The quality of google translate’svietnamese translations of english idioms with words denoting time

However, far too littleattention has been paid to GT‟s quality in idiom translation; this study aims toinvestigate the quality of GT‟s Vietnamese translations of English idiomswith words

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

VÕ MỸ THƯ

THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE’S VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH IDIOMS WITH WORDS DENOTING TIME

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Dr Le Nhan Thanh

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

VÕ MỸ THƯ

CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH CÁC THÀNH NGỮ CHỨA TỪ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TỪ TIẾNG ANH SANG TIẾNG

VIỆT CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8.22.02.01

Người hướng dẫn: TS LÊ NHÂN THÀNH

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby confirm that the thesis entitled “The quality of Google Translate’s

Vietnamese translations of English idioms with words denoting time” is the

result of my work except for the reference mentioned in the thesis This thesishas not been submitted for any degree or other institutions

Quy Nhon, October,2020

Performer

Võ Mỹ Thư

The fulfillment of this thesis is thanks to the encouragement and efforts ofmany people to whom I would like to pay my gratitude to

First and foremost, I would like to sincerely express my innermost gratitude

to my supervisor, Dr Le Nhan Thanh, who I am deeply indebted for thecontinuous support, patience, immense motivation, and valuable guidance toaccomplish this work Without his persistent help, this study could not havebeen possible The knowledge and experience gained from doing the MAcourse have been priceless to my studying and career

Besides, I wish to express my special thanks to all the lecturers who are incharge of training for the 21st MA course at Quy Nhon University for havingtransmitted immense knowledge and creating a friendly and constructiveenvironment during the course

I am also extremely thankful to my close friends and colleagues who alwaysgive encouragement and energy to overcome difficulties during the time Iattended the MA course

Last but not least, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my hearted family members for their love, care, and support which are sources ofmotivation for me to attempt to complete this thesis

Google Translate is the most pervasive online translation tool used in thecurrent time In recent years, there has been an increasing interest inevaluating the quality of GT in different genres However, far too littleattention has been paid to GT‟s quality in idiom translation; this study aims toinvestigate the quality of GT‟s Vietnamese translations of English idiomswith words denoting time in terms of translation errors Accordingly, the studyexamined the translation error types committed by GT and theircorresponding frequency In an attempt to achieve this aim, both thequalitative and quantitative approaches are employed to analyze the data.GT‟s Vietnamese translations of 128 English idioms with words denotingtime were analyzed based on the conceptual framework on translation errorproposed by Nord (1997) including four types of translation errors: pragmaticerrors, cultural errors, linguistic errors, and text-specific errors Thetranslation errors found in GT translations and their occurrences are used fortranslation quality assessment The results indicate that GT could not achievethe expected accuracy in translating pure and semi idioms with figurativemeanings, and GT shows better quality in translating literal idioms than pureidioms In addition, among the four translation error types, pragmatic errorsare the most common error committed by GT in Vietnamese translations ofEnglish idioms Some suggestions and implications are proposed for teachersand students majoring in translation, translators, and researchers who areinterested in the related field

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Along with the globalization and technological advances, the need forinternational understanding is considerably increasing However, languagebarriers hinder most people from understanding the messages from nativespeakers Translation, therefore, is considered as a key role to bridge thecommunication gap in various fields such as education, science andtechnology, literature, tourism, trade and business Translation can beunderstood as a process of transferring the content of a text from the sourcelanguage (SL) into the target language (TL)

With the growing requirements in translation, many translation toolshave become the top priority for most people when encountering problems incommunicating Many automated translation applications have beenproposed Among these, Google Translate (GT) is the most popular machinetranslation used since it can translate tremendous amounts of information in asecond with low cost and security The term Google Translation refers to atranslation service developed by Google in April 2006 It translates multipleforms of texts and media such as words, phrases, and webpages TodayGoogle Translate supports over 100 languages at various levels Thisadvanced tool makes it possible for global communication

Although GT is extensively used, the quality of GT output has alwaysbeen a great concern Due to the linguistic and cultural differences betweenlanguages, the practice of translation has shown the limit in generating targetsources naturally, fluently, and comprehensibly especially when dealing withidiomatic expressions Amir (2012) explained that since the meaning ofidioms cannot be understood from the superficial meanings of the single

words constituting them, there are some problems in both processes ofunderstanding and translating them Therefore, the quality of GT outsources

in idioms translations need to be paid more attention

Recently, researchers have shown an increasing interest ininvestigating the quality of GT For example, Jimmy Cromico (2015)

examined Translation quality of English-Indonesian by using Google

Translate with the results that Google Translate cannot determine suitable

techniques to produce a quality translation in translating sentences found on

scientific articles Also, Aiken and Balan (2013) conducted a study on An

analysis of Google Translate accuracy and found that translations among

Western languages by GT are typically better than those in Asian languages

Another study published by Shao et al (2018) evaluated Machine Translation

Performance on Chinese Idioms with a Blacklist Method, the results proved

that GT generates relatively poor quality in Chinese idioms translations andliteral translation error is a common error type

