MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY THÁI THỊ THANH MINH THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE'S VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH PERSONIFICATIONS IN LA FONTAINE'S FABLES Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Lê Nhân Thành, Ph. Binh Dinh, 2021 e BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHON THÁI THỊ THANH MINH CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE KHI NHÂN HÓA TRONG CÁC TRUYỆN NGỤ NGÔN CỦA LA FONTAINE KHI DỊCH SANG TIẾNG VIỆT Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8220201 Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS. Lê Nhân Thành Bình Định, 2021 e i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I, at this moment, declare this study is entirely my work carried out at Quy Nhơn University for the degree of Master of Arts in English Language and that it has not been submitted for a degree at any other Institution. Where other sources of information are used, they are acknowledged.
Thai Thi Thanh Minh e ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, it is a pleasure to express my sincere gratitude to many people who made this thesis possible. I wish to give my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my profound advisor, Ph. Lê Nhân Thành, for his continuous support and encouragement. Without his help, I would not complete this thesis.
Throughout my thesis-writing period, he encouraged me whenever I encountered problems with careful and inspiring advice, good teaching, and exciting ideas. His extensive knowledge of Google Translate has given me valuable experience in conducting the study. Especially in the data analysis, thanks to his helpful tutorials and recommendations, I had overcome the difficulties of the figure process and software. In short, it is an honor for me to be instructed by Ph.
Lê Nhân Thành, who never accepted less than my best efforts. I would like to thank all professors at Quy Nhơn University, especially professors and staff in the Foreign Language Administration, who always do their best to make all thesis procedures as convenient to students as possible. Finally, my beloved family deserves a special mention for their unconditional love and support throughout the research study. To all of them, I dedicate this thesis.
Bình Định, 2021 e iii ABSTRACT This thesis is conducted to investigate the quality of Google Translate's Vietnamese translations of the English personifications in La Fontaine's fables. The data are the personifications in La Fontaine's fables and their Vietnamese equivalents in GT's translations. The classification of personifications presented by Nguyễn Thế Truyền (2001) and the categorization of translation errors suggested by Farrús et al. (2011) are used as the conceptual frameworks for this study.
This study is carried out (i) to identify and classify the personifications in La Fontaine's fables, (ii) to identify and classify the translation errors in GT's Vietnamese translations of the English personifications, and (iii) to evaluate GT's translation quality in translating the English personifications into Vietnamese in terms of translation errors. The results of the data analysis show that all three types of personifications are present in the fables. The Activities and Characteristics personifications account for the most significant number. The results also indicate that three out of five translation error types are found, and Semantic errors account for the highest rate of the errors committed by Google Translate.
Lexical errors rank second. The third rank is Syntactic error. Google Translate does not commit any Morphological and Orthographic errors. The findings suggest that much care should be taken when using Google Translate to translate English personifications into Vietnamese.
Some suggestions and implications are proposed for EFL teachers and learners majoring in translation, human translators, and researchers interested in the related fields. Keywords: Google Translate, personifications, translation errors, Translation Quality Assessment, Vietnamese e iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. viii LIST OF TABLES.
ix LIST OF FIGURES. Aim and Objectives. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Structure of the thesis. Jean de la Fontaine's life and works. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Types of personifications.
Activities and Characteristics personifications. Translation errors made by Google Translate. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the findings.
Limitations of the study. Implications for EFL teachers and students of translation. Implications for translators. Implications for future researchers.
66 APPENDIX e viii ABBREVIATIONS CAP Characteristic & Activities personifications GT Google Translate L1 Language 1 L2 Language 2 LEX Lexical translation errors MOR Morphological translation errors MT Machine Translation NOE No translation errors NP Naming personifications ORT Orthographic translation errors p. Pages SEM Semantic translation errors SMT Statistical machine translation ST Source Text SYN Syntactic translation errors TQA Translation Quality Assessment TT Target Text VB Verbal personifications e ix LIST OF TABLES Table 3. Sample data preparation. Sample of translation errors analysis.
Analyzing and comparison types of errors. The identified personifications. Types of errors. The number of the Syntactic errors.
The number of the Lexical errors. The number of the Semantic errors. The number of occurrences of no translation errors. The statistics of translation errors committed by GT.
59 e ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. The dynamics of translation. The Translation process. Farrús et al.'s 2011 classification translation errors.
The Vauquois Triangle. Timeline of Machine Translation Evolution. Languages supported by Goole Translate. Occurrences of translation errors according to personification types.
INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the study's rationale, aim and objectives, the research questions, scope, significance, and the thesis structure. Rationale According to Đinh Trọng Lạc (2001), personifications are among the popular rhetorical measures used in literature and demonstrated in fables. There are a lot of writers on over the world who use personifications in their written career such as: in Viet Nam, Tô Hoài with the book of ―Dế Mèn phiêu lưu ký‖ (New adventure crickets), ―Alice's Adventures in Wonderland‖ by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson written in 1865, ―the Adventures of Pinocchio‖ published in 1883, is a children's novel by Italian, ―The brave lead soldier‖ a fairy tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen…Aesop‘s fables are published in Greece, and Jean de La Fontaine's fables are written in France, published in 1668. With the written form flexibly, plentifully, and creatively, the author brings purely, innocently, warmly, and an imaginary world for children and highly educational lessons.
