THE STATE BANK OF VIETNAM MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF BANKING GRADUATION THESIS Major: Business English USE OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE IN TRANSLATING COMMER
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
There are many different languages spoken throughout the world, each of which represents a distinct culture, history, and means of communication amongst people in different countries In the increasingly globalized world we live in, language barriers can make it challenging to access information (Rivera-Trigueros, 2022) As a means of bridging language barriers and providing communication channels among people of different languages and cultures, translation plays an important role in the advancement of global understanding
With the rapid development of technology, the advent of MT tools and especially the availability of GT, translation practices have seen a significant transformation Since its introduction in 2006, GT has gained its popularity by providing translation support for 133 languages worldwide Over the past decades,
GT has been widely used in various aspects of language education, especially in translation training and practices
GT has become increasingly popular in language learning since the tool offers a number of benefits Language learners have easy access to GT with the use of websites and online apps via smart devices connected to the Internet (Jolley & Maimone, 2022) In addition, the use of GT and other MT tools provide an effective solution to a great number of expensive and time-consuming tasks that require human translators (Azer & Aghayi, 2015)
However, the widespread use of GT has brought about several problems Language students tend to depend on GT as an instant instrument to complete their
2 assignments, yet they are not sure if the translations from GT are good enough (Brahmana et al., 2020) Many students easily accept translations from GT without questioning its quality GT translations sometimes produce inaccurate or unusable outputs that would hardly be produced by human translators (Alsalem, 2019) In other words, GT‟s translations are not as accurate as those generated by a qualified translator, and the quality of GT-translated texts is hardly up to the standard produced by a qualified human translator (Amilia & Yuwono, 2020) GT‟s translation is far from perfect owing to the high level of complexity of languages, which have many different meanings for words, different ways to interpret sentences, and grammatical rules that occur in one language but do not in another (Okpor, 2014) This signifies the importance of conducting the TQA of GT‟s products
Assessment of the quality of GT translations may benefit trainee translators as they need to know the degree of accuracy and the types of errors made by GT so as to improve the works (Hửnig, 1997, as cited in Zehnalovỏ, 2013) As a result, users can determine how to use GT effectively in their own ways In other words, assessment of the quality of GT translations helps users to measure and modify the GT‟s outputs (Gửrửg, 2014)
The need to assess the quality of translations produced by GT may benefit students who are doing translation courses at university As a senior English major in the Business English program at Ho Chi Minh University of Banking (HUB), the researcher had opportunities to attend translation courses in the study program These courses offer undergraduate students opportunities to develop knowledge and skills in business translation From the researcher‟s experiences and observation while doing the translation courses, several English majors at HUB have been dependent on GT for translation outputs while dealing with translation assignments Since GT can help students to produce translations quickly and easily, several students often put translation tasks into GT for outputs rather than doing the translations themselves and accept the GT translations without questioning its quality The heavy reliance on GT can make students lazy and hinder the development of their translation skills
This study aims to assess how accurate GT‟s translations of commercial contracts from English to Vietnamese are Furthermore, it seeks to identify the common errors that GT produces when translating commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese The findings of the study provide insights into the quality of translation produced by GT with the hope that HUB English majors are better informed about the limitations of GT By understanding GT‟s drawbacks, students can become less dependent on GT during the courses of their study Furthermore, the students know how to effectively make use of GT not only for dealing with assignments in translation courses at HUB but also for their professional practices in translation beyond university.
Research gaps
Investigating the translation quality of GT is not a new topic Several studies have examined the quality of GT‟s translations of business correspondences (Riadi et al., 2020), academic abstracts (Tongpoon-Patanasorn, 2020), newspapers (Foradi et al., 2022), and legal documents (Alkatheery, 2023) These studies provide insights into the benefits and drawbacks of GT‟ translations of different text genres Nevertheless, previous research on GT‟s translations of commercial contracts remains scarce In other words, despite the importance of commercial contracts used in business transactions, there is still a lack of studies looking into how effective GT is in translating these types of business documents This motivates the researcher to carry out this study to enhance our understanding of pros and cons of GT in translating business documents with a focus on commercial contracts In addition, its findings could contribute to our existing knowledge of translation machine tools and its application in translation and language study.
Scope of the study
Due to the time limit given for conducting the bachelor‟s thesis, this study concentrates on GT, one of the most popular MT tools Commercial contracts were selected as the materials for exploration in this study The commercial contracts cover a wide range of contract types, including Agreement for Extension of Lease, Contract for Sale of Goods, International Distributorship Agreement, Event Photography Contract, Legal Consultancy Agreement, Joint Marketing Agreement,
Retail Agreement, Agreement for Import of Vehicles, Promotion and Product Placement Agreement, and Advertisement Agency Agreement (See Appendix 1 for the sources of these contracts)
The motivation for choosing TQA as the focus of the study due to the fact that translation quality has been a topical issue in translation studies for decades (Lommel et al., 2014) TQA remains one of the most highly debated subjects in translation studies (Colina, 2009, as cited in Mateo, 2014) Therefore, assessing the quality of GT‟s translation is becoming increasingly important due to the widespread use of MT tools The study enables the researcher to explore in depth the efficiency and drawbacks of GT in translation in particular and in language learning in general.
Research aims
This study has two aims:
1 To assess the accuracy of GT‟s translations of commercial contracts from English to Vietnamese
2 To identify the common errors GT makes when translating commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese.
Research questions
RQ1 How accurate is the Google Translate‟s translation of commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese?
RQ2 What common errors does Google Translate make when translating commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese?
Significance of the study
The study expands our understanding of GT as a tool for translation with the hope to better integrate this tool into the translation courses for students to better achieve course learning outcomes Briggs (2018) claims that teachers ought to reflect on how they could support students by developing courses that help students utilize MT tools efficiently, rather than denying MT tools or completely banning them from use in academic settings
Furthermore, in addition to acknowledging the benefits of GT as an aid for translation, it is important not to undermine the role of human translators This
5 study supports the integration of GT with post-editing services provided by human translators in order to obtain high-quality translations of business documents instead of heavily depending on MT tools
Moreover, the study provides implications not only for students but also for teachers and translation course designers at university level The study provides insights into the accuracy of GT translation and the types of errors GT produces when generating translation of commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese The findings are hoped to serve as a source of references for technical experts to improve the quality of translation outputs of GT and other MT tools
Last but not least, the results of this study are helpful for translators since the study enhances our understanding of GT‟s strengths and weaknesses in its translation of business documents The findings enable translation professionals to be better equipped with knowledge and skills so as to decide how to use MT tools to enhance the quality of translation of their works.
