8 AN ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE TRANSLATION QUALITY OF SALE CONTRACTS AT JS HITECH VINA COMPANY

MINISTRY OF FINANCE ACADEMY OF FINANCE -⧫ -⧫ Student: Đào Phương Thảo Group: CQ55/51.05 GRADUATION THESIS TOPIC: “AN ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE TRANSLATION QUALITY OF SALE CONTRACTS AT JS HITECH VINA COMPANY” Major: Student code: Supervisor: English for Finance and Accounting 17522202010158 Bùi Thị Tuyết Mai (Ms.) Hanoi – 2021 Academy Of Finance Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 Graduation Thesis I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis DECLARATION I, Dao Phuong Thao, declare that this thesis and the study presented in it are my own work Where other sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged Thesis “An analysis of factors affecting the translation quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company” Hanoi, May 24th 2021 Student Đào Phương Thảo Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis ABSTRACT This thesis examines the factors that influence the quality of sales contract translations at JS HITECH VINA company The main objective of this study is to find out the pros and cons in the activity of translating sale contract, then finding ways to develop strengths and overcome weaknesses in the process of translating contracts To achieve these goals, this study synthesizes the activities of translating sale contract at JS HITECH VINA company and analyzes its effectiveness The thesis has practical implications in improving the translation quality of the sale contract at JS HITECH VINA company Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people First of all, I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my supervisor MA Bui Thi Tuyet Mai - lecturer of Academy of Finance, for her tremendous mentor, excellent guidance, caring, patience Secondly, I would also like to thank the accounting department staffs in JS HITECH VINA company esspecially Ms Dao Thi Tra My who helped me to conduct data for the study Last but not least, I would like to state my special thanks to the staffs of JS HITECH VINA for their valuable supports during the internship Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SL-Source language TL-Target language JS company - JS HITECH VINA Co., Ltd QC- Quality Control Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES List Figure 1.1 is the structure of the JS HITECH VINA company Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 Page 17 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis TABLE OF CONTENTS Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study English has now become a global language for business all over the world Many organisation around the world use English as a means of communication from email to contracts Therefore, having knowledge of English has become vital for success of any business especially FDI company English is the preferred language when business partners not speak the same language It’s time when translation need Translation makes it easier to communicate with business partners In Vietnam, foreign direct investment companies or import export companies need to translate documents from emails to contracts to contact or negotiate with partners Especially, translated contracts will be the main evidence of the cooperation among partners So, the translation qualities of contracts need to be true and clear During my training time in JS HITECH VINA company, being aware of the important of the translation quality of contracts, as well as based on the knowledge learned at school and practical experience gained I got from the internship, I decided to choose the topic “An analysis of factors affecting the translation quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company” Aim of the study This study aims at analyzing factors affecting the translation quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company and therefore, to suggest solutions to improve and strengthen the quality of translated sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company Scope of the study The study is performed at JS HITECH VINA company, Ba Huyen, Tien Du, Bac Ninh It’s the product of long gathering, searching and translating process The study based on the data provided by the company from 2017 to 2021 Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis Methodology of the study This thesis is carried out with some methods Several methods are used as follow: i) Document collection: sale contracts, internal documents and information of the business ii) Method of analyzing, summarizing, synthesizing materials iii) Text/document comparison, evaluation and conclusion Organization of the study The study is divided into three parts: i) Chapter is the literature review This chapter will provide general knowledge of translation, sale contract and the essential qualities of a translated sale contract ii) Chapter is The situation of the translation quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company This chapter will give an overview of the translation of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company and analyze the factors affecting the translation quality of sale contracts This chapter also presents some limitations of translation activities of the company iii) Chapter is Recommendations This chapter analyses some limitation of translation activities of JS HITECH VINA company and suggest some solutions Then it will present some recommendations Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis On the contrary, if the company’s regulations are strict and unreasonable, the working environment is toxic and the company doesn’t have any bonus regime, their employees will feel disappointed and their working productivity will be low 2.4 Limitations “ Nothing is perfect on the human stage” (Winston Churchill) and so does the translation activities of JS company There are some limitations that happened in the JS’s translation procedure, the expertise of translators and their culture 