Chuyên đề tốt nghiệp: A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES FACED BY MARKETING INTERNS IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH MARKETING TERMS INTO VIETNAMESE

NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITYFACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGESDEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ENGLISHNGUYEN THI THU HUE Business English 58A A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES FACED BY MARKETING INTERNS IN TRANS

Interview: After finding out the problems and their reasons, the

author will interview 5 experts in field of marketing and marketing translation and 10 marketing interns This method aims at asking them to evaluate the results of survey and give suggestions to solve.

The study is divided into four main chapters as following:

It describes the overview, research objectives, research questions, methodology and research’s organization.

In this chapter, it will show the literature review mentioning about what has already been said and done in this area In particular, theoretical background from previous researches have presented in the term of marketing terminology

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A translation, including Translation, marketing, common translation methods, marketing terminology, and common obstacles that the marketing interns might come across in their translation processes.

This chapter undertakes to answer the first research question, with the purpose of analyzing the survey The authors will focus on marketing interns’ obstacles when translating terms and their causes based on collected data and get deeper understanding about the causes of the listed problems.

Chapter 4: RecommendationsChapter 4 will provide some approachable solutions for marketing interns identify and overcome the mentioned difficulties in translating marketing terms.

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A

This chapter will show the theoretical background written by reliable and prestigious authors in previous studies related to marketing terminology translation.

Translation is considered as the communication in the source text with an equivalent term in the target text which depends on its meaning Since people were aware of written literature, translation started and became more attentive.

Many authors have emphasized the importance of translation Especially, according to Peter Newmark (1988), translation has played indispensable part in the field of not only literature, culture and religion but also commercial advertisement, popular entertainment, public administration, immigration and education Therefore, there are many concepts of translation as well as books and articles written about this subject The following are some typical definitions that are basic theoretical background for this study.

According to Peter Newmark (1988) mentioning in his “Textbook of translation”, translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text.

More specifically, Larson (1984) mentioned that translation is a process that in which translators make progress to understanding the language in the original text’s meaning and replace it by an exact meaning in the target text He affirmed in detail, the process requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical skills of the source language Moreover, the author realized that translation depends on a study of the lexicon, the grammatical structure, the communication situation and the cultural context of the source language (SL) text Therefore, different types, sizes and shapes of translations require a different approach.

Although these definitions are different in expression, the experts share their common points of view about core feature of translation In conclusion,translation is a transfer process, which aims at the transformation of a written source language (SL) into target language (TL), which put the demand that the

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A translators should have a wide range of understanding not only the internal, but the external background surrounded the language.

Translation is often known as “the replacement of a text in the one language (SL) by an equivalent text in another language (TL)” To facilitate the translation process, translators need to understand common translation methods, which have been mentioned by many experts.

Peter Newmark (1988) stated that there are different approaches to translation with various methods The central problem of translating is whether to translate literally or freely From his point of view, it depends on some factors such as the purpose of the translation, the nature of the readership, and the text types Therefore, Newmark concluded that translators can make use of eight methods in translation:

+ Word-for-word translation: This is the method that the English learners use to take up in the process of mastering their translation skills In this method, the source text’s word order is preserved and it individually translates word This method is described by Vinay and Darbelnet as the most popular among all methods.

+ Literal translation: the source text’s grammatical forms are converted nearest exactly to the target text, but the lexical words are individually translated, out of context Literal translation is considered as the basic step of translation process.

+ Faithful translation: it produces a precise meaning in term of context in the target text with many rules about grammar The cultural words can be converted but the degree of grammatical and lexical “abnormality” in the translation must be reserved.

+ Semantic translation: this method has something in common with “faithful translation” apart from taking more account of the source text’s aesthetic value.

+ Adaptation: This seems to be the freest translation form and used when a situation in the original culture does not exist in the translation culture so there must be an equivalence to the original culture Therefore, this method is mostly applied in plays, poetry, in which themes, characters and plots are usually preserved Dung Vu (2004) also asserted that “Adaptation has a property of

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A lending the ideas of the original to creative a new text used by a new language mare than to be faithful to the original The creation in adaptation is completely objective in content as well as form”.