Structure of the thesis
This thesis consists of five chapters:
In Chapter One, the background of the study and the research gaps in existing studies are established Furthermore, the scope of the study is defined to explain my choice of the research area The research aims, research questions, and significance of the study are also stated in this chapter
In Chapter Two, prior research is reviewed before drawing a theoretical framework of this study, including GT, TQA, commercial contracts and other related aspects
In Chapter Three, the methodology utilized for this study is presented It is clarified whether qualitative, quantitative or both methods are used in the study design Detailed explanations of the research instruments, translation material selection, and data collection techniques are also provided Moreover, the data analysis which involves the steps used to assess translation quality and detect errors is included
In Chapter Four, the results of the analysis are reported and significant discussion is drawn through the comparisons with the findings of previous studies
In Chapter Five, a summary of the major findings as well as implications are made In addition, there are recommendations outlining possible directions for future research
LITERATURE REVIEW
A brief history and development of Google Translate
GT, a free machine translation (MT) tool, was introduced by Google in
2006 It is a statistical text retrieval system that is predicated on corpuses that gathers language data from massive amounts of web data (Kirchhoff et al., 2011, as cited in Alhaisoni, 2017)
Since its launch, GT‟s translation quality has significantly improved as a result of the shift from statistical MT to neural MT over time (Pratiwi et al., 2023) Furthermore, the system‟s accuracy and dependability have increased through regular updates and improvement of the underlying algorithms, language models, and training data which enhance the system‟s operation
GT‟s rapid development has bridged the language barriers for many people in the world With so many languages supported, GT is used by a large number of people worldwide After beginning to provide translation services for a small number of languages, GT has grown over time to support over 100 languages, including several major languages spoken throughout the world including English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French, and many more (Pratiwi et al., 2023) With a wide coverage of language services, GT enables users of different geographical and linguistic backgrounds to communicate effectively
GT and wordreference.com are the two most commonly mentioned online dictionaries and tools in all languages (Jin & Deifell, 2013) Google, or Google application programming interface/products, is the most widely utilized MT system among those in use (Rivera-Trigueros, 2022) GT has been widely used for several reasons Firstly, GT is preferable due to its speed and cost GT can translate into almost all languages in the world GT is free in the majority of countries Secondly, GT helps language learners to deal with grammar and
8 vocabulary problems when learning English as a foreign language GT can help learners expand vocabulary (Habeeb, 2020) There are fewer grammatical and content problems in the work produced by GT Research shows that students had a good experience selecting vocabulary items and writing better English when they used GT for writing in English (Tsai, 2019, as cited in Dahmash, 2020) In addition, GT is quicker and more accurate when translating collocations and phrases as compared to traditional dictionaries such as Oxford School Dictionary (Josefsson, 2011) In brief, GT is advantageous among other MT tools because of its convenience and efficiency
However, GT has shown several drawbacks It might not translate a text accurately or naturally, and it also fails to convey the context or cultural nuances of a text which might affect the entire meaning of the original (Pratiwi et al., 2023) Furthermore, GT frequently overlooks the context-specific meanings of words (Jin & Deifell, 2013) While there are situations when GT is beneficial, the tool can only translate words according to their literal meaning (Nila & Susanto, 2017) Moreover, the context cannot be recognized when the source text (ST) is a complete sentence or even a whole text As a consequence, mistranslation may occur and lead to inaccurate translation of the contents
The unguided use of GT can result in sluggish learning for students with low English proficiency level (Hardini & Dewi, 2021) Students who rely on GT can easily compose texts without fully understanding how different components of the sentence are put together They are unable to remember the meaning of the texts or make new sentences
In conclusion, GT has shown to have both advantages as well as disadvantages.
Translation quality assessment
2.2.1 Definition of translation quality assessment
TQA is the process of assessing translation quality (Parra, 2005, as cited in Mateo, 2014) As shown in its name itself, the function of TQA is to evaluate the quality of translation While TQA can be called “a term”, which is frequently used
9 to refer to a field that deals with translation quality (Zehnalová, 2013), it is not only a term which is just utilized in relation to a particular subject
TQA has become a field of study due to the intense interest it continues to arouse among various groups, including practitioners, translation organizations, scholars, and teachers TQA is driven by both academic and commercial factors including the need to assess students‟ work and the demand to guarantee high- quality translation products (Alina, 2005, as cited in Zehnalová, 2013)
TQA has always been of interest within the translation community worldwide (Askari & Rahim, 2015; Thelen, 2008) and is one of the most heated topics of discussion in the industry (Alina, 2005, as cited in Zehnalová, 2013) Therefore, there should be more studies to gain a deeper understanding about TQA
2.2.2 Criteria for translation quality assessment
With regard to TQA, the literature shows different viewpoints and approaches by which a translation ought to be evaluated In other words, evaluation criteria in translation assessment are a contentious topic, and differing opinions may result in differing interpretations (Jun-song, 2017) According to Williams (2009), when undertaking TQA, it is essential to determine degrees of goodness, regardless of whether the focus is on products, performance, or competence Hence, validity and reliability can be chosen as the two criteria for assessing the quality of a translation work (Williams, 2009)
Thelen (2008) develops two sets of criteria of TQA for two groups: one for professionals and another for students undertaking translation training In terms of TQA for professionals, there are four subcategories including accuracy, style, grammar and formatting With regard to translation training for students, there are seven subcategories such as mistranslation, accuracy, terminology, language, style, country and consistency Both TQA practices appear to concentrate mainly on the target text (TT) as a product
Stejskal (2006, as cited in Mateo, 2014) claims that the producer, process, and product, known as the “3Ps” of quality assessment, can be used to analyze the quality of translation Yet, the methods, metrics, and instruments used in each of
10 these cases to assess quality are unrelated to one another and instead concentrate on distinct dimensions
2.2.3 The relationship between translation accuracy and translation quality
Different scholars have different perspectives regarding the aspects to evaluate the quality of a translation
According to Koponen (2010), a number of factors, including accuracy (fidelity), fluency, and fitness for its intended purpose, can be used to assess the quality of a translation Besides, accuracy, clarity, and naturalness are deemed important to assessing the quality of the translation (Larson, 1998, as cited in Savitri, 2018) Furthermore, Newmark (1991, as cited in Schaffner, 1997) claims that accuracy is one of the criteria that makes a good translation In other words, the
TT is compared to the ST to determine if the TT accurately and faithfully reproduces the ST (Schaffner, 1997) Likewise, Shuttleworth and Cowie (1997, as cited in Savitri, 2018) claims that the factors for TQA are accuracy, readability, and acceptability
Although different scholars have different criteria for translation quality, many of them agree that accuracy remains the most indispensable criteria for assessing the quality of the translation
Accuracy is defined as the degree to which the TT matches its ST (Savitri, 2018) Although the term mainly refers to the preservation of the content of ST in
TT, the content of a translation is based on its type of equivalence (Savitri, 2018) Specifically, accuracy is significant to assess whether the TT is equivalent to the ST or not
Above all, the content of translation needs to be accurate when being translated from the ST into the TT Once accuracy is obtained, other aspects (e.g., coherence, fluency, clarity, etc) can be dealt with In fact, these elements may not function in the absence of accuracy, which could result in misinterpretation In this regard, accuracy serves as the foundation upon which the translation process as a whole is based
In short, accuracy is one of the most deciding factors which contribute to the translation quality
2.2.4 The importance of error identification and classification in translation quality assessment
Although MT has been studied for decades, many language pairs still contain numerous errors in the texts produced by the most advanced MT systems (Martins
& Caseli, 2014) For this reason, many efforts, both manual and automated, have been undertaken to post-edit errors produced by MT in an attempt to address this limitation (Martins & Caseli, 2014) Before implementing any post-editing activities to fix errors and improve the quality of the translations by MT, the first step is to identify its errors
According to Freitag et al (2021), any rating or score system for translations is dependent on identifying its errors and flaws In other words, an explicit error report can be considered as the “platinum standard” for different kinds of human assessment techniques since it includes all the information required to assess the translation quality (Freitag et al., 2021)
Koponen (2010) points to the importance of analyzing how errors affect the meaning because not all errors are equally serious Contextual and linguistic knowledge may enable readers to detect errors and reconstruct the meaning Small changes to the semantic content of words or sentences may not be disruptive to the meaning transfer within the whole text (Bensoussan & Rosenhouse, 1990; Jones et al., 2007, as cited in Koponen, 2010) In other words, sometimes errors may not affect the overall meaning of a sentence
In summary, not all errors in translation are serious and need fixing While some errors may not considerably affect the translation‟s overall meaning or functionality, others may seriously compromise its accuracy or coherence Thus, the process of detecting and classifying errors in TQA is essential for differentiating between minor errors and serious ones, as well as judging the impacts the errors may exert on the meaning of the texts
As mentioned earlier, TQA has been a field of great interest which requires further investigation and research Thus, in order to produce the most optimal assessment of translation quality, different models have been developed since the 20th century
Pham (2013) develops two TQA models including non-comparative models and comparative models The non-comparative models focus only on the target language (TL) (Maier, 2009) The comparative-models synthesize the models by Newmark (1988), Nord (2016), Steiner (1998), and House (2001) (Pham, 2013) Each model is elaborated in the following:
House‟s translation quality assessment model
2.3.1 House’s translation quality assessment model