Although several attempts have been made to evaluate GT quality,most of them have tended to focus on investigating the quality of GT in thewhole text among pairs of languages having nearly the same linguisticfeatures There are only a few that evaluate GT performances in specific termslike idioms in the language pair English and Vietnamese Since idioms makepart of figurative expressions in language, they are frequently used in dailyconversation, school materials, newspapers, media, etc Despite recentdevelopment in the field of translation theory and application, idiomaticexpressions still pose a serious challenge for translators as well as machinetranslation

This study seeks to obtain data that will help to address these researchgaps My interest in this area developed while I usually encounter idiomatic

expressions in the reading academic materials and the mass media Thestrengths of idioms in better-expressing emotions and contextual meaningshave inspired me to explore this field.

With the aim to give insights into the quality of idioms translationcommitted by GT, this study attempts to identify the errors performed by GTwhen it translates English idioms with words denoting time The quality of

GT is then explored This is the reason why I decided to do the research on:

“The quality of Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations of English idioms

with words denoting time.”

1.2 Aim and objectives of the study

- Classify the errors according to translation error types, and

- Examine the frequencies of the errors in terms of translation error types

1.3 Research questions

Based on the background of the research, the researcher attempted to answer

to the following questions:

1 What errors can be found in Google Translate‟s

Vietnamese translations of the English idioms with words that

denote time?

Vietnamese translations of these English idioms?

3 What is the frequency of each of the translation error types found in

Google Translate‟s Vietnamese translations of these English idioms?

1.4 Scope of the Study

This study focuses on investigating the errors found in idiomaticexpressions translation results committed the online translation tool - GoogleTranslate In this study, 128 English sentences containing idioms with wordsdenoting time were collected from the reliable paper dictionary “Oxford

Dictionary of Idioms” (Siefring, 2004), and four online dictionarieshttps://www.theidioms.com ,

With regard to reliability, the reference source for collecting data, asmentioned above are all prestigious supply with a vast amount of idiomsavailable Idioms with words denoting time (IT) were the criteria forcollecting since time concept is predominant in Western culture Therefore, itspopularity in idioms gives a possible corpus for this study

1.5 Significance of the Study

The results of the study will be of great benefits in two aspects.Theoretically, the findings of the study will hopefully provide knowledgeabout the quality of GT‟s translations of English – Vietnamese idiomaticexpressions Moreover, this research also provides references for errors made

by GT for other researchers to conduct further related researches

In terms of practice significance, the results of the study suggest someimplications for teachers, students, and especially those working in thetranslation field Specifically, it helps teachers to figure out translation errors

of GT in idioms translations, so they can avoid such problems and be moreselective when utilizing GT At the same time, they can train students intranslating idioms as well as using GT in effective ways As regards students,this study gives insights into idioms and idioms translation by humans and

GT Knowledge about idioms makes them more flexible in linguistic skills inschool performances as well as daily conversations with foreigners Inaddition, it also gives the references for linguists and computer experts toimprove Google Translate‟s quality in idioms translations by building theparallel corpora for bilingual English-Vietnamese idiomatic expressions ofstatistical machine translation in the future

1.6 Organization of the study

The six chapters in this dissertation are organized as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction - presents the rationale for the study, aim, and

objectives of the study, the research questions, and the scope of the study Chapter 2: Literature review – focuses on introducing important concepts of

translation, Machine Translation, Google Translate, Translation Errors theory, and idioms relevant to the topic of the study; presents the theoretical

framework for later data analysis and reviews the previous studies related to the topic of this thesis

Chapter 3: Methodology - presents the chosen research method and research

procedures for carrying out the study

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion – examines, identifies, describes and analyzes the types of errors; reports and discusses the results of data analysis Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications – summarizes the main findings of

the study and provides some implications for English translations, Englishlearning and teaching This chapter also includes the limitations andsuggestions for further researches.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a brief overview of the theoretical backgroundincluding translation, machine translation, Google Translate, translationerrors, translation quality assessment, and idioms A review of previousstudies related to the topic is mentioned in this chapter as well

2.1 Translation

This section covers the theory about translation consisting of the definition oftranslation, translation process, types of translation, machine translation,Google Translate, translation errors, and translation quality assessment

2.1.1 Definition

Translation has been viewed differently by translation theorists.Translation can be defined as “the replacement of textual material in onelanguage (source language) by an equivalent textual material in otherlanguage (target language)” (Catford, 1965, p.20) Catford mentionedequivalence from the linguistic aspect It means only equivalence on the level

of the surface structure of language is emphasized without concerning to theintended meaning, the target reader, or the styles of the translated text

Meanwhile, Nida (1974) defined translation as “a process ofreproducing in the target language the closest natural equivalent of the sourcelanguage message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of styles”.This view is supported by Bell (1991) who found that translation is theexpression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed

in another (source language) preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences.With this definition, translation focuses on the response of the receptor Inother words, remaining message or meaning is the principle when renderingfrom SL to TL

In line with this notion, Newmark (1988) emphasized the meaning element intranslation rather than linguistic equivalences He noted that translation isrendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that theauthor intended the text.