+ Free translation: the source text’s form, context is produced without manner into the target text This method just transmits the meanings of the source language in translator’s own word Normally, it has much longer expression than the source text, which make target language more natural.

WITH TRANSLATING MARKETING TERMS

8 Not satisfied @ qui 8 Satisfied # Very satisfied

Figure 3.1 Degree of marketing interns' satisfaction with translating marketing terms

3.1.3 The degree of accuracy in translating English - Vietnamese terms of respondents

During the survey, the author gave out 7 examples of marketing terms to check the translation skills of respondents The result revealed that most participants made some mistakes in translation process, which led to inaccurate meaning of TL Firstly, they got into trouble while translating terms into equivalent target languages For example, with the term “Mass-customization marketing”, they did not understand the meaning of “customization”, so they made the inaccurate translation Secondly, creating a correct semantic combination was not easy which made the word in wrong order Thirdly, many terms could not be translated through word-by-word method and have a completely different meaning when it comes to marketing field For instance, the term “/ist price” was often translated inaccurately into “đanh sách giá”; this term is actually translated to “gid niém yét” in marketing field Some terms easily mistranslated including “List price”, “Mail questionnaire”, “Mass-customization marketing”, “USP” In the following table, the researcher gives an exact translation, which are collected from Bach Khoa international digital academy, for the list of seven terms mentioned.

Source Sentence Target language language

List price The retailer receives $18 at its list price, Gia niém yét and the manufacturer receives the remaining $22.

Brand equity Brand equity plays an important partin Giá trị (tal evaluating the brand success and chính) cua profitability thương hiệu

Mail Mail questionnaire 1s one of the most Phương pháp questionnaire affordable ways to gather quantitative điều tra bằng data bảng câu hỏi gửi thư

Exclusive Because the exclusive distributor is Phân phối độc distribution himself dependent on the company, the quyén company is very much in control.

Door-to-door Door-to-door sales is one of the most Bán hàng đến sales infamously challenging types of selling tan nha

Mass-customizat Mass customization allows a customer Tiếp thi ca thé ion marketing to design certain features of a product hóa theo số đông while still keeping costs closer to that of mass-produced products.

USP USP can be an effective tool that makes Đặc điểm bán your product different from the hang độc nhất competition.

Table 3.2 The accurate translation for marketing terms in the questionnaire

3.1.4 The common method often applied in the translation of English marketing terms into Vietnamese

When dealing with a term, many ways would be analyzed to find the most suitable one In the survey, the researcher continued publishing examples including: list price, brand equity, mail questionnaire, exclusive distribution, door-to-door sales, mass-customization marketing, USP, in order to find out which methods the participants used to translate the meaning of English marketing terms to Vietnamese This part would analyze the common ways marketing interns chose.

Considering the first term “List price”, it can be seen from the survey result that interns used different methods to translate this term In which, literal translation was chosen by the majority of students which made up for 54 percent, as the best one to create the best version whose meaning was closest compared to the original text On the other hand, 30 percent of students considered translation by paraphrase using related words as their cup of tea while surprisingly 12 percent chose translation by addition method help them create another version of language into target text Finally, there are other five choices of translation by paraphrase using unrelated word.

Similarly, other terms have been translated by different methods, as indicated by the table below:

Literal rase tion b Transla Usi itera rase ion sin

unrelat reduce ion related n word ed words words words words List price 55 30 5 12 0 Brand equity 46 46 10 0 0

Mass-custo mization 65 37 0 0 0 0 marketing USP 50 2 5 5 5 35

Table 3.3 Common methods applied in the translation of English marketing terms into Vietnamese by survey respondents

From the table above, it can be inferred that most of interns had their own ways to translate marketing terms, in general literal translation ranked first for its advantages However, obviously, they tended to use unreasonable methods, resulting in an inaccurate translation This judgment has also been mentioned in the previous findings of other researchers Newmark (1988) indicates that a thorough understanding of translation theory and methods make translation process to be faster, easier and more accurate.

