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Since the Internet boom all over the world, almost all translationrelated activities have occurred on the Internet, including information search, translation, communication with clients, and so on. It is undeniable that thanks to the great assistance from the Internet, the world’s translation industry has gained amazing achievements. With each passing day, more qualified translations are produced with less time and less human resources. However, translation technology is still something new in Vietnam to both translators and students. Up to now, there have not been any serious studies on the issue in ULIS, which somewhat was the inspiration for this modest research. With 80 third and fourthyear students majoring in translations in FELTE, ULIS, VNUH as the subjects, the research aimed to evaluate their understanding on Internetaided translation (IAT) and their ability to apply the Internet in translation practices. Besides, it provided students the chance to show their views on the most appropriate way to improve their IAT capacity. Regarding the significance, through the study, students and the school would be more aware of students’ translation ability, so that a better curriculum could be designed for students to prepare themselves for the working market. The research is also the basis for further studies on the same topic.
ABSTRACT Since the Internet boom all over the world, almost all translation-related activities have occurred on the Internet, including information search, translation, communication with clients, and so on. It is undeniable that thanks to the great assistance from the Internet, the world’s translation industry has gained amazing achievements. With each passing day, more qualified translations are produced with less time and less human resources. However, translation technology is still something new in Vietnam to both translators and students. Up to now, there have not been any serious studies on the issue in ULIS, which somewhat was the inspiration for this modest research. With 80 third and fourth-year students majoring in translations in FELTE, ULIS, VNUH as the subjects, the research aimed to evaluate their understanding on Internet-aided translation (IAT) and their ability to apply the Internet in translation practices. Besides, it provided students the chance to show their views on the most appropriate way to improve their IAT capacity. Regarding the significance, through the study, students and the school would be more aware of students’ translation ability, so that a better curriculum could be designed for students to prepare themselves for the working market. The research is also the basis for further studies on the same topic. i TABLE OF CONTENT Page Acceptance page Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Table of content iii List of figures and tables v List of abbreviations vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Rationale 1 1.2. Aims and Research questions 1 1.3. Scope 2 1.4. Methodology 2 1.5. Significance 3 1.6. Organization 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.1. Translation 4 2.1.1. Definition of Translation 4 2.1.2. An overview on Translation before the 21 st century 5 2.1.3. An overview on Translation after the 21 st century 5 2.2. Translation and Technology 6 2.2.1. Computer-assisted Translation 6 2.2.2. Internet-aided Translation 8 2.3. Related researches 10 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 14 3.1. Participants 14 3.2. Data collection instrument 14 3.3. Data collection procedures 15 3.4. Data analysis methods and procedures 15 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 16 4.1. What is Internet-aided translation from students’ point of view? 16 4.1.1. Frequency and purposes of Internet use in translation by 16 ii students 4.1.2. IAT’s advantages and drawbacks perceived by students 17 4.1.3. Students’ knowledge on IAT tools 19 4.2. How effective students’ coping tactics in Internet-aided translation? 22 4.3. What should be done to expand students’ capability for Internet-aided translation, suggested by students? 27 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 29 5.1. Summary of findings 29 5.2. Limitations of the study 29 5.3. Recommendations for further study 30 REFERENCES 31 APPENDIXES 33 Appendix 1 33 Appendix 2 37 Appendix 3 38 iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Names of figures Page Figure 1: Translation automation measurement scale (Hutchins & Somers, 1992) 7 Figure 2: Frequency of Internet usage in translation by students 17 Figure 3: IAT tools known by students 19 Figure 4: Assessments of the usefulness of common programs by students 21 Figure 5: Suggestions on IAT ability improvement by students 27 List of tables Table 1: ICT support for freelance translator 11 Table 2: Students’ purposes in the use of Interenet in translation 17 Table 3: IAT’s advantages and disadvantages by students 18 Table 4: Functions of IAT tools by Students 20 Table 5: Problem 1 23 Table 6: Problem 2 24 Table 7: Problem 3 25 Table 8: Problem 4 26 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CAT: Computer-Assisted Translation FAHQT: Fully Automatic High Quality Translation HAMT: Human-aided machine translation FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teaching Education IAT: Internet-aided translation MAHT: Machine-aided human translation MT: Machine translation SL: Source language ST: Source term TL: Target language TT: Target term ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies VNUH: Vietnam National University, Hanoi v vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION In this first chapter, a concise overview on the research is provided, namely the rationale, aims and research questions, scope, methodology, significance, and the organization of the study. 