VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -------------***------------- NGUYEN THI NHUNG INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN PUBLIC SECURITY TEXTS Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh- Việt các thuật ngữ pháp lý trong văn bản Công an M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01 Hanoi, June 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -------------***------------- NGUYEN THI NHUNG INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN PUBLIC SECURITY TEXTS Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh- Việt các thuật ngữ pháp lý trong văn bản Công an M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201. Le Hung Tien Hanoi, June 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I certify that the minor thesis entitled “Investigating the translation of legal terminologies between English and Vietnamese in public security texts” is the result of my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any universities or other institutions. Nguyen Thi Nhung Hanoi, 2018 i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I am indebted to my supervisor Assoc. Le Hung Tien, for his wholehearted assistance.
Without his guidance, invaluable suggestions, comments, advice, and corrections, this thesis would have been possible. I also owe a sizeable debt of gratitude to all teachers in Faculty of Linguistics and Cutures of English speaking countries, University of Languages and International Studies who have provided me relevant knowledge. I am grateful to all authors of books listed in the biography, whose ideas are good references for me to conduct and develop this research. Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my colleagues and my family for encouragement, and support during the process of completing this graduation paper.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This research is an attempt to find out the differences and similarities between English legal terms and their Vietnamese equivalents, and to draw out appropriate strategies and procedures in the translation of legal terms into Vietnamese. In the research, legal terms are classified according to their grammatical compositions including one word term and above- word level terms. Then, each appropriate strategy and procedure is applied to the translation of terms of equivalence and non-equivalence group so that TL sounds original and natural. To some extent, the research may make a contribution to the translation of legal terms and will be of some help to legal circle, especially translators with little experience of doing the translation in the field.
iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SL : Source Language TL : Target Language iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv TABLE OF CONTENT. Aims of the study.
Methods of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of the study .3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT .4 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of terminology.
Definition of legal terminology. Definitions of translation. The translation of non-equivalence at word level and above word level. Definitions of technical translation.
Translation method of technical terms. Translation of neologisms. Features of legal terminology. Classification of legal terms according to their structural features .22 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER TWO THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMS.
Translation of legal terms at word level from English to Vietnamese. Translation of above-word-level terms by transposition. Translation by omission. Translation by paraphrase.
The appropriate strategies and procedures in translating English legal terms. Potential difficulties in translation of terminologies. Suggestions for the translation strategies and procedures .37 PART III: CONCLUSION. Implications for the translation of legal terms.
Suggestions for further studies .41 SOURCES OF DATA. I vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale The Vietnamese nation has been integrating deeply into the world in every sector such as economy, culture, and security. In the fight against crime, Vietnamese Government officials not only introduce policies for crime prevention and suppression but also strengthen the cooperation with other countries and international organizations.
To map out important strategies, and for a more effective international cooperation, Government officials have to look for regulations, laws and other documents written in English. Thus, the translation of police terms is of great concern. However, such a translation from English to Vietnamese or vice versa is a big challenge because of the differences between English and Vietnamese language as each language has its own lexicon as well as its own grammatical structures. Translating legal documents in general and terminology in particular is not a simple task, especially when the new terms keep created in pace with legal development.
There are linguistic differences between the two language systems and the most noticeable difficulty is the problem of how to deal with non-equivalence legal terms. This research paper, therefore, has been carried out with the hope of finding out the common, appropriate and preferable ways to make the translation of legal terms from English to Vietnamese sound original and natural. Therefore, the major concern of this paper is to give the answer to the question: “What are the common translation strategies and procedures used in the translation of legal terms in public security texts?” Based on the results from the study, some suggestions are given to security officers who are responsible for translating legal documents. Aims of the study Based on the translation theory and linguistic features, the study is ultimately aimed at: 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Collecting legal terms in public security texts and studying their main features in terms of characteristics and compositions. Identifying the procedures and strategies commonly used by teachers in the lessons on English for Law Enforcement and translators for rendering legal terms. Methods of the study As this study is carried out for the sake of English-Vietnamese tranlation of legal terminology, the study is mainly based on the syntheses and analyses of some subtle details from major reference books ans collected materials, especially legal documents. The author will then apply the theoretical knowledge and practical experience in translation of such legal documents in analyzing the use of legal terms in comparison with those in Vietnamese language.