In this research the author recommended the most effective ways should be used to translate these seven terms through the table below:

Translation by paraphrase using unrelated word

Translation by paraphrase using related word

Translation by using loan word loan word plus explanation

This approach is mainly used when terms which are not lexicalized at all in the TL and mainly based on the modification of a super ordinate or the unpacking of the source terminology meaning.

The position between two nouns has changed when it 1s translated into Vietnamese Additional information is supplied in a

TL in order to help the reader understand it exactly

Their rules based on the nearest meaning connection of each word.

The position between two nouns has changed when it is_ translated into Vietnamese

Source language is lexicalized in the TL but in different forms

Additional information is supplied in a TL in order to help the reader understand it exactly

The method is applied for the word which have foreign origin’ or have no equivalence in TL, commonly the abbreviation.

Table 3.4 The best recommended ways used to translate marketing terms in the questionnaire

In general, marketing interns got confused in translating marketing terms.

It requires them to spend more time on learning and practicing Through these survey questions, the author realized the lack of suitable method usage as well as the interns’ dissatisfaction with their marketing terminology, which were identified as factors of misunderstanding in translation From this issue, the

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A researcher continued to find out a number of obstacles marketing novices encounter when translating marketing terms.

3.2 Marketing interns’ difficulties when translating marketing terms

Undoubtedly, marketing interns have encountered many troubles when taking charge of translating marketing The collected data partly showed that the obstacles are complex and it prevents translators to fulfill their expectation when dealing with a translation It cannot be denied that terminology may not be the piece of cake because of their specific academic From blooming concerns, a question was created to collect the information about barriers to get a perfect translation that many interns are facing with All collected information are divided into three main categories: vocabulary knowledge, lexical difficulties,and the culture difficulties.

TRANSLATING MARKETING TERMS

Differences in cultures between two countries a ao

Ambiguity due to lexical diversity a ô:

Unfamiliar terms with new definitions

Figure 3.2 Marketing interns’ difficulties when translating marketing terms

Not much surprisingly, when the largest number, about 83 participants (81.4 percent), considered unfamiliar terms with new definitions as a barrier to translate marketing terms Obliviously, in term of becoming a translator, the demand for having vocabulary knowledge is of great necessaries Hence, the study will prioritize to analyze the two difficulties including lexical ambiguity which accounts for 63.7 percent of respondents and culture difficulties chosen by 46 participants (45.1 percent).

It comes to conclusion that the main problem caused when translating marketing terms is due to lexical ambiguity and inadequacy Besides, cultural disparity is also significant influencing factors According to the answer of 10 participants from the interview, most of them are aware of the importance of vocabulary in translation process However, lack of vocabulary is considered as the major barrier which prevent them from understand the meaning of the source language and therefore mistranslate into target language Therefore, this chapter gives further understanding of the elements that affected the marketing interns in their translating marketing text and how they dealt with these obstacles in translation.

For more detail, the author specifically analyzed each factor which leads to translation difficulties and the causes of them.

When it comes to a language learner, it seems that lexical-related-problem is always seen as one of barriers during the translation process The diversity and complexity of the vocabulary in both original text as well as the target text lead to the unfamiliarity and ambiguity in defining meanings Therefore, facing problems to pick up the precise words for translation is unavoidable.

3.2.1.1 Ambiguity due to lexical diversity

The typical components including Single terms, Derivative terms, Compound terms, Phrases, and Abbreviations represented the diverse characteristics of English vocabulary The diversity led to the difficulty in defining terms’ meanings, and made marketing translation process become more challenging for translators The 4" question in the survey indicated the most confusing and challenging type of term in interns’ translation The result collected was incorporated with previous findings The most voted obstacle was phrases while no one chose single terms Respectively, there are 63.6 percent votes for phrases, 18.2 percent for abbreviations, 9.1 percent for derivative terms,

MARKETING TERMS

Single terms Derivative terms Compound terms Phrases Abbreviations

Figure 3.3 Lexical difficulties in translating marketing terms (i) Single terms

Single terms only occupy a small number compared to others, however, these terms play an important part in derivation process to create new terms.

