VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES **************** PHẠM PHƢƠNG HOA IDIOMATICITY OF ENGLISH TERMINOLOGY IN FINANCE AND SOLUTIONS FOR FINDING VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (Tính đặc ngữ Thuật ngữ Tài tiếng Anh Biện pháp tìm Tƣơng đƣơng tiếng Việt) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi - 2011 i CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I, Phạm Phương Hoa, hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Idiomaticity of English Terminology in Finance and Solutions for Finding Vietnamese Equivalents” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at Department of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution Signature Date: ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to give my sincerest thanks to all those who have helped me throughout the process of the study First of all, my gratitude is extended to all my teachers at Department of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) for their valuable lectures, which laid the foundation for this thesis I would particularly like to show my greatest debt to my supervisor who has been a constant source of advice, encouragement, and constructive criticism Despite his heavy workload, he still devoted his time and energy to helping me put this thesis into its present shape I must admit that his instant support and serious working attitude are indeed a great source of inspiration for me to strive to complete this study I am also indebted to all the participants involved in the study They have kindly given me invaluable contributions and assistance Without them, the survey and the interviews would not have been possible Their generous support is a launching pad for me to complete my work In the most private sphere of acknowledgements, I would also like to thank my parents and sister dearly for their encouragement and love They have helped, comforted, and supported me beyond any conceivable limits Finally, I take this opportunity to thank my roommate Without her sympathy, I could not have implemented my study smoothly iii ABSTRACT This thesis is intended to deal with idiomaticity of English financial terms, the difficulties they cause to translation and solutions for finding Vietnamese equivalents Specifically, it studies the syntactic and semantic features of the terms which will help novice translators and students of finance like us to understand their meanings more thoroughly Difficulties in translating English idiomatic financial terms and solutions to tackle them are also presented Apart from the author’s analysis of idiomatic financial terms, other findings and solutions are derived from a survey with the participation of 53 graduate students of International Finance at FTU and 33 senior ones of Interpreter and Translator Training Division at Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU Based on those findings, this 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 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims and scopes of the study Research questions and methodology Organization of the thesis PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Terminology and Financial Terminology 1.1.1 Definitions 1.1.2 Properties 1.1.3 Translation of terminology 1.2 Previous research 14 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16 2.1 Participants 16 2.2 Instruments of data collection 16 2.3 Procedures of data collection 18 v 2.4 Procedure of data analysis 20 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21 3.1 Results 21 3.1.1 Syntactic idiomaticity of English financial terms 21 3.1.2 Semantic idiomaticity of English financial terms 23 3.1.3 Difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 24 3.1.4 Solutions to deal with difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 30 3.2 Discussion 34 PART 3: CONCLUSION 35 Summary 35 Implications for Translation 35 Pedagogical implications 37 Limitations of the study 38 Suggestions for further research 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES .I Appendix I Appendix VII Appendix XIII