idioœmaticity of english terminology in finance and solutions for finding vietnamese equivalents = tính đặc ngữ của thuật ngữ tài chính tiếng anh và biện pháp tìm tương đương trong tiếng việt

24 Figure 2: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms according to the ULIS respondents .... 31 Figure 6: Percentage of the most effective measure chosen by

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES vii

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and scopes of the study 2

3 Research questions and methodology 2

4 Organization of the thesis 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

1.1 Terminology and Financial Terminology 4

1.1.1 Definitions 4

1.1.2 Properties 5

1.1.3 Translation of terminology 9

1.2 Previous research 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 Participants 16

2.2 Instruments of data collection 16

2.3 Procedures of data collection 18

2.4 Procedure of data analysis 20

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1 Results 21

3.1.1 Syntactic idiomaticity of English financial terms 21

3.1.2 Semantic idiomaticity of English financial terms 23

3.1.3 Difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 24

3.1.4 Solutions to deal with difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 30

3.2 Discussion 34

PART 3: CONCLUSION 35

1 Summary 35

2 Implications for Translation 35

3 Pedagogical implications 37

4 Limitations of the study 38

5 Suggestions for further research 39

REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I

Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 VII Appendix 3 XIII

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

ADJ Adjective

ESP English for Specific Purposes

FTU Foreign Trade University

GPA Grade Point Average

GDP Gross Domestic Product

IELTS International English Language Testing System

UK The United Kingdom

ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VNU Vietnam National University, Hanoi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Types of equivalence relationship 11

Table 2: Newmark‟s V Diagram 13

Table 3: Types of English idiomatic financial terms in terms of syntax 21

Table 4: Number of English idiomatic financial compound types 22

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms according to the FTU respondents 24

Figure 2: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms according to the ULIS respondents 25

Figure 3: Admission of many difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 25

Figure 4: Reasons to explain the difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 27

Figure 5: Measures to deal with the difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 31

Figure 6: Percentage of the most effective measure chosen by the FTU group to solve difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 33

Figure 7: Percentage of the most effective measure chosen by the ULIS group to solve difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 33

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Vietnam is a rapidly developing country with a dynamic and emerging market economy Located in South East Asia, the country has positioned itself as a focal point of trade and investment, boasting an average annual GDP growth rate of 6.8% over the last seven years Despite recent global economic challenges during the worldwide financial crisis, Vietnam has been and will be witnessing remarkable development of a wide range of fields in the economy Finance serves a vivid illustration of this situation when more and more foreign financial institutions have expanded their strong presence in Vietnam Against this background, the use of foreign financial terms, mainly English ones, has become genuinely popular Thus, there arise considerable demands for better understanding of these terms Yet, in some cases, it is not easy to comprehend their accurate meaning, particularly idiomatic ones What is more, in order to find exact Vietnamese equivalents for English idiomatic financial terms, students and novice translators need not only certain language proficiency but also background knowledge in both languages Evidently, the idiomaticity

of English terminology in general and financial terms in particular has indeed caused them considerable difficulties

To address such problems, quite a number of papers have been written on specialized terms However, there is still a research gap in dealing with the idiomaticity of English financial terminology On the other hand, for the same idiomatic financial terms, different authors/users may suggest different Vietnamese words/phrases, claiming them to be equivalent to the English Which among those options can be the most appropriate remains controversial To answer this question, it is necessary to have more investigations into the idiomaticity of the terms Driven by this necessity, I ventured into this investigation of

“Idiomaticity of English Terminology in Finance and Solutions for Finding Vietnamese Equivalents” in the hope of shedding some light on idiomatic financial terms and

suggesting possible solutions for me and other language users to find proper Vietnamese equivalents

2 Aims and scopes of the study

Due to the time constraint and limited knowledge, this study merely focuses on financial terms in English, especially idiomatic ones They have been extracted from specialized

books and dictionaries, namely Options, Futures and other Derivatives (Hull, 2009),

Financial Markets and Institutions (Madura, 2006), English for Specific Purposes II

compiled by the lecturers of Faculty of English for Specific Purposes at Foreign Trade

University (2009), and Oxford Business English Dictionary For Learners of English

(Parkinson, 2008)

The study aims at:

 Providing some theoretical background on terminology in general and financial ones in particular, and translation of terminology;

 Analyzing main features of English idiomatic financial terminology in terms of syntax and semantics;

 Identifying difficulties in finding Vietnamese equivalents for English idiomatic financial terms;

 Suggesting some solutions to cope with these problems and discovering the most effective one(s) among the mentioned solutions

3 Research questions and methodology

Within the framework of a minor thesis, the study is conducted to address the three following research questions:

1 What are the features of English idiomatic financial terms?

2 What are difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms?

3 What are solutions to deal with difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms?

So as to answer the three research questions, questionnaires and interviews were applied Given my circumstances, these questionnaires and interviews could only be administered with the participation of 86 people, 53 of whom are graduate students from Course 46 English of International Finance at Faculty of Finance and Banking, FTU and 33 of whom

are senior ones of Interpreter and Translator Training Division of Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU After that, I picked up 06 among the 33 ULIS students to carry out a focused-group interview to clarify further information on subject matters in this study Then the statistics collected from these instruments were analyzed and compared so that solutions to the difficulties identified could be generated Besides, library research and personal experience were also used as strong support for the study, which ensured its validity and accuracy

