idioœmaticity of english terminology in finance and solutions for finding vietnamese equivalents = tính đặc ngữ của thuật ngữ tài chính tiếng anh và biện pháp tìm tương đương trong tiếng việt

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS vi
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES vii
PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims and scopes of the study 2
3. Research questions and methodology 2
4. Organization of the thesis 3
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4
1.1. Terminology and Financial Terminology 4
1.1.1. Definitions 4
1.1.2. Properties 5
1.1.3. Translation of terminology 9
1.2. Previous research 14
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16
2.1. Participants 16
2.2. Instruments of data collection 16
2.3. Procedures of data collection 18
v

2.4. Procedure of data analysis 20
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21

3.1. Results 21
3.1.1. Syntactic idiomaticity of English financial terms 21
3.1.2. Semantic idiomaticity of English financial terms 23
3.1.3. Difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 24
3.1.4. Solutions to deal with difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial
terms 30
3.2. Discussion 34
PART 3: CONCLUSION 35
1. Summary 35
2. Implications for Translation 35
3. Pedagogical implications 37
4. Limitations of the study 38
5. Suggestions for further research 39
REFERENCES 40
APPENDICES I
Appendix 1 I
Appendix 2 VII
Appendix 3 XIII





vi

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

ADJ
Adjective
ESP

English for Specific Purposes
FTU
Foreign Trade University
GPA
Grade Point Average
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
IELTS
International English Language Testing System
L2
Second language
MA
Master of Arts
N
Noun
SL
Source language
TL
Target language
TOEIC
Test of English for International Communication
UEB
University of Economics and Business
UK
The United Kingdom
ULIS
University of Languages and International Studies
VNU
Vietnam National University, Hanoi

vii



LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Types of equivalence relationship 11
Table 2: Newmark‟s V Diagram 13
Table 3: Types of English idiomatic financial terms in terms of syntax 21
Table 4: Number of English idiomatic financial compound types 22

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms according
to the FTU respondents 24
Figure 2: Percentage of idiomatic financial terms among English financial terms according
to the ULIS respondents 25
Figure 3: Admission of many difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms
25
Figure 4: Reasons to explain the difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial
terms 27
Figure 5: Measures to deal with the difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial
terms 31
Figure 6: Percentage of the most effective measure chosen by the FTU group to solve
difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 33
Figure 7: Percentage of the most effective measure chosen by the ULIS group to solve
difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms 33


1

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study
Vietnam is a rapidly developing country with a dynamic and emerging market economy.
Located in South East Asia, the country has positioned itself as a focal point of trade and
investment, boasting an average annual GDP growth rate of 6.8% over the last seven years.
Despite recent global economic challenges during the worldwide financial crisis, Vietnam
has been and will be witnessing remarkable development of a wide range of fields in the
economy. Finance serves a vivid illustration of this situation when more and more foreign
financial institutions have expanded their strong presence in Vietnam. Against this
background, the use of foreign financial terms, mainly English ones, has become genuinely
popular. Thus, there arise considerable demands for better understanding of these terms.
Yet, in some cases, it is not easy to comprehend their accurate meaning, particularly
idiomatic ones. What is more, in order to find exact Vietnamese equivalents for English
idiomatic financial terms, students and novice translators need not only certain language
proficiency but also background knowledge in both languages. Evidently, the idiomaticity
of English terminology in general and financial terms in particular has indeed caused them
considerable difficulties.
To address such problems, quite a number of papers have been written on specialized
terms. However, there is still a research gap in dealing with the idiomaticity of English
financial terminology. On the other hand, for the same idiomatic financial terms, different
authors/users may suggest different Vietnamese words/phrases, claiming them to be
equivalent to the English. Which among those options can be the most appropriate remains
controversial. To answer this question, it is necessary to have more investigations into the
idiomaticity of the terms. Driven by this necessity, I ventured into this investigation of
“Idiomaticity of English Terminology in Finance and Solutions for Finding Vietnamese
Equivalents” in the hope of shedding some light on idiomatic financial terms and
suggesting possible solutions for me and other language users to find proper Vietnamese
equivalents.

