An analysis of english vietnamese translation of the terminologies in electronics and electrical engineering texts

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HÀ MY AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXTS (Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt thuật ngữ chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử) MA THESIS – TYPE Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 HANOI - 2018 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SAU ĐẠI HỌC NGUYỄN HÀ MY AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXTS (Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt thuật ngữ chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử) MA THESIS – TYPE Ngành : Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã : 8220201.01 GVHD : PGS.TS LÊ HÙNG TIẾN HÀ NỘI - 2018 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, Nguyễn Hà My, herby claim the originality of my study Unless otherwise indicated, this is my own piece of academic accomplishment Signature ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof Lê Hùng Tiến for his critical comments, helpful suggestions as well as her supportive encouragement from the beginning stage of working out the research proposal to the final stage of writing up the thesis Without his valuable guidance, this thesis would be far from completed I take this opportunity to extent my special thanks to all lecturers of Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, for their useful lectures during my course Finally, I would also like to thank to my family and my classmates for their great support and encouragement during the time I was conducting this thesis Hanoi, November, 2018 i ABSTRACT Translation Studies always draws attention from students of English as a second language and from translators who are major in Linguistics And terminology translation has been also aroused more concern from translators in recent time In this research, the analysis of English Vietnamese translation of Electronics and Electrical engineering is studied The purpose of this research is to classify Electronics and Electrical Engineering terminology, then figure out the strategies used to transfer them from English to Vietnamese Terminologies are taken from a dictionary in Electronics and Electrical Engineering These words were categories into two groups: single (simple) and nominal (complex) After that, the analysis on these groups is made in terms of applied strategies For further studies, the related topics are open to many other researchers in the application of the other majors‟ terminology and the expansion of the scope of this study ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Scope of the study 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1.Terminology 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Term creation 2.1.3 Classification of EEE term 2.2 Translation theory 2.2.1 Definition 2.2.2 Translation strategies and procedures 2.2.3 Technical translation 11 2.3 Translation of terminology .12 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 15 3.1 Design of the study 15 3.2 Research method .15 3.3 Procedure of data collection 16 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 17 4.1 The common strategies and procedures used in the translation of EEE terms 17 4.1.1 Translation of the single terms by literal translation 17 iii 4.1.2 Translation of the single terms by transference (the use of loan words) 18 4.1.3 Transference and naturalization 21 4.1.4 The translation of compound terms by transposition procedure 22 4.1.5 Other strategies and procedures 24 4.1.6 The translation of EEE terms by the use of Sino elements 26 4.2 Possible causes and solutions 26 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 29 REFERENCES 33 APPENDIX I iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ST Source Text TT Target Text EEE Electronics and Electrical Engineering v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the research topic and the reasons for choosing it Besides, the aim, objectives and the scope of the study are also provided in this chapter 1.1 Rationale Equivalence has always been in the center of argument since translation study appeared There exists several points of view on the equivalence of source text and target text in terms of form, meaning, function,…but in general, equivalence needs to be considered seriously and requires to be studied carefully with knowledge and experience from researchers In translation field, terminology is seen as a challenge for translator to convey the meaning from source language into target language depending on the purpose and the context each terminology is used And that is not exception for translation of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE) terms As a branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), vocabulary related to each major is very crucial and paid a lot of attention from translators also teachers to get the equivalent meaning in target language with researching or teaching targets And as a very useful tool for this challenge, dictionary for each field has been developed to assist in transferring meaning and helping language users save time and have a closer look on the terminology However, the equivalence of these translation versions has not been studied to build up an equivalence system or categorize the equivalent levels for terminology Users can read the word in both source language and target language wondering the conveyed meaning in many circumstances Therefore, the researcher would like to carry out this thesis research in the hope for standardizing the equivalence system applied for terminology and classifying the translated words into each type of equivalence 1.2 Scope of the study Due to limitedness of time, experience also knowledge, this paper only covers EEE terminologies in the dictionary book: “An English – Vietnamese Usage Electricity Dictionary” by Engineer Truong Quang Thien, Quang Hung published in 2004 by Statistics Publisher As stated above, the researcher only chooses one book to explore and analyze appeared terminologies 1.3 Aims of the study  To draw out the strategies that may apply to the translation of EEE terminologies  To suggest some implications for translating EEE terminology 1.4 Research questions To reach the aims above, researcher is going to answer this research question: What strategies are used to translate EEE terminologies in EEE texts? 