TQA has been a field which is of significant interest and requires further investigation and research Thus, in order to produce the most optimal assessment of translation quality, various frameworks and models have been developed Among different methods and frameworks for evaluating translation quality, House‟s (1997) TQA model addresses almost every facet of the translation process The model has advantages over others because of its coverage and ease of use (Tabrizi et al., 2014)
According to House (2015), equivalence serves as the conceptual foundation for both the evaluation of translation quality The translation must have a function equivalent to the original in order for the original and translation to be considered equivalent (Askari & Rahim, 2015) Hence, it can be said that function is the foundation of House‟s TQA model
House‟s (2001) TQA model is grounded in Hallidayan systemic-functional theory (as cited in Pham, 2013) Despite being developed based on Halliday‟s theory, House (2006) points out two fundamental functional components that co- exist in every text and must remain the same equivalence throughout the translation: the ideational and interpersonal functional components The translation must maintain the equivalence of these two components (as cited in Pham, 2013)
Regarding the two functions, there are three meta-functions in every language (Halliday & Hasan, 1995, as cited in Simaibang, 2011):
(1) The ideational function: to organize the perception of the writer or speaker about the real and imagined world, which refers to real or imagined people
(2) The interpersonal function: to show, create, or preserve social relationships which are speech function, modalities, and forms of address between individuals
(3) The textual function: to produce written and spoken texts that flow cohesively within themselves and suit the context in which they are employed
House (2015) classifies translation into two types: overt translation and covert translation, based on empirical work using the original model
Overt translation concentrates on the ST When the text is translated overtly, the original text is closely linked to the community and culture of the SL and is frequently addressed directly to people in that culture, but it also reaches beyond that group because it is, regardless of the SL origin (House, 2015) The author categorizes overt translation into two types: a) overt historically connected ST: those associated with a particular event in which an audience speaking in that SL is or was being addressed b) overt timeless ST: those have their unique historical significance, transcend as artistic and aesthetic creations, always have to exhibit period- and culture-specificity due to the addresser‟s standing as a product of his or her time and culture
Covert translation concentrates on the TT A covert translation is treated as though it was the original text The covert translation is not pragmatically identified as a translation of the ST but rather appears to have been made independently Therefore, a covert translation is not specifically intended to an audience from the source culture and is not closely associated with the original language and culture (House, 2015)
House lists some examples from her original 1977 model of TQA including an economic text, a scientific text, a journalistic text which illustrate the types of ST that led to covert translation There are direct TL addresses for each of these translation texts, making them just as instantly and “originally” important to them as the original material is to the addresses in the SL
2.3.2.3 The differences between overt translation and covert translation
Firstly, while overt translation is ST audience/author-oriented, covert translation is TT audience/reader-oriented Taking political speech scripts as an example, overt translation will be applied to translate this kind of text, which has an influence on the ST audience, i.e., people who directly listens to the speech rather than the TT audience, they just receive the translation as information that this is what the speaker conveys to the ST audience, the TT audience does not engage in the activity happening between the speaker and the ST audience In contrast, an article on an online daily newspaper will be covertly translated because the translation of the article has a direct impact on the TT audience, i.e., the ones who read that article
Secondly, while covert translation can be treated as the “second original”, overt translation does not (House, 2015) In other words, a covert translation is treated the same as the original text For instance, international corporations often launch different versions with different language translations of their financial reports All the translations play the same role which offers details on their financial status and business achievements regardless of the languages However, the translation of literary works such as prose, poems is overt because the original has its own value and stance
Finally, the purposes of a ST and its covert translation are the same while those of an overt translation are not The purposes are grounded in the demands of similar audiences in both the communities of the SL and the TL (House, 2015) For example, in regard to a covert translation of a news article, no matter how many translations are produced, the main purpose for creating such translations is disseminating information In contrast, back to the example of political speech, the purposes of overt translations based on different events and times
Specifically, at the time when the political event occurs, the translation serves as the means to help the ST audience (in the event that this is the global event attracting attention of people all around the world) understand the message of the speech On the other hand, when the event had already finished and the speech was translated to be included in a history book, the purpose of the translation is to ensure that significant events and turning points are remembered while also preserving the historical and cultural legacies of a country or communities House (2015) maintains that the original text is incorporated into a newly created speech event, providing it with a new framework when translating overtly On the contrary, when translating covertly, the ST is replicated in the TT the role that it has within its context and discourse (House, 2015)
2.3.3 Overtly erroneous errors and covertly erroneous errors
Besides the concepts of overt and covert translation, overtly erroneous errors and covertly erroneous errors have to be considered since they are indispensable components in House‟s evaluation scheme
According to House (2015), overtly erroneous errors were caused by either a breach of the TL system or a mismatch between the ST and TT elements‟ denotative House (2015) develops categories of cases involving breaches of the
ungrammaticality cases, which refers to observable violations of the system
dubious acceptability cases, which refers to breaches the norm of usage – a collection of linguistic rules guiding the real use of language rather than the language system, which is concerned with the potentialities of a language
In addition, House (2015) separates the cases in which the translator altered the denotative meaning of ST objects and structures into categories such as additions, omissions, and substitutions, which included wrong combinations of elements and wrong selections
Shakernia (2014)‟s study applied House‟s TQA model to conduct the TQA in which covertly erroneous errors are classified based on Genre and the situational dimensions of Genre and Register (including Field, Tenor and Mode) by comparing the ST and the TT
According to House (2015), overtly erroneous errors have received more attention from scholars but covertly erroneous errors have not, despite the fact that the latter requires a far more thorough and qualitative-descriptive study; and how errors are weighted relative to one another differs from text to text.
Commercial contracts
This world is operating in the form of interactions between individuals, groups, and organizations In other words, the operation of the world we are living in is based on relationships, for example, personal relationships (familial relationships, romantic relationships, etc), professional relationships (relationships between colleagues, teachers and students, business partners, etc), environmental relationships, legal relationships, etc
Contracts serve as a connection to provide certainty and transparency in relationships, particularly, business partnerships and legal relationships Contracts are essential to both individuals and organizations as they help avoid conflicts and disagreement among parties Moreover, contracts are employed to describe both delicate, interpersonal relationships and self-serving economic activity (Rousseau & Parks, 1993)
In business, there are two types of business contracts commonly utilized on a daily basis: commercial contracts and consumer contracts (Hernoko, 2009, as cited in Tridarani & Kuniawan, 2020)
Commercial contracts are written agreements containing contents such as business issues or commercial matters mutually agreed upon by the parties (Tridarani & Kuniawan, 2020) Commercial contracts cover more ground than
18 simply the exchange of goods and services between consumers and sellers Although there is not a precise definition provided by the Principles, it is assumed that the term “commercial” contracts should be interpreted broadly to cover not only trade transactions involving the supply or exchange of goods or services but also other kinds of economic transactions like agreements pertaining to investments and/or concessions, contracts for professional services, etc (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law [UNIDROIT], 1994)
There are 10 major types of commercial contracts listed as follows (Jennifer et al (2019):
1 Contracts for the sale of goods
6 Commercial real estate sale agreements
Commercial contracts principles serve as the regulations for entering into and carrying out contracts in the realm of business activity By securing the rights and obligations of the parties to the contract, these principles help to establish transparent and enduring relationships between them (Harahonych et al., 2023)
The International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM, 2017) specified 11 purposes of commercial contracts They are: (1) a list of responsibilities, rights, and obligations; (2) a safeguard of recourse in case of
19 conflict; (3) a foundation for a commercial result that benefits both parties; (4) a risk allocation tool; (5) the enhancement of a business relationship; (6) management of performance and governance; (7) an instrument for handling risks; (8) an efficient means of communication for individuals that require information; (9) instructions for operation; (10) a financial benefit-generating tool; and (11) display of company values and brand (IACCM, 2017)
2.4.5 Legal language of commercial contracts
The information contained in contracts are stipulated by law (in different languages) from what the lay reader would understand (Vasquez-Sosas, 2017)
Legal English is the English language used by attorneys and other legal professionals in pleadings, legal writing, and the composition of written materials (Khan & Khan, 2015) Legal English is particularly useful for attorneys and other legal professionals since writing and interpreting English-based contracts and other significant documents, which can be complicated and contain technical terminology, is a regular part of a lawyer‟s job (Strati & Enesi, 2019)
Regarding the characteristics, legal English has several clear irregularities in form and phrase, and seems overly conservative (Zhu & Wu, 2011) As a subset of legal English, English for commercial contracts possesses the characteristics of legal English and is typically provided in written form Since contracts are legal documents which include legal terminology, the legal language serves as the foundation for both general and commercial contracts.
