CÁC THỦ THUẬT ĐƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG DỊCH TÊN CÁC HIỆN VẬT TẠI BẢO TÀNG DÂN TỘC HỌC VIỆT NAM

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITYOF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGES TEACHER EDUATION
GRADUATION PAPER
TRANSLATION PROCEDURES APPLIED IN
TRANSLATING OBJECT LABELS AT
VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY
Supervisor: Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A.
Student: Bui Thi Yen
Course: QH2010.F1.E21
Hanoi 6, 2014
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH
KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP
CÁC THỦ THUẬT ĐƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG DỊCH
TÊN CÁC HIỆN VẬT TẠI
BẢO TÀNG DÂN TỘC HỌC VIỆT NAM

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn
Sinh viên: Bùi Thị Yến
Khoá: QH2010.F1.E21

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2014
DECLARATION
I hereby stated that I: Bui Thi Yen, QH 2010. F1.E21, being a candidate for
the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accepts the requirements of the College
relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the
library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in

accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the
care, loan or reproduction of the paper.
Hanoi, 2014
Bui Thi Yen
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express deepest gratitude to my
supervisor, Mrs. Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A. for her precious guidance, valuable
advice as well as her encouragement which were decisive factors assisting me in
finishing the paper on the right track.
My sincere thanks to helpful staff: Mr. Luong Van Thiet, Mrs. Vu Ha who
worked in the museum for providing some materials related to the museum field.
Without them, my paper cannot be completed.
I am also grateful to my classmates who encouraged me a lot to continue
conducting this paper and also gave me very useful advice.
Finally, I appreciate support and caring from my roommates from
beginning to the end of the research.
i
ABSTRACT
Translation in culture-specific items plays an important role in spreading
culture of a country to other cultures in the world. There were also many studies
researching on this field but not many of them mentioned translation of real
exhibits in cultural destinations, especially museums. Vietnam Museum of
Ethnology where a large number of cultural objects are stored and displayed to
visitors and has been welcoming a large amount of visitors coming to experience
Vietnamese culture obviously becomes an available source needed studying. These
factors urged the researcher to conduct this paper with the aim of studying
translation procedures applied in translating object’s labels as well as possible
errors that were made in translation. 400 objects’ names collected after purposive
sampling process and studied revealed that the most frequently used procedure was
literal translation and the most common error was omission. Through this paper,

the researcher expects to provide suggested procedures for translators to translate
culture-specific items and reveal errors that can be made during the translation
process to improve the quality and usefulness of the information given to visitors.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
LIST OF ABBREVIATION iv
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
2.7 Previous studies 18
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 18
3.1 Data collection 19
CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 23
CHAPTER 5.CONCLUSION 41
5.1 Major findings and implications. 41
5.2 Limitations 42
5.3 Recommendation for further study 43
REFERENCES 44
APPENDIX 1 47
APPENDIX 3 54
APPENDIX 4 57
APPENDIX 5 58
APPENDIX 6 59
APPENDIX 7 60
60
APPENDIX 8 61
iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
VME: Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

iv
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Page
Table 1 Types of translation procedures 25
Table 2 Common errors found in the collected items in the museum 31
Figure 1 Frequency of translation procedures 25
Figure 2 Percentage of errors found in translated versions of exhibit
in the museum.
30
Figure 3 Common Errors found in the collected items in the museum 31
v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
After the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (VME), with two other museums
in Vietnam occupied slots in the rank of 25 best museums in Asia by TripAdvisor
website in 2013, it immediately received huge attention from domestic and foreign
tourists. Official statistics by the museum showed an increasing number of visitors
coming to the museum. In the first half of 2010, the total number of the visitors was
220,000, of which domestic guests accounted for 148,000 (66.5%), and foreigners
35.5% including the French (36.1%), American (9.9%), German (7.4%), Australian
(9.6%), Korean (7%) and people from other countries. In addition, the number of
foreigners visitors increased by 20% in comparison with that of the previous year.
Therefore, the museum should be invested more not only in objects displayed at the
museum themselves but also their translation of exhibits in English to serve
English-speaking visitors. Based on that fact, the researcher decided to work on the
translation of object labels with the title as following: “Translation procedures
applied in translating objects labels at Vietnam Museum of Ethnology”. Apart
from reasons mentioned above, the researcher has other intends to do this research.
Firstly, the researcher realizes that the translation of culture-specific
concepts has definitely posed a number of challenges to translators due to the lack