2

2. Aims and scopes of the study
Due to the time constraint and limited knowledge, this study merely focuses on financial
terms in English, especially idiomatic ones. They have been extracted from specialized
books and dictionaries, namely Options, Futures and other Derivatives (Hull, 2009),
Financial Markets and Institutions (Madura, 2006), English for Specific Purposes II
compiled by the lecturers of Faculty of English for Specific Purposes at Foreign Trade
University (2009), and Oxford Business English Dictionary For Learners of English
(Parkinson, 2008).
The study aims at:
 Providing some theoretical background on terminology in general and financial
ones in particular, and translation of terminology;
 Analyzing main features of English idiomatic financial terminology in terms of
syntax and semantics;
 Identifying difficulties in finding Vietnamese equivalents for English idiomatic
financial terms;
 Suggesting some solutions to cope with these problems and discovering the most
effective one(s) among the mentioned solutions.
3. Research questions and methodology
Within the framework of a minor thesis, the study is conducted to address the three
following research questions:
1. What are the features of English idiomatic financial terms?
2. What are difficulties in translation of English idiomatic financial terms?
3. What are solutions to deal with difficulties in translation of English idiomatic
financial terms?
So as to answer the three research questions, questionnaires and interviews were applied.
Given my circumstances, these questionnaires and interviews could only be administered
with the participation of 86 people, 53 of whom are graduate students from Course 46
English of International Finance at Faculty of Finance and Banking, FTU and 33 of whom

3

are senior ones of Interpreter and Translator Training Division of Faculty of English
Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU. After that, I picked up 06 among the 33 ULIS students to
carry out a focused-group interview to clarify further information on subject matters in this
study. Then the statistics collected from these instruments were analyzed and compared so
that solutions to the difficulties identified could be generated. Besides, library research and
personal experience were also used as strong support for the study, which ensured its
validity and accuracy.
4. Organization of the thesis
This paper is divided into three parts:
Part One - Introduction outlines the rationale, scope and aims, research questions and
methodology of the study, as well as organization of the thesis.
Part Two - Development is composed of three chapters. Chapter One under the title
“Theoretical Background” pinpoints different linguistic concepts relevant to the topic such
as idiomaticity, financial terminology and equivalence, and a short review of what has
been done so far in the study of terminology in general and financial terms in particular.
Then comes Chapter Two “Methodology” in which detailed description of participants,
instruments, procedures of data collection, and procedure of data analysis are given.
Finally, Chapter Three presents results of the study, discussion, recommendations, and
application.
Last but not least, Part Three - Conclusion wraps up the study with summary,
implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research.
4

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1. Terminology and Financial Terminology
1.1.1. Definitions

The notion “terminology” has been under many discussions by many linguists so far. Its
definition is looked at from different views. To the author of Collins Cobuild Dictionary
(Collins, 2006), terminology is simply “a set of special words and expressions used in
connection with it”. Meanwhile, according to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary of
Current English (Hornby, 2006), terminology is viewed as “a set of technical words or
expressions used in a particular subject”. Newmark (1988, p.131) states that “terminology
is variously defined as an idiom peculiar to a trade or profession, an occupational register
of language, or an esoteric unintelligible to the layman”. In agreement with Newmark, Rey
(1979, p.4) defines it as:
“A set of special words belonging to a science, an art, an author or a social entity,
as in: “the terminology of medicine”, “the terminology used by computer
specialists.”
There are also various definitions of terminology among Vietnamese linguists. Nguyễn
Văn Tu (1968, p.176) contributes that “terminology is a word or combination of words that
is used in science, technology, politics, art,… and it has a specific meaning, denotes
precise concepts and names of the above-mentioned scientific areas”. Nguyễn Thiện Giáp
(2003, p.270) suggests that terminology is recognized as a special part of the language
lexicon. It consists of certain words and phrases that are the exact names of concepts and
objects in the professional field. In the light of Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981)‟s view, terms are
“specialist words used within a scientific field, a profession or any technological field”.
Such definitions can serve as a foundation on which distinction between terms and words
is discovered. In fact, Baker (1998, p.261) puts that “terms differ from words in that they
are endowed with a special forms of reference, namely that they refer to discrete
5

conceptual entities, properties, activities or relations which constitute the knowledge space
of a particular subject field”. Accordingly, further important differences between terms and
words are as follows:
- Terms have special reference within a particular discipline whereas words function
in general reference over a variety of subject fields.

