioned the role

of the interpreter together with other parameters related to quality He concluded that theinterpreter was allowed and encouraged to go beyond only fidelity and use his/her resources

as a professional linguist In the same orientation, Franz Pochhacker (2000, cited in Gercek,2008) carried out a survey on the expectations of interpreters and service providers in Viennahospitals and family affairs centers with regard to the interpreter’s role In this study, hepointed out that the demands of service providers on interpreters were more than justtranslating In fact, interpreters were expected to take over coordinating tasks such as askingparties to make clear when their utterances were not understandable or could lead tomisunderstandings Furthermore, interpreters were expected to adapt their utterances toclients” communicative demands and omitted unnecessary parts in their utterances

b Cultural differences

As stated by Pochhacker (2004, cited in Gercek, 2008), conceptual referencescannot be separated from the cultural, social and political system and the language inwhich such conceptual references are expressed He meant that besides role relationshipsand expectations, cultural and social knowledge played an important part in helping createmeaning in communication Culture determined the way people think, act and interact and

acted as a filter which limited the way we perceive, what we see, hear, or feel (Kondo &Tebble, 1997, cited in Gercek, 2008) In other words, in interpreting, as well as incommunication in general, the conveyance of messages was successful if the speaker andthe receiver shared the same cultural and social knowledge Otherwise, the utterance didnot make sense to the receivers because it did not correspond to what they hadexperienced before (Reeves, 1994, cited in Gercek, 2008) In case the speaker and thereceiver did not share the same cultural and social knowledge, the interpreter might need

to intervene, change the original speech, omit certain parts or even give extra explanation(cf Jones, 1998, cited in Gercek, 2008) and act as a cultural mediator rather than just aneutral or invisible agent (Knodo & Tebble, 1997, cited in Gercek, 2008) StefanoMarrone (1993, cited in Gercek, 2008) also explored user responses to the interpretation

of institutional terms and the interpreter’s role as scrupulous translator versus culturalmediator He concluded that although it was necessary to take into consideration theexpectations of different audiences, it was suitable to attempt a degree of culturalmediation, and identify the importance of a solid cultural background

Regarding the importance of cultural knowledge in interpretation, there have beensome views on cultural mediation and translation, which could be possibly valid forinterpreting as well Anthony Pym (2000, cited in Gercek, 2008), who focused on trainingtranslators, claimed that training programmes should be oriented to the production ofintercultural mediators, who are able to do more than just translate Ritva Leppihalme(1997, cited in Gercek, 2008) also stressed the importance of “what is implied by thesocio-cultural and intertextual elements” and “extralinguistic knowledge of the sourcelanguage culture” in her book which paid attention to the intercultural aspect oftranslation Sharing the same idea, according to David Katan (2004, cited in Gercek,2008), it was vital for translators and interpreters to have thorough backgroundknowledge about the cultures for which they were mediating such as customs, behaviourpatterns, geography, history and even popular culture To say it more clearly, Katanmentioned Taft’s definition of “cultural mediator” in his book:

A cultural mediator is a person who facilitates communication, understanding and actionbetween persons or groups who differ with respect to language and culture The role ofthe mediator is performed by interpreting the expressions, intentions, perceptions, andexpectations of each cultural group to the other, that is, by establishing and balancing thecommunication between them In order to serve as a link in this sense, the mediator must

be able to participate to some extent in both cultures Thus a mediator must be to a certainextent bicultural (2004, p 9)

2.2 INVESTIGATED TYPES OF SENTENCE

2.2.1 Sentences containing relative clauses, conditional

sentences and passive sentences in English

In this section, investigated types of sentence are classified in terms of traditionalEnglish grammar, and their Vietnamese equivalents are categorized in terms ofVietnamese grammar

a Sentences containing relative clauses

According to Thomson and Martinet (1986), there are three kinds of relativeclauses, viz defining, non-defining and connective relative clauses A defining relativeclause is the one describing the preceding noun in such a way as to distinguish it fromother nouns of the same class A clause of this kind is essential to the clear understanding

of the noun Following are relative pronouns often used in defining relative clauses

Table 1 Relative pronouns used in defining relative clauses.