Stylistics
Stylistics is a branch of applied linguistics concerned with the study of style in texts It describes and analyzes the variety of linguistic forms in real-world language use (Babiker & Ahmad, 2023) There are two types of stylistics (Khan & Khan, 2015):
Literary stylistics: focusing on the distinctive qualities of different literary works, including prose, poetry, novels, plays, etc
General stylistics: focusing on the common elements of different language use contexts, such as literary discourses and other practical styles
In other words, stylistics can be separated into two categories based on the subjects of study: literary stylistics, and general stylistics, which cover business, law, technology, journalism, and sports criticism (Hu, 2015, as cited in Xiao, 2023)
Because commercial contracts are non-literary texts, general stylistics will be addressed to concentrate on the elements of commercial contracts Furthermore, general stylistics focuses on common elements of language use contexts, which are considered important factors when using, translating, and interpreting contracts Obviously, the contextualist approach states that while translating a contract, the translator must take into account all pertinent contextual information in addition to the written language of the agreement (Benoliel, 2017) In addition, the goal of stylistics is to describe formal linguistic elements that are constrained by certain social settings, explain why those features are employed rather than alternatives, and categorize such traits based on their contextual roles (Crystal & Davy, 1969, as cited in Semino & Culpeper, 2011)
2.5.2 The need to analyze stylistic features
This study aims to examine the quality of translation of commercial contracts from English to Vietnamese That means the texts in both languages English and Vietnamese are analyzed Stylistics can be applied by the comparison of language across texts or the analysis of the way stylistic elements are employed across texts or within a single text (Dey et al., 2021)
Furthermore, there is an intersection between stylistics and translation In other words, stylistics is closely related to translation To be more specific, style is a fundamental component of textual interpretation, but it is also an important idea to consider when approaching translation from a theoretical and practical standpoint (Boase-Beier, 2006, as cited in Marino, 2022)
The tool used in this study to translate commercial contracts is GT When translating formal documents such as contracts, memorandum, and financial reports
21 from one language into other languages, GT mostly conveys the literal meaning of the text without rendering completely its style, tone and expressive effects Marco and Hirst (1988) claim that the translation of style is a topic that current MT systems address sporadically While they acknowledge the usefulness of translating sentences syntactically, they argue that the MT output is strictly neutral in tone As a result, both the connected meaning and the expressive impact found in the original text are lost Therefore, it is imperative to comprehend the stylistic features of commercial contracts, since this will help to analyze and assess the translations that
2.5.3 Stylistic analysis of commercial contracts
There are several stylistic levels of the text analysis: grammatical, lexical, syntactic, discourse, prosodic, semantic, pragmatic, and phonological levels Furthermore, the characteristics of these linguistic levels are taken into consideration when analyzing a text sample: Lexical level, Syntax level, Semantic level and Graphological level (Khan & Khan, 2015)
“Semantic” is the term referring to the meaning of the language (“Semantic”, n.d.), and since language meaning is always connected to many other aspects of language, it will be included into the other features to support them Additionally, owing to space constraints and the need to focus on linguistics features rather than visual elements of graphological, this study only analyzes these two features of commercial contracts: lexical and syntactic features
Lexical features are features that relate to lexis or vocabulary Vocabulary has long been recognized for its important position In language acquisition, whether studying a foreign language or mother tongue, vocabulary is by far the largest and most difficult aspect of language acquisition, without learning lexis, it is impossible to acquire any language (Yang & Dai, 2012)
Furthermore, one way to analyze linguistic qualities of a text is through the examination of its lexical features (Enkvist, 1969, as cited in Wang & Li, 2012)
Because analyzing commercial contracts is one of the processes that must be completed for this study to achieve its goals, lexical aspects must be investigated a) Archaic words
The presence of archaic words with a significant amount of time is one of the most prominent features of commercial contracts A context about the beginning of archaic words is conveyed by Ahieieva-Karkashadze (2022) Everything that occurs in our lives has the propensity to alter, fade into oblivion, or exist only in the pages of a book This tendency causes some word groups to emerge while other word groups become obsolete which causes a kind of challenge to readers as well as translators, and this group is known as archaic These days, legal English and English commercial contracts frequently include archaic words, which can accurately convey the text‟s solemnity while maintaining the language's simplicity and precision (Xiao, 2023)
Zhu and Wu (2011) indicate that these words frequently occur as compound adverbs, the combination of adverbs “here”, “there”, “where” with particles “after”,
“at”, “by”, “from”, “in”, “of”, “to”, “under”, “upon”, “with”, “as”, etc generates
“herein”, “hereby”, “hereto”, “herein”, “hereof”, “thereafter”, “whereby” etc In these compounds, “this”, “that”, and “what or which” are denoted by the terms
“here”, “there”, and “where”, respectively (Zhu & Wu, 2011)
Furthermore, Shi (2022, p 1683) provides more examples of archaic words as follows:
“here after” is “after this time”
“thereby” is “by that means”
Moreover, David (1963) presents more instances in his paper (as cited in Feng, 2012, p 31):
here: “hereof”, “hereafter”, “heretofore”, “herein”, and “herewith”
there: “thereat”, “thereabout”, “thereafter”, “theretofore”, “thereby”,
“therein”, “therefor”, “therefore”, “thereon”, “thereto”, “thereupon”, and
As can be observed, although archaism makes it challenging for readers to fully understand, it is still a characteristic that sets commercial contracts apart from other texts since the frequent utilization of archaic words make the text relatively formal, accurate, and succinct (Zhu & Wu, 2011) b) Technical terms
Since contracts are not written in the same way as other types of texts, their language cannot be considered casual or universally applicable
The use of technical words is another distinguishing characteristic of contracts, as Garner (1991) notes that the first and most evident approach to govern a domain of social experience or action is through the use of a specialized and technical language (as cited in Zhang, 2014) If the reader lacks sufficient expertise, technical terms can be difficult to understand Regarding the translation field, it is challenging to comprehend the meaning of the words and provide an appropriate translation if the translator lacks a specific degree of legal competence and a background in both English and American law (Xiao, 2023)
Certain technical terms are utilized only in legal texts, elevate the power of contracts and are exclusive to this kind, such as “quantum meruit”, “infringement”,
“in the presence of”, “covenants”, “substantive law”, etc (Lu, 2007, as cited in Zhang, 2014)
Beside legal terms, commercial contracts contain lots of business terms such as “know-how”, “articles of association”, “equity joint venture”, “sublicense”,
“negotiable instruments”, and “letter of intent” (Zhang, 2014)
In conclusion, it should be noted that technical terminology is crucial to every contract and that both the drafter and the translator must be well-versed in them in order to accurately represent the content of the contracts c) Common words with uncommon meanings
It is required in contracts to carefully consider a word‟s meaning in light of its context Since words can have a wide range of meanings, proper usage of them requires placing them in a particular context The fact that many words can reflect a common meaning in everyday situations but a totally different meaning in contractual contexts serves as evidence for this According to Zhang (2014),
24 common words are words used in most contexts, but when those common words are employed in contracts, they become technical terms In this study, technical words are employed for its specific meaning, not for its common meaning (Zhang, 2014)
Summary
In brief, this chapter has shed light on key concepts of GT, TQA, commercial contracts, and stylistics The theoretical framework explains how GT developed from a simple MT to a popular tool, although still having its own drawbacks TQA, the relationship between translation accuracy and translation quality and the importance of error identification and classification in TQA are also presented to highlight the importance of evaluating the translation quality Furthermore, the chapter provides information on commercial contract types, principles, purposes and its legal language Ultimately, the theory of stylistics presents lexical and syntactic features of commercial contracts that must be analyzed
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed to answer the research questions in the study
The qualitative analysis of the source text (ST) commences with the identification of the lexical and syntactic features of the 10 contracts The lexical features include archaic words, technical terms, common words with uncommon meanings, vague words, auxiliary verbs, synonyms, and formal words The syntactic features include specific nouns referring to contract parties, long and complex sentences, conditional sentences, and passive sentences
The data analysis begins with an exploration of the linguistic components found in the contracts Then, the linguistic components of the Google Translate (GT) translations are compared to the suggested translations to determine if there are any errors in the GT translations After identifying the errors made by GT, explanations are provided alongside suggested translations
The quantitative approach includes identifying and counting the number of overt and covert errors, calculating its proportion, and analyzing the differences between overt and covert errors.
