VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ CÚC INVESTIGATING ENGLISH - VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF GEOLOGY TEXTS (NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DỊCH ANH - VIỆT CÁC TÀI LIỆU CHUYÊN NGÀNH ĐỊA CHẤT) M.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ CÚC INVESTIGATING ENGLISH - VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF GEOLOGY TEXTS (NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DỊCH ANH - VIỆT CÁC TÀI LIỆU CHUYÊN NGÀNH ĐỊA CHẤT) M.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc. Lê Hùng Tiến Hanoi - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Certificate of originality I, Nguyễn Thị Cúc, hereby claim the originality of my study. Unless otherwise indicated, this is my own piece of academic accomplishment. Signature 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Acknowledgements I am sincerely grateful to Assoc.
Lê Hùng Tiến, my supervisor, for his guidance, valuable suggestions, and precious advice during the course of my MA thesis writing. Without his guidance, encouragement and critical comments, the study would have never been completed. My sincere gratitude goes to all my professors and lecturers at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, for their enthusiastic teaching and tremendous knowledge that have directly or indirectly enlightened my research paper. I would like to take this chance to thank all of my colleagues at Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Basic Sciences, and at Faculty of Geology at Hanoi University of Mining and Geology for their constant encouragement and the favorable conditions they provided.
Finally, I also wish to express my great thanks to my parents, my husband for their love, support and share of housework and childcare. Without their help, this thesis could not have gained the current status. Hanoi, October - 2016 Nguyễn Thị Cúc 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Abstract This thesis is targeted at investigating the English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts. Specifically, it is more concerned with the translation of some typical lexical and syntactic features in English geology texts which include geological terminologies, nominalizations, the passives, the relative clauses, and anticipatory empty subject It because of their highly frequent occurrence in investigated geology texts.
Major findings of the study are discovered: First, transposition is the main procedure applied to translate geology terminologies and nominalizations. Next, modulation and transposition stand out to be the two main translation procedures in translating the passive sentences and the empty subject It. In the third place, transposition, omission, and addition are three popular translation procedures applied in translation of the relative clauses. Besides, there are some lexical and syntactic translation problems which can be solved if the translators are trained to have not only translation skills, specialized knowledge but also English proficiency.
Some main conclusions are accordingly drawn out. In the first place, geology texts have more or less the same characteristics of technical and scientific documents. In the second place, although translation methods and procedures applied in translation differ and diversify from one lexical and syntactic feature to another, transposition, modulation, omission, and addition are four common translation procedures applied in translation of geology texts. 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Abbreviations SL: source language TL: target language ST: source text TT: target text N: Noun Adj: Adjective V: Verb NP: Noun phrase VP: Verb phrase 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality 3 Acknowledgements ii Error! Bookmark not defined.
Astract iii Acknowledgements iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 Part A: Introduction 1 1. Scope of the study 2 4. Design of the study 3 Part B: Development 5 Chapter 1: Theoretical background 5 1. Translation methods/procedures 5 1.
Geology texts 10 Chapter 2: Methodology 12 2. Study subject 12 7 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection 12 Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion 14 3. Translation of geological terminologies with transposition procedure 14 3.
Translation of single geological terms with transposition 15 3. Translation of compound geological terms with transposition 16 3. Translation of the passives with modulation and transposition 17 3. Translation of English passive structures into Vietnamese active ones with modulation procedure 17 2.
Translation of English passive structures into Vietnamese passive ones with transposition procedure 20 3. Translation of the relative clauses with transposition, omission, and addition 22 3. Translation of the relative clauses with transposition 23 3. Translation of the relative clauses with omission 25 3.
Translation of the relative clauses with addition 26 3. Translation of the empty subject It with transposition and modulation 27 3. Translation of the structure It + be + Ven + that clause with transposition and modulation 27 3. Translation of the structure It + be + adjective + to V with modulation 28 3.
Translation of the nominalizations with transposition procedure 29 3. Translation of SL noun phrases with TL verb phrases 30 3. Translation of SL noun phrases with TL noun phrases 31 3. Problems in English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts, possible causes 8 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com and solutions 32 3.
Possible causes and solutions 34 Part C: Conclusion 36 1. Implications for English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts 38 4. Suggestions for further research 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDIXES 43 9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part A: Introduction 1. Rationale Recent developments in science and technology have highlighted the acute need for scientific and technical translation because of its pivotal role in disseminating the latest scientific and technical knowledge.
At Faculty of Geology, Hanoi University of Mining and Geology, English for Geology is a compulsory subject and an essential tool for geology - majored students to be most updated with geological advances in the world. They usually have to deal with geology - related documents in English through various kinds of exercises like reading comprehension or translation tasks. To many students, translating geology - specialized texts from English into Vietnamese is a difficult and demanding task. As an ESP teacher, I frequently apply translation as an indispensable means to promote the students' better comprehension of English spoken or written technical documents in general and geology texts in particular.