For persons

For things

Non-defining relative clauses are placed after nouns which are definite already They

do not therefore define the noun, but merely add something to it by giving some moreinformation about it Unlike defining relative clauses, they are not essential in the sentence

and can be omitted without causing confusion Also unlike defining relatives, they areseparated frim their noun by commas The pronoun can never be omitted in a non-defining relative clause The construction is fairly formal and more common in writtenthan in spoken English Following are relative pronouns often used in non-definingrelative clauses.

Table 2 Relative pronouns used in non-defining relative clauses

For persons For things

Connective clauses do not describe their nouns but continue the story Commas areused as with non-defining relative clauses The pronouns are who, whom, whose, which.They are usually placed after the object of the main verb Sometimes, it may be difficult

to say whether a clause in this position is non-defining or connective, but there is no needfor students to make this distinction, as the two forms are the same

According to Quirk and Greenbaum (ibid.) (1985), restrictive relative clause is themodification of a head which can be viewed as a member of a class and can belinguistically identified only through that modification Non-restrictive relative clause isthe modification of a head which can be viewed as unique or as a member of a class thathas been independently identified (e.g in a preceding sentence) Sentential relative clause

is one type of non-restrictive clause that has as its antecedent not a noun phrase but awhole clause or sentence or even sequence of sentences

In his Practical English Usage book, Michael Swan (2016) stated that there were twokinds of relative clause: those that typically say who or what we are talking about (identifyingclause), and those that typically just give extra information (non-identifying clause).Identifying relative clauses identify or classify nouns, they tell us which person or thing, orwhich kind of person or thing, is meant (in grammars, these are called identifying, defining orrestrictive relative clauses) Non-identifying relative clauses do not identify or classify, theysimply tell us more about a person or thing that is already identified (in

grammars, these are called con-identifying, non-defining or non-restrictive clauses) Inthe book Understanding and Using English Grammar written by Betty S Azar and Stacy

A Hagen in 2017, they mentioned 2 types of adjective clauses (relative clauses) The firsttype was called essential or restrictive or identifying relative clauses which do not requirecommas, while the second one was called nonessential or nonrestrictive or nonidentifyingrelative clauses

For the purpose of this study, sentences containing relative clauses are thosehaving a clause following a noun phrase and modify it

b Conditional sentences

An if-clause often refers to a condition – something which must happen so thatsomething else can happen (Swan, 2016) According to Thomson and Martinet (1986),conditional sentences consist of two parts, namely the if-clause and the main clause Theyprovided three kinds of conditional sentences, namely conditional sentences type 1,conditional sentences type 2 and conditional sentences type 3, each of which contained adifferent pair of tenses and indicates a different implication According to them, the firsttype of conditional sentences implies that the action in the if-clause is quite probable (i.e

it is probable to happen at the present or in the future time) The meaning in this type ispresent or future, but the verb in the if-clause is normally in a present, not a future tense.Regarding the second type of conditional sentences, it, like type 1, refers to the present orfuture, and the past tense in the if-clause is not a true past but a subjunctive whichimplicates unreality or improbability With regard to the final type, it indicates unreality inthe past The verb in the if-clause is in the past perfect tense and the verb in the mainclause is in the perfect conditional The time here is past and the condition here cannot befulfilled since the action in the if-clause did not happen

Similarly, Azar and Hagen (2017) mentioned 3 types of conditional sentences intheir book, one expressed real conditions in the present or future, one expressed unrealconditions in the present or future, and one expressed unreal conditions in the past

