CODE MIXING AMONG EFL TEACHERS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY A CASE STUDY OF EFL TEACHERS AT ENGLISH DIVISION 1, FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE T[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ OANH A STUDY ON ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF COMPOUND NOUNS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DỊCH ANH-VIỆT CÁC DANH TỪ GHÉP CHUYÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi - 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** NGUYỄN THỊ OANH A STUDY ON ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF COMPOUND NOUNS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC DỊCH ANH-VIỆT CÁC DANH TỪ GHÉP CHUYÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Kiều Thị Thu Hương Hanoi - 2016 DECLARATION I, Nguyen Thi Oanh, hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “A study on English-Vietnamese translation of compound nouns in information technology” is the study of my own research to fulfill the Degree of Master of Art at Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The substance of this research has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution Hanoi, 2016 Signature Nguyen Thi Oanh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout the process of accomplishing the thesis, I have received the support and encouragement of teachers, family and friends First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Kieu Thi Thu Huong, for her patient guidance, critical feedback, encouragement and contructive provision throughout my research I would also like to send my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures during my M.A course Finally, my special thanks go to my family and friends for their considerable assistance during the time of the research conduction Without their help and support, this study could not have been completed ii ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the translation of English compound nouns in the information technology (IT from now on) into Vietnamese It aims at investigating the five common strategies normally applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese The study starts with the theoretical background that elaborates on the notion of translation, translation methods as well as translation procedures and equivalence Then it touches upon the typical features of English compound nouns in information technology In the main part, a detailed investigation and examination of the translation of these English compound nouns is carried out, from which it identifies the common translation strategies used in this field The five common strategies, namely transposition, transference, naturalization, couplets procedure (combining both transference and naturalization) and communication methods are common choices that translators often make in different situations or for different types of compound nouns, through each procedure embodies in itself both advantages and disadvantages Hopefully, the results of the study will be of some help to people who are in charge of teaching, studying and translating English IT terms into Vietnamese iii LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS ABBREVIATIONS IT: Information technology SL: Source language TL: Target language TABLES Table 1: Classification of compound words according to part of speech Table 2: Formations of compound nouns Table 1: Acronyms in information technology Table 2: Compound nouns formed by Noun and Noun Table 3: Compound nouns formed by Adjective and Noun Table 4: Compound nouns formed by Preposition and Noun Table 5: Compound nouns formed by Verb and Noun Table 6: Translation of compound nouns by transposition procedure Table 7: Translation of compound nouns by transference procedure Table 8: Translation of IT acronyms by transference procedure Table 9: The translation of IT compound nouns by naturalization procedure Table 10: The translation of IT compound nouns by both transference and naturalization procedure (couplets) Table 11: The translation of IT compound nouns by communicative method FIGURES Figure 1: The two main parts of information technology Figure 2: The five functions of information technology iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS iv PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Translation Theory 1.1 Definition of translation 1.2 Definition of translation equivalence 1.3 Technical translation 1.4 Translation methods 1.5 Translation procedures Compound nouns in English 10 2.1 Compound words 10 2.2 Classification of compound words 11 2.3 Compound nouns 12 An overview of information technology 16 3.1 What is information technology? 16 3.2 What are the main parts of information technology? 17 3.3 What are the main functions of information technology? 20 v CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 22 Introduction 22 English IT compound nouns in some IT documents and their Vietnamese equivalents in the dictionary or on the Internet 22 Translation strategies applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese 26 3.1 Translation of compound nouns by transposition procedure 27 3.2 Translation of compound nouns by transference procedure (use of loan words) 28 3.3 Translation of compound terms by naturalization procedure 32 Translation of compound nouns by both transference and naturalization procedure (couplets) 33 3.5 Translation of compound nouns by communicative method 34 Summary 35 PART C: CONCLUSIONS 44 Conclusions 44 Limitations of the study 46 Suggestions for further research 47 REFERENCES 48 APPENDIX I APPENDIX XV vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In the globalized world, translation has played an important role and has had remarkable influences on facilitating international exchanges and cooperation in various fields, particularly in information technology Information technology (IT) has been crossing geographical boundaries in serving clients and other industries In