báo cáo thực tập tốt nghiệp ngành ngoại ngữ

Difficulties in – and strategies for – using equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English translation of students of English college class 2009 at Tra Vinh UniversityACKNOWLEDGEMENTSGraduation thesis is an opportunity for students to get firsthand experience in conducting research, and also a challenge for them to overcome. Therefore, to complete my graduation thesis, I would like to express my special thanks to those people who helped me during the important event of my academic life. First and foremost, I would like to show my sincere appreciation towards Department of Foreign Languages for providing me with chance to do my graduation thesis. Secondly, I would like to show my profound gratitude to all the lecturers in the Department of Foreign Languages for tirelessly devoting time and efforts to enrich, broaden and deepen my knowledge as well as share valuable experience in life over the past three years. Besides, I would like to send my gratefulness to Mr. Nguyen Van Nhan, who has provided a good basis for the thesis initially.Additionally, I owe great expression to my supervisor, Mr. Phung Van De, for his important instruction as well as detailed comments during the process of doing my thesis. Frankly, my thesis would not be really successful without his enthusiastic help.Also, my special thankfulness goes to my beloved family for their wholehearted encouragement and support. Concomitantly, I would like to delicate my thanks to my classmates CA09AV, who have supported, cooperated and provided me with valuable suggestions.Finally, I fully express my gratitude to all the people whose direct and indirect support assisted me to accomplish my thesis on time.

APPROVAL SHEET

I declare that this thesis does not contain material which has been accepted forthe award of any other degree or diploma in any university; nor does it containmaterial previously published or written by any other person, except where duereference is made in the text of the thesis

Graduation thesis is an opportunity for students to get first-hand experience inconducting research, and also a challenge for them to overcome Therefore, tocomplete my graduation thesis, I would like to express my special thanks tothose people who helped me during the important event of my academic life First and foremost, I would like to show my sincere appreciation towardsDepartment of Foreign Languages for providing me with chance to do mygraduation thesis

Secondly, I would like to show my profound gratitude to all the lecturers in theDepartment of Foreign Languages for tirelessly devoting time and efforts toenrich, broaden and deepen my knowledge as well as share valuable experience

in life over the past three years

Besides, I would like to send my gratefulness to Mr Nguyen Van Nhan, whohas provided a good basis for the thesis initially

Additionally, I owe great expression to my supervisor, Mr Phung Van De, forhis important instruction as well as detailed comments during the process ofdoing my thesis Frankly, my thesis would not be really successful without hisenthusiastic help

Also, my special thankfulness goes to my beloved family for their wholeheartedencouragement and support Concomitantly, I would like to delicate my thanks

to my classmates CA09AV, who have supported, cooperated and provided mewith valuable suggestions

Finally, I fully express my gratitude to all the people whose direct and indirectsupport assisted me to accomplish my thesis on time

The aim of the research is to identify difficulties of English major students inusing equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English translation, which aretheir weaknesses presented in the process of translation studying The survey isconducted on 25 students of English college class 2009 by the questionnaireincluding 13 questions about both the linguistic and cultural aspect The results

of the research show that it is true for the majority of majored students are facedwith many difficulties in word equivalence choice Moreover, the findings ofthe research also point out the students’ good recognition about the importance

of seeking equivalence at word level as well as an existence of word equivalence in both aspects making their difficulties From those results, theresearcher draws some causes of their difficulties or problems and suggestssome possible strategies to help them overcome their obstacles Addition to theaim above, this research will possibly take a minor part in solving students’difficulties in learning languages and set a reliable basis for further research

non-TÓM TẮT

Bài nghiên cứu được thực hiện nhằm mục đích xác định những khó khăn màsinh viên chuyên ngành Tiếng anh gặp phải khi sử dụng từ ngữ tương đươngtrong dịch thuật Việt – Anh, đó cũng chính là những điểm yếu của sinh viêntrong quá trình học biên dịch Để đạt được mục đích trên, bài nghiên cứu khảosát bằng bảng câu hỏi gồm 13 câu thuộc khía cạnh ngôn ngữ và văn hóa trên 25sinh viên của lớp Cao đẳng Anh văn 2009 Kết quả cho thấy rằng, sự thật là đaphần các sinh viên chuyên ngành còn gặp nhiều khó khăn khi chon từ ngữtương đương Hơn nữa, kết quả còn cho thấy các sinh viên chuyên ngành đềunhìn nhận tầm quan trọng của việc tìm từ ngữ tương đương cũng như có sự tồntại của từ ngữ không tương đương ở cả 2 khía cạnh gây nên nhiều khó khăn cho

họ Từ kết quả này, tác giả đưa ra một số nguyên nhân dẫn đến khó khăn và đề

ra các giải pháp giúp sinh viên có thể khắc phục các khó khăn đó Ngoài mụcđích nói trên, nghiên cứu này có thể góp một phần nhỏ giúp sinh viên giải quyếtđược khó khăn trong việc học tập ngôn ngữ và tạo nên nền tảng đáng tin cậycho những nghiên cứu sau này

