Chapter 3: Findings and discussion 3.1. Translation of geological terminologies with transposition procedure
3.1.2. Translation of compound geological terms with transposition
The boldly printed compound terms that are investigated in this part are compounds which can be formed by two components: noun + noun (e.g. gravity drainage - thoát nước trọng lực, water table - mực nước ngầm), adjective + noun (e.g.
adiabatic expansion - giãn nở đoạn nhiệt, hydrologic equation - phương trình thủy văn), V-ed + noun (e.g. confined aquifer - tầng chứa nước bị chặn, perched aquifer - tầng chứa nước treo) or V-ing + noun (e.g. gaining stream - dòng chảy nhận nước, wilting point - điểm héo). Only some compounds have three components, such as ground - water basin - lưu vực nước ngầm, ground-water divide - đường phân chia nước ngầm. The four - component compounds like stage - discharge rating curve (đường cong quan hệ lưu lượng - cấp độ sâu) rarely appear in the study data.
As Cobuild (1990:38) defines a compound noun as “a fixed expression which is made up of more than one word and which functions in the clause as a noun”, the formation of compound nouns is a very important factor to determine their meanings and accordingly, to have appropriate translations. Although relationship
UNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNU
between the words in a compound noun depends on the particular expression, they have one thing in common. The last word in the compound explains what the thing is while the preceding word or word group or the classifier describes the thing like the following examples:
storm hydrograph = hydrograph dedicated to storm = biểu đồ thủy lượng bão
dew point = point of dew = điểm sương magmatic water = water having magma = nước macma
Since the word order in English compounds and Vietnamese ones are opposite, compound terms are translated backwards with means of transposition (i.e.
automatic change in order of compound’s components from SL to TL). Like translation procedure applied in translating single nouns, sometimes, the SL compound terms are placed in brackets in translation, especially with highly geology - specialized terms such as depression storage (nước đọng) and overland flow (dòng chảy tràn / dòng quá thấm) in the following example sentences.
Some water may be temporarily stored on the land surface as ice and snow water in puddles, which is known as depression storage.
Một số nước được lưu giữ tạm thời trên mặt đất dưới dạng băng, tuyết hay nước trong các vũng nước, được gọi chung là nước đọng (depression storage).
Some of the rain or melting snow will drain across the land to a stream channel. This is termed overland flow.
Một phần nước mưa và tuyết tan chảy lan trên mặt đất vào các sông suối, là dòng chảy tràn hay dòng quá thấm (overland flow).
The possible reason is that the translation may sound ambiguous or awkward to the targeted readers; thus, the translators have to mention SL terms as a solution to ensure the readers’ throughout understanding and also present the translators’ hope
UNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNUUNIVERSITY.OF.LANGUAGES.AND.INTERNATIONAL.STUDIES.VNU
for a more appropriate translation.
It can be concluded that transposition is the most frequent translation procedure applied automatically to all terms present in geology texts. This is a rather easy translation method because there are only few steps that the translators have to follow to apply this procedure: first, locate different components of the terms; next, identify the head noun, the modifiers or the division between the elements in the terms; and then change the word order into the TL corresponding word order.