of cultural overlap between two languages. Thus, to obtain equivalent effects, the
translators may have to use typical procedures to translate such cultural items. The
researcher decides to choose the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology due to its huge
number of exhibits that serve aims of the study.
Secondly, translating cultural items, especially exhibits in museum is quite
specific, which hardly appears in thesis or proposal at schools. Thence, the
researcher wants to set a frame, if possible, in translating such exhibits.
Lastly, this study is conducted to assess the quality of translations and see
how translation theory is applied in the real world and equivalence effect it brings.
It may be useful for students who want to study thoroughly in the field of cultural
translation. With the above reasons, the researcher carries out this study to answer
questions left open.
1
1.2. Aims of the study and research questions
The study is firstly aimed at researching translation procedures used in
translating names of exhibits at the museum. Culture- related objects are symbols
of a nation and do not exist in the target language. Therefore, the researcher hopes
to find the most common procedures applied in translating object’s titles based on
her own synthesis. Besides, due to large number of objects displayed in the
museum, some certain errors could be made, urging the researcher to study on.
Thus, the following questions will be addressed:
1. What are the frequently used translation procedures in translating
exhibit labels at VME?
2. What are common errors found in the translations of exhibit titles
at VME?
1.3. Significance of the study
The study is conducted in the context that there are few studies on
translating exhibits labels at museum or cultural places in Hanoi. Therefore, the
right translation of exhibits can satisfy visitors and bring best results in
broadcasting Vietnamese culture to the world. Thence, the study can be a useful

source for translators who also want to translate culture-related items. Furthermore,
it can be a clue for students in translation major to conduct other related studies.
The study’s results focus on the most popular translation procedures used in
translating cultural items. Besides, the research provides some suggestions for
translated versions of exhibit’s labels in the museum. The research is expected to
contribute in improving the quality of translations and give some special techniques
for translating culture-related items.
1.4. Scope of the study
There are different types of object labels such as introduction labels, section
labels, object labels and credit panels. Due to limitation of time and ability, the
researcher only focuses on object labels that provide names of the objects in both
Vietnamese and English in short phrases only. As such, the samples of the research
will be only labels placed next to the objects, showing their names in both
Vietnamese and English to help visitors clarify what they are looking at.
2
3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter gives an overview of translation and cultural translation,
translation procedures which provide theoretical framework for the next chapters in
the research. In addition, it includes Framework for Standardized Error Marking in
translation which plays as a ground to study possible errors in translation. The last
part gives some assessment about previous studies implemented in this field and
also basic information about VME.
2.1Definition of translation.
The term ‘translation’ is approached by many different linguists all over the
world such as Nida, Newmark, Bell, Larson, etc. Each of them gives a definition of
translation that they see from various points of view. In spite of slightly difference,
all definitions seem to emphasize translation as a way to find closet meaning to
ensure equivalence between source language and target language. Here are some
definitions of translation abstracted from their works:

Nida (1969, p.33) stated that “Translating consists of producing in the
receptor language the closest natural equivalent to the message of the source
language, first in meaning and secondly in style.”
Hatim & Mason (1990, p.3) said “Translation is a communicative process
which takes place within a social context.”
“Translation is basically a change of form. In translation the form of the
source language is replaced by the form of the receptor (target) language”
according to Larson (1984, p.3).
Bell (1991, p.5) emphasized, “Translation is the expression in another
language of what has been in another, source language, preserving semantic and
stylistic equivalences.”
4
Translation definition appears in dictionary. For example, in Oxford
Dictionary (2010), translation is a “process of changing something that is written or
spoken in another language”.
Whatever translation is defined, it is considered as a way to turn texts from
one language to other languages to ensure not only the meaning but also the styles
of the text.
2.2Translation procedures
According to Newmark (1988, p. 81), translation procedures are used for the
translation of sentences and smaller units of language. As stated by Newmark,
translation procedures include:
- Literal translation
- Transference
- Naturalization
- Cultural equivalent
- Functional equivalent
- Descriptive equivalent
- Synonym
- Through translation

