influences of vietnamese and british culture on english-vietnamese translation by the third year students of english at hanoi open university

As the matter of fact, there are many Vietnamese learners of Englishespecially the third-year students of English at Hanoi Open University stillhave difficulties when dealing with Englis

Table of contentsPart A: Introduction

However, there are usually much sophistication in learning and using aforeign language in general and English in particular When learning a foreignlanguage, learners should concentrate on not only its grammar, structure,vocabulary, pronunciation but also its own cultural factors Obviously,learners often have subjective thinking because of their unawareness ofcultural differences Therefore, they often impose their cultural characteristics

or their mother tongue on the foreign language

As the matter of fact, there are many Vietnamese learners of Englishespecially the third-year students of English at Hanoi Open University stillhave difficulties when dealing with English-Vietnamese translation It is nofully right to think that they can be good at translation if they have broadsense of grammar Moreover, large amount of cultural vocabulary is also themajor factors which help translators to translate appropriately and effectively.With the hope of helping the third-year students of English at HanoiOpen University translate texts from English into Vietnamese better, theauthor has decided to choose the theme"Influences of Vietnamese and Britishculture on English-Vietnamese translation by the third year students ofEnglish at Hanoi Open University” for her graduation paper study

II Aims of the study

With this graduation paper, the author hopes to help Vietnamese learners

of English overcome cultural barriers in order to translate from English intoVietnamese more effectively Therefore, the aims of the study are:

- To find out the similarities and differences between Vietnamese andEnglish culture

- To point out the relation between language and culture, which

influences English-Vietnamese translation

- To search for background of British and Vietnamese culture whichinfluence on the use of language

- To indicate some common mistakes in translating from English intoVietnamese caused by the third-year students of English at Hanoi OpenUniversity and suggest some solutions to overcome them

III Methods of the study

In the graduation paper, the author tries to search for the differences ofVietnamese and British culture as well as its influences on English-Vietnamese translation In order to make clear about the theme, the author hasdone the paper basing on:

- Collecting many documents and reference books referring to the topicfrom many sources such as library, Internet

- Consulting the supervisor for her guidance

- Discussing with friends

- Analyzing and interpreting all the information following the data andinstructions of supervisor

IV Scope of the study

Both culture and language are sophisticated areas for research Because

of the shortage of time and limitation of knowledge, the whole field of thecultural influences study can not covered in the graduation paper I would like

to pay attention to the differences of Vietnamese-British cultural factors whichaffect English-Vietnamese translation I also attempt to do research somemistakes which are connected with cultural characteristics and somesuggestions to avoid the mistakes of the third year students of English atHanoi Open University in translating from English into Vietnamese Theauthor hopes that will help them improve their skills in translating fromEnglish into Vietnamese

The main part of the study contains 2 chapters:

Chapter 1: is the literature review on: definition of culture, language, andtranslation, relation between language and cultures andVietnamese culture theBritish one is also referred in this chapter

Chapter 2: is the findings in the survey and some cultural influences onEnglish - Vietnamese translation

Chapter 3: gives some suggested solutions to overcome negativeinfluences of culture on English - Vietnamese translation

Part C: CONCLUSION

Summarizes all the main points in the whole graduation paper

Part B: Develop mentChapter I: literature review

1.1 Overview of translation

Nowadays, translation plays an importance role in our modern society so

it has become a profession Its topic range from literature to every type ofinformation with great emphasis to science and technology Translationincludes contact translation, freelancers, staff translation and pre and posteditors in machine translation The command of understanding andcommunicating foreign languages in every field of life as well as in globalintegration makes translation important Furthermore, the developments of thenumber of international organizations, the recognition of minority languagegroups on almost countries in the world and international trade have giventranslation bigger prominence

It is easy to find translation everywhere It has moved away from books

to contracts, reports, instructors, magazines and newspapers, advertisementsand brochures This proves that translation has been the favorites subject ofnot only linguists, amateur and professional translation and language teachersbut also engineers, producers and sciencetists Many books, articles have beenpublished to introduce this area of human knowledge However, we shouldconsider the definition of translation Here are some definitions of translationstudies

