Những lỗi phổ biến trong dịch Việt-Anh của phiên dịch Tiếng Anh mới ra nghề tại Công ty Khai Thác Chế Biến Khoáng Sản Núi Pháo

The study also investigated the causes leading to these errors and the ways to void them as well as to improve translation skills for English translator trainees via questionnaires and i

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ĐINH THỊ HÒA

COMMON ERRORS IN VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION MADE BY ENGLISH TRANSLATOR TRAINEES AT NUI PHAO

MINING COMPANY LIMITED

Những lỗi phổ biến trong dịch Việt-Anh của phiên dịch Tiếng Anh mới ra nghề tại Công Ty TNHH Khai Thác Chế Biến Khoáng Sản Núi Pháo

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

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ĐINH THỊ HÒA

COMMON ERRORS IN VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION MADE BY ENGLISH TRANSLATOR TRAINEES AT NUI PHAO

MINING COMPANY LIMITED

Những lỗi phổ biến trong dịch Việt-Anh của phiên dịch Tiếng Anh mới ra nghề tại Công Ty TNHH Khai Thác Chế Biến Khoáng Sản Núi Pháo

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF., DR LÊ HÙNG TIẾN

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

I hereby, certify the thesis entitled “Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation

made by English translator trainees at Nui Phao Mining Company Limited” is the result

of my own research for the degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The thesis has not been

submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions I agree that the origin of

my paper deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research

Hanoi, 2014

Đinh Thị Hòa

as officers working at Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International studies – VNU for their great help and numerous suggestions concerning this thesis

Thirdly, I want to extend my special thanks to my colleagues working at NPMC for their help and cooperation during my research I am also grateful to my close friends who encouraged me a lot when I was conducting my research

Finally, millions of thanks go to my beloved family for their love, care and support during my MA course, especially the fulfillment of the thesis

ABSTRACT

Many studies have been carried out to investigate the strategies and procedures in translation However, there have been few studies reporting on the errors in translation especially in Vietnamese-English translations The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the common errors in Vietnamese-English translations of English translator trainees In order to achieve this, a case study with 10 English translator trainees working

at Nui Phao Mining Company was carried out to find out the most common errors in Vietnamese-English translations They were inexperienced English translators with only some months to 2 years experience in an English translator role The data of this study collected from 30 Vietnamese-English translations of these English translators and the questionnaires distributed to them In addition, the interview questions also were used to get further information for the study from 4 experienced English translators who have had many years in translating and directly helped English translator trainees review their translations Results from errors analysis of 30 Vietnamese-English translations, questionnaires and interviews showed that English translator trainees often made errors in using of preposition, word forms, word orders, verb tenses, lexical choice and omission errors The study also investigated the causes leading to these errors and the ways to void them as well as to improve translation skills for English translator trainees via questionnaires and interview Finally, some suggestions and recommendations are given for English translators trainees as well as English learners to make their Vietnamese-English translations become more perfect and professional

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF CHARTS IN THE STUDY viii

LIST OF TABLES IN THE STUDY viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Error Analysis 5

1.1.1 Definition of error analysis 5

1.1.2 The significance of error analysis 5

1.1.3 The sources and causes of errors 6

1.2 Translation and errors in translation 8

1.2.1 Definition of translation 8

1.2.2 Errors in translation 9

1.2.2.1 Definition of errors in translation 9

1.2.2.2 Categories of translation errors 9

1.2.2.3 Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation 12

1.3 Previous studies in the world and in Viet Nam 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Research Questions 17

2.2 Settings of the study and participants 17

2.2.1 Setting of the study 17

2.2.2 Participants 17

2.3 Data collection 18

2.3.1 Data collection instruments 18

2.3.1.1 The Vietnamese-English translations analysis 18

2.3.1.2 The questionnaire 18

2.3.1.3 The interview questions 18

2.3.2 Data collection procedures 18

2.3.3 Data analysis procedures 19

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20

3.1 Personal information of the participants 20

3.1.1 The first group of participants 20

3.1.2 The second group of participants 22

3.2 Difficulties of English translator trainees in translating Vietnamese-English text22 3.3 Common errors on Vietnamese- English translation made by English translator trainees working at NPMC 23

