CÁC THỦ THUẬT ĐƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG DỊCH TÊN CÁC HIỆN VẬT TẠI BẢO TÀNG DÂN TỘC HỌC VIỆT NAM

Translation in culturespecific items plays an important role in spreading culture of a country to other cultures in the world. There were also many studies researching on this field but not many of them mentioned translation of real exhibits in cultural destinations, especially museums. Vietnam Museum of Ethnology where a large number of cultural objects are stored and displayed to visitors and has been welcoming a large amount of visitors coming to experience Vietnamese culture obviously becomes an available source needed studying. These factors urged the researcher to conduct this paper with the aim of studying translation procedures applied in translating object’s labels as well as possible errors that were made in translation. 400 objects’ names collected after purposive sampling process and studied revealed that the most frequently used procedure was literal translation and the most common error was omission. Through this paper, the researcher expects to provide suggested procedures for translators to translate culturespecific items and reveal errors that can be made during the translation process to improve the quality and usefulness of the information given to visitors.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITYOF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGES TEACHER EDUATION GRADUATION PAPER TRANSLATION PROCEDURES APPLIED IN TRANSLATING OBJECT LABELS AT VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY Supervisor: Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A. Student: Bui Thi Yen Course: QH2010.F1.E21 Hanoi 6, 2014 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP CÁC THỦ THUẬT ĐƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG DỊCH TÊN CÁC HIỆN VẬT TẠI BẢO TÀNG DÂN TỘC HỌC VIỆT NAM Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn Sinh viên: Bùi Thị Yến Khoá: QH2010.F1.E21 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2014 DECLARATION I hereby stated that I: Bui Thi Yen, QH 2010. F1.E21, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accepts the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Hanoi, 2014 Bui Thi Yen ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs. Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A. for her precious guidance, valuable advice as well as her encouragement which were decisive factors assisting me in finishing the paper on the right track. My sincere thanks to helpful staff: Mr. Luong Van Thiet, Mrs. Vu Ha who worked in the museum for providing some materials related to the museum field. Without them, my paper cannot be completed. I am also grateful to my classmates who encouraged me a lot to continue conducting this paper and also gave me very useful advice. Finally, I appreciate support and caring from my roommates from beginning to the end of the research. i ABSTRACT Translation in culture-specific items plays an important role in spreading culture of a country to other cultures in the world. There were also many studies researching on this field but not many of them mentioned translation of real exhibits in cultural destinations, especially museums. Vietnam Museum of Ethnology where a large number of cultural objects are stored and displayed to visitors and has been welcoming a large amount of visitors coming to experience Vietnamese culture obviously becomes an available source needed studying. These factors urged the researcher to conduct this paper with the aim of studying translation procedures applied in translating object’s labels as well as possible errors that were made in translation. 400 objects’ names collected after purposive sampling process and studied revealed that the most frequently used procedure was literal translation and the most common error was omission. Through this paper, the researcher expects to provide suggested procedures for translators to translate culture-specific items and reveal errors that can be made during the translation process to improve the quality and usefulness of the information given to visitors. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i LIST OF ABBREVIATION iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 2.7 Previous studies 18 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 18 3.1 Data collection 19 CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 23 CHAPTER 5.CONCLUSION 41 5.1 Major findings and implications. 41 5.2 Limitations 42 5.3 Recommendation for further study 43 REFERENCES 44 APPENDIX 1 47 APPENDIX 3 54 APPENDIX 4 57 APPENDIX 5 58 APPENDIX 6 59 APPENDIX 7 60 60 APPENDIX 8 61 iii LIST OF ABBREVIATION VME: Vietnam Museum of Ethnology iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Page Table 1 Types of translation procedures 25 Table 2 Common errors found in the collected items in the museum 31 Figure 1 Frequency of translation procedures 25 Figure 2 Percentage of errors found in translated versions of exhibit in the museum. 30 Figure 3 Common Errors found in the collected items in the museum 31 v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study After the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (VME), with two other museums in Vietnam occupied slots in the rank of 25 best museums in Asia by TripAdvisor website in 2013, it immediately received huge attention from domestic and foreign tourists. Official statistics by the museum showed an increasing number of visitors coming to the museum. In the first half of 2010, the total number of the visitors was 220,000, of which domestic guests accounted for 148,000 (66.5%), and foreigners 35.5% including the French (36.1%), American (9.9%), German (7.4%), Australian (9.6%), Korean (7%) and people from other countries. In addition, the number of foreigners visitors increased by 20% in comparison with that of the previous year. Therefore, the museum should be invested more not only in objects displayed at the museum themselves but also their translation of exhibits in English to serve English-speaking visitors. Based on that fact, the researcher decided to work on the translation of object labels with the title as following: “Translation procedures applied in translating objects labels at Vietnam Museum of Ethnology”. Apart from reasons mentioned above, the researcher has other intends to do this research. Firstly, the researcher realizes that the translation of culture-specific concepts has definitely posed a number of challenges to translators due to the lack of cultural overlap between two languages. Thus, to obtain equivalent effects, the translators may have to use typical procedures to translate such cultural items. The researcher decides to choose the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology due to its huge number of exhibits that serve aims of the study. Secondly, translating cultural items, especially exhibits in museum is quite specific, which hardly appears in thesis or proposal at schools. Thence, the researcher wants to set a frame, if possible, in translating such exhibits. Lastly, this study is conducted to assess the quality of translations and