Các danh ngữ và cấu trúc sử dụng phổ biến trong sách và tạp chí kinh tế bằng tiếng Anh – Một số giải pháp dịch tối ưu

TRƯờNG ĐạI HọC KINH Tế QUốC DÂN
KHOA NGOạI NGữ KINH Tế
Đề TàI NGHIÊN CứU KHOA HọC CấP CƠ
Sở
Mã số: KTQD/E2013.63
Main noun phrases and structures used in English
books and journals for Economics and business
The best solutions to translate them
Hµ Néi, 6/2014
2
TRƯờNG ĐạI HọC KINH Tế QUốC DÂN
KHOA NGOạI NGữ KINH Tế
Đề TàI NGHIÊN CứU KHOA HọC CấP CƠ
Sở
Mã số: KTQD/E2013.63
Main noun phrases and structures used in English
books and journals for Economics and business
The best solutions to translate them
(Cỏc danh ng v cu trỳc s dng ph bin trong sỏch v tp chớ kinh t
bng ting Anh Mt s gii phỏp dch ti u)
Chủ nhiệm đề tài : ts. Phạm thị tuyết hơng
Các thành viên đề tài: Ths. Nguyễn thị thúy
Ths. PHM TH QUNH HOA
THS. NGUYN TH HNG HNH
THS. NGễ THY LAN
THS. PHM TH THU TRANG
THS. NGUYN PHNG HOI
THS. PHAN THỊ THANH HƯƠNG
Hµ Néi, 6/2014
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
A : Adverbial
C : complement
Cs : Complement of subject
ESP : English for special purposes
NP : Noun phrase
O : Object
Od : Direct object
Oi : Indirect object
Oprep : Object of preposition
P : Verb or Verb phrase (Predicate)
S : Subject
S1 : Subject of English passive sentence
S2 : Agent of action in passive sentence
V : Verb
Ven : Verb in past participle form
VP : Verb phrase
(1) : The number of an extracted example
(1:2) : 1 is the number of a reference book in the list of reference books and 2 is
the number of the page in a material for an extracted example.
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Anybody who researches or teaches English knows well that the syntax in English, in
more detail, phrases and sentence structures, is studied by many English as well as
Vietnamese linguists and they have had many achievements in this field. Here are the
most famous authors in English: R. Quirk and S. Greenbaum (1976), R. Huddleston
(1984), T. Givon (1993), R.A. Jacobs (1995)… These authors gave their concepts
about the elements in a phrase, the classifications of phrases, simple sentence… For
example, most of them agree that there are 5 types of phrases in English, such as noun
phrases, verb phrases, adiective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases.

When studying sentence structure, R. Quirk and S. Greenbaum (1976) stated that a
simple sentence is a sentence that consists of only one clause and there are 7 basic
types of clause in English: SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOA, SVOC, SVOO and SV (in these
clauses S is subject, V is verb, A is adverbial, C is complement and O is object). In
these clauses A, C and O are compulsory elements. According to R. Huddleston
(1984), a simple sentence is an unmarked clause. That is, syntactically, it is a basic
clause. According to him, all the kernel clauses are narrative sentences. They have the
following order: S + P + C. In this order S is subject, P is verb or verb phrase playing
the role of predicate, C is complement.
According to T. Givon (1993), simple sentences are simple verbal clauses. These
simple clauses are used to describe all types of other clauses in syntax. Another
reliable concept of sentence structure is R.A. Jacobs’ one (1995). He considered,
structurally, English simple sentences are made by two main elements. They are
noun phrase and verb phrase. Noun phrases always play the role of the subject of a
sentence and verb phrases always play the role of the predicate of a sentence. When
studying noun phrases these authors also gave concepts and structures of a noun
7
phrase. Almost all the authors agreed that a typical English noun phrase consists of
three parts: predeterminer, noun head and postdeterminer
In Vietnam many linguists gave the concepts of a noun phrase and sentence
structure as well. For example, Hoang Trong Phien (1980), Scientific and Social
Committee (1983), Nguyen Tai Can (1999), Mai Ngoc Chu (the chief) (2003), Diep
Quang Ban (2004), Nguyen Minh Thuyet and Nguyen Van Hiep (2004)…And there
are some works that contrasted English and Vietnamese noun phrases, such as Vu
Ngoc Tu (1996), Dang Ngoc Huong (2009) etc.
However so far in English as well as in Vietnamese there have not been any works
that study English main noun phrases and sentence structures used in economics
and business and how to translate them into Vietnamese. So studying this topic we
hope that the results of the study will contribute a part in reducing difficulties not
only in teaching and learning English, but also in translating English books,