"Translation is the replacement of a representative of text in onelanguage by a representative of another equivalent text in a second language"

(Hartman and Stock 1972: 713)

"Translation is a procedure that leads from a written source language text

to on optimally equivalent target language text and which requires thesyntactic, semantic, stylistic and text pragmatic comprehension by thetranslation of the original text"

(Van, Hoang Van cited in Wills 1982 a: 112)''Translation, as the process of conveying message across linguistic andcultural barriers, is an eminently communicative activity…''

(Tudor, cited in Duff 1989: 5)

"Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) ofwhat has been expressed in another language (source language)

(Dubois 1973, cited in Bell 1991: 5)

As can be seen definition on translation are different and contradictory

In order to discuss more current views on translation, I would like to introducethe theories of cat ford, Hakim and Mason, and Bell

a Catford.

In "A linguistic theory of translation (1965) Catford defined translationas: "The replacement of textual material of one language (source language) byequivalent textual material in another language (target language) (page20)Two important points need to be discussed are textual material andequivalence Textual material is used more popular than text to cater for thefact that normally it is not the linguistic entirely of a source language textwhich is translated, that is, replaced by target language equivalence Simplereplacement by target language material may be taken place at one or morelevels of language About "equivalence", Catford distinguishes between it asempirical factors and a theoretical consideration He said that, equivalence isdiscovered by comparing source language and target language by way of notonly informants but also con mutation and observation, and theoretically weare keen on identifying the conditions or justification of translationequivalence

b Hatim and Mason

According to "Discourse and the translation "(1990) by Hatim andMason, translation is not a simple problem A text can have more than onetranslation, the translator's work is a difficult course of decision to be taken.Hatim and Mason believed that translation is a process They definedtranslation as a "communicative process which takes place within a socialcontext" (p3) In their opinion, the translation's role is a "mediator between asource language text and its author and the target language reader ''(p 223)They also indicated that translators do not translate words, phrases or evensentences, but they translate texts Therefore, the translation must understandnot only the literary but also implicit meaning of the text

c Bell

In "translation and Translating: Theory and Practice" (1991) Bell wrote anumber of theoretical and practical problems about translation such astranslation theory, translation's knowledge and skills, word meaning, etc

Also, he emphasized three main points: a focus an model, a focus on meaningand a focus on memory.

Focusing on model, Bell distinguished translation as process withtranslation as product Then he suggested the building of the model oftranslating process taking into account several issues such as the knowledgeand skills of translation, the necessary task that translators should have whentranslating atext

In terms of meaning, he places sentence meaning, and traditional word,semantic sense and communicative value within a systematic functionalmodel of language and linked them with text

Last but not least, an emphasis to memory expresses two basicallyfactors of information: theory and knowledge which are great importances toany understanding of the translation process

1.1.1 Type of translation

In the opinion of Catford in "A linguistic theory translation"(1965) ,thereare 3 types of translation:

a Full and partial translation

Full translation relates to the translation of a whole passage On the otherhands, partial translation refers to translation of each part of the passage

b Total and restricted translation

While total translation means the translation at all levels of language,restricted translation refers to the translation at limited level of language

c Unbounded and rank bounded

Unbounded translation relates to the translation which consists oftranslation removing of the source language and target language with the samemeanings hunt up and down ranks scale Meanwhile rank bounded translationincludes a careful selection of translation equivalents at corresponding levels

on translating one work, the translator questions about the kind of the text, thewriter's aims, etc to decide the kind of translation which she/ he believes thebest

1.1.2.Translation vs interpreting

There are some differences between translation and interpreting Whiletranslation means shifting an idea from one language to another expressed inwriting, interpreting means shifting ideas expressed in speaking or using body

Even though interpreting is thought to be a small part of translation,inregard to the analysis of the processes involved (translation studies).Inpractice,both translation and interpreting activities are not separated

1.1.3.Translation process

The translation process includes:

- Decoding the meaning of the source text

- Re-encoding the meaning in the target language

First, in order to decode the meaning of the source text the translatorshave to find out its part "translation units" that means the paragraphs of the textshould be considered as a cognitive unit Translation unit can be a word, a phrase orsome sentences Although this procedure is easy to understand, the cognitiveoperation is sophisticated and difficult Translators have to interpret andanalyze all the source text This operation requests translators to understanddeeply and correctly the syntax, semantic, idioms, phrasal verbs of the sourcelanguage, also the culture of its language Translators also should have deepknowledge of culture in order to re-encode the meaning of the targetlanguage As the matter of fact, translator’s understanding of the sourcelanguage is less important than their understanding of the target language.Therefore, almost translators translate a sourse language into a targetlanguage which is their mother-tongue As Nida - one of the famous theorist

as well as practitioner, wrote in "Language structure and translation" (1975 :80) about a three-stage process of translating He further stated that adeliberate analysis of what exactly happens in translation process hasexpressed that instead of analyzing immediately from one set of surfacegrammar to other, a translation naturally has a process with three stages:Analysis, Transfer and Restructuring According to him, at first, the translatorhas to analyze the content of the source language into its easiest understandingand clearest form, shift these information in his mind from the sourcelanguage into the target language that is the most appropriate for the readerwho he/ she is going to reach

Here is the diagram of Nida 's model:

SL text

analysis

TL text Restructuring

(Fig 1) Nida 's process of translating (1965,p.80)

1.1.4.The success of translation

As the matter of fact, translation is a complicated and careful activity.The translator needs to be not only an expert reader in one language but alsoactive writer in another one

There are only two kinds of translation, one being to direct to the originaltext while the other paying attention to translate a wonderful translation thatprecisely indirect on the original In fact, there is neither translation thatprecisely independ on the original text nor any that tries to imitate the original

in another language completely

If direct translation means to reproduce exactly by copying original text,

it can not have a beautiful product It is worth mentioning that culture in thesource language and the target language should be well-observed so thattranslation is carried out successfully

In fact, differences in culture cause many more severe complicationsthan they do in language and structures The translator needs to have an in-depth knowledge of the various aspects of his or her culture because mosttexts are nomally colured with cultural elements such as: idioms, proverbs,metaphors and other cultural features As a matter of fact, all languages andculture have their cultural sensitives, but share with each other only few ofthem.Besides, it is not very common to find equivelentt proverbs

An invented example may illustrate this point is the following Englishproverb: "diamond cut diamond" Another cultural specific element such as:

"bread and butter", "John Bull" "Shove Tuesday", etc It seems to be difficult

to transfer their complete meaning in a simple word

Further more, cultural differences are always major causes of mistakes intranslating The translator has to resolve the barrier between different cultures

in order to translate successfully

1.1.5 Principles of translation

According to Savory (1968: 50) there are some contradictory principles

1 A Translation must give the words of the original

2 A Translation must give the ideas of the original

3 A Translation should read like on original work

4 A Translation should read like a travel lotion

5 A Translation should reflect the style of the original

6 A Translation should possess the style of the translation

7 A Translation should read as a contemporary of the original

8 A Translation should read as a con tem portray of the translation

9 A Translation may add to or omit from the original

10 A Translation of verse should be in prose

11 A Translation of prose should be in verse

1.2.Overview of culture

Culture is seemed to be a sophisticated, popular term in our life In fact,culture relates to the value about material and spiritual of human activities.Thedefinition of culture is defined by many authors

The anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and Clybe Kluckholn said,"Cultureconsists of pattern, explicit of behavior aqquired and transmitted by symbolconstituting the distinctive achievement of human group The essential care ofculture consists of traditional ideas especially their attached values, culturesystem may on the other hands, be considered as production of action and onthe other as conditioning element of further action" (1952: 181)

Culture is defined by Scollon as "Culture is any of the customs, worldview, language, kinship system, social organization, and other regularpractices of a people which set that group a part as a distinctive group" (1995 :126)

According to a Vietnamese expert on culture, professor TrÇn Quèc îng, "Culture is the spiritual product of people 's creativity and it was bornwith the appearance of human beings on Earth." (1998:17)

V-Another definition of culture given by Phïng Quý Nh©m is that culture isthe system of spiritual and material values mankind has in the historic process(1975: 7)

Meanwhile Proffessor TrÇn Ngäc Thªm asserted that:'' Culture is anorganic system of material and spiritual values that mankind has accumulated

and created in the process of practical activities, in the interaction betweenman and his natural and social environment.'' (1997:27).