- Terms keep their lives and meanings only as long as they serve the system of
knowledge they gave rise to them.
In brief, although the definitions of terminology are made at different times and from
different situations, they still share three similar aspects. With respect to structure,
terminology often manifests itself in word and phrasal form. In terms of semantics, it is a
special linguistic unit that denotes certain unique concept. With reference to usage,
terminology is utilized in a certain specialized field. Seen in this way, financial
terminology must be a set of special words and expressions (i.e. terms) relating to finance.
What the author means by “finance” here is the study of money and how it is spent and
budgeted (Farlex Financial Dictionary, 2009). One of the main subsets of finance is credit
and banking, as this involves money, time, and risk all together. Finance also touches on
personal or corporate issues, such as how an individual or company acquires the money
needed to perform a certain act. On the basis of the analysis, it can be concluded that
terminology in finance in this context is a system of exact and specific terms including
monetary markets, currency movements, banks, etc. These are the subjects of my research.
1.1.2. Properties
Most lexical units of language have their own properties, and terminology is not an
exception. Several properties of terminology have been identified. Đỗ Hữu Châu (1981)
assumes three fundamental properties of terminology, namely accuracy, systematicity, and
internationality. In accordance with Lê Khả Kế (1967, pp.110-114), “scientific i.e.
accurate, systematical and concise, of native language […]; popular and applicable” are
distinctive features of terminology. Lưu Vân Lăng (1977, p.2) adds that terminology is to
be “systematical, linguistically native, accurate, concise, and popular and of great utility”.
Based on those views, the author believes terminology should have the following
properties: Accuracy, systematicity, internationality, nationality, popularity, monosemy,
6

and idiomaticity.
With regard to accuracy, it can be considered the most basic property of terminology.
Terminology must express a clear and exact meaning in order to avoid misunderstanding

of one concept for another. Indeed, the accuracy of terminology is well preserved in both
its form and meaning. Concerning lexical meaning, while normal words basically put up
with polysemy and synonymy, terminology does not. The semantics of terminology is
invariant in a particular area, as opposed to that of ordinary words which may alter
depending on usage and contexts. Regarding its form, terminology remains fixed. Hardly
can it be added with any other elements such as affix to change a term into the plural form
or antonyms. Nevertheless, terms parachuted under the criterion of systematicity could be
varied in forms.
Next comes the second property of terminology which is systematicity. As a matter of fact,
each field of science has its own system of solid and finite concepts expressed by its own
terms, and the terms have relationship with others in its system. The semantic value of a
term is determined by its relation to others in the same field. Once separated from its
system, it may be ambiguous, or even valueless. To take an example, “call” in
Communication is interpreted as “cuộc gọi”, and “quyền chọn bán” in Finance. It can be
inferred that it is impossible to isolate a term from its community. Systematicity makes
terms the insiders of a particular field and helps readers understand concepts with ease.
Another property of terminology is internationality which is shown in both form and
meaning. With regard to form, it is of great interest to discover that many terms are entirely
borrowed from one language to another. For example, despite very slight difference in the
pronunciation, the term “vitamin” stays the same in almost all languages around the world,
including Vietnamese, English, and German language. In terms of meaning, terminology
figures out common scientific concepts recognized and equally understood by speakers of
different cultures. For instance, it is common knowledge that ATM is an abbreviation of
Automated Telling Machine in finance. Obviously, internationality provides impetus
towards the popularity of a common language.
Nationality is the fourth feature of terminology. It is broadly conceived that terminology is
not set apart from the language. Nguyễn Lân (1995, p.16) avers that terms are specific
7

words which belong to a particular subject field but they are also a part of a language

system of a nation. They, therefore, possess all the characteristics and colors of a national
language. A term is considered as belonging to a nation when it is made from that nation‟s
language material and reflects that nation‟s language features. For example, the term “bad
debt” would sound more Vietnamese if it were understood as “nợ khó đòi”. However, in
case of being performed as “trái quyền bất khả truy hoàn” in Vietnamese, the translator
would challenge the reader on understanding the meaning of “bad debt” and its utility
would become less effective.
The next characteristic of terminology to take into account is popularity. No matter what
field of science a term in a language belongs to, it should be comprehensible and
memorable to all speakers of that language. In other words, terminology is targeted to not
only professionals and experts but outsiders of the field as well. It brings subject fields
closer to the masses and let them approach to, participate in, and benefit from these subject
fields. WTO is considered a typical illustration of this point. Indeed, WTO is an economic
term; yet, it is widely used and easy to remember to people in the world. Thanks to this
property, terminology can keep its position in the society.
The sixth feature of terminology to investigate is monosemy. Lê Văn Thới (1970, p.5)
claims that a noun used in a particular subject (i.e. a term) must belong to such a field
linguistically and practically, and as concise and simple as possible. This can be seen that
the term carries the only meaning in a specialized area and a concept should be expressed
by one noun. For instance, the normal meaning of “appreciation” in Vietnamese is “sự
đánh giá”; nonetheless, Vietnamese equivalent to this word in finance is “sự lên giá”.
Evidently, this kind of property should be perceived as monosemy in a certain profession.
The last characteristic of terminology - the core point of this study is idiomaticity. Pawley
& Syder (1983) declare that advanced learners quite often fail to reach a nativelike level of
idiomaticity. They determine that idiomaticity is a salient characteristic of language at
clause or sentence level. However, idiomatic expressions exist also at other language
levels, such as phrase level (Fillmore et al., 1988) and morpheme (Hockette, 1958).
Hockette (1958) identifies an idiom as a grammatical form with a meaning not deducible
from its structure. Thus, every morpheme has idiomatic status since a morpheme has no
structure from which its meaning could be deduced. In the words of Skorupa & Bosulajeva

