ABSTRACT Nowadays, English is one of the most widely used languages worldwide. People use English in various fields. Many of them are good at 4 English skill: listening, speaking, reading and even writing. However, some others are not really good, they cannot understand what their partner are saying in English.
English learners usually face difficulties in translation, especially the terminology. Translation skill is an extremely necessary skill for us. It plays an essential role in learning and working with English. In particular, for a foreign language learner, translation skill becomes a necessary and indispensable medium.
According to some surveys, students say that they have great difficulties in translating the terminology in economic texts. This study was conducted to investigate problems in translation of the terminology in economic texts. Then, the researcher wants to find a reason for those problems and propose solutions so that students can solve them. Eighty people who are final-year English major students at TMU participating in this study.
Through the research, it is hoped that they will realize the difficulties in English translating skill as well as apply truly effective methods of English translation so as to enhance their English translating proficiency and English translation is no more of their reluctance. Therefore, in the hope of improving students’ ability to translate with the enthusiastic help of participants, the researcher hopes this research will be a useful tool for everyone. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During this graduation paper, I received much necessary help, guidance, valuable ideas and encouragement from my teachers, my family and friends. I would like to send my sincere and profound thanks to the teachers of the Thuongmai University, especially the teachers in the English faculty during the time when I just started to come to school.
I thank the teachers for always enabling us to have the opportunity to study in the best and most effective environment. With deep gratitude, I would like to thank Mrs. Vu Thi Thanh Hoa for enthusiastic guidance and encouragement and valuable guidance so that I can complete this graduation paper. I am grateful to final-year students of English faculty 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 and support and become a great motivation to help me overcome difficulties in the process of doing this research. In the course of making this graduation paper, although I have tried hard, it is difficult to avoid errors, I hope the teachers will understand. At the same time, due to the limited level of reasoning as well as limited scientific research ability.
I look forward to receiving your comments and suggestions for the perfect of my own graduation paper. Thank you sincerely! Hanoi, October 19th 2020 Student Nguyen Thi Xuan ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS NO Abbreviation Meaning 1 TMU Thuongmai University 2 VTM Vietnamese traditional medicine 3 ED English Department 4 IT Information Technology 5 SL Source Language 6 TL Target Language 7 Sig Significance Level 8 KMO Kaiser Meyer Olkin iii CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS.vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY. Aims of the study. Scope of the study.
Organization of the study.5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Overview of terminology. Definition of terminology. Main features of the terminology.
The terminology in economic texts. Definition of translation. Significance of translation. Types of translation.
Criteria for a good translation version. Translation strategies and methods. Problems in translation of the terminology in economic texts. Misunderstanding about culture.
Words and choices of word meanings. Lack of economic background knowledge. Difficulty in translating the abbreviation. Difficulty in translating the terminology hardly used.17 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH FINDINDS.
Data collection method. Methods of data analysis. The results of the study.1 The survey questionnaire’s results.1 The results from questionnaire. Statistics of the variables in the scale.
Statistics of reliability. Analysis of discovery factors EFA. Discussion of the findings.34 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. Summary of the study.
Suggestions for students.2 Suggestions for teachers and teaching methods of Thuongmai University. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research.43 APPENDIX: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES.44 v LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS NO Tables – Name Charts 1 Chart 3.1 The students’ opinions about learning translation 2 Chart 3.2 The reason why students study translation The students’ opinions about the usefulness of 3 Chart 3.3 studying translation The amount of time students usually spending on 4 Chart 3.4 studying translating the terminology in economic texts (as self-study) How often students have difficulties when translating 5 Chart 3.5 the terminology in economic texts The students’ opinions about the usefulness of 6 Table 3.1 studying translation The biggest challenge students have to face when 7 Table 3.2 translating the terminology in economic texts 8 Table 3.3 What students often do when encountering new term What students often do after finishing their 9 Table 3.4 translation A great influence on students’ interest in translating 10 Table 3.5 the terminology in economic texts What students often do to improve their translation 11 Table 3.6 of the terminology in economic texts 12 Table 3.7 Statistics of the variables in the scale 13 Table 3.8a Statistics of reliability 14 Table 3.8b Statistics of variables – total observation scales 15 Table 3.9 KMO and Bartlett’s Test 16 Table 3.10 Total Variance Explained vi CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1. Rationale Nowadays, English becomes a common language used widely in most countries of the world.
Nearly 60 countries use English as their primary language, besides their mother tongue and nearly 100 countries use English as their second language. With over 1,130 million native speakers, English is the most spoken language in the world. However, each country has its own culture and a unique language. These countries that do not use English, must know two languages simultaneously to communicate with international friends.