3.3.1 Overall results from Vietnamese-English translations analysis, questionnaires and interviews 23

3.3.2 Linguistic errors 25

3.3.2.1 Misuse of prepositions 25

3.3.2.2 Misuse of verb tenses 28

3.3.2.3 Misuse of sentence structure 28

3.3.2.4 Misuse of word orders 29

3.3.2.5 Misuse of word collocations 29

3.3.2.6 Misuse of word forms 30

3.3.3 Translation errors 30

3.3.3.1 Addition or omission 30

3.3.3.2 Distorted meaning of source text 32

3.3.3.3 Too literal translation or too free translation 32

3.3.3.4 Lexical choice 33

3.4 The causes of translation errors 34

3.5 Suggestions to avoid the common errors in translation and improve translation skills 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 38

1 Summary of the findings 38

2 Concluding remarks 39

REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX I I APPENDIX II III APPENDIX III VI APPENDIX IV VIII APPENDIX V X

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EA: Error Analysis

ETT: English translator trainee

EET: Experienced English translator

ESL: English as a second Language

L2: Second Language

NPMC: Nui Phao Mining Company

ST: Source text

TL: Target language

LIST OF CHARTS IN THE STUDY

LIST OF TABLES IN THE STUDY

translations

24

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

With the continuation of globalization, more and more companies are shifting from just targeting their local markets to targeting the international markets Many countries have considered Vietnam as a potential market for their investment More and more foreign companies have come to Vietnam with the belief of having a good market due to the richness of its workforce and resources Especially, when Vietnam has become one of the members of World Trade Organization, this trend has become a mutual impact, many countries locating their companies in Vietnam with the plenty of experts and in contrary Vietnam has been searching for the good markets oversea In addition, many companies located in Vietnam and owned by Vietnamese but have a great number of experts coming from many other countries in over the world and dealing with oversea markets to import as well as export goods and products

It is undeniable that along with globalization English has become a vital factor making all countries around the world have the common relationship in many aspects of life such as: economy, politics, education, science and technology English is considered as the most popular language used to exchange information and ideas among different nations and cultures today Consequently, English translation has gradually become an indispensable and pressing tool which set the path for the global success of individuals, organizations, and even businesses in the modern time when society is of high development and competition amongst countries is relentless There is a need for Vietnamese learners of English to acquire a professional translation skill in order to meet the high demand of integration into the world economy and exchange of culture with other countries As a result, English translator has become an ideal job for those majoring in English However, Vietnamese-English translation skill is not easy for Vietnamese learners to master, so learners can not avoid making errors in the process of translating Especially, trainee English translators who have just graduated from university without experience and skills, they have to face with many difficulties in translating in the real contexts/situations and they cannot avoid making errors in their translation works.The problems are mainly due to the differences in linguistic systems and languages As put by Baker (1992: 20-21) "Errors and problems in translation mostly result from the non-equivalence between the source and

target languages" Ervin and Bower (1953) stated that linguistic problems in translation may arise: 1) from differences in the meanings of words, 2) from differences in syntactical differences, and 3) from differences in the cultural context of the readers or hearers

In Vietnam, many studies have been carried out on error analysis in English learning; however, there have been few studies using this type of analysis to analyze learner‘s errors

in translation especially Vietnamese- English translation

For all the reasons above, the researcher decided to choose the study ―Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation made by English translator trainees at Nui Phao Mining Company Limited‖ which aims at finding out the most common translation errors in

Vietnamese-English translation of English translator trainees working at NPMC and then investigating the causes of these errors and finally suggesting the ways to avoid them as well as the ways to improve translation skills It is a strong belief that the study will be a useful reference helping to improve translation skills for not only English translator trainees at Nui Phao Mining Company but also all Vietnamese people who are interested in translation work and really want to become an expert translator It is also expected that this study will contribute the good material for all teachers teaching English translation and all students majoring in English especially those who are in the course of English translation