In brief, culture is a mean which helps us distinguish one society toanother It consists of many aspects of a society such as: behaviors, standardand models of social interactions which has been inherited from onegeneration to another

Enculturation is an evolution which need much time to carry out .As thehuman language concern, which is a main part of enculturation, lasts manyyears Naturally, every family often protect and enculturation children in theirhouseholds at least eighteen years or more At this period, children can leaveand establish their own households

Not only human but also another species learn behaviors which are verysophisticated For instance, people may make distinction between one group

of chimpanzees and another by the way they find food or the way they usecommon tools in working However, the behaviors of some species are smaller

than great culture of human being Because the chimpanzees don't havespeech, they have many difficulties in exchanging information and teachinganother what they know

1.2.1.2 Culture is transmissible

Culture is mainly result of communication and understanding thesymbols Thanks to symbols, people may think more complicatedly Asymbol can connect or not connect to the things which it relates For example,many people in the United States think when the colors: red, white and bluecombine, is very meaningful about their patriotism, this is the color of theirnational flag.However, these colors doesn't mean anything if we let themalone

In order to transfer new information, people immediately find newsymbols, for example chemical formulas or physical formulas Furthermore,people can use only one symbol, for example a picture or a single word torefer to many objects, behaviors or feelings Also, symbols supply a simpleway for people to exchange sophisticated information with another Forinstance architects, engineers and construction workers can interchange theuseful information to build a high building or a bridge

Basically, human being is able to communicate through symbols whenthey were born only by using language Scientists believes that children haveelementary structure of language - a kind of grammar in their minds - childrenare led to study the language spoken by people around them

It is language that people are supplied to interchange and communicategreat numbers of information Nonhuman animals can be able to have them.According to a research, people taught American language for somechimpanzees with picture - based language and American language As aresult, some could develop vocabulary of nearly hundred words: However,they find difficulty in using words to communicate with each other

Moreover, differences from nonhuman animals, human's vocal tract isable to make and pronounce clearly a large a mount of sounds which helppeople to create millions of words As a matter of fact, only human's brainconsists of an area which includes the production and interpretation of speech.Also, human can find easy to communicate with each other by using symbols

1.2.1.3 Culture is dynamic

Communication as well as culture is change continuously, they rarelyremain constant Because both ideas and products develop, step by step,within culture, they can change through the system of "diffusion" and

"invention" "Invention" is known as the creation of new information, objects

or definitions that everyone in this culture agree with For example, in NorthAmerica, both the civil rights movement and the invention of television aregood mirrors of the inventions construct the culture

"Diffusion" is the way which causes change in culture Learning andunderstanding of what is borrowed speeds up when culture appears in directcommunication with another For instance, when Japan and the United Statesshare more commerce, it is believed that the United States learns andunderstands Japanese business management in practice and the Japanesecooperate the United States marketing skills

1.2.1.4 Culture is selective

Each culture expresses a typical characteristic of behaviors from thespecialization of human experience in each society Basing on the elementaryassumptions and value conceptions, this selection is made to each culturemeaningfully In brief, culture is defined on the boundaries of differentsocieties

1.2.1.5 Culture is interrelated

As Richard E Porter and Larry A Samovar inserts that: "You touch aculture in one place and every thing else is affected" (Richard E Porter and1994: 13) From the characteristics of culture, culture likes a sophisticatedmechanism

1.2.1.6 Culture is ethnocentric

According to Keesing about the characteristic of culture, "universaltendency for any people to put its own culture and society in central positionpriority and worth" (Richard E Porter and Larry A.S Samovar, 1994:13).Most of countries in the world highly appreciates this characteristic of culture,because it can help people be better citizen

1.2.2 The cultural background of Vietnam and the Great Britain

As we all know, every country in the world has their own culture whichaffect to language In fact, language and culture are related tightly with eachother Therefore, we ought to pay attention to the cultural peculiarity of each

country Thus, I would like to present amount of information about the GreatBritain's cultural background and Vietnam's one.