TABLE OF CONTENTS

APPROVAL SHEET i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 The context of the study 1

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Research questions 3

1.6 Structure of the study report 3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Theoretical background of Difficulties in – and strategies for – using equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English translation of students of English college class2009 at Tra Vinh University 4

2.1.1 The concept of translation equivalence 4

2.1.2 Different types of equivalence in translation 6

2.1.2.1 Quantitative approach 6

2.1.2.2 Meaning-based equivalence 6

2.1.2.3 Form-based equivalence 7

2.1.2.4 Function-based equivalence 7

2.1.3 Word non-equivalence 8

2.1.4 The importance of finding equivalence at word level 10

2.1.5 Aspects of Vietnamese - English translation 11

2.1.5.1 Linguistic aspect 11

2.1.5.2 Cultural aspect 13

2.2 Related research on Difficulties in – and strategies for – using equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English translation of students of English college class 2009 at Tra Vinh University 18

2.3 Justification of the present study 19

Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research questions 20

3.2 The Participants 20

3.3 The research instruments 21

3.4 Research Procedures 21

3.5 Data processing method 22

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23

4.1 Findings 23

4.1.1 Awareness of the importance and problem of word equivalence in Vietnamese – English translation 23

4.1.2 Students’ difficulties in finding and using word equivalence 24

4.1.2.1 The linguistic aspect 24

4.1.2.2 The cultural aspect 26

4.1.3 Students’ used ways to find word equivalence 28

4.2 Discussions 32

4.2.1 Awareness of the importance and problem of word equivalence in Vietnamese – English translation 32

4.2.2 Students’ difficulties in finding and using word equivalence 33

4.2.3 Students’ ways to find word equivalence 37

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 41

5.1 Conclusion of the study 41

5.2 Implications of the study 41

5.2.1 Lack of language competence 42

5.2.1.1 The source language (Vietnamese) competence 42

5.2.1.2 The target language (English) competence 42

5.2.2 Lack of cultural background 43

5.3 Suggested strategies for better word equivalence 44

5.3.1 On the linguistic aspect 44

5.3.1.1 Translating by using a loan word plus explanation 44

5.3.1.2 Translation by a more general word 45

5.3.1.3 Translating by paraphrasing 45

5.3.2 On the cultural aspect 46

5.4 Limitations of the study 46

5.5 Recommendations for further research 47

REFERENCES 48

APPENDIX 51

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Baker’s categories of non-equivalence at word level (1992) 10

Table 2: Selected categories and examples about Cultural concepts 15

Table 3: Addressing terms used among Vietnamese family members (Duong, 1999) 16

Table 4: Comparison on Addressing terms used among Vietnamese and English family members (Duong, 1999 as cited in Pham, 2010) 17

Table 5: The importance of word equivalence 23

Table 6: Difficult word non - equivalence to translators 24

Table 7: Linguistic knowledge of translators to finding and using word equivalence 25

Table 8: A problem due to word misunderstanding of source language 25

Table 9: Difficulties in semantically complex words to word equivalence 26

Table 10: Vietnamese address and reference system to word equivalence 26

Table 11: Different cultural characteristics to translation obstacles 27

Table 12: Word non equivalence due to different cultural concepts 27

Table 13: Influencing writing styles to word equivalence 28

Table 14: Using based word equivalence on contexts 29

Table 15: Translating relied word equivalence on factors 30

Table 16: Looking at single word to find word equivalence 31

Table 17: Used ways to find word equivalence 31

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TVU: Tra Vinh University

SL: Source Language

TL: Target Language

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

In translation studies, between two different languages, problems of equivalence within levels are inevitable Furthermore, difficulties in usingequivalence at word level or problems of word non-equivalence mostly drawattention of translators Because many researchers and scholars note that

non-“word” is a basic unit of meaning in linguistic, addressing non-equivalence atthis level will pave the way for the fight against non-equivalence at higherlevels (sentence, paragraph, etc) Actually, it is impossible to achieve a fullequivalent translation because no translation can be surely conveyed perfectly