Vietnam, information technology has an indispensable role in the country’s industrialization and modernization Information technology with its superhighway has revolutionized man’s ways of working In the situation of an open market economy with international cooperation and fast-pace development of IT, translation of IT terminologies, therefore, has become an urgent need to exchange information and update modern technology Being a project assistant in the FPT Corporation, one of the biggest IT corporations in Vietnam, I am fully aware that the translation of IT terms is a difficult job It requires translators to continuously improve knowledge in the IT field as well as translation skills That is the main inspiration to me to carry out this research All the things concerned above have offered the researcher an opportunity to conduct a study on “English-Vietnamese translation of compound nouns in information technology Hopefully, the thesis will bring benefits to translators/interpreters, researchers, IT engineers, and those who are interested in the field Aims of the study In brief, the study is aimed at: Identifying common English compound nouns in information technology and their Vietnamese equivalents; Analyzing the translation strategies applied to translate these terms Research questions To achieve the above-stated aims, the following research questions are raised: What are English IT compound nouns in some IT documents and their Vietnamese equivalents in the dictionary or on the Internet? What are translation strategies normally applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese? Scope of the study The English compound words in information technology are innumerous and diverse in many materials and documents Due to the author’s limited time and experience, it would be impossible for her to cover all compound terms Moreover, among different types of IT compound words such as compound adjectives compound adverbs and compound verbs, compound nouns are considered to be the largest in number and variety Thus, the study only focuses on the English compound nouns mainly in computer technology section Methods of the study Since the aim of the study is to analyze and pinpoint some common translation strategies used in the translation of English IT compound nouns into Vietnamese, the main method of the study is descriptive Also, some other additional methods have been used, namely analytic, statistical, comparative and contrastive methods In the research, a number of IT compound nouns in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese are collected, and processed with various activities of sub-group classification, description, analysis, and compare and contrast Design of the study The present thesis is divided into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion a chest of drawers supported by a low stand Tallboy expresses only one concept whereas a tall boy, a noun phrase, conveys two concepts: a young male person and big in size Although all the criteria above seem to be convincing, it is insufficient to base on a criterion alone, it is advisable to combine all three criteria to distinguish a compound noun from a noun phrase 2.3.3 Classification of compound noun a According to the meaning In terms of meaning, a compound noun can be idiomatic or non-idiomatic Meaning of idiomatic compound is hardly deduced from the constituents’ meaning such as blackbird, minute steak or butter-finger Meanwhile, non-idiomatic compound nouns are compound nouns of which meaning can be deduced from the constituents, i.e the meaning is the sum of its part and it can be guessed even they are out of context Some examples of non-idiomatic compound nouns are doorkeeper, working man or dining table b According to componential relationship Compound nouns can be classified as coordinative or subordinative according to componential relationship Coordinate compound nouns are compounds whose constituents are both semantically and structurally independent The constituents are often of the same part of speech or of the same sematic group Coordinate compound nouns are like in these following examples: actor-manager, bye bye, or chitchat On the other hand, subordinative compounds are those that characterized by the domination of one component over the other semantically or structurally The second component, which is also called the determenatum, is the structural center and the dominant part of the word The first component is called the determinant which modifiers the second For examples: honey-bee, oil well, table leg, piano keys, pine tree, sandwich-man 15 c According to the relation of the compound noun as a whole to its constituent Jackson and Amvela states that compound nouns can be classified into two different types, namely, endocentric and exocentric Endocentric: is a type of compound in which one member functions as the head and the other as its modifier, attributing a property to the head “ Blackboard” is considered as an endocentric in that it refers to a type of board Exocentric: is a type of compound words where the thing that the compound refers to is not the same as the head “Pick-pocket” is an example of the exocentric which refers to a kind of person not a kind of pick or a kind or pocket An overview of information technology 3.1 What is information technology? Information technology (IT) is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate and/or disseminate information According to Gay and Blades (2005), Information Technology (IT) is the term used to describe the equipment, hardware and computer programs (software) that allows us to access, present data and information IT is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise In other words, IT refers to the creation, gathering, processing, storing, protecting, presenting and dissemination of information using hardware, software and telecommunication technology Many companies now have IT departments for managing the computers, networks, and other technical