1.2.2.1 Great Britain 's cultural background

The Great Britain is a western country, therefore, its culture consists ofall specific western cultural characteristics One of the most important culturalfeatures of British is that it was mixed by many countries' culture Thissophisticated culture witnessed many memorable periods in history suchas:rural period, industrial period, imperial period, suburban period, touristperiod, and multi-cultural one It was set up by nomad which tended to action.Because of its trend, the culture has changed fast When almost Easterncountries tends to develop agricultural trend Britain had moved to industry for

a long time This change comes across economical stage The nomadic lifewith the period of moving from one place to another which let them knowabout the differences in price, is very useful lifestyle Therefore, they find anew way to coordinate between nomads with commerce

While the production were plentiful, the nomadic brought them to sell.After that, people must live in a stable place in order to interchange goods and

to have got a place to keep goods.Finally, market was set up and developed inurban so that people had got enough goods to interchange and apply thecommands of the urban Then, step by step, an industrial society was created Based on the typical and important characteristics, British culture is theresult of the coordination of many different cultural factors from manyorigins One of the most specific traits of British culture is that everyindividual can be independent

They respect the private life of other people Thus, we can say Britishculture means individualism

According to researchers, the specific British traits in old days weresincere, high responsible, brave but conservative, stubborn, discretionary.John Bull was considered as a typical English man who owned most of theabove characteristics Today, the British feels free to express their ownfeelings

People from other countries should know the differences between Britishformal and informal behaviors This is a friendly way in Britain to show thatyou are not bothering with the formalities When the British is sympathy and

respectful with you, it means you are considered as their friends British onlyhave formal behaviors when meeting a stranger or an acquaintance (but not afriend) after a long time.

British also highly appreciate private life Each people has right to keephis/ her information about himself/ herself privacy It is considered a rudebehavior when asking British "personal questions" (for example: about theirsalary ,their families or their sex life) of you don not know them very well.British government is democratic which has grown over the centuries,and is made up of hundreds of Parliamentary Acts This constitution has takenaway power from the monarch, so today Queen does not have political powerBut the British people still respect the Royal family as they used to do

Britain is a very cold area with dry climate It is not suitable for plantingtree except for immense meadows As a result, British breed mainly sheep,goat, cow The forefront of British agriculture is dairy farming British diarycattle are well-known in the world The raising of beef, too, is one of the mostimportant farming activities everywhere in Britain Nearly a third of the area is

in purpose to do farming consists of hill pastures where sheep - the animalprovides both wool and meat flourish in a land can graze

The major crops is cereal such as wheat, corn, barley, appropriate withdry cold climate in Britain

1.2.2.2 Cultural background of Vietnam

Situating in Asia, Vietnam has all cultural characteristics of an Orientcountry This country is in hot region Its climate is humid tropical Therefore

it rains very much and many big rivers and fertile delta regions were made.This is the reason why Vietnamese changed from tree planting into riceplanting in about the fifth century BC As a result, an agriculture-rootedculture existed quite soon As the matter of facts, an agriculture rooted culturewhich is a sophisticated of a wet-rice culture with 3 components:mountainous, delta and coastal culture Nowadays, major of Vietnamesepeople live on agriculture which depends much on weather conditions.Vietnamese government is the Socialist Republic type which is led byparliament

The traits of Vietnamese culture created for thousands year in whichmany elements originated from old wet rice cultivation, the specific

geography, the natural environment, the society and the long history ofdefense against foreign invaders One of the most prominent features ofVietnamese culture is patriotism The principle rule of the construction anddevelopment of Vietnamese nation is to strengthen the nation's position andprotect the construction and defense has become the symbol of the patriotism

of Vietnam helped the Vietnamese people gain the victory in many warsagainst foreigner invaders such as Chinese feudal, French colony andAmerican imperial The process of national construction and defense wasformed and developed in the framework of Vietnamese traditional society,illustrated as family-village, country, and based on the socio-economicfoundation with 3 elements: countryside-agriculture- farmer Because of thesefactors, the patriotism of Vietnamese people was set up with its particularfeatures In brief, it is undeniable that patriotism is a guide to Vietnamesepeople's behavior It is easy for us to find it in every field of cultural spirituallife in Vietnam