4 Organization of the thesis

This paper is divided into three parts:

Part One - Introduction outlines the rationale, scope and aims, research questions and

methodology of the study, as well as organization of the thesis

Part Two - Development is composed of three chapters Chapter One under the title

“Theoretical Background” pinpoints different linguistic concepts relevant to the topic such

as idiomaticity, financial terminology and equivalence, and a short review of what has been done so far in the study of terminology in general and financial terms in particular

Then comes Chapter Two “Methodology” in which detailed description of participants,

instruments, procedures of data collection, and procedure of data analysis are given

Finally, Chapter Three presents results of the study, discussion, recommendations, and

application

Last but not least, Part Three - Conclusion wraps up the study with summary,

implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Terminology and Financial Terminology

1.1.1 Definitions

The notion “terminology” has been under many discussions by many linguists so far Its definition is looked at from different views To the author of Collins Cobuild Dictionary (Collins, 2006), terminology is simply “a set of special words and expressions used in connection with it” Meanwhile, according to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary of Current English (Hornby, 2006), terminology is viewed as “a set of technical words or expressions used in a particular subject” Newmark (1988, p.131) states that “terminology

is variously defined as an idiom peculiar to a trade or profession, an occupational register

of language, or an esoteric unintelligible to the layman” In agreement with Newmark, Rey (1979, p.4) defines it as:

“A set of special words belonging to a science, an art, an author or a social entity,

as in: “the terminology of medicine”, “the terminology used by computer specialists.”

There are also various definitions of terminology among Vietnamese linguists Nguyễn Văn Tu (1968, p.176) contributes that “terminology is a word or combination of words that

is used in science, technology, politics, art,… and it has a specific meaning, denotes precise concepts and names of the above-mentioned scientific areas” Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2003, p.270) suggests that terminology is recognized as a special part of the language lexicon It consists of certain words and phrases that are the exact names of concepts and objects in the professional field In the light of Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981)‟s view, terms are

“specialist words used within a scientific field, a profession or any technological field” Such definitions can serve as a foundation on which distinction between terms and words

is discovered In fact, Baker (1998, p.261) puts that “terms differ from words in that they are endowed with a special forms of reference, namely that they refer to discrete

conceptual entities, properties, activities or relations which constitute the knowledge space

of a particular subject field” Accordingly, further important differences between terms and words are as follows:

- Terms have special reference within a particular discipline whereas words function

in general reference over a variety of subject fields

- Terms keep their lives and meanings only as long as they serve the system of knowledge they gave rise to them

In brief, although the definitions of terminology are made at different times and from different situations, they still share three similar aspects With respect to structure, terminology often manifests itself in word and phrasal form In terms of semantics, it is a special linguistic unit that denotes certain unique concept With reference to usage, terminology is utilized in a certain specialized field Seen in this way, financial terminology must be a set of special words and expressions (i.e terms) relating to finance What the author means by “finance” here is the study of money and how it is spent and budgeted (Farlex Financial Dictionary, 2009) One of the main subsets of finance is credit and banking, as this involves money, time, and risk all together Finance also touches on personal or corporate issues, such as how an individual or company acquires the money needed to perform a certain act On the basis of the analysis, it can be concluded that terminology in finance in this context is a system of exact and specific terms including monetary markets, currency movements, banks, etc These are the subjects of my research

1.1.2 Properties

Most lexical units of language have their own properties, and terminology is not an exception Several properties of terminology have been identified Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981) assumes three fundamental properties of terminology, namely accuracy, systematicity, and internationality In accordance with Lê Khả Kế (1967, pp.110-114), “scientific i.e accurate, systematical and concise, of native language […]; popular and applicable” are distinctive features of terminology Lưu Vân Lăng (1977, p.2) adds that terminology is to

be “systematical, linguistically native, accurate, concise, and popular and of great utility” Based on those views, the author believes terminology should have the following

properties: Accuracy, systematicity, internationality, nationality, popularity, monosemy,

and idiomaticity

With regard to accuracy, it can be considered the most basic property of terminology

Terminology must express a clear and exact meaning in order to avoid misunderstanding

of one concept for another Indeed, the accuracy of terminology is well preserved in both its form and meaning Concerning lexical meaning, while normal words basically put up with polysemy and synonymy, terminology does not The semantics of terminology is invariant in a particular area, as opposed to that of ordinary words which may alter depending on usage and contexts Regarding its form, terminology remains fixed Hardly can it be added with any other elements such as affix to change a term into the plural form

or antonyms Nevertheless, terms parachuted under the criterion of systematicity could be varied in forms

Next comes the second property of terminology which is systematicity As a matter of fact,

each field of science has its own system of solid and finite concepts expressed by its own terms, and the terms have relationship with others in its system The semantic value of a term is determined by its relation to others in the same field Once separated from its system, it may be ambiguous, or even valueless To take an example, “call” in Communication is interpreted as “cuộc gọi”, and “quyền chọn bán” in Finance It can be inferred that it is impossible to isolate a term from its community Systematicity makes terms the insiders of a particular field and helps readers understand concepts with ease