In their book “A University Grammar of English” (1985), Quirk and Greenbaummentioned 2 types of conditions viz real and unreal conditions A real condition leavesunresolved the question of the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the condition, and hencealso the truth of the proposition expressed by the main clause In an unreal condition, onthe other hand, it is clearly expected that the condition will not be fulfilled There are 2sub-types of unreal conditions, one at present and one in the past which are corresponding

to Thomson & Martinet’s conditional sentence type 2 and type 3 (1986) Quirk &Greenbaum (1985) also mentioned alternatives of if-structure to express condition,namely unless, provided that, providing that, as soon as, so long as, on condition that, etc.Furthermore, those grammarians reached a consensus that those mentioned-above typeswere not the only possibilities of conditional sentences In particular, there existedconditional sentences with mixed tenses which do not follow the above patterns

In this study, conditional sentences are defined in accordance with Thomson andMartinet’s definition including some alternatives for the if-structure as mentioned in Quirk

& Greenbaum’s book

Usually the passive is used without a by-phrase The passive is most frequently usedwhen it is not known or not important to know exactly who performs an action (Azar &

Hagen, 2017) Sometimes, even when speakers know who performs an action, theychoose to use the passive with the by-phrase in order to focus attention on the subject of asentence (Azar & Hagen, 2017) Not all verbs can have passive forms Passive structuresare impossible with intransitive verbs which cannot have object, because there is nothing

to become the subject of a passive sentence (Swan, 2016; Azar & Hagen, 2017) In short,

it is reasonable to consider a sentence a passive sentence if it has the structure “be + pastparticiple”

2.2.2 Vietnamese equivalents

Despite of the fact that the terms “relative clauses”, “conditional sentences” and

“passive sentences” have equivalents in Vietnamese language, none of them ever existed

in Vietnamese grammar Hence, mentioned below are Vietnamese equivalent ways ofexpressing such grammatical units in English

a Relative clauses

In Vietnamese grammar, there exists a term “cụm từ chủ vị” (subject-predicatephrase) which belongs to the bigger grammatical unit “phần phụ sau của cụm danh từ nêuđặc trưng miêu tả” (the noun phrase postmodification which expresses descriptivefeatures) (Ban, 1992, p 58) The so-called subject-predicate phrase consists of two parts,namely the subject and the predicate The subject of the “subject-predicate phrase” isoften “người, thứ, cái, vật, đó, etc.” Sometimes, the phrase also contains “kết từ hạn địnhchỉ ý nghĩa quan hệ về mục đích, hoặc quan hệ về đặc trưng – mà” (restrictive connectorindicating relative meaning about purpose or about feature – mà) which belongs to theunit “kết từ chính phụ” (subordinators) (Ban, 1991, p 154) For the purpose of this study,

“noun phrase postmodification which expresses descriptive features” is called

“Vietnamese relative clause”

b Conditional sentences

In order to indicate a condition, Vietnamese grammar has a term called “kết từ phụthuộc chỉ ý nghĩa quan hệ giả thiết – hậu quả: nếu/giá/hễ/miễn/giả thử (là)…thì/là/thì là”

(dependent connectors indicating relative meaning about condition – result: if/ifonly/supposed that…then) (Ban, 1991, p 160) However, there is no classification intodifferent smaller types indicating different implication related to time and purposes like inEnglish grammar Indeed, this Vietnamese grammatical unit only indicates that the actionwill happen when the condition is fulfilled Other implications, if any, can be inferredfrom other parts of the sentence For the purpose of this study, a sentence containing

“dependent connectors indicating relative meaning about condition – result” is called a

“Vietnamese conditional sentence”

c Passive sentences

In order to express the idea of a passive sentence in English, it is possible inVietnamese to use “bị” or “được” which are called “động từ không độc lập ở cương vịthành tố chính cụm động từ” (dependent verbs with the role of a main element in verbphrases) This has two subtypes, namely “động từ không độc lập đứng trước danh từ”(dependent verbs standing before nouns) (Ban, 1992, p 67) and “động từ không độc lậpđứng trước cụm chủ-vị” (dependent verbs standing before clauses) (Ban, 1992, pp 67-68) For the purpose of this study, a sentence containing “dependent verbs with the role of

a main element in verb phrases” is called a “Vietnamese passive sentence”