2 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at:

translator trainees at NPMC

translation studies be able to recognize their common errors in translating and self-correct their errors and find out their own effective ways to improve their translation skills

studies for students

3 Research questions

To obtain the above stated purposes, the study aimed to answer the following questions:

1 What are the common errors in Vietnamese- English translation made by English translator trainees working at NPMC?

2 What are the causes for these errors?

3 What should be done to avoid these errors and to improve translation skills?

4 Scope of the study

There have been a great number of errors made by English learners and translators in both Vietnamese-English and English-Vietnamese translation However, due to the limitation of time, this study only focuses on common errors in Vietnamese-English translation of English translator trainees at Nui Phao Mining Company Limited The data for this study collected from Vietnamese-English translation works done by English translator trainees, survey questionnaires distributed to them and the interviews done between the author and four experienced English translators working at NPMC

5 Methods of the study

This study is carried out as a case study In order to answer the research questions, the study uses both qualitative and quantitative method Survey questionnaires, Vietnamese-English translations and semi-structured interviews are used to collect data for the study Firstly, Vietnamese-English translations of English translator trainees are collected and then analyzed to find out the common errors After that, survey questionnaires and interviews are designed based on the information collected from Vietnamese-English translations and distributed to English translator trainees to provide more data for the study

6 Design of the study

The study is separated into three main parts:

Part A: Introduction- provides rationale, the aims and research questions of the study, scope and general structure of the study also are specified in this part

Part B: Development- includes three chapters:

Chapter I: Literature review- states the theoretical background in relation to the topic of the study including previous studies in the world and Vietnam

Chapter II: Methodology- presents participants, setting of the study and data collection which consists of providing data collection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures

Chapter III: Findings and discussion- offers findings drawn from data analysis, then discuss the pedagogical implications for both teachers and students who are involved in English translation studies

Part C: Conclusion-summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Error Analysis

1.1.1 Definition of error analysis

So far, there have been plenty of definitions of error analysis made by linguists According

to James, (1988) he defines Error Analysis (EA) is one of the most influential theories of second language acquisition It is concerned with the analysis of the errors committed by L2 learners by comparing the learners‘ acquired norms with the target language norms and explaining the identified errors For Crystal (1999, p 108) Error Analysis in language teaching and learning is the study of the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning

a language, especially a foreign language

Another definition of error analysis is given by Brown (as cited in Ridha, 2012, p 26) He defines error analysis as "the process to observe, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second languages and then to reveal the systems operated by learner" As

stated by AbiSamara (2003), Error Analysis can be viewed as " a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on errors committed by learners"

Corder (1967) views errors as valuable information for three beneficiaries: for teachers, it clues them on the progress of the students; for researchers, it provides evidence as to how language is acquired or learned; for learners themselves, it gives them resources in order to learn

Corder (ibid), argues that "what has come to be known as error analysis has to do with the investigation of the language of second language learners." One of the main aims of error analysis is to help teachers assess more accurately what remedial work would be necessary for English as a Second Language (ESL) students preparing for an English Language test,

so as to help students avoid the most common errors

Error analysis is a type of linguistic analysis that focuses on the errors learners make It consists of a comparison between the errors made in the Target Language (TL) and that Target Language itself

1.1.2 The significance of error analysis

Error Analysis is significant in the process of teaching and learning second language because it reveals to us -teachers, syllabus designers and textbook writers of what the

problem areas are so that we could design remedial exercises in accordance with these errors and focus more attention on the‗trouble shooting‘ areas

Corder (1967) also states that learner‘s errors can ―provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing

in the discovery of the language He also indicates the usefulness of error analysis in three respects: the researcher or linguist, to the teacher and to the learner himself While analyses

of learners‘ errors provide insights into the nature of language, especially into the innate nature of the learner‘s system, they provide more insights into the process of language teaching and learning

Corder, (1974) verifies error analysis has two objects: one theoretical and another applied The theoretical object serves to ‗elucidate what and how a learner learns when he studies a second language.‘ And the applied object serves to enable the learner ‗to learn more efficiently by exploiting our knowledge of his dialect for pedagogical purposes‘