areas of their businesses IT jobs include computer programming, network administration, computer engineering, Web development, technical support, and many other related occupations As the results, information technology has become a part of our everyday lives 16 3.2 What are the main parts of information technology? According to Senn (2004), two different parts of IT are computer technology and communication technology Figure 1: The two main parts of information technology 3.2.1 Computer technology The first component is computer which is an electronic device or flexible machine that can accept data-raw facts, figures, processes, or manipulates, and convert it into information The computer is programmable, meaning that it all depends upon what program it is using for performing a particular function Classifications of computers: Computer can be classified into four different types according to the size, speed and cost The four main types of computers includes Supercomputer, Mainframe computer, Minicomputer and Microcomputer The most powerful and the largest computer is supercomputer which allows multiprocessing and lots of users to access at the same time Supercomputer is normally used for special tasks in aerospace, satellite, chemical, electronics, weather forecasts and nuclear power industries Mainframe computer is designed to meet the needs of large organization with large databases Minicomputer is smaller than a mainframe 17 computer, but big enough to cater a medium sized organization or a small-scale business Microcomputer is designed to meet the needs of an individual and thus is also called as Personal Computers Microcomputers could be PCs or desktops or laptops or even notebooks Elements of computers: The all types of computers mentioned above may different in shapes, sizes and purposes but all of them have certain characteristics in common Hardware refers to the physical parts of the computer or includes anything in the computer that we can touch Hardware can be divided into four main categories They are processor, memory, input and output devices, and storage devices Software brings life into the computer Software guides the hardware how to its job by different programs System software and application software are two categories of software People are a part of the computing process The people are sometimes directly or indirectly involved in the computing process Therefore, the computer works under the control of human and can never be the boss People involved in the computing process can broadly classified into users (end users), power users, and computer professionals Data includes all the information that can be accepted, processed or stored by a computer This information may be in the form of text documents, images, audio clips, software programs, or others Procedures are the steps that a user follows to make the computer work, and the steps that the computer follows to accomplish the instructions given by the user All these elements have to be organized in such a way that each element works smoothly and efficiently, both individually and in coordination with others During the computing process, computers integrate all these five elements Characteristics of computers: According to Deepak Bharihok (2000), there are seven main features of computers 18 Speed: A computer can perform billions of calculations in a second It takes only few seconds for calculations that we take hours to complete The speed of a computer is measured in Mega Hertz (MHz) or Gega Hertz (GHz) Storage: A computer can store massive amount of data This data can be used and reused for years (unless something goes wrong with the hardware) The storage capacity of a computer is measured in Mega Byte, Gega Byte or Tera Byte Accuracy: Computers can perform operations and process data with accurate results and no errors The errors in computer are due to human and incorrect data Versatility: A computer is versatile that means it can perform different types of tasks and be used in various fields such as at schools, universities, hospitals, government organization or at home for entertainment and work purposes Automation: A computer is an intelligent device and it is capable of functioning automatically, once the process is given to the computer When it is programmed for an activity in advance, it keeps doing it till it finishes, without any human intervention Diligence: Human beings normally suffer from physical and mental fatigue, so they cannot perform work with the same speed and accuracy Unlike a human, a computer is free from tiredness, lack of concentration or fatigue It can work for hours or perform tasks with the same speed and accuracy Reliability: All the above qualities of computers make them reliable and also make us too dependent on them 3.2.2 Communication technology The second component is Communication technology or Telecommunication technology, consists of electromagnetic devices and systems for communicating over long distances Communication technology refers to all the technology used to handle telecommunications, broadcast media, intelligent building management systems, audiovisual processing and transmission systems, and network-based control and monitoring functions. It contains three sub-parts as following: 19 Communication: the sending and receiving of data and information over a communications network Communications Network: a set of locations, or nodes, consisting of hardware, programs, and information linked together as a system that transmits and receives data and information Data Communication: the transmission of data and information through a communications medium 3.3 What are the main functions of information technology? Figure 2: The five functions of information technology Capture: The process of compiling detailed records of activities Processing: The process of converting, analyzing, computing, and synthesizing all forms of data or information including: Data Processing, Information Processing, Word