A broader perspective has been adopted by Bell (1991) who found thattranslation is the expression in another language (target language) of what hasbeen expressed in another (source language) preserving semantic and stylisticequivalences This view is supported by House (1977) who explained thattranslation is the replacement of a text in the source language by asemantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the target language Withthis notion, the translation process mainly involves semantic and pragmaticaspects

From the definitions mentioned above, it can be concluded that receptors willunderstand an idea in relatively the same way as the intended messages whenthe translation process deals with three main principles reproducing,transferring, and maintaining the original message of the source language.Translation is a complicated process, so the quality of target translations maynot be evaluated perfectly To generate a relatively accurate translation,translators are supposed to grasp a huge knowledge of multi-dimension such

as society, culture, and linguistics

According to Arnold et al (1994), a human translator requires five kinds ofknowledge:

- Knowledge of the source language

- Knowledge of the target language

- Knowledge of various correspondences between the source language and target language

- Knowledge of the subject matter, including general knowledge and

“common sense”

-Knowledge of the culture, social conventions, customs, andexpectations, etc of the speakers of the source and target language Therefore, translators are supposed to master knowledge on semantics and pragmatics to maintain the original message of the source language

This section reviews some definitions of translation viewed from differentaspects of linguistics as well as required knowledge for a translator The nextpart describes the procedures in translation work

2.1.2 Translation process

As the process of communication, the translation process involves thetransferring of the message from the source language (SL) into the receptorlanguage (RL) Larson (1984) describes translation as a meaning-basedprocess that refers to the usage of both grammatical and choice of lexicalitems of the receptor language

Larson described the procedure of translation in three steps: (1) examining thelexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context ofthe source language text, (2) analyzing the source language text to determine itsmeaning, (3) then reconstructing the same meaning by using the lexicon andgrammatical structure which is appropriate in the target language and culturalcontext The overview of this process is demonstrated in Figure 2.1

However, the above-mentioned process is a very simple and general overview

of the process of translation This process is definitely complicated According

to Larson (1984, pp.519-526), translation procedure is divided into 8 steps asfollows:

1.Preparation: the translator should have trained in linguistics knowledge andtranslation principle before undertaking the project Then, preparation stepsincluding reading the entire texts, studying the background material, studyinglinguistic matters are followed to get familiar with the text

2 Analysis: the translator should have to take note of any lexical item as thekeywords and pay attention to the opening and closing of the text to identifythe theme of the original language

3 Transfer: it is a process of analyzing the semantic structure of the initialdraft in the translation In this process, the translator attempts to find out thelexical equivalence and culture in the receptor language

4 Initial Draft: the translator had left the draft for a certain time to get morereading background for the best equivalent and then back for reworking onthem

5.Reworking the Initial Draft: translator checks for accuracy and naturalnesswith the focus on the meaning of language After the translators get a seconddraft and translator might work out again and again to modify the draft untilthey finish a final draft

6 Testing the Translation: this step involves testing the translation bytranslators themselves or with the help of other members who are trained asexpert consultants

7 Polishing the Translation: From the results of, translators should have tocheck again and polish the translation in order to ensure the accuracy,naturalness, and acceptability in the receptor language

8 Preparing the Manuscript for the Publisher: this is the last step of thetranslation process After the final draft is completed, the manuscript is ready

to be prepared for the publisher

2.1.3 Types of translation

There are different ways to determine the types of translation Larson (1984)grouped translation into two main types namely literal translation andidiomatic translation

- Literal translation is mentioned as form-based translation With this type

of translation, the target language is literally converted with regard to

grammar structures, word order, and lexical items of the source language “Aliteral translation sounds like nonsense and has little communication value”(Larson, 1984, p.15) Generally, literal translation can be useful to thelanguage pairs that have similar grammatical rules or forms

- Idiomatic translation is another expression of meaning-based

translation

which “make[s] every effort to communicate the meaning of the source languagetext in the natural forms of the receptor language” (Larson, 1984, p.17)

From his viewpoint, meaning is the fundamental factor affecting the process

of translation To convert source language, it is important that translatorsacknowledge clearly about the meaning of the source language Then, theequivalent forms, grammatical rules, or lexical items of the target languageare adapted to express the original meaning of source language

Another classification of translation based on translation methods is enlisted

by Newmark (1988) According to him, there are eight types of translation asfollows:

- Word - for - word translation

This is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with The TL immediatelybelow the SL words The SL word-order is preserved and the words translated

singly by their most common meanings, out of context Cultural words aretranslated literally The main use of word-for-word translation is either tounderstand the mechanics of the source language or to construe a difficult text

as a pre-translation process (Newmark, 1988, pp.45-46)