2.3 PREVIOUS RELEVANT STUDIES

Although the topic of translation study have long been received attention from a greatnumber of scholars and researchers, the number of studies that have been carried out on thetranslation of English conditional sentences, passive sentences and sentences containingrelative clauses into another language is very limited In a very rare case, Jasim KhalifahSultan (2011) carried out a study to shed light on the translation of English conditionalclauses into Arabic with a pedagogical point of view He carried out a test on fourth yearstudents of translation in the Department of Translation, University of Basra The students”translations were investigated to identify which is the most problematic structure amongcertain structures used to indicate a condition The findings of his study

showed that using the coordinating conjunction “and” is the most problematic structurefor the investigated students to translate, while using “place and time clauses” to express acondition is the least problematic one.

In 1993, Aziz Khalil studied the Arabic translations of English passive sentences Heemployed a group of 32 translators including Arabic-speaking EFL college instructors andEFL college students, and a group of 19 judges who were instructors of Arabic language andliterature at university level The translators were asked to provide Arabic translations for 25English agentive passive sentences 19 of them had passive verbs with agentive phrases and

14 of them had animate agents There were three types of agentive phrases used: by + NP; at

the hands of + NP and by means of + NP The judges were requested to read the certain

translations, decide if it was “Modern” or “Classical”, and then rewrite each “Modern”sentence to make it “Classical” The term “Modern” indicated the language of the media andmodern literature, while the term “Classical” referred to the language of Qur’an, theprophetic tradition and ancient literature Khalil found out that the main problem of theinvestigated students was the literal translation of the English by-agentive phrase into anArabic equivalent by-agentive phrase This problem was argued to be the result of theinfluence of translation out of European languages and the frequent use of Arabic agentivepassive sentences in the media and modern literature

Regarding the translation of English relative clauses, Parisa Farrokh (2011) had astudy with the purpose of finding the types of equivalence and shifts in the Persian translation

of English complex sentences with wh-subordinate clauses The materials of his study were

160 comlex sentences consisting of wh-subordinate clauses picked up from the novels The

Old Man and The Sea written by Hemingway and Animal Farm written by Orwell and

Joyce’s Dubliners, and their translation into Persian taken from Asha in 2000, Hosseini andSaffariyan in 2007, Balouch in 2010, Daryabandari in 2010 and Firouzbakht in 2009 Histheoretical framework was based on Nida’s equivalence theory and Catford’s category ofshifts and used a descriptive qualitative method Farrokh found out that in the Persiantranslation of English complex sentences with wh- subordinate clauses, the shifts

occur more often than the equivalence Besides, he also indicated that with each particularcase of English complex sentences with wh- subordinate clauses, a different way oftranslation was utilized.

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methodology employed for data collection and dataanalysis in this study Also, it introduces the utilised methods and the procedures of thestudy It begins with the introduction to the sources of data and samples for the study,after which data collection which clarifies how to choose and how to process such data ispresented Next, research methods are introduced and a description about the chosentranslation quality assessment approach for this study is provided Finally, procedures fordata analysis and reliability and validability of the method are presented

3.1 DATA SOURCES AND SAMPLES

The three main concerns of this study were sentences containing relative clauses,passive sentences and conditional sentences Data for this study were records of presentations

at international conferences held at the International Center for Interdisciplinary Science andEducation (ICISE) in Vietnam and their Vietnamese translation records The reason why onlythree types were covered was due to the limited time allowed to carry out this study that wassix months, within which it seemed unreasonable to launch a large-scale study There werethree reasons why only presentations at ICISE are chosen First, other sources of data wereinaccessible and only ICISE had the record system that made translation records available forthis study Second, the conferences held at ICISE were scientific conferences which werebelieved to be a good context for collecting data In reality, the ICISE hosted between 10 and

12 high level international scientific conferences on an annual basis Covering disciplines inthe scope of fundamental or applied science mainly in the field of physics, the programwould extend to cover a larger array of scientific disciplines as biology, medicine, social andhuman sciences Finally, the translator for the investigated conference was Mr Pham BinhDam, the director of the Vietnamese National Center for Translation and Interpretation Thus,his translation was a reliable source of samples, which could be somehow regarded as ageneral

example of the English-Vietnamese translation for the three investigated kinds ofsentence Although only presentations at ICISE were utilized, the number of samplescollected from the records of such presentations was believed to be sufficient with 120English passive sentences and their translations; 117 English conditional sentences andtheir translations; and 120 relative clauses and their translations.