1.1. Rationale Born in the 1960s and first launched in 1970s, the Internet is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions in mankind’s history. With its global spread and continuous information availability, strong contributions have been made to the development of business, communication, medicine, sciences, education, entertainment and even politics. Translation is no exception. Thanks to tremendous support of the Internet, translation services in this twenty-first century are much faster and of higher quality. Modern translators can easily look up terminologies and specialized knowledge necessary to the translation from reliable online resources, which used to be a difficulty for most translators before the twentieth century. In addition, they have more access to online training courses so that they are likely to improve their qualification. Another benefit the Internet brings about for nowadays translation practitioners is opportunities for translation jobs both domestically and internationally. In one word, translation has become a real industry in virtue of the Internet in recent days. Unfortunately, those advantages of the Internet, which are listed above, may be somehow unknown to many translation and interpreting students. If yes, not all students know how to make best use of them so as to improve their work and translation skills. Therefore, as a senior student majoring in Translation and Interpreting, I would like to carry out the study with the hope that it will raise would-be translators’ awareness of the role of Internet to their translation career. 1 1.2. Aims and research questions The study, firstly, aims at assessing the understanding level of translation and interpreting students in FELTE, ULIS, VNU of Internet-aided translation. Secondly, it is about to test students’ ability to apply the Internet to overcome some certain difficulties in rendering. Lastly, based on students’ responses to the research, recommendations would be made to the University so that the most appropriate program could be designed to enhance students’ IAT skills. In short, the study is intended to address the following questions: 1. What is Internet-aided translation from students’ point of view? 2. How effective students’ coping tactics in Internet-aided translation? 3. What should be done to expand students’ capability for Internet- aided translation? 1.3. Scope Because of the limited time and capability, this research’s focus is mainly on students majoring in translation in FELTE, ULIS, VNU and their competence in the utilization of Internet for translation. Specifically, the target population of the study is 3 rd and 4 th -year students of Translation and Interpreting Division, ULIS, VNU in the school year of 2012-2013. Moreover, the thesis pays attention to making some recommendations on how to help students be more accomplished in IAT. 1.4. Methodology For the most possibly comprehensive result, the research was conducted on the whole population of third and fourth-year students (QH09 & QH10) in Translation and Interpreting Division, FELTE, ULIS, VNU. The sole research instrument was a survey questionnaire which was built to address all the three research questions. In order to achieve reliable answers, the 2 questionnaire was basically designed in the open form so that respondents had to write down their own answers rather than select from among existing ones. After being collected from respondents, replies were carefully selected, and those which met the requirements were critically analyzed according to the two main methods: the quantitative and qualitative one. 1.5. Significance of the research This research is seemingly the first one on IAT skills carried out with Translation and Interpreting Students in ULIS, VNU as the subject. Therefore, its findings would be the original reference for those who intend to pursue further researches on related issues with related subjects. As for students directly participating into the study, they have a chance to explore powerful Internet applications for translation practices and self-assess their IAT skills through answering the survey questionnaire. Finally, for teachers and the school, the study would function as a suggestion for them to make appropriate adjustments in the curriculum, so that their students’ translation skills are honed. 1.6. Organization of the research Following is the construction of the study: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature review Chapter 3: Methodology Chapter 4: Findings and discussions Chapter 5: Conclusion CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 3 This chapter is written to offer an in-depth look at the theoretical background of the study. It starts with the definition of translation and its context before and after the 21 st century, followed by a detailed insight into translation technology. At the end of the chapter, some previous researches in the same field are shown and analyzed. 