THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT ------ GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY STUDENTS OF ENGLISH FACULTY AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY IN TRANSLATING VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS INTO ENGLISH AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS Supervisor : M.A Phan Tú Lan Student : Class : K55N1 Student code : 19D170 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT During the process of doing this graduation paper, I have received a lot of necessary help as well assistance, guidance, precious ideas and encouragement from my teacher, my family and friends. This paper could not have completed without the great help from them. First and foremost, I would like to show my special thanks to my supervisor, Mrs. Phan Tu Lan, whose considerable encouragement and valuable guidance kept me confident to accomplish successfully this study.
Also, I would like to show my sincere thanks to all my teachers at Faculty of English, Thuongmai University who have given me knowledge, useful lessons, whole- hearted advice during four years here. I am grateful to the students of Faculty of English at Thuongmai University for their enthusiastic participation. Their sharing has become the main sources of data in my research. Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my family, my friends who always stand by, support and become a great motivation to help me overcome difficulties in the process of doing this research.
Because of the limited time, knowledge and practical experiences, there will have some shortcomings and mistakes in this study. Therefore, I sincerely hope to receive your comments and suggestions for the perfect of my own graduation paper. Hanoi, 2023 Student I ABSTRACT Along with the demand of global integration, learning foreign languages for international communication has become more and more vital to Vietnamese students. Translation skills are essential for a student’s academic success and future career prospects.
In today’s challenging environment, students must not only possess academic expertise, but also the requisite skills to enhance their learning and employability prospects in the future. However, it is not easy for English learners in this context to achieve their proficiency in translation skill due to certain internal and external factors. Therefore, this study is to investigate difficulties encountered by students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University in translating Vietnamese economic news into English and suggested solutions. The data obtained from the questionnaire with 61 students of Faculty of English at Thuongmai University.
The findings show that Faculty of English’s student faced both psychological and linguistics difficulties. Suggested solutions are proposed to tackle such difficulties in helping students improve their translation skill. II LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No. Abbreviation Meaning 1 TMU Thuongmai University 2 SL Source Language 3 TL Target Language 4 TT Target Text III LIST OF CHARTS No.
Charts Name 1 Chart 3.1 The students’s feeling of translation 2 Chart 3.2 Students’s evaluation of their translation ability 3 Chart 3.3 The use of the translation tools 4 Chart 3.4 How much time the students spend practising translating Vietnamese economic news into English 5 Chart 3.5 The level of importance of translation skill to the students’s English 6 Chart 3.6 Difficulty in vocabulary 7 Chart 3.7 Difficulty in grammar 8 Chart 3.8 Difficulty in psychology 9 Chart 3.9 Difficulty in knowledge 10 Chart 3.10 Difficulty in teaching methods 11 Chart 3.11 Suggestions to improve ability of translating Vietnamese economic news into English.12 The students’ attitude towards being a translator in the future IV CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT…………………………………………………………i ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………….ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………….iii LIST OF CHARTS……………………………………………………………….iv CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY…………………………………. In the world……………………………………………………………………2 1. Aims of the study………………………………………………………………. The significant of study……………………………………………………….
Scope of the study………………………………………………………………6 1. Organization of the study…………………………………………………….7 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………8 2. An overview on translation……………………………………………………8 2. The concept of translation…………………………………………………….
The importance of translation…………………………………………. The process of translation……………………………………………………14 2. Difficulties when practicing translating Vietnamese economic news into English……………………………………………………………………………. Common translation mistakes……………………………………………….
Features of economic news…………………………………………………. Difficulties when practicing translating Vietnamese economic news into English……………………………………………………………………………. Reasons that cause difficulties………………………………………….27 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS…………………………………. Context of the study…………………………………………………………29 3.
The participants of the study…………………………………………………30 3. Data collection methods……………………………………………………. Data analysis method………………………………………………………. Findings and discussion of the findings…………………………………….
Discussion of the findings……………………………………………………47 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS………………. Summary of the study………………………………………………………. Suggestions to improve student’s translation skill…………………………49 4. Suggestions for the students ……………………………………………….
Suggestions for Thuongmai University……………………………………. Limitations of the study………………………………………………………52 4. Suggestions for further studies………………………………………………52 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………54 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………55 APPENDIX – SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES………………………………….57 VI CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1. Rationale In the trend of globalization today, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored because it is widely used everywhere in the world.
English is considered the most commonly used language on the planet when nearly 60 countries use English as the main language, besides their mother tongue and nearly 100 countries use English as the second language. Therefore, English plays an essential role in the current era of globalization. Currently, Vietnamese enterprises have also kept up with this trend and strengthened economic exchanges with other countries, cooperating with foreign companies to implement business strategies and export - import goods. With such a vibrant integration situation, English is an essential part in business.
When Vietnam has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the business of goods exchange is not only encapsulated within the country but also cooperates with many different countries in the world. Currently, in parallel with domestic enterprises, Vietnam also has the presence of international companies, which are followed by leaders, key pillars of foreigners. Therefore, without English, especially English communication, we will face many difficulties in such a highly professional environment. However, there are difficulties in Vietnamese - English economic news because of structural and cultural difference.