Samples
The data for this study included 10 commercial contracts in English, which were Agreement for Extension of Lease, Contract for Sale of Goods, International Distributorship Agreement, Event Photography Contract, Legal Consultancy Agreement, Joint Marketing Agreement, Retail Agreement, Agreement for Import of Vehicles, Promotion and Product Placement Agreement, and Advertisement
Agency Agreement The 10 contracts were downloaded from Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority [SMEDA], n.d.).
Sampling techniques
Ten different commercial contracts with different types and lengths were selected to guarantee an extensive range of vocabulary and enable a comprehensive TQA process
All ten commercial contracts were taken from the same database to maintain uniformity in language and structure This method lessens the possibility of variations in the usage of language and formatting between various databases, strengthening the accuracy and reliability of the assessment process In general, this technique guarantees the consistency of the selected contracts‟ linguistic features, facilitating an accurate assessment of the translation quality of various types of contracts.
Research instruments
The 10 English commercial contracts were translated into Vietnamese using
GT The GT translations were analyzed using the TQA framework which combines implementation steps from TQA models by Nord (1991) and Steiner (1998) (as cited in Pham, 2013) House‟s (1997) concepts of overtly and covertly erroneous errors were also adapted to analyze the data in response to the research questions in this study
The GT translations were compared to the suggested translations and were archived and analyzed using a range of tools including Microsoft Word (MW), Microsoft Excel (ME), the Cambridge Online Dictionary, Law Insider (a legal research platform), and Vietnamese online dictionaries.
Data collection procedures
The 10 commercial contracts were put into MW files and then entered into
GT for translation The GT translations were archived in different MW files for comparison Both the original and the translated versions of the contracts are counted using MW‟s word count algorithm The length of the original contracts
37 varies between 600 and 2,500 words, whereas the GT translation versions range from 700 to 3,500 words The corpus consists of 10 original contracts in English and its corresponding translations in Vietnamese, totaling 44,581 words, which function as the data for analysis Furthermore, statistical calculation and enumeration were executed on ME files for the purpose of tracking and generating comments on various metrics from the analysis of the translations produced by GT.
Data analysis
Content analysis was employed as a qualitative research method to analyze the GT translations Content analysis is the method used to describe and interpret the characteristics of a recorded or visual message The purpose of content analysis is to describe the content, structure, and functions of the messages contained in texts (Frey et al., 1999) In this study, content analysis allows the researcher to analyze, describe, and interpret the characteristics of the ST and its translations by GT based on the TQA framework adapted for this study
The steps for TQA were adapted from previous works by Nord (1991), Steiner (1998), and House (1997) Overlapping and irrelevant elements of TQA were excluded and relevant ones were adopted as a theoretical framework for analyzing the data in this study
3.6.1 The adaptation of Nord’s (1991) and Steiner’s (1998) models for assessing the quality of Google Translate translation in the study
As stated earlier, there are two main types of TQA models: comparative and non-comparative models (Pham, 2013) In this study, the comparative model is adopted for data analysis That means the content of the English contracts is compared with the content of GT translations, and then GT translation compared with the suggested translations to assess the quality of the translations produced by
According to Pham (2013), the comparative TQA models were developed by Newmark (1988), Nord (1991), Steiner (1998) and House (2015) However, the models of Newmark (1988) and House (2015) are not utilized in this study The decision was made due to the aims and nature of the study Table 3.1 presents the steps of data analysis by adapting the comparative TQA models
Steps to assess the quality of translations by GT
Authors Steps Steps of data analysis
(1) TT analysis: both intra-textual elements
(grammatical, lexical, and stylistic normativity) and semantic coherence and extra-textual elements ( pragmatic aspects of the recipient, time, location, etc…) are analyzed
(2) ST analysis: the translation-relevant text analysis model is used to analyze the ST The critic should focus particularly on the elements that the TT evaluation determined to be “problematic”, such as gaps in coherence, inconsistent terminology,
(1) Analyze the GT translations in terms of intra-textual factors (e.g., normativity of grammar, vocabulary, and style as well as semantic coherence)
(2) Analyzing the (English) contracts to identify „problematic‟ factors which result in erroneous translation in Vietnamese by GT, e.g., incoherent language, inconsistency of terms, lexical or sentence construction errors, etc
(3) Compare the GT translations (in
Vietnamese) and the ST - 10 contracts (in English) to conduct a TT profile
39 interferences with lexicon or sentence structure, etc
(3) A comparison between the ST and the
TT A TT profile results from this comparison
(4) Comparing the TT with the TT profile:
Consider the translation to be functionally adequate if the TT profile matches the TT
Compare the TT with the ST in terms of three register components: field, tenor, and mode
(1) Field: content, objectives, and social interactions (i.e., production, trade, communication, etc.)
(2) Tenor: agentive roles, social roles, social distance (i.e., levels of formality and politeness), and impact
(3) Mode: language role, discourse channel, medium of discourse
Determine the degree of formality of the GT translations
In order to determine the formality of the translations produced by GT, covertly erroneous errors are examined The process involves examining linguistic features of the contracts after being translated into Vietnamese, identifying problematic translations that diminish the degree of formality in the contracts
3.6.2 The adaptation of House’s (1997) translation quality assessment model to identify errors in Google Translate translations
House‟s (1997) two components of TQA including overtly erroneous errors and covertly erroneous errors were selected as the framework for TQA in this study
Features of overtly erroneous errors and covertly erroneous errors adapted from House‟s (1997) model for TQA are described in Table 3.2
House’s (1997) model of error analysis
Breaches of the TL system
Altered mismatch between the ST and
Covertly erroneous errors Errors that affect the degrees of formality of contracts
Based on House (1997)‟s TQA model, covertly erroneous errors are classified based on Genre and Register throughout the comparison process between the ST and the TT (Shakernia, 2014) To be more specific, the Register category contains Field, Tenor and Mode However, Field is excluded because commercial contract TQA is focused on linguistic aspects rather than on subject matter and social action Furthermore, Mode is not applied to this study since medium and participation are not necessary to analyze within the scope of this study
Tenor is chosen to identify covertly erroneous errors to assess the formality of GT translations In other words, covertly erroneous errors are assessed in this study because they affect the degrees of formality of the GT translations
The analysis of the data in the study follows the steps of TQA models adapted from previous research There are nine steps in total and they are described in detail as follows
Step 1: Analyze the ST (including 10 commercial contracts in English) taking into account potentially problematic factors which cause difficulty in the TT assessment (e.g., terms inconsistency, lexical and sentence structure errors, mismatches in the norms of usage between the SL and the TL)
Step 2: Enumerate a list of words, phrases and sentences in terms of intra- textual factors which are shown in Table 3.3
3 Common words with uncommon meanings
Syntactic features 1 Specific nouns referring to the contract parties
Step 3: Compare the ST with the TT and highlight words, phrases and
42 sentences that are inaccurately translated by GT
Step 4: Compare the TT with the suggested translations to determine if the
Step 5: Identify the types of errors that GT produces when translating TT Step 6: Provide explanation about the errors
Step 7: Count the number of mistranslations produced by GT and calculate their percentage (%) by comparing the number of mistranslated features to the total number of the features
Step 8: Count the number of overtly erroneous errors and covertly erroneous errors and calculate its proportion (%)
Step 9: Compare the percentage of overtly erroneous errors with covertly erroneous errors.
Validity and Reliability
The research employed a systematic approach to guarantee that the methods accurately measure what they are intended to measure
To begin with, the researcher studied and reviewed previous research conducted to investigate the translation quality produced by GT to identify suitable TQA models and frameworks to apply to this study, which has commercial contracts as the research materials After the reviewing process, the researcher integrated well-known models and frameworks from prominent scholars in the field of TQA, including Nord, Steiner, and House, with adjustments to build a nine-step TQA framework that fits the scope of this study Subsequently, ten commercial contracts obtained from the Legal Services Department of SMEDA were thoroughly selected based on their broad recognition and conformity to legal requirements Also, the researcher carried out extra verifications to make sure the contracts were credible and dependable enough to serve as study samples This entailed confirming the contracts‟ validity and evaluating how relevant they were to the aims of the study as well as the range of vocabulary they contained These attempts were made to guarantee suitability and precision in the framework‟s design for the TQA process
The same findings can be consistently achieved by employing the same methodology since the author implemented consistent techniques for gathering and analyzing data, ensuring consistency throughout the process of TQA
In order to enable accurate comparisons, the author utilized the TQA process, which involved meticulously analyzing each feature of the contracts to identify mistranslated ones and produce more suitable translations for those mistranslations All of these efforts were carefully documented in an extensive file containing every feature that was investigated during the research process
In short, by managing careful documentation of data collection procedures, contract analysis, and employing consistent translation assessment techniques as well as error calculation processes, the researcher guarantees the reliability of the study‟s results.
