Investigating the translation of legal terminologies between english and vietnamese in public security texts

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES   - *** - NGUYEN THI NHUNG INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN PUBLIC SECURITY TEXTS Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh- Việt thuật ngữ pháp lý văn Công an M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01 Hanoi, June 2018 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES   - *** - NGUYEN THI NHUNG INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN PUBLIC SECURITY TEXTS Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh- Việt thuật ngữ pháp lý văn Công an M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr Le Hung Tien Hanoi, June 2018 DECLARATION I certify that the minor thesis entitled “Investigating the translation of legal terminologies between English and Vietnamese in public security texts” is the result of my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any universities or other institutions Nguyen Thi Nhung Hanoi, 2018 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I am indebted to my supervisor Assoc.Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, for his wholehearted assistance Without his guidance, invaluable suggestions, comments, advice, and corrections, this thesis would have been possible I also owe a sizeable debt of gratitude to all teachers in Faculty of Linguistics and Cutures of English speaking countries, University of Languages and International Studies who have provided me relevant knowledge I am grateful to all authors of books listed in the biography, whose ideas are good references for me to conduct and develop this research Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my colleagues and my family for encouragement, and support during the process of completing this graduation paper ii ABSTRACT This research is an attempt to find out the differences and similarities between English legal terms and their Vietnamese equivalents, and to draw out appropriate strategies and procedures in the translation of legal terms into Vietnamese In the research, legal terms are classified according to their grammatical compositions including one word term and above- word level terms Then, each appropriate strategy and procedure is applied to the translation of terms of equivalence and non-equivalence group so that TL sounds original and natural To some extent, the research may make a contribution to the translation of legal terms and will be of some help to legal circle, especially translators with little experience of doing the translation in the field iii SL TL iv TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv TABLE OF CONTENT v PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Methods of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Organization of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Terminology 1.1.1 Definition of terminology 1.1.2 Definition of legal terminology 1.2 Translation theory 1.2.1 Definitions of translation 1.2.2 The translation of non-equivalence at word level and above word level .5 1.2.3 Translation procedures 1.3 Technical translation 11 1.3.1 Definitions of technical translation 11 1.3.2 Translation method of technical terms 12 1.3.3 Translation of neologisms 12 1.4 Legal terms 13 1.4.1 Features of legal terminology 13 1.4.2 Classification of legal terms according to their structural features .15 1.5 Summary 22 v CHAPTER TWO THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMS 23 2.1 Translation of legal terms at word level from English to Vietnamese 23 2.2 Translation of above-word-level terms by transposition 24 2.3 Translation by omission 32 2.4 Translation by paraphrase 33 2.5 The appropriate strategies and procedures in translating English legal terms 34 2.6 Discussion 35 2.6.1 Potential difficulties in translation of terminologies 35 2.6.2 Suggestions for the translation strategies and procedures 36 2.7 Summary 37 PART III: CONCLUSION 38 1.1 Major findings 38 1.2 Implications for the translation of legal terms 39 1.3 Suggestions for further studies 40 REFERENCES 41 SOURCES OF DATA 44 APPENDIXES I vi concept expressed by the SL term has not been lexicalized in the TL To decrypt the meaning of the SL term, the translator must sometimes paraphrase the SL term using related or unrelated words to specify its propositional meaning in the TL In other words, a SL expression is translated by a TL phrase, a sentence, a sentence or even several sentences Example: rehabilitation cải tạo giáo dục lại (những người có tội) free-fire zone vùng bắn phá tự (vùng oanh kích tự do) interdisciplinary nhiều lĩnh vực disagreement bất đồng ý kiến The main advantage of translation by paraphrase (no matter whether with the use of related or unrelated words) is that it is possible to achieve a high level of precision in specifying the meaning of a word or concept that poses difficulties in translation The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it usually involves replacing one item with an explanation consisting of several items Thus a striking disproportion in length of the source text and target text may occur, which is hardly ever a desirable effect However, this strategy is applicable for the term that is known but not lexicalized in the target language and the case of loan word in the source language (See more examples in Appendix 5) 2.5 The appropriate strategies and procedures in translating English