English professionl titles in the management system of Joint-Stock companies and their Vietnamese Equivalents – A study from pragamatic perspective

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ************** TẠ THỊ MAI HƢƠNG ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL TITLES IN THE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS – A STUDY FROM PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE (Từ chức danh thuộc hệ thống quản lý công ty cổ phần tiếng Anh cách diễn đạt tƣơng đƣơng tiếng Việt – Nghiên cứu từ góc độ ngữ dụng học) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 Hanoi – 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ************** TẠ THỊ MAI HƢƠNG ENGLISH PROFESSIONAL TITLES IN THE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS – A STUDY FROM PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE (Từ chức danh thuộc hệ thống quản lý công ty cổ phần tiếng Anh cách diễn đạt tƣơng đƣơng tiếng Việt – Nghiên cứu từ góc độ ngữ dụng học) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông Hanoi – 2014 DECLARATION I, Tạ Thị Mai Hương, hereby state that this minor thesis is the result of my own research and all the materials in this study which are not my own work have been identified and acknowledged I also state that the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degree to any other universities or institutions Hanoi, June, 2014 Student‟s signature Tạ Thị Mai Hương i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This minor thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the assistance and guidance of my supervisor, teachers, colleagues, friends and relatives First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông for his patient and enthusiastic guidance, endless encouragement and invaluable critical feedback throughout my research Secondly, I wish to thank all the lecturers in the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their very useful and interesting lectures which have laid the foundation for my thesis I am also grateful to the librarians of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, who enthusiastically helped me in finding necessary materials for my thesis In addition, I am greatly indebted to my colleagues at Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration for sharing my duties and providing me with both professional and emotional support while the work was being done Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my family whose love, care, support and encouragement enabled me to accomplish the study Hanoi, June 2014 ii ABSTRACT This study is an attempt to uncover the intrinsic meanings of commonly used English professional titles in the management system of American joint-stock companies and look for their Vietnamese equivalents In the study, the researcher investigates some American and Vietnamese companies‟ organizational structures, as well as scans some job suggested websites to figure out and make a list of the common professional titles in English and Vietnamese language, centering upon the titles in the management system of a company These jobs titles are then described, compared and contrasted in terms of responsibilities to look for the equivalents in the target language The results of the study present the Vietnamese equivalents of the investigated English professional titles Based on those findings, the thesis provides some implications for translation and pedagogy Last but not least, suggestions for further research are given as direction in the time to come pursued by the author and/or other interested people iii ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS CA Contrastive Analysis CAO Chief Accounting Officer CCO Chief Customer Officer CEO Chief Executive Officer CFO Chief Financial Officer CHRO Chief Human Resources Officer CMO Chief Marketing Officer COO Chief Operating Officer CSO Chief Sales Officer IT Information technology MD Managing Director QA Quality Assurance R&D Research and Development SL Source Language SOC Standard Occupational Classification TL Target Language UK The United Kingdom U.S The United States VP Vice President iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Types of equivalence relationship………………………………………………… Table 2: English professional titles and their Vietnamese equivalents…………………… 36 Table 3: Vietnamese professional titles and their English equivalents…………………… 39 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Company structure introduced by Tullis, G and Trappe, T (2004) ………….…13 Figure 2: Company structure introduced by Mackenzie, I (1997) ……………………… 14 Figure 3: Company structure introduced by McKellen, J.S (1990) ………………………15 Figure 4: Company structure introduced by Sweeny, S (2002) ………………………… 16 Figure 5: Company structure introduced by Mascull, B (2002) ……………………….….17 Figure 6: Structure of Binh Minh Plastics Joint-stock Company……………………… …18 Figure 7: Structure of Lac Hong Joint-stock Company………………………………….…19 Figure 8: Structure of BSC Joint-stock Company…………………………………….……20 Figure 9: Board of Directors in American companies……………………………….