According to Ancker, (2000), making mistakes or errors is anatural process of learning and must be considered as part of cognition

Weireesh, (1991) considers learners‘ errors to be of particular importancebecause making of errors is a device the learners use in order to learn

Weireesh, (ibid.) says EA is a valuable aid to identify and explain difficultiesfaced by learners He goes on to say that EA serves as a reliable feedback todesign a remedial teaching method This emphasises the fact that problematicas the errors may be, when they are identified, learners get helped and teachersfind it easy to do remedial work

Sercombe, (2000) explains that EA serves three purposes Firstly, to find outthe level of language proficiency the learner has reached Secondly, to obtain information about

common difficulties in language learning, and thirdly, tofind out how people learn a

language From this statement it can be concluded that the study of errors should also be looked at as something positive both forlearners and teachers

According to James (1998), ―Error Analysis developed out of the belief that errors indicate the learner‘s stage of language learning and acquisition The learner is seen as an active participant in the development of hypotheses regarding the rules of the target language just

as is a young child learning the first language Errors are considered to be evidence of the learner‘s strategy as he or she builds competence in the target language‖

1.1.3 The sources and causes of errors

 Sources of errors:

It can be seen that there are many reasons for how learners make errors Myles (2002) states that the errors take root from both social factors and cognitive factors

Selinker (1972) reported five sources of errors:

language There is also negative transfer, that hinders the learning of second language Language transfer involves pronunciation, word order and grammars, semantic transfer, transfer in writing, pragmatic transfer and culture transfer

learning influence the performance of a later activity Transfer of training is the influence

of prior learning on performance in a new situation

sociolinguistic competence in the target language

with problems of communication that have arisen in interaction

when a second language leaner applies a grammatical rule across all members of a grammatical class without making the appropriate exception

In addition, Brown (1980:173-181) classifies sources of error into, 1) interlingual transfer, that is the negative influence of the mother tongue of learner, 2) intralingual transfer, that

is the negative transfer of items within the target language In order words, the incorrect generalization of rules within the target language; 3) context of learning, which overlaps both types of transfer, for example, the classroom with its teacher and its materials in the case of school learning or the social situation in the case of untutored second language learning In a classroom context the teacher or the textbook can lead the learner to make wrong generalization about the language; 4) communication strategies It is obvious that communication strategy is the conscious employment of verbal mechanisms for communicating an idea when linguistic forms are not available to the learner for some reasons

 Causes of errors

Norrish (1983:21-26) classifies causes of error into three types that is carelessness, first language interference, and translation

Another expert who discusses the sources of error is Richards in Schummann and Stenson (1978 : 32) in his article ―Error Analysis and Second language Strategies‖ He classifies sources of errors into (1) interference that is an error resulting from the transfer of grammatical and/or stylistic elements from the source language to the target language; (2) overgeneralization, that is an error caused by extension of target language rules to areas where they do not apply; (3) performance error, that is unsystematic error that occurs as the result of such thing as memory lapses, fatigue, confusion, or strong emotion; (4) markers

of transitional competence, that is an error that results from a natural and perhaps inevitable development sequence in the second language learning process (by analogy with first language acquisition); (5) strategy of communication and assimilation that is an error resulting from the attempt to communicate in the target language without having completely acquired the grammatical form necessary to do so; and (6) teacher-induced error, that is an error resulting from pedagogical procedures contained in the text or employed bythe teacher

In another article ―A Non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis‖, Richards (1971:19-22) classifies causes of error into 1) overgeneralization, 2) incomplete application of rules, 3) false concepts hypothesized, and 4) ignorance of rule restriction

1.2 Translation and errors in translation

1.2.1 Definition of translation

There have been a great number of definitions of translation made by many linguists during the long history of translation development The following definitions taken from different sources will give more understanding about this aspect:

Translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language) (Catford 1965:20) Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another (source language), preserving semantic and stylist equivalencies (Dubois 1973, cited in Bell 1991:5)

