A study on difficulties facing 3rd year english majors, vinh university in translating vietnamese news in brief into english

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To complete this work, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor M.A Nguyen Thi Tuyet Hong, lecture at Foreign Languages Department, Vinh University for her advice, encouragement, and knowledge, without which the work would not have been complete. I owe an inexpressible debt to all of the teachers at Foreign Languages Department, Vinh University for their lectures that have helped me a lot during this study. Finally, I would like to express my deep thank to my family for encouragements and supports. So much help and encouragement received but sI feel that this study is far from perfect. It is, therefore, my responsibility for any possible shortcomings in the study. Vinh, April 2009 Nguyen Thi Diep Vinh university Foreign languages department ------------------ NguyÔn thÞ ®iÖp A study on difficulties facing 3 rd year english majors, vinh university in translating Vietnamese news-in-brief into English ( Khã kh¨n cña sinh viªn n¨m 3 trong viÖc dÞch tin v¾n tiÕng viÖt) Summary of graduation thesis Field: translation Vinh 2009 ABSTRACT Translators usually meet a lot of difficulties when translating news in general and news in brief, in particular. This paper focused on finding some difficulties facing students in translating news in brief. Some suggestions were given in an effort to help them overcome these difficulties. In chapter 1, the theoretical background was provided. The definitions of translation, news and news in brief were given as the basis of the study. Some characteristics and structures of news in brief were also given to help readers better understanding news in brief. In chapter 2, the investigation was carried out to identify students 'difficulties in translating news in brief. Translating headlines, acronyms, administrative words, restructuring the original text were restated as specific difficulties. In chapter 3, the author gave some suggestions for these difficulties. The conclusion summarized the issues and suggested some main points for further study. PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Justification of the Study. Human being’s life was very simple in the past. The necessary things for their life were only food, clothes and residential places. But the time has changed together with the change of society. The requirement for information nowadays is rapidly increasing when the globalization, regionalization is taking place all over the world. News – was born to satisfy the Human beings’ demand for information. Day by day, it has become variable in types, forms, and even languages. However, no one can know all languages of Human beings to read all of them. In addition, the communication within a speech community is not enough in the information age. People need to communicate with others in different communities. Therefore, news translation has played an important role in the development of mankind. And news translators function as bridges that link people together. Translation in general and news translation in particular, in fact, is one of the most difficult and challenging jobs. It requires a translator not only good knowledge of topic issue but also other things such as background knowledge, culture of target community and purposes of translation etc. Translation will be considered to fail if readership misunderstands, disagrees or feels strange. The author, herself, a student of foreign languages department found some difficulties and challenges when dealing with news translation, especially news in brief translation. Her ambition in this study is only to identify some difficulties that students may have and to help them overcome these difficulties. 2. Aims and Objectives of the Study. The first purpose of this study is to help students better understanding news and news in brief. The author does hope that this study can help foreign 3 languages’ students identify some of their difficulties in translating news in brief. And some suggestions are given with the purpose of helping them overcome these difficulties. 3. Scope of the Study. News translations, in fact, are very complicated and have broad coverage. It relates to many other areas and consists of so many aspects. In the scale of this study, the author can not cover all. She only would like to deal with: Difficulties of foreign languages’ students at Vinh university in their Vietnamese – English translation of news in brief. 4. Method of the Study. The author of this study uses some methods to identify some students’ difficulties. The quantitative method has been used in this research by using a translation test to identify students’ difficulties. The test is designed in the written form, consisting 4 pieces of news-in-brief. The study has also used the qualitative method by using employing interviews to collect more data from students. Interviews were carried out with 10 students among those who do the translation test. The purpose of interviews is to collect students’ opinions and thoughts about their difficulties in translating Vietnamese news-in-brief. 5 Design of the Study. The study includes three main parts: Firstly, the introduction consists of the justification, aims and objectives, methods, designs of the study. The second part-investigation will cover the content of the study. This part is divided into three chapters: 1 st chapter provides the theoretical background of the study, 2 nd chapter presents the survey on students’ difficulties. And in the last chapter, some suggestiions for these problems are given. 4 In the last part, conclusion, the author summaries the study as a whole and gives suggestions for further researches. 5 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1Translation 1.1.1 Definitions of Translation Many definitions of translation have been given up to now. Each of them has based on some criteria. Within the scope of this study, the author only provides some suitable definitions for the purposes of the study. According to Roger T Bell, “Translation is the expression in another language (the target language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalencies”. Or translation in the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in second language”. How equivalent the text is? The answers may be very clear: Text in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (fully or partially equivalent), in respect of different levels of presentation (in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc) and at different rank (word for word, phrase for phrase, sentence for sentence) (Roger T Bell) However, this classification seems inadequate because languages are very different from each other, especially those do not belong to the same branch as Vietnamese and English. They are different in form, codes, rules, etc. following this definition, shifting from one language is changing the forms. However, there are some problems when changing the forms because of the redundancy of target language or the lack of synonym between languages. According to the Merrian Webster dictionary (1974): “Translation consists of changing from one state or form to another, to turn into one own or another language”. As mentioned before, translation is basically a change of form. The form of a language refers to the actual words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. The 6 forms are referred to as the “surface structure” of a