THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON COMMON DIFFICULTIES IN CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING FROM ENGLISH TO VIETNAMESE OF STUDENTS IN ENGLISH FACULTY AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY Super[.]
THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY GRADUATION PAPER A STUDY ON COMMON DIFFICULTIES IN CONSECUTIVE INTERPRETING FROM ENGLISH TO VIETNAMESE OF STUDENTS IN ENGLISH FACULTY AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY Supervisor : Ms Pham Thi Phuong Lien MA Student : Nguyen Thi Thuy Huong Class : K54N5 Student Code : 18D170220 HANOI, 2022 ABSTRACT Nobody can deny that English is now the most popular language in the world However, not everyone speaks English, so interpreting has emerged as a bridge between the nations of the world Vietnam has been implementing many open policies promote bilateral and multilateral cooperation among regions and the whole world, it is essential to develop ways to communicate between people In many conferences of Vietnamese companies with foreign partners, there are interpreters involved to translate the contents of the meeting The interpreting method they use during the meeting is consecutive interpreting, which means that after the partner finishes speaking, they must immediately translate into Vietnamese In order to meet the demands, Interpreting has been teaching at Thuongmai University at English Faculty with the hope to train high-qualified interpreters In this subject, students know and learn how to apply the consecutive interpreting in interpreting but I realized that they have to encounter with many difficulties on the way to master it Recognizing the negative impact of these difficulties, the researcher conducted a small study to identify some common difficulties that English-majored students encounter during consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese The purpose of the research is to identify and explain these difficulties, and to provide some methods for students to be good at interpreting and have their own experience in the following working process There are 110 students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University participate in this study They have taken the interpretation course and have experienced with doing English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting test ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study cannot complete without help and guidance from internal and external sources from teachers of the English faculty and many other fellow students at Thuongmai University First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Pham Thi Phuong Lien, lecturer of Thuongmai University for her valuable guidance, encouragement, correction, helpful suggestions, and detailed comments from the preparation to the completion of this thesis Moreover, in the process of researching for the argument, I have also received a lot of supports from the lecturers in Thuongmai University as well as my friends, classmates, and family Despite lots of efforts, shortcomings can be unavoidable in this study I am looking forward to getting the suggestions and advice from teachers and other professionals to improve this paper Sincerely, Nguyen Thi Thuy Huong iii TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENT .iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS vii CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Previous studies .2 1.3 Aims of the study .3 1.4 Research Subjects 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Research methodology 1.7 Organization of the study .5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .7 2.1 Definition of interpreting 2.2 Types of interpreting .8 2.3 Consecutive interpreting 2.4 Consecutive interpreting stages 10 2.4.1 Interpreting process .10 2.5 A common difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese 12 2.5.1 Linguistic .12 2.5.2 Listening and Speed .14 2.5.3 Note–taking 17 2.5.4 Memory 18 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 21 3.1 Method and procedures .21 3.1.1 Research methodology 21 3.1.2 Research procedures 23 iv 3.2 Findings and discussion 24 3.2.1 Students’ attitudes toward consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese 24 3.2.3 The causes of students’ difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese 40 CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 43 4.1 Suggestions to solve students’ difficulties in learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese 43 4.1.1 Suggested solutions for students 43 4.1.2 Suggested solutions for teachers in the process of teaching .46 4.2 Limitations of the study and possible areas for future research 47 CONCLUSION 48 REFERENCES I APPENDIX III APPENDIX .IV v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviation Meaning TMU Thuongmai University CI Consecutive Interpreting SL Source language TL Target language STM Short-term memory LTM Long-term memory vi LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS List of Tables Table 1: The most important and difficult element for students in English – Vietnamese consecutive interpreting 29 Table Difficulties related to linguistic 30 Table 3: Statistics about difficulties in listening and speed 31 Table The reasons for difficulties in short-term memory .36 List of Charts Chart The importance of consecutive interpreting .25 Chart Students’ opinions about the process of learning English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting 26 Chart 3: The interpreting competence of students 27 Chart 4: Time to practice English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting 27 Chart 5: Types of information causing difficulty to memory 35 Chart 6: Difficulties related to note-taking 37 Chart 7: Causes of students’ difficulties in English-Vietnamese consecutive interpreting 40 vii CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale Due to globalization, English become the most prominent language in the world The reality, however, is that not everybody can speak English, fewer