Translation is a transfer process, which aims at the transformation of written source language text into an optimally equivalent target language text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical processing of the source language (Wilss, 1982)

Translation is the expression in another language (target language) of what has been expressed in one language (source language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies (Bell R., 1991)

Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in s second language (Bell R., 1991)

Translation is ultimately a human activity which enables human beings to exchange ideas and thoughts regardless of the different tongues used (Antar, 2002: 2) Translation is a channel through which ideas and cultures pass (Hatem and Mason, 1990: 30)

1.2.2 Errors in translation

1.2.2.1 Definition of errors in translation

Errors in translation are also referred to as defects (Pym 1991), mistranslations(Lauscher 2000) and mismatches (Hatim and Mason 1997) Pym (1992: 281) defines errors as a manifestation of a defect in any of the factors entering into the two skills of:

• The ability to generate a target-text series of more than one viable term (targetext ' , target text2, target text3) for a source text

• The ability to select only one target text from this series

"Errors in translation mostly result from the non-equivalence between the source and the target languages " (Baker, 1992)

Albir (1995 in Waddington 2001) presents s list of possible errors in translations as follows:

divided into eight categories: countersense, faux sense, nonsense, addition, omission, unresolved extralinguistic references, loss of meaning and inappropriate linguistic variation (register, style, dialect, etc)

five categories: spelling, grammar, lexical items, text and style

or secondary function of the ST

1.2.2.2 Categories of translation errors

According to Pym (1991), errors fall into two categories; 'binary' and 'non-binary' A binary error, he explains, opposes a wrong answer to the right answer, whereas non-binary errors can be judged as correct with some weakness, not demonstrably right or wrong

Binary errors, as Pym puts it, belong to the level of grammar, morphology, system, and lexis, i.e language features Non-binary errors are more translation-based phenomena, based on the misapplication of strategies such as addition, omission, selection and ordering Kussmaul (1995:129) also distinguishes between binary and non-binary errors in the same way In assessing his own translation from Swedish to English, Weinstock (1988)

says he makes two categories of error: intellectual errors and dictionary errors Under the

former he says, "are included errors of comprehension, portions of text that I have simply misunderstood By dictionary errors I mean cases where I have been led astray by my reference materials"

Although in the field of teaching translation lists of descriptions of errors in translation are more detailed, from a different perspective the two distinction categorization is also common For example, Steinbach (1981) and Sager (1983) adopt the two distinction approach, dividing them according to the type of error and the level of error Following the traditional levels of linguistic description, Steinbach (1981: 251) classifies errors in orthography, grammar (morphology and syntax) and lexis according to established criteria such as non-acceptable spelling, grammatical or lexical choice Classifying by type involves the following: addition, omission, selection, ordering Steinbach adopts a rating from, what he describes as two parallelviewpoint, in classifying and describing translation errors: one level of analysis (lexis) is constituted by the given meaning in Li and the related choice in L2, whilst a second level (grammar) covers acceptability in L2 independent of the meaning in Li (ibid 250) What is problematic about this system of classification is the exclusive distinction between L1 and L2 errors as the case is not always either/or

Alternatively, Sager's (1983) model involves five categories, each working at a linguistic, semantic or pragmatic level The five types of errors are:

He also gives more details for the four above errors as follows:

the target language, including errors of usage, collocation, syntax and tense

on part of the translator

translated normally does not exist as a concept in the target language

whereas they may not be important in other types of translation but at the highest levels of professionalism, a translator should not commit any of these errors

In addition, according to Nowak (2006) translation errors include:

combinations or syntagms)

desinence) and incorrect syntax (e.g government, concord, prepositions, or word order)

mark; and (iii) an excessive punctuation mark

6) nonsense and opposite meaning

Meanwhile, American Translators Association (ATA) suggests a list of 22 types of errors that should be used as criteria for evaluating work done by professional translators:

1) Incomplete passage, 2) Illegible handwriting, 3) Misunderstanding of the original text, 4) Mistranslation into target language, 5) Addition or omission, 6) terminology, word choice, 7) Register, 8) Too freely translated, 9) Too literal, word-for-word translation, 10) False cognate, 11) Indecision in word choice, 12) Inconsistent, 13) Ambiguity, 14) Grammar, 15) Syntax, 16) Punctuation, 17) Spelling, 18) Accents, 19) Case (upper case/lower case), 21) word form and 22) Style