In the case of Vietnamese-English translation, this phenomenon is unavoidablebecause Vietnamese culture is Oriental and English culture is Western Theseare reasons why translators always take into consideration both linguistic andcultural backgrounds in their translation process

1.1 The context of the study

Studying translation and interpretation is more and more popular inUniversities throughout the nation in general and in South Western provinces inparticular due to the needs to develop the country However, in the process ofcatching up with desires of translators and interpreters, English major studentshave to face many difficulties According to real states of studying translationand interpretation from English into Vietnamese, as well as, from Vietnameseinto English at the university located at a Western province, most majoredstudents make lots of mistakes including word choice, grammatical structures,and so on Especially, in the process of studying Vietnamese - Englishtranslation in use, choosing word equivalence is a first typical difficulty.Frankly, students still find and use unsuitable words or non-equivalent words intheir translation though they understand word meanings To make cleardifficulties of choosing word equivalence or problems of word non-equivalence,

the researcher begins to carry out the study with topic “Difficulties in – and strategies for – using equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English

translation ”, together with participants who are students of an English college

class 2009 at this University The researcher really desires to seek for usefulanswers to help them overcome their difficulties in using equivalence at wordlevel, a basic level in linguistic As a result, the theoretical foundation of this

study found in some resources focuses on linguistic and cultural aspects so as

to find out solutions overcoming / solving difficulties in using word equivalence

or problems of word non-equivalence The study is conducted completely inspite of many limitations

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study

The study aims firstly to provide a theoretical background, ideas andapproaches created by famous researchers and scholars, as well as, to stress thesignificance of equivalence in translation process Moreover, it will be aninterest of raising readers’ awareness on the matter of non-equivalence.Secondly, the study aims at finding the difficulties in using equivalence at wordlevel in Vietnamese-English translation of students of English College class

2009 Concomitantly, throughout these findings conducted by questionnaire, theresearcher will suggest several effective strategies based on the mentionedstudies to help them overcome their difficulties

1.3 Scope of the study

Due to the characteristics of the thesis and the limitation of time andexperience, this study is only conducted in a small number of participants fromonly one group of students Therefore, the results of the study then will bepossibly used to improve study of translation of students of that level ofeducation in general and to help students to find a better word equivalencewhen translating from Vietnamese-English translation in particular

1.4 Significance of the study

The study focuses on making clear what difficulties English majoredstudents have in using word equivalence and finding suggested solutions to helpthem and the researcher tackle those difficulties Furthermore, finding

difficulties in using word equivalence or problems of word non-equivalence atword level will be a promise to solve problems of non-equivalence at higherlevels.

The second question is to find out a set of strategies that can help them

overcome their difficulties in using equivalence at word level, which is “What strategies do they use to overcome their difficulties?”.

1.6 Structure of the study report

The study is divided in to five chapters Chapter one: Introduction gives

a brief overview about the context of the study, aims, significance and scope of

the study, as well as, structure of the study Chapter two: Literature Review consists of key concepts and review of some relevant studies Chapter three: Methodology covers all about the methodology of the study concluding research

questions, the research instruments, participants, as well as research procedures,and data processing method The results from data collection and the whole the

data synthesizing process are presented in Chapter four: Findings and Discussion Finally, Chapter five: Conclusion and Recommendations will be

causes based on students’ problems and recommended solutions Also, it willsummarize procedures of the study limitations and comments for furtherresearches

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Equivalence in translation is a difficult aspect, which challengestranslators when translating a SL to TL This issue has been studied anddiscussed among researchers and translators for long More specifically,detailed theories and aspects of equivalence in translation set a very good basisfor this research and they are synthesized and cited as follows

2.1 Theoretical background of Difficulties in – and strategies for – using equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English translation of students

of English college class 2009 at Tra Vinh University

In this section, the notion of equivalence is presented The maindistinguishable approaches to the concept of equivalence are introduced andalso the evolution of this concept as introduced by some of the most importanttheorists was outlined It is obvious from this section that there have beenvarious perspectives from which equivalence has been approached and defined

