BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS An investigation into difficulties and strategies in the translation process of English-majored students at Banking Academy Student : Than Thi Khanh Linh Class : K23ATCB Course : 2020-2024 Student ID : 23A7510078 Supervisor : Ms. Duong Thi Thanh Hoa (MA) Hanoi, May 2024 DECLARATION I declare that this research is entirely the product of my efforts and this work has not been previously submitted to any higher educational institutions for any degrees or qualifications. I confirm that all the information used in the research has been adequately acknowledged and all quotes have been correctly cited. In addition, the study results are unique and have not been plagiarized from any other previous papers.
Hanoi, 4th May 2024 Signature Than Thi Khanh Linh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The graduation thesis, "An investigation into difficulties and strategies in the Translation process of English-majored students at Banking Academy" is the product of my efforts, the dedicated guidance of lecturers and encouragement from family and friends. Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to those who have assisted me in this study. First and foremost, I would wish to thank the leadership of Banking Academy and the lecturers of the Faculty of Foreign Languages for creating conditions and guiding me to study and accumulate knowledge over the years. I would like to express my sincerest and deepest gratitude to my respected supervisor, Ms.
Duong Thi Thanh Hoa (MA) for her detailed instructions and her valuable feedback. Her vast knowledge and experiences have helped me improve my analytical ability and develop as a researcher. Her great encouragement and belief in my work have also generated a strong motivation for me to complete this research. Many thanks were sent to all the students who agreed to participate in the research process.
This thesis was unable to succeed without their enthusiastic responses. I would like to thank my dear friends who always listen to me and constantly encourage me. Without their encouragement and trust, I don't know how I would have overcome this difficult time. Last but not least, I am very grateful to my family.
My grandparents and parents have been always by my side to take care of me and give me advice through every ups and downs. They have motivated me to keep calm and overcome all the challenges when writing this dissertation. ii TABLES OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. ii TABLES OF CONTENTS.
iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.v LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES. vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the Study.
Objectives of the Study. Scope of the Study. Significance of the Study. Structure of the Study .3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Importance of Translation. Common difficulties in the translation process .19 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Locale of the study. Data collection instruments.
Data collection procedure .31 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students’ experiences with translation .48 CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Summary of the findings. Recommendations for students.
Recommendations for lecturers and faculty. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research .65 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation Meaning ATC English for Banking and Finance BAV Banking Academy of Vietnam EFL English as a Foreign Language SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Science v LIST OF TABLES Table 3. Background information of interviewees. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient.
The type of Translation students find difficult. Students’ difficulties in translation. Students’ challenges in translating terms. Students’ difficulties in translating idioms.
Students’ difficulties in translating collocations. Students’ difficulties in background knowledge. Students’ obstacles in translating tenses. Students’ difficulties in translating types of nouns.
Students’ difficulties in translating voice. Frequencies of Students Using Types of Translation Strategies .47 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Translation process adopted from Nida (1975) .2: Translation process adopted from Larson (1984). Students’ confidence of translation skill. Students’ translation practice time per day.
Students’ frequency encountering translation difficulties. The effectiveness of translation strategies. Student's difficulties in translating tenses. Students’ difficulties in translating types of nouns.
Students’ difficulties in translating voices. 46 vi ABSTRACT Title: An investigation into difficulties and strategies in the Translation process of English-majored students at Banking Academy. Author: Than Thi Khanh Linh, a final-year student of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Baking Academy Supervisor: Ms. Duong Thi Thanh Hoa (MA), a Faculty of Foreign Languages lecturer at Banking Academy.
Abstract: The translation is considered an eraser that erases language boundaries between countries. However, translating a text thoroughly and smoothly requires the translators not only to be proficient in language skills but also to have extensive knowledge of the relevant fields. This requirement causes many difficulties for translators during the translation process. This study aimed to show the difficulties and strategies in the translation process of English-majored students.
The qualitative and quantitative methods were applied together to research on a pool of 94 final-year students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Banking Academy. The results from the survey and interviews showed that students had the most difficulty with lexicology, particularly understanding and finding equivalences of terms, idioms and collocations. Besides, the lack of knowledge about related fields also made students get confused in translating and checking after translation. Surprisingly, grammatical pieces including tenses, noun types and voices did not cause many difficulties for students during the translation process.
To solve these difficulties, students applied some translation strategies based on Baker's theory. Among them, the most applied strategies were using more general words, paraphrasing and omission. They realized that these strategies could be easily applied in a variety of texts no matter what the topic was. From the results, some suggestions were offered to students, lecturers and the faculty.