see how translation theory is applied in the real world and equivalence effect it brings. It may be useful for students who want to study thoroughly in the field of cultural translation. With the above reasons, the researcher carries out this study to answer questions left open. 1 1.2. Aims of the study and research questions The study is firstly aimed at researching translation procedures used in translating names of exhibits at the museum. Culture- related objects are symbols of a nation and do not exist in the target language. Therefore, the researcher hopes to find the most common procedures applied in translating object’s titles based on her own synthesis. Besides, due to large number of objects displayed in the museum, some certain errors could be made, urging the researcher to study on. Thus, the following questions will be addressed: 1. What are the frequently used translation procedures in translating exhibit labels at VME? 2. What are common errors found in the translations of exhibit titles at VME? 1.3. Significance of the study The study is conducted in the context that there are few studies on translating exhibits labels at museum or cultural places in Hanoi. Therefore, the right translation of exhibits can satisfy visitors and bring best results in broadcasting Vietnamese culture to the world. Thence, the study can be a useful source for translators who also want to translate culture-related items. Furthermore, it can be a clue for students in translation major to conduct other related studies. The study’s results focus on the most popular translation procedures used in translating cultural items. Besides, the research provides some suggestions for translated versions of exhibit’s labels in the museum. The research is expected to contribute in improving the quality of translations and give some special techniques for translating culture-related items. 1.4. Scope of the study There are different types of object labels such as introduction labels, section labels, object labels and credit panels. Due to limitation of time and ability, the researcher only focuses on object labels that provide names of the objects in both Vietnamese and English in short phrases only. As such, the samples of the research will be only labels placed next to the objects, showing their names in both Vietnamese and English to help visitors clarify what they are looking at. 2 [...]... all pictures of their names which made sure that all names were in both English and Vietnamese besides their real images Then, their names were transferred into words to make the process of data analysis convenient as well as checking and submitting data more reliable After this stage, nearly 700 exhibit’s names were collected However, there were a lot of exhibits with the same names, so that the researcher... the researcher picks out 400 different names to study on After collecting all the names of exhibit labels, the author started coding the names by transferring them from images into word version then put them in an Excel table The table would contain all of the titles and the researcher’s analysis later 3.2 Data analysis 19 After first stage of collecting data, names of 400 exhibits were analyzed and... study is exhibit labels in Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, so that the process of data collection mainly focuses on gathering names of the labels at the museum The process took the researcher one day to finish collecting The major subject of the study was labels of the objects displayed in the museum There were two types of labels; one type was he short titles with the name on the board indicating what... tool, all titles with the same number were chosen and moved to its registered sheet Of course, all sheets were named and arranged in order The final sheet of statistics was created This sheet contained a table where all number of procedures used was counted The table included 3 columns, namely names of procedures, numbers and corresponding percentage per 100% Using Excel was more convenient because it... consists of sub-topics in a - museum exhibition Object label is used to describe the individual subject it is placed next - to It presents name, year of the object but it is not too long Credit panel may include some donations, especially government, organizations 2.6 The Vietnam Museum of Ethnography (VME) VME was established on the decision of the Prime Minister under National Centre for Social Sciences... Transference Transference or loan word, transcription is transference of a word or expression from the source language/text directly into the target text without translating it at all People's names and place names and the like are usually transferred, except in those cases where a conventional translation exists Transference is also the first step in the process of one language acquiring loan words... was used for, its material or related custom Due to limited time, the researcher just focused on collecting names of the titles, not te long description After observing around the museum and various numbers of exhibits, the researcher realized that there were a lot of exhibits with the same name, of course with different functions For example, “Y phục nữ” –“women’s garment” , “váy nữ”-“women’s skirt”... error, the researcher was required to understand and study carefully about the meaning of 21 objects’ titles in the Vietnamese version to decide which error types they belonged to After understanding thoroughly about the theory of error classification and meaning of titles in both Vietnamese, the process of numbering and dividing error types were repeated the same as in the process of answering the first... translated as “bamboo bell” Although, “mõ” was considered as parallel with “bell” but their cultural expression was different “Mõ” was defined as “a hollow wooden object that makes a signal, order” in Vietnamese-Vietnamese Dictionary However, “bell” was “a hollow metal object that makes a ringing sound when hit by a small piece of metal inside it” according to Oxford Dictionary (2010) When the title was literally... literal translation is not applied, the translator shouldn’t use synonym Abusing this procedure can bring a not good translation 2.2.8 Through translation The literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations, the components of compounds, and perhaps phrases Through translation should be used for already recognized terms For example, UNDAF (United Nations 7 Development Assistance Framework . TRANSLATING OBJECT LABELS AT VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY Supervisor: Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A. Student: Bui Thi Yen Course: QH2010.F1.E21 Hanoi 6, 2014 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC. reproduction of the paper. Hanoi, 2014 Bui Thi Yen ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs. Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A. for her precious. viên: Bùi Thị Yến Khoá: QH2010.F1.E21 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2014 DECLARATION I hereby stated that I: Bui Thi Yen, QH 2010. F1.E21, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accepts the