Processing, Image Processing, Voice Processing Generation: The process of organizing information into a useful form, whether as numbers, text, sound, or visual image 20 Storage and Retrieval: Storage is the computer process of retaining information for future use Retrieval is the process by which a computer locates and copies stored data or information for further processing or for transmission to another user Transmission: The computer process of distributing information over a communications network like Electronic Mail, or E-Mail, Voice Messaging, or Voice Mail 21 CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS Introduction This chapter presents the result of the data analysis of common English compound nouns in information technology and the translation strategies applied to translate these compound nouns into Vietnamese The chapter will be divided into three main sections Apart from the chapter introduction, the second and third sections serve to present the findings of data analysis to find the answers to the two research questions Finally, a brief chapter summary will be given The data involved in the study are taken mainly from three books: “Oxford English for Information Technology” and “Oxford English for Computing”; and Microsoft Computer Dictionary (e-book format) English IT compound nouns in some IT documents and their Vietnamese equivalents in the dictionary or on the Internet The three books: “Oxford English for Information Technology” and “Oxford English for Computing”; and “Microsoft Computer Dictionary” are the main resources for the study’s data Most IT compound nouns presented in this study are largely collected from the three books mentioned above and their Vietnamese meanings or equivalents are found in some dictionaries or searched on the Internet The development of information technology entails increasing occurrence of terms, especially compound terms to describe new concepts or new objects, which requires that readers have understanding of the formation and structure of compound terms so that they can really get benefit from what they deal with It is a fact that in compound nouns, the exact relationship between the words depends on the particular expression, but all these expressions have one thing in common: the last word in the chain says what the thing is, while the preceding word or group of words describes the thing, which is termed “classifier” This order is opposite in Vietnamese For example, Network configuration information 22 => Thơng tin cấu hình mạng 3 A logarithm table => Bảng lơ ga rít 2 All common compound nouns are listed based on their structures in order that readers can easily follow and understand Accordingly, compound nouns can be formed by Noun and Noun, Adjective and Noun, Preposition and Noun or Participle and Noun 2.1 Compound nouns formed by Noun and Noun The most common structure or formation of a compound noun is noun and noun The head noun (last noun) tells us about the thing is mentioning and the first noun or group of nouns can tell us what the second noun is made of, what it is for, or what it is part of No English terms Vietnamese equivalents access charge phí tổn truy cập access code mã truy cập access control kiểm tra truy cập access line tuyến truy cập access lot cửa truy cập access arm cần truy cập access time thời gian truy xuất address bus bus địa alpha test kiểm tra alpha 10 bandwidth băng thông 11 base address địa sở 12 barcode mã vạch 13 beta site vị trí beta 14 bubble memory nhớ bọt 15 bus network mạng bus 16 boot disk đĩa khởi động 23 17 bootstrap program chương trình tự khởi động 18 cache memory nhớ đệm 19 character generator tạo ký tự 20 character generator tạo ký tự 21 circuit board bảng mạch 22 client-server máy chủ client 23 space character ký tự trắng 24 visual display unit hiển thị 25 sound card Thẻ âm Table 4: Compound nouns formed by Noun and Noun 2.2 Compound nouns formed by Adjective and Noun A compound noun including an adjective and a noun is the second popular structure of a compound noun In this case, the preceding adjective modifies the noun to create a compound terms such as binary number (số nhị phân), hierarchical database (cơ sở liệu phân cấp), active window (cửa sổ hành, computerbased training (đào tạo máy tính), etc No English terms Vietnamese equivalents absolute address địa tuyệt đối active window cửa sổ hoạt động alert box hộp báo động alternate key phím alt binary code mã nhị phân black box hộp đen black instruction lệnh giả blind copy ẩn bluetooh bluetooh 10 bold face kiểu chữ in đậm cold boot khởi động nguội (rebooting by pressing 11 the computer's power button) 24 12 fake code mật mã giả 13 hard copy cứng 14 hard disk đĩa cứng 15 hardware phần cứng 16 logic bomb chương trình phá hủy liệu 17 primary storage lưu trữ sơ cấp 18 shortcut shortcut - phím tắt/phím nóng 19 software phần mềm 20 khởi động nóng (Rebooting a computer through the menu warm boot keystroke combination 21 fixded disk đĩa cố định 22 integramming language mạch tổ hợp 23 mail bombing bom thư 24 operating system hệ điều hành 25 programming language ngơn ngữ lập trình option or the Table 5: Compound nouns formed by Adjective and Noun 2.3 Compound nouns formed by Preposition/ Adverbs and Verb No English terms Vietnamese equivalents down time thời gian ngừng download tải xuống update cập nhật upgrade nâng cấp input đầu vào ouput đầu throughput lưu lượng back-end back-end backup dự phòng 10 plug-in plug-in (một thành phần phần mềm 25 gắn thêm vào trình duyệt Nestcape Navigator Thành phần gắn thêm cho phép trình duyệt truy xuất thực thi tập tin nhứng vào tư liệu HTML dạng thức mà bình thường trình duyệt khơng nhận chẳng hạn nhiều tập tin hoạt ảnh, video âm Table 6: Compound nouns formed by Preposition and Noun 2.4 Compound nouns formed by Verb and Noun No English terms cheat engine Vietnamese equivalents phần mềm cheat engine (công cụ….) ứng dụng dropbox (Ứng dụng lưu trữ dropbox chia sẻ liệu trực tuyến) flash player ứng dụng âm flash player trình