In addition, the community spirit is another important cultural,characteristic of Vietnamese This is the result of the wet rice cultivation ofVietnamese people, forcing its members live in coordination with other, whichset up family, generations and closed village as well The community spirithas formed a kind of principle emotional orientation As a result, this principlelead to the respective toward human dignity, literature and woman

1.2.3.1 Similarities between British culture and Vietnamese one

The most similarity between English and Vietnamese culture arehumanity Both two cultures are the things which people made They hashumanitarian characteristics

1.2.3.2 Differences between British culture and Vietnamese one

As the matter of fact, every culture has their own characteristic in eachculture.People can express their thought, feeling, opinions in different ways indifferent cultures in every field

The climate where the Vietnamese communities lived was very hot.Thus, it rained very much, and many big rivers with fertile delta regions weremade As a result, an agriculture originated culture was formed Britain was acold region with dry climate which is suitable for planting trees There wereonly immense meadows, and the British people earned their living by

breeding They lived in a nomadic life and went from one place to otherplaces As a result, a nomadic rooted culture was formed While theagricultural cultural opinion how to building a stable life The nomadiccultural opinion is how to travel fast

Due to the natural environment, two contrary opinions were created TheEastern people depend on nature So they highly appreciated nature and workship natural genies The nomadic did not was to stay at a fixed place.Therefore, they not only look down on nature but also want to subdue it Vietnamese has synthetic thought which brings about dialecticsbehaviors They often care for the relation between them Vietnamese live inharmony with another, respect the emotional ties which leads up to look upgood characteristics ,knowledge and woman The British think of equality andjustice due to the commercial life The nomadic respect talent, strength, andmen.They do not highly appreciate woman and knowledge

In conclusion, Vietnam and Britain owned two opposite cultures WhileEnglish culture represented by the analysis thinking and the physical manner

is the center of England culture; Vietnamese culture represented by thesynthetic thinking with dialectic behaviors Therefore, we should be cautiouswhen studying the influence of cultural elements caused by these differences

1.3 Overview of language

Human being is considered the most numerous and the most powerfulliving things in our planet In fact, some species of animals are able to do thethings which mankind can not For example, birds can fly far away and comeback to the some places every year, owls can see in dark, etc But we aredifferent.It is the language that distinguish us with another animals Onlyhuman being can communicate with one another by using our spokenlanguage

Language is one of the most important inventions of human being Inorder to understand clearly about language, let's take some definition

According to L Donald and W Harry (1956) "Language is the means bywhich men and women reach searching finger toward one another, understandone another, conduct as members off is prime vehicle of our conduct asmember of a human society, it is the basic of our writing and the instrument ofour literature

The America Heritage Dictionary of the English language gave outanother definition that: "a communication of thought and feeling through asystem of arbitrary signal such as voice sounds, gesture or written symbol,such a system including its rules for combining its component such as: wordsused by a nation people, or other distinct community, often contrasted withdialect"

While Tadeuze asserted that: "language is a product in that it can surviveages without essential changing despite social upheavals (1973:3)

In brief, language is considered as a mean of human being’scommunication It is created from linguistic unit such as: morphemes, words,renitence, etc Also, by using language, people can interchange information,express their feeling, keep the social relation between each members

1.3.1 Function of language

We can see many classifications by many linguists Exactly, the mostpopular function that most language learners and researchers can recognize isthe function as a mean of communication

In terms of this problem, Holliday (1930 : 1985) indicated that languagehas three functions:

The first function is named ideational function This function serves forthe expression of "content" that is of the speaker's experience of the real worldincluding the inner of his awareness There are 2 subtypes in this function: theexperiential function and the logical function

The second function is the interpersonal function This function serves toestablish and maintain social relation for the expression of social roles formed

by language itself, for example, the tasks of questioner or respondent, which

we take for getting things done, by ways of interaction between one personand another

The last function is the textual function, is concerned with providingconnections with language itself and with the features of the case in which it

is used It helps writer or speaker construct texts, or connect passages ofdiscourse that is situated by relevant, and help the reader or listener, to makedistinction between a text and a random set of sentence

1.3.2 Characteristics of language

When people understand the characteristics of language they can have a

profound view toward translation and culture-related issues There are threemajor characteristics of language.