2.4.1 Limitation of translation procedure The translation procedure of JS company is basic and elaborate, but in the company, there is no specific translation department, so that their procedure is not efficient enough In summary, their translation process has total five steps Reading and analysing, translating, editting the first time, editting the second time and the last checking are their steps process According to the evaluation of the results, the translation process of JS company is very clear and careful but unbalanced which leads to unstable translation quality The reason is that they focus too much on the editting stages and they nearly forget the developing first draft stage According to my analysis above, the first draft of a translation is also important It can reflect the quality of the source text and the ability of the translator When the quality of the first draft translation is ignored, the editor and checker will be suffer and all the work remained In some cases, if the quality of the first draft is too bad, the editors will have to rewrite and fix most of the contract Consequences, the editors will be the most hardworking one, but in the translation process, their work is still considered as the first translator This result may lead to some conflicts between the translators and conflicts always are the worst things for business 2.4.2 Limitation of the translators Not only the translation procedure but also the translators of JS company have some limits According to the part 2.3., we know that the main force of translators in JS company are accountants They are the ones who have skills and Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis experiences in accounting and contract writing or even translation of contract, but they are not professional on translation and English language 2.4.2.1 Lack of knowledge of translation The translators of JS company are not the one who were trained in specified translation school or class so that they usually lack of basic knowledges They can translate sale contracts because they have done this job so many times, they gain experiences in each sale contracts The reason simply is that their major is accounting Although JS company is a foreign-invested company and works with foreign company, it does not have a translation department This is a cost-cutting strategy Instead of having its own translation department, JS company has tendency to hire staff who know English or Korean These employees often take over the translation of their department English-speaking accountants often undertake additional translation of sales contracts This strategy saves the company labor costs, so the company has a competitive advantage in price over other companies 2.4.2.2 Lack of knowledge of English language JS company tends to hire staffs who have already known English, but the staff just “know about English” The employees of JS company fluent in English with four skills including speaking, writing, reading and listening However, these skills are not enough to be a skillful translator Therefore, there are some mistakes usually found in their translation of sale contract Vocabulary errors such as word collocation, misuse of prepositions and the spelling errors are the common mistake Word collocation is defined as a sequence of words or terms which co-occur more often than would be expected by chance Spelling errors in translation are common mistakes For example, the translators make this mistake when they are too rush or sometimes they are too careless to dare to write the word which they are not sure about it In sale contract, the word being spelt wrong by translators numerous of time is “Force majeure” meaning “ trường hợp bất khả kháng” or “ bảo hành” meaning “Warranty” Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis The translators who not good at English can make grammar mistakes The grammar errors are the common mistakes such as tense, the forms of words and sentence structure For example, in the Machinery sale contract between JS HITECH and ELENTEC, there are an article: “ 4.1 Trách nhiệm bên A A Bên A cung cấp đơn đặt hàng cho bên B trước tuần có nhu cầu đặt hàng gửi vào Email cho bên B (Bên B trách nhiệm giao hàng bên A chưa có đơn đặt hàng ký nhận người có trách nhiệm).” And the translation which has the mistake about tense: “ 4.1 Responsibilities of Party A A Party A provided orders to Party B week in advance when ordering and sends to Email to Party B (Party B is not responsible for delivery when Party A does not have signed orders responsibility) And the correct translation is “provides” with Present tense Every activities mentioned in the article is happening or is going to happen, the translator can’t use the past tense in this case 2.4.3 Limitation of the JS company’s culture Every culture has both advantages and disadvantages and so does the JS company’s culture The company is invested 100% by Korea and their board of directors are Korean Therefore, their company’s culture is also very Korean Besides the positive points of this culture as mentioned, there are some drawbacks of it, especially in the translation of sale contract Firstly, the deadline of translation of the sale contract is really tight JS company has a elaborate translation procedure with tight deadline The translators need to submit their translation of sale contract in a short time In addition, the regulations of the company are really strict, so it’s difficult to delay the submission date of time or transfer the work to colleagues The reason is that the Korean always want the work being done efficiently However, it’s difficult to have a good translation if the sale contract is translated in a short period of time Tight deadline Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis force the translators to work in a rush which affect the quality of the translation negatively Secondly, although the evinronment at work is friendly, but it also have some problems In Korea, the values of the society are based on Confucianism, so that they really respect