2.1.1 The concept of translation equivalence

The theory of equivalence is the most important topic for the comparison

of texts in different languages Many theorists have studied equivalence inrelation to the translation process, using different approaches and have provideduseful ideas and concepts for the next study on this topic Hence, equivalenceplays a crucial role in translation In fact, both source and target languagesinclude ranges of equivalents from the least meaningful level of a language,word to the higher levels like sentence In the process of translation these levels

of language appear to be equivalence levels between source language (SL) andtarget language (TL) For example, if there is a word in the SL, it usually must

be translated into TL at the word level Accordingly, translation is the matter ofestablishing equivalence between SL and TL

Equivalence can be said to be the central subject in translation Althoughits definition, relevance and applicability within the field of translation theory

have caused controversial issues and many different theories of the concept ofequivalence has been elaborated within this field in the past fifty years(Leonardi, 2000) Since translation is translation of an original, the ideas ofequivalence between the translated and original text arise naturally There havebeen many attempts to find criteria for equivalence As is well known, evenword for word equivalence is problematic It may also be desirable to gobeyond the orbit of the text and search for the notion of equivalence in theagency of the readers.

It is possible to say that equivalence is “any relation characterizingtranslation under a specified set of circumstances.” And “Equivalence is arelationship between two texts in two languages, rather than between thelanguages themselves” (Dr Tien’s lectures- 2007 as cited in Bach, 2007)

According to Halverson (1997) as cited in Ghadi (2009), equivalence isdefined as a relationship existing between two entities, and the relationship isdescribed as one of similarity in terms of any of a number of potential qualities.Proponents of equivalence based theories of translation usually defineequivalence as the relationship between a source text and a target text thatallows the TL to be considered as a translation of the source text in the firstplace Equivalence relationships are also said to hold between parts of thesource text and parts of TL, so the above definition of equivalence is notunproblematic

Catford (1965) as cited in Xiang (2011) also points out “the centralproblem of translation - practice is that of finding TL equivalents A central task

of translation theory is therefore that of defining the nature and conditions oftranslation equivalence” (p 21)

Nida is also misunderstood by many for his notion of “equivalence,”which he takes to mean that “Translating consists in reproducing in the receptorlanguage the closest natural equivalent of the SL message, first in terms ofmeaning and secondly in terms of style” (1969: 12) He further concludes that

“Absolute equivalence in translating is never possible” (1984: 14) (as cited inXuanmin, 1999)

2.1.2 Different types of equivalence in translation

Many scholars have studied different notions of equivalence in relation

to the translation process Therefore, many different ways to clarify translationequivalence based on different foundation are obvious Some out standings arequantitative, meaning based, form-based and function based

Many-to-one equivalence: there is more than one expression in the source

language but there is a single expression in target language which isequivalence to them

One-to-part-of-one equivalence: A TL expression covers part of a concept

designated by a single SL expression

Nil equivalence: no TL expression is equivalent to a single SL expression

-> loaned/borrowed equivalents should be used

2.1.2.2 Meaning-based equivalence

Koller (1979) as cited in Pham (2010) considers the following five types of

equivalence Denotative equivalence: the SL and the TL words refer to the same thing in the real world Connotative equivalence: this type of equivalence

provides additional values besides denotative value and is achieved by the

translator’s choice of synonymous words or expressions Text-normative

equivalence: The SL and the TL words are used in the same or similar context

in their respective languages Pragmatic equivalence: With readership

orientation, the SL and TL words have the same effect on their respective

readers Formal equivalence: This type of equivalence produces an analogy of

form in the translation by their exploiting formal possibilities of TL, or creatingnew forms in TL

2.1.2.3 Form-based equivalence

A discussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker (1992)who seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept ofequivalence can be defined

Firstly, equivalence can appear at word level and above word level, whentranslating from one language into another This means that the translatorshould pay attention to a number of factors when considering a single word,such as number, gender and tense

Secondly, grammatical equivalence refers to the diversity of grammaticalcategories across languages She affirms that grammatical rules acrosslanguages may differ, which leads to some problems in finding a directcorrespondence in the TL

Thirdly, textual equivalence refers to the equivalence between a SL text and

a TL text in terms of information and cohesion It is up to the translator todecide whether or not to maintain the cohesive ties as well as the coherence ofthe SL text Her decision will be guided by three main factors such as the targetaudience, the purpose of the translation and the text type

2.1.2.4 Function-based equivalence

Nida (1964) as cited in Heidary (2009) argues that there are two differenttypes of equivalence Formal correspondence focuses attention on the messageitself, in both form and content, unlike dynamic equivalence which is basedupon the principle of equivalent effect Firstly, formal equivalence is achievedwhen the SL and TL words have the closest possible match of form and content

Secondly, dynamic equivalence is achieved when the SL and TL words havethe same effect on their effective readers.