Summary
To summarize, qualitative and quantitative methodologies were utilized in this study to fully investigate the subject matter The study design included the use of 10 English commercial contracts downloaded from SMEDA which were translated into Vietnamese utilizing GT The data, consisting of a corpus of 44,581 words, was gathered in MW and calculated in ME These GT translations were analyzed through an extensive content analysis, which was based on TQA frameworks by Nord (1991), Steiner (1998) and the error concepts of House (1997)
By meticulously modifying to remove overlapping elements while preserving those necessary, the researcher built the nine-step TQA framework to develop a comprehensive research methodology for this study
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Research question 1
How accurate is the Google Translate’s translation of commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese?
Research question 1 seeks to find out the extent of accuracy of GT‟s translation of commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese with a focus on the lexical and syntactic features
In commercial contracts, archaic words are words or phrases that are outdated and barely used in normal contexts Although these terms help to keep the contract‟s language solemn and concise, they are unfamiliar in non-contractual
45 contexts, which causes difficulty for readers in comprehending and translating contracts from one language to another Table 4.1 presents inaccurate translations of archaic words by GT, three of these are highlighted as examples, and more details can be found in Appendix 2
Samples of GT’s translation of archaic words
Archaic words GT translation Source (S&T)
4,5,9,10 tại đây hereof trong đây 3,5,7,9,10 của Hợp đồng này
Firstly, “hereby” is used to emphasize the act of entering into contracts by the involved parties, so it would be inaccurate to translate the word as “theo đây” (in T4,5,9,10) Additionally, “ở đây” (in T1) refers to the place where the involved parties sign the contract rather than the contract itself Furthermore, it is worth noticing that the archaic word itself has an emphasis function For example, the emphasis of “hereby” is on the signing action of the parties Nevertheless, in T3, T7 and T9, GT skips the word and leaves it untranslated
Secondly, the GT translations of archaic words are too vague as compared to the suggested translation For instance, the word “hereof” is translated as “trong đây” (in T3,5,7,9,10) in Vietnamese, which does not refer to any particular objects
As a result, the GT translations become general since it does not convey the intended meaning of the original, which causes ambiguity in interpreting the content of the contracts
In short, the first error GT usually makes when translating archaic words is that it refers to the inaccurate position which the contract drafter should be referring to The second error is that the translations generated by GT for archaic words are
46 too general compared to the suggested translations
As shown in Table 4.2, a total of 18 archaic words are found in the 10 commercial contracts and seven of them are mistranslated by GT The inaccurate translation accounts for about 38.9% of the total translation of archaic words b) Technical terms
Technical terms are words, terms or phrases that are mainly used in commercial contracts It can be challenging for people to comprehend and translate the technical terms without having any prior knowledge related to specific types of contracts Table 4.3 introduces three technical terms mistranslated by GT, other mistranslated terms are included in Appendix 2
Samples of GT’s translation of technical terms
Technical terms GT translation Source (S&T)
Nonwaiver Không từ chối 2,8 Điều khoản không khước từ
Assignment Phân công 3,4,5,7 Chuyển nhượng non-conformities không phù hợp 3 lỗi
In T2 and T8, GT‟s translation of the word “Nonwaiver” as “Không từ chối” does not accurately reflect the legal meaning that is intended in Vietnamese contracts “Nonwaiver” usually refers to a legal clause or provision, usually
47 pertaining to the contractual terms or obligations that express the decision not to waive certain rights under an agreement Therefore, “Điều khoản không khước từ” is the recommended translation which can convey the meaning of a Non-waiver clause
In T3, T4, T5 and T7, the term “Assignment” is mistranslated as “Phân công” by GT The term “Assignment” in contracts is used to describe the transmission of duties or rights from one party to another Hence, a better translation would be “Chuyển nhượng”, which is accepted in Vietnamese legal documents which means the shift of duties and rights from one party to another
In addition, the word “non-conformities” (in T3) is translated as “không phù hợp” that is inaccurate when taking its context into consideration:
S3: All claims for errors, damages, defects, shortages and non-conformities in any shipment of the Products discovered by the inspection shall be made in writing to the Business [ ]
T3: Mọi khiếu nại về sai sót, hư hỏng, khiếm khuyết, thiếu hụt và không phù hợp trong bất kỳ lô hàng Sản phẩm nào được phát hiện qua quá trình kiểm tra sẽ được lập bằng văn bản cho Doanh nghiệp […]
As can be seen, the translation of “non-conformities in any shipment of the Products” by GT into Vietnamese as “không phù hợp trong bất kỳ lô hàng nào” is inaccurate, sounds unnatural and obscure since this is not a common expression in Vietnamese Furthermore, in S3, before “non-conformities” are a series of words that have similar meanings: errors, damages, defects, shortages Therefore, “lỗi” would be a better translation which can describe different kinds of problems during shipment
The reason for mistranslation of these terms is that GT cannot recognize technical terms as distinct features of the contracts, thus it translates each term based on its common meaning Consequently, the formality and precision of the contract language are diminished by these errors, which might reduce the clarity and legal efficacy of the contracts
As shown in Table 4.4, out of 132 technical terms found in the 10 commercial contracts, 38 of them, which accounts for about 28.8% of the total technical terms, are inaccurately translated by GT c) Common words with uncommon meanings
Common words with uncommon meanings are those which have a variety of meanings and its meaning varies depending on the context As a matter of fact, common words with uncommon meanings are used repeatedly throughout the contract Table 4.5 provides four examples of common words with uncommon meanings which are inaccurately translated by GT, the remaining are included in Appendix 2
Samples of GT’s translation of common words with uncommon meanings
Common words with uncommon meanings GT translation Source (S&T)
Suggested translations bear mang 1 có survive tồn tại 3 còn hiệu lực pursue (remedies) thực hiện 4 yêu cầu
S1: WHEREAS the Lessee and the Lessor had entered into a Lease
Agreement dated [insert date] (hereinafter referred to as the “Lease Agreement”)
49 wherein the Lessee acquired the property measuring (insert measurement), bearing Property No (insert property number), situated at (insert complete address) (hereinafter referred to as the “Property”) on lease
Research question 2
What common errors does Google Translate make when translating commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese?