the hierachy These values are clearly shown in the workplace Everyone looks all the same but there is an invisible order around the company This is a good values of a society but in a workplace that needs sharing, help and fairness, the values are considered not as good as expected Another problems of the JS company is the reference materials Although others translators willingly share their knowledge and experiences, the reference materials source is still not much Because not all translator have enough knowledge and experience to deal with the translation of the sale contract They need the reference materials to consult and learn Learning from co-workers is a good way but it’s not enough That was the real situation of the management of sale contract translation at JS HITECH VINA in the recent two years Although the company has gained a lot of achievements but it still has some existing problems in managing the translation of sale contract Therefore, to gain more success and achievements, the company needs to make every effort in its business, especially in translation of sale contract management CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS 3.1 Suggestions This analysis have found some limitations of the translation activities of JS company This part will present some suggestions which can help These limitations mentioned in Chapter will slow down the productivity of the translation procedure Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis and reduce the quality of the translation of sale contract That’s the reason why some suggestions are going to be recommended a) Balancing the translation procedure The company has worked hard to create a fairly complete contract translation process, but the process has limitations And these limitations significantly affect the quality of contract translations in particular and the business performance of the company in general The company put too much effort on the editting stages and nearly ignore the stages which the sale contract is translated first time This tutorial lead to unstable quality of each stage The suggestion that I want to give is that the company should add more translator in the first translation stage What I means is that in the first translation of sale contract, it should be two or three translators the work together It may cost additional money but it’s worthy In addition, the company doesn’t have specified translation department so that they should invest carefully in their current translators Moreover, the editting stages should be reduced to main stages Too many editting stages is not a good things Sometimes the translation of the sale contracts is messed up with variety of thoughts and opinions of editors The editting stages should be done with certain translators who have a number of years experience and knowledge of translation and sale contract writing Another problems is the fairness The company have good bonus but sometimes it didn’t work efficiently It should work based on the performance of each employees The translators will get rewarded when they meet the standards or when they well So, in the JS company’s situation, the editors will be the only one who get bonuses because he is the most hardworking employees The first translators who the first draft will rarely get bonuses because of his bad performance When the bonus program works fairly, the employees can feel appreciated and motivated Therefore, the quality of their performance can be improved In addition, there are two types of bonuses that the JS company can give Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis out are suitable for translators The annual bonus is one of the most common types of bonus which employees get rewarded once a year The annual bonuses will motivate the translators, give them something to look forward to and providing an incentive to maintain a consistenly good quality of translation of sale contract The other bonus is an on-the-spot or spot bonus which is a one-time bonus used to reward exceptional work in unique circumstances Employers use spot bonuses to compensate for extra work and reward people who show ambition and motivation For example, the translators will get the annual bonus if they complete their translation on time during a year and the spot bonus if their performance are good or their translation receives positive feedbacks from coworkers or clients b) Improving the translators English and translation skills The translators account for 50% of the translation success And at JS company, the translators mainly are accountants so that they don’t have expertise in translation and even English language Therefore, the solution to this problem is that the translator himself should learn more about translation and English At JS company, the translators will take their time to get the final translation just right and the mistakes will be fixed in the editing stages However, there’s one mistake they can’t fix The mistake is not learning If they want to consistently improve the translations of the sale contract and climb the career ladder, there is nothing worse than spending all the free time doing nothing They need to keep learning and learning The translators of the company need to improve their translation skills and learn more about English language when they are not the professionals translator Most of the translators at JS company know English language, but simply knowing a second language does not mean you can translate Therefore, the translators must learn more about translation and English Firstly, the translators have to gain advanced English knowledge which is nearly the native level You can’t translate something unless you understand it And if you don’t understand the text fully, you risk misinterpreting it and delivering a translation that’s not completely accurate So Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis good translators need to understand all meaning including in the sale contract The translators can improve their English knowledge by studying and practicing Grammar