A faithful Translation attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning

of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures It'transfers' cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical'abnormality' (deviation from SL norms) in the translation It attempts to becompletely faithful to the intentions and the text-realization of the SL writer(Newmark, 1988, p.46)

- Semantic translation

Semantic translation differs from “faithful translation” only in as far as it musttake more account of the aesthetic value that is, the beautiful and naturalsounds of the SL text, compromising on 'meaning' where appropriate so that

no assonance, word-play or repetition jars in the finished version Further, itmay translate less important cultural words by the culturally neutral third orfunctional terms but not by cultural equivalents – “une nonne repassant uncorporal” may become 'a nun ironing a corporal cloth' - and it may make othersmall concessions to the readership The distinction between 'faithful' and

„semantic' translation is that the first is uncompromising and dogmatic, whilethe second is more flexible, admits the creative exception to 100% fidelity

and allows for the translator's intuitive empathy with the original (Newmark,

1988, p.46)

- Adaption

This is the 'freest' form of translation It is used mainly for plays (comediesand poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL cultureconverted to the TL culture and the text rewritten The deplorable practice ofhaving a play or poem literally translated and then rewritten by an establisheddramatist or poet has produced many poor adaptations, but other adaptationshave 'rescued‟ period plays (Newmark, 1988, p.46)

- Free translation

Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner or the contentwithout the form of original Usually, it is paraphrased much longer than theoriginal, a so-called „intralingual translation‟, often proliz and pretentious,and not translation at all (Newmark, 1988, pp.46-47)

be seen that the first four methods (Word for word translation, Literaltranslation, Faithful translation, Semantic translation) focus on the sourcelanguage while the other four methods (Adaption, Free translation, Idiomatictranslation, Communicative translation) put the emphasis on the target

language Newmark (1988) stated that semantic and communicativetranslation treat the following items similarly: stock and dead metaphors,normal collocations, technical terms, slang, colloquialisms, standard notices,phaticisms, ordinary language.

This section has described translation methods of Larson (1984) andNewmark (1988) Knowledge about idiomatic translation in this sectionsupports the process of understanding and analyzing the translation errors inthe investigated problem

2.1.4 Machine translation

“The term Machine Translation (MT) is the now traditional and standardname for computerized systems responsible for the production of translationsfrom one natural language into another, with or without human assistance”(Hutchins & Somers, 1992, p.3)

Machine translation dated back in the 1950s The first published machinetranslation experiment was performed by Georgetown University and IBM.The history of the development of MT approaches is described in Figure 2.2

Figure 2.2 Timeline of MT evolution

( Maučec & Donaj, 2019)

Rule-based

The rule-based machine translation system based on dictionaries and grammarprograms which involve the morphological, syntactic rules, and semantic

analysis of two languages Rule-based MT (RbMT) systems, “use knowledge

in the form of rules explicitly coded by human experts, which attempt tocodify the translation process” (Forcada & Sánchez-Martínez, 2009, p.605).This type of system is mostly used to translate related languages pair onlysuch as English-Russian The rule-based machine translation system includestransfer-based machine translation, inter-lingual machine translation, anddictionary-based machine translation

Example-based

Example-based machine translation (EBMT) approach was proposed by

Makoto Nagao in 1984 Example-based machine translation uses bilingualparallel corpora containing sentence pairs like which includes sentences inone language with their translations into another Example-based MT (EBMT)systems bases on “a corpus or database of already translated examples, andinvolve a process of matching new input against this database to extractsuitable examples which are then recombined in an analogical manner todetermine the correct translation” (Somers, 1999, p.114)

Neural MT

“NMT model uses the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to learn the modeljointly to maximize the translation performance through two steps recurrentneural network (RNN) of both the encoder and decoder” (Dowmunt et al.,

2018, pp.54-57)

By 2016, most of the best MT systems were using neural MT networks such

as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Yandex and PROMT Google uses GoogleNeuralMachine Translation (GNMT) in preference to its previous statisticalmethods

The neural machine translation (NMT) system was developed to replace theSMT system with the aim of improving the quality of MT output

Neural machine translation (NMT) becomes “a new approach to machinetranslation and generates much more accuracy and fluent results compared tostatistical machine translation (SMT)” (Zhou et al., 2017, p.378)

In brief, MT is a computer-based natural language processing It takes fromlinguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, translation theory, anyideas, methods, and techniques which may serve the development ofimproved systems (Hutchins & Somers, 1992)

This section provides the summary of some MT systems in the line of time.Each machine translation system above has its own advantages anddisadvantages based on the different language pairs, purposes of users, andthe kinds of texts However, neural machine translation proves to be moreadvanced with accuracy, fluency, and acceptability in its performance

