MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG TRỊNH TRƯỜNG GIANG A STUDY OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF PRESENTATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AT ICISE MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS BINH DINH - 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY ĐẶNG TRỊNH TRƯỜNG GIANG A STUDY OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF PRESENTATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES AT ICISE Field: English Linguistics Code: 8. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN ĐẶNG TRỊNH TRƯỜNG GIANG NGHIÊN CỨU DỊCH THUẬT ANH-VIỆT TRONG CÁC BÀI PHÁT BIỂU HỘI NGHỊ QUỐC TẾ TỔ CHỨC TẠI ICISE Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8.01 Người hướng dẫn: PGS. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP This thesis represents my own work and due acknowledgement is given whenever information is derived from other sources. No part of this thesis has or is being concurrently submitted for any other qualification at any university except where due reference has been made in the text.
Quy Nhon, 2019 DANG TRINH TRUONG GIANG ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Without the assistance of many people, this thesis could not have been completed. I would like to express my profound gratitude and respect to those who provide me with advice and assistance when I carry out this research. First and foremost, I am deeply thankful to Assoc. Nguyen Quang Ngoan, my supervisor, who kindly provides me with appropriate direction, useful suggestions and critical comments so that I can have a suitable topic to pursue and finish in time.
Secondly, I would like to express my thank to Dr. Tran Thanh Son, the manager of the International Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education, who gives me an invaluable source of data for collecting and studying. Besides, I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Vo Ngoc Hoi, a PhD candidate and also my university graduation thesis supervisor.
Thanks to the support of Mr. Vo, a great number of materials sources are accessible to me, which helps me to have appropriate reference whenever I need. Thirdly, let me express my gratitude to all the lecturers of the Department of Foreign Languages in specific and to Quy Nhon Univesity in general who have provided me with precious education, not only in English major but also in other fields of knowledge. Without such knowledge, I cannot make such a far progress in my academic career.
Last but not least, my big thank is sent to my family, my friends and my colleagues who have helped me settle down many difficulties during this period so that I can focus on the thesis and finish it in due time. iii ABSTRACT Translation in general and interpretation in particular has become more and more popular in the current trend of integration and internationalization. Because English and Vietnamese have a different system of grammar and structure, it is believed that the translation of certain English types of sentence into Vietnamese are problematic. Hence, this study aims at investigating the Vietnamese translation of three common types of sentence in English, namely passive sentences, conditional sentences and sentences containing relative clause.
The results of this study are expected to facilitate English- Vietnamese translation process, and as a result, help translators and interpreters to perform their job much better. The used qualitative method in this study found that the most used strategy to translate the three investigated types of sentence was to keep using the structure of the original sentence in its translation. This strategy was proved to be really effective with the highest rate of good assessment and lowest rate of poor one. Nonetheless, this study did not make much classification in translation strategies and did not pay close attention to the interrelationship among factors in translation work, further studies with larger scale are recommended to be carried out to shed light on these concerns.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF ABBREVIATION.
AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. TRANSLATION AND RELEVANT ISSUES. Translation assessment approaches. Factors affecting conference interpretation.
INVESTIGATED TYPES OF SENTENCE. Sentences containing relative clauses, conditional sentences and passive sentences in English. PREVIOUS RELEVANT STUDIES. DATA SOURCES AND SAMPLES.
TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT APPROACH. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Sentences containing relative clauses.
Translation of passive sentences. Translation of conditional sentences. Translation of sentences containing relative clauses. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.
Sentences containing relative clauses. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES. 91 LIST OF PUBLISHED WORKS. TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF PASSIVE SENTENCES.
TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF CONDITIONAL SENTENCES. TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF RELATIVE CLAUSES. 151 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Number Title Page Number Table 1 Relative pronouns used in defining relative clauses 16 Table 2 Relative pronouns used in non-defining relative 17 clauses Table 3 Trigger table 28 Table 4 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different 31 assessment types in the translation of passive sentences Table 5 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different 32 violation types in the translation of passive sentences Table 6 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different 33 assessment types in the translation of conditional sentences Table 7 Occurrence times of different violation types and 34 their occurrence rate in the translation of conditional sentences Table 8 Occurrence times and occurrence rate of different 35 assessment types in the translation of relative clauses viii Table 9 Occurrence times of different violation types and 37 their occurrence rate in the translation of relative clauses ix LIST OF ABBREVIATION &: and B.C: before Christ EFL: English as a foreign language e.: for example etc.: et cetera ICISE: the International Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education i.: it means NP: noun phrase O: object p.: pages S: subject V: verb viz. RATIONALE Translation has long been a popular discipline due to its useful practice in reality.