legal terms Group 1: Acronyms Strategies: Transference (usually transferred, sometimes decoded and translated) Group 2: Terms consisting of: noun + noun, adjective + noun, noun + noun +noun, adjective + noun + noun, present participle +noun Strategies: Transposition which involves the automatic change in the word order from SL to TL 34 Group 3: Terms consisting of: noun + present participle + noun, noun + past participle + noun Strategies: Translated by a rank-shift (SL nominal group = TL clause) Group 4: Terms consisting of past participle + noun Strategies: Translated by either automatic transposition (SL nominal group = TL nominal group) or rank-shift (SL nominal group = TL clause) Group 5: Terms consisting of Thing + Qualifier (relative clause) Strategies: Transpotion (replacing word class, zero linking device, apposition and syntagmatic change) Group 6: Terms consisting of Thing + Qualifier (“of”‟ prepositional phrase) Strategies: Translated with the omission of the preposition “of” Group 7: Semantically complex terms Strategies: Translated by paraphrase (SL term = TL phrase, clause or sentence) 2.6 Discussion 2.6.1 Potential difficulties in translation of terminologies Translators and interpreters encounter terminologies frequently in their work Many terminologies have been already translated by predecessors and have been introduced in several available dictionaries of terminologies in many fields Dealing with these terminologies causes no difficulty to the translators and interpreters They just simply employ the translations already offered in those dictionaries However, there are many terminologies which have not had their equivalents in target language and a number of terminologies are created everyday These terminologies become a major obstacle to the work of translators and interpreters Translating these terms may face quite a few of difficulties but the most significant one is in finding an accurate and appropriate equivalent for a terminology This difficulty is caused by two reasons The first one is objective and the second one is subjective 35 The objective reason is non equivalent problem Non equivalent can be encountered in two cases Firstly, the concept identified by the term is totally new to the target culture Secondly, the reference of the term has been already known in target culture; however, the target language has not created vocabulary to respond it The subjective reason is incompetence of translator in language and background knowledge If the translator‟s background knowledge and his source language are not sufficiently good, he may misunderstand the terminology As a result, his translation would be absolutely wrong If his background knowledge about the subject and target language are incompetent, his equivalent would be neither accurate nor appropriate In this case, the vocabularies used in the translated version of the term not belong to the vocabularies system of the subject that the translator is working on; consequently, the translated terminology automatically loses its semantic value 2.6.2 Suggestions for the translation strategies and procedures From the discussion there should be some suggestions for legal terminologies translation Firstly, translators should find the definitions of the terminologies from the believable sources such as English-English dictionaries and online dictionaries to understand the accurate meanings of the terminologies Only by mastering the meanings of the terminologies, can translators translate accurately and clearly Secondly, translators should read more material of law enforcement in both SL and TL to gain more background knowledge, terms‟definitions and vocabularies so that they can translate terminologies naturally Natural translations are welcomed by all kinds of readers Thirdly, characteristics of terminologies and targeted readers should be taken into consideration when translators choose translation methods Paraphrase and transposition strategy can help deal with non-equivalence problem However, one 36 method cannot satisfy all kind of readers Thus, the translators should consider the targeted readerships when choosing method so that the translation can satisfy as many readers as possible If the terminologies are popular ones which will be used in daily transactions with customers, the translators should bear in mind that it is necessary to give easily understandable translations These translations would facilitate the transactions and help services users to understand public security relating concepts On the other hand, with the professional terminologies which are used within experts or people working in public security force, the translator may apply communicative or literal or even word for word translations The purpose is to offer accurate and brief terminologies facilitating the work of readers 2.7 Summary From the examination of the translation of the terms mentioned above, we can realize some remarkable issues relating to the translation of the terms The first one is the great usefulness of the methods of the translation of technical terms and neologisms in the translation of legal terms in order to achieve the objectives of the translation of terminology, which are accurate, systematic and international Secondly, it is the noticeable change in the logical order of the elements of the compound terms from English to Vietnamese or vice versa Besides, the addition and omission of words or the change in the form of the elements also make the translation