materials, documents on economics and business… into Vietnamese.
In addition, in the process of teaching and studying English in economics and
business at Hanoi National Economics University we realized that students always
confuse to differ which noun is the main noun in an English noun phrase or how to
translate some English passive sentences and sentences with pronoun “It” into
Vietnamese. So when students translate these structures into Vietnamese they have
many difficulties.
The result of this topic is also an important and necessary document to help teachers
and students with some knowledge of English and Vietnamese grammar as well as
some knowledge of translation. They will understand and translate English books
on Economics and Business into Vietnamese more easily and more correctly.
2. Aims of the study
To translate a scientific document in general, a document on economics and
business in particular, from English into Vietnamese correctly, the knowledge of
basic and common sentence structures in this style is very important and useful. It
plays a big role in the success of the translation. In addition to sentence structures,
8
noun phrases are important as well. In economics and business noun phrases are the
most active words used to make the main content of the text. So the aim of the study
is to find these structures and noun phrases. Except for that, the authors of the topic
would like to give the best and the most common solutions to English-Vietnamese
translation of these structures. The result of this study will help teachers, especially
inexperienced teachers, at National Economics University who are translating at the
moment English books, materials and documents on economics and business into
Vietnamese.
3. Research questions
- Which common English noun phrases and sentence structures are mainly
used in economics and business?
- The reasons for the use of these noun phrases and structures in English books
and journals on economics and business?

- Which English noun phrases and sentence structures have equivalents in
Vietnamese? Which are not?
- Are there any solutions to English-Vietnamese translation of these non-
equivalents?
4. Object and scope of the study
4.1. Object of the study
In the study we focus on common noun phrases and sentence structures used
in English-Vietnamese books on economics and business. They are Insurance
principles and practice, compiled by Dr. David Bland, 1993 (English –
Vietnamese); Principles of accounting (Vietnamese – English), 2010. Belverd E.
Neddles Jr, HenryR, Anderson, James C, Caldewel; Thư tín thương mại tiếng Anh,
2009 (English – Vietnamese), translated by Nguyen thanh Yen; and some journals
of Economics and Development – the main journal of Hanoi National Economics
University, and its translations.
4.2. Scope of the study
9
We study these structures only in the field of syntax. We will take examples
from these English and Vietnamese books and journals on economics and business:
they are bilingual English-Vietnamese books on insurance and accounting; and the
journals on economics and development. We will study only written English-
Vietnamese translation.
5. Methods of the study
The main methods used in this study are description, statistics, and
contrastive analysis. The study will take English as the basic language and
Vietnamese is the language to be compared.
All the data from the mentioned books and journals are classified and
organized in different groups of their syntactic structures.
In addition, with the knowledge of English and Vietnamese grammar,
especially the knowledge of noun phrases and sentence structures that we have
obtained from the study, and through the Vietnamese translations of experienced

teachers of economics and business we find out the best solutions to translate the
noun phrases and main structures from English into Vietnamese.
6. Design of the study: The study consists of three parts:
Part I: Introduction: This part provides an overview of the research
including (1) rationale of the study, (2) aims of the study, (3) research questions,
(4) scope of the study, (5) methods of the study and (6) the design of the study.
Part II: Content: This part consists of four chapters:
Chapter 1, Theoretical background, provides a theoretical framework of phrase,
noun phrase, sentence structure and translation
Chapter 2: The main noun phrases in English books and journals on economics and
business
Chapter 3: The main sentence structures in English books and journals on
economics and business
Chapter 4: Some solutions for translating the main noun phrases and sentence
structures in English books and journals on economics and business
10
Part III: Conclusion
Reference books
Part II: Content
CHAPTER 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Definitions of the phrase
According to Sidney Greenbaum (1996), the phrase comes between the word and
the clause in the hierarchy of grammatical units.
There are five phrases in English. They are distinguished: noun phrase, verb phrase,
adjective phrase, adverb phrase and prepositional phrase. These five types of
phrases are named after the class of the words that is the head of the phrase. For
example (the examples are S.Greenbaum’s):
1. noun phrase: recent deluges of reports (head: deluges)
2. verb phrase: might have been accepted (head: accepted)