Keywords: English-majored students, translation difficulties, translation strategies, translation vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the rationale of the study, research objectives, research questions, and the significance, scope, and structure of the research. Rationale of the Study In the context of globalization, Vietnam has become a strategic partner of many countries around the world. In particular, on September 10, 2023, Vietnam and the United States - a country that uses English as its official language upgraded their partnership to become a comprehensive strategic partnership. According to Raja (2023), in the context of globalization, English is also the language of many fields: science, economics, engineering, and diplomacy.
This requires Vietnamese workers to have good English skills to be able to grasp opportunities from foreign partners. However, according to MH (2023), only 5% of Vietnamese workers have enough English proficiency to work. Therefore, English-Vietnamese or Vietnamese-English translation has become a bridge between foreign businesses and Vietnamese businesses in the current period. In fact, Translation is a difficult subject as well as a difficult skill that requires both learners and professionals to have a lot of knowledge: language knowledge, specialized knowledge, cultural knowledge, etc.
Ibrahim (2017), Phan, et al. (2021), Mahmoud (2022), Pham, et al. conducting research on students at universities have shown that students encounter many difficulties while practicing translation. However, no research on this issue has been conducted on the Banking Academy language students.
Additionally, Afaf, et al. (2020) and Pham and Phu (2013) also found that students did not recognize to use the strategies in translation. The above reasons motivated the researcher to conduct this study on the difficulties and strategies in the translation process of English-majored students at Banking Academy of Vietnam. Objectives of the Study The purposes of this study are to examine students’ perspectives on the major translation difficulties, find the students’ translation difficulties differences and reveal the main translation strategies utilized in the translation process of English- majored students at BAV.
Scope of the Study This study focuses on surveying the translation difficulties and the translation strategies based on the theory that was proposed in the translation course to deal with words. It was limited to only the final-year ATC students who completed two translation courses. This research was conducted over two months, March and April 2024. Research Questions The study's goals are to find the difficulties encountered by ATC students and the translation strategies used by ATC students when translating.
Therefore, in this research, the following questions are addressed: 1. Which difficulties do ATC students face in the translation process? 2. Which translation strategies do ATC students apply in the translation process? 1. Significance of the Study Translation is not only a skill but also a method to learn a foreign language.
Therefore, the implementation of this research is hoped to offer some benefits to both the students and the lecturers. First of all, students will be informed about the difficulties they encounter in the translation process and some useful strategies students can use to translate. From that, they can prepare themselves more carefully before studying the translation course at university or working in this field in the future. Moreover, lecturers can gain an insight into what their students have to face in translation and how their students apply the translation theory in practice, thus can propose some teaching methods to help them.
Finally, further researchers interested in this field can use the research results as a reference for future research. Structure of the Study The research is divided into five chapters, as follows: Chapter I - Introduction. This chapter discusses the rationale of the study, research objectives, research questions, and the significance, scope, and structure of the research. Chapter II - Literature Review.
This chapter provides relevant theories on the definition of translation, the steps of the translation process, and translation strategies based on Baker’s theory. In addition, some common difficulties in the translation process are also analyzed in this chapter. Chapter III - Research Methodology. This chapter presents essential information about the research methodology.
It contains detailed explanations of the study locale, participants, research instruments, data collection procedure, and data processing method. Chapter IV - Findings and Discussion. The results of this research will be displayed and analyzed in this chapter. Next, the in-depth discussions will be presented.
Chapter V – Summary of the findings, implications and recommendations. This chapter will present a summary of the findings, and implications as well as show the limitations of the research and give some recommendations for further research. Chapter summary: This chapter explains the reason why this study is conducted and the significance of the study. Notably, the objectives and research questions of the study have been showed so that the researcher can easily follow to analyze the data.
The structure of the research have been clearly presented for easy followings. 3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides relevant theories on the definition of translation, the steps of the translation process, and translation strategies based on Baker’s theory. In addition, some common difficulties in the translation process are also proposed in this chapter. Definition Newmark and Munday (2016) gave their definition of translation: It is the conversion of an original text (source text) in the original language (source language) into another text (target text) using another language (target language).
Osman (2017) shares a different understanding that translation is a mental procedure in which translators act to change linguistic entities in one language by their equivalences in another language, but this change does not affect the meaning of the source text; in addition, the author’s original thoughts and implications are transmitted as accurately as possible in the translation. Anisah and Basri (2023) see translation as not only a practice of transferring but also a creative process. To sum up, from all the above definitions, translation is defined as the process of changing linguistic entities from one language (source language) into their equivalences in another language (target language). However, the meaning and implications of the source texts have to be preserved during this pivotal and complicated process.
Importance of Translation The significant role of translation is highlighted by Habeeb and Muhammed (2019).