sound comprehensible and natural to the TL readership The last issue is the translation strategies which have been applied in the translation of these legal terms Due to the specific characteristics of legal terms and the aim of the translation of terminology, most of the terms are translated by transposition strategies which seem to be the most appropriate procedure for dealing with the compound terms 37 PART III: CONCLUSION The aim of this research is to investigate the English- Vietnamese translation of legal terminology in public security texts The study has been carried out on the basis of theoretical background and the translation of authentic material professional translators So the theory of translation including translation strategies and procedures, translation of neologisms, technical translation and main characteristics of legal terminology are presented in chapter one In addition, the notion of terms in the public security field is touched upon to set the ground for the study analysis The remaining chapter is for the study of English-Vietnamese translation of legal terminology investigated The author found out the problems occurred during the translation of these groups of terms and then identified appropriate translation strategies to deal with such problems In this part, the author presented all the major findings of the research and implications for the translation of legal terms as well as suggestions for futher study 1.1 Major findings Based on the thorough examination of the translation of English legal terms into Vietnamese, I can recognize a series of problems arisen during the process of the translation and the strategies used by the professional translators in this field The most common problems for the translators are the subtechnical terms, derived words, and differences in form; the SL concept is not lexicalized in the TL In dealing with these problems, tranpositions, translation by omission and paraphrase are used Through the examination of the translation of the terms, I would like to summarize the above mentioned translation strategies and procedures with the aim of suggesting the appropriate ways for the translation of legal terms in public security texts from English into Vietnamese Firstly, the strategy of transference is seen to be an increasingly common strategy applied to most types of terms, one-word or above-word- level, in legal materials under observation.It is the process of directly transferring a source 38 language word to a target language text unchanged to create some particular stylistic effect This strategy is preferred when the translator wishes to keep the originality of the source text in his translation Transference is widely used in the process of translating technical terms, whether they appear in the form of acronyms or fullform terms Secondly, transposition is used due to the differences in the language structures of the two languages.This strategy is applied effectively in the translation of most investigated compound terms from English to Vietnamese Specifically, typical nominal groups in the formula of Premodifier + Thing are translated by transposition which involves the automatic change in word order from the SL to the TL or rank-shift Moreover, transposition strategy is also applied in the translation of nominalgroups which contain Thing + relative clause as Qualifier or Postmodifier These terms can be dealt with by means of using linking words like mà, vốn, nơi mà, khi, đó, ấy, by means of zero linking device, apposition or by syntagmatic change This strategy mainly depends on the translator‟s expertise and his mastery of Vietnamese language Thirdly, translation by omission is necessary when translating the compound terms in the form of nominal group (Thing+ Qualifier) of which the Qualifier is the prepositional phrase to make the translation sound natural in the TL Finally, translation by paraphrase is applied in the translation of semantically complex terms Accordingly, a SL can be translated by a TL phrase, clause, sentence or even several sentences 1.2 Implications for the translation of legal terms It is clear that the main job of the translators of terminology is to transfer the meaning of the SL terms to the TL in a natural way To this, the translators must have a good knowledge about the field they are doing the translation, especially the understanding of the terms to be translated so as to find out the appropriate equivalents for the translation which is expressed in a natural way This study on the English-Vietnamese translation of legal terminology is conducted with the view to being of some uses for the translation of legal terms from English to Vietnamese 39 As for the translation of the terms at word level, it is necessary for the translators to aware of the field resgister in order to find out the closest lexical equivalent in the TL for the SL term when translating the acronyms In addition, it is advisable to add one or more words that are equivalent in meaning in the TL for the translation of derived words If the terms have been lexicalized in the TL, borrowing might be the best strategy As for the translation of compound terms, it is essential to classify the word class of the compound so as to select the appropriate correspondent word class substitution in the TL which can keep the same propositional meaning of the SL Besides, the change in the word order of the terms is compulsory due to the differences in grammatical structures of the