All in all, the types of equivalence above are considered as a theoreticalbackground, showing the importance of finding the closet equivalence intranslation because of its existence as a bridge between different languages

2.1.3 Word non-equivalence

When a translator attempts to translate a text from one language (source)

to another language (target), s/he should first of all understand and comprehendthe source text and then translates it to the TL Therefore, the full awareness ofthe source and target text for finding accurate and appropriate equivalence inrendering of the contents of the text for reader is essential As mentioned above,there are many different types of equivalence in translation as well as differentlevels (word, sentence, text, etc), requiring finding equivalents which havesimilar characteristics to the original It can say that word level is the mostconsiderate because word is the basic unit in meaning of translation text (Baker,1992)

As theorists all share the view that equivalence is the important part oftranslation process, they have the same point of view which it is not very easy

to find equivalents Moreover, they have taken the issue of using wordequivalence into consideration In the one hand, problems of non-equivalence atword level are mostly paid attention of many researchers as a basic unit ofmeaningful element in linguistics Thereby, in this section, the problems of non-equivalence will be discussed and the most common types of non-equivalence

at word level will be introduced Translators are very often faced with asituation where the TL lacks a word which expresses the same meaning as the

TL word

Bell (1991) is another notable researcher to mention equivalence at wordlevel She also figures out that there is no word equivalence among languages

since even in the same language there is not absolute synonym between words(as cited in Pham 2010)

It is noteworthy that Leonardi (2000) introduces Baker’s theory as “anextremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence” (p 9) InLeonardi’s paper, she reviews the theory of equivalence as interpreted by some

of the most innovative theorists in this field The author particularlycompliments levels of Baker’s approach as “putting together the linguistic andthe communicative approach” and agrees that in a bottom-up approach to bytranslation; equivalence at word level is the first element to be taken intoconsideration the translators (as cited in Pham, 2010)

According to Baker (1992), who was the most outstanding theoristdramatically focusing on equivalence at word level; “word non-equivalencemeans that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word which occur

in the source text” She discusses various equivalence problems and theirpossible strategies She also notes that many difficult problems will have avariety of solutions No one can deny that Mona Baker’s theory on non-equivalence at word level is universally supported by a great number of famouslinguistic scholars and researchers The following table will show commonproblems of word non-equivalence as specified by Baker

Non-equivalence at word level

1 Culture – specific concepts 7 Differences in physical or

interpersonal perspective

2 The source language concept is

not lexicalized in the target

language

8 Differences in expressivemeaning

3 The source language word is

semantically complex

9 Differences in form

4 The source and target language

make different distinctions in

meaning

10 Differences in frequency andpurpose of using specificforms

5 The target language lacks a

super-ordinate term

11 The use of loan words in thesource text

6 The target language lacks a

specific term (hyponym)

Table 1: Baker’s categories of non-equivalence at word level (1992)

2.1.4 The importance of finding equivalence at word level

Since translation is translation of an original, the ideas of equivalencebetween the translated and original text arise naturally There have been manyattempts to find criteria for equivalence As well known, even word for wordequivalence is problematic The referential aspect of a word creates onepossible important criterion for equivalence, so it is necessary to understandexactly the meaning of the word "equivalence" itself Ghadi (2009) recognizesthe importance of finding equivalence in translation of scientific text in hisstudy, especially, the finding equivalence at word level in the English technicaltext in Persian Besides, in his study, he realizes almost all translation scholars

in their theories somehow refer to the equivalence as the most significant part or

at least one of the most crucial parts of translation Accordingly, variousequivalents are described by translators from different points of view Scholarsfound out that the process of finding, selecting, creating equivalence was notalways as easy as it seemed In fact, there are many factors such as cultural andlinguistic which affect the process of finding and replacing equivalence AsBaker’s theory, she notes that word is considered as a basic unit of meaning intranslation text, which expresses finding equivalence at this level plays a vitalrole for higher levels in translation equivalence Additionally, a word iscommonly defined as the basic meaningful element in a language It maycontain more than one element of meaning However, even a smaller unit than aword may convey the meaning A word can be further divided into morphemes

In contrast with a word, a morpheme cannot contain more than one element ofmeaning and cannot be further divided into smaller units In fact, dividing aword into morphemes enables to isolate the single elements of meaning inwords.