8

(2009), single words have the lowest degree of idiomaticity which is typical to the
phraseological collocations. The word “overdraft” can clarify the above point. This single
word includes two semantic parts “over” and “draft”. According to Oxford Business
English Dictionary For Learners of English (Parkinson, 2008), the meaning of the word
“overdraft” is understood as “the amount of money that you owe to a bank when you have
spent more money than there is in your bank account”. From the analysis, the meaning of
“overdraft” is not a simple addition of the meanings of the two constituents “over” and
“draft”. Meanwhile, pure phraseological units have the highest level of idiomaticity as can
be found in proverbs and sayings. Their meaning is usually completely unpredictable from
their lexical constituents from the semantic point of view. Supporting this view, Fillmore et
al. (2003) bring up the concept that “an idiomatic expression or construction is something a
language user could fail to know while knowing everything else in the language” (p.247).
It can be inferred from this standpoint that grammar and vocabulary of a language are not
bound to give guarantee for idiomaticity. Idiomaticity is not interpreted only by
combination of literal senses of the constituent words on the basis of syntactic rules.
Pawley & Syder (1983) make a clear-cut distinction between grammaticality and
idiomaticity. As opposed to which are grammatical but judged to be „unidiomatic‟, „odd‟
or „foreignism‟, nativelike expressions only account for a small percentage of grammatical
sentences. To have deeper insight into idiomaticity, it should be also noted that there exists
some difference between the terms “idiom” and “idiomaticity”. According to Warren
(2005), idioms are “opaque invariant word combinations”. Cuddon (1999, p.412) identifies
idiom as “a form of expression, construction or phrase peculiar to a language and often
possessing a meaning other than its grammatical or logical one”. In the concept of
Listunova (2003, p.36, as cited in Skorupa & Bosulajeva, 2009), the most distinctive
aspects of idiom are compositeness, institutionalization, and semantic opacity. In contrast
to “idiom”, idiomaticity is the mechanism that enables phrases to take on meanings that go
beyond the meaning of their parts. The presence of idioms in a text does not necessarily
make it idiomatic; nor does their absence make it unidiomatic. However, idiomaticity and

idiom have a close relation, that is, idiomaticity can be recognized in idioms.
As discussed above, there are seven properties of terminology, and financial terms hold all
of them. In this study, the author will invest time and effort in discussing the last feature of
9

financial terms, namely idiomaticity.
1.1.3. Translation of terminology
 Technical translation
First, what is translation? According to Marlone (1988), “translation is the expression in
another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another (source
language), preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences”. Cartford (1965) reveals that
translation is “the replacement of a text in one language (SL) by an equivalent text in
another language (TL). Hartman & Stork (1972) claim “translation is the replacement of a
representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalence text in a
second language”. Despite their wording differences, these definitions share common
features. Translation represents some sort of movement from one language to another and
some kind of content and the requirement to find equivalence.
The next question to be answered is what technical translation is. Sofer (1991) approached
technical translation by distinguishing it from literary translation. According to him, literal
translation covers such areas as fiction, poetry, drama, and humanities in general and is
done by writers of the same kind in the TL, or at least by translators with the required
literary aptitude. Meanwhile, “one way of defining technical translation is by asking the
question, does the subject being translated require a specialized vocabulary, or is the
language non-specialized? If the text being translated includes specialized terms in a given
field, then the translation is technical”. Clearly, Sofer views technical translation as
specialized translation with its essential element - “specialized terms”.
 Pros and Cons
Basically, terminology translation has its own pros and cons. In terms of advantages, the
study of terminology translation in a specific field will broaden specialized vocabulary. It
also helps users to use terms accurately. Thanks to these, translators can avoid

embarrassing situations where they are confused with new, strange, and difficult terms.
As a coin has its two sides, there can be certain difficulties in converting the SL into the
TL. The very first one is that translators and interpreters may lack subject matter
knowledge in order to render the original meaning properly in the TL. As a result, it is very
hard to have precise and cohesive equivalents. This can be evident in dealing with
10