3. adjective phrase: surprisingly normal (head: normal)
4. adverb phrase: more closely (head: closely)
5. prepositional phrase: for a moment (head: for)
According to Cambridge learner’s dictionary (2001), a phrase is a group of words
which are often used together and have a particular meaning.
According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/noun_phrase, traditionally, a phrase is
understood to contain two or more words. The traditional progression in the size of
syntactic units is word < phrase < clause and in this approach a single word (such as
a noun or pronoun) would not be referred to as a phrase. However, many modern
schools of syntax, especially those that have been influenced by X-bar theory make
no such restriction. Here many single words are judged to be phrases based on a
desire for theory – internal consistency. A phrase is deemed to be a word or a
11
combination of words that appears in a set syntactic position, for instance in subject
position or object position.
1.2. Definitions of the noun phrase
Roderick A.Jacobs (1995) considered noun phrases are used to refer things people
want to talk about, things as varied as boiled eggs, petroleum, hopes for a lasting
peace, and the prime minister of Sweden. The entities that noun phrases refer to are
known as their referents. Sometimes a noun phrase has no referent. The noun phrase
the president of the United States in 1941 has the man Franklin Delano Roosevelt as
its referent. However, the noun phrase the president of the United States in1066 has
no referent, although someone writing a fantasy might imagine one.
In his book (1996), Sidney Greenbaum said a noun phrase is a phrase whose head
(possibly its only word) is a noun (coffee in “I prefer black coffee”), a pronoun (that
in “I prefer that”), or a nominal adjective (elderly in “I prefer catering for the
elderly”)
In en.wikipedia.org/wiki/noun_phrase, a noun phrase or nominal phrase (NP) is a
phrase which has a noun (or indefinite pronoun) as its head word, or which
performs the same grammatical function as such a phrase.

On this understanding of the noun phrase, the nouns or pronouns in the following
sentences are noun phrases (rather than just nouns and pronouns):
1. He saw someone.
2. Milk is good.
3. They spoke about corruption.
1.3. The structure of the noun phrase
According to Sidney Greenbaum (1996), a noun phrase has as its head a noun, a
pronoun, a nominal adjective, or a numeral.
Some of noun phrases consist of a single word. However, most of them have more
than one word.
12
Noun phrases may have modifiers. These may add information that characterizes
more specifically what the head refers to. Modifiers are dependent on the head and
can be omitted without disturbing the structure of the sentence, but like adverbials
they are usually important informationally and in that sense they cannot be omitted
without damaging the communication.
We can now represent the structure of the typical noun phrase (NP) that has a noun
as its head (we take the structure and examples from S.Greenbaum’s book (1996)).
The parentheses indicate the elements of the structure that may be absent.
NP
(determiners) (premodifier (s)) noun head (postmodifier (s))
For example:
(1) A second – class citizen of his own clan.
More than one determiner can introduce a noun phrase, for example, all and our in (2):
(2) In the initial sorties all our aircraft have returned safely.
According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/noun_phrase, a typical noun phrase consists of
a noun (the head of the phrase) together with zero or more modifiers of various
types. The chief types of these modifiers are:
1. Determiners, such as the, this, my, some etc.
2. Attributive adjectives, such as large, beautiful, sweeter etc.

