DIFFICULTIES AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS IN TRANSLATING CONTRACTS OF HOANG HA INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANCY CONSTRUCTION CO, LTD

The language to betranslated is called the source language, and the language is to be translatedinto is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called thetarget text."

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY

- -GRADUATION PAPERDIFFICULTIES AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS IN TRANSLATING

CONTRACTS OF HOANG HA INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

CONSULTANCY CONSTRUCTION CO, LTD

Supervisor: Le Thi Phuong Mai, M.A

Student: Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh

Class: K50N6 Student’s number: 14D170394

Hanoi - 2018

ABSTRACT

Translation is a very important job for companies working with foreign partners.For the Hoang Ha Company, contract translation has become an essential part ofthe company's operations, as well as its image with its foreign counterparts Since the language in the building is not easy and the contract requirements are very high, so the translation staff in the company encountered some difficulties

in the translation process This study aims to find out the difficulties of

translating the contracts of the company's translation staff so that translators can find solutions to overcome these difficulties to improve the quality

Besides that,this study also helps translators and students involved in contract translation understand the difficulties that arise during the translation process and to orient the correct translation method In addition, the research methods used in this study are the questionnaire- a list of questions to find out the

difficulties that students usually face and the interview questions which used to meeting students‟ expectations in learning the subject

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY

- -GRADUATION PAPERDIFFICULTIES AND SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS IN TRANSLATING

CONTRACTS OF HOANG HA INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

CONSULTANCY CONSTRUCTION CO, LTD

Supervisor: Le Thi Phuong Mai, M.A

Student: Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh

Class: K50N6 Student’s number: 14D170394

Hanoi - 2018

HÀ NỘI - 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the process of completing this Graduation Paper, I have received a great deal of help, guidance and encouragement from my teachers and friends First of all, I would like to express my deepest thank to my supervisor, Mrs Le Thi Phuong Mai , MA of Foreign Language Department, who has offered me suggestion on how to shape the study and always been most

willing to give me valuable advice, helpful comments, corrected my

graduation paper as well as inspired me with his helpful advice and ideas

I also would like to express my sincere thanks to all teachers in the Department of Foreign language, who have thoughtfully trained me in the lastfour years Finally, as always I wish to express my special thanks to my

family, my friends and my brother for their understanding and encouragementthroughout the preparation of this paper

This Graduation paper has been completed with my best knowledge However, errors and mistakes are unavoidable because of my limited

knowledge Thus, I am looking forward to receiving the reflection, sympathy and contribution from teachers to make it more perfect

Ha Noi, April 2018 Student

Nguyen Thi Ha Thanh

TABLE OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT i

TABLE OF CONTENT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.3 Aims of the study 5

1.4 Scope of the study 5

1.5 Research methodology 5

1.6 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 The theoretical background 7

2.1.1 Definitions of translation 7

2.1.2 The importance of translation 8

2.1.3 Types of translation 10

2.2 Translation equivalence 13

2.2.1 Dynamic equivalence 13

2.2.2 Grammatical equivalence 14

2.3 Some useful techniques for translation 15

2.3.1 Addition 15

2.3.2 Omissions 16

2.3.3 Replacements 16

2.3.4 Transposition 17

2.4 Translations strategies 18

2.5 The translation process 20

2.6 Difficulties in translation 22

2.7 General knowledge on a foreign construction contract 23

2.7.1 Definition of a foreign construction contract 23

2.7.2 The main content of a foreign construction contract 24

CHAPTER III: FINDING AND DISCUSSION FROM STUDYING THE

TRANSLATION AI THE HOANG HA COMPANY 26

3.1 An introduction of translation activities of the Hoang Ha Company 26

3.1.1 Translation staffs 26

3.1.2 The translation materials 26

3.2 Context of the study 28

3.2.1 The subject 28

3.2 2 Instruments for collecting data 29

3.2.3 Questionnaire 29

3.2.4 Interviews with translation staffs 29

3.2.5 Data collection procedure 29

3.2.6 Data analysis 30

3.3 Findings 31

3.4 Discussion 37

CHAPTER IV: SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO OVERCOME THE DIFFICULTIES 39 CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Vietnamese

company

Công ty TNHH

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Diagram 2.1: Translation process by Roger T Bell

Table 3.1 : 7 questions in the interview

Chart 3.1: Translation staffs s' attitude towards the importance of vocabularyTable 3.2: Ways of remembering English vocabulary on construction