These words are commonly used and are considered the basis in English for specific purpose as well as Marketing field, so the translators find it uncomplicated to translate Some common single terms can be listed such as market, buy, brand, target, brand, product, cost, value, benefit, advert, sell.

This kind of terms are formed by the root in association with the help of prefixes and suffixes, so the translator can also easily guess what these terms mean Through the questionnaire survey, 9.1 percent of participants agreed that derivative term was the most challenging to them among all types of terms.

For example: deflation, devaluation, anti-corporatism, multi-branding, advertiser, competitor, co-sponsorship, telemarketing, repositioning.

Because compound term is combined by two roots, in which the root is considered as single term, the translator can translate each word, match words

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A and quickly find out the meaning of the word Therefore, if translators have rich vocabulary in the field of marketing, it will take simple for them to translate this type of term.

For example: communication channel, mission statement, opinion leader, upmarket, middleman, brand competition.

Dictionary Cambridge defined abbreviation as a shortened form of writing of a word or phrase It usually consists of one or more letters taken from the abbreviated word itself In marketing field, they are commonly used to save time and space For example: CTA (Call to action), TARPS (Target Audience Rating Points), PR (Public Relations)

Abbreviations are considered an obstacle in marketing translation especially to amateur translators or newcomers who have not had many experiences in marketing field A large number of people would find it impossible to translate abbreviation if they have never heard of them before This kind of word even become more challenging now when it is exchangeable among different fields with different meanings because the classification and flexibility of vocabulary.

For example, the abbreviation USP can be used to denote a name of a gun in the military field In the field of education, there are a plenty of USP university name which stands for such as: University of Southern Pacific, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Universidade de São Paulo USP also means Universal serial port, a port of a computer used to connect to other devices in technology area In marketing, USP is the abbreviation of Unique Selling Point (đặc điểm ban hang độc nhất).

Phrases is considered the biggest hurdle among different types in translation process Phrases is defined as “group of words that commonly characterized as a grammatical unit at a level between a word and a clause”.

However, there is a large number of phrases whose meaning cannot be understood from its separate parts Therefore, the meaning of phrases is often unpredictable if not learned.

The difficulty in phrase translation is proved by 7 question when the author has given out phrases in order to check the interns’ understanding and translation capabilities The result showed that only a small number of phrases could be easy to guess the complete meaning For example, the phrase “mail questionnaire” is often translated based on components’ meaning A variety of respondents translated into “bang hoi mail” or “câu hoi email’ without any concern about the ambiguity mistake of target language Actually, “mail questionnaire” is translated into “Phương pháp điều tra bằng bảng câu hỏi gửi thự”.

It can be concluded that ambiguity causes a range of confusions for students in obtain the accurate meaning of marketing terms Each language has its own characteristic, yet they still share something in common Therefore, the first priority when translating from SL to TL is spending a considerable amount of time to find a suitable one in the target text, well-preparing the knowledge of this field and minimizing any mistake during the process.

3.2.1.2 Unfamiliar terms with new definitions

When facing an unknown word, the situation will become out of control and create a range of trouble in the translation process Terminology is an aspect that requires high accuracy, so vocabulary plays a significant part in terminology translation process.

Considering the term “exclusive distribution’, if this 1s the first time that the marketing novices has heard about this word “exclusive”, he could hardly realize exact meaning of this word On the contrast, if the person knows the meaning of the “exclusive” as “độc quyền”, they will easily find out the accurate target language and this term means “phân phối độc quyên”.