3. Adjective phrases and participial phrases, such as extremely large, hard as nails,
made of wood, sitting on the step etc.
4. Noun adjuncts, such as college in the noun phrase a college student
5. Prepositional phrases, such as in the drawing room, of his aunt
6. Relative clauses, such as which we noticed
7. Other clauses serving as complements to the noun, such as that God exists in the
noun phrase the belief that God exists
13
8. Infinitive phrases, such as to sing well and to beat in the noun phrases a desire to
sing well and a man to beat
1.4. Functions of the noun phrase
According to Sidney Greenbaum (1996), a noun phrase can be:
1. Subject
(3) And my earliest memory of the theatre is going to the Hippodrome in Ipswich.
2. Direct object
(4) Sign your name there.
3. Indirect object
(5) I always tell people I am not a musical person.
4. Subject predicative
(6) Uh faith has been a gift for me.
5. Object predicative.
(7) I called this little talk a survey of global bifurcations.
6. Complement of a preposition
(8) Uhm but isn’t it in French?
7. Premodifier of a noun or noun phrase
(9) Simon’s on this revision course.
8. Vocative
(10) You are a snob Dad.
9. Adverbial
Noun phrases function as adverbials in expressions of time, location, direction,

manner, and intensification. For example:
(11) But you have to wait a long time.
(12) The flag goes up far side.
(13) Some of it is coming out this way.
(14) The loss in nineteen seventy hit him a great deal.
14
10. Premodifier of adjective
(15) The plane was 4 hours late.
11. Premodifier of preposition
(16) He revealed that Washington had informed the Kremlin an hour before the
start of the assault.
12. Premodifier of adverb
(17) Now Mercedes have always been good at insulating their car but they’ve gone
a stage further with this.
13. Postmodifier of noun
(18) Women may suffer from lack of “acceptable partners” because too many of the
men their age are dead.
14. Postmodifier of adjective
(19) We’re short fifteen dollars.
Pronouns and nominal adjectives can perform the first six of the functions listed
above for noun phrases. Clauses that serve the functions performed by noun phrases
are termed nominal clauses (or noun clauses). The concept of clause we can see in
the next part of the study.
1.5. Some concepts of sentence structure
Before giving some concepts of English linguists about sentence structure we would
like to show their concepts of clauses.
According to Roderick A. Jacobs (1995), clauses are constructions with one phrase
constituent typically a noun phrase that bears the subject relation and another
constituent, the verb phrase, bearing the predicate relation. For example, the
construction A woman in a 1993 Jaguar sedan cannot be a clause because it lacks a

verb phrase. Here is one example of a clause: Clara delayed her graduation. The
subject of a clause is Clara and the verb phrase is delayed her graduation. This
clause can stand on its own as a sentence.
According to Sidney Greenbaum (1996), a clause is a construction that typically
15
consists minimally of a subject and a verb (I laughed), though in an imperative
clause the subject is generally absent but implied, so that minimally only the verb
needs to be present (sit!). A clause may be within a larger construction: coordinated
with another clause (the two clauses coordinated by and in I paid this time and you
pay next time), or subordinated within another clause (the subordinate whether –
clause in They asked whether I would pay), or within a phrase (the that clause in the
noun phrase The company that employed me). In all the examples given so far, the
clauses are finite in that their verb phrase is finite. But clauses may be non-finite
(the infinitive clause in I wanted to pay, the –ing participle clause in I enjoy playing,
and the –ed participle clause in They wanted the house sold before the end of the
year) or verbless (the when clause in When in Rome, do as the Romans do). A set of
clauses interrelated by coordination or subordination (or minimally one clause that
is independent of any such links) constitutes a sentence (or a less misleading term
for the spoken language– a clause cluster)
According to Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum (1976), in order to state
general rules about the construction of sentences, it is constantly necessary to refer
to smaller units than the sentence itself. Traditionally, there is a primary distinction
between subject and predicate. For example:
(20) John carefully searched the room.
(21) The girl is now a student at a large university.
(22) His brother grew happier gradually.
According to these authors a simple sentence is a sentence that consists of only one
clause and it may alternatively be seen as comprising five units called elements of
sentences and also of clauses within sentences. They are subject, verb, complement,
object and adverbial. They are abbreviated as S, V, C, O and A. For example:

(23) It rained steadily all day.
S V A A
(24) He had given the girl an apple.
S V O O
16
(25) They make him the chairman every year.
S V O C A
According to Roderick A. Jacobs (1995), the major elements in the sentence are a
subject noun phrase, a verb and an object noun phrase. For example:
(26) Cassius sees Brutus.
S V O
According to him, to understand the internal organization of sentences and the
distribution of the units forming them, we must consider three major properties of
sentence structure:
1. Linearity: Sentences are produced and received in a linear sequence.
2. Hierarchy: Sentences are hierarchically structured, that is, they are not
simply sequences of individual words but are made up of word groupings,
which themselves may consist of lesser groupings.
3. Categoriality: Sentences are made up of parts which belong to a set of
distinct categories, each with its special characteristics.
Through the materials and examples that we have collected we realize that in most
English books and journals on economics and business authors use a lot of noun
phrases consisting of a head noun with attributive adjectives, adjective phrases,
participial phrases, noun adjunct, prepositional phrases… as modifiers and
structures such as passive voice, relative clauses, sentences with pronoun subject
“IT” etc. In this study we would like to focus on these common noun phrases and
structures.
1.6. Some concepts of translation
1.6.1. What is translation?
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, “translation is the communication of the

meaning of a source language text by means of an equivalent target language text.”
According to Peter Newmark (1988), translation is “rendering the meaning of a text
into another language in the way that the author intended the text. Common sense
17
tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as
well in one language as in another.”
Through these definitions of translation we can see that equivalence in translation is
very necessary and important. So what is equivalence in translation?
1.6.2. Equivalence in translation
There are many researches about translation theories in western translation history.
Among them are researches about equivalence in translation and methods of
translation. In this study we would like to look at equivalence in more detail. In our
opinion equivalence in translation has always been the central issue of discussion.
We can see these equivalences at word level, above word level (that means
collocations, idioms and expressions). In addition, equivalence can be grammatical
(for example, word order equivalence); textual (thematic and information structures,
cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical); pragmatic
(coherence). In this study we would like to give readers knowledge of equivalence
at word level more deeply.
According to Mona Baker (1992), translation problems can arise from lack of
equivalence at word level. He gave a question: “What does a translator do when
there is no word in the target language which expresses the same meaning as the
source language word?
Through Mona Baker’s analysis we understand more that there is no one-to-one
correspondence between orthographic words and elements of meaning within or
across languages. Besides, according to Zgusta (1971: 67) (extracted from Mona
Baker (1992), every word (lexical unit) has something that is individual, that makes
it different from any other word, and it is just the lexical meaning which is the most
outstanding individual property of the word.
According to Cruse (1986) (in Mona Baker (1992), we can distinguish four main

types of meaning in words and utterances (utterances being stretches of written or
spoken text): propositional meaning, expressive meaning, presupposed meaning and
evoked meaning. The propositional meaning of a word or an utterance arises from
18
the relation between it and what it refers to or describes in a real or imaginary
world, as conceived by the speakers of the particular language to which the word or
utterance belongs. This type of meaning provides the basis on which we can judge
an utterance as true or false. The expressive meaning relates to the speaker’s feeling
or attitude rather than to what words and utterances refer to. According to Mona
Baker (1992), two or more words or utterances can therefore have the same
propositional meaning but differ in their expressive meanings. The presupposed
meaning arises from co-occurrence restrictions, i.e. restrictions on what other words
or expressions we expect to see before or after a particular lexical unit. The evoked
meaning arises from dialect and register variation. A dialect is a variety of language
which has currency within a specific community or group of speakers. Register is a
variety of language that a language user considers appropriate to a specific
situation. Register variation arises from variations in the field, tenor and mode of
discourse.
Of all the types of lexical meaning explained above, the only one which relates to
the truth or falsehood of an utterance and which can consequently be challenged by
a reader or hearer is propositional meaning. All other types of lexical meaning
contribute to the overall meaning of an utterance or a text in subtle and complex
ways and are often much more difficult to analyze. To reiterate, it is rarely possible in
practice to separate the various types of meaning in a word or utterance. Likewise, it is
rarely possible to define even the basic propositional meaning of a word or utterance
with absolute certainty. This is because the nature of language is such that, in the
majority of cases, words have “blurred edges”; their meanings are, to a large extent,
negotiable and are only realized in specific contexts. The task of a translator here is to
perceive the meanings of words and utterances precisely in order to render them into
another language. This forces translators to go far beyond what the average reader has