In Vietnam, the name La Fontaine hasn‘t been a stranger. In the early years of the twentieth century, his name and works are familiar with famous translators like Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh, Huỳnh Lý, Nguyễn Đình, Đỗ Khắc Siêm, Hà Khắc Nguyện. and the others. Fables express one's feelings such as happy, sad, angry, or disappointed, which are assigned to inanimated objects to show the implicit feelings of the author, and use many figurative and hidden meanings.
These reasons cause problems in translating fables. Translating the personifications in fables by the human translators is a challenge. Translating the personifications by GT's translation is more challenging. It is just because GT must concentrate on seeking equivalence e 2 meaning.
Therefore, the researcher has examined GT's in its Vietnamese translations of English personifications into Vietnamese. Aim and Objectives 1. Aim This study aims to investigate GT's quality when translating the English personifications in La Fontaine's fables into Vietnamese. Objectives To achieve this aim, the researcher will try to: - to identify and classify the personifications in La Fontaine's fables, - to identify and classify the errors in GT's Vietnamese translations of the English personifications, and - to evaluate GT's translation quality in translating the English personifications into Vietnamese in terms of translation errors.
Research Questions This study tries to answer the following questions to fulfill the aim and objectives mentioned above: 1. What are the English personifications in La Fontaine's fables? 2. What translation errors does GT make when it translates the English personifications into Vietnamese? 3. How well does GT translate the English personifications into Vietnamese in terms of translation errors? 1.
Scope of the study This study investigates the quality of GT's Vietnamese translations of the English personifications in La Fontaine's fables. 41 La Fontaine's fables are translated into Vietnamese by different famous translators. Of all the fables collected by La Fontaine, the researcher chose 41 fables, with the 174 personifications identified using the theoretical framework of Đinh Trọng e 3 Lạc (2001) and Nguyễn Thế Truyền (2001). For this reason, the English sentences which contain personifications are translated into Vietnamese by GT.
Still, only those errors related to GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English personifications are examined following the classification of translation errors suggested by Farrús et al. Significance of the study The study has theoretical and practical significance. Regarding the theoretical aspect, this research helps teachers and learners deeply understand the stylistic devices in teaching and learning literature. Furthermore, this assists students in developing their knowledge of translation.
For translators, knowledge about personifications support them to produce better accurate translations. For the researcher, this aids in identifying different kinds of personifications used in La Fontaine‘s fables. It also informs GT‘s quality in translating English personifications into Vietnamese by identifying the translation errors. Regarding the practical aspect, this thesis raises the awareness of people who use GT.
They should be careful of the errors that GT usually commits. Structure of the thesis The thesis is designed with five main parts placed in five chapters: Chapter I, Introduction, the study's rationale, aim and objectives, the research questions, scope, significance, and the thesis structure. Chapter II, Literature Review, addresses the definitions and characteristics of personifications. It also provides a review of crucial concepts of translation, Machine Translation, Google Translate, La Fontaine‘s life and works, and the previous studies related to the subject of the thesis.
Chapter III, Methodology Research, is concerned with a detailed e 4 description of the procedures for data collection and data analysis in the present study. Chapter IV, Findings and Discussion, presents the findings and discussion of the study. The first section presents the findings about personifications types. The second offers the errors made by GT.
The degree of translation accuracy will be analyzed in the final part based on the occurrences of the translation errors. Chapter V, Conclusions, Limitations, and Implications, summarizes the study's main findings and addresses the implications for different stakeholders. Simultaneously, this chapter also puts forwards the limitations of the study. LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter addresses the definitions and characteristics of personifications.
It also provides a review of crucial concepts of translation, Machine Translation, Google Translate, La Fontaine‘s life and works, and the previous studies related to the subject of the thesis. Theoretical background This part addresses theoretical background for the study, focusing on personifications and classifications, translation theory, translation errors, La Fontaine‘s Fables, and previous studies that help justify the research‘s aim and objectives. Personifications In this part, the author demonstrates the theories and concepts relevant to stylistic devices, the personifications and classifications, the comparison of personifications and metaphors, and the denotation of fables. Rhetorical measures/ stylistic devices Stylistic devices (or figures of speech) play a significant role in analyzing literary text.
The term "figure of speech" is frequently used for stylistic devices that use a figurative meaning of the language elements and create a rich image. It connects two things and sees the world in new ways. In "Stylistics," Galperin (1977, p. 30) defined that "stylists device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and Semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and thus becoming a generative model." According to Lehtsalu et al.
(1973), personifications belong to the stylistic devices based on circumlocution. Stylistic devices make speeches and essays more interesting, lively and they keep the reader's attention. Definition of personifications Personifications are one of the fundamental stylistic devices in any language. Animals, inanimate objects, or abstractions are represented as having human characteristics such as behavior, feelings, and character.
Lakoff & Mark (1980), as cited Dorst (2011, p.