Chart 3 2: Translator staffs ’ vocabulary difficulties

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1 Rationale

Along with the development of countries in the world and the trend ofthe international economic integration, English is considered to be one of themost popular languages in the world In Vietnam, with the changes and thedevelopments of the economy and society, as well as the implementation ofthe open- door policy, English has been used more and more widely both bythe young and the old and it has been the most popular foreign language.English also occupied a specially important status in the development ofinternational relationship in Vietnam

Besides, our country is also innovating and developing in the period ofindustrialization and modernization Many industrial parks are built togetherwith the presence of modern high-rise buildings and urban areas Thisdevelopment has led to increasing the demand for infrastructure Thus,construction has become an independent and important business This is also

a sector with stable development and attracts a lot of foreign investments

Moreover, the development of the construction industry beyond thenational territory has led to the need to use English-the international language,

as a bridge between domestic and foreign companies.Therefore, using English

in transactions, contracts or direct negotiations is also very important

Because the contract is an agreement between companies throughspecific terms and expressions as the basis for the follow-up of companies,the conversion from English to Vietnamese and vice versa are highaccuracies In particular, in the construction industry, contracts involving theterms of quantity, quality or origin of materials need to be carefully drafted.The terms in the construction industry also need to be correctly translated inboth English and Vietnamese so that both internal and external partners canwork together to avoid making mistakes in the construction process

Therefore, finding and researching practical contract translation in anactual company are very necessary It will help us find out the difficulties,

propose solutions and support companies and individuals to improve theirtranslation skills.

That is the main reason inspiring me to carry out this topic Moreimportantly, thanks for studying this topic, I have a chance to have thethorough understanding of the translation of construction contracts

1.2 Previous studies

With regard to the subject of translation, there are now a lot ofdocuments and articles on this subject Each researcher has his owntranslation study and draws his own conclusions To get a good qualitygraduation paper, I have searched and consulted a lot of documents andrelated research in both Vietnamese and English

The first book I referred to is Nida and Taber (1982), attempting to give

a more “scientific” sense to translation Borrowing theoretical concepts fromsemantics and pragmatics, and being influenced by Chomsky‟s generative-transformational grammar (1965), Nida adopts a more systematic approach toexploring the field of translation studies With regard to equivalence, Nidamaintains that there are two basic types of equivalence: formal equivalenceand dynamic equivalence In particular, Nida argues that in formalequivalence the target text resembles very much the source text in both formand content whereas in dynamic equivalence an effort is made to convey thesource text message in the target text as naturally as possible It could beargued that Nida is in favour of dynamic equivalence since he considers it to

be a more effective translation procedure This comes as no surprise given thefact that Nida was, at the time at which he proffered his views aboutequivalence, translating the Bible, and hence trying to produce the sameimpact on various different audiences he was simultaneously addressing

This paper would have been incomplete without reference to PeterNewmark, one of the founders of the Institute of Linguists and a ferventadvocate for the professionalization of translators Peter Newmark (1988)does not aim to promote any monolithic translation theory but rather attempt

to describe a basis for dealing with problems encountered during the

translation process More specifically, Newmark replaces Nida‟s terms offormal and dynamic equivalence with semantic and communicativetranslation respectively The major difference between the two types oftranslation proposed by Newmark is that semantic translation focuses onmeaning whereas communicative translation concentrates on effect In otherwords, semantic translation looks back at the source text and tries to retain itscharacteristics as much as possible Its nature is more complex, detailed andthere is also a tendency to over-translate On the other hand, communicativetranslation looks towards the needs of the addressees, thus trying to satisfythem as much as possible In this respect, communicative translation tends tounder-translate; to be smoother, more direct and easier to read Hence, insemantic translation, a great emphasis is placed on the author of the originaltext whereas communicative translation is meant to serve a larger readership.