3.2 DATA COLLECTION

First, 9 English records and 9 Vietnamese records for 4 conference days (8-11thMay, 2018) were collected with the permission of the ICISE manager Next, the recordswere transcribed into written form for analysis Each of the record lasted around 4 to 5hours and the transcipt for each of them had around eight thousand words in lengthmaking a total of about seventy thousand words recorded for each language From theEnglish transcripts, almost all of the passive sentences, conditional sentences, and relativeclauses were identified and highlighted Then, the translations of those highlighted itemswere found It was essential to state here that there was no bias in the selection oftranslations for those English items The only criteria for a Vietnamese sentence to bepicked up was the fact that it was the translation of the corresponding English item Themethod for deciding whether a Vietnamese sentence was the translation of an Englishitem or not was to consider its neighboring sentences Very often, the translator missedcertain sentences, so such sentences were not chosen as the samples In another case,when a Vietnamese sentence was not ensured to be the translation of the highlightedEnglish items, it was also not chosen for the sampling

use of the descriptive method in order to gain an insight into the translation of each of thesethree types of sentence From the findings of the descriptive method, outstanding andsignificant points were highlighted Finally, discussion on specific cases was present fromwhich conclusions on translation strategy for each investigated sentence type were drawn.

3.4 TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT APPROACH

Due to their weaknesses and inappropriateness to the study, the “experience-based andanecdotal approaches”, “theoretical and research-based approaches”, “reader-responseapproaches” and “textual and pragmatic approaches” were not chosen for the translationassessment of this study Instead, an analytical rating scale was built and utilized for theassessment There were two main reasons why this study did not adopt any available ratingscales First, in spite of the fact that there were many established analytical rating scales withdifferent scale categories, not any of them were widely used and proved to be widelysuccessful Second, analytical rating scales varied from case to case For example, a ratingscale for literary translation should be different from a rating scale for technical one.Accordingly, the rating scale for this study was newly built as presented in details below

a Scale categories

After considering various scale categories proposed to be used by different scholars

such as content, delivery, language quality, accuracy of rendition, pronunciation,

grammar/phrasing, intelligibility, informativeness (Han, 2018), logic, purpose, context, or language norm (Brunette, 2000), three categories were chosen as the criteria for translation

assessment for this study which were “message”, “context”, and “language norm”

The criteria “message” was similar to content, accuracy of rendition, informative

or purpose which evaluated the conveyance of the message of the original sentence to the

audience of the target language It examined whether the idea of the translation was thesame with (or similar to) the idea of its original or whether it had transferred sufficientinformation compared to the original Many scholars agreed that the criteria “message”itself (or content/accuracy of rendition/information completeness/fidelity) was of upmost

importance because it was a predominant property of interpretation (Gile, 1999;Llewellyn-Jones, 1981; Strong & Rudser, 1985; cited in Han, 2018).

The criteria “context” took account of the appropriateness of the chosen words inthe translation for the situation in which the original sentence was uttered It considerednot only the meaning of the original word, but also the formality of the context Forinstance, when “haircut can be traded here” was translated into “cắt tóc có thể được buônbán ở đây”, i.e haircut can be sold here, the criteria “context” was violated becausealthough trade included the meaning “buôn bán”, i.e sell, (maybe in another case), it didnot have such a meaning in this sentence but it rather meant “kinh doanh”, i.e to operate

a business In another example, when “that problem is concerned” was translated into