The steps of the study on the translation of legal terminology are as follows. Step 1: Reviewing public security materials from different reliable sources Step 2: Collecting English legal terms from these materials Step 3: Classifying collected terms into two groups: one-word terms and above- word-level terms. Step 4: Analyzing the translation of typical examples of the above-mentioned groupsin order to find out the common strategies and procedures applied in the translation of legal terms. Step 5: Suggesting some implications for the translation of legal terms.
Scope of the study Since the research serves the need of the teaching of English for Law Enforcement and rendering English legal terms, it mainly focuses on legal terms found in Law Enforcement English textbooks, newspapers, legal acts,. However, the study cannot cover all terms which appear in these sources, only typical terms with high frequency of occurrence are chosen. Because of the characteristics of texts and the language in the materials of public security field, most of the terms are one word and above-word-level terms. It is the author‟s 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com purpose to conduct a study on the translation of legal termsatword-leveland above-word-levelterms based on the grammatical and semantic features of the terms investigated.
Organization of the study The thesis consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion. The first part, Introduction outlines rationale, scope, aims, method and design of the research. The second part entitled Development is divided into two chapters. Chapter One refers to theories which serve as the foundation for this study and presents the typical features of legal terms and their structural patterns.
Chapter Two, The translation of legal terms offers common procedures and strategies for the translation of the terms. Finally, Conclusion summarizes all the research findings. Ultimately, references, data sources and appendixes are indispensable parts of the study. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Definition of terminology Valeontis and Mantzari (2006: 1) says “terminology has a twofold meaning: (1) it is the discipline concerned with the principles and methods governing the study of concepts and their designations (terms, names, symbols) in any subject field, and the job of collecting, processing, and mangaging relevant data and (2) the set of terms belonging to the special language of an individual subject field”. In practice, it is more familiar with the second meaning of the term terminology, which is considered “the set of special words belonging to a science, an art, an author, or a social entity”; for example, “the terminology of law” or “the terminology of culture”. In another word, a term, or terminology unit, is the same or designation of a concept in a particular subject field. In Vietnam, many studies on vocabulary as well as terminology have been made by famous linguists such as Nguyen Van Tu, Do Huu Chau, Nguyen Thien Giap, and Nguyen Huu Quynh.
Nguyen Van Tu (1968) states that terminology consists of fixed words or phrases which denote concepts of science, manufacturing fields, or culture and so on. Similarly, Do Huu Chau (1998) says that terminology includes specialist words used within a scientific field, a profession or any technical field. Besides, Nguyen Thien Giap (1999) defines it as a part of special lexis of a language. It consists of fixed words or groups of words which accurately name concepts and subjects belonging to different specialized fields of human beings.
In addition, Nguyen Huu Quynh (2007:104) defines a scientific term as a word or a phrase which designates a concept in fields of science (social science, natural science, technical science). He also states that generally a scientific term has a certain phonetic form and designates a concept with one meaning (monosemy) which is not the same as the meaning of other terms) From the above-mentioned definitions, terminology can be considered fixed words or phrases which accurately denote concepts of a particular subject fields. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Definition of legal terminology Legal terminology is the set of technical words or expressions used in the legal field and of particular meanings.
Definitions of translation In “The theory and practice of translation”, Nida defined: “Translation consists in reproducing the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the SL message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style” (Nida and Taber 1974:12). In addition, there are different definitions of translation: 1. Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language (Bell, 1991, p. Translation is the expression in another language or (target language) of what have been expressed in another source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences (Bell, 1991, p.
Translation is a communicative process which takes place within a social context (Hatim & Mason, 1990, p. Translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. Common senses tell that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one language as in another. On the other hand, you may see it as complicated, artificial and fraudulent, since by using another language, you are pretending to be someone you are not.
Hence, in many types of text (legal, administrative, dialect, local, cultural) the temptation is to transfer as many source language words to the target language as possible (Newmark, 1988, p. The translation of non-equivalence at word level and above word level 1.