It should be pointed out that during the translation process, communicativetranslation need not be employed exclusively over semantic or vice versa Itmay well be the case in a literary text that a particular sentence requirescommunicative translation whereas another sentence from the same text mayrequire a semantic one Hence, the two methods of translation may be used inparallel, with varying focuses where each is employed

In addition, the knowledge from Baker's book is also very important.Mona Baker in her influential book (1992) addresses the vexing issue ofequivalence by adopting a more neutral approach when she argues thatequivalence is a relative notion because it is influenced by a variety oflinguistic and cultural factors (p 6) In particular, the chapters of her book arestructured around different kinds of equivalence, that is, at the level of word,phrase, grammar, text and pragmatics Hence, terms such as grammatical,textual and pragmatic equivalence come up In more detail, a distinction ismade between word-level and above-world level equivalence Adopting abottom-up approach, Baker acknowledges the importance of individual wordsduring the translation process, since the translator looks firstly at the words assingle units in order to find their equivalent in the target language Baker goes

on to provide a definition of the term word referring to its complex naturesince a single word can sometimes be assigned different meanings in differentlanguages Consequently, parameters such as number, gender and tenseshould be taken into consideration when translating a word (p 11-12).Grammatical equivalence refers to the diversity of grammatical categoriesacross languages and the difficulty of finding an equivalent term in the targettext due to the variety of grammatical rules across languages In fact, shestresses that differences in grammatical structures may significantly changethe way the information or message is carried across As a consequence, thetranslator may be forced to add or delete information in the target text because

of the lack of specific grammatical categories Some of the major categoriesthat often pose problems for translators are number, voice, person, gender,tense and aspect On the other hand, textual equivalence refers to equivalencethat may be achieved between a source text and target text in terms ofcohesion and information Baker argues that the feature of texture is ofimmense importance for the translators since it facilitates their comprehensionand analysis of the source text and helps them to produce a cohesive andcoherent text in the target text

Moreover, I also refer to other studies of translation from other bookssuch as by Roger T Bell (1991) This book derives from a feeling ofconsiderable unease and puzzlement about the way translation has beentreated, over a substantial period, by translation theorists on the one hand andlinguists on the other The translation theorists, almost without exception, 1have made little systematic use of the techniques and insights ofcontemporary linguistics (the linguistics of the last twenty years or so) and thelinguists, for their part, have been at best neutral and at worst actually hostile

to the notion of a tl1eory of translation In addition, Alan K Melby ( 1995)gave me a general knowledge of translation difficulties, which helped me toperfect the main subject of this paper

1.3 Aims of the study

The purpose of this research is to help the translators, particularly those

in the Hoang Ha Company, find the difficulties in contract translation Alongwith that, the students who are oriented in translation work in the companywill see the difficulties in the future As a result, solutions will be found toreduce or eliminate these difficulties to make translation work more efficientand help the company operates more professionally

1.4 Scope of the study

The study of translation has a large scope Due to the limited time andknowledge, I can not study all aspects of the translation As mentioned above,

in this paper, I will focus on translating the contract of a specific object isHoang Ha investment and development consultancy construction Co., Ltd

At last, comparison method is also put into practice to finish this papergraduation

1.6 Organization of the study

My graduation paper consists of four main chapters:

Chapter I is an introduction which includes the rationale, previous studies,aims of the study, scope and methods of the study

Chapter II is the literature review and it is also the most important part It hasfive main parts The first is the theoretical background includes thedefinitions, important and types of translation The second is translation

equivalence The third is some useful techniques in translation The nextparts is the translation process and translation difficulties At last, there isgeneral knowledge of a foreign construction contract.

Chapter III is the finding and discussion from studying the translation at theHoang Ha Co.,Ltd

Chapter IV is the suggested solutions to overcome the difficulties mentionedabove

And the last part is a conclusion which gives a brief summary of the study andsuggestion for further study

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, I will introduce an overview of translation theoryinvolved in my study This chapter will help readers have the first look atsome issues related to translation and translation of construction contracts:translation theory with definitions, methods, and its equivalents andtranslation of specific terms in construction

2.1 The theoretical background

2.1.1 Definitions of translation

Translation has existed in our life from very soon, since people knewhow to use and develop their language with regional and culturalcharacteristics It is considered to be an extremely important part in mostareas of culture, society, education to the economy, especially when countriesare expanding markets, growing beyond territory Therefore, definitions oftranslation are numerous, and great numbers of books and articles have beenwritten about this subject Hereinafter are some typical definitions:

Nida states that translation consists of reproducing in the receptorlanguage the closest natural equivalence of the source language message, first

in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style (Eugene Albert Nida andCharles Russell Tabers, 1982)

From the definitions above the translation has the same term

“equivalence” The meaning, context, though, or message of both sources ofreproducing in the receptor language, the closest natural are equivalent to themessage of the source language The first is meaning and secondly is style.The message of source language must equivalent The reader of translationwho knows the target language only will be confused if the target language isinfluenced by the source language

Meanwhile, the result of translation must be transferring the meaning ofthe source language clearly In order to make the clear meaning of sourcelanguage, it is expected that the meaning of target language can be understood

by the readers So, the result of translation must be readable In target

language, readability is needed, because it makes the readers easier to catchthe content of the translation text, conversely when the translation text is notreadable It will make the readers difficult to understand the content of thetext well.