… …20 Figure 10: Inner governance structure of Vietnamese joint-stock companies………… …21 Figure 11: Overview of the translation task…………………………………………… …38 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS .iv LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES v TABLE OF CONTENTS .vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Scopes of the study Significance of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theory of Pragmatics 1.2 Theory of Translation 1.2.1 Definitions of translation 1.2.2 Equivalence in translation 1.2.3 Types of equivalence 1.3 Contrastive Analysis CHAPTER 2: A DESCRIPTION OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES 11 2.1 Definition of American and Vietnamese joint-stock companies 11 2.1.1 American joint-stock companies 11 2.1.2 Vietnamese joint-stock companies 12 2.2 Organizational structures of American and Vietnamese joint-stock companies 12 2.2.1 Organizational structures of some American companies 12 2.2.2 Organizational structures of some Vietnamese companies 17 vi 2.2.3 Concluding Remarks 20 2.3 Main titles in management system of American and Vietnamese joint-stock companies 22 2.3.1 Main titles in American joint-stock companies 22 2.3.2 Main titles in Vietnamese joint-stock companies 24 CHAPTER 3: A CONTRATIVE STUDY ON PROFESSIONAL TITLES IN THE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES 25 3.1 A description of professional titles in management system of American and Vietnamese joint-stock companies 25 3.1.1 American professional titles 25 3.1.2 Vietnamese professional titles 29 3.2 A contrastive analysis of professional titles in management system of American and Vietnamese joint-stock companies 32 3.2.1 Titles denoting General Managers 32 3.2.2 Titles denoting Functional Managers 33 3.2.3 Concluding remarks 35 CHAPTER 4: APPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATING, TEACHING AND LEARNING BUSINESS ENGLISH 38 4.1 Suggestions for translating English professional titles into Vietnamese and Vietnamese titles into English 38 4.2 Implications for teaching and learning Business English 40 PART 3: CONCLUSION 42 Recapitulation 42 Limitations of the study 44 Suggestions for further research 44 REFERENCES 45 vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION Part one of the research states the rationale for the study It also outlines the aims, scope, method, significance, and design of the thesis Rationale Over the past decade, the increase of international economic integration after Vietnam‟s accession to the WTO has made more job opportunities available for Vietnamese labor force People are made accessible to positions not only in local business enterprises but also in large foreign corporations As a direct result, university graduates have great chances to be employed by local companies which have increasing business relationships with oversea ones, and even by multinational enterprises Hence, the ability to use English has become one of the preliminary requirements for a potential candidate Although Vietnam has been exposed to the market economy for a considerable period, there remains a lack of economic terminology system in general and Vietnamese equivalents of English occupational titles in particular Professional titles are among those English terms which are popularly used in both local and global companies In addition, an incorrect choice of business contacts due to the misunderstanding of their job title‟s responsibilities may negatively affect the viability of business cooperation As a matter of fact, working people need to have some knowledge about business titles Being a teacher of English responsible for teaching English to students majored in management studies, my job is to help students improve their language proficiency and provide them with the language skills they need for their future career Thus, I feel the need to pre-teach students the common job titles and people‟s responsibilities when they hold these posts So far, few researchers have had interest in researching the job titles in the economic fields Therefore, to be able to provide learners with better understanding of the professional titles and their implied meanings, it is necessary for me to a research into the frequently used job titles and the responsibilities undertaken by people carrying those titles Throughout history, joint-stock companies, though might be denoted by different names, remain one of the most popular business models in many countries in the world as well as in Vietnam In addition, the professional titles of this type of company can be found are responsible for planning and implementing marketing and sales department of the companies (according to www.dantri.com) In some American companies, sales is a section of marketing department; thus, people directing and overseeing the sales and marketing activities can take the title of VP-marketing, which is similar to “Phó tổng giám đốc kinh doanh” in Vietnamese companies When sales and marketing are controlled by separated departments, the head of marketing department may carry the title of Chief Marketing Officer or Marketing Manager while head of sales department is denoted as Chief Sales Officer, or Sales Manager Those titles are, respectively, equivalent to “Trưởng phòng tiếp thị” and „Trưởng phòng/ giám đốc kinh doanh” in Vietnam Sales Managers are usually responsible for a particular area; hence, they are called area, regional or territory sales manager Vietnamese title