duyệt web google chrome (một trình duyệt web miễn phí phát triển bới Google, sử dụng tảng V8 google chrome engine) ứng dụng split cam (ứng dụng nhằm tạo thêm nhiều hiệu ứng độc đáo cho split cam webcam) Table 7: Compound nouns formed by Verb and Noun Translation strategies applied to translate IT compound nouns from English into Vietnamese By analysing the collected English compound nouns and their Vietnamese equivalents in information technology field, it is recorginized that some of the most popular procedures applied in the translation of these terms are transposition 26 procedure, transference procedure, naturalization procedure or couplets (both transference and naturalization procedure) and communicative method Tải FULL (67 trang): https://bit.ly/3fQM1u2 Dự phòng: fb.com/KhoTaiLieuAZ 3.1 Translation of compound nouns by transposition procedure One of the most common translation strategies applied to translate compound nouns in information technology is Transposition or Shift procedure “Transposition or Shift (NewMark) is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and most translators make transpositions intuitively” Using the transposition procedure there will be the changes in the word order from SL to TL and offers translator no choice The compound terms are translated backwards because of the different word order between English and Vietnamese For example, the compound noun “Absolute address” is formed by an adjective and a noun “Absolute” means “tuyệt đối” and “address” means “địa chỉ” in Vietnamese equivalent And “Absolute address” is translated as “địa tuyệt đối” It is clear that the order of the words in TL has been changed In English, the word “absolute” is an adjective and stands before the noun “address”; whereas, the positions of the two words has changed conversely in Vietnamese equivalent By applying this translation procedure, all the words in the term are naturally converted from English into Vietnamese without adding any expression There are lots of English compound nouns in information technology translated by this strategy No English terms Vietnamese equivalents absolute address địa tuyệt đối access charge phí tổn truy cập access code mã truy cập access control kiểm tra truy cập access line tuyến truy cập access lot cửa truy cập access arm cần truy cập access time thời gian truy xuất active window cửa sổ hoạt động 27 10 alert box hộp báo động 11 archive files tệp tin lưu trữ 12 base address địa sở 13 barcode mã vạch 14 black box hộp đen 15 character generator tạo ký tự 16 character set tổ hợp ký tự 17 character generator tạo ký tự 18 data exchange format định dạng trao đổi sở liệu 19 graphics file tập tin đồ họa 20 image quality chất lượng hình ảnh 21 network database sở liệu mạng 22 operating system hệ điều hành 23 programming language ngôn ngữ lập trình 24 processing scheme chế xử lý 25 search enigine cơng cụ tìm kiếm Table 8: Translation of compound nouns by transposition procedure This procedure is considered quite easy since the translator just needs to examine the structure of a compound noun, identifying the head noun and its modifiers or the division between the elements in the group and then change the order of those elements into their corresponding word in Vietnamese Often the translator has no choice but to comply with Vietnamese word order 3.2 Translation of compound nouns by transference procedure (use of loan words) Tải FULL (67 trang): https://bit.ly/3fQM1u2 Dự phòng: fb.com/KhoTaiLieuAZ Newmark (1995:81) states that transference (loan word, transcription) refers to the process of transferring a SL word to a TL word This procedure can be applied to the translator and interpreters because the meanings of words are too complicated and wordy to explain with short phrases 28 It can be seen that the use of transference procedure in the translation of information technology is becoming increasingly popular with the development of IT field When there are new concepts appearing in English, but there is no proper equivalent in Vietnamese, transference may be the only choice In the case, the new concepts are borrowed into Vietnamese, called loan-words It is easily accepted by professionals who are used to be using the concepts in their work, but it may sound strange to those who are lack of professional knowledge of the field The translation procedure can be found in the following examples: No English terms clip art Vietnamese equivalents clipart (a form of electronic graphic art that consists of simple illustrations as opposed to photographic images) blue tooh blue tooh (a wireless technology which allows digital devices to easily transfer files at high speed) backbone backbone (a JavaScript framework used in developing single-page web applications) back-end back-end (everything the users can’t see in the browser, like databases and servers) front-end front-end (everything involved with what the user sees, including design and some languages like HTML and CSS) palmtop palmtop plug-in plug-in (a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing program, examples for browser plug-in like Adobe Flash Player, QuickTime Player) short-cut short-cut touchpad touchpad 10 cheat engine cheat engine (an open source memory scanner/hex editor/debugger for the Windows operating system and is mostly used for cheating in computer games, 29 6814407 ... Adaptation Literal translation Free translation Faithful translation Idiomatic translation Semantic translation Communicative translation According to his V diagram, the method of word-for-word translation. .. INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study In the globalized world, translation has played an important role and has had remarkable influences on facilitating international exchanges and cooperation in various... classifies translation into translation of literary works and translation of scientific and technical matters According to him, literal translation covers such areas as fiction, poetry, drama and humanities