“vấn đề đó được ngó đến”, i.e that problem is looked at, although “ngó” (look) was anaccurate selection for the meaning for the word “concern” making the sentenceunderstandable, the criteria of “context” was still violated This was because in the formalcontext of a scientific conference, such offensive word like “ngó” was inappropriate Itwas also noteworthy that the wrong translation of a word did not always result in contextviolation Indeed, if the translation of a word had a meaning totally different from theoriginal word making the meaning of that translation totally different from the meaning ofits original sentence, it was the message violation, not context violation The criteria

“context” was essential because it helped distinguish the quality of different translations

of the same original even though those translations had the same literal meaning

The criteria “language norm” paid attention to the translator’s use of the targetlanguage It examined whether the translation followed a usual (and easilyunderstandable) syntactical and grammatical structure (fulfil the criteria) or it belonged to

an awkward (and not easily understandable) syntactical and grammatical one (violate thecriteria) “Language norm” was believed to be necessary because of the fact that atranslation with a usual and understandable structure should be assessed better than atranslation with an awkward and not easily understandable one

b Scale bands

Due to the fact that samples for assessment in this study were sentences, not apassage or a whole text on a specific topic, it was unreasonable and quite challenging toemploy a wide range of scale bands Hence, in this study, there were three scale bands to

be involved, namely “good”, “average” and “poor” assessment

c Scalar descriptors

This study did not use scalar desciptors because it did not aim to evaluate thetranslating competence of the translator and so did not need to have a description ondifferent scale bands

d Trigger

Following was the trigger table for the analysis of this study

Table 3 Trigger table

Assessment

Good

Average

Poor

“Good” assessment was given upon the observation of all the three criteria, while

“poor” assessment was made when the most important criteria (i.e message) was violated.The reason for this strictness was because conveying the message of the original sentence tothe audience of the target language was considered the goal of interpretation Therefore, if thetranslation does not have the same message with the original, it is a failure in interpretation

violated There are two reasons for why “average” and “poor” cases were not dividedfurther into smaller assessment First, it was a time-consuming and labor-intensive job.Second, this study mainly focused on how to make a “good” translation for eachinvestigated type of sentence rather than pay too much attention to error identification;hence, further categorization was unnecessary.

3.5 RESEARCH PROCEDURES

The study was carried out as follows:

First, data was collected under the form of recording files from the manager of theICISE There were 9 English recording files and 9 corresponding Vietnamese translationrecording files

Second, those files were transcripted into written texts after which the Englishtexts were scanned to identify English conditional sentences, passive sentences andsentences containing relative clause

Next, the Vietnamese translations of those types of sentence were identified

After that, each of those translations was analyzed and given recommendationtranslation in the case of average- and poor-assessed translations

Then, the findings were synthesized to draw the conclusions

Finally, certain implications were stated for the sake of those interested in the field

of translation and recommendation for further research were made

3.6 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

In this study, the reliability and validity were ensured from the initial stage ofcollecting data to the final stage of producing the research results

As so far mentioned, the data collected for the analysis of this study was from theInternational Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education, a prestigious center whereNobel laureates, scientists and researchers from all over the world gathered to attend differentconferences taking place all year round The interpreter for the investigated conference wasPham Binh Dam, Director of the Vietnamese National Center for

Translation and Interpretation Accordingly, his translation was a reliable source ofsamples, which could be somehow regarded as a general example of the English-Vietnamese translation for the three investigated types of sentence.

Moreover, the the translation quality assessment approach for this study was theresult of a clear review and a synthesis of a great number of different approaches To saymore specifically, the translation quality assessment approach for this study was not thesame as any other approaches but was modified to be most appropriate to the distinctfeatures and purpose of the study that was to investigate the translation of certain types ofsentence rather than the translation of a whole text or speech

Last but not least, the assessment criteria of the chosen approach were obviouswith very detailed description on how to assess the translation of a sentence Therefore, itwas very easy for the assessor/rater to make decision on the quality of the translations,which in turn made sure that the results of the assessment were still the same even whenthose translations were assessed by different assessors/raters

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 FINDINGS

4.1.1 Passive sentences

Following are details of occurrence times and occurrence rate of differentassessment types in translating passive sentences