2.1.5 Google Translate

Google Translate (https://translate.google.com/) is a multilingual machinetranslation service developed by Google which is considered as the mostcommonly used online translation tool According to (Medvedev, 2016)Google Translate is probably one of the easiest and most accessible tools tohelp users meet their translation needs

Google Translate was introduced in 2006 employing a statistical, Based Machine Translation model To translate a text, Google Translatesearches for different documentaries to find the best appropriate translation

Phrase-pattern between translated texts by humans This Phrase-pattern searching is calledSMT Consequently, the quality of Google Translate depends on the number

of human translated texts searched by Google Translate (Karami, 2014) Theservice was then updated in November 2016 with a Neural MachineTranslation (NMT) model which translates whole sentences at a time, ratherthan just piece by piece It uses this broader context to help it figure out themost relevant translation, which it then rearranges and adjusts to be more like

a human speaking with proper grammar (Google, 2016)

The GT‟s interface is easily accessed by users It simply includes two textboxes with various functions in the support of translating different kinds:words, phrases, sentences, webpages, or images The total letter possible islimited to 5000 To translate text, users just choose the source language on theleft and then copy and paste the source text into the left text box Theoutcomes of translation are promptly produced when the corresponding targetlanguage in the right text box is selected Sometimes, users do not need tochoose the source language since GT can automatically specify whichlanguage the ST belongs to Besides, the reverse sign in the middle of the twotext boxes allows users to change the languages direction If you want to hearthe speech of the text, you can click on the speaker image on the left corner ofeach box The graphical user interface is shown in figure 2.3

Figure 2.3 Google Translate graphical user interface

In April 2020, with more than 200 million users daily, Google Translate is a

reliable mechanical translator It can translate more than 100 billion words perday and now supports 109 languages More details on languages interpreted

by Google Translate are presented in Table 2.1

Table 2.1 109 languages supported by Google Translate (Google 2020)

McGuire (2018) emphasized that due to differences between languages ininvestment, research, and the extent of digital resources, the accuracy ofGoogle Translate varies greatly among languages Therefore, it is necessary toexamine the quality of outsources from this service

In short, a brief description of the online translation tool Google Translate ispresented as the background knowledge in features and mechanisms forfurther application in this study.

2.1.6 Translation errors

2.1.6.1 Definition of translation errors

The definition of errors in translation varies from different points of view.Albir (1995) proposed a list of errors in translations as follows:

-Inappropriate renderings which affect the understanding of the ST These aredivided into eight categories: countersense, faux sense, nonsense, addition,omission, unresolved extralinguistic references, loss of meaning andinappropriate linguistic variation (register, style, dialect, etc)

- Inappropriate renderings, which affect expression in the TL These are divided into five categories: spelling, grammar, lexical items, text, and style

- Inappropriate renderings, which affect the transmission of either the main function or secondary function of the ST

This definition mainly recognizes translation error from the linguistic

perspective, which does not cover possible errors in other aspects

Baker (1992) also stated that errors in translation mostly result from the equivalence between the source and target languages

non-Another notion of translation error was suggested by Pym (1992).Accordingly, translation errors may be attributed to lack of comprehension,misuse of time, inappropriateness to readership, language, pragmatics, culture,over-translation, under-translation, discursive or semantic inadequacy Thisdefinition is more extensive and covers broader errors

Based on the functional perspective, Nord (1997, pp.73-75) definedtranslation error as “a failure to carry out the instructions implied in thetranslation brief" In other words, "If the purpose of a translation is to achieve

a particular function for the target addressee, anything that obstructs the

achievement of this purpose is a translation error."

All of the views on the translation errors share the same notion thattranslation error is the mismatches between the ST and the TT in variousaspects: linguistics, function, pragmatics, semantics, etc

Since errors in the translation process are primary factors that causeproblems and influence translation quality, errors analysis in outputs arecommonly mentioned as an effective way when evaluating the quality oftranslation So far, translation errors have been identified and divided indifferent ways according to different studied language pairs The followingpublished works have applied translation errors in the process of assessingtranslation quality

Napitupulu (2017) analyzed Indonesian-English abstracts translation inview of translation errors by Google translate Another study adopted this way

of analyzing is recorded by Shao et al (2018) who evaluated the quality ofidiom translation of MT systems based on the occurrence of any blacklistedwords in the translation output indicating translation errors

However, different translation language pairs, for instance, Vietnamese andEnglish, or Arabic - English, could result in different types of errors (Dewi,2015) Therefore, it is essential to find out the appropriate framework fortranslation errors to apply for analysis

2.1.6.2 The classification of translation errors

The classification of translation errors is essential in the process of erroranalysis Several researchers have suggested different frameworks on thetaxonomy of translation errors for a detailed analysis of translation quality.One of the most used in MT is the hierarchical category proposed by Vilar et

al (2006) The classification scheme is presented in Figure 2.4 There are fivecategories of errors: “Missing Words”, “Word Order”, “Incorrect Words”,