Besides, Newmark (1988) points out that translation is a work thatseeks to replace a message and / or a written statement in the language withthe same message or statement in another language In addition, he consideredtranslation as a science, a skill, an art, and a problem of taste As a science,translation includes the knowledge and assessment of the events andlanguages that describe them; as a skill, translation includes appropriatelanguage and acceptable use of language; as an art form, the translationdistinguishes good writing and bad writing, as well as involves levels ofcreativity, intuition and inspiration; And finally, as a matter of taste, thetranslation consists of the fact that the translator chooses the translation thatthey like the most; So the same translation of different translators will not bethe same

Based on many definitions above, in general, the translation is aprocess of transferring thoughts and message from the source language to thetarget language, in the form of written or spoken The language to betranslated is called the source language, and the language is to be translatedinto is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called thetarget text."

2.1.2 The importance of translation

Today, we can not deny the important role of English in work, study ordaily life Especially when the current trend is globalization, Vietnam isopening up to attract investment capital as well as cooperation, economic,cultural and political exchanges with world powers

“ Never before in the history of the world have there been so manypersons engaged in the translating of both secular and religious materials It

is estimated that at least 100,000 persons dedicate most or all of their time tosuch work, and of these at least 3,000 engaged primarily in the translation of

the Bible into some 800 languages, representing about 80 percent of theworld’s population.” (Eugene Albert Nida and Charles Russell Tabers, 1982)

Translation is important not simply because it gets us talking to eachother or allows each of us to read what the other has written but because itgives us insights into why we find it difficult sometimes to speak to eachother and why we particularly like or understand what the other has written Ifcontemporary reality is inescapably multicultural and multinational, then itmakes sense to look to a discipline which has mediation between cultures andlanguages as a central concern to assist us both in understanding globalizationand in understanding what it might mean, and why it is difficult to be a citizen

of the world (Roger T Bell, 1991)

As a technique for learning foreign languages, translation is a edged instrument: it has the special purpose of demonstrating the learner'sknowledge of the foreign language, either as a form of control or to exercisehis intelligence in order to develop his competence This is its strong point inforeign-language classes, which has to be sharply distinguished from itsnormal use in transferring meanings and conveying messages The translation

two-is done in schools, which as a dtwo-iscipline two-is unfortunately usually taken forgranted and rarely discussed, often encourages absurd, stilted renderings,particularly of colloquial passages including proper names and institutionalterms

As a means of communication, translation is used for multilingualnotices, which have at last appeared increasingly conspicuously in publicplaces; for instructions issued by exporting companies; for tourist publicity,where it is too often produced from the native into the 'foreign' language bynatives as a matter of national pride; for official documents, such as treatiesand contracts; for reports, papers, articles, correspondence textbooks toconvey information, advice and recommendations for every branch ofknowledge Its volume has increased with the rise of the mass media, theincrease in the number of independent countries, and the growing recognition

of the importance of linguistic minorities in all the countries of the world.(Peter Newmark, 1988)

In general, translation plays an important role Most of the fields, such

as construction, health, finance, tourism, use specialized materials in bothVietnamese and foreign languages With the trend of international economicintegration, translation services for business and cultural exchange areextremely essential

For large corporations, reputable international organizations, theprecision in contract language or trade is critical to success Most of thesebusinesses and organizations have a partnership with a professionaltranslation service to support the necessary times It has the same consistencyand upgraded its brand in the eyes of partners

In order to solve the problems encountered in communicating withinternational friends, as well as partner documents or contracts, translationservices must be provided Translation is important for both parties tounderstand each other better so businesses must have a partnership with atranslation service to assist them when needed It has both the unity and thebrand of the business in the eyes of partners

2.1.3 Types of translation

According to Larson (1984: 15) translation is classified into two maintypes, namely form-based translation and meaning-based translation Forms-based translation attempts to follow the form of the source language and it isknown as literal translation, while meaning-based translation makes everyeffort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the naturalforms of the receptor language Such translation is called idiomatictranslation A literal translation sounds like nonsense and has littlecommunication value (Larson, 1984: 15) The literal translation can beunderstood if the general grammatical form of the two languages is similar.Larson (1984: 16) says that idiomatic translations use the natural forms of thereceptor language both in the grammatical constructions and in the choices oflexical items A truly idiomatic translation does not sound like the translation

It sounds like it was written originally in the receptor language Therefore, agood translator will try to translate idiomatically This is his/her goal.