language. Translators replace the form of the source language by the form of the target language. Translation, aims at equivalence between the source language and the target language in terms of lexical, grammatical, structure, context of communication and structure identity. To this end, translator must use the lexicon, grammatical structure of the target language in an appropriate way in respects of communicative and cultural context to rebuild the same meaning. According to Wilhelm K. Weber in "Training Translators and Conference Interpreters": Translation is the transposition of a text written in a source language into a target language. The translated version must be absolutely accurate in meaning, contain all nuances of the original and must be written in clear elegant language that can be easily understood by the reader. Needless to say, punctuation, spelling and grammar must be flawless. In addition, translators have at their disposal dictionaries and reference material in both languages. (p.3) However, it must be acknowledged that this definition is mostly for the sake of translation theory only. Since in practice, it is very rarely to find translation versions that can be “absolutely accurate” in meaning, contain all nuances of the original and be easily understood by readers. People are different in all aspects so the message they received may not be identical from each other. Therefore, they may not be the same as the writer’s messages. Bui Tien Bao (lecturer in Hanoi national university) claimed that translation is rendering a written text into another language in a way that the author intended the text. In summary, these definitions above are considered as the basic of the study. From these, we can understand that translation is the transferring from the source language to the target language in appropriate ways, accepted by the target people community. 7 1.1.2 Types of Translation As presented earlier, translation in the change of form while the meaning is remained. Accordingly, there are two main types of translation basing on form and meaning; the form based one and the meaning based one.( Larson, 1984) 1.1.2.1. Form Based Form based translation is known as literal translation. It attempts to follow the form of the source language text. When translating, translators must use lexicon, grammatical structure of the target language to replace those of the source language (Larson, 1984). 1.1.2.2. Meaning Based Brian G Rubchecht in Ten Concepts Students Should Understand Prior to Enrolling in a University Translation or Interpretation Class said, “One of the main goals for translators is to accurately communicative meaning”. He quoted Massoud’s recommendation (1988) that translators should ask and keep in mind two basic questions about the source language message: 1 What does it mean? 2 How should it be said in the new (other) language? …Good translators … do not try to reproduce the formal order of words and phrases nor do they try to find one to one sets of verbal correspondence. What they do aim at is a faithful reproduction of the original so that the meaning of the message and its spirit may be satisfactorily communicated. Larson (1984) claimed, “Meaning based translations or idiomatic translations make every effort to communicate to text receivers, the meaning of the source language text in the natural forms of the target language”. In fact, to have a good translation version, a translator should combine both of meaning based one and form based one. 1.1.3 Methods of Translation Peter Newmark, in chapter 5 in A Textbook of Translation presented 8 methods of translation. They are word for word translation, literal translation, 8 faithful translation, semantic translation, adaptation translation, free translation, idiomatic translation and communicative translation. 1.1.3.1 Word for Word Translation In this method, the order of the source language words is preserved and the words are translated out of the context with their most common meanings. Cultural words are translated literally. We use word for word translation to understand the structure of the source language and to construe a difficult text as a pre-translation process. 1.1.3.2. Literal Translation Like word for word translation method, the lexical words are singly translated out of the context. But the source language grammatical structures are changed into the nearest target language equivalents. 1.1.3.3 Faithful Translation A faithful translation transfers cultural words and preserves the level of grammatical and lexical “Abnormality” in the translation. It attempts to produce the precise contextual meaning to the original within the restrictions of the target language grammatical structures and to be completely faithful to the source language writer’s intention and text realization. 1.1.3.4 Semantic Translation This type of translation emphasizes on the source language. It demands the translation to be absolutely accurate in meaning and contain all nuances of the original text. It takes more account of the aesthetic value. It may translate less important cultural words by culturally neutral third of functional terms but not by the cultural equivalents and take other small concessions to the readership. Semantic translation is flexible and admits the creative exception to 100 percent fidetly and allows for the translator’s institutive empathy with the original. 1.1.3.5 Adaptation Translation 9 This type of translation is the freest. It mainly uses for the plays and poetry, in which the theme, characters, plots are usually kept constant. But the source language culture is changed into the target language culture and the written text. 1.1.3.6 Free Translation It produces the matter without the manner, or the content without the forms of the original. And it is longer paraphrased than the original. 1.1.3.7. Idiomatic Translation It reproduces the message or the source language writers. But it normally uses colloquialism and idiom not existing in the original. Therefore, it has a tendency to distort nuances on meaning. 1.1.3.8 Communicative Translation The purpose of this type is well communicative. This means that it emphasizes the target language, the readership. It is freer than semantic translation. It “attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original on such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership. (Newmark, p.47) 1.1.4 Translation Equivalence There are many translation equivalence definitions. Some definitions consider translation equivalence as the sameness of meaning. Nida (1964) distinguishes two types of equivalence as basic orientation rather binary choice: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. According to some others, there are four types of equivalence relationships: one-to-one equivalence, one-to-much equivalence, one-to-part of one equivalence and nil equivalence. Although this definition is only at word level, it is very useful when translators have to deal with technical terms The author of this study found the following definition of Catford suitable for the subject matter. Catford (1965) claimed that equivalence is distinguished as an empirical phenomenon and as a theoretical comparing source language and 10 . translation. They are word for word translation, literal translation, 8 faithful translation, semantic translation, adaptation translation, free translation,. translation Vinh 2009 ABSTRACT Translators usually meet a lot of difficulties when translating news in general and news in brief, in particular. This paper