- Shift or transposition
- Modulation
- Recognized translation
- Translation label
- Compensation
- Componential analysis
- Reduction and expansion
- Paraphrase
- Couplets
There are other theories on translation procedures but the theory by Newmark is
chosen for the main framework for the study because it is clear and more familiar.
Moreover, one objective is to synchronize with other concepts also by Newmark
used in this study.
2.2.1 Literal translation
Literal, word-for-word translation is defined as one where the resulting
target language text is grammatically correct and idiomatic, but where the translator
5
has not needed to make any changes other than those that are obviously required by
the target language grammar itself (such as concord, inflectional endings).
2.2.2 Transference
Transference or loan word, transcription is transference of a word or
expression from the source language/text directly into the target text without
translating it at all. People's names and place names and the like are usually
transferred, except in those cases where a conventional translation exists.
Transference is also the first step in the process of one language acquiring loan
words from another.
For example, when we translate words “Hollywood, blog, web,” we keep
them the same and considered them as loan words.
2.2.3 Naturalization
It is basically transference in which you apply target language spelling and

morphology (and pronunciation) to the expression or word in question. You can
often do this with names of concepts in the humanistic sciences such as '-ism'-
words.
For example, the word coffee can be translated as “cà phê”, or the word
“turbine” is translated as “Tuốc bin”.
2.2.4 Cultural equivalent
This is an approximate translation where an SL cultural word is translated by
a TL cultural word. These are approximate cultural equivalents. Their translation
uses are limited; since they are not accurate, but this procedure can be used in
general texts, publicity and propaganda, as well as for brief explanation to TL
readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture. This procedure can give greater
pragmatic impact than culturally neutral words.
6
For example, the sentence “He graduated after obtaining a degree of
distinction”. The phrase “a degree of distinction” here can be translated as “một
tấm bằng loại giỏi”.
2.2.5 Functional equivalence
According to Newmark, this procedure can be used to deal with cultural words.
Translators use “culture-free word” to express the original word into the target text.
With this procedure, translators can add some information to the target text,
therefore the source text is not kept when transferred into the target text. Also,
when combining this procedure with transference procedure, it can deal with the
cultural word very well and form the couplet procedure.
2.2.6 Descriptive equivalent
It is a task of translating a source language/text word using a description of
the concept it refers to in the target language. It is to neutralize or generalize a SL
cultural word by using a description.
For example, Samurai is defined as Japanese aristocracy from the eleventh
to the nineteenth century.
2.2.7 Synonym

Synonym procedure is applied when there is no one-to-one equivalence for the
word which is not important in the text. The word can be adjective or adverb of
quality. However, when literal translation is not applied, the translator shouldn’t
use synonym. Abusing this procedure can bring a not good translation.
2.2.8 Through translation
The literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations, the
components of compounds, and perhaps phrases. Through translation should be
used for already recognized terms. For example, UNDAF (United Nations
7
Development Assistance Framework is translated as Khuôn khổ hỗ trợ phát triển
liên hợp quốc.
2.2.9 Shift or transposition
It is a change in the grammar from SL to TL (singular to plural; position of
the adjective, changing the world class or part of speech).
2.2.10 Modulation
Modulation means a variation in the message due to a change in the point of
view: seeing something in a different light. It is justified when a literal or
transposed translation results in a form which is grammatically correct but not quite
natural, going against the feeling of the target language.
Through modulation, the translator generates a change in the point of view
of the message without altering meaning and without generating a sense of
awkwardness in the reader of the target text.
For example, the sentence “it is not difficult to do this”, we can translate as
“Làm việc này dễ thôi mà”. We can see the exchange between “dễ” and “difficult”.
2.2.11 Recognized translation
When the any translation is recognized widely but the translator doesn’t agree,
he/she should not use his translation because people are got used to with those
words for a long time, therefore, the translator should use the familiar word to not
cause confusion.
2.2.12 Translation label