Besides, Peter Newmark (1988) states that translation methods relate towhole texts, translation procedures are used for sentences and the smallerunits of language Some kinds of translation are found because of thedifferences and similarities of the source structures, different kinds of text thatare going to be translated and different purpose of translation He divides thekinds of translation in the same way

The first type is word for word translation This is often demonstrated

as interlinear translation, with the target language immediately below thesource language words The source language word-order is preserved and thewords translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context.Cultural words are translated literally The main use of word-for-wordtranslation is either to understand the mechanics of the source language

The second type is literal translation The source language grammaticalconstructions are converted to their nearest target language equivalents but thelexical words are again translated singly, out of context As a pre-translationprocess, this indicates the problems to be solved

The third type is faithful translation A faithful Translation attempts toreproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original within theconstraints of the target language grammatical structures It 'transfers' culturalwords and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical 'abnormality'(deviation from source language norms) in the translation It attempts to becompletely faithful to the intentions and the text-realisation of the sourcelanguage writer

The fourth type is communicative translation Communicativetranslation attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original insuch a way that both content and language are readily acceptable andcomprehensible to the readership

The fifth type is semantic translation Semantic translation emphasizesthe “loyalty” to the original text It is more semantic and syntactic oriented

and, therefore, also author-centered On the other hand, communicativetranslation emphasizes the loyalty to the “readers” and more reader-centered.The two concepts are not to be contrasted with the literal word-for-wordtranslation which is criticized in the concept of formal translation and literaltranslation He sees it as a translation procedure He states that literal word-for-word translation is not only the best in both communicative and semantictranslation, but it is the only valid method of translation if an equivalent effect

is secured (Peter Newmark, 1988)

He further maintains that, in fact, there is no pure communicative orpure semantic method of translating a text There are overlapping bands ofmethods A translation can be more or less semantic as well as more or lesscommunicative Even a part of a sentence can be treated morecommunicatively or more semantically Anyhow he maintains that the moreimportant the language of the text or units of text, e.g in the sacred texts, themore closely it should be translated Finally, he points out that meaning iscomplicated, many-leveled, a ‘network of relation’ The more generalizationand simplification is done, the less meaning is gotten From this discussion, itcan be argued that the choice between semantic and communicative approach

is done in the level of translating sentences or even parts of a sentence

The sixth type is adaptation This is the 'freest' form of translation It isused mainly for plays (comedies and poetry) ; the themes, characters, plots areusually preserved, the source language culture converted to the targetlanguage culture and the text rewritten The deplorable practice of having aplay or poem literally translated and then rewritten by an establisheddramatist or poet has produced many poor adaptations, but other adaptationshave 'rescued period plays

The seventh type is free translation Free translation reproduces thematter without the manner or the content without the form of the original.Usually, it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called'intralingual translation”, often prolix and pretentious, and not a translation atall

The last type is idomatic translation Idiomatic translation reproducesthe 'message' of the original but tends to distort nuances of meaning bypreferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original.

An extremely interesting discussion of the notion equivalent can befound in Baker’s book (Baker,1992) which seems to offer more detail list ofconditions upon which the concept equivalent can be defined at differentlevels as follow: Equivalence that can appear at the word level Baker gives adefinition of the term word since it should be remembered that a single wordcan be regarded as being a more complex unit or morpheme, and it discussabout lexical meaning above word level equivalence, when translating fromone language into another In this section, the translator concentrates on thetype of lexical pattering, they are collocation, idioms, and fixed expression

Grammatical equivalence, when referring to the diversity ofgrammatical categories across languages Baker focuses on number, tense andaspects, voice, person and gender In the process of translation; suchdifferences between source language and the target language often implysome change in the information content When the source language has agrammatical category that the target language lacks, this change can take theform of adding information to the target text On the other hand, if it is the

target language that lacks a category, the change can take the form ofomission.