2.1.5 Aspects of Vietnamese - English translation

Because differences of Western and Oriental culture and language ingeneral, and English and Vietnamese ones in particular, many obstacles of wordnon-equivalence are unavoidable Typically, characteristics of linguistics,concepts, writing styles and so on also make remarkable differences for bothVietnamese and English language and culture In fact, translators are reallyheadache to convey a source text (Vietnamese) in a target text (English) thatEnglish people can comprehend easily This is noted that translators have towork under high pressure as well as face to the problems of non-equivalence.Therefore, the study will make a contrast analyze on some concepts and lexicalsemantic fields at word level in both linguistic and cultural aspects to prove theexistence of word non-equivalence in Vietnamese and English

2.1.5.1 Linguistic aspect

As mentioned above, the existence of non-equivalence will take intoaccount in two different languages; especially they belong to two quite differentlanguage families like Vietnamese and English In fact, while English belongs

to the Indo-European family, Vietnamese is one of the Austro-Asiaticlanguages, leading to many difficulties about using vocabulary and grammaticalrules It is impossible to analyze all of difficulties, and this is a limitation of thisthesis Despite such limitation of analyses, the researcher especially choosesand clarifies some typical difficulties of using word equivalence which are alsoproblems word non-equivalence in Vietnamese-English translation

 Linguistic knowledge

In the study of Zainurrahman (2010), he focused and emphasized on fivetranslation competences such as linguistic competence, textual competence,

subject competence, cultural competence, and transfer competence However,these competences are original from a long procedure of accumulatingknowledge that creates every different competence According to thisresearcher, linguistic knowledge is the basic knowledge a translator must have.Without mastering languages, someone is disabled to translate a text fromsource language to target language Actually, a translator at least must haveknowledge in both source language and target language The translator isdemanded to have a good understanding of language aspects of source languageand target language Language master role in translation is not only to translatewords or sentences, but also to know how the target language receiver sayssomething that is different from source language user By mastering language,especially sociolinguistic translation, the translator may have bigger chance to

do it better than mastering grammar of target language Besides, it is essential tounderstand if a person is a translator of foreign languages For examplesomeone is translating a text from a SL to a TL It does not mean that it is notimportant for him/her when translating a text of his/her native language to aforeign language s/he mastered; some of words may exist in his/her native sensebut it may not exist in the TL To sum up, it is clear that linguistic knowledge isbasic and essential to be mastered by a translator, so lack of linguisticknowledge may create an unintended product of translated text

 Semantically complex wordsAccording to Baker as cited in Bach (2007), this is a common problem intranslation A single word can sometimes express a more complex meaning than

a whole sentence Languages automatically develop very concise forms forreferring to complex concepts if they become important enough to be talkedabout often Translators do not usually realize how semantically complex aword is until they have to translate it into a language that does not have anequivalent for it The meaning which relates to the speaker´s feelings orattitudes can be assigned to a TL word although it’s propositional meaning Themeaning which relates to what words refer to in a real or imaginary word may

be the same as a SL; it’s Vietnamese in this respect Linguistically, thetranslation of culture-related words has never been seen as an easy task,especially between such two distant cultures as Vietnam and English Thechallenges may originate from cultural differences, the cultural knowledge ofthe translator etc Conspicuously, it is vital for translators to recognizemeanings of words in the SL which a writer wants to express or refer Frankly,Vietnamese vocabulary is not simple to comprehend all their referred or impliedmeanings, leading to difficulties in using word equivalents.

 Word misunderstandingMisunderstanding polysemy sometimes poses problems in rendering theright translation of the target text Translating English words seems to be easywhen seeking for their equivalents in isolation in the target language But, this

is not always the case since there are other meanings of the same word whichcan be raised in each use of this word in a given context She notes in her studythat the essential issue is to find the exact equivalents in Arabic for the Englishpolysemous words within a context when translating them Students sometimestranslate each word from English into Arabic by applying its core meaning intoArabic (Boubidi, 2009-2010)

2.1.5.2 Cultural aspect

 Cultural characteristicsCultural background is so important for people who practice translating

as their profession Actually, expressing culture-related words is notunproblematic because two cultures’ world makes a big difference of East-Westculture Also, different cultures reflect in the abundant and significant language,especially in the vocabulary Vu (2007) takes the cultural difference betweenWestern and Oriental society and among nations as the root of linguisticuntransbility Tropical monsoon climate, complex geographical position, andlong traditional water rice agriculture are the elements creating Vietnameseculture