and vocabulary mistakes are usually made by JS’s translators and they need to be fixed The first solution is to learn more about English grammar to reinforce the background of English Translators can grammar exercises in books or on the Internet In addition, they aslo can take some courses such as IELTS or TOEIC when they have free time, these course will help them a lot The second one is reading Reading widely is the best solution to extend the translators’s vocabulary In the freetime, reading the translation of the previous sale contract and noting down difficult word or term will enrich the translators’s specialized vocabulary Secondly, it’s necessary to research things such as wordings, meanings, vocabulary, background information Language is constantly changing so that the translators are always researching things The more efficiently they can it the better their translation can be The most common way is that learning the tricks to refining Google searches All of the things needed will be available on Google so that the translators need to learn how to search The other way is finding the most useful reference source At JS company, the translation of previous sale contract is the most reliable reference source because it were passed and used by the board of the directors In addition, the translators can refine their translation research skills by seeing what their coworkers Watching your peers and learn from them You can see which tools they used or which document they referenced And then you can apply those ways to your translation c) Changing the organization culture Company culture expresses an organization's values and beliefs through shared assumptions and group norms within the workplace Company culture is a shared belief system where employees have similar values In addition, it’s also considered as the collective hearts and minds of an organization Therefore, the company culture can affect employees’attitudes about their work and the company they are working for Everything about the company culture such as mechanisms, Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis processes and activities connected to the employees’s experience at work play a part in how they feel At JS company, the company’s culture affect directly the translators’s attitudes at work and it should be repaired to improve the company culture Firstly, regulations on the deadlines of translation need to be loosened Discipline and work efficiency are top priority in a company with Korean corporate culture and JS company is Korean company too, they always wants the job to be completed in an optimal time Therefore, the deadlines that the company makes for translations and translators are always very tight, and the quality requirements of each translation are very strict But completing the translation in an certain time will not guarantee the quality of the translation, especially the translation of the sale agreement In addition, the translators at JS Company are not the professionals, they will not be able to complete the translation well in a short period of time Therefore, it is necessary to loosen the deadlines for translations The translation of email or the description document of goods can be translated in half a day or within hours In contrast, sales contract translations should be completed within to days to ensure the quality of the translation of sale contract If there are issues to be discussed or rewritten, these translation of the sale contract must be taken longer Secondly, changing work culture is necessary In general, JS company work culture is still based on the tradition of Confucianism and it also has some factors including a top-down work order and unfair assessment of performance that should be fixed The fact is that changing a company’s work culture is hard, especially the Korean work culture The most prominent problem of JS’s working culture is the hierarchy Korean social hierarchy is a complex set of unspoken rules about people’s positions, status, and the relationships between them And that issue is clearly reflected in the company culture In the meetings or even in daily work, almost only senior can discuss and the opinions of juniors are not paid much attention This hierarchical concept also leads to an unfair assessment of the ability of working or performance among employees, from which conflicts and disputes Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis arise This culture puts considerable pressure on young or inexperienced employees However, it is almost impossible to ask JS company to change their corporate culture into an American company Therefore, the measure that JS company can apply to improve working culture is to promote teamwork atmosphere in the company For example, instead of every decision being made by a single leader or senior, it should be discussed and decided by the whole team It helps the juniors' opinions to be valued and considered, makes them feel valued and satisfied Working in groups will help individuals to integrate into the collective better In addition, having a lot of group activities will also reduce the hierarchical atmosphere in the company and create a more comfortable and friendly working environment In order to take this measure, teambuilding events, extracurricular activities, travel or meetings between employees are necessary 3.2 Recommendations In addition to a few suggestions for improving the limitations, the JS company may also consider a few recommendations that would make the quality of the translation of the sales contract guaranteed in the future a) Creating effective trainning program Training programs have become very familiar to businesses These programs will supplement and train employees' knowledge, thereby improving their efficiency and productivity When done properly, training can make workers more efficient — increasing production, revenue, and profits while decreasing costs, waste, and inefficiencies In JS company, translators are non-professionals, their main major is accounting Therefore, to improve