1.2.2.3.Common errors in Vietnamese-English translation

Na (2007) suggests the model of analyzing errors based on the learning model and content

of translation training in Vietnam which includes comprehension errors, linguistic errors and translation errors She explained that comprehension errors happen when the learners misunderstand the syntax of a certain sentence of the source text, or misread a word and their translations were accordingly based on a misunderstood source text Linguistic errors include grammatical errors, syntactic errors, morphological errors, collocational errors and word form Translation errors include omission, addition, inaccurate rendition of individual text items, distorted meaning of the source text, too free translation, too literal translation, pragmatic error, wrong lexical choice

Comprehension errors: these errors happen when the learners misunderstand the syntax

of a certain sentence of the source text or misread a word and their translations were accordingly based on a misunderstood source text

Linguistic errors consist of grammatical errors, syntactic errors, morphological errors,

collocational errors and word form

Grammatical errors: errors occur in the handling of word structure, including lack of

agreement between subject and verb, incorrect verb tenses or verb forms, incorrect case of nouns, pronouns, or adjectives, and use of an adjective where an adverb is needed.[American Translators Association (ATA) Framework for Standard Error Making] For example:

Vietnamese: ―Anh ta nói chuyện thân mật với tôi.‖

English: ―He talked with me friendly‖ (Incorrect)

(Hữu Ngọc, 2009)

The error of this example is the way of using the adjective ―friendly‖ Although ―friendly‖

is suffixed by ―ly‖ but it is an adjective not adverb Therefore, this sentence should be

translated ―He talked with me in a friendly manner‖

Syntactic errors: errors made when learners have to handle any items larger than word, i.e

phrase, clause or sentence (James 1998) Errors in this category include sentence fragments, improper modification, lack of parallelism, and unnatural word order.[American Translators Association (ATA) Framework for Standard Error Making] For example:

Vietnamese: ―Cô ấy là một cô gái rất tốt‖

English: ―She is a girl very nice‖ (Incorrect)

This sentence should be corrected into ―She is a very nice girl‖

Morphological errors: errors which involve a failure to comply with the noun in supplying

any part of any instance of these word classes: six book*; aboli*shment…are noun morphology errors

Collocational errors: errors committed in the idiomatic usage of the target language The

errors in grammatical collocation (wrong use of preposition, ect.) are treated as grammatical errors, not as collocation error

For example:in Vietnamese the word “uống” (drink) can go with many different kinds of

liquid including water, beer, alcohol, medicine and even poison It is incorrect to say

“drink medicine” in English there are clear distinctions as follows: Drink beer/ water/ wine/ coffee But: Take medicine/ poison

Incorrect word form refers to cases where the the root of the word is correct, but the wrong

correct sentence should be: ―People with the sense of humor easily make others sympathetic”

Translation errors: These errors happen when the students show the inability to render

the original meaning of the source text into the target text In other words, a sentence is considered to have ‗translation errors‘ when it shows traces of distortions of the source text, although the sentence may be grammatically correct Translation errors include omission, addition, inaccurate rendition of individual text items, distorted meaning of the source text, too free translation, too literal translation, pragmatic error, wrong lexical choice

Tuan (2006) suggests common errors made by Vietnamese students when translating as in the following table:

tìm ra Tân thế giới vào

Structural errors Tôi mất mười phút để đi

It takes me ten minutes

If we place substantial orders, can your

enterprise get us with soft price?