two languages Moreover, the omission of word by a clause are necessary in some cases to make the translation sound natural and comprehensible to the TL readers In short, the study has showed that the translators can his work in translating legal terms much better by employing appropriate strategies once they have comprehensive and systematic knowledge about the SL and TL grammatical and semantic features of legal terms Therefore, this research has been carried out with the hope that it can be useful to the translators or to anyone who is interested in this field 1.3 Suggestions for further studies This study has not covered all the aspects in relation with English Vietnamese public security terminologies The other issues like procedures andequivalents in translating legal terminologies would be suggestions for further study I hope that I have provided some basic background knowledge, vocabularies, and terminologies on public security to the readers The author wishes that it would be useful for police officers, students interested in Law Enforcement subject in preparing for future job as interpreters and translators 40 REFERENCES English: Baker M (1992), In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, Routledge, London Bell R T (1991), Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice, Longman, 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Soffer M (1999), The Translator‟s Handbook, Schreiber Publishing, Rockville Valeontis K., Mantzari E (2006), The Linguistic Dimension of Terminology: Principles and Methods of Term Formation, Athens Wilss W (1982), The Science of Translation: Problems and Methods, Narr, Tübingen Wisker G (2001), The Postgraduate Research Handbook, Palgrave, Hampshire and New York Vietnamese: Diệp Quang Ban (2004), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt, Nhà xuất giáo dục, Hà Nội Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981), Từ vựng ngữ nghĩa tiếng Việt, Nhà xuất giáo dục, Hà Nội 42 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1981), Từ vựng học tiếng Việt, Nhà xuất đại học trung học chuyên nghiệp, Hà Nội Lưu Vân Lăng (1998), Ngôn ngữ tiếng Việt, Nhà xuất khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội Nguyễn Thủy Minh (2005), “Một số cách dịch mệnh đề phụ quan hệ tiếng Anh sang tiếng Việt”, Tạp chí Khoa học ĐHNNQG, Ngoại ngữ, XVIII (2), tr 43-48 Phan Ngọc (1995), Vài mẹo dịch đại từ quan hệ, Tuyển viết đề tài dịch,Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ - ĐHQG Hà Nội, Hà Nội Nguyễn Anh Quế (1988), Hư từ tiếng Việt đại, Nhà xuất khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội Lê Hùng Tiến, Đỗ Minh Hoàng, Nguyễn Phương Trà (2006), Lý thuyết thực tiễn dịch thuật Anh-Việt: Một số vấn đề lý luận phương pháp bản, Đề tài nghiên cứu cấp Đại học Quốc gia, Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ - ĐHQG Hà Nội, Hà Nội Nguyễn Văn Tu (1960), Từ vựng học tiếng Việt đại, Nhà xuất giáo dục, Hà Nội Hoàng Văn Vân (2005), Nghiên cứu dịch thuật, Nhà xuất Khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội 43 SOURCES OF DATA English for students of law enforcement textbooks/People's security Academy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/illicit-drugs/definitions/index.html http://www.answers.com/ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/terminology 44 APPENDIX Classifier (noun) + Thing English terms Correspondence address Funeral procession Mediation process Mediation session Police district Police office Street protest Crow control Crime scene Death penalty Prison sentence House arrest Community service Child abuse Search warrant Traffic offences Drug trafficking Human trafficking I APPENDIX Classifier/ Epithet (adjective) + Thing Englishterms Additional document Civil liability Criminal liability Criminal history Criminal records Solitary confinement Corporal punishment Cultural sensitivity Democratic society Necessary measures Relevant condition Religious assembly Separate consultation Voluntary compliance Intentional assembly Particular place Public assembly Public order Public place Forensic analysis Armed police Organised crime Circumstantial evidence Maximum / minimum sentence Harsh punishment Repeat offender Serial criminals Non-custodial sentence False imprisonment Teenage criminal/ juvenile delinquent APPENDIX Noun + noun + noun Englishterms Road transport act Election offences act Industrial relations act Blood alcohol concentration Adjective + noun + noun Englishterms Peaceful assembly act Relevant local authority National legal system Electronic messaging system III APPENDIX English terms Designated place Expected number Proposed route Uncommenced amendments Attempted murder (or Premeditated murder) Unpremeditated murder Diminished responsibility Suspended sentence APPENDIX English terms Spotlight Srespasser Occupier Commissioner White collar crime Rehabilitation IV ... certify that the minor thesis entitled ? ?Investigating the translation of legal terminologies between English and Vietnamese in public security texts? ?? is the result of my own work and has not been... implications for the translation of legal terms 1.4 Scope of the study Since the research serves the need of the teaching of English for Law Enforcement and rendering English legal terms, it mainly focuses... differences between English and Vietnamese of experiential structure of nominal group is that in English the Classifier and Epithet elements precede the Thing whereas they follow the Thing in Vietnamese