MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY TRẦN THỊ THANH HUYỀN THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE’S VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH FILM TITLES Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: LÊ NHÂN THÀNH, PhD Binh Dinh, October 2021 e BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN TRẦN THỊ THANH HUYỀN CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH TIÊU ĐỀ FILMS TIẾNG ANH SANG TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE Chuyên ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Người hướng dẫn: TS. LÊ NHÂN THÀNH Bình Định, 10/2021 e i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I now confirm that I am the author of the thesis on the quality of Google Translate‟s Vietnamese translations of English film titles. This topic is the result of my research, except for the references mentioned in the thesis. Furthermore, I also certify that I have never submitted this thesis to any other academic institutions.
Quy Nhon, 2021 Student Trần Thị Thanh Huyền e ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would love to express my deep and sincere gratitude to all those who helped me finish this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my boundless gratitude and sincere respect to my supervisor, Dr. Le Nhan Thanh, for his enthusiastic guidance, unconditional help, valuable suggestions, and timely encouragement. Without these things, I would not have been able to complete my thesis.
Secondly, I would like to express my indebtedness to the lecturers of the Foreign Languages Department at Quy Nhon University for providing valuable knowledge, giving me enthusiastic help, and creating a great learning environment during my course here. Thirdly, my warm thanks are to my classmates of the 22nd MA Course on the English Language at Quy Nhon University. Without their deep sympathy and valuable support, I could not have completed this course. Last but not least, I wish to send my profound gratitude to my family, friends, and colleagues.
Their precious encouragement and boundless love were the motivation for me to finish the thesis. e iii ABSTRACT This study evaluated the quality of Google Translate (GT)‘s Vietnamese translations of English film titles. Today, the need to communicate is a must, but the language barrier is an obstacle. Therefore, GT, a free direct translation tool, has been widespread.
So far, GT's translation quality has not shown high reliability, so it needs much research. The research questions were: (1) What are the error types in GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English film titles? (2) What are the frequencies of the translation errors in GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English film titles in terms of translation error types? To complete these questions, 130 English film titles with suggested Vietnamese translations and GT‘s translations were analyzed through Farrús, Costa-jussà, Mariño, & Fonollosa‘s (2010) translation error classification with orthographic, morphological, lexical, semantic, and syntactic errors. Besides, content analysis, both qualitatively and quantitatively, was used to analyze the data. The first finding is that GT produces no morphological errors and commits four error types: orthographic, lexical, semantic, and syntactic errors.
Second, the highest rate belongs to semantic errors. The study is helpful for GT users, GT developers, and researchers. The findings suggest that users should consider film contexts when using GT to translate film titles. The conclusion is that GT fails to translate English film titles into Vietnamese, committing four broad error types at high rates, because it cannot consider films‘ context.
Key words: English film titles, Vietnamese, Google Translate, errors, translation quality e iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURES. Aim and Objectives.
Scope of the Study. Significance of the Study. Organization of the Study. Introduction to film titles.
Functions of film titles. Characteristics of film titles. Definition of translation. An overview of Machine Translation.
Translation error classifications. The conceptual framework for the thesis. Film Title Translation. Film title translation strategies.
A review of the previous studies on the translation of film titles. Translation Quality Assessment. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Translation Error Types in GT‘s Vietnamese Translations.
Frequencies of the Translation Errors in GT‘s Vietnamese Translations of the English Film Titles. Translation error sub-types in GT‘s Vietnamese translations. Quality of Google Translate in Translating Film Titles from English into Vietnamese. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.
Summary of the Main Findings. Limitations of the Study. Implications of the Study. Implications for teachers and students of translation.
Implications for translators. Implications for other researchers. 74 e vi ABBREVIATIONS GT: Google Translate MQM: Multidimensional Quality Metric MT: Machine Translation SL: Source language TL: Target language e vii LIST OF TABLES Table Title Page 2.1 Distinctions annotated for in the taxonomy 25 Model table for English film titles and GT‘s Vietnamese 3.2 The model table for the data 41 Occurrences of translation errors and No errors in GT‘s 4.1 43 Vietnamese translations Occurrences of translation error types in GT‘s 4.2 43 Vietnamese translations Frequencies of translation error sub-types in GT‘s 4.4 Frequencies of morphological errors 48 4.5 Frequencies of orthographic errors 51 4.6 Frequencies of syntactic errors 53 4.7 Frequencies of lexical errors 58 4.8 Frequencies of semantic errors 60 e viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Title Page 2.1 The process of translation (Larson, 1984) 11 2.2 The process of translation (Newmark, 1988) 11 2.3 The various factors that impinge semantically on a text 12 2.4 Eight methods of translation 13 MQM error categories used for inter-annotator 2.6 Hierarchical structure of the error typology 27 e 1 Chapter 1. Rationale No one can deny the importance of English in the modern world.