terminology in finance. If they have not acquired any background knowledge of finance,
they can hardly get any terms on finance into their mind.
What is more, lack of competence in both the SL and TL is also a problem to access the
exact meaning of terms. Deficiency in the mother tongue makes the outcome of translation
of English terminology poorly concise. Translators and interpreters in this situation are
likely to use lengthy descriptive or explanatory words which are rarely found in the
terminology of any language.
Another obstacle is to tackle with new terminology. As Newmark (1995, p.153) indicates,
“some technical neologisms in the source language which are relatively context-free and
appear once. If they are context-bound, you are more likely to understand them by
gradually eliminating the less likely versions”. As a matter of course, the tasks of
translators are to always update information and use a variety of sources.
To sum up, translators and interpreters are expected to be well-qualified and experienced
so as to produce good translation of texts in general, and of financial terms in particular.
They should master the ins and outs of terminology and know how to treat new ones
adequately in the process of their work. Only by due diligence and logical approach can
they meet their high demands of their occupations.
 Equivalence
Equivalence is a central concept of the translation theory, but a controversial one. Catford
(as cited in Van den Broek, 1978) defines translation equivalence with his notable
statement that “translation equivalence occurs when SL and TL texts or items are related to
(at least some of) the same relevant features of situation substance”. As defined by
Halverson (1997), equivalence is the relationship existing between two entities, and the

relationship is described as one of similarity in terms of any of a number of potential
qualities. House (1977) states the notion of equivalence is the conceptual basis of
translation. Catford (1965, p.21) also shares “the central problem of translation practice is
that of finding TL equivalents and the central task of translation theory is therefore that of
defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence”. Baker (1992) points out that
equivalence can be seen at different levels which all different aspects of translation are
covered and put together the linguistic and the communicative approach.
11

From these different definitions of equivalence, it can be easily seen that equivalence is
regarded as a necessary condition for translation, an obstacle to progress in translation
studies, or a core criterion for evaluating translated versions.
Theorists have studied equivalence in relation to the translation process, using two
approaches, namely quantitative and qualitative. Concerning the quantitative approach,
Kade (1968), and Hann (1992) divide equivalence into six categories as follows:
No
Types of equivalence
relationship
Description
Explanation
1
One-to-one
equivalence
E V
A single expression in the TL for
a single SL expression is used.
2
One-to-many
equivalence

More than one TL expression for
a single SL expression is used.
3
Many-to-one
equivalence

More than one SL expression for
a single TL expression is used.
4
Many-to-many
equivalence

More than one TL expression for
more than one SL expression is
used.
5
Whole-part/Part-whole
equivalence
V E
A TL expression covers part of a
concept designated by a single
SL expression or vice versa.
6
Non-equivalence

There is no TL expression for an
SL expression.
Table 1: Types of equivalence relationship
There exist three subdivisions under qualitative approach, that is, function-based, meaning-
based and form-based approach. Eugene A. Nida, Koller and Baker are three linguistic

12

researchers are credited as the founders of these above approaches with their major works
of the time.
In terms of function-based equivalence, Nida (1964) argues that there are two different
types of equivalence, including formal equivalence which is referred to as formal
correspondence and dynamic equivalence in the second edition. While formal
correspondence focuses attention on both form and content (as in Bible, international
diplomacy, law and the like), dynamic equivalence emphasizes the text readability.
In light of meaning-based equivalence, Koller (1977) proposes five levels of equivalence,
that is, “denotative, connotative, text-normative, pragmatic and formal equivalence”.
Denotative equivalence is one in which the SL and TL words refer to the same thing in the
real world. While that, connotative equivalence is that SL and TL words should produce
the same communicative values in the mind of native speakers of the two languages. A
close look is to take at text-normative equivalence that the SL and TL words using the
same or similar text types in their respective languages. Koller (1977) has been aware that
pragmatic equivalence is the equivalence that the SL and TL words have the same effect
on the reader or mainly aiming at the receiver, to whom the translation is directed. Last but
not least, formal equivalence is referred to as “expressive equivalence”. Possibilities of
formal equivalence are with respect to categories such as rhyme, verse form, rhythm,
special stylistic forms of expression in syntax and lexis, word play, metaphor and so on.
With regard to form-based equivalence, Baker (1992) introduces five levels of equivalence
including equivalence at word level, equivalence above word level, grammatical
equivalence, textual equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence. Baker notes that word
sometimes carries different meanings in different languages, and relates meaning of words
with morpheme. Baker mentions problems at word level and above word level before
suggesting some strategies in dealing with them. Grammatical equivalence refers to the
diversity of grammatical categories across languages. The linguistic scholar affirms that
grammatical rules across languages may differ, which lead to some problems in finding a
direct correspondence in the TL. Textual equivalence denotes the equivalence between a

SL text and a TL text regarding information and cohesion. Finally, pragmatic equivalence
touches on implication of the TL text. The duty of a translator is recognizing the implied
meaning of SL text, and then reproducing it in a way that readers of the TL can
13

comprehend clearly without any misunderstanding culturally.
 Methods
There has been controversy since at least the first century B.C. over whether to translate
terms literally or freely. To deal with this non-stop argument, the author of this paper
selects the following flattened V diagram of Newmark (1995, p.45) which points out the
most reasonable for translation of terminology:

Table 2: Newmark’s V Diagram
Due to the characteristics of terminology, the translation is dominantly based on the literal
and communicative translation. According to Newmark (1995, p.45), literal translation is
that “the source language's grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest target
language equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context” and
communicative one “attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in
such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to
the readership”. While the former helps to secure referential and pragmatical equivalence
to the original, the latter gives useful solutions to the hard-to-translate terms.
With regard to translation of idiomatic terms, Ghazala (2003) provides two main
procedures, namely evasion and invasion. The former can be described as the way which a
translator eliminates idiomaticity of the SL idiom on account of his incompetence or
simplification of the message for the TL readers. The latter means a translator‟s deliberate
use in the TL of an idiom in an attempt not only to match but also sometimes to supercede
the original. As compared with evasion, invasion sounds more persuasive in tackling with
the problems of translation. It is “at at worst an escape from translating properly, and at
best an inclination to practicality” (Ghazala, 2003, p.209).
14

1.2. Previous research
Recently, research in the field of terminology and translation has grown enormously, with
the quantity of published research increasing annually. To the best of my knowledge, this
topic has attracted a good number of linguists and scholars, as evident in the considerable
number of MA theses in ULIS and University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU,
Hanoi about terminology in different specialized areas. Following are some examples:
Written in English:
- Nguyễn Thị Bắc. (2003). A study on the English-Vietnamese Translation of the
terminology in the materials for Electronics and Electrical Engineering;
- Nguyễn Thị Mai. (2003). A study on the translation of IFA terminology between English
and Vietnamese;
- Trần Thị Thu Hiền. (2005). A study on English Computer terms and their Vietnamese
Equivalents in Information Techonology;
- Nguyễn Thị Ánh Hồng. (2005). A study on the English-Vietnamese Translation of
medical terms in the Coursebook for the Students of Haiphong Medical College;
- Vũ Thị Thanh Yến. (2008). A study on equivalence between English and Vietnamese
translation of insurance terms in US health insurance plans;
- Nguyễn Ngọc Linh. (2008). A study on the English-Vietnamese translation of terms in
the materials for mechanical engineering;
- Nguyễn Thu Hiền. (2009). A study on the translation of Technical texts in Shipbuilding.
Written in Vietnamese:
- Nguyễn Thị Minh Phương. (2001). Some problems about translation of English-
Vietnamese texts on technological science;
- Lê Hoài Ân. (2003). Features of German auditing terms and their translation into
Vietnamese;
- Đoàn Thúy Quỳnh. (2007). An investigation into English terminology in Hydrography
and Meteorology (Contrastive analysis with Vietnamese);
- Nguyễn Thị Hằng Nga. (2009). An initial investigation into English-Vietnamese
terminology in Environment;

- Đôn Tú Anh. (2009). A contrastive study of English-Vietnamese terminology in Petrol
and Oil;
- Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga. (2009). Comparative study on translating English - Vietnamese
15

terminology in tourism;
- Mai Thị Hảo. (2009). An initial investigation into English-Vietnamese terminology in
Cryptography.
From the collected MA theses, it can be clearly seen that they shared common points. The
first and most important similarity among them is that the topic area comes directly from
their working and teaching environment and needs. Researchers can be teachers who teach
ESP at university and need to improve their understanding on terms and draw up effective
translation strategies for themselves, their colleagues and students. Or they can be amateur
or professional translators in different fields. Most of the topics come from the specific
working/ teaching situations, so the researchers might have enough knowledge, experience
and motivation to carry out the research. From their experience in translating or teaching
translation, they recognized difficulties in translating English into Vietnamese in their
fields or they saw problems in current translations.
Second, the majority of the studies are centered upon synthesizing and systematicizing
terms to explore their features with regard to syntax, semantics, and origin. Moreover, they
dealt with Vietnamese equivalence for English terms and suggested some solutions to this
issue. Thanks to these, they fill the gap between linguistics and specialized fields, and
make great contribution to accessing the world of general and specific knowledge. It is
possible to state that the studies provide the useful theoretical background for terms,
translation and equivalence. They also identify specific problems and solutions related to
the terms of a specialized field. Therefore, they are really valuable references for the author
of this study to use. From this, she can conduct her own paper more easily.
However, almost all of these investigations examine terminology from perspective of
translation and its equivalence only. Indeed, they do not seem to go deeper insight into the
individual property of terms. They provide general theory about the properties without