It is impossible to use informal style in a business letter It should

―ao dai‖ not ― a dress‖

1.3 Previous studies in the world and in Viet Nam

Translation and errors analysis have been researched by many linguists in the world as well

as in Vietnam Especially translation errors from one source language into another target language have been dug out by many studies

Naqvy (2006) shows four types of translation errors in his article which he provides guide for beginners in translation area He suggests that translation errors include grammatical errors, mistranslations, localization errors and errors of inconsistency Zakia (2005) provides a ranked taxonomy of problems in translating from English to Arabic that was developed through two empirical studies

Hassan and Aref (2013) analyze some linguistic problems in translation between Arabic and English to indicate fundamental weaknesses among students in grammar causing them great hardship in comprehending and translating sentences from English into Arabic and vice versa

Nowak (2006) presents a selection of translation errors and mistakes which have been noticed in Polish versions of EU legal texts

Pym (1992) studies translation error analysis and the interface with language teaching In his article, he presents descriptive distinction between binary and non-binary errors in translation

Ahmad (2010) reports the difficulties and problems facing English students at QOU in the translation process from English to Arabic and their solutions In his article, he divided English translation problems into linguistic problems and cultural problems: the linguistic problems include grammatical differences, lexical ambiguity and meaning ambiguity; the cultural problems refer to different situational features

In Vietnam, Na (2007) investigates to what extent the typological differences between two languages influence the process of translating authentic Vietnamese sentence into English, though a preliminary report on an error analysis of the Vietnamese-English translations of Vietnamese EFL students

Binh (2002) studies errors in the discourse of the Vietnamese who learn English as a foreign language In his study, he analyzes the common linguistic and cultural errors made

by Vietnamese who learn English and he also presents the causes for these errors

Tuan (2006) shows in his translation 1 & 2 book some common errors in Vietnamese- English translation made by Vietnamese students He gives three main types of errors: Linguistic errors, style errors and cultural errors

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this chapter is to present the methodology used in this thesis It includes research questions, settings of the study and participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures

2.1 Research Questions

To obtain the above stated purposes, the study aimed to answer the following questions:

1 What are the common errors in Vietnamese- English translation made by English translator trainees working at NPMC?

2 What are the causes of these errors?

3 What should be done to avoid these errors and to improve translation skills?

2.2 Settings of the study and participants

2.2.1 Setting of the study

The study was conducted at Nui Phao Mining Company, one of the subsidiaries of Masan Resources Group located in Thai Nguyen province in northern Vietnam which explores and processes tungsten, fluorspar, bismuth, copper and traces of gold There have been 150 foreigners with different nationalities working at different departments in this company That was the reason why all the documents used for company‘s activities were bilingual and were translated by the English translators working at the company There were about

30 English translators working at different departments in NPMC They all majored in English and they were responsible for translating both Vietnamese-English and English-Vietnamese

The second group was 4 skilled English translators working at Nui Phao Mining Company They have worked as an English translator for many years and equipped themselves with a lot of techniques and strategies for translating They have worked at NPMC as an English translator and they also helped English translator trainees to review their translation

2.3.Data collection

2.3.1 Data collection instruments

2.3.1.1.The Vietnamese-English translations analysis

The researcher collected Vietnamese-English translations made by English translator

trainees 30 Vietnamese-English translations were collected with the different topics

relating to construction, environment, health, safety, security, commercial operation and processing Each translation consisted of 1 to 3 pages After that, the researchers analyzed and did the statistics on these translations to find out and classify the common errors made

by English translator trainees

2.3.1.2 The questionnaire

The questionnaire is considered a very common mean or instrument used to collect data on phenomena, which are not easily observed such as attitude, motivation and self-conceptions, or in other words, those in social science Therefore, to seek for information about the translators‘views on Vietnamese-English translation, their recognition of difficulties, errors in translating Vietnamese texts into English as well as the ways they improve their translation skills, the researcher used the questionnaire to investigate the translators The questionnaire, in some extent, can help to find out necessary information for the study and suggest appropriate solutions as well The questionnaire was designed based on the data from Vietnamese-English translations analysis and research questions

2.3.1.3.The interview questions

In order to make the study more reliable, the interview questions were designed for four experienced English translators to get more information about the English translator trainees‘ common errors onVietnamese-English translations, the causes of the errors and the possible ways to improve Vietnamese-English translation skills