still can speak it well enough to communicate effectively Therefore, interpreting is a very important factor in the modern world, it is the bridge for various nations and cultures to exchange their information in multinational conferences When large international corporations now tend to business with other countries all over the world, interpreting will play a crucial and effective role in successful interactions with people of other countries to ensure that all parties understand each other For qualified interpreting, they have to be fluent in languages and to be able to think quickly and speak clearly to interpret accurately To meet the increasing need in the interpreting market, there have been an ever growing number of tertiary education institutions becoming involved in the formal training of translation and interpreting professionals In the context of Thuongmai University which leads in the fields of commerce, students in the Faculty of English are trained in Interpreting as a compulsory subject for their future job During the process of learning this subject, students usually encounter difficulties as it entails more efforts and different skills in both consecutive interpreting and simultaneous interpreting Having spent about years studying at Thuongmai University, I have got many experiences, and realized many common obstacles that English-majored students encountered in learning interpreting, especially in consecutive interpreting Hence, these matters inspire me a real desire to conduct this study to figure out the difficulties that students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University common encountered when learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese and suggest several possible solutions to help learners overcome difficulties I hope that this result can be a guideline for students in the Faculty of English at Thuongmai University 1.2 Previous studies The researcher has found some previous studies that related with this research A recent study of Marta Arumi Ribas(2012) entitled “Problems and Strategies in Consecutive Interpreting: A Pilot Study at Two Different Stages of Interpreter Training” is a contribution to the study of strategic competence in interpreting which analyses the interpreting problems encountered by two groups of students at two different stages of training and the strategies they apply It details and classifies the strategies used to resolve the difficulties and assesses the students’ perception as to whether and how they have successfully completed the task In the research 'Effective Strategies for Teaching Consecutive Interpreting' of Debra Russell (2010) described a frame of reference used to shape learning activities that help students to acquire the competencies required for proficient use of consecutive interpreting In addition, they presented a typical progression of skill sequencing and material selection criteria and suggested that programs that structure the teaching of consecutive interpreting A study on “Interpreting Errors in Translation " of Séguinot (1990) cited some basic errors such as grammatical and pragmatic errors, and described that learners made different kind of errors at different developmental stages In Vietnam context, the research about “A Study of Mistakes and Errors in Consecutive Interpretation from Vietnamese to English” of Dang (2010) indicated two main types of errors namely mistakes in pronunciation and grammar and lexical errors Then he recommended some solutions for both teachers and students Nguyen Thi Bich Giang and Nguyen Thi My Duyen (2021) made a research entitled: "An investigation into difficulties in learning Conference Interpretation encountered by English-majored students at Duy Tan University and strategies to cope with" to investigate students’ difficulties that often occur in learning Conference Interpretation of English -majored students at Duy Tan University These difficulties included Lack of knowledge, Wrong pronunciation, Ineffective note-taking skills, Slow-reacting speed The researchers also gave some suggested solutions for learners to overcome their problems in learning this subject Based on the research above, the researcher realized that they have similarity with this research but almost studies above were conducted in a larger category Therefore, this research focused on the students’ difficulties in consecutive interpreting in the environment of university training, especially by Englishmajored students at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions to cope with 1.3 Aims of the study The goal of the study is not only help students find out the difficulties encountered in learning teaching and study interpreting, but also to improve performance, quality of the interpreting at the Thuongmai University Therefore, the specific purpose of that research is to find out what difficulties students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University often encounter when learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese and to research the causes of students’ difficulties Hence, some reasonable recommendations will be made to achieve the original goal of the study In short, these objectives can be fulfilled by answering the two following research questions: What difficulties students usually encounter while learning consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese? What are the reasons standing behind these difficulties? What suggestions can be offered to help students overcome such difficulties? 1.4 Research Subjects This study is about the common difficulties in consecutive interpreting from English to Vietnamese faced by English-majored students at Thuongmai University 1.5 Scope of the study Because of the limited time and knowledge, this research only focuses on analyzing and emphasizing the common difficulties that students encounter in learning difficulties consecutive interpreting with which find out the reasons lead to and suggested solutions for students in learning Vietnamese consecutive interpreting English to