Misinterpretations in translating ambiguous sentences by can tho university english majors

CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
….. …..

MISINTERPRETATIONS IN TRANSLATING
AMBIGUOUS SENTENCES BY CAN THO
UNIVERSITY ENGLISH MAJORS
B.A.Thesis

Supervisor:
Lưu Hoàng Anh, M.A.

Student:
Nguyễn Thị Cương
Code: 7062896
B.Ed. Class NN0652A1
Course: 32

Can Tho, April 2010


CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.......................................................................... page iii
ABSTRACT................................................................................................. page iv
LIST OF CHARTS, TABLES AND CHARTS ............................................ page v
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ....................................................... page 1
1.1 Rationale ........................................................................................ page 1
1.2 Research aims ............................................................................... page 2
1. 3 Research questions ........................................................................ page 2

1.4 Research hypotheses....................................................................... page 2
1.5 Research organization .................................................................... page 2
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................... page 3
2.1 Some definitions of translation ....................................................... page 3
2.2 Process of translation ..................................................................... page 3
2.3 Translation method ........................................................................ page 4
2.4 Definition of ambiguity .................................................................. page 4
2.5 Lexical ambiguity and its types ...................................................... page 5
2.5.1 Definition of lexical ambiguity ..................................... page 5
2.5.2 Types of lexical ambiguity............................................ page 5
2.5.2.1 Polysemy .......................................................... page 5
2.5.2.2 Homonymy....................................................... page 5
2.6 Structural ambiguity and its types .................................................. page 6
2.6.1 Definition of structural ambiguity ................................. page 6
2.6.2 Types of structural ambiguity ....................................... page 6
2.6.2.1 Attachment ambiguity ...................................... page 6
2.6.2.2 Gap-finding and filling ambiguity .................... page 7
2.6.2.3 Coordination ambiguity .................................... page 7
2.7 Ambiguity in translation ................................................................ page 7
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ................................................. page 9
3.1 Research design .............................................................................. page 9
3.2 Research participants...................................................................... page 9
3.2.1 Student participants ...................................................... page 9
3.2.2 Teacher participants ...................................................... page 9
3.3 Research instruments...................................................................... page 9

i


3.3.1 Translation test ............................................................... page 9

3.3.2 Interview ........................................................................ page 10
3.4 Research procedure ........................................................................ page 10
3.5 Data analysis .................................................................................. page 11
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .............. page 12
4.1 Students’ problems with ambiguity ................................................ page 12
4.2 Differences in the score between lexical ambiguity and structural
ambiguity ........................................................................................ page 13
4.2.1 The test result in lexical ambiguity and structural
ambiguity ............................................................................... page 13
4.2.2 An analysis of each item................................................. page 14
4.3 Recommendations .......................................................................... page 23
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS ........................................................ page 25
5.1 Discussions ................................................................................... page 25
5.2 Limitations ..................................................................................... page 26
5.3 Suggestions for Further research .................................................... page 26
APPENDICES ............................................................................................ page 28
APPENDIX 1: Translation test............................................................. page 28
APPENDIX 2: Answer keys for translation test ................................... page 30
APPENDIX 3: The scale to score the translation test ........................... page 32
APPENDIX 4: Interview questions ...................................................... page 33
APPENDIX 5: The table of test result .................................................. page 34
APPENDIX 6: Scale: all variables ....................................................... page 36
REFERENCES ........................................................................................... page 38

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In writing the thesis, I acknowledged the help from a number of people; their
influence remains in the new version. Firstly, I would like to express my deep

gratitude to my supervisor, Luu Hoang Anh M.A., for her constructive comments and
criticism in the most positive and encouraging fashion.
Secondly, I would like to express my great thanks to Huynh Trung Tin M.A. and
Vuong Le Thien Thanh M.A., for their valuable help, when I collected the data. Many
thanks go to Truong Nguye Quynh Nhu M.A. and Le Thi Huyen M.A., for their
valuable suggestions to make the research better.
Thirdly, I was extremely fortunate to get the comments from teachers of Can Tho
University, especially those of the English Education Department, who helped me
with innumerous ways during the research and choose the research topic.
Next, many thanks go to all CTU four-year English students (course 32) who
took part in the translation test and contributed a great deal to the completion of this
study. I only hope that they will look upon the results of their influence with pleasure.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends for their
support in different ways during the time I carried out this research.
All the best,

Can Tho, April 2010
Nguyen Thi Cuong

iii


ABSTRACT
Lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity are complicated and appear not
only in literature but also in our daily speech. Therefore, they raise a