to do in order to reach an adequate understanding of a text.
1.6.3. Some common problems of non-equivalence in translation
According to Mona Baker (1992), at word level there are some common types of
19
non-equivalence which often pose difficulties for the translator and she gives some
attested strategies for dealing with them. According to her, non-equivalence at word
level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word which
occurs in the source text. The following are some common types of non-
equivalence at word level:
a. Culture-specific concepts
The source language word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the
target culture. The concept in question may be abstract or concrete. It may relate to
a religious belief, a social custom, or even a type of food. Such concepts are often
referred to as “culture - specific”.
b. The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language
The source language word may express a concept which is known in the target
culture but simply not lexicalized, that is not “allocated” a target language word to
express it.
c. The source-language word is semantically complex
This is fairly common problem in translation. A single word which consists of a
single morpheme can sometimes express a more complex set of meanings than a
whole sentence. We do not usually realize how semantically complex a word is
until we have to translate it into a language which does not have an equivalent for it.
d. The source and target languages make different distinctions in meaning
The target language may make more or fewer distinctions in meaning than the
source language. What one language regards as an important distinction in meaning
another language may not perceive as relevant.
e. The target language lacks a super-ordinate
The target language may have specific words (hyponyms) but no general word
(super-ordinate) to head the semantic field.

f. The target language lacks a specific term (hyponym)
More commonly, languages tend to have general words (super-ordinates) but lack
specific ones (hyponyms), since each language makes only those distinctions in
20
meaning which seem relevant to its particular environment.
g. Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective
Physical perspective may be of importance in one language than it is in another.
Physical perspective has to do with where things or people are in relation to one
another or to a place, as expressed in pairs of words such as come/ go, take/ bring,
arrive/ depart and so on. Perspective may also include the relationship between
participants in the discourse.
h. Differences in expressive meaning
There may be a target language word which has the same propositional meaning as
the source language word, but it may have a different expressive meaning. The
difference may be considerable or it may be subtle but important enough to pose a
translation problem in a given context. It is usually easier to add expressive
meaning than to subtract it
i. Differences in form
There is often no equivalent in the target language for a particular form in the
source text. Certain suffixes and prefixes which convey propositional and other
types of meaning in English often have no direct equivalents in other languages. It
is relatively easy to paraphrase propositional meaning, but other types of meaning
cannot always be spelt out in a translation. Their subtle contribution to the overall
meaning of the text is either lost altogether or recovered elsewhere by means of
compensatory techniques. It is the most important for translators to understand the
contribution that affixes make to the meaning of words and expressions, especially
since such affixes are often used creatively in English to coin new words for various
reasons, such as filling temporary semantic gaps in the language and creating
humor. Their contribution is also important in the area of terminology and
standardization.

j. Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms
Even when a particular form does have a ready equivalent in the target language,
there may be a difference in the frequency with which it is used or the purpose for
21
which it is used.
k. The use of loan words in the source text
The use of loan words in the source text poses a special problem in translation.
Quite apart from their respective prepositional meaning, loan words such as
au fait, chic, and alfresco in English are often used for their prestige value, because
they can add an air of sophistication to the text or its subject matter.
This is often lost in translation because it is not always possible to find a loan word
with the same meaning in the target language.
1.6.4. Some strategies for dealing with these problems
Mona Baker (19992) also gives some strategies for dealing with various types of
non-equivalence at word level. We can now look at her examples (in English) of
strategies used by professional translators for dealing with various types of
nonequivalence. In each example, the source-language word which represents a
translation problem is underlined. The strategy used by the translator is highlighted
in bold in both the original translation and the back-translated version.
- Translation by a more general word (super-ordinate)
This is one of the commonest strategies for dealing with many types of non-
equivalence, particularly in the area of propositional meaning. It works equally well
in most, if not all, languages, since the hierarchical structure of semantic fields is
not language-specific. For example:
(27) Shampoo the hair with a mild WELLA-SHAMPOO and lightly towel dry.
-> Wash hair with a mild WELLA shampoo and rub lightly with a towel.
The above example illustrates the use of a general word (super-ordinate) to
overcome a relative lack of specificity in a target language compared to
a source language. ‘Shampooing’ can be seen as a type of ‘washing’ since
it is more restricted in its use: you can wash lots of things but you can only