When the translation see a institutional terms, they can add some information in
inverted commas. The procedure is applied though literal translation. Then, in the
later text, it can be removed.
2.2.13 Compensation
8
When the information is lost in a sentence, it can be added in another sentence to
compensate for what is lost.
2.2.14 Componential analysis
This is a procedure that “spitting up of a lexical unit into its sense
components, often one-to-two, -three, - four translations” as Newmark (1988, p. 90)
mentioned.
According to him, transference and componential translations are the two
most popular procedures applied to translate cultural words. In which, transference
is applied to translate literal texts providing places, colors, etc. Componential
analysis is “the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and
highlights the messages” (p.96).
2.2.15 Reduction and expansion
The procedure is based on the original text when the translator wants to add or to
reduce some necessary or unsuitable information.
2.2.16 Paraphrase
The translator can explain further meaning of an “anonymous” text to not lost any
important ideas.
2.2.17 Couplets
Basically, couplets are the combination of two translation procedures besides
triplets, quadruplets.
2.3Translation of cultural concepts
2.3.1 Definition of culture
Culture is not easy-to-understand concept. It varies from person to person.
Hall (1976, p.16) defines culture is a value shared by people in the society. It
cannot be alive without people who delivered and spread the culture. Oxford

Dictionary 2010 also defines culture as “the arts and manifestations of human
intellectual achievement regarded collectively” or “the ideas, customs, and social
9
behaviors of a particular people or society”. Mulholland (1991) gives the same
definition of culture when he states that culture is typical features for each country,
each people and contains meanings, values and beliefs that direct people’s
behaviors. In this study, the researcher applies definition of culture by Newmark
(1988, p.94)
“Culture as the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a
community that uses a particular language as its means of expression”.
Culture brings difference for each specific group of people. Culture is shown
by different ways like different languages, expression that can say whose people
are. Therefore, with “particular language” of culture, it is hard to translate into
another culture which is also displayed by other typical characters.
2.3.2 Classification of culture
Newmark (1988, p. 95) classifies culture into 5 different types:
- Ecology: Flora, fauna, winds, plains, hills,
- Material culture: food, clothes, houses and towns, transport.
- Social culture: work and leisure
- Organizations, customs, activities, and procedures, concepts: political
and administrative, religious and artistic.
- Gestures and habits
2.3.3 Definition of culture-specific concepts.
As a culture definition, culture-specific concepts are something
nonfigurative. Enriko Terestyensy (2011, p.15) in SKASE journal summarizes all
definitions and he draws up a conclusion of culture-specific concepts that “the
words of a language which refers to beliefs, social customs, historic events,
symbols, foods and drinks, geographical formations and art and culture of specific
country are considered as culture specific items”. Such, culture-specific items are
different from culture to culture, from society to society. It may appear in this

culture but not in other cultures. It may be unique among all of cultures in the
world. However, the world becomes flatter and flatter that everything tends to
integrate into each other, especially in the cultural field. Because of its
characteristic that culture-specific items can be in culture, these items require
typical translation procedures to translate into other languages.
10
Another definition of culture-specific concepts comes from Baker (1998,
p.21) when she claimed that such concepts will not be present in the target culture.
They are “abstract or concrete, it may relate to a religious belief, social custom or
even a type of food”. Such, the culture-specific concepts can be the unique words,
not existing in another culture.
In the same way, Nord defines cultural word as the term “cultureme” (Nord,
1997, p.34) which is a “cultural phenomenon that is present in culture X but (not
present in the same way) in the culture Y”.
Gambier affirms that culture-specific concepts as culture-specific references
are the terms used for depicting different aspects of daily life such as education,
politics, history, place names, food, drinks (Gambier, 2007)
There are still many different definitions of culture-specific concepts but
they share the same point is that those terms can appear in this culture but not other
cultures in the world.
2.3.4 Translation of culture-specific concepts
Although culture-specific concept translation is just a way to translate this
word or phrase into target language, it depends much on translators and level of
readers. Newmark (1988, p.96) suggests transference and componential analysis as
the two popular ways of translation cultural words. Transference, in his opinion,
offers “local color and atmosphere” which make readership identify and understand
the referent. Meanwhile, “componential analysis, the most accurate translation
procedures, excludes the culture and highlights the message”. He emphasizes that
translators should identify his readership and their level of knowledge to get best
effects on translating.