Research question 2 serves to identify the types of errors produced by GT when translating the 10 contracts and the proportion of errors occurred
4.2.1.1.1 Breaches of the target language system a) Ungrammaticality
Ungrammaticality refers to observable violations of the TL system which contains phrases or sentences that do not follow grammatical rules of the TL The common grammatical structures in the 10 contracts mistranslated by GT are as follows:
The structure “it is + past participle verb + that” indicates a situation that is frequently taken for granted, widely accepted (e.g., “it is agreed that”, “it is believed that”, “it is known that”, “it is said that”, etc)
The relative clauses and reduced relative clauses
Inversion with negative adverbials in conditional sentences
Table 4.26 presents errors by GT in terms of part-of-speech and phrase structure Further examples of grammatical errors can be found in Appendix 2
Examples of ungrammaticality in GT’s translation
The Business hereby assigns and grants the
Photographer and its legal representatives the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use and publish photographs of the event for editorial,
Doanh nghiệp theo đây chuyển nhượng và cấp cho Nhiếp ảnh gia và đại diện hợp pháp của họ quyền không thể hủy bỏ và không hạn chế để sử dụng và xuất bản các bức ảnh về sự kiện cho mục 4
Doanh nghiệp theo đây chuyển nhượng và cấp cho Nhiếp ảnh gia và đại diện hợp pháp của họ quyền không thể hủy bỏ và không
71 trade, advertising or any other purpose and in any manner and medium; to alter the same without restriction; and to copyright the same đích biên tập, thương mại, quảng cáo hoặc bất kỳ mục đích nào khác và dưới bất kỳ hình thức và phương tiện nào; để thay đổi tương tự mà không hạn chế; và về bản quyền như nhau hạn chế để sử dụng và xuất bản các bức ảnh về sự kiện cho mục đích biên tập, thương mại, quảng cáo hoặc bất kỳ mục đích nào khác và dưới bất kỳ hình thức và phương tiện nào; để thay đổi tương tự mà không hạn chế; và để bảo vệ bản quyền như nhau
The Retailer shall conduct appropriate sales and related training of its personnel to ensure that such knowledge is imparted to them and shall cooperate in any product education programs that the Business may establish
Nhà bán lẻ phải tiến hành bán hàng phù hợp và đào tạo nhân viên có liên quan để đảm bảo rằng những kiến thức đó được truyền đạt cho họ và sẽ hợp tác trong mọi chương trình đào tạo về sản phẩm mà Doanh nghiệp có thể thiết lập 7
Nhà bán lẻ phải tiến hành việc đào tạo bán hàng và các đào tạo liên quan khác cho nhân viên để đảm bảo rằng những kiến thức đó được truyền đạt cho họ và sẽ hợp tác trong mọi chương trình đào tạo về sản phẩm mà Doanh
72 nghiệp có thể thiết lập
As shown in Table 4.26, in the example of T4, the term “to copyright”‟in this sentence functions as a verb rather than a noun Although it is a grammatical distinction, GT mistakes it as a noun, and translates “to copyright” as “về bản quyền” Nevertheless, the GT translation as “về bản quyền” refers to the process of securing a copyright rather than the action itself
In T7, the noun phrase “appropriate sales and related training of its personnel” is mistranslated by GT as “bán hàng phù hợp và đào tạo nhân viên có liên quan” (as compared to the suggested translation as “việc đào tạo bán hàng và các đào tạo liên quan khác cho nhân viên”) Yet, the GT translation fails to maintain the coherence of the sentence in Vietnamese
According to Table 4.27, there is no ungrammaticality error found in translation of lexical features All the nine errors occur when GT translates syntactic features, which accounts for 6.5% compared to total overtly erroneous errors b) Dubious acceptability
Dubious acceptability refers to breaches of the norm of linguistic rules guiding the real use of language rather than the language system Table 4.28 presents two words and two sentences that have dubious acceptability errors Appendix 2 contains more examples of dubious acceptability errors found in the 10 contracts
Examples of dubious acceptability in GT’s translation
Sản phẩm giao hàng 4 Sản phẩm chuyển giao
The Lessee shall pay to the Lessor the rent amount at a rate of Rs
(hereinafter referred to as the “Rent Amount”), which shall be payable to the Lessor in the mode and manner as enumerated in the
Bên thuê sẽ thanh toán cho Bên cho thuê số tiền thuê theo tỷ lệ Rs _/-
_) mỗi tháng (ghi số tiền) (sau đây gọi là “Số tiền thuê”)
Số tiền này sẽ được trả cho Bên cho thuê trong phương thức và cách thức như được liệt kê trong Hợp đồng thuê 1
Bên thuê sẽ thanh toán cho Bên cho thuê số tiền thuê theo tỷ lệ Rs _/- (Rupees ) mỗi tháng (ghi số tiền) (sau đây gọi là “Số tiền thuê”)
Số tiền này sẽ được trả cho Bên cho thuê theo phương thức và cách thức như được liệt kê trong Hợp đồng thuê
The risk of loss or damage to the Goods, arising out of any casualty to the Goods,
Rủi ro mất mát hoặc hư hỏng Hàng hóa phát sinh từ bất kỳ tổn 2
Rủi ro mất mát hoặc hư hỏng Hàng hóa phát sinh từ bất kỳ tổn thất nào đối với Hàng hóa,
74 regardless of the cause, shall be on the Seller until the time that the
Goods have been accepted by the Buyer thất nào đối với Hàng hóa, bất kể nguyên nhân gì, sẽ thuộc về Bên bán cho đến thời điểm Hàng hóa được Bên mua chấp nhận bất kể nguyên nhân gì, sẽ do Bên bán chịu cho đến thời điểm Hàng hóa được Bên mua chấp nhận
The word “Deliverables” (in S4) is translated by GT as “Sản phẩm giao hàng” (in T4) which does not sound natural in Vietnamese The word
“Deliverables” in the contract clause should be translated as “Sản phẩm chuyển giao” within the context of the contract
In addition, based on the content of Appointments clause, it does not make sense to translate “Appointments” (in S5 & S9) as “Hẹn hẹn” (in T5) or “Hẹn” (in T9) since Vietnamese contracts do not use “Hẹn hẹn” as a contract clause Considering the content of the Appointments clause, which states “The Client hereby appoints the Legal Consultant for the provision of the Services” “Chỉ định” in Vietnamese legal terminology could serve as a more suitable translation for
“Appointments” As a result, in the context of the Client assigning the Legal Consultant to perform specific services, the phrase “chỉ định” correctly refers to the action of appointing someone for a particular job or task
In the sentence of S10, GT translation of “in” as “trong” is inappropriate and goes against the norms of prepositional use in Vietnamese The GT translation of
“in mode and manner” as “trong phương thức và cách thức” is not considered natural in Vietnamese In other words, the naturalness and flow of the sentence are lost by GT translation It would be translated” as “theo phương thức và cách thức”
Summary
The results of the research are presented through two research questions Regarding the first question to find out the mistranslated linguistic features, the mistranslated lexical features are revealed with the highest percentage being common words with uncommon meanings (66.7%) and the highest proportion of syntactic mistranslation is long and complex sentences (39.7%) With regard to the second question to investigate the common types of errors, the data shows 150 errors, including 138 overtly erroneous errors, which accounts for 92.0% and 12 covertly erroneous errors with only 8.0% GT‟s most common overtly erroneous error type in overtly erroneous errors is dubious acceptability with 71.7% Based on the above findings, it is obvious that GT fails to correctly translate long and complex sentences and identify the most relevant meanings for translations in contractual and legal contexts In addition, the high number of overtly erroneous errors in GT-translated texts emphasizes the need for human translation Without
88 the solution, the weaknesses found in GT‟s output may limit understanding while also raising doubts about the clarity and validity of translated commercial contracts.
CONCLUSION
Summary of major findings
How accurate is the Google Translate’s translation of commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese?
In order to answer Research question 1, the 10 English commercial contracts were analyzed to identify mistranslated features Number of mistranslations in terms of lexical and syntactic features was counted The data shows 65 lexical mistranslations and 90 syntactic mistranslations The percentage of mistranslations of features varied
In terms of lexical features, Google Translate (GT) produced the most mistranslations of common words with uncommon meanings (66.7%), followed by archaic words (38.9%), synonyms (33.3%), technical terms (28.8%), vague words (16.7%), formal words (10.4%) and no mistranslation was found in translation of auxiliary verbs
With regard to syntactic features, the highest proportion of mistranslation was found in GT translations of long and complex sentences (39.7%), followed by
89 specific nouns (30.8%), passive sentences (10.9%), and conditional sentences (2.2%) In addition, GT produced 51 mistranslations of other syntactic features including simple sentences, compound sentences, dependent clauses, additional information, and long phrases
These findings provide insights into GT‟s performance of business documents translation including commercial contracts It is widely acknowledged that GT performs quite well in translating texts at different levels including words, phrases and sentences However, when the texts contain specialized knowledge and are context dependent, GT may fail to produce translation with a high level of accuracy
The findings highlight the importance of technical knowledge and the ability to analyze texts when doing translation jobs In this study, commercial contracts contain terminologies and complex sentence structures that require linguistic and technical knowledge as well as translating skills To effectively translate those business documents, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the context and in-depth knowledge of the subject matters Although GT can be a very handy and helpful translation aid, it also has its own limitations
What common errors does Google Translate make when translating commercial contracts from English into Vietnamese?