The first characteristic is the sophistication It is proved by the fact thatnowadays it is impossible to translate mechanically from one language toanother with really satisfactory results The best program med computer stillcannot translate perfectly The mistake is not in the computer but in theunsuccess to provide it with sufficiently accurate instructions, because we cannot handle this vastly complex system It has been estimated that if the brainused some of the methods of computting language, it would take severalminutes to produce or to understand a single short sentence

Secondly, language is productive We can produce uncountable sentencesthat we have never heard before It is true that we have some kinds of sestence

- producing mechanism - that sentences are produced new every time and notmerely imitated One role of grammatical theory is to explain this quitenoticeable fact

Last, language is arbitrary There is no one–to- one relation betweensound and meaning This account for the fact that languages differ most of all

in their grammatical structure

1.3.3 The interrelation between language and culture

The issues of language and culture relationship has drawn the concern ofmany linguistics and other inter branch's attention Nowadays, these issueshave been given under the light of new theories coping with the command ofthe widen of linguistic, culture logy and other socio - human sciences Most oftheorists asserts about the sophisticated relation of culture and language.When a person wants to learn another culture, he/she has to learn its languagebecause language is a bridge to connect him/her to the culture and understand

it In turn, culture gets rich its language and make the dominant characteristic

of the country which owns the language The language and the culturecombine so tightly that learning one obviously relates learning another Tosum up, the relation between language and culture is interrelated andinseparable They are two parts of a whole which is never separated

Chapter 2: Findings and discussion 2.1 Survey text

2.1.1 Aim of the survey text

The survey aims at finding some common mistakes made by the thirdyear students of English at Hanoi Open University when translating fromEnglish into Vietnamese

2.1.2 General description of the survey

The survey is divided into three main sections :

Section A: Participants were asked to translate the 13 examples withgreat attention paid to the underlined words or phrases Basing on thetranslation version,their knowledge of British culture and Vietnamese onewould be shown

Section B : Participants were requested to choose the better choice ofthree translation versions to the given compliment of an English person to anewly-born baby

Basing on the result of the two sections, difficulties cause by culturalinfluences in terms of value definition, traditional customs and habit,conveyance and constitution have been shown

Section C: Participants were requested to choose the most suitablepreposition in each of seven sentences Through this section, we can see howthe way of thinking toward space division influences on English- Vietnamesetranslation

2.1.3 Target of the survey

The target of the survey are 60 third year students of English faculty atHanoi Open University The reason for my choice of target is that I would like

to find out how the cultural knowledge might cause mistakes when translatingfrom English into Vietnamese

2.2 Data analysis

After collecting back 60 sheets distributed, I have analyzed the

data.Participants were asked to complete the survey individually in forty - five

minute without using dictionary.The final result from effect of culturaldifferences still exist

Here is the final result:

Part A:Choose the best translation with great attemtion to the underlined

words or phrases.

1 I have been loving him from the bottom of my heart

approval PercentageTôi yêu anh ta bằng cả trái tim mình 34 56.6%

2 If you want to be a successive businessman, you must be aggressiveand not worry about people feeling

approval Percentage Nếu bạn muốn là một thơng nhân giỏi, bạn

cần xông xáo và không nghĩ tới cảm xúc ngời

khác

Nếu bạn muốn là một thơng nhân giỏi, bạn

cần hiếu chiến và không nghĩ tới cảm xúc của

5 Uncompromised methods were given out to deal with the problem

approval Percentage Những biện pháp cứng nhắc đã đợc đa ra để

Những biện pháp không khoan nhợng đã đợc