Baker (1998) provided eight strategies for dealing with non-equivalence at
word level:
- Translation by more general word
- Translation by more neutral/less expensive word
- Translation by cultural substitution
- Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation
- Translation by paraphrase using a related word
- Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words
- Translation by omission
- Translation by illustration
11
Larson said that to translate culture-specific concepts, it depends on the
similarity between the source culture and the target culture. The less similarity they
have, the more difficulty translators encounter. If there is no similarity, it is very
difficult to find the equivalent of the lexical terms.
Nida and Taber said that cultural translation is "a translation in which the
content of the message is changed to conform to the receptor culture in some way,
and/or in which information is introduced which is not linguistically implicit in the
original (Nida & Taber, 1969, p. 39).
Katan (1999, p.87) gave three ways to translate culture-specific items:
borrowing or adaptation, omission, and creating one’s own expression in the
concern of lexical gap and conceptual gaps.
There are many different opinions of translating culture-specific items but in
this study, the researcher prefers to focus on translation procedures and the
perspectives of translating a culture-specific item by Peter Newmark and then make
the comparisons with this theory.
2.4Framework for Standardized Error Marking
ATA (American Translators Association) is a prestige organization
established to promote translation and interpreting careers and also to improve
professional skill of translators and interpreters. The association attracts 11000

members of some occupations from 90 countries in the world. ATA provides a lot
of programs, holds conferences and its certification is one of the industry’s most
respected and recognized credentials. Based on that fact, the researcher decides to
take ATA’s Framework for Standardized Error Marking as the theoretical
background to find assess translation quality. This framework provides 23 types of
errors in total that can be found in the translated version. The scope of this study is
to research on translating exhibits labels which just belongs to word or phrases
level, not text level. Therefore, the researcher just focuses on some types of errors
that can be discovered in the English version in word level. Following is types of
errors given by ATA:
- Addition(A)
Addition error is made when translators add more information that is not
included in the source text, which can change the stylistic effects of the source
language and change its meaning.
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- Ambiguity (AMB)
Ambiguity errors happen when both source text and target text have more
than interpretation of its meaning, which makes the reader not clarify what meaning
that the translator wants to mention.
- Capitalization (C)
Capitalization error happens when in the source language, the text are in the
upper or lower case of letter but the target language does not include that.
- Cohesion (COH)
Cohesion error refers to incoherently translated version, in which
terminology, lexical and grammatical relations are not assured. Cohesion is
considered as a factor that can connect words or sentences in a text to make it
united and smooth. However, if this condition is not assured, it can make the reader
difficult to understand what the translators want to convey. The translators can
make some mistakes like use wrongly terminology, pronoun, linking works.
Therefore, the text is easy to cause misunderstanding for readers.

- Diacritical marks/Accents (D)
This error occurs when the translators translate texts from one language into
other languages but they forgot to use diacritical marks as in the source language,
which can change totally meaning and implicature of the text.
- Faithfulness (F)
The translator does not translate words or texts as their original meaning.
They translate but the meaning is different from the source text. It means that the
translated version is not faithful to the source text because the translators change its
meaning or order of the words.
- Faux ami (FA)
Faux ami error happens when the words have same form but different
meanings. It is also called false friend which implies the word that has more than
two different meanings but the translators do not know and translate it into not
correct texts.
- Grammar (G)
Grammar error happens when the grammatical rules are violated in a
sentence such as verb form, agreement between subject and verb, …
- Illegibility (ILL)
Illegibility error happens when what the writer writes cannot be read
because he tries to delete, erase, or insert words into a fixed text, which makes text
13
hard to see clearly. Even, the writer uses pen or pencils that are not dark enough to
see.
- Indecision (IND)
The translator gives more than one correct translated version for the text so
that people cannot choose the correct one, which meaning is mentioned.
- Literalness (L)
When translator translates literally, word by word but the target text is
incorrect or strange.
- Mistranslation (MT)

A lack of translation happens when translators omit some segments from
source texts into target texts such as prepositions, articles, verb tense or mood.
- Misunderstanding (MU)
Misunderstanding error happens when the translator cannot read
comprehensively the text or fails to understand what is conveyed, therefore, the
translation cannot be correct.
- Omission (O)
Omission happens when some elements of information is omitted such as
titles, headings….
- Punctuation (P)
Punctuation error happens when the target text do not meet punctuation
related to using quotation marks, commas, semicolons…
- Register (R )
Register error happens when the translator uses words that are not suitable
for class and knowledge of readers. The translator should have translated into
poplar language or dialect for people who have low qualification but they use
academic words instead.
- Spelling (SP)
As it name, spelling error occurs when the text is not spelled correctly
according to the source text.
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- Style (ST)
Style error happens when the translated version fails to maintain the style of
the source text. They use different style to translate, which brings unexpected
desire.
- Syntax (SYN)
Syntax error happens when the order of the words or sentences are confused,
not in syntactic rules of target languages.
- Terminology (T)
Terminology error occurs when the correct term is not used in the target text,