considering them core points of their work. Based on them, the researchers pinpoint other
issues. Clearly, it is necessary to fill in this gap by more studies on the properties of terms.
Moreover, taking a look at the above topics, the author also discovers that financial terms
remain untouched, despite their vibrating role in the economy. My MA thesis therefore
nicely fits in and is hoped to partially fill this gap, particularly when it looks at a special
aspect of terminology in Finance, as the title indicates “Idiomaticity of English
Terminology in Finance and Solutions for Finding Vietnamese Equivalents”.
16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1. Participants
There are two categories of participants selected in this study in view of convenience and
time constraint. Their age ranges slightly between 21 and 22. The majority of participants
are female. To start with, the first group (Group 1) is 53 graduate students from three
different classes of full-time course 46A of International Finance at Faculty of Finance and
Banking, FTU. Specifically, there include twelve respondents of Japanese class, eighteen
of class English 2, and twenty-three of class English 1. With regard to overall study result
of this group, there are 23 students achieving distinction with the grade point average
(GPA) of 8.00 and above, and 30 others gaining the Credit grade of over 7.00. With
reference to English language proficiency, the number of students getting the IELTS mark
of above 7.00 makes up 20%. They are members of class English 1 and 2, and now
pursuing the MA course on Finance in the UK or working for the companies with the high
requirement of English. Meanwhile, the others in this group also get TOEIC mark of more
than 700.
The second group (Group 2) comprises 33 senior students from Course 42 of Interpreter
and Translator Training Division at Faculty of English Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU.
These informants make up two subdivisions: 15 students from fast-track group E.20, 18
students from normal group E.19. They all receive scholastic achievement of 7.00 or above
in terms of the result of major and the overall score. Moreover, some of them are currently

undertaking a double-degree university program. This means that besides their above
major, they work as students of external economics at University of Economics and
Business (UEB), VNU. They are going to finish their school curriculum in June 2012.
2.2. Instruments of data collection
The first major research instrument used in this study is the surveys delivered to the
participants. These surveys are designed for ULIS participants in English and FTU ones in
Vietnamese so that they can interpret questions easily and give correct answers. Each one
consists of two parts, namely English-Vietnamese translation and Questionnaire. For more
17

details, part one is to provide the respondents with 50 English financial terms and they are
required to translate them into Vietnamese. The purpose of this part is to get the most
reliable study results and more accurately reflect what the respondents want to say. Part
two is composed of 8 questions in the English version and 7 questions in the Vietnamese
one. There is such a difference because the English questionnaire distributed to the ULIS
includes one more question about the translation methods. This questionnaire is a mixture
of closed and open questions which require the participants to answer by putting the mark
√ next to their choice or expressing their ideas in the blank. While most questions are
multiple choices with several options, one question asks respondents to rank items
according to their order of importance. The others are open-ended questions which clarify
concrete pieces of information like facts about the respondents, and provide appropriate
spaces for the informants to state their own opinions. The result of such questionnaires can
examine the basic understanding of students on English financial terms, particularly
idiomatic ones. By means of this, the participants can show the real difficulties in finding
Vietnamese equivalences for English Finance terminology.
The second type of instrument is semi-structured interview with a group of six female
students from E.20 at ULIS. All of these participants are now attending the double-degree
program at ULIS and UEB, VNU. They are samples to represent the different levels of
language proficiency based on their scholastic achievement of translation and specialized
knowledge. Accordingly, they consist of three distinct students and three good ones. The

level of each participant varies slightly depending on the criterion, that is, study result of
translation or that of specific knowledge. However, it is noticeable that this is such a subtle
difference. This focused-group interview gives the researcher and participants opportunity
to clarify their issues and opinions for higher validity. The two following questions are
administered to the chosen respondents:
- Which method did you use to translate the 50 English Financial terms in Part 1
above?
- Why did you use this method of translation?
Due to time constraint as well as demand for in-depth information on translation methods,
the investigator just only focuses on six ULIS participants, not those from FTU.
18

Besides, 50 highly idiomatic terms, to the best of the author‟s knowledge within the time
available, are also worked on to explore their syntactic and semantic features. These terms
are collected from the materials stated in Aims and Scope of the study, Part 1-Introduction.
2.3. Procedures of data collection
Data are gathered through three following stages.
Stage 1
In the initial phase, English financial terms and questions to implement the survey were
prepared, and so was the interview schedule. The selected items for data collection were
taken into careful consideration by the researcher and her supervisor to ensure that their
level of difficulty, length, and information were appropriate.
Stage 2
Piloting the survey was conducted prior to the start of data collection. A sample of five
people who were similar to the target population of this study was asked to go through the
items and answer them, and then to provide feedback about their reactions and the answers
they had given. In this step, the investigator was present to observe in order that she could
take notes and respond to any spontaneous questions and comments. Besides, the
researcher also provided her pilot group with some basic guidelines to focus on when
doing the survey like marking ambiguous wording or inappropriate information of items.