the translation quality of sales contract, the company should offer translation and English training courses About the translation and English courses, companies will have to spend time researching suitable courses for translators The employees with weak translation backgrounds will take the translation course This course should provide knowledge of the use of words and sentences, the culture of the English language, specialized words about sales contracts, types of English contracts, English Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis courses will also include the use of English grammar, word usage, sentence structure, Providing translators with effective courses will increase productivity and ensure quality of sales contract translation b) Recruiting the experienced translators The company does not need training courses when they hire trained people Trained translators have a strong knowledge of translation and English, the company can be completely assured when using them Especially when recruiting translators with experience translating sales contracts, with the previous experience they have, the performance and quality of work will increase significantly But at JS Company, this suggestion would raise a problem When hiring professional translators, it is almost impossible to cut costs on translation As a company adds a separate division, it costs more And this recommendation becomes more difficult in the context of an epidemic Therefore, hiring of experienced translators will probably need to be carefully considered CONCLUSION It’s not denied that translation has become importance in the context that English has become the most commonly used language in the world In companies, especially foreign-invested companies, translation becomes an essential element, especially important documents such as sales contracts JS Company always understands this In recent years, the company has always paid great attention to the quality and effectiveness of the contracts Consequently, the company has also achieved some great achievements However, besides the achievements, the company's translation activities still have some limitations that need to be fixed Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis From the knowledge that I learned in the university and the practical experiences at JS company, I have completed an analysis of the factors affecting the translation quality of sales contract here In this analysis, I have pointed out and analyzed a few factors that I think affect the quality and effectiveness of the translation of sales contract After that, I boldly gave some suggestions and recommendations that I think it can increase the efficiency and quality of translation at the company However, improvement of translation activities of JS company is a complex problem It needs to be carefully investigated and considered I also know that the amount of knowledge about translation and English that I have is not large, so that in the internship and this essay, it’s difficult to avoid mistakes These suggestions and recommendations are only personal and I really look forward to receive contributions and comments from the lecturers and others readers Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my instructor, Ms Bui Thi Tuyet Mai, who enthusiastically helped me finish this thesis I also would like to thank the staffs of JS HITECH VINA Co., Ltd for helping me in my internship Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis REFERENCE A-Books Morris Michael Lewis, (1974) Language in Society Foster, M (1958) Translation from/into Farsi and English Wolfram Wilss (1982) The Science of Translation Tu Anh (2005), English-Vietnamese translation techniques, (p.10-16) Hồ Đắc Túc (2012) Dịch thuật Tự Công ty TNHH Sách Phương Nam Đại học Hoa Sen Hà Nội: NXB Hồng Đức Robinson, Douglas., ed 1997 Western Translation Theory Manchester St Jerome Publishing Tytler, A.F Essay on Principles of Translation, Edinburgh: Cadell & Davies, extracted in D Robinson (ed.) 1997 208-12 Print Dolet, E ‘How Translate Well from One Language to another’ B-Internet Cambridge English Dictionary The Merriam Webster Dictionary, 1974 The translation process- PACTRANZ or Pacific International Translations (https://www.pactranz.com/) First foundation – (https://www.firstfoundation.ca/mortgage- glossary/sale contract/ ) Legal match – Sale contract (https://www.legalmatch.com/ ) Upcounsel – Sale contract (https://www.upcounsel.com/ ) The Project Jurrisprudence (https://www.projectjurisprudence.com/2019/02/6-essential-characteristics-ofcontract-of-sale.html ) (https://luatminhkhue.vn/amp/hop-dong-la-gi -khai-niem-hop-dong- duoc hieu-nhu-the-nao aspx?fbclid=IwAR2DTwopkTtIGKZT a40K61AeO3TDsLwy_VJ7a5GMSG189hIgcBi7UyoI0Y ) Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis (https://legal-translations.com.au/importance-legal-contract- translations/ ) 10 (https://luatvietan.vn/luu-y-khi-dam-phan-soan-thao-hop-dong.html ) Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Graduation Thesis CRITIC’S JUDGEMENT Critic: …………………………………………………………………………………… Student: Đào Phương Thảo Group: 51.05 Intake: CQ 55 Topic: “An analysis of factors affecting the translation quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company” Mark: • - In number: • - In word: Critic Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 I Academy Of Finance Đào Phương Thảo-CQ55/51.05 Graduation Thesis I ... quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company This chapter will give an overview of the translation of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company and analyze the factors affecting the translation. .. by the Board of the directors The company? ??s translation procedure can be considered as an elaborate one 2.3 Factors affecting the translation quality of sale contracts at JS HITECH VINA company. .. completing the translation in an certain time will not guarantee the quality of the translation, especially the translation of the sale agreement In addition, the translators at JS Company are not the