Textual equivalence when referring to the equivalence between asource language text and a target language text in terms of thematic andinformation structure She also adds the discussion in this section aboutcohesion Pragmatic equivalence, when referring to implicatures andstrategies of avoidance during the translation process These theorists havestudied equivalence in relation to the translation process, using differentapproaches

2.2.2 Grammatical equivalence

Grammar is the set of rules which determine the way in which unitssuch as words and phrases can be combined in a language Grammar has twomain dimensions: morphology and syntax, morphology concern the structure

of single words, the way in which their form varies to indicate specificcontrast in the grammatical system (example: singular/plural, number,present/past), syntax concerns the grammatical structure of groups of words(clauses or sentence),the linear sequence of classes of words (noun, verb,adverb, adjective, etc)

Different grammatical structures in the source language and targetlanguage may cause remarkable changes in the way the information ormessage is carried across, these changes may induce the translator either toadd or to omit information in the target language because of the lack ofparticular grammatical devices in the target language itself, amongst thesegrammatical devices which might cause problems in translation (Baker,Mona, 1992)

As far as translation is concerned, the most important differencebetween grammatical and lexical choices is that the former are generallyobligatory while the latter is largely optional In the process of translation,such differences between the source language and the target language oftenimply some change in the information content When the source language has

a grammatical category that the target language lacks, this change can take the

form of adding information to the target text On the other hand, if it is thetarget language that lacks a category, the change can take the form ofomission grammatical rules may vary across languages and this may posesome problems in terms of finding a direct correspondence in the targetlanguage.

2.3 Some useful techniques for translation

As Jane Fenoulhet,Alison Martin mentioned (Jane Fenoulhet,Alison

Martin, 2014) : “ Here is a simple technique you might like to use: If you

have access to a scanner of the photocopier, make a copy of the text so thatyou can highlight things, colour code or simply write notes It will help toengaged activity like this with the text you are about to translate Below aretwo keys questions to help you make a first analysis The first concernsbackground knowledge relevant for understanding the text, while the secondinvolves reflection on your target audience: What are the first things that younotice about this text? And What do you know about the target audience foryour translation and how will it affect your translation?

The study was carried out by using a qualitative method to interpret andexplain the techniques of translation Besides, the quantitative method wasalso employed to generalize and analyze the data from the surveyquestionnaire In addition, there are five useful techniques for English-Vietnamese and Vietnamese-English translation with illustrated examples forattempting to contribute to better translation competence of English learners

In that study, four techniques are mentioned

2.3.1 Addition

It means that when translating, translators can add some words whichare not found in the source language so as to make the translation textincreasingly fluent and coherent About this issue, Hung, N T (1986) hassaid: “Additions are caused by various factors Very often, they arenecessitated by what may be called “Lexical incompleteness” of certain wordgroup in the source language Thus, in English , words which are omitted can

be easily restored in the context, while in Vietnamese their actual presence in

the group is necessary, which calls for additions in translation.” Hereafter is asample versions translated from English into Vietnamese and vice versa: “Hewas always glad because he showed his gratitude to his parents Vậy mà lúcnào ông cũng lấy làm vui vẻ trong lòng, vì có thế thì con mới tỏ hết lòng hiếuvới cha mẹ.” (An, V L and Anh, V L (1999) “Vậy mà”, “lấy làm” and

“trong lòng” were added to convey the total feelings and spirits of the personinvolved

2.3.2 Omissions

When translating, to reduce the pleonastic words that can beunnecessary for the meaning in the translation text In other words, translatorscan make use of the omission technique to omit some redundant words, whichdoes not really change the meaning of the version Hung, N T (1986) hasmentioned: Omissions are the reverse of additions and are used to ensure agreater degree of what is called “compression” that is reducing theredundancy of the text by omitting words which can be easily restored fromthe context The following are some examples about this technique: “Với tưcách là những sinh viên mới, chúng ta phải học bài trước khi đến lớp học Asnew students, we must study lessons before class.” (Dung, L M (2003) Theverb “đến” was omitted to convey a concise vesison in the target language;

“One day, a dog entered an inn, stole a piece of meat and ran away with it.Một hôm, có một con chó vào hàng cơm ngoạm trộm miếng thịt rồi bỏ chạy.”(An & Anh, 1993:79) It would be wordy if the vesion in the target languagewas rendered “ ….rồi bỏ chạy với miếng thịt/với nó.” Instead, “with it” wasomitted to make the version briefer and smoother, but the meaning remainedthe same