for people carrying this title is “Giám đốc bán hàng khu vực” The position of Finance and Accounting Managers Many U.S companies have VP-Finance or Chief Financial Officer to be responsible for all financial activities of a company including accounting management In this case, the Accounting Manager or Chief Accounting Officer reports to the CFO of the company In some other companies, CFO is only in charge of financial activities while Chief Accounting Officer manages the accounting work In these companies, CFO and CAO are ranked equally in the company hierarchy However, it is more common for CFO in the U.S companies to direct both finance and accounting departments Chief Financial Officer is equivalent to “Giám đốc tài chính” in Vietnamese companies as both of them are responsible for all financial activities of the company However, it should be noted that the position of “Giám đốc tài chính” is not very popular in Vietnamese companies until now Chief Accounting Officer or Chief Accountant, the same as “Kế toán trưởng” in Vietnamese companies, is responsible for managing day-to-day accounting activities It is common for an individual to hold the position of both “Kế tốn trưởng” and “Trưởng phịng tài kế tốn”, thus, being responsible for both financial and accounting operations Compared to American companies, the CFO of a company can be responsible for both financial and accounting activities but CAO is only specialized in accounting work Therefore, the position of “Kế toán trưởng kiêm Trưởng phịng tài chính-kế tốn” in Vietnamese companies is equivalent to Chief Financial Officer in the U.S as they share the same responsibilities 34 The position of Human Resources Managers Chief Human Resources Officer, so-called Chief Personnel Officer, Chief People Officer or VP-Human Resources is responsible for all personnel related issues of a company such as planning, recruiting and training The people who deal with matters related to human resources in Vietnamese companies normally carry the title of “Giám đốc nhân sự” or “Trưởng phòng nhân sự” depending on the company‟s own regulations The position of Production and Engineering Managers It is quite common for an American company to have a VP of Production, who directs and oversees all manufacturing activities There are various titles referring to a VPProduction such as Chief Production Officer, Production Director, Chief Manufacturing Officer, VP-Manufacturing or Manufacturing Director Companies may also have a VP of Engineering who takes care of strategic planning, product design, quality assurance and problem resolution In these companies, VP-Production and VP-Engineering are at the same level However, in many companies, there is not the position of VP-Engineering People who head this department are called Engineering Manager In this case, the VP-Production is superior to the engineering manager and receives reports from the engineering manager In Vietnamese company, the situation is rather different Normally, “Phó tổng giám đốc kỹ thuật” is highly respected as the person is responsible for both engineering and production The responsibilities of a “Phó tổng giám đốc kỹ thuật” in Vietnamese company seem to be the combination of VP-Production and VP-Engineering in an American company In many cases, the VP-Production of a U.S company directs both manufacturing and engineering activities Hence, the title of “Phó tổng giám đốc kỹ thuật” and “VPProduction” can be noted as equivalent in terms of responsibilities From the responsibilities of the Quality Assurance Manager in American companies and “Trưởng phòng đảm bảo chất lượng” in Vietnamese companies, the two titles are considered equivalent as both manage the quality assurance department and are responsible for ensuring the quality of the finished products 3.2.3 Concluding remarks From the company structures illustrated in the previous part, together with the description of the responsibilities of the investigated titles, it is recognizable that in the U.S., the title of Chairman, President, Vice-President, Director and a C-level title (such as Chief Financial Officer) usually refer to the position of top managers “Manager” is the corporate 35 title denoting middle managers who head a particular segment and are responsible for specific functions In Vietnamese companies, “Chủ tịch”, “Tổng giám đốc”, “Giám đốc” and “Phó tổng giám đốc” are the titles of top managers while “Trưởng phòng” implies that people belong to lower management level From the comparative and contrastive analysis, it can be concluded that the term Director or C-level title are used equivalently to “Giám đốc” in Vietnamese language while a manager is denoted as “Trưởng phòng” or sometimes “Quản lý” However, both American and Vietnamese company laws allow companies to freely title their managerial positions basing on the company‟s own objectives and strategies As a consequence, people carrying the title of Director in a company may be equally ranked to a Manager in another company Thus, it should be noted that Director and Manager are respectively equivalent to “Giám đốc” and “Trưởng phòng” in most, but not all circumstances The table below provides a summary of the investigated English professional titles and their most possible Vietnamese equivalents basing on their