The English translation industry was born to help the people who have difficulties learning or acquiring a second language. English is a language taught in a lot of universities in the world, the language of international communication, science, aviation. It is used as the language of international business. Recently, with the development of our society as well as other countries in the world, economic and trade sector has become one indispensable field in the economy in general, development of the countries in particular, including our Vietnam.
Successful economic and trade cooperation requires many factors, of which mutual understanding is the most importance. Therefore, the translation of economic and trade texts plays an important role and is of the greatest concern. Recognizing the importance of translation, Thuongmai University has introduced Translation into the subject. The teachers teach the students how to translate English into Vietnamese and how to translate Vietnamese into English.
The teachers instruct students how to translate documents such as social, economic business, culture, education, foreign affairs, health care, etc. and specialized texts. However, most students often find that they have a lot of difficulties in translating the terminology in economic texts. In this research, I will investigate the difficulties in translation of the terminology in economic texts encountered by the final-year English major students at Thuongmai University and suggest some solutions to this problem.
1 Therefore, I would like to conduct the study entitled “Common difficulties in translation of the terminology in economic texts encountered by final-year students of English faculty, Thuongmai University”. I hope this study will help the senior students find out their difficulties and provide them some solutions to translate the terminology in economic texts more easily. Previous studies Research topics on issues “the difficulties of learners in English translation” have been studied by many different researchers around the world in general and in Vietnam in particular. In the world Through surveying the research on translation issues, I see that there have been many books, many works by foreign authors on this issue.
A study named “Difficulties and some problems in translating legal documents” by Ivanka Sakareva. The paper aims at revealing the difficulties in translating legal documents. In order to make a full characteristic of these problems, Ivanka Sakareva has described the actual process of translating the rules that should be observed by the translators, the translation strategy in translating documents as well as the importance of the cultural transfer. How does the legal translation differ from the literal one? Is it an easy task to translate specialized texts? Another study named “Analysis of Translation Difficulties for the Fourth Semester Students of English Department of IKIP Gunungsitoli Year 2013/2014” with the objective of the research is to find out and to describe translation difficulties for the fourth semester students of English department of IKIP Gunungsitol.
The researcher uses two kinds of research instruments that are questionnaires which consist of a test as the source of content analysis applied as a part of qualitative research method. And others: “A Linguistic Theory of Translation” by Catford (1965. Oxford University Publishing House, Oxford); "Contemporary Translation Theories" by Hay Gentzler (1993. Roudledge Publishing House, London & New York); “Discourse and the Translator” by Hatim and Mason (1990.
Longman Publishing House, UK); Jakobson's "On Linguistic Aspects of translation" 2 (1959. Article published in The Translation Studies Reader, L.) Roudledge, London & New York, 1998); "A Textbook of Translation" by Newmark (1988. Prentice Hall Publishing House, London 1988). In Vietnam A study named “Difficulties in Learning the Translation of Students majoring in International Relations”.
The purpose of the research is to identify and explain these difficulties, and to provide some methods for students to be good at translating and have their own experience in the following working process. The researcher limited his research subjects to 2 students of TA39A and TA39B classes, English department, Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. Another research, “A study on the translation of economic terminology”, conducted by Hoang Thi Bay, her MA minor-thesis, has been carried out with the hope of finding out the common, appropriate and preferable ways to make the translation of economic terms from English into Vietnamese sound original and natural. 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 economic terms in the economic textbook “Business Law?”.
Based on the results from the study, some suggestions are given, that can be of some use to those who are responsible for teaching English for economics and translating documents in this field. Additionally, a MA minor thesis of Pham Thi Minh Chien, “A study on English translation of Vietnamese traditional medicine texts”. It aims at clarifying and discussing some characteristics of VTM texts and then giving suggestions on strategy and techniques used in translating VTM texts and standardization of English translation of VTM. It also analyzes some common mistakes and figures out the reasons for this present chaotic situation.
There are some previous studies on translation skill of university students. All these studies show that different aspects of the problem give the reader a more multidimensional view and to recognize the importance of improving English translation skill. Aims of the study 3 When choosing and carrying out this study, the researcher expects to clarify 3 main issues: - To investigate some factors affecting student’s translation skill. - To find out some difficulties, and common problems in translation of the terminology in economic texts encountered by final-year English major students at TMU must face.
- To suggest some possible solutions to these problems so as to help students have a good translation skill. Research subjects The subjects of this study are the final-year English students at TMU. The study is concentrated on their difficulties in translation of the terminology in economic texts with the participation of 80 seniors who are learning Business English. Scope of the study The study focuses on the translation skill of the terminology in economic texts of the final-year English major students at TMU.