In short, lack of vocabulary will avoid language learners expressing their own ideas about something, especially when facing with unknown terms With the obstacles in supplying vocabulary, students have to continuously cultivate new words Admittedly, vocabulary seems never be sufficient to be applied and the warehouse of vocabulary is endless, nothing is considered to be enough.

From this identity, the researcher focus on how the marketing interns deal with new terms in translation As looked at the chart below, it is very apparent that among the methods of translating new terms, using internet or dictionaries to

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A look up new words is selected in the highest number of 60 out of 102 respondents(equal to 58.8 percent); guessing through the context or use the free-style method ranks second with 35 respondents (equal to 34.3 percent); asking lecturers or professional person accounts for only 5.9% and ignoring the terms is hardly applicable.

WITH NEW TERMS IN MARKETING TRANSLATION

Guessing Look up on the internet Ask lecturers or Ignore the terms or dictionaries professional person

Figure 3.4 Marketing interns’ tendency when facing with new terms in marketing translation

Most interns had the tendency of accessing the internet or traditional dictionary to look up the new terms This is obviously an optimal solution due to the fact that new terms and information are updated frequently nowadays, which helps translators take it easy to transfer words from SL into TL Actually, the usage of dictionaries such as general bilingual dictionary, dictionary of marketing plays a significant role when doing translation of marketing terms in particular and learning language in general Dictionaries can provide help that meets the needs of translators in terms of the accuracy of the words, expressions of the source text and the speed of the job In addition, a dictionary contains information about the usage of a word, together with its spelling and pronunciation, which facilitate users with abundant vocabulary knowledge It is considered as an important source of language learning and teaching.

Making a guess or applying free style translation method is also a favorable method used Actually, not a few people tried to use word by word translation to

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A guess the meaning of terms Besides, freestyle method is often applied if s translator does not know the exact meaning, however, this way can cause changes in meanings and possibly make mistakes because of the translators’ misunderstanding.

Furthermore, the author obtained similar results when interviewing 5 marketing students They all came up with solutions that using google search, online dictionary and terminology glossary to deal with the impediment deriving from the new terms during translation process Especially, online search helps them save a lot of time and be easy to access Obviously, with the development of modern technology nowadays, internet is evaluated to be an abundant source of data for users to access and find information as fast as possible On the flip side, it is a "risky" source with unreliable, misleading content It should be emphasized that the Internet can be used best as a complement rather than a replacement to other types of traditional dictionaries.

Consequently, to handle the problem, a continuously cultivating new words is strongly compulsory to broaden your vocabulary world and improve the use of words as well as minimize the fight raised during translation process.

Undeniably, culture has a great impact on every aspect of human lives such as: customs, business, education even its language However, culture issues are always considered as one of challenges that may drive students into struggle when translating marketing terms Because the cultures of different languages are diverse, there are certain differences among them, which hinder translators when transferring cultural elements of SL into the TL Therefore, translators are required to cultivate their knowledge in both two language’s culture and when put them into comparison, they can distinguish the differences in culture meaning in order to get the complete translation.

This report will show clearly cultural difficulties that marketing interns deal with during marketing term translating process and all answers are figured out in the following chart.

CULTURAL DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING

MARKETING TERMS f The language barrier ® Cultural misunderstandings

= Non-equivalence name for specific terms of culture

Figure 3.5 Cultural difficulties in translating marketing terms

The result shown in this chart is quite similar to what the author forecasted.

Nearly a half of participants (47 percent) mentioned that cultural misunderstandings was the most confusing and challenging to them in term of culture difficulties, while non-equivalence name for a specific terms of culture was voted by 36 respondents which accounts for 35.3 percent of the total, and the rest of respondents (17.7 percent) considered the language barrier issue as their biggest problems.

As commonly known before, cultural barriers prevent translators from understanding the flow of communication which can cause obstacles during translation In addition, its influence is spread over a wide range of whole translation and if the translator fails to overcome it, the translation will be eliminated as a result Obviously, it seems to be a major task to fix the problem by using refinement of certain terminology translation.