main duties at work English Titles Vietnamese Equivalents Board of Directors Hội đồng quản trị Chairman/ President Chủ tịch hội đồng quản trị Chief Executive Officer Tổng giám đốc Chief Operating Officer Giám đốc điều hành Director Giám đốc Manager Trưởng phòng Chief Accounting Officer/ Kế toán trưởng Chief Accountant Chief Customer Officer / Giám đốc kinh doanh Sales and Marketing Director Chief Financial Officer / Giám đốc tài chính/ Trưởng phịng tài kế Finance Director toán Chief Human Resources Officer/ Giám đốc nhân Human Resources Director Chief Marketing Officer/ Giám đốc tiếp thị / Giám đốc marketing 36 Marketing Director Chief Sales Officer/ Giám đốc bán hàng Sales Director Chief Manufacturing Officer/ Giám đốc sản xuất Chief Production Officer/ Production Director Quality Assurance Manager Trưởng phòng đảm bảo chất lượng Territory/ Regional/ Area Sales Giám đốc/ Quản lý bán hàng khu vực Manager Training and Development Manager Trưởng phòng đào tạo phát triển nguồn nhân lực Vice President Phó tổng giám đốc VP-Marketing Phó tổng giám đốc kinh doanh VP-Production Phó tổng giám đốc kĩ thuật Table 2: English professional titles and their Vietnamese equivalents 37 CHAPTER APPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATING, TEACHING AND LEARNING BUSINESS ENGLISH This chapter provides some suggestions for the translation of English professional titles into Vietnamese language and Vietnamese titles into English It also discusses the pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning of business English 4.1 Suggestions for translating English professional titles into Vietnamese and Vietnamese titles into English In finding the equivalents for the professional titles of a company, it is firstly necessary to follow the procedures of translations As Larson (1998:4) stated, translation consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation and cultural context of a language item, analyzing it to determine its meaning and then reconstructing it in the target language by using the appropriate lexicon and grammatical structure The overview of the translation task can be illustrated in the following figure OVERVIEW OF THE TRANSLATION TASK SOURCE LANGUAGE RECEPTOR LANGUAGE Text to be translated Translation Discover the meaning Re-express the meaning MEANING Figure 11: Overview of the translation task (Larson, 1998:4) Also, translators should remind themselves that both American and Vietnamese company laws are flexible, except for some compulsory positions at the top management, companies in the two countries are allowed to build up their own organizational structures and give titles to their employees Therefore, besides looking for the intrinsic meaning of each title, it is necessary for translators to rely on the company structure to find out how powerful a position is, how it functions in the management system of the business before 38 attempting to transfer it into another language When reconstructing the titles in the target language, similar to the translation of terminology, translators may apply several methods such as paraphrasing, finding functional equivalents or word-to-word translation when suggesting the equivalent of a term After investigating different professional titles in some American and Vietnamese companies, the researcher would like to suggest some changes in the translation of some English titles into Vietnamese language Firstly, “Board of Directors” in an American company is usually translated as “Ban Giám đốc” in Vietnamese language However, in case of joint-stock companies, the Board of Directors is more likely to refer to the owners of the companies who not usually take part in the daily operation On the contrary, “Ban Giám đốc” in Vietnam consists of “Tổng Giám đốc”, “Phó Tổng giám đốc”, “Giám đốc” who are responsible for managing the dayto-day running of the company and may or may not be the company‟s shareowners Thus, Board of Directors in American joint-stock companies is more similar to “Hội đồng Quản trị” rather than “Ban Giám đốc” in a Vietnamese joint-stock company Secondly, the position of COO is not common in Vietnamese companies because most companies are directed by a CEO In a company that has both CEO and COO, basing on the functions of the CEO and COO in the company, the researcher suggests the CEO be translated as “Tổng Giám đốc” and “COO” as “Giám đốc điều hành” Basing on the descriptions, contrastive and comparative analysis in the previous part, the researcher would also like to make some suggestions on the English translation of some Vietnamese titles in the investigated company structures The suggested equivalents can be found in the following table Vietnamese Titles English Equivalents Hội đồng quản trị Board of Directors Ban kiểm soát Board of Supervisors Tổng giám đốc Chief Executive Officer Chủ tịch hội đồng quản trị kiêm Tổng Chairman and CEO giám đốc Phó tổng giám đốc Vice President Phó tổng giám đốc kinh doanh Vice President of Sales and Marketing Phó tổng giám đốc kĩ thuật Vice President of Production and Engineering 39 Giám đốc kinh doanh Chief Customer Officer Giám đốc tiếp thị Chief Marketing Officer / Marketing Director Giám đốc bán hàng Chief Sales Officer / Sales Director Giám đốc tài Chief Financial Officer / Financial Director Giám đốc nhân Chief