Linguistically, the translation of culture-related words has never beenseen as an easy task, especially between such two distant cultures as Vietnamand English The challenges may originate from cultural differences, thecultural knowledge of the translator etc However, the hardest problems may beattached to non- equivalence which consists of the concepts unknown to target

language readers It is, therefore, essential to be aware of translation

non-equivalence in differences between cultural concepts of two different languages.They typically represented in noteworthy differences between Vietnamese andEnglish language

 Cultural conceptsCulture is a complex collection of experiences which condition daily life;

it includes history, social structure, religion, traditional customs and everydayusage This is difficult to comprehend completely Especially in relation to atarget language, one important question is whether the translation will have anyreadership at all, as the specific reality being portrayed is not quite familiar tothe reader The more disparities that exist between any two languages, thegreater the meaning loss in the translation is As hard as it may seem, thetranslation of Vietnamese cultural words is now an inevitable part in ourintegrating life (Thriveni, 2002)

Under the cultural perspective, a translator is similar to a bridge toconvey a message from one language to another in anything that may causeconfusion or feeling of foreignness to TL readers This is definitely not a simpletask because culture is a notion too broad and sophisticated to be fully grasped.Thus, many obstacles of using word equivalents in this field are undeniable.The following table (as cited in Pham, 2010) will clarify some non-equivalentcultural categories In fact, there are many categories in cultural field that canmake a translator confuse to seek for an absolute equivalence

Cylindrical glutinous ricecake.

House and furniture Manor , Bungalo,

Chủ Tịch Ủy Ban HànhPháp Trung ương,

Bí Thư Thành Uỷ

Occupation Access And Equity

Drag Queens

Nghề bán cháo phổiQuân tử

Traditional

practices

Muck up DayNew Year's Resolution

Tết Hàn ThựcCây NêuCâu đối

Ethical issues Fair go,

Wife swapping

Sợ vợChữ hiếuTiết hạnh

Table 2: Selected categories and examples about Cultural concepts

 Vietnamese’s system of address and reference

In Vietnamese culture, there is a hierarchy in classification of peopleaccording to blood relationship and social rank and seniority Kinship terms,used pronominally, constitute an important part of the Vietnamese system of

address and reference, appearing so frequently and are so varied and diversified.Kinship terms are ones not only do they impose difficulty for foreign learners ofVietnamese but sometimes it is also difficult for Vietnamese to use themproperly and appropriately (Nguyen, (1999) as cited in Ngo, 2006).Undoubtedly, there might be quite a few other cases demonstrating thedifferences between Vietnamese and English kinship terms, nevertheless, it isbeyond the scope of this paper to provide a detailed account of all the kinshipterms available To make a better clearness, a table of differences of kinshipterms between two languages is showed below (as cited in Pham, 2010).

Addressing terms used among Vietnamese family members (Duong, 1999)

Particularly, addressing terms used among Vietnamese family members isreally clear, based on position or status Luong observes that “Vietnamesekinship terms are used to not only for third-party reference, but also in addressand self-reference” (Luong, 1990: 37 as cited in Tran, 2009) Among relatedpeople, as well as non-relatives, to express various degrees of meaning, fromhigh disrespect to great respect, and from high level of intimacy to extremedistance Differences from English addressing system, existence of neutraladdresses I and You is considered as regulation in communication because ofhaving no distinguishing between relationships, which can make difficulties oftranslation equivalent

Vietnamese Con (son/daughter) Bố(father)

Mẹ (mother)

Cụ Great grandfather/ mother

Bác Father’s older brother

Cô Father’s older/ younger sister

Chú Father’s younger brother

Thím Father’s younger brother’s wife

Cậu Mother’s older/ younger brother

Mợ Mother’s older/ younger brother’s wife

Dì Mother’s older/ younger sister

Dượng Mother’s older/ younger sister’s husband

Em (younger sister oryounger brother)

Anh (older brother)Chị (older sister)

Table 4: Comparison on Addressing terms used among Vietnamese and

English family members (Duong, 1999 as cited in Pham, 2010)

 Writing styleAccording to Nida (1964) as cited in Zaky (2001), one of the mostserious problems that face a translator is to properly match the stylistic levels oftwo different languages For example, in some parts of the Arab world, normalforms of the language are quite unacceptable for the translation of the Biblealthough they might be better and more widely understood by people thanclassical Arabic On the other hand, the translator has to select not only theappropriate style for the Bible in general, but for the particular biblical style he

is translating, since the Bible contains more than just one style Translating infact involves more than finding corresponding words between two languages.Words are only minor elements in the linguistics The writing style of thelanguage may have more impact on the audience than the actual words Indeed,writing style is really important when the translator translates texts If the aim ofthe SL text is to convey a piece of information or some instructions to thereader or audience, the referential meaning of words becomes quite significant.When the translator deals with a SL text that does not only aim at conveying amessage, but aspires to produce a certain impact on the reader through the use

of a particular style, the translation of such writing style is then an essential part

of the act of translating Therefore, writing style influences the procedure oftranslation in general and finding and using word equivalence