1.5 Organization of the study The paper is divided into chapters as below: Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter provides readers an overview of the study including the reason for choosing the topic, scope, aims, and its organization Chapter 2: Literature Review Theoretical background in the light of which the research matters is discussed in this chapter Chapter 3: Methodology The chapter describes the strategies applied to investigate the research matters Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion This chapter presents analyses and discusses the results that the researcher found out from the collected data It also gives answer to the two research questions Chapter 5: Conclusion The chapter summarizes the overall study and suggests some forms of further studies on the field position of the elements in the group due to the natural difference between the two languages is automatic and offers the translator no choice Group 9: Semantically complex terms translated by a phrase, clause of sentence To clarify the meaning of the SL term, which is usually semantically complex, the translator needs to paraphrase the SL term using many additional words In other words, a SL single or nominal term is translated by a TL phrase, clause or sentence Although this kind of translation may cause the non-technical word and long phrase, it may express the meaning of the term at highest clearest quality which cannot be explained in one or two-word term only Example: Vietnamese • Động khởi động tụ điện English • Capacitor motor • Cathode follower • Chrominance subcarrier • Mạch khuếch đại âm cực • Sóng mang phụ chuyển tín hiệu màu 4.1.5 Other strategies and procedures Group 10: Terms consisting of Thing + Qualifier (noun + of + noun) are translated with the omission of the preposition “of” Many technical terms, especially electronic and electrical engineer terms have the form of a nominal group which usually takes “of phrase” as the Qualifier element To convert these terms into Vietnamese, literal translation is grammatically possible but not accord with the natural usage in Vietnamese: + Lines of force  Đường sức + Law of magnetism  Định luật từ tính Apparently, it is not incorrect to translate of as của, but such translation does not sound ntural enough to Vietnamese people In other words, Vietnamese readers 24 would not accept versions as đường sức, định luật từ tính because they can not meet the need for a readable and natural translation For this reason, in the translation of many electrical and electronic terms there is usually the deletion or omission of “of”: Effect of light => Đường sức Dissipation of the charge => Định luật từ tính In short, to avoid distracting the reader with lengthy explanations, translator can simply omit translating certain words or expressions However, this strategy should be used only when the advantages of producing a smooth, readable translation clearly outweigh the value the value of rendering a particular meaning accurately in a given word Group 11: Terms consisting of Classifier (past participle) + Thing are translated by either automatic transposition There are two possible ways to translate the group that consists of past participle (Classifier/Epithet) and Thing: Decoupled capacitor (a) English nominal group = Vietnamese nominal group: Decoupled capacitor: tụ tách rời In this way, an automatic transposition, which involves a change the position of the ed-participle, is also needed, and the TL version sound more technical and succinct (b) English nominal group = Vietnamese clause: Decoupled capacitor = tụ tách rời When the SL phrase is translated by TL clause, another type of transposition takes place In comparison to (a), (b) is syntactically longer but semantically clearer In translation of technical terms, either of these possibilities gets the priority in different situations These are two typical situations in which the translator needs to make a sensible choice: (i) Is chosen when it is clear enough and it unlikely to be mixed up with another term, take the instance of printed circuit is usually translated as mạch in although mạch in is also possible 25 (ii) However, (a) may be vague and ambiguous in some cases For example, a text may contain these two terms: (1) decoupling capacitor (the capacitor is decoupling), and (2) decoupled capacitor (the capacitor that has been decoupled); there is no other translation for decoupling capacitor but tụ tách rời If the translator also chooses tụ tách rời for decoupled capacitor, it would lead to difficulties in interpreting the two terms: recoupling capacitor as sóng điều biến and decoupled capacitor = tụ tách rời In this case, (b) – tụ tách rời should be chosen 4.1.6 The translation of EEE terms by the use of Sino elements Sino-Vietnamese words play an important role in Vietnamese in general and in Vietnamese terminology in particular In English-Vietnamese translation of EEE terms, we can find Sino elements which appear in Vietnamese equivalents in this group Apart from pure Vietnamese words, English loan words, a lot of English terms have been translated into Vietnamese with the aid of Sino elements This creates a lot of Sino-Vietnamese terms which are as popular and familiar to Vietnamese people as pure Vietnamese words: • • • • The English terms Power Cycle Inductance Resonantor above terms show that many Sino-Vietnamese words are so closed to Vietnamese readers that people satisfactorily use them without the need for pure Vietnamese words A great disadvantage of the Sino-Vietnamese terms is that they are formal, succinct and perfectly matches the formal style of science and technology 4.2 Possible problems and solutions As mentioned before, there are 12 groups of terminologies and each term is applied with a certain strategy or two Hoewver, there are some cases with the variables in