Human Resources Officer/ Human Resources Director Giám đốc sản xuất Chief Production Officer/ Production Director Trưởng phòng Manager Trưởng phòng nhân Human Resources Manager Kế tốn trưởng kiêm trưởng phịng kế Chief Accounting Officer tốn Trưởng phịng bán hàng Sales Manager Trưởng phòng tiếp thị Marketing Manager Trưởng phòng quản lý chất lượng Quality Assurance Manager Table 3: Vietnamese professional titles and their English equivalents 4.2 Implications for teaching and learning Business English In the U.S., the market economy has been experienced for a long period of time while Vietnam has just followed it lately This explained why a number of titles that exist in English but not in Vietnamese language Hence, in the teaching of English professional titles, teachers should remind students that many English titles not have Vietnamese equivalents Besides, the system of professional titles in the management system of a company is rather complicated and largely depends on the company‟s culture Thus, it is inevitable for learners to devote their time if they want to fully understand the intrinsic meaning of each title and be able to suggest equivalents of in the target language Teachers can provide students that normally the highest position of a share holding company is the Board of Directors headed by a Chairman; CEO is the highest position in charge of managing the company‟s daily operations A company may have a number of Vice Presidents to support the CEO Subordinates of VP may be Directors who take responsibilities for directing a particular function Directors can be referred to as “manager of manager” as they are superior to a number of managers Typically, a director has a staff of managers, being responsible for overseeing the actual work in progress For example a director of production in a manufacturing group might have a manager assigned to each 40 production line and work shift The management staff for a director of quality might focus on inspections and testing, continual improvement and problem-solving Employees report details of daily activities to managers, who, in turn, provide summaries to directors, who filter the information for key performance indicators, which are then reported further up the chain to vice presidents However, not all companies‟ chain of commands goes that way Many companies use the term “Manager” rather than “Director” Other companies employ a C-level title for a position of the same rank to a VP or Director Thus, it is a good idea that teachers tell students to look for people who receive reports from the others to know who is superior to whom in a company Teachers should also remind students that not only big or medium size companies have a CEO People with their own business can “indulge” themselves by noting that they are a CEO in their business card even though they are the only staff of their business organism In many cases, people make themselves more important by giving a more respected title than their real responsibilities On the contrary, people carrying very simple title may have a lot of power over those taking “flashy” titles in the same companies Hence, in doing their future business, students should not only depend on the titles that their business associates carry but also take other information into consideration before deciding with whom they should work 41 PART 3: CONCLUSION Recapitulation The investigation has shown that there are some similarities as well as differences in American and Vietnamese joint-stock company structure In both countries, the governance structure of a shareholding company appears to have three layers including the shareholders‟ meeting, a board of management or a board of directors, and the daily management The four key business functions of a company in both countries consist of Finance, Sales and Marketing, Human Resources and Production American joint-stock companies‟ management system is characterized by one single board which allocates both supervisory and managerial functions to the board of directors On the contrary, Vietnamese companies‟ management system has two-tier board structure with the management board and supervisory board working independently With regards to titles denoting the management systems, normally in the U.S., the title of Chairman, President, Vice-President, Director and a C-level title (such as Chief Financial Officer) usually refer to the position of top managers “Manager” is used to denote middle managers who head a particular segment and are responsible for specific functions In Vietnamese companies, “Chủ tịch”, “Tổng giám đốc”, “Giám đốc” and “Phó tổng giám đốc” are the titles of top managers while “Trưởng phòng” implies that people carrying this title belong to lower management level It should be reminded that in both American and Vietnamese companies, the corporate system is flexible and largely depends on a company‟s own objectives and strategies This means that people doing the same job in different companies may not always carry identical titles To be more specific, at the top of an American company hierarchy is the Board of Directors headed by a Chairman The Board of Directors is similar to “Hội đồng quản trị” in Vietnamese companies; thus, the Chairman of the Board of Directors in the U.S is equivalent to “Chủ tịch Hội đồng quản trị” The position of CEO in an American company is denoted by “Tổng giám đốc” or “Giám đốc” in Vietnamese language The COO, the position employed in replace for the CEO in operating the daily activities of the company can be translated as “Giám đốc điều hành” With regards to titles denoting functional managers, the common professional titles in American companies which denote the head of a particular function are Chief Financial Officer/ Financial Director, Chief Human Resources Officer/ Human Resources Director/ 42 Human Resources Manager, Chief Customer Officer/ Sales and Marketing Director, Chief Manufacturing Officer/ Manufacturing Director These titles are respectively equivalent to “Giám đốc tài chính”, “Giám đốc nhân sự”, Giám đốc kinh doanh, “Giám đốc sản xuất” in Vietnamese language Also, a number of American companies use the title of Vice President to denote the director of a particular function such as VP-Finance, VP-Production The title can be translated as “Phó (tổng) giám đốc” in Vietnam Some other popular titles denoting functional managers in English language are Accounting Manager/ Chief Accounting Officer/ Chief Accountant, Chief Marketing Officer/ Marketing Manager, Territory/ Regional Sales Manager, Staff Training and Development Manager These positions may either be head of a department or just in charge of a specific function Accounting Manager and Chief Accounting Officer refers to “Trưởng phịng kế tốn” in Vietnamese companies Chief Accountant is the English title for “Kế toán trưởng” However, the position of Chief “Trưởng phịng kế tốn” and “Kế toán trưởng”are combined; hence, the title “Kế toán trưởng” usually implies that the person is both Chief Accounting Officer and Chief Accountant In Vietnam, “Kế toán trưởng” is a highly respected position who may belong to the top management system, working closely to the CEO of a company, being in charge of not only accounting but sometimes even responsible for all finance and accounting activities of a corporation Therefore, in terms of responsibilities, “Kế toán trưởng” in Vietnamese companies may sometimes be equivalent to Chief Financial Officer or Chief Finance and Accounting Officer of an American company Similarly, the position of “Phó tổng giám đốc kĩ thuật” in Vietnamese companies does not always simply mean VP of Engineering in English because he or she supervises the performance of both Engineering and Production Department Hence, “Phó tổng giám đốc kĩ thuật” is more similar to a VP-Production in an American company The fact that system of occupational titles largely depends on the companies‟ culture and strategies causes numerous challenges for not only linguistics learners but also business people around the world Hence, teachers should provide students some background knowledge and raise students‟ awareness of the differences In addition, while teaching, learning and attempting to transfer a professional title into another language, it is suggested that teachers, learners and translators look for the responsibilities of each position to fully understand a person‟s rights and duties in his or her companies 43 Limitations of the study So far, there has not many researchers doing research into the system of titles In terms of professional titles of a joint-stock company, this is the first study on this subject matter Besides, the researcher of this study is just a linguistic learner who has not had any opportunities to attend a course on management studies Thus, although the writer put great attempt, as a pilot study, it is inevitable that the research remains a number of limitations Firstly, the researcher based on some organizational structures and statistics from some job suggested websites in choosing a list of professional titles to investigate rather than conducting a pre-research into business people‟s as well as language learners‟ need to be sure about the titles that really matter to them Hence, the findings of the research may not satisfy all readers of the study Secondly, the number of company structures introduced is not large; thus, the titles found may not be abundant Last but not least, the research only investigated the titles denoting some top managerial positions heading four key business functions of a company while numerous non-managerial titles are left behind Suggestions for further research From the limitations of the study, the researcher suggests that a research into a wider range of professional titles should be carried out The focus of the study may be put upon not only management occupations but also non-management occupations If possible, it is a good idea for a check list of business titles providing information about common responsibilities of groups of similar titles and their possible Vietnamese equivalents be built Besides, in the process of carrying out this study, the researcher found that there remains various problems in Vietnamese system of titles What is more, in many companies, the translation of Vietnamese titles into English is not precise if responsibilities are taken into consideration Thus, a research into Vietnamese professional titles and their English equivalents would be of great help for Vietnamese business enterprises in 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