“Unknown Words” and “Punctuation” errors Specifically, “Missing Words”

are words that are deleted or omitted in the target text output Missing Word is

of two sub-types error: content word and filter word The former is when themissing words are essential for expressing the meaning of the sentence, andthe latter is when the missing word is only necessary to form a grammaticallycorrect sentence, but the meaning is preserved The next category concernsthe “word order” This is when the incorrect order of words leading to thedistortion in the meaning In this case, we can generate a correct sentence bymoving individual words, independently of each other “Incorrect Word” errorhappens when the system is unable to find the correct translation of a givenword The fourth main type is “Unknown words” This type relates to anunknown person, location, organization, and other proper names Lastly, therecan also be punctuation errors which concerns the mistakes made inpunctuation affecting the meaning of words in the generated sentence

Figure 2.4 Classification of translation errors (Vilar et al., 2006, p 699)

The taxonomy of translation errors offered by Vilar et al (2006) mainlyemphasized grammatical problems and linguistic non-equivalence However,not all of the grammatical error types make sense in every language

According to Keenan and Stabler (2010), different languages do have trivially different grammars: their grammatical categories are defined internal

non-to the language and may fail non-to be comparable non-to ones used for otherlanguages Their rules, ways of building complex expressions from simplerones, may also fail to be isomorphic across languages

Nord (1997) proposed the taxonomy of translation errors based on thefunctional and purposeful perspective Translation errors, according to Nord(1997), are classified into four categories: pragmatic, cultural, linguistic, andtext-specific

a Pragmatic translation errors

Pragmatic translation errors are caused by “inadequate solutions topragmatic translation problems such as a lack of receiver orientations” Itmeans the ones that come from the problems of how to deal with pragmaticambiguities hidden in the source text

According to Nord (1997), pragmatic translation problems are caused bydifferences between the source text and target text situations, includingdifferences in the sender, receiver, medium, time, place, motive, and textfunction

This kind of translation error results from the failure to recognize thetarget audience or wrongly supposed the background knowledge of the targetreaders, negligence of the target text functions (referential, expressive,appellative, phatic function), transliteration of some expressions without anyexplanation

Pragmatic errors cannot be detected by looking at the target text only (forinstance, by a native-speaker reviser) unless they produce incoherence in thetext Normally, they can only be identified by a person with translationalcompetence comparing the source and target texts in the light of the

translation brief (Nord, 1997, p.21).

The obvious reason for these pragmatic errors is that the translators fail

to distinguish ST audiences from TT audiences with their different specific world knowledge, expectations, and communicative needs

culture-b Cultural translation errors

The different cultural backgrounds and ways of thinking of the twolanguages cause problems in dealing with cultural-specific terms intranslation Cultural translation errors occur due to “an inadequate decision inadaption or reproduction culture-specific conventions from the source text tothe target” of the translators (Nord, 1997, p.75) Such errors usually refer tothe cases where the translator ignores the culture-specific knowledge, needs,and expectations of the target audience As a result, the target readers mightfind the transferred message incomprehensible or unacceptable, whichprevents the TT from achieving its intended message and function

Therefore, translators must acquire an extensive knowledge of bothcultures in the SL and TL The specific-cultural term or conventions should berecognized in the source context to identify the messages from the speakers,then selecting the appropriate expressions that best suit the cultural context ofthe receptor language to transform the cultural elements

c Linguistic translation errors

Linguistic translation errors are the failure in using target language structures

to transfer the meaning and sense of the source text Linguistic translation errors are caused by “an inadequate translation when the focus is on language structures” (Nord, 1997, p.75) The mistakes may be in basic level such as spelling, punctuation marks, choice of words, word order, etc or in a higher level involving sentence structure, logic, tense, and voice (Baorong, 2009) Linguistic translation errors are in most cases "due to deficiencies in the

translator's source- or target-language competence" (Nord, 1997, p.77) Thiserror is concerned with the focus on linguistic correctness rather thancommunicative or functional appropriateness.

d Text-specific translation errors

Text-specific translation errors arise from text-specific translationproblems and can usually be evaluated from a functional or pragmaticperspective (Nord, 1997) Text-specific translation errors refer to errorsresulting from giving priority for one function over the intended function As

a result, the mismatches in the expected function make changes in the style ofthe text A translated text may be of descriptive, narrative, or argumentativestyle according to the expected meaning from the authors

To sum up, four types of translation errors can be identified in Vietnamesetranslations of English culture-related texts Generally speaking, theunderlying cause for pragmatic, cultural and text-specific translation errors isthat the translator is not fully aware of the target and/ or the target readers andthus fails to produce a functionally appropriate translation

This study examines the translation errors in GT‟s Vietnamesetranslations of English idioms Nord's theory is particularly applied to non-literary translation with the focus on the communicative or functional point ofview rather than the linguistic perspective Meanwhile, the idiomaticexpression has figurative meanings that cannot always be acquired by a literaltranslation Information about the context of use is necessary for it to be wellinterpreted and translated

In light of these specific features and to serve the purpose of the study,this research adopted Nord's theory (1997) as the conceptual framework inanalyzing errors in the translation of idiomatic expressions Accordingly, thedetailed characteristics of four types of errors are clarified in Table 2.2

error Pragmatics error

Cultural error

Linguistic error

Text-specific error

2.1.7 Translation Quality Assessment

Translation quality indicates the success of the translation in assuring

accuracy and conveying the intended information from the source language

To measure the quality of translation, evaluation of translation need to beconducted There are several methods, approaches, and techniques inevaluating translated texts.