Another property of terminology is internationality which is shown in both form and

meaning With regard to form, it is of great interest to discover that many terms are entirely borrowed from one language to another For example, despite very slight difference in the pronunciation, the term “vitamin” stays the same in almost all languages around the world, including Vietnamese, English, and German language In terms of meaning, terminology figures out common scientific concepts recognized and equally understood by speakers of different cultures For instance, it is common knowledge that ATM is an abbreviation of Automated Telling Machine in finance Obviously, internationality provides impetus towards the popularity of a common language

Nationality is the fourth feature of terminology It is broadly conceived that terminology is

not set apart from the language Nguyễn Lân (1995, p.16) avers that terms are specific

words which belong to a particular subject field but they are also a part of a language system of a nation They, therefore, possess all the characteristics and colors of a national language A term is considered as belonging to a nation when it is made from that nation‟s language material and reflects that nation‟s language features For example, the term “bad debt” would sound more Vietnamese if it were understood as “nợ khó đòi” However, in case of being performed as “trái quyền bất khả truy hoàn” in Vietnamese, the translator would challenge the reader on understanding the meaning of “bad debt” and its utility would become less effective

The next characteristic of terminology to take into account is popularity No matter what

field of science a term in a language belongs to, it should be comprehensible and memorable to all speakers of that language In other words, terminology is targeted to not only professionals and experts but outsiders of the field as well It brings subject fields closer to the masses and let them approach to, participate in, and benefit from these subject fields WTO is considered a typical illustration of this point Indeed, WTO is an economic term; yet, it is widely used and easy to remember to people in the world Thanks to this property, terminology can keep its position in the society

The sixth feature of terminology to investigate is monosemy Lê Văn Thới (1970, p.5)

claims that a noun used in a particular subject (i.e a term) must belong to such a field linguistically and practically, and as concise and simple as possible This can be seen that the term carries the only meaning in a specialized area and a concept should be expressed

by one noun For instance, the normal meaning of “appreciation” in Vietnamese is “sự đánh giá”; nonetheless, Vietnamese equivalent to this word in finance is “sự lên giá” Evidently, this kind of property should be perceived as monosemy in a certain profession

The last characteristic of terminology - the core point of this study is idiomaticity Pawley

& Syder (1983) declare that advanced learners quite often fail to reach a nativelike level of idiomaticity They determine that idiomaticity is a salient characteristic of language at clause or sentence level However, idiomatic expressions exist also at other language levels, such as phrase level (Fillmore et al., 1988) and morpheme (Hockette, 1958) Hockette (1958) identifies an idiom as a grammatical form with a meaning not deducible from its structure Thus, every morpheme has idiomatic status since a morpheme has no structure from which its meaning could be deduced In the words of Skorupa & Bosulajeva

(2009), single words have the lowest degree of idiomaticity which is typical to the phraseological collocations The word “overdraft” can clarify the above point This single word includes two semantic parts “over” and “draft” According to Oxford Business English Dictionary For Learners of English (Parkinson, 2008), the meaning of the word

“overdraft” is understood as “the amount of money that you owe to a bank when you have spent more money than there is in your bank account” From the analysis, the meaning of

“overdraft” is not a simple addition of the meanings of the two constituents “over” and

“draft” Meanwhile, pure phraseological units have the highest level of idiomaticity as can

be found in proverbs and sayings Their meaning is usually completely unpredictable from their lexical constituents from the semantic point of view Supporting this view, Fillmore et

al (2003) bring up the concept that “an idiomatic expression or construction is something a language user could fail to know while knowing everything else in the language” (p.247)

It can be inferred from this standpoint that grammar and vocabulary of a language are not bound to give guarantee for idiomaticity Idiomaticity is not interpreted only by combination of literal senses of the constituent words on the basis of syntactic rules Pawley & Syder (1983) make a clear-cut distinction between grammaticality and idiomaticity As opposed to which are grammatical but judged to be „unidiomatic‟, „odd‟

or „foreignism‟, nativelike expressions only account for a small percentage of grammatical sentences To have deeper insight into idiomaticity, it should be also noted that there exists some difference between the terms “idiom” and “idiomaticity” According to Warren (2005), idioms are “opaque invariant word combinations” Cuddon (1999, p.412) identifies idiom as “a form of expression, construction or phrase peculiar to a language and often possessing a meaning other than its grammatical or logical one” In the concept of Listunova (2003, p.36, as cited in Skorupa & Bosulajeva, 2009), the most distinctive aspects of idiom are compositeness, institutionalization, and semantic opacity In contrast

to “idiom”, idiomaticity is the mechanism that enables phrases to take on meanings that go beyond the meaning of their parts The presence of idioms in a text does not necessarily make it idiomatic; nor does their absence make it unidiomatic However, idiomaticity and idiom have a close relation, that is, idiomaticity can be recognized in idioms

As discussed above, there are seven properties of terminology, and financial terms hold all

of them In this study, the author will invest time and effort in discussing the last feature of

financial terms, namely idiomaticity

1.1.3 Translation of terminology

 Technical translation

First, what is translation? According to Marlone (1988), “translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences” Cartford (1965) reveals that translation is “the replacement of a text in one language (SL) by an equivalent text in another language (TL) Hartman & Stork (1972) claim “translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalence text in a second language” Despite their wording differences, these definitions share common features Translation represents some sort of movement from one language to another and some kind of content and the requirement to find equivalence