2.3.2 Data collection procedures

Firstly, Vietnamese-English translations of English translator trainees were collected and then analyzed to find out and classify the common errors After that, survey questionnaires were designed based on the information collected from Vietnamese-English translations

and distributed to the 10 English translator trainees The questionnaires were collected after the English translator trainees answered all the questions Finally, the follow-up interview of four participants was carried out and tape-recorded to get further information for the study

2.3.3.Data analysis procedures

First of all, 30 Vietnamese-English translations collected from the participants were analyzed with the support of 4 experienced English translators working at NPMC to find out the errors using categories of common errors in Vietnamese-English translation listed

in Literature Review of this research However, because of the limitation of time and length of the study, the categories of translation errors have been adapted and redesigned

as specified in the Appendix V attached in this study After that all the errors were classified based on the frequency of each type of error to find out the most common errors Next, the questionnaires were designed based on the results from translation analysis and three research questions and delivered to 10 ETTs; the data from questionnaires then were analyzed to answer the research questions Finally, the recordings from interviews were transcribed and also analyzed to get more information for research questions

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter deals with the data collected from the questionnaires, interviews as well as Vietnamese-English translations in order to categorize kinds of errors and find out common errors in Vietnamese-English translation made by English translator trainees working at NPMC This chapter also presents the possible causes of those errors and the techniques to avoid them and to improve translation skills of English translator trainees This chapter aims at answering three research questions mentioned in the thesis

3.1 Personal information of the participants

The subjects of this study were divided into two group including ten English translator trainees and four experienced English translators They all were working at NPMC as English translators and their main assignments at the company were translating and interpreting both Vietnamese-English and English- Vietnamese English translator trainees were the main subject of this study and their Vietnamese-English translations were collected to analyze and find out the common errors The questionnaires were designed to get data from 10 English translator trainees and the interview questions were designed to get more information from experienced English translators who directly help English translator trainees to review their translations before officially used in the company

3.1.1 The first group of participants

As mentioned before, the first group of participants consisted of ten English translator trainees They were all female and their ages were 24 and 25 They were all graduated from universities and majored in English Their personal information was collected from the questionnaires More detail about questionnaire participants can be shown in the following table:

English Translator

Trainees (ETT) Age Gender

Years of translating experience Major

ETT 9 25 Female 1 year English

Table 1: Background of questionnaire participants

From the above table, we can see that the participants were at very young ages They had just graduated from universities for 1or 2 years and their translating experience was also from some months to 2 years

They were working at NPMC as an English translator and they were working for different departments of the company so that their translating topics and kinds of text for translating were also different

Kinds of text for translating:

Kinds of text Number of ETT Percentage

Table 3: Topics in Vietnamese-English translation

From two tables above, we can see that working as an English translator they had to translate many kinds of texts Three most common kinds which every translator had to translate were minutes of meeting (90%), official dispatches (80%), and reports (60%) Due to working for different departments of the company, the translating topics of these English translators were also different The topic relating to construction was account for 50%, the majority of translations

3.1.2 The second group of participants

The second group of participants included 4 experienced English translators (EET) working at NPMC They were responsible for translating, interpreting, teaching and reviewing the translations for translator trainees Their personal information is shown in the following table:

Experienced English

Translators (EET)

Age Gender Years of translating

experience

Table 4: The background of interview informants

From the information in the above table, there were three female and one male experienced English translators participating in this study Their ages ranged from 33 to 36 and their experience of translating varied from 5 to 8 years

3.2 Difficulties of English translator trainees in translating Vietnamese-English text

In order to get the information about the difficulties of English translator trainees, one question relating to this was designed and put in both questionnaire and interview

The result from questionnaire for English translator trainee is shown in the table below:

Difficulties Percentage

language to transfer idea effectively

60%

source text

100%

Table 5: Difficulties in Vietnamese-English translation

It can be drawn from the above table that all English translator trainees felt difficult to understand special phrases and terminologies in the source text In addition, 90% of them admitted that they were also felt hard to choose the appropriate vocabulary in the target language (English) Otherwise, 60% of them stated that they met difficulties in finding suitable grammar structures in the target language to transfer idea effectively and only 30%