In the era of technology 4.0, English has proved its position as a global language. To integrate with the rapid development of the contemporary world, everyone tries to grasp this language. Therefore, English has become a bridge among people from different countries, and it is also a tool for people‘s success in modern life. Accordingly, the need to exchange information among people is increasing.
This need leads to the fact that translation is a must to enhance friendly relationships, exchange knowledge, understand cultures, and promote economies among nations. In other words, translation enhances the development in every aspect of life. Translation is the activity of translating a text from the source language (SL) into the target language (TL). However, it is not easy to have a perfect translation.
To do translation, translators must transfer the meaning of the SL texts to the TL ones smoothly, understandably, and accurately. Besides, translators have to consider aspects of cultures within each language. To overcome the difficulties in the process of translation, translators have used the Internet for help. Nowadays, the Internet is available for everyone in every place all over the world.
Moreover, the Internet is becoming more and more important in our modern lives. In the era of advanced technology, everything seems to be easier with the presence of the Internet. The Internet is a tool that allows people in every corner of the world to access all kinds of information quickly and conveniently. Internet users often use one service, namely Google, to search for information.
Google provides people with a lot of applications, one e 2 of which is GT. GT is a kind of machine, and it can translate texts from this language into another one. With the spread of GT, more and more studies have evaluated the translation quality of GT. Lu, Reide & Yentis (2010) conducted the topic „Do you have a stick in your mouth?‟– use of Google Translate as an aid to anaesthetic pre-assessment.
Moreover, Balk (as cited in Vidhayasai, Keyuravong & Bunsom, 2015) investigated the accuracy of data extraction of Non-English language trials with Google Translate. Besides, Lương (2018) investigated Common errors in Vietnamese - English translation of labels and captions in tourist attractions in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. At Quy Nhon University, there are also four studies on GT‘s translation quality from Trần (2019), Huỳnh (2020), Trương (2020) and Võ (2020). Up to now, many researchers have conducted studies on evaluating GT‘s quality, but there are the following facts: (1) most of them assess the quality of GT in the texts or the specific contexts; (2) many of them are concerned in the academic field, but not in entertainment.
The entertainment field plays a crucial role in our lives. Film is a kind of entertainment that enriches the human spirit. It also serves as a way to bring people close together regardless of their different backgrounds. When a film enters the foreign film market, the film title contributes to its success.
Having good film titles is difficult because film titles show films' contents in words, phrases, or simple sentences, and translators may not know the film contents. Consequently, the researchers are particularly interested in translating film titles. Nguyen (2010) carried out a study on the translation of movie titles from English into Vietnamese. Ailan (2016) conducted a study of film title translation from the perspective of Peter Newmark‟s communicative translation theory.
Bai (2018) researched on translation strategies of English e 3 movie titles. In general, the studies on film titles have mentioned the strategies of translating film titles to have good film titles. They have not been concerned about the errors in translating film titles. To my knowledge, up to now, there have not been any studies about identifying errors of GT in Vietnamese translations of English film titles.
The gaps about the errors made by GT in Vietnamese translations of English film titles and in translating words, phrases, or simple sentences without contexts inspired the researcher to conduct the topic: The quality of Google Translate‟s Vietnamese translations of English film titles. Aim and Objectives 1. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of GT‘s Vietnamese translations of English film titles in terms of translation errors. To complete the aim of the study, the researcher managed - to identify and classify the errors in GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English film titles.
- to examine the frequencies of the translation errors. Research Questions To obtain the aim and the objectives, the researcher collected and analyzed the data to answer the following questions: 1. What are the error types in GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English film titles? 2. What are the frequencies of the translation errors in GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English film titles in terms of translation error types? e 4 1.
Scope of the Study The film titles used as the data for this study belong to various genres such as action, adventure, comedy, crime, drama, thriller, documentary, tragedy, or cartoon. The film titles were from popular websites. The researcher randomly chose 130 English film titles and GT‘s Vietnamese translations of these English film titles as the data sources for the study. Then GT‘s Vietnamese translations were compared with Vietnamese translations from the websites to find out GT‘s errors.
Significance of the Study Studying the quality of GT‘s Vietnamese translations of English film titles is crucial because it brings advantages in both theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, this study brings the following benefits. First of all, the study contributes to supplying the knowledge of the quality of GT‘s Vietnamese translations of English film titles. Beyond that, this study can be a reference for other related research on assessing GT‘s translation quality.
Lastly, it can motivate other researchers to investigate the quality of GT in various fields and other forms of entertainment such as books, newspapers, and magazines. Practically, this study is meaningful for different groups of people. Firstly, this study provides English students and teachers in the major of translation with knowledge of translation errors. Furthermore, this study is helpful for translators in the media field.
The data from this study will help them know the way to have good translations of film titles. Having a perfect translated film title can bring commercial value to the film industry. e 5 In addition, English students, teachers, and translators may know the error types in the error framework of Farrús et al.