The next question to be answered is what technical translation is Sofer (1991) approached technical translation by distinguishing it from literary translation According to him, literal translation covers such areas as fiction, poetry, drama, and humanities in general and is done by writers of the same kind in the TL, or at least by translators with the required literary aptitude Meanwhile, “one way of defining technical translation is by asking the question, does the subject being translated require a specialized vocabulary, or is the language non-specialized? If the text being translated includes specialized terms in a given field, then the translation is technical” Clearly, Sofer views technical translation as specialized translation with its essential element - “specialized terms”

 Pros and Cons

Basically, terminology translation has its own pros and cons In terms of advantages, the study of terminology translation in a specific field will broaden specialized vocabulary It also helps users to use terms accurately Thanks to these, translators can avoid embarrassing situations where they are confused with new, strange, and difficult terms

As a coin has its two sides, there can be certain difficulties in converting the SL into the

TL The very first one is that translators and interpreters may lack subject matter knowledge in order to render the original meaning properly in the TL As a result, it is very hard to have precise and cohesive equivalents This can be evident in dealing with

terminology in finance If they have not acquired any background knowledge of finance, they can hardly get any terms on finance into their mind

What is more, lack of competence in both the SL and TL is also a problem to access the exact meaning of terms Deficiency in the mother tongue makes the outcome of translation

of English terminology poorly concise Translators and interpreters in this situation are likely to use lengthy descriptive or explanatory words which are rarely found in the terminology of any language

Another obstacle is to tackle with new terminology As Newmark (1995, p.153) indicates,

“some technical neologisms in the source language which are relatively context-free and appear once If they are context-bound, you are more likely to understand them by gradually eliminating the less likely versions” As a matter of course, the tasks of translators are to always update information and use a variety of sources

To sum up, translators and interpreters are expected to be well-qualified and experienced

so as to produce good translation of texts in general, and of financial terms in particular They should master the ins and outs of terminology and know how to treat new ones adequately in the process of their work Only by due diligence and logical approach can they meet their high demands of their occupations

 Equivalence

Equivalence is a central concept of the translation theory, but a controversial one Catford (as cited in Van den Broek, 1978) defines translation equivalence with his notable statement that “translation equivalence occurs when SL and TL texts or items are related to (at least some of) the same relevant features of situation substance” As defined by Halverson (1997), equivalence is the relationship existing between two entities, and the relationship is described as one of similarity in terms of any of a number of potential qualities House (1977) states the notion of equivalence is the conceptual basis of translation Catford (1965, p.21) also shares “the central problem of translation practice is that of finding TL equivalents and the central task of translation theory is therefore that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence” Baker (1992) points out that equivalence can be seen at different levels which all different aspects of translation are covered and put together the linguistic and the communicative approach

From these different definitions of equivalence, it can be easily seen that equivalence is regarded as a necessary condition for translation, an obstacle to progress in translation studies, or a core criterion for evaluating translated versions

Theorists have studied equivalence in relation to the translation process, using two approaches, namely quantitative and qualitative Concerning the quantitative approach, Kade (1968), and Hann (1992) divide equivalence into six categories as follows:

No Types of equivalence

1 One-to-one

A single expression in the TL for

a single SL expression is used

2 One-to-many

equivalence

More than one TL expression for

a single SL expression is used

3 Many-to-one

equivalence

More than one SL expression for

a single TL expression is used

Table 1: Types of equivalence relationship

There exist three subdivisions under qualitative approach, that is, function-based, based and form-based approach Eugene A Nida, Koller and Baker are three linguistic

meaning-researchers are credited as the founders of these above approaches with their major works

of the time

In terms of function-based equivalence, Nida (1964) argues that there are two different

types of equivalence, including formal equivalence which is referred to as formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence in the second edition While formal correspondence focuses attention on both form and content (as in Bible, international diplomacy, law and the like), dynamic equivalence emphasizes the text readability

In light of meaning-based equivalence, Koller (1977) proposes five levels of equivalence,

that is, “denotative, connotative, text-normative, pragmatic and formal equivalence”

Denotative equivalence is one in which the SL and TL words refer to the same thing in the

real world While that, connotative equivalence is that SL and TL words should produce

the same communicative values in the mind of native speakers of the two languages A

close look is to take at text-normative equivalence that the SL and TL words using the

same or similar text types in their respective languages Koller (1977) has been aware that

pragmatic equivalence is the equivalence that the SL and TL words have the same effect

on the reader or mainly aiming at the receiver, to whom the translation is directed Last but

not least, formal equivalence is referred to as “expressive equivalence” Possibilities of

formal equivalence are with respect to categories such as rhyme, verse form, rhythm, special stylistic forms of expression in syntax and lexis, word play, metaphor and so on

With regard to form-based equivalence, Baker (1992) introduces five levels of equivalence

including equivalence at word level, equivalence above word level, grammatical equivalence, textual equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence Baker notes that word sometimes carries different meanings in different languages, and relates meaning of words with morpheme Baker mentions problems at word level and above word level before

suggesting some strategies in dealing with them Grammatical equivalence refers to the

diversity of grammatical categories across languages The linguistic scholar affirms that grammatical rules across languages may differ, which lead to some problems in finding a

direct correspondence in the TL Textual equivalence denotes the equivalence between a

SL text and a TL text regarding information and cohesion Finally, pragmatic equivalence

touches on implication of the TL text The duty of a translator is recognizing the implied meaning of SL text, and then reproducing it in a way that readers of the TL can

comprehend clearly without any misunderstanding culturally

 Methods

There has been controversy since at least the first century B.C over whether to translate terms literally or freely To deal with this non-stop argument, the author of this paper selects the following flattened V diagram of Newmark (1995, p.45) which points out the most reasonable for translation of terminology:

Table 2: Newmark’s V Diagram

Due to the characteristics of terminology, the translation is dominantly based on the literal and communicative translation According to Newmark (1995, p.45), literal translation is that “the source language's grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest target language equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context” and communicative one “attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership” While the former helps to secure referential and pragmatical equivalence

to the original, the latter gives useful solutions to the hard-to-translate terms

With regard to translation of idiomatic terms, Ghazala (2003) provides two main procedures, namely evasion and invasion The former can be described as the way which a translator eliminates idiomaticity of the SL idiom on account of his incompetence or simplification of the message for the TL readers The latter means a translator‟s deliberate use in the TL of an idiom in an attempt not only to match but also sometimes to supercede the original As compared with evasion, invasion sounds more persuasive in tackling with the problems of translation It is “at at worst an escape from translating properly, and at best an inclination to practicality” (Ghazala, 2003, p.209)

1.2 Previous research

Recently, research in the field of terminology and translation has grown enormously, with the quantity of published research increasing annually To the best of my knowledge, this topic has attracted a good number of linguists and scholars, as evident in the considerable number of MA theses in ULIS and University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU, Hanoi about terminology in different specialized areas Following are some examples: Written in English:

- Nguyễn Thị Bắc (2003) A study on the English-Vietnamese Translation of the

terminology in the materials for Electronics and Electrical Engineering;

- Nguyễn Thị Mai (2003) A study on the translation of IFA terminology between English

and Vietnamese;

- Trần Thị Thu Hiền (2005) A study on English Computer terms and their Vietnamese

Equivalents in Information Techonology;

- Nguyễn Thị Ánh Hồng (2005) A study on the English-Vietnamese Translation of

medical terms in the Coursebook for the Students of Haiphong Medical College;

- Vũ Thị Thanh Yến (2008) A study on equivalence between English and Vietnamese

translation of insurance terms in US health insurance plans;

- Nguyễn Ngọc Linh (2008) A study on the English-Vietnamese translation of terms in

the materials for mechanical engineering;

- Nguyễn Thu Hiền (2009) A study on the translation of Technical texts in Shipbuilding

Written in Vietnamese:

- Nguyễn Thị Minh Phương (2001) Some problems about translation of

English-Vietnamese texts on technological science;

- Lê Hoài Ân (2003) Features of German auditing terms and their translation into

Vietnamese;

- Đoàn Thúy Quỳnh (2007) An investigation into English terminology in Hydrography

and Meteorology (Contrastive analysis with Vietnamese);

- Nguyễn Thị Hằng Nga (2009) An initial investigation into English-Vietnamese

or professional translators in different fields Most of the topics come from the specific working/ teaching situations, so the researchers might have enough knowledge, experience and motivation to carry out the research From their experience in translating or teaching translation, they recognized difficulties in translating English into Vietnamese in their fields or they saw problems in current translations

Second, the majority of the studies are centered upon synthesizing and systematicizing terms to explore their features with regard to syntax, semantics, and origin Moreover, they dealt with Vietnamese equivalence for English terms and suggested some solutions to this issue Thanks to these, they fill the gap between linguistics and specialized fields, and make great contribution to accessing the world of general and specific knowledge It is possible to state that the studies provide the useful theoretical background for terms, translation and equivalence They also identify specific problems and solutions related to the terms of a specialized field Therefore, they are really valuable references for the author

of this study to use From this, she can conduct her own paper more easily

However, almost all of these investigations examine terminology from perspective of translation and its equivalence only Indeed, they do not seem to go deeper insight into the individual property of terms They provide general theory about the properties without considering them core points of their work Based on them, the researchers pinpoint other issues Clearly, it is necessary to fill in this gap by more studies on the properties of terms Moreover, taking a look at the above topics, the author also discovers that financial terms remain untouched, despite their vibrating role in the economy My MA thesis therefore nicely fits in and is hoped to partially fill this gap, particularly when it looks at a special

aspect of terminology in Finance, as the title indicates “Idiomaticity of English

Terminology in Finance and Solutions for Finding Vietnamese Equivalents”

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Participants

There are two categories of participants selected in this study in view of convenience and time constraint Their age ranges slightly between 21 and 22 The majority of participants are female To start with, the first group (Group 1) is 53 graduate students from three different classes of full-time course 46A of International Finance at Faculty of Finance and Banking, FTU Specifically, there include twelve respondents of Japanese class, eighteen

of class English 2, and twenty-three of class English 1 With regard to overall study result

of this group, there are 23 students achieving distinction with the grade point average (GPA) of 8.00 and above, and 30 others gaining the Credit grade of over 7.00 With reference to English language proficiency, the number of students getting the IELTS mark

of above 7.00 makes up 20% They are members of class English 1 and 2, and now pursuing the MA course on Finance in the UK or working for the companies with the high requirement of English Meanwhile, the others in this group also get TOEIC mark of more than 700

The second group (Group 2) comprises 33 senior students from Course 42 of Interpreter and Translator Training Division at Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU These informants make up two subdivisions: 15 students from fast-track group E.20, 18 students from normal group E.19 They all receive scholastic achievement of 7.00 or above

in terms of the result of major and the overall score Moreover, some of them are currently undertaking a double-degree university program This means that besides their above major, they work as students of external economics at University of Economics and Business (UEB), VNU They are going to finish their school curriculum in June 2012