These findings show a number of errors produced by GT in its translation of commercial contracts The data shows a total of 150 errors including 138 overtly erroneous errors (92.0%) and 12 covertly erroneous errors (8.0%) About the overtly erroneous errors, GT‟s most common error types are dubious acceptability (71.7%), omissions (12.3%), ungrammaticality (6.5%), substitutions (6.5%), including wrong selections (5.8%) and wrong combinations of elements errors (0.7%) The lowest percentage of errors is additions which account for only 2.9%
The findings indicate the important role of human translators and the need for quality assessment in translation To be more specific, the errors produced by GT‟s translation of commercial contracts may exert a negative impact on the quality and clarity of the translation and reduce the level of accuracy of the documents
These errors can cause misinterpretation of the content, thereby undermining the contracts‟ legal validity and enforceability Inaccurate translations can also cause problems in exercising the terms and conditions specified in the contracts which require more time and efforts to resolve by the parties involved
To conclude, the data show that when translating commercial contracts, GT can be better at providing draft translations rather than producing a complete version with a high level of accuracy The study also indicates that GT still generates different types of errors, revealing GT‟s limitations in effectively translating complex business documents This indicates the importance of human translators with sound knowledge in both languages and translation skills to edit the drafts produced by GT The combination of human translation and MT can yield better translation products whose consistency, clarity and equivalence between the
ST and the TT are obtained.
Implications
Students who are studying translation courses or desire to become professional translators could benefit from the findings of the study Understanding GT‟s limitations can help students make better use of GT to deal with translation of business documents while studying translation courses at university Having understanding about the level of accuracy in GT translation as well as the error types that GT produces help students become less dependent on GT for outputs but know how to integrate GT and other MT tools into their translation practice effectively to generate quality translation outcomes
The findings from the study also help teachers understand the benefits and drawbacks of GT and know how to better integrate GT into translation training To begin with, teachers can guide students in analyzing the quality of GT translation step by step from analyzing the ST (while taking into account its linguistic features) to assessing the quality of the TT produced by GT (with regard to similar types of errors identified in this study) The findings of the study can contribute to enhancement of professional practices for language teachers in translation teaching
With guidance from teachers, students are able to identify errors produced by
GT For example, when a translation of technical terms has dubious acceptability errors, which means the translated word is not equivalent to the original and is not culturally accepted in Vietnamese, students can refer to reliable sources such as contracts in Vietnamese for alternative translation Similarly, a translation of a conditional sentence may be grammatically incorrect due to GT‟s failure to rearrange components of the sentence when translating the inversion structure with negative adverbials, students can correct such errors by deciding how the structure is expressed in Vietnamese to edit the GT‟s translation
In order to improve students‟ translation skills and help them deal with challenges when learning translation courses, teachers might include case studies, models, and practical exercises that simulate real-world translation scenarios For instance, giving a case study in which the involved parties who have different mother tongues accidentally misunderstand some specific terms in a business document translated by GT Students play the role of a translator to identify errors and correct them to improve the GT‟s translation
5.2.3 Implications for translation course developers
The results of the study can be a useful source of reference for translation course designers Training modules could be designed based on the study‟s findings regarding the errors generated from using GT to translate business documents, e.g., translation quality assessment techniques and post-editing GT translation guides.
Limitations of the study
The study might have been constrained by a small number of commercial contracts selected for analysis A larger sample size of documents might offer more insights into the accuracy and common errors made by GT b) Analysis scope
Due to the time and space constraints, the investigation concentrated on lexical and syntactic features of the commercial contracts Several other factors, including graphological features and other syntactic features (simple sentences, compound sentences, etc) were not extensively analyzed
92 c) The identification and improvement of mistranslations
The researcher analyzed the materials manually to identify mistranslations in this study As a result, some errors might go unnoticed and were not examined in the study d) Dependence on GT version at the time of study
The study‟s findings might pertain to the time when the then GT version was employed for the study Hence, GT‟s translation performance and the quality of its translation may vary from time to time owing to its continuing updated versions.
Recommendations for further research
Based on the limitations of this study, future research should extend the scope of the study through the use of larger samples of English commercial contracts or/and business documents Furthermore, it is suggested that researchers utilize advanced tools and algorithms to improve the detection and categorization of mistranslations produced by GT in commercial contracts and business documents Moreover, it is recommended that further studies explore more linguistic features to better understand the quality of translation provided by GT and other MT tools Finally, as artificial intelligence (AI) tools are continually improving and becoming popular, they can function as translation tools, such as ChatGPT and Gemini (Google Bard), which are the popular AI chatbots Therefore, comparative studies of the translation function of AI systems should be done in the future to investigate their advantages as well as disadvantages when translating commercial contracts
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APPENDICES Appendix 1: Sources of 10 STs S1: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Agreement for Extension of Lease SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6,
2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&idq:r eal-estate&Itemid63
S2: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Contract for Sale of Goods SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&idr:s ales-and-marketing&Itemid63
S3: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
International Distributorship Agreement SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March
6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&ide:i mport-export&Itemid63
S4: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Event Photography Contract SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&id:s ervices&Itemid63
S5: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Legal Consultancy Agreement SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&id:s ervices&Itemid63
S6: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Joint Marketing Agreement SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&idr:s
S7: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Retail Agreement Agreement SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&idr:s ales-and-marketing&Itemid63
S8: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Agreement for Import of Vehicles SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March 6,
2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&ide:i mport-export&Itemid63
S9: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013, January)
Promotion and Product Placement Agreement SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved
March 6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&idr:s ales-and-marketing&Itemid63
S10: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (2013,
January) Advertising Agency Agreement SMEDA Legal Services Retrieved March
6, 2024, from https://smeda.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&viewegory&idr:s ales-and-marketing&Itemid63
Appendix 2: Analysis of TTs by comparing with suggested translations
The researcher analyzed and explained every mistranslated feature and every error type However, due to the space constraints of this thesis, it is impossible to present all of them Hence, only one example for each, which is different from the examples presented in Chapter 4, is introduced in Appendix 2
3.1.1.1 Breaches of the TL system a) Ungrammaticality
Archaic word GT translation Source (S&T)
Suggested translation hereto kèm theo ở đây
S2: WHEREAS the Seller is the producer/owner is possession of the [insert description of goods] (hereinafter referred to as the “Goods”, and more particularly described in the Schedule hereto )
T2: XÉT RẰNG Người bán là nhà sản xuất/chủ sở hữu đang sở hữu [điền mô tả hàng hóa] (sau đây gọi là “Hàng hóa” và được mô tả cụ thể hơn trong Phụ lục kèm theo)
S4,7: Neither Party hereto may assign, convey or otherwise transfer any of its rights, obligations, or interest herein without prior express written consent of the other Party
T4,7: Không Bên nào ở đây được phép chuyển nhượng, chuyển giao hoặc chuyển giao bất kỳ quyền, nghĩa vụ hoặc lợi ích nào của mình trong tài liệu này mà không có sự đồng ý trước bằng văn bản rõ ràng của Bên kia
S5: The Legal Consultant hereto agree that all the information, whether
106 written or oral, including but not limited to all documents, data, [ ]
T5: Tư vấn pháp lý ở đây đồng ý rằng tất cả thông tin, dù bằng văn bản hay bằng lời nói, bao gồm nhưng không giới hạn ở tất cả các tài liệu, dữ liệu, [ ]
S9: [ ] the Parties hereto intending to be legally bound [ ]
T9 : [ ] Các Bên ở đây có ý định bị ràng buộc về mặt pháp lý [ ]
Explanation: Translating “hereto” directly as “ở đây” or “kèm theo” in Vietnamese is inappropriate and may lead to sentences that are ambiguous or unclear In the context of commercial contracts, the literal translation of “hereto” as
“ở đây” (means “here”) or “kèm theo” (means “attach to”) fails to convey the intended legal meaning
T2: XÉT RẰNG Người bán là nhà sản xuất/chủ sở hữu đang sở hữu [điền mô tả hàng hóa] (sau đây gọi là “Hàng hóa” và được mô tả cụ thể hơn trong Phụ lục của Hợp Đồng này)
T4,7: Không Bên nào của Hợp Đồng này được phép chuyển nhượng, chuyển giao hoặc chuyển giao bất kỳ quyền, nghĩa vụ hoặc lợi ích nào của mình trong tài liệu này mà không có sự đồng ý trước bằng văn bản rõ ràng của Bên kia