Moreover, with international communication and integration, more and more commercial slogans and terms are being used. A majority of the students of the Faculty of English at Thuong Mai University said that they see many commercial terms in many fields everywhere and they do not know how to translate them correctly; they lacked suitable information of economics and had no set of procedures for Vietnamese-English translation. They also want to know how to improve their translation skills in both different cultures especially in British culture which is very traditional and interesting. With the hope that will answer the above questions, the reseacher choose the topic “ A study on 7 difficulties encountered by the students of the Faculty of English at Thuong Mai University when practicing translating Vietnamese economic news into English and suggested solutions” for her graduation paper.
In the world Shulin (2012) conducted the research: “On the Text Conjunction and Its Translation in English Business Letters”. This paper studied on the definition, position and classification of conjunction. According to the functional equivalence principle, readers’ reaction should be put in the first place and the source language should be expressed in appropriate receptors’ language. This paper talked about the conjunctions in business letters.
It was suggested that translator should pay great attention to the expectation of the reader, the intentionality of the source text and overall effect of the text. Functional equivalence theory emphasizes that translation was a kind of culture transfer, a communicative interaction, a cross culture event. Therefore, translation of conjunctions in business letters requires the translator combine the communicative function of the text with the response of the target text readers to determine the translation strategies. Xiaquingqiu (2013) carried out the study: “A Brief Analysis on the Translation Skills of Business Correspondence “.This paper made a brief analysis of translation skills of business correspondence.
At first, the characteristics of business correspondence translation discussed above require translators to translate practically, correctly and concisely. And then skills in translating the words, sentences and text of business letters were briefly introduced. What we can learn from this paper was that translators should not only pay attention to the translation skills and strategies but also become sensitive to the cultural differences between China and English-speaking countries. The curacy of translation cannot be emphasized more.
Therefore, to understand and study the original letters correctly was the first and most important strategies, at the same time; it was indispensable to think of its cultural backgrounds and connotations in the intercultural view. Another research was conducted by FU Qing-lian (2009): “Application of Nida’s Theory of Equivalence to Business Translation” through the introduction of 8 Nida' s Theory of Equivalence and the characteristics of Business English, this essay mainly discusses that Nida's theory of functional equivalence can be best applied in business English translation and functional equivalence can be achieved in both meaning and style at the word level, the sentence level and the discourse level. It also provided some useful methods and techniques which can be applied to maximizing equivalence in Business English translation. Huan Wang, Yuhang Bai and Jianhua Jiang (2013) carried out a study called:“On Business English E-C Translation Model Based on Equivalence Theory Based on Equivalence Theory”.
This paper aimed to propose a model which can put Equivalence Theory into BE (Business English) translation practice. It applied the model to BE E-C (Business English English- Chinese) translation at the lexical, the syntactical, the pragmatic and the stylistic level to achieve equivalence. In Vietnam Nguyen Trong Dan (1997) conducted the research called: “A study on some difficulties of translating business correspondence”. In this paper, she tried to find out some difficulties and solutions to translate business letters by giving basic theory about English business letters: their features including the layout, contents, language and grammar; some common mistakes in translating them and some suggestions to overcome mistakes.
This paper mentioned the difficulties in translation of business correspondence. Firstly, it was possible to analyze the difficulties in translation of business correspondence from Vietnamese into English rather than English-Vietnamese in this paper. Secondly, research should attempt to further investigate professional translators. The questions concerning proficiency in Vietnamese should be paid attention to.
Because it was a very decisive factor that directly affects the translation. Thirdly, the data generated in this study was not enough, it was necessary to conduct further research to have better understanding of finding out more difficulties in translating of business correspondence and solutions to these problems. Do Minh Hoang (2012) carried out the study: “The study of the characteristics 9 of business English and functional theories on its translation”. This paper was mainly about the study of the characteristics of business English and its translation skills, especially the functional theories and it first summarizes the status and importance of Business English, then concisely explains the methods of translation, with the emphasis on the matters which should be noticed during the translation process.
Meanwhile, this paper introduced a number of scenarios in a cross-cultural translation, offering a reference value. The paper will offer some functional theories applied in translating business English. It was quite reasonable to employ functional theory for business translation and the application of the main functional theories in business English translation was bound to be useful and valuable. The paper opened a new view for the principles of business English translation.
It explored a systematic analysis from the functional view and proposes two specific principles and several strategies in the business translation practice, which can set up a set of practical and comprehensive principles for business English translation as well as to provide some help to those whose profession was business English teaching or who were intending to work in this field. Duong Thuy Trang and Tran Van Tuan (2011) conducted the research: “A Review of Business English Translation”. This paper summarized a part of studies on the Business English translation, arranging the contents, characteristics and translation strategies of Business English. The only purpose was to provide some help for the people who were working for Business English translation or interested in Business English translation.
This paper can really contribute to improve their translation abilities and make them do a good job in Business English translation. Ha Anh Tu (2017) studied: “Common errors committed by the fourth-year English linguistics students in translating legal documents into English”.