especially technical, legal or financial terms.
- Unfinished (UNF)
Unfinished error happens when the target text is translated with some
omissions from the source text. It is one type of omission errors.
- Usage (U)
Usage error happens when the usage of words, phrases or sentences are not
followed.
- Word form/part of speech (WF/PS)
Word form error happens when the root of the word is correct but when the
word is used in the sentence, its form is not correct.
As said before, because the samples collected in this study are exhibit labels
which belong to word level because they are words or phrases, not a sentence.
Therefore, the researcher uses some of above error types to assess translated
version. The result will be discussed in the next chapter of the research.
2.5Exhibit labels
2.5.1 Definition of labels and exhibit labels
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According to thefreedictionary.com, label is an item to identify something or
someone, as a small piece of paper or cloth attached to an article to designate its
origin, owner, content, use and destinations.
Exhibit labels in this study refer to labels for exhibits in the museum. Labels
used to describe an exhibit, or a room, a place in the museum.
2.5.2 Classification of exhibit labels
There are several types of exhibit labels based on its functions.
- Introduction labels: should be a “teaser” and talk about the main
sections of your exhibit to encourage people to see the rest
- Section label is a mini introduction. It consists of sub-topics in a
museum exhibition.
- Object label is used to describe the individual subject it is placed next
to. It presents name, year of the object but it is not too long.

- Credit panel may include some donations, especially government,
organizations.
2.6The Vietnam Museum of Ethnography (VME)
VME was established on the decision of the Prime Minister under National
Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities on October 24, 1995. Two years later,
on November 12, VME official opened to the public.
VME is both a research centre and a public museum exhibiting the ethnic
groups of Vietnam. VME has a variety of functions as: scientific research,
collection, conservation and preserving the cultural and historic patrimony of
nation’s different ethnic groups.
Nowadays, through more than ten years of development, VME possesses
three exhibiting area which consist of indoor area, outdoor area and a new Museum
of Southeast Asia. The indoor area is composed of the exhibition building, office,
research centre, library, storage, technical lab and auditorium. It also includes 700
exhibits and 280 photographs. The different collections are displayed according to
the language groups and territories. Most of the objects are presented in 97
showcases are original. Each object has a label denoting its name, the ethnic group
and the place where it was created. There are also other tools to help visitors
understand about the objects such as video tapes, photographs, models, cassettes,
16
etc. The indoor area is the focused area with the objects from different ethnic
groups showing their most typical customs and daily life.
The outdoor exhibition area is not large enough to present all ethnic groups
in Vietnam, so that there are only 9 popular architectural styles are displayed: The
Ede long house, the Tay Stilt house, the Yao house half on stilts, half on earth, the
Hmong house whose roof is made of pomu wood, the Viet house with tile roof and
the Giarai tomb, the Bahnar communal house, the Cham traditional house, and the
Hani house. All the houses are originally presented after the real model. The houses
show visitors the way the people in ethnic groups communicate as one family. In
each house, there are information boards depicting generally about the process of

building the house, popular customs, or maps of the house. Rarely, we can see
separated objects with the title on them. That is a reason why the researcher
chooses indoor area’s objects to study on.
The newest construction in VME is the Southeast Asia Museum (the kite
building) which is opened in 2013. It presents permanent exhibition displaying
cultures of Southeast Asian nations. The permanent exhibition introduces about
400 objects, 130 photos, maps, texts and videos on the 500sq.m ground
floor.Through five main topics: textiles, daily life, social life, performing arts
and religions, different cultural elements of Southeast Asian inhabitants are
represented, which expresses the diversity and unification in culture, as well as
in the lifestyle of the region.
VME now ranks 6 in the top 25 Asia museums and receives much
attention from visitors all around the world according to recent statistics
(Tripadvisor, 2013). It is also praised by many foreign visitors when the
numbers of visitors are more and more increasing through years. Every detail
presented in the museum may have certain influence on the visitors. That
explains why the researcher chooses this museum to carry her thesis on
translation and equivalence of translated exhibit titles.
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