2.3.3 Replacements

It means that when translating, translators ought to get insights abouttwo common types of linguistic units: word forms and parts of speech,which have considerable influence on grammatical transformations betweenthe source language and the target language Special attention should be paid

to singular and plural forms of word forms that are commonly recognized in

the rendering In some cases, translators, to reach the fluency in the targetlanguage, can convert the plural forms into the singular ones and vice versa.Replacements of parts of speech are quite common in translation Nouns inEnglish, for example, can be replaced by verbs or adjectives in Vietnameseand vice versa to obtain accuracy and suitability of semantics in English andVietnamese styles The following example illustrate this part of the technique:

“Our belief is that Vietnam’s economy will be at the top-ten of the world.Chúng tôi tin rằng nền kinh tế Việt Nam sẽ được xếp vào 10 nước đứng đầuthế giới.” (Dung, 2003:54) Obviously, the possessive adjective “Our” wasreplaced with the pronoun “Chúng tôi” and the noun “belief” was replacedwith the verb “tin” to match the suitable meaning in the target-language style

of the sentence Such technique is more clearly illustrated by the followingexamples: “Nếu nó cứ lười biếng như thế mãi, thì về sau chắc sẽ phải khổsuốt đời He will be unhappy all his life, if he continues to be lazy.” (An &Anh, 1993:31) Opposite to the Vietnamese style, the subordinate clause ismostly surpassed at the first place by the main clause Thus, it can be easy tofind that “if he continues to be lazy” – the subordinate clause was transferred

to the end of the rendering

It is of expressions that there are various types, but mainly proverbs,short well-known statements or wise sayings giving people practical adviceabout life, are discussed It should be borne in mind that translators, whenapplying the expressions to proverbs, ought to find in the target languageutterances or word combinations which have an equivalent meaning to those

in the source language

Written translation is completely different from any other type oftranslation As a rule, there is no need to react instantly - you can take yourtime, think, choose a better variant, use a dictionary, consult a specialist, etc.Like any other translation it should convey the meaning and the music of thesource language Also, you need to be very accurate with the language andgive proper weigh to stylistic features.

The first is the translation by a more general word This is one of themost common strategies for handling multiple cases with no equivalent AsBaker's view, this strategy will fit most, if not all languages, because in thesemantic domain, meaning does not depend on language

The second is the translation bya neutral / less expressive word This isanother strategy in the field of the semantic structure

The third is the translation by alternative culture This strategy involvesthe replacement of a particular word or cultural expression component with acomponent in the target language based on its impact on the target reader.This strategy makes text translations more natural, easier to understand andmore familiar to the target audience The decision to use this translator'sstrategy will depend on: the level of substitution requested by the translatorallows translators to perform and the purpose of the translation

The fourth is the translation using a loan word or a borrowed wordwith the explanation This strategy is often used when dealing with culturalfeatures, modern concepts, and common terms Using the loan word comes avery useful explanation when a word is repeated several times in the text Forthe first time, the word is mentioned by the explanation, and the next time it isjust the word, there is no need to explain it again

The fifth is the translation by interpretation using a related word Thisstrategy is used when words in the original language are related to the words

in the target language but in a different form, and when the frequency withwhich certain forms are used in the original text is clearly higher than in thelanguage Natural target language

The next strategy is the translation by using an unrelated word.Interpretative strategies can be used when concepts in the original languageare not vocabularyized in the target language When the meaning of the rootword is very complex in the target language, the interpretation strategy can beused instead of the related words; It may be based on an adjustment of theoverall word or simply clarification of the meaning of the original

Besides, translation by skipping is also another strategy This can be adrastic translation strategy, but in practice, the skipping of a word orexpression in some contexts is very helpful If the meaning conveyed by aparticular word or expression does not necessarily have to be mentioned tounderstand the translation, the translator will use this strategy to avoid lengthyexplanations

The last strategy is translation by illustration This strategy will beuseful when the equivalent in the target language does not include someaspects of the word in the original language and the equivalent word or phraserefers to a physical entity that can be illustrated, especially To avoid overlylong explanations, make the text concise and go straight to the problem

Thereby, we can understand that strategies for translation involve thebasic tasks of choosing the foreign text to be translated and developing amethod to translate it Both of these tasks are determined by various factors:cultural, economic, political Yet the many different strategies that haveemerged since antiquity can perhaps be divided into two large categories Atranslation project may conform to values currently dominating the target-language culture, taking a conservative and openly assimilationist approach tothe foreign text, appropriating it to support domestic canons, publishingtrends, political alignments Alternatively, a translation project may resist and