the translation process with both translators and experts According to Byrne (2006, p.6), there are five expertise areas for technical 26 translators which include writing skills, research skills, writing skills, pedagogical skills and knowledge of genres text type Consequently, specialized knowledge, English proficiency and translation skills are three factors influencing the quality of the translation Apparently, mistakes in translation often come from these factors and the possible solutions which can last long is that the translators have to be trained not to have only competent translation skills, but also adequate specialized knowledge and good English proficiency Translators‟ training, however, has its own shortcomings Whether the translator is a technical specialist, especially in EEE field or English translator, there will be another half they have to fill Specialists or the translators have to be aware of exploring more translation skills and build up their range of vocabulary in the field To be more specific, to specialists, their insufficient proficiency of English may be the cause of problems when they misunderstand the structures or the root of a word, sentence which can lead to unnatural or ambiguous translation versions to readers In contrast, English translator may have insufficient specialized knowledge, trouble in finding the TL equivalences for SL lexical technical terms Although they know the meaning of separate word but are unsure about the meaning of the terms because they have no knowledge about the objects or the measurement units,… Hence, the accuracy of the text may not be high To EEE specialist and English translator, a translation can not be good without good translation skills Lacking translation skills cause the translators not to know what kind of equivalences, translation methods or procedures should be applied to reach the best translation versions As a result, they may encounter problems with word choices or syntactic alternations and inappropriate translated versions Another problem may arise from the arbitrariness of language with such problems as polysemy, non-equivalence… For example, theoretically, a term needs to express one concept, but there are, in fact, many terms that refer to more than one concepts in the same field: the English term conductor refers to three concepts: a substance 27 (chất dẫn), a body(vật dẫn) and a system (dây dẫn) that conducts electricity There will be one more solution can be given is that the collaboration and cooperation between English translator and specialists in EEE term should be boosted to share experiences and knowledge to obtain appropriate translations 28 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION This final chapter will summarize and evaluate the outcomes of the whole paper by summing up the major findings The limitations of the research will also be pointed out, paving way to several recommendations for further researches 5.1 Summary of findings The research was conducted on the English – Vietnamese Usage Electricity Dictionary by Engineer Truong Quang Thien, Quang Hung published in 2004 by Statistics Publisher Based on the criteria to identify technical terms and strategies by Newmak (1981b), the researcher categorized 12 groups of EEE terms with it translation strategies as follow: Terminology groups Group 1: Single terms Group 2: Terms referring to modern concepts that are not technically lexicalized in Vietnamese Group 3: Terms referring to concepts that are technically lexicalized in Vietnamese Group 4: Terms that are international measuring units Group 5: Eponyms that derive from persons Group 6: Eponyms that derive form objects Group 7: EEE acronyms Group 8: Nominal terms (Noun + Noun 29 + Noun) Group 9: Semantically complex terms translated Group 10: Terms consisting of Thing + Qualifier (noun + of + noun) Group 11: Terms consisting of Classifier (past participle) + Thing Group 12: EEE terms Besides, the causes and the solutions to translators and EEE specialists have been given which include the efficient knowledge of terminology with translators and lacking of English language to specialist with some solutions like training course or self-research they can take to improve their translation skills and enrich their knowledge Moreover, the gap in SL and TL language is also a problem that translator should consider when taking translation assignment To sum up, there are objective and subjective reasons that hinder the effectiveness and development of EEE translation 5.2 Limitations of the research In spite of the researcher‟s effort, shortcomings are inevitable due to the lack of resources, the difficulty in accessing data and time pressure Some limitations are presented below: In the first place, the research focused on terminology at word level, excluding sentences with terminology that may be a promising source of data for study Therefore, research‟s scope needs to be broadened to phrase or sentence level As a result, the research will provide more specific findings and application in larger extent Secondly, author‟s personal intention or other external factors were not included in this research It would be more valuable and reliable if the researcher had an interview with the translator of this dictionary or other specialists to find out more 30 ways to transfer the terminology in EEE field 5.3 Recommendations for further research The research only dealt with a minor part of the novel Wuthering Heights There is much room left for further and deeper studies related to translating dialect, which the researcher find worth-researching: - The first one is the influence generated by the context of the text on its terminology translation - The third one is expanding the scope of forthcoming study to include terminology at above word level The larger amount of data will increase the credibility of the study 5.4 Conclusion The research mentions types of terminology and the procedures/strategies which are literal translation loan word, transposition, transference, omission and sino Vietnamese applied to transfer EEE terminology Each group of terminology is translated by a certain strategy