It helps those whose languages are different to communicate and exchange ideas which is of vital importance in the current trend of globalisation and integration. With an increasing number of events in which participants from different language origins are involved, e. scientific workshops, business conferences or just simply fan meetings, etc., translation, especially interpretation, is rapidly gaining wide currency and creating enormous demand in present society. Despite the fact that translation alrealdy received awareness from scholars a long time ago (e.
Cicero, Quintillian, 1st B.), it was not until the second half of the 20th century that a lot of research on translation was carried out. Typical were works by Goldman-Eisler (1972), Barik (1973, 1975), Gerver (1976), Moser (1978), Chernov (1979), Larmbert (1984) (cited in Russell, 2005). However, not many studies have paid attention to the translation of specific types of sentence which is believed to be a significant work especially between languages that have dissimilar lexical, grammatical and cultural system like English and Vietnamese. This study, thus, is expected to exert the first effort in this concern, i.
investigating translation strategies for English-Vietnamese translation of different types of sentence. Nevertheless, because this study was given a period of 6 months to be done, a large scale study is impossible to be launched. Hence, only 3 common types of sentence are investigated in this study, namely passive sentences, conditional sentences and sentences containing relative clauses. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY With the major aim of investigating how 3 types of sentences, viz.
passive sentences, conditional sentences and sentences containing relative clauses, are translated from English into Vietnamese, the following objectives are aimed at: 2 1. To find out how English sentences containing relative clauses in the investigated presentations are translated into Vietnamese 2. To find out how English passive sentences in the investigated presentations are translated into Vietnamese 3. To find out how English conditional sentences in the investigated presentations are translated into Vietnamese 1.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS Based on the aims of the study, the following questions are expected to be answered: 1. How are English sentences containing relative clauses in presentations at an ICISE’s international conference translated into Vietnamese? 2. How are English passive sentences in presentations at an ICISE’s international conference translated into Vietnamese? 3. How are English conditional sentences in presentations at an ICISE’s international conference translated into Vietnamese? 1.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY The three main concerns of this study are translation strategies for sentences containing relative clauses, passive sentences and conditional sentences. Data for this study are records of presentations at international conferences held at the International Center for Interdisciplinary Science and Education (ICISE) in Vietnam and their Vietnamese translation records. Only three types of sentence are covered in this study because of the time limitation allowed for this study to be done within a 6-month period. The reason why only presentations at ICISE are chosen is three-fold.
First, other sources of data were inaccessible and only ICISE had the record system that made translation records available for this study. Second, the conferences held at ICISE were scientific conferences which were believed to be a good context for data collection. More specifically, the ICISE hosts between 10 and 12 high level international scientific conferences on an annual basis. Having already covered disciplines in the scope of fundamental or applied science mainly 3 in the field of physics, the program was expected to cover a larger array of scientific disciplines such as biology, medicine, social and human sciences.
Finally, the interpreter for the investigated conference was the director of the Vietnamese National Center for Translation and Interpretation, so his translation could be considered as a reliable source of samples, which could be somehow regarded as the model of English-Vietnamese translation for English relative clauses. Although only presentations at ICISE are taken for examination, the number of samples of each type of the three investigated sentences are sufficient for analysis with about 120 samples for each one. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY First, the study is expected to somehow contribute to the recognition of possible difficulties and challenges that an interpreter are likely confronted with during his translation work in the context of a conference. Besides, after examining the way sentences containing relative clauses, passive sentences and conditional sentences are translated from English into Vietnamese by the investigated interpreter, recommendation translations are made for each poor-assessed and average-assessed translation made by him.
Finally, general recommendations for the translation of each type of sentence are provided to facilitate the work of English-Vietnamese conference interpretation. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY This study consists of 5 chapters as follows: Chapter 1, Introduction, includes the rationale, aim and objectives of the study, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and organization of the study. Chapter 2, Literature Review and Theoretical Background, provides some previous relevant studies and relevant theoretical background for the study. Chapter 3, Research Methodology, gives information about the data sources and samples, data collection, research methods, the translation quality assessment approach, research procedures and the reliability and validity of the study.
4 Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion, presents the findings of the study which is followed by a discusion. Chapter 5, Conclusions and Implications, provides a summary of the major findings from which conclusions are drawn and implications are stated. After that, limitations of the study are indicated to make suggestions for further studies. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.
TRANSLATION AND RELEVANT ISSUES 2. Translation The definition of translation, just like other abstract terms, varies from scholar to scholar. The variety of its definition can be explained as the result of the difference in the mentality of people from different period as well as the difference in the perspective from which translation is considered. Catford (1965) defined translation as an operation performed on languages which was a process of replacing a text in one language by a text in another language.