shampoo hair.
- Translation by a more neutral/ less expressive word
22
For example: (Source text China’s Panda Reserves)
(28) Many of the species growing wild here are familiar to us as plants cultivated in
European gardens – species like this exotic lily.
->We are very familiar with many varieties of the wild life here, they are
the kind grown in European gardens – varieties like this strange unique
lily flower. (Target text (back-translated from Chinese)
Exotic has no equivalent in Chinese and other oriental languages. It is a word used
by westerners to refer to unusual, interesting things which come from a distant
country such as China. The orient does not have a concept of what is exotic in this
sense and the expressive meaning of the word is therefore lost in translation.
- Translation by cultural substitution
This strategy involves replacing a culture-specific item or expression with a target-
language item which does not have the same propositional meaning but is likely to
have a similar impact on the target reader. The main advantage of using this
strategy is that it gives the reader a concept with which s/he can identify something
familiar and appealing. For example:
(29) The Patrick Collection has restaurant facilities to suit every taste –from the
discerning gourmet, to the Cream Tea expert.
> . . . to satisfy all tastes: from those of the demanding gastronomist to those of
the expert in pastry. (Target text (back-translated from Italian)
In Britain, cream tea is ‘an afternoon meal consisting of tea to drink and scones
with jam and clotted cream to eat. It can also include sandwiches and cakes.’
Cream tea has no equivalent in other cultures. The Italian translator replaced it with
‘pastry’, which does not have the same meaning (for one thing, cream tea is a meal
in Britain, whereas ‘pastry’ is only a type of food). However, ‘pastry’ is familiar to
the Italian reader and therefore provides a good cultural substitute.
- Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation

This strategy is particularly common in dealing with culture-specific items, modern
23
concepts, and buzz words. Following the loan word with an explanation is very
useful when the word in question is repeated several times in the text. Once
explained, the loan word can then be used on its own; the reader can understand it
and is not distracted by further lengthy explanations.
- Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words
If the concept expressed by the source item is not lexicalized at all in the target
language, the paraphrase strategy can still be used in some contexts. Instead of a
related word, the paraphrase may be based on modifying a super-ordinate or simply
on unpacking the meaning of the source item, particularly if the item in question is
semantically complex.
- Translation by omission
This strategy may sound rather drastic, but in fact it does no harm to omit
translating a word or expression in some contexts. If the meaning conveyed by a
particular item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to
justify distracting the reader with lengthy explanations, translators can and often do
simply omit translating the word or expression in question.
- Translation by illustration
This is a useful option if the word which lacks an equivalent in the target language
refers to a physical entity which can be illustrated, particularly if there are
restrictions on space and if the text has to remain short, concise, and to the point.
1.7. English for special purposes (ESP)
According to Dudley Evans (1997), in terms of absolute characteristics, ESP is
defined to meet specific needs of the learners. It makes use of underlying
methodology and activities of the discipline it served. ESP is centered on the
language appropriate to these activities in terms of grammar, lexis, register, study
skills, discourse and genre. In term of variable characteristics, ESP may be related
to or designed for specific disciplines. It may use, in specific teaching situations, a
different methodology from that of General English. ESP is likely to be designed

for adult learners, either at tertiary level institution or in a professional work
24
situation. In general it is designed for intermediate or advanced students. According
to Hutchinson et al (1987), the difference between the ESP and General English
approach is nothing in theory, but in practice - a great deal.
According to “Lexical equivalence in business English translation” (2009),
Business English is English used in business context. It is a combination of
knowledge in both business and language. Being faithful is of primary important in
business English translation, but a translation only faithful to the original is far from
adequate if it is not appropriate to the original in style. Therefore, in doing business
translation, the translators should always keep in mind the specific purposes and
functions of the original texts and make attempts to render the closest natural
equivalent in the target language (that is Vietnamese)
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ESP is a sphere of teaching English
language including Business English, Technical English, Scientific English, English
for medical professionals, English for waiters, English for tourism, English for Art
purposes etc.
1.8. Sub - conclusion
Through chapter 1 we can understand more about English phrases in general
and noun phrases in particular, such as definitions of phrase, noun phrase, structure
and functions of noun phrase. When studying sentence structure we should
understand that there are three main properties of sentence structure: linearity,
hierarchy and categoriality. In chapter 1 we can also have knowledge about
equivalence, non-equivalence in translation, especially at word level and some
strategies for dealing with non-equivalence problems in translation.
25