The outcomes, however, are not highly pleasing since in most cases students could not give fully clarified explanations of geological terms or perfect translation versions of difficult texts, and the like. The reasons may be consequences of inadequate knowledge of English or lack of translation skills. In addition, as doing researches in applied linguistics is one of mandatory duties of university lecturers, I occasionally pay serious attention to translation of scientific and technical texts, especially geology ones. I find doing research on this issue problematic since so far there has been very little discussion about English - Vietnamese translation of geology documents.
The above-mentioned reasons inspired me to carry out an M.A minor thesis titled investigating English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts in the hope that the study can find out the major factors affecting the translation process, figure out prominent applied translation methods and procedures, problems, solutions and possibly provide useful implications to English - Vietnamese translation of geology 10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com texts and ESP learning and teaching. Study objectives Within the scope of this research, investigating English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts is undeniably an exclusive issue. However, due to the time limitation, the main objectives of this research are targeted to investigate an English course book of geology and its Vietnamese translation to locate major affecting factors to English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts, translation methods/procedures, problems, solutions and then suggest implications to English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts. Therefore, the main objectives addressed in this research will be: - Spotting the outstanding lexical and syntactic factors affecting the English - Vietnamese translation of hydrogeology texts, that is geological terminologies, nominalizations, the passives, the relative clauses, and anticipatory subject It.
- Identifying the translation methods/procedures applied in translating the above - mentioned lexical and syntactic features of geology texts. - Defining some translation problems, causes, and possible solutions to the problems. - Suggesting implications to English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts. Scope of the study Geology texts used for the data analysis are ensured to be representative, authentic, original and comprehensive since they are extracted from an English geological textbook - Applied Hydrogeology by C.
Fetter and its translation (Địa chất Thủy văn ứng dụng) by Vietnamese experts and teachers at Water Resources University - Nguyễn Uyên, Phạm Thanh Hiền & Phạm Hữu Sỹ. These books are now being exploited by lecturers and students as study materials for English for Hydrogeology course at Department of Hydrogeology, Faculty of Geology, Hanoi University of Mining and Geology. 11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methodology The thesis seeks answers for the following research questions: (1) What major translation procedures are applied to translate five main lexical and syntactic features of geology texts from English into Vietnamese? (2) What are possible translation problems, causes, and possible solutions to the problems? The main method of this descriptive study is data analysis aimed at analyzing and pinpointing the common translation methods/procedures used in the translation of English geology texts into Vietnamese.
In fact, a flexible combination of methods is employed, which includes referencing to publications, collecting, categorizing and analyzing data, and describing the results. Accordingly, the data analysis procedure is composed of the following major steps: Building up a theoretical background through reviewing translation theory and terminology. Clarifying and analyzing geology texts chosen as the subject of the study to find the answers to the research questions. Design of the study The study will consist of 3 main parts: Part A (Introduction) includes the rationale, aims, scope, methodology and the design of the study.
Part B (Development) consists of 2 chapters. Chapter 1 (Theoretical background) investigates translation theory which is composed of information about the definition, translation methods and procedures, translation equivalence, technical translation, and geology texts. Chapter 2 (Methodology) focuses on the subject of the study, data collection of the study. Chapter 3 (Findings and Discussion) covers the main findings and discussions related to English - Vietnamese translation of major semantic and syntactic features of geology texts.
Part C (Conclusion) summarizes the study in terms of the main findings, admits study limitations, as well as recommends 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com implications for English - Vietnamese translation of geology texts, ESP learning and teaching and suggestions for further research. While the references part lists all the books, documents, dictionaries, etc. referred in the research, the appendixes part refers English and Vietnamese geology texts exploited in the Study. 13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part B: Development Chapter 1: Theoretical background A considerable amount of literature has been published on translation studies; however, within the scope of the research, only some key concepts will be clearly elaborated as follows.
Translation methods/procedures Despite a large volume of published studies concerning translation theories, it seems that there are very few serious works or researches on translation methods as a system. There is, however, a consensus among researchers that translation methods are ways of translating for the widest range of texts or text categories, providing a framework of principles, restricted rules and hints for translating texts, criticizing translations, and a background for problem-solving. Newmark (1988:81) draws our attention to the differences between translation methods and translation procedures: "While translation methods relate to whole texts, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language". In translating texts, the translator uses a cluster of translation procedures.
Translation procedures are methods applied by translators when they formulate equivalence for the purpose of transferring elements of meaning from the SL to the TL (Delisle, 1999:139).