Larson (1984) describes that a translation is considered as a good translation

if it has three criteria, accurate (accuracy), natural (acceptability), and clear (clarity) In a similar line with Larson, Nababan (1999) classifies three aspects

of Translation Quality Assessment:

1 Accuracy in replacing message of the text

2 Readability reflects how easy the target readers understand the

translation

3 Naturalness or acceptability describes the acceptability if the translation in connection with language system and culture toward the target language Though both the assessment system of Larson (1984) and Nababan (1999) focus on qualitative research, they require the raters to assess the translation inthe form of a scaled questionnaire based on criteria Whereas questionnaires are not employed in this study, these suggestions, therefore, are not chosen as the assessment system for the study

Translation quality assessment (TQA) could be systematized into thefollowing areas, including (1) quantitative or qualitative which is based onstatistical measurements, questionnaires, interviews from target readers, and

so forth; (2) formative (measuring progress and giving feedback in translatortraining context); (3) summative (measuring the results of learning intranslator training context); (4) non-comparative (studying merely thetranslation text); and (5) comparative (studying both ST and TT) (Williams,2009)

The first system focuses on doing survey research with quantitative approach,while the present study is not related to any questionnaires or interviews fromparticipants Therefore, it is not suitable for the aim of the study

In accordance with the research aim, this study focuses on the translationassessment of Vietnamese translation of English idioms Since this study isinvolved in comparing English ST and Vietnamese TT, the comparativemodel is applied to evaluate the quality of translation.

The quality of translation can be determined by comparing a set of variablesand inherent characteristics with a set of requirements Only when theinherent characteristics meet all requirements, high-level quality is achieved(J M House, 1979) Accordingly, comparing the function of the source textwith the target text is an important task to assess the quality of translation

2.2 Idioms

The section gives insights into the overview of idioms which includes thedefinition of idioms in general and idioms with words denoting time (IT) inparticular, classification of idioms, and idioms translation

2.2.1 Definitions of idioms

Idioms are considered as parts of the figurative languages Idiomaticexpressions can be widely found in newspapers, books, magazines, on theradio, on the television, and in daily conversation

Stern and Summers (1998) in Longman Idioms Dictionary refers to idioms as

a sequence of words that have a different meaning as a group from the meaning it would have if you understand each word separately A similar definition is proposed

by Seidl and McMordie, who says that “an idiom can be defined as a number of words which, when taken together, have a different meaning from the individual meanings of each word” (Seidl et al., 1988, pp.12-13).

On the other hand, Crystal mentioned the definition of idioms in relation tosyntactic and semantic aspects He described idioms as

a term used in grammar and lexicology to refer to a sequence of words which is semantically and often syntactically restricted so that they

function as a single unit From a semantic viewpoint, the meaning of theindividual words cannot be summed to produce the meaning of the

„idiomatic‟ expression as a whole From a syntactic viewpoint, thewords often do not permit the usual variability they display in othercontext (Crystal, 1980, p.179 as cited in Awwad, 1990, p.57)

According to English Idioms in Use, Idioms refer to a fixed expression which

“has a meaning that is not obvious from the individual words” (McCarthy &Dell, 2017, p.6)

For example, the idiom “call it a day” is not at all connected with day or time, it means “to stop what you are doing”, so we cannot predict the

meanings from its separate words

In Vietnamese, Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1996) defines idioms as fixedphrases with both completeness and figurativeness in meaning Besides theintellectual content, they always contain certain attitudes like appreciation,respect, disdain or disgust Supporting this notion, Hoàng Văn Hành (2004,p.25) shares the same idea that idioms are “set expressions which are stable intheir forms and structures, complete and figurative in their meaning, usedwidely in daily communication.”