The phrase "Customer Insight" is a term that cannot be properly translated into Vietnamese Some websites or blogs that translate "Customer Insight" into

“Thấu hiểu khách hàng” hay “Sự thật ngầm hiểu” However, they are not completely exact meaning when comparing to the source language "Insight" in English is defined as "the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive

Nguyễn Thị Thu Huệ - 11162103 — Business English 58A understanding of a person or thing", and it means “Khả năng dat được một su thấu hiểu trực quan chính xác và sâu sắc về một người hay một vật” In

Vietnamese Thus, the closest meaning of "Customer Insight" can be understood as seeking activities or behaviors of customer to measure in a qualitative or quantitative way Instead of translating into Vietnamese meaning, marketers often use “Insight”, “Marketing’ as common Vietnamese term when communicating.

Admittedly, the language barrier has a strong influence on communication between customers and businesses It seems to be difficult duty for marketers if they cannot overcome language barrier and comprehend the exact meaning of special words or terms, which will lead to some unfortunate misunderstandings in marketing field On the other hand, the language barrier creates many opportunities to promote innovation as well as creativity in translation.

Culture varies from different countries lead to differences among people’s views on a same issue This situation may be accepted in this country but not occur in another culture In the field of business, misunderstanding in transferring information can put the issue on dangerous place because readers can understand in different ways.

The direction in understanding marketing terms of customers will determined by the success or failure of a brand extension campaign Many companies have experienced the cultural misunderstandings in the new market because of their wrong words or terms applied in their marketing strategies.

A marketing scandal happened with a well-known brand in the world called KFC is a typical example When they choose slogan “finger — lickin” which is known as an extremely frightening meaning “eat all your fingers” when being translated into Chinese Another example is "Nova", a very compact car made by Chevrolet, but it was really surprised that they could not sell any car in

South America because the word "Nova" in this region means “It won't work”.

Nowadays, business integration requires a deeper cultural knowledge and culture strongly affects comprehending marketing terminology that exist on international interview or articles or even in negotiation and contracts Thus, the readers and translators are required to broaden their understanding for accurate meaning of the terms in different culture.

3.2.2.3 Non-equivalence name for specific terms of culture

Through the questionnaire, 36 respondents stated they had difficulties in finding an equivalent term to replace a word in the original text and it sometimes drove them crazy when they failed Culture is distinctive so it seemed to be a very difficult task to create a new version with the exact meaning Three students in the interview also stated their trouble with elucidate some marketing terms’ meaning and claimed that they had difficulties in deciding whether the terms are more or less formal to adapt for suitable occasions.

The difficulties regarding to culture-specific expressions are due to the lack of equivalent terms between English and Vietnamese There are some terms that exist in English but do not make sense or sound unfamiliar in Vietnamese When translated culture-specific items, the translators have to carry connotative meaning in the source culture For example, the term “Jist price” was often mistranslated into “danh sách gid’ by word-by-word method; but this term is actually translated to “gid niém yét” in marketing field What’s more, there are not always common standards for all terms in all countries of the world The

“one and only” concept of term is sometimes deceiving and insensible due to this cultural difference For instance, the abbreviation USP varies among regions and countries It can be used to denote a name of a gun in Germany, the university name in English, a type of book in American In the field of marketing, USP is the abbreviation of Unique Selling Point (đặc điểm bán hàng độc nhất).

The specific term chosen to replace has to meet the demand on having a suitable meaning in the TL’s culture Therefore, it is a requirement for translators that they should carefully analyze terms in the source language in order to get the complete meaning and try their best to find equivalent terms in the target language Business is not an easy field, so careful translation of business terms is in great demand.

In brief, lack of cultural knowledge can cause different obstacles in translating marketing terms Instead of using word-by-word method which make sentences unnatural, the translator is required to gain cultural competence in order to convey the message of the target language more exactly and naturally.

To sum up all the main points, marketing interns’ struggle in marketing terminology translation are mainly lexical and cultural problems Cultural