Based on the pilot study result, some modifications were made to some survey questions.
For example, options of the question “How many per cents do financial terms account for
in a subject-matter related text in your opinion?” were adjusted by narrowing the range
from 1% to 15% instead of between 1% and 60%, and fluctuation band is 5% in place of
20%. To take another instance, the researcher also made alterations to the multiple choice
questions on properties of terminology which was afterwards turned into question of
ranking order items. Remarkably, the first part “Translation” in the survey and follow-up
“Focused-group interview” were added to enhance the validity of the research. Absolutely,
the length of time necessary to complete the final version of survey was longer - one week
as a substitute of 15 minutes.
In general, these trial runs allowed the investigator to fine-tune the survey and eliminate
19

obvious glitches before official delivery to real participants.
Stage 3
To group 1, at first, the researcher made contact with all of the participants by phone to ask
for their favor. She introduced the basic information on the content of survey as well as the
procedure of completing it to them in the phone conversations. Then, if the participants
agreed to help, she would send the Vietnamese survey to each of them via personal email.
Such means of delivery was considered reasonable to both the researcher and participants.
In fact, this type of participants was currently studying or working in different places.
Undoubtedly, it was very hard and challenging to make appointment with the participants.
On these grounds, the researcher used email to send the package of survey to the
informants. However, to ensure that all of the respondents could receive the questionnaire
and understand its items fully, this way of delivery required having correct email address
of each member of this group and explicit instructions on doing the survey. Subsequently,
the researcher would process the data to discover the participants‟ difficulties in handling
the idiomaticity of English terminology in Finance as well as solutions to find Vietnamese
equivalents.
To group 2, the instructor provided English surveys for the informants directly. Their

answers were collected after one week of delivery. Following the surveys, six selected
participants were interviewed to probe for additional data. To serve this purpose, a couple
of principal questions were designed for them to answer. As an interviewer, the
investigator may come up with the interviewees‟ different reactions. Therefore, the
interviewer may try to help the interviewees to open up and express their ideas clearly and
focus on the issues at hand rather than wander to unrelated topics. The semi-structured
interviews were recorded using detailed notes with an audiotape recorder as a back up. A
full and detailed record of each participant's responses was produced on completion of
each interview. Noticeably, the confidentiality of the process was assured.
Based on the collected data from Group 1 and Group 2, the researcher did the analyses,
interpretations and conclusions to help validate the accuracy and credibility of the study.
She also made some comparison between two groups to draw fundamental findings.
As far as 50 terms in the survey are concerned, the investigator selected them from the
20

mentioned materials and categorized them. These terms were then analyzed to discover
their features in terms of syntax and semantics.
2.4. Procedure of data analysis
The analysis in this study was mainly limited to questionnaire responses and interview data
that were collected. Collected data were coded and charted for each group of participants.
The figures in the charts were explained, in some cases, together with practical experience
of the researcher.
In an attempt to ensure the reliability of the analysis, the researcher concentrated on the
sample terms to seek their characteristics, experience the difficulties caused by their
idiomaticity, and worked out the solutions to tackle these difficulties.
21

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Results

3.1.1. Syntactic idiomaticity of English financial terms
From the perspective of syntax, English idiomatic financial terms are basically compound
nouns which make up a large part of the vocabulary of business English (Longman
Business English Dictionary, 2007). They consist of two or more words joined together to
form a single lexical unit (Close, 1975). This remark is clarified in details through the
process of surveying.
After analysis, it can be discovered that of the 50 terms chosen in the survey questionnaire,
there are 4 single words, 4 phrases, and 42 compound nouns.
Here is table 3 which illustrates this result:
Single words
Compound nouns
Phrases
Boutique
Ceiling
Peanuts
Writer
Asset stripper, bear market, blackleg, blue-chip,
boutique, building society, bull market, call
option, cash cow, ceiling, clean collection,
current account, dead-cat bounce, dirty-float,
face value, fallen angel, fresh money, funny
money, haircut, hard asset, hard/ready cash, hot
card, junk bond, lame duck, long position, lump
sum, money-spinner, naked position, nest egg,
open account, peanuts, poison pill, put option,
red ink, seed money/seed corn, short position,
shout position, smart/chip card, soft market,
standing order, strike price, time decay, upset
price, volatility smile, white knight.
Over-the-counter market

Wall of money
Dirty price of bond
Go-go
Table 3: Types of English idiomatic financial terms in terms of syntax