From these above definitions, it can be concluded that idioms in both Englishand Vietnamese are both grammatically and lexically fixed, and theirmeanings are completely dissimilar with their constituent parts

In general, idioms are the products of social life, cultural identity, andhistory of each nation They have distinctive lexical linguistics Structurally,idioms are fixed expressions; they depend on specific contexts In terms ofsemantic, idioms cannot be deduced merely from its components, idioms must

be converted in a correlation with historical and cultural characteristics

2.2.2 Classification of idioms

The classification of idioms can be varied according to differentlinguists, depending on the dimension that they are taken into account Thedivision of idioms sub-types can base on syntax, lexical, pragmatic domain,etc However, the meaning is the most fundamental feature of an idiom Someidioms can be guessed based on predictions from their constituents Otheridioms are very hard to figure out their meanings without placing them in thecontext or particular situation It is not a matter that some idioms haveincorrect grammar and structure or not Idioms, therefore, are classifiedaccording to semantic features or meaning-based principles with the use ofnatural form in receptor language rather than the surface forms

According to Fernando (1996, pp.35-36), idioms are categorized intothree sub-types: Pure idioms, semi-idioms, and literal idioms

- Pure idioms: A pure idiom is a type of conventionalized, non-literal

multi-word expression whose meaning cannot be understood by adding up themeanings of the words that make up the phrase

For example, the expression “Call it a day” is a pure idiom, because its realmeaning has nothing to do with the day It means “decide to stop working onsomething”

- Semi-idioms: A semi-pure has at least one literal element and one with a

non-literal meaning

For example, “Beat the clock” (do something before the time is up) is one

example of a semi-idiom, in which beat is the non-literal element whereas the word clock is used literally.

- Literal idioms: Literal idioms are either invariable or allow little variation.

They are considered to be transparent because they can be interpreted based

on their parts

For example, “day by day” is a literal idiom since the meaning of the whole isderived from the literal meaning of each component.

Another classification to the English idioms was suggested by McCarthy andO‟Dell (2017) according to its combinations in form In this way, idioms can

be realized in seven sub-types More detail with example and meaning isshown in Table 2.3

Table 2.3 Types of idioms (McCarthy and O’Dell, 2017, p.6)

(word + word + and+ word)

Whole clause or sentence

This classification of idioms types mainly bases on the surface structure orgrammatical rules in which each word combines with others in certain ways

so that idioms are in the form of compound, binomial, simile, etc However,this way of grouping does not concern to the meaning of idioms This studyfocuses on the translation of idioms, therefore, the classification of idioms

analyzing.

2.2.3 Idioms denoting time

Firstly, the definition of time needs to be clarified Time is a dimension inwhich events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future,and also the measure of durations of events and the intervals between them.Time concept has long been a major subject of study in religion, philosophy,and science and is predominant in Western culture

Idioms can be of various categories concerning the meanings of their keywordsuch as animals, time, color, body parts, size Among these, the occurrences ofidioms with words denoting time are recognized to account for a large scale.Idioms with words denoting time are idioms in which time terms with specialmeanings are considered keywords In other words, idioms with wordsdenoting time are idioms whose main components or keywords pertaining totime expressions as day, week, dawn, noon, spring, etc

2.2.4 Idioms translations

Idioms from different languages may vary in performances with differentexpressions since they contain distinctive features related to superstitions,culture-specific items, ideologies, social classes, and societies Along with thedissimilarities mentioned above, the meaning of idioms cannot be understoodfrom the literal meanings of the single words constituting them, idioms,therefore, pose many problems and challenges in both processes ofunderstanding and translating them

As a result, the quality of translating idiomatic expressions dependstotally on the translators‟ knowledge, translation skills, and applied strategies

To avoid misunderstanding and maintain the original messages of sourcelanguages, some researchers have proposed the ways to overcome problems

as follows

Grassilli (2013) suggested some strategies when dealing with idioms

1 using an idiom of similar meaning and form

2 using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form

language, but its context of use may be different" (idem); i.e., an SL item has

got an exact TL counterpart but the usage or pragmatic functions of the twodiffer from each other (Baker, 1992, p.68)

3.“An idiom may be used in the source text in both its literal and idiomaticsenses at the same time Unless the target-language idiom corresponds to thesource-language idiom both in form and in meaning, the play on idiom cannot

be successfully reproduced in the target text” (Baker, 1992, p.69)

4 “The very convention of using idioms in written discourse, the contexts in which they can be used, and their frequency of use may be different in the

source and target languages” (Baker, 1992, p.70)

From these above obstacles, translating idioms requires translators to beacknowledged and experienced about both source language and targetlanguage to produce accurate idioms They should also combine differentmethods and techniques to translate Idioms creatively without violating theirintended messages from the author

2.3 Previous studies

Machine translation has been the potential topic gaining much interestfrom researchers due to its increasing demand and pervasive use in our fast-paced technological era Over the past decade, a lot of studies related to thequality of Translate and Google Translate have been conducted

Aiken and Balan (2011) investigated the translation quality of GoogleTranslate among 50 different languages with 2.550 language-paircombinations provided by this software The findings pointed out that GoogleTranslate translates among Western languages much better than those pairs oflanguages which belong to Asian languages

Another study was conducted by Taleghani & Pazouki (2018) about acomparative assessment of the quality of four Online Translators in terms ofEnglish idioms and phrasal verbs into Persian They collected ten texts fromthe book “oxford word Skills: idioms and phrasal verbs” then translated themusing four online translators, www.bing.com, www.translate.google.com,