2.2 Related research on Difficulties in – and strategies for – using equivalence at word level in Vietnamese – English translation of students

of English college class 2009 at Tra Vinh University

Firstly, Ghadi (2009) strongly focused on Baker’s word non-equivalence

theory in his study, Translation Equivalence in Scientific Text, and considered it

as a basis for problems of word non-equivalence between English and Persian

Typically, 120 significant words of the original English dental book werechosen for sampling with two translators (expert and non-expert) The result ofGhadi’s study presented translating by a general term, the use of loan word andloan word plus explanation were the leading strategies applied by both theexpert and non-expert despite many differences Unfortunately, the author didnot provide the reason or explanation for this preference and why the otherstrategies were less used

Besides, Pham (2010) proposed a classification of non-equivalence based

on Mona Baker’s theory He carried out his research, Strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word level in translation, to investigate problems of word

non-equivalence observed as the weakness of the majority of students inEnglish Department at Ha Noi University As a result, he found out problems

on contrasting some typical conceptual and lexical semantic fields Then hesuggested several effective strategies to deal with non-equivalence at word levelfor anyone who faced those problems However, he still did not consider causesfor those difficulties or problems in his study

Additionally, there is another thesis about Equivalence in the translation of Vietnamese cultural words by Bach in 2007 at College of Foreign Languages

(VHUN) Postgraduate Studies Particularly, the chosen subject of investigation

is the translation of Vietnamese cultural words in the book of Huu Ngoc

“Wandering through Vietnamese culture” To carry out her study, she collectedVietnamese cultural words and their English equivalents for description,analysis, comparison and induction Especially, the contrastive analysis was amain method in her study Furthermore, she figured out effective ways theauthor of this book used to find equivalence at cultural words

To sum up, the pertinent studies of researchers and scholars as mentionedabove cannot said “enough”, these are considered as typical choice noted by theresearcher to take a theoretical basis for her thesis

2.3 Justification of the present study

All the studies mentioned above set a very strong background for theresearch While most of the studies focused on problems of non-equivalence atword level based on Baker’s theory, few ones were to explore small aspects ofproblems However, these small aspects usefully support common problems ofword non-equivalence Besides, previous researches only demonstrated to makeclear theories of problems as well as suggested strategies for them, so the targetrespondents were very large As some related researches on the topic of thisstudy above, they weren’t surveyed on majored students specifically Words onbooks were target subjects noticed most because of audiences or readers’attention, which also made difficulties for translators Furthermore, theresearchers of these studies used analysis and contrastive methods to determineand prove problems of equivalence at word level on linguistic and culturalaspects Though they didn’t chose majored students of linguistics for surveyedparticipants, their studies found out problems of word non-equivalence ordifficulties of word equivalence From these limitations sets basis for this study

to find new difficulties or problems existing on using word equivalence.Particularly, they support the valuable background for helping majored studentsget a better understanding of their difficulties as well as overcome their ones

Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To make a successful study, it’s actual to have many vital factors such astheoretical background, a premise of the thesis, purposes, participants, and so

on In that all, research methodology is one of main elements to contribute toany study This chapter is considered as a description of the done methods inthis study

overcome their difficulties in using equivalence at word level, which is “What strategies do they use to overcome their difficulties?”.

3.2 The Participants

The participants are one of vital factors contributing to the success of thestudy The chosen participants are all of 25 English-majored students of EnglishCollege class 2009 at TVU including 24 females and only one male The reasonfor choosing one group of participant is that all the participants have beenprovided with the same training syllabus and curriculum and the same teachingapproaches Therefore, their responses to the questionnaire may be different notbecause of imbalanced exposure to the training programs Besides, the factor ofgender is not of any aims of the study, thus, that almost all of the participantsare female does not really matter

3.3 The research instruments

To investigate the difficulties in using equivalence at word level inVietnamese – English translation of majors of English College class 2009 atTVU, the survey questionnaire considered as an instrument was designed with

13 close-ended questions (see appendix) The questionnaire is based on both the