(Luận văn thạc sĩ) the quality of google translate’svietnamese translations of english idioms with words denoting time

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY VÕ MỸ THƯ THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE’S VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH IDIOMS WITH WORDS DENOTING TIME h Field: English Linguistics Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Dr Le Nhan Thanh BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN VÕ MỸ THƯ CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH CÁC THÀNH NGỮ CHỨA TỪ CHỈ THỜI GIAN TỪ TIẾNG ANH SANG TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE h Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8.22.02.01 Người hướng dẫn: TS LÊ NHÂN THÀNH i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby confirm that the thesis entitled “The quality of Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations of English idioms with words denoting time” is the result of my work except for the reference mentioned in the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other institutions Quy Nhon, October,2020 Performer Võ Mỹ Thư h ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The fulfillment of this thesis is thanks to the encouragement and efforts of many people to whom I would like to pay my gratitude to First and foremost, I would like to sincerely express my innermost gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Le Nhan Thanh, who I am deeply indebted for the continuous support, patience, immense motivation, and valuable guidance to accomplish this work Without his persistent help, this study could not have been possible The knowledge and experience gained from doing the MA course have been priceless to my studying and career Besides, I wish to express my special thanks to all the lecturers who are in charge of training for the 21st MA course at Quy Nhon University for having transmitted immense knowledge and creating a friendly and constructive environment during the course h I am also extremely thankful to my close friends and colleagues who always give encouragement and energy to overcome difficulties during the time I attended the MA course Last but not least, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my warmhearted family members for their love, care, and support which are sources of motivation for me to attempt to complete this thesis iii ABSTRACT Google Translate is the most pervasive online translation tool used in the current time In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in evaluating the quality of GT in different genres However, far too little attention has been paid to GT‟s quality in idiom translation; this study aims to investigate the quality of GT‟s Vietnamese translations of English idioms with words denoting time in terms of translation errors Accordingly, the study examined the translation error types committed by GT and their corresponding frequency In an attempt to achieve this aim, both the qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed to analyze the data GT‟s Vietnamese translations of 128 English idioms with words denoting time were analyzed based on the conceptual framework on translation error proposed by Nord (1997) including four types of translation errors: pragmatic h errors, cultural errors, linguistic errors, and text-specific errors The translation errors found in GT translations and their occurrences are used for translation quality assessment The results indicate that GT could not achieve the expected accuracy in translating pure and semi idioms with figurative meanings, and GT shows better quality in translating literal idioms than pure idioms In addition, among the four translation error types, pragmatic errors are the most common error committed by GT in Vietnamese translations of English idioms Some suggestions and implications are proposed for teachers and students majoring in translation, translators, and researchers who are interested in the related field iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE 1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1.2.1.Aim 1.2.2.Objectives 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY h 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Translation 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Translation process 2.1.3 Types of translation 11 2.1.4 Machine translation 14 2.1.5 Google Translate 16 2.1.6 Translation errors 19 2.1.7 Translation Quality Assessment 25 2.2 Idioms 27 2.2.1 Definitions of idioms 27 2.2.2 Classification of idioms 29 2.2.3 Idioms denoting time 31 v 2.2.4 Idioms translations 31 2.3 Previous studies 33 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 37 3.1 Research methods 37 3.2 Data collection 39 3.3 Data analysis 43 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 46 4.1 Translation errors in Google Translate‟s Vietnamese translations of English idioms 46 4.1.1 No translation errors 47 4.1.2 Pragmatic translation errors 50 4.1.4 Cultural translation errors 57 4.1.5 Text-specific translation errors 62 4.1.6 Special cases in translation errors 65 h 4.2 Frequency of translation error types in Google Translate‟s Vietnamese translations according to idiom types 68 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 71 5.1 Summary of findings 71 5.2 Limitations 73 5.3 Implications 74 5.4 Suggestions for further research 75 REFERENCES APPENDICES vi ABBREVIATIONS cultural translation errors GT Google Translate IT idioms with words denoting time LE linguistic translation errors LI literal idioms MT Machine Translation NE no error PE pragmatic translation errors PI pure idioms SI semi-idioms SL source language TE text-specific translation errors TL target language TQA translation quality assessment h CE vii LIST OF TABLES Number Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 4.7 h Table 4.3 Names of tables 109 languages supported by Google Translate (Google 2020) Identifiable characteristics of translation errors Types of idioms (McCarthy and O‟Dell, 2003, p.6) Sample Data Storage (English Idioms and Vietnamese translations from Google Translate in sentences) Translation errors for analyzing with reference examples The numbers of errors translation in each idioms types committed by GT Occurrences of translation errors types committed by GT The number of occurrences of no translation errors in each idiom type The number of occurrences of the pragmatic errors in each idiom type The number of occurrences of linguistic translation errors in each idiom type The number of occurrences of cultural errors in each idiom type The number of occurrences of the Text-specific translation errors in each idiom type The number of translation errors in each idiom type committed by GT Page 18 25 30 42 44 45 47 47 50 55 58 63 68 viii LIST OF FIGURES Number Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 2.3 Figure 2.4 Names of figures Translation process (Larson, 1984, p 4) Timeline of MT evolution (Maučec & Donaj, 2019) Google Translate graphical user interface Classification of translation errors (Vilar et al., 2006, p 699) Figure 4.1 Occurrences of translation errors according to idioms types Page 14 17 21 69 h