Table 4 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different assessment types in the

translation of passive sentences

Use of Vietnamese passive

structure with the same verb

Transformation of the main verb

into active form without role swap

between subject and object

Transformation of the main verb

into active voice with the role

swap between subject and object

Other strategies

Total

*times = number of times that the assessment type occurs for each strategy

*rate = occurrence times/total times that the strategy is used

As presented in the table above, the most common strategy utilized by theinterpreter to translate passive sentences was to use Vietnamese passive structure in histranslations with 47 cases in the total number of 120 translations Translating the passivestructure into the active one was also a popularly used strategy with 46 cases, in whichthere were 22 cases that the interpreter kept the role of subject and object of the sentencesunchanged compared with the original ones, while with the other 24 cases, he swappedthe role of such elements (as usually happen in English language) In addition to suchcommon strategies, the interpreter also applied a variety of different ways to deal withpassive sentence translation with 27 times recognized in the examined sentences

With regard to the success rate of such strategies, the “use of Vietnamese passivestructure with the same verb” and “transformation of the main verb into active voice with

the role swap between subject and object” were the two most successful strategies totranslate passive sentences with the highest rate of good assessment (80.9% and 81.8%respectively) and the lowest rate of poor one (0% and 4.5% respectively).

In general, 83 out of 120 passive sentences (69.2%) were successfully translatedfrom English into Vietnamese with good quality assessment It meant that the interpreternot only successfully conveyed the message of the author from the source language to theaudience in the target language, but he also succeeded in keeping those translations in theright context with the right language norm of the target language 28 cases received

“average” assessment accounting for 23.3% of all the cases meaning that the interpreterwas successful in keeping the intention of the author unchanged in the translated work but

he failed to follow the context of the originals and/or failed to observe the language norm

of the target language “Poor” assessment appeared 9 times with 7.5%, which meant thatthe translated sentences did not bring the same message (i.e the intention of the author)with their original It can be seen from the table that while merely 9 translations wereassessed as poor quality, good translations outnumbered the other two (poor and averageones), more than double them in number with 83 cases of good translations comparedwith 37 total cases of average and poor ones The inference of such numbers is the factthat the interpreter seemed not to be confronted with so many difficulties in translatingpassive sentences from English to Vietnamese

Following is the occurrence times and occurrence rate of different violation types

in the translation of passive sentences

Table 5 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different violation types in the

translation of passive sentences

Use of Vietnamese passive

structure with the same verb

Transformation of the main verb

into active form without role swap

between subject and object

Transformation of the main verb

into active voice with the role swap

between subject and object

Other strategies

Total

*times = number of times that the violation type occurs for each strategy

*rate = occurrence times/total times that the strategy is used

According to the data in the table above, violation of language norm was the mostpopular one in the translation of passive sentences with 29 times found It was mainly foundwhen the interpreter used other strategies rather than the 3 major ones with 10 times ofoccurence accounting for 37% of total times these strategies were used The criterion ofmessage and context were both violated 9 times With regard to the violation of message, italso happened the most in the use of other strategies with 5 out of 27 cases (18.5%), whilenot any cases were found when the interpreter used Vietnamese passive structure Regardingcontext violation, it happened the most in the strategy “transformation of the main verb intoactive form without role swap between subject and object” with 4 times in the total number

of 22 cases the interpreter used this strategy, and it occurred the least (only once in 24 cases)

in the strategy “transformation of the main verb into active voice with the role swap betweensubject and object” In general, the “transformation of the main verb into active form withoutrole swap between subject and object” and the “other strategies” had the highest violationrate (63.6% and 62.9% respectively), while the “use of Vietnamese passive structure with thesame verb” had the lowest violation rate with 9 times violation happened in the total of 47times this strategy was used (19.2%)

4.1.2 Conditional sentences

Following are details of occurrence times and occurrence rate of differentassessment types in translating conditional sentences

Table 6 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different assessment types in the

translation of conditional sentences

Use of Vietnamese conditional

structure without time indicators

Use of Vietnamese conditional

structure with time indicators

Other strategies

Total