with its own advantages and disadvantages + Transposition: this procedure is very beneficial when applying with non- equivalence with word level with several type can eliminate the obstacle with terminology translation Although new transpositions are always created and there is not only one way of transposition, this procedure is still utilized due to the differences of word formation and structures between two languages + Loan word: with no doubt, this strategy gives translators a lot of disadvantages with accurate translation without investigating too much on the words‟ meaning and expansion of the vocabulary with a range of borrowing words However, because the form of SL is kept, readers seem to have more difficult to understand and write the terminology and it will be an obstacle if the loan term is not used popularly + Sino Vietnamese: Using Sino Vietnamese appears to be similar to Vietnamese readers and popularly used in text or lecture In comparison with loan word, it has more disadvantages creating difficulty for translator to find the translated words instead of borrowing the SL right away The word choice is also one more reason creating the barrier between translator and reader in using Sino Vietnamese because 31 there are many words which are strange to readers For the advantages and disadvantages mentioned above, there is a need to standardize terminology to unify and increase the accuracy of terminology translation The conflict in transferring specialized word will be limited if these is a formulation of a standard which refers to intention among potential users and translators, specialists to agree on usage 32 REFERENCES Baker, M (1992), In other words, A Course Book on Translation, Routledge Byrne, J C (1965), Technical Translation: Usability Strategies for Translating Technical Documentation, Springer, the Netherlands Catford, J.C (1965), A Linguitìc Theory of Translation, Oxford: OUP Dubuc, Robert (1997): Terminology: A Practical Approach, adapted by Elaine Kennedy, Quebec, Linguatech, 196 p Glesne, C (2011) Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction (4th Ed.) Boston: Pearson Education, Inc Harvey, M (2000) A beginner's course in legal translation: the case of culture- bound terms Retrieved from http://www.tradulex.org/Actes2000/harvey.pdf Hegedus, I (2005) The translation of neologisms in two novels of Douglas Adams Retrieved from www.tar.hu/fairy/The%20Translation%20of %20Neologisms%20in%20Two%20 Novels%20of %20Douglas%20Adams Lê Hùng Tiến (2010), “Tương đương dicḥ thuâṭvàtươn g đương dicḥ Anh – Viêt””̣, Tạp chí Khoa học ĐHQGHN, Ngoại ngữ, 26, tr.141-150 Nelson C., Treichler, P A., & Grossberg, L (1992) Cultural studies In L Grossberg, C Nelson, & P A Treichler (Eds.), Cultural studies (pp 1–16) New York: Routledge 10 Newmark, P (1995) A textbook of translation New York: Prentice-Hall International 11 Newmark, P (1998a) Approaches to Translation, Oxford Pergamon 12 Newmark, P (1998b) A textbook of Translation, Prentice Hall International 13 Newmark, P (1981), Approaches to Translation, Pergamon Press, Oxford 14 Stake, R E (2010) Qualitative research: Studying how things work New York, NY:The Guilford Press 15 Vinay, J.P & Darbelnet, J (1995), Comparative Stylistics of French and English: a Methodology for Translation, Translated by J C Sager and M.J Hamel Amsterdam, John Benjamins, Philadelphia 33 Group 1: Single terms English Noun Abscissa Absorber Absorption Abvolt Acceleration Accelerometer Accessories Breadboard Bridging Brine Broadcasting Bug Bulb Bunching Bus Busbar Button Blooming Bombardment Verb Absorb Amplify Anodize Charge De-energize Adjective Asymmetrical Asymmetrical Aperiodic Athermic Group 2: Terms referring to modern concepts that are not technically lexicalized in Vietnamese English Transistor Thyristor Vector Relay Piston Radar Tungsten Group 4: Terms that are international measuring units English Volt (v) unit of voltage Newtons (f) (unit of force) Herts (hz) (unit of frequency) Farad (f) (unit of capacitance) Ohm (unit of resistance) BTU (British Thermal Unit) II Group 5: Eponyms that derive from persons English D'arsonval meter Edison cell Edison effect Heaviside layer Hertz antenna Kallitron oscillator Kelvin degree Group 6: Eponyms that derive form objects English Dynatron oscillator Eddy current Ferrite core Geiger counter tube Greenfield Guy Iconoscope Group 7: EEE acronyms English AFC (Automatic frequent control) AM (Amplitude modulation) AVC (Automatic volume control) DC (Direct current) AC (Alternating current) DC W V (Direct current working voltage) E.m.f (Lực) Group 8: Nominal terms (noun + noun + noun) English Air core inductor Automatic tuning system Automatic bass compensation Beat frequency oscillator Color difference signal Flat compound generator Cross over network Dry type evaporator Double side band Thermostatic expansion valve Energy product curve Flying spot scanner Group 9: Nemantically complex terms translated English Blip Capacitor motor Cathode follower Chrominance subcarrier Group 10: Terms consisting of thing + qualifier (noun + of + noun) English Angle of elevation Coefficient of coupling Coefficient of expansion Kirchhoff's law of voltage Law of magnetism Lines of force IV Group 11: Terms consisting of classifier (past participle) + thing English Braided wire Balanced circuit Balanced amplifier Balanced pressure Printed circuit Delayed agc Distilled water Etched circuit Impressed voltage Inverted speech Modulated wave Group 12: EEE terms English Power Cycle Inductance Resonantor V ... research, the analysis of English Vietnamese translation of Electronics and Electrical engineering is studied The purpose of this research is to classify Electronics and Electrical Engineering terminology,... MY AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH- VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXTS (Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt thuật ngữ chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử) MA THESIS... “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text” Another definition given by Thomas G Mansella (2005) is that ? ?translation is the rendering of written