2.1. Translation 2.1.1. Definition of Translation Simply put, translation, as defined in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (OALD, 8 th Edition), is “the process of changing something that is written or spoken into another language”, or it can be a product, that is, “a text or work that has been changed from one language into another”. However, in the view of a professional, translation is more than that. Larson, as cited in Le and Nguyen (2008, p.4), argued translation, as a process, “consists of studying the source language text (lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context); analyzing it in order to determine its meaning; then reconstructuring this SAME meaning using the lexicon and grammatical which are appropriate in the Target language and its cultural context.” As for being a product, a translation, according to Lilova, should maintain “the invariance of content, qualities of the original and author’s authenticity” of the source text (Sokolovsky, 2010, p. 286). To produce the most possibly ideal translation, a translator needs not only knowledge but also skills, creativity and taste. Therefore, translation can be seen as “a skill, which calls for appropriate language and acceptable usage; an art, which distinguishes good from undistinguished writing and is the creative, the intuitive, sometimes the inspired, level of the translation; a matter of taste, where argument ceases, preferences are expressed, and the variety of meritorious translations is the reflection of individual differences.” (Newmark, 1988, p. 6) 4 [...]... possible 2.2.2 Internet- aided translation Needless to say, MT and CAT drove a marked and decisive shift in translation practices; however, it was not until the Internet boom” that the shift became a historic turning-point in the translation industry That the Internet has become a global phenomenon changed a lot the way translators translate, research for references, and get jobs Though the term Internet- aided... any documents, the relationship between Internet and translation has been touched on quite a lot in many recent researches In this paper, the term is utilized by the author to mention translation practices which are performed with the assistance of Internet- related CAT tools and machine translation systems and other Internet applications 8 Fortunately, since the Internet boom, most CAT tools and MT systems... speaking, though frequently utilizing the Internet in translation, students still did not exploit it to the fullness 4.1.1 Frequency and purposes of Internet use in translation by students According to the data from the first question in the questionnaire, the Internet, predictably, is employed habitually in translation by the majority of respondents Specifically, the Internet is the translation aid to 86%... from the third-year students, which partly proves the integral role of the Internet in seniors’ translation practices Following is the pie chart showing how often students use the Internet to support their rendering 16 Figure 2: Frequency of Internet Use in Translation by Students Concerning students’ purposes when using the Internet in rendering, more than half of the students of the first two groups... combined with exercises for students to practice From the researcher’s viewpoint, it is worthwhile for the school to train would-be translators to be competent in IAT, especially in the context of globalization The school curriculum can be Internet- oriented; that is, the teachers utilize the Internet to offer lessons in subjects such as translation and translation theory To illustrate, teachers can... question 1: What is Internet- aided translation from students’ point of view? With the aim of assessing students’ understanding degree of Internet- aided translation, this research question was addressed at the top For comprehensive and detailed data, it was split into the first four questions in the survey questionnaire In detail, the question 1 was to identify the frequency students use the Internet in translation... its full versions => choose information (Note: An source text the one suitable to the acronym may have varieties of full versions) topic of source text => Google the acronym and some key words in the TL relating to the topic google the acronym/its chosen full version and its rough translation => check the existence of the translation or any other suggestions and their reliability => choose the most common... strongly apparent that Internet had revolutionized the world of translation and made translation become a thriving industry with the support of high technology Thus, Internet- aided translation skills are what any modern translator should obtain so as to survive in the era of information technology 2.3 Related researches As mentioned above, the marriage between translation and Internet has been touched... after the Internet boom and the growth of translation technology in that context Overall, translation practices before the arrival of the Internet were quite primitive, mainly with printed dictionaries and reference materials CAT at that time, though being a resolution in translation, was still limited and hard to access for most translators However, everything has changed quickly since the Internet. .. most commonly Google Translate translate.google.com More importantly, the translator community all over the world has benefited directly from other new features of the Internet, as described below (Sánchez, 2006): - Web Browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome enable translators to access to the majority of information globally - Free webmail e-mail services like Hotmail, . is Internet- aided translation from students’ point of view? 2. How effective students’ coping tactics in Internet- aided translation? 3. What should be done to expand students’ capability for Internet- aided. are performed with the assistance of Internet- related CAT tools and machine translation systems and other Internet applications. 8 Fortunately, since the Internet boom, most CAT tools and MT. 15 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 16 4.1. What is Internet- aided translation from students’ point of view? 16 4.1.1. Frequency and purposes of Internet use in translation by 16 ii students 4.1.2.