2.2 Instruments of data collection

The first major research instrument used in this study is the surveys delivered to the participants These surveys are designed for ULIS participants in English and FTU ones in Vietnamese so that they can interpret questions easily and give correct answers Each one consists of two parts, namely English-Vietnamese translation and Questionnaire For more

details, part one is to provide the respondents with 50 English financial terms and they are required to translate them into Vietnamese The purpose of this part is to get the most reliable study results and more accurately reflect what the respondents want to say Part two is composed of 8 questions in the English version and 7 questions in the Vietnamese one There is such a difference because the English questionnaire distributed to the ULIS includes one more question about the translation methods This questionnaire is a mixture

of closed and open questions which require the participants to answer by putting the mark

√ next to their choice or expressing their ideas in the blank While most questions are multiple choices with several options, one question asks respondents to rank items according to their order of importance The others are open-ended questions which clarify concrete pieces of information like facts about the respondents, and provide appropriate spaces for the informants to state their own opinions The result of such questionnaires can examine the basic understanding of students on English financial terms, particularly idiomatic ones By means of this, the participants can show the real difficulties in finding Vietnamese equivalences for English Finance terminology

The second type of instrument is semi-structured interview with a group of six female students from E.20 at ULIS All of these participants are now attending the double-degree program at ULIS and UEB, VNU They are samples to represent the different levels of language proficiency based on their scholastic achievement of translation and specialized knowledge Accordingly, they consist of three distinct students and three good ones The level of each participant varies slightly depending on the criterion, that is, study result of translation or that of specific knowledge However, it is noticeable that this is such a subtle difference This focused-group interview gives the researcher and participants opportunity

to clarify their issues and opinions for higher validity The two following questions are administered to the chosen respondents:

- Which method did you use to translate the 50 English Financial terms in Part 1

above?

- Why did you use this method of translation?

Due to time constraint as well as demand for in-depth information on translation methods, the investigator just only focuses on six ULIS participants, not those from FTU

Besides, 50 highly idiomatic terms, to the best of the author‟s knowledge within the time available, are also worked on to explore their syntactic and semantic features These terms are collected from the materials stated in Aims and Scope of the study, Part 1-Introduction

2.3 Procedures of data collection

Data are gathered through three following stages

Stage 1

In the initial phase, English financial terms and questions to implement the survey were prepared, and so was the interview schedule The selected items for data collection were taken into careful consideration by the researcher and her supervisor to ensure that their level of difficulty, length, and information were appropriate

Stage 2

Piloting the survey was conducted prior to the start of data collection A sample of five people who were similar to the target population of this study was asked to go through the items and answer them, and then to provide feedback about their reactions and the answers they had given In this step, the investigator was present to observe in order that she could take notes and respond to any spontaneous questions and comments Besides, the researcher also provided her pilot group with some basic guidelines to focus on when doing the survey like marking ambiguous wording or inappropriate information of items Based on the pilot study result, some modifications were made to some survey questions

For example, options of the question “How many per cents do financial terms account for

in a subject-matter related text in your opinion?” were adjusted by narrowing the range

from 1% to 15% instead of between 1% and 60%, and fluctuation band is 5% in place of 20% To take another instance, the researcher also made alterations to the multiple choice questions on properties of terminology which was afterwards turned into question of ranking order items Remarkably, the first part “Translation” in the survey and follow-up

“Focused-group interview” were added to enhance the validity of the research Absolutely, the length of time necessary to complete the final version of survey was longer - one week

as a substitute of 15 minutes

In general, these trial runs allowed the investigator to fine-tune the survey and eliminate

obvious glitches before official delivery to real participants

Stage 3

To group 1, at first, the researcher made contact with all of the participants by phone to ask for their favor She introduced the basic information on the content of survey as well as the procedure of completing it to them in the phone conversations Then, if the participants agreed to help, she would send the Vietnamese survey to each of them via personal email Such means of delivery was considered reasonable to both the researcher and participants

In fact, this type of participants was currently studying or working in different places Undoubtedly, it was very hard and challenging to make appointment with the participants

On these grounds, the researcher used email to send the package of survey to the informants However, to ensure that all of the respondents could receive the questionnaire and understand its items fully, this way of delivery required having correct email address

of each member of this group and explicit instructions on doing the survey Subsequently, the researcher would process the data to discover the participants‟ difficulties in handling the idiomaticity of English terminology in Finance as well as solutions to find Vietnamese equivalents

To group 2, the instructor provided English surveys for the informants directly Their answers were collected after one week of delivery Following the surveys, six selected participants were interviewed to probe for additional data To serve this purpose, a couple

of principal questions were designed for them to answer As an interviewer, the investigator may come up with the interviewees‟ different reactions Therefore, the interviewer may try to help the interviewees to open up and express their ideas clearly and focus on the issues at hand rather than wander to unrelated topics The semi-structured interviews were recorded using detailed notes with an audiotape recorder as a back up A full and detailed record of each participant's responses was produced on completion of each interview Noticeably, the confidentiality of the process was assured

Based on the collected data from Group 1 and Group 2, the researcher did the analyses, interpretations and conclusions to help validate the accuracy and credibility of the study She also made some comparison between two groups to draw fundamental findings

As far as 50 terms in the survey are concerned, the investigator selected them from the

mentioned materials and categorized them These terms were then analyzed to discover their features in terms of syntax and semantics

2.4 Procedure of data analysis

The analysis in this study was mainly limited to questionnaire responses and interview data that were collected Collected data were coded and charted for each group of participants The figures in the charts were explained, in some cases, together with practical experience

of the researcher

In an attempt to ensure the reliability of the analysis, the researcher concentrated on the sample terms to seek their characteristics, experience the difficulties caused by their idiomaticity, and worked out the solutions to tackle these difficulties

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Results

3.1.1 Syntactic idiomaticity of English financial terms

From the perspective of syntax, English idiomatic financial terms are basically compound nouns which make up a large part of the vocabulary of business English (Longman Business English Dictionary, 2007) They consist of two or more words joined together to form a single lexical unit (Close, 1975) This remark is clarified in details through the process of surveying

After analysis, it can be discovered that of the 50 terms chosen in the survey questionnaire, there are 4 single words, 4 phrases, and 42 compound nouns

Here is table 3 which illustrates this result:

Single words Compound nouns Phrases

Over-the-counter market Wall of money

Dirty price of bond Go-go

Table 3: Types of English idiomatic financial terms in terms of syntax

To begin with the single words, all these terms are nouns which are formed of one word

and cannot be divided into smaller meaning segments, such as boutique, ceiling, and

peanuts Writer is composite in that it has a recognizable internal structure It comprises write and -er to denote that a person sells an option contract

Next come the terms which are 03 noun phrases and 01 adjective phrase These noun

phrases are either long premodified (i.e: over-the-counter market, and wall of money) or long postmodified (i.e: dirty price of bond) Remarkably, Over-the-counter market can be

abbreviated as OTC market - a popular abbreviation in finance

The last structural type of the terms investigated is compound terms which obviously

represent the largest percentage Such compounds are mainly made up of a noun with a

noun or an adjective with a noun The others are combination of a verb and a noun, a noun and a verb, a present participle and a noun, and a past participle and a noun The

following table is created to indicate not only the number of each compound type but also bring about a view on the comparison among them

Types of

compound N + N Adj + N N + V V + N

Present participle + N Past participle + N

Number of

Table 4: Number of English idiomatic financial compound types

Based on these data, it is clearly seen that compound nouns in the adjective + noun form

make up the highest proportion of all the compound terms In this group, the adjective helps distinguish the noun from the other concepts of the same group For instance:

Fresh money: Money for investments that have not been invested before

Blue-chip: The shares of the best known companies on the stock market, which are

considered to be a safe investment

…

Meanwhile, the forms noun + verb and past participle + noun hold the smallest

percentage Verb and past participle in such patterns play the role of Epithet which indicates some quality of the subset For example:

Haircut: Discount applied to the value of an asset for collateral purposes

Fallen angel: A company whose bonds were once a good investment but have now

3.1.2 Semantic idiomaticity of English financial terms

The first and most basic characteristic is that general English words have specialized

senses The students will come across these terms in a financial text such as “asset”,

“money”, “card” and many other terms It is worth noting that these specialized terms,

when combining with other terms, usually give the students a collocational pattern that may sound odd in everyday English but common in financial English For instance, the

noun “money” collocates with the noun “seed”, and the adjectives “fresh” or “funny” give

them ambiguity in meaning

Secondly, polysemous words with one or more than one specialized sense are frequently

found Two words “card” and “funny money” are taken as examples According to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary of Current English (Hornby, 2006), the word “card” has

12 senses, one of which refers to a small piece of plastic, especially one given by a bank or

shop/store, used for buying things or obtaining money in financial area Or the word “funny money” from Oxford Business English Dictionary For Learners of English (Parkinson,

2008) has 2 senses, both of which refer to finance The first one is understood as money

with little or no value, such as money that has been printed illegally or is in an unusual currency The second is meant to be an unusual type of shares, bonds, etc that a company

issues, whose value often moves up and down rapidly

Semantically, the English idiomatic financial term cannot simply be inferred from the meaning of its parts Besides, it is difficult to see anything in common between the first

element and the second one in the idiomatic compounds such as “white knight”, “cash

cow”, “fallen angel”, etc

3.1.3 Difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms

The idiomaticity of English financial terms definitely causes not a small number of problems to students and translators Indeed, discussing how many percent idiomatic financial terms account for among the financial ones, up to 57% of the FTU respondents choose over 15% and only 8% of them select 1% †5% It is clearly stated that the percentage of idiomatic financial terms seems very great Figure 1 below is an illustration:

Figure 1: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms

according to the FTU respondents

Meanwhile, as many as 40% of the ULIS respondents think that idiomatic financial terms make up for 10% †15% among the financial terms The second highest number of responses is of the option ≥15%, - 33% of the ULIS respondents selected this answer

Figure 2: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms

according to the ULIS respondents

The figures above show just a slight difference in the opinions of both groups of respondents towards the percentage of idiomatic terms among Englishfinancial terms Yet, both groups share the same idea that the number of English idiomatic financial terms is considerable Therefore, deeper investigations into them will be of great importance, especially when understanding and translating such terms are not easy tasks The survey result indicates this situation Only 01 out of 33 ULIS students and 07 out of 53 FTU students state that they do not have many difficulties in finding the Vietnamese equivalents

to 50 financial terms investigated The illustration is adequately presented in Figure 3:

Figure 3: Admission of many difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial

terms

Along these lines, translating difficulties caused by the idiomaticity of English financial

terms are posed They are misunderstanding and failure to find an equivalent or a suitable

one

First of all, financial terms are ones whose meaning normally cannot always be deduced from their individual components Therefore, idiomatic terms frequently cause

misunderstanding For instance, long/short position can be understood as vị thế dài/ ngắn

in their Vietnamese literal meaning Yet, these terms have to be referred to as vị thế

mua/bán in the field of finance A look at the translation of the terms in the survey can

prove this point Only 07 of the 33 ULIS respondents can provide the Vietnamese

equivalent “vị thế bán” to the term “short position” Instead, the remaining of 78.79% translate it as “đoản thế”, “thế đoản”, “vị trí ngắn”, “ngắn hạn”, “vị trí yếu”, or “vị thế

thiếu” To some extent, “đoản thế” or “thế đoản” seems acceptable to people specializing

in finance Yet, these equivalents do not appear to satisfy two properties of terminology,

namely nationality and popularity Hence, in order of preference, “vị thế bán” should be

the most appropriate equivalent which sounds more Vietnamese and understandable to the

public To the term “long position”, the situation is better when 27.27% of the respondents from the ULIS group can convert the term into “vị thế mua” and 15.15% of them can transfer it into “trường thế” or “vị thế trường” The analysis shows that understanding the

terms thoroughly is a challenge to students, especially to the students having limited specialized knowledge

Second, it is common knowledge that idiomatic terms are notoriously difficult to translate

Therefore, students may fail to find suitable equivalents, even cannot translate the terms

Of the 50 terms listed in the survey, only 05, namely bear market, current account, put

option, short position, and face value do not cause much difficulty to students in finding

Vietnamese equivalents Putting the quality of the translation aside for the moment, it is observed that all the FTU and ULIS respondents can provide Vietnamese translated versions for such terms Yet, for several terms, some respondents do not dare to determine appropriate equivalents although they understand them quite accurately That is the reason why they give more than one corresponding equivalent or clarify the meaning in long

explanation For instance, junk bond is converted into Vietnamese as follows: Trái phiếu

có tính đầu cơ cao; trái phiếu bấp bênh; trái phiếu có độ rủi ro cao; trái phiếu có mức

đánh giá tín dụng thấp… In spite of the differences, these Vietnamese expressions reflect

certain features of the bond type, and junk bond should be best translated as “trái phiếu cấp

thấp”

Such difficulties to students in translating English idiomatic financial terms are mainly

worsened by low degree of English language proficiency, limitation of specialized

knowledge on finance, the shortage of reliable English materials, and inconsistency in Vietnamese translations of the same term among different dictionaries or materials Figure

4 clearly presents which reasons the respondents give to clarify their difficulties

Figure 4: Reasons to explain the difficulties in translation of English idiomatic

financial terms

Regarding low degree of English language proficiency, the FTU group choose this as the

second fundamental reason to explain the difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms Unlike the FTU respondents, the ULIS group convey that this cause is the least basic when only 10 ULIS respondents select it This statistic is comprehensible due to

the fact that the ULIS respondents are senior students majoring in translating and interpreting More remarkably, among the ULIS group, there are 15 members in 081.E20 -

a fast-track class who are obliged to attain at least the English upper-intermediate level according to the requirement of ULIS training program Hence, English does not seem the greatest hindrance to them Meanwhile, the FTU informants are graduate students of International Finance, 12 of whom come from Japanese class These students learn ESP in Japanese, not in English Consequently, English looks quite challenging to them Perhaps

so, among the reasons, English language proficiency takes the second position, which leads

to the FTU group‟s difficulties in translation of the terms In Part 1 of the Translation, the Japanese-learner group from FTU leave many more blanks than the other groups

survey-Concerning limitation of specialized knowledge on Finance, the ULIS group view it as the

greatest cause of their difficulties in translation Specifically, the percentage of the ULIS respondents being aware of this reason amounts to 93.94% This ratio reveals that

limitation of specialized knowledge on Finance is the most serious reason In contrast, the

FTU group admit that limitation of specialized knowledge on Finance is almost the least

serious reasons Only 22.64% of the total students select Reason one As Part 1-Translation

of the survey shows, although the ULIS students find more equivalents than the FTU group, the equivalents in the ULIS questionnaires are of poorer quality than those in the

FTU Boutique is a typical example to illustrate this conclusion All the ULIS informants provide the Vietnamese meanings for boutique in various expressions like hàng quán, cửa

hàng, cửa tiệm, công ty nhỏ, cửa hàng nhỏ, gian hàng, hiệu buôn,… Such equivalents

generally appear acceptable; yet, they do not come up to the expectations of finance

professionals Simply, boutique in finance represents a small business that offers advice

and help about a particular industry or area to people or organizations that want to invest money On that account, it should be best translated as Công ty tƣ vấn đầu tƣ tài chính quy

mô nhỏ which is offered by a certain number of FTU respondents This clearly

demonstrates that background knowledge is indispensable for students in translating such technical documents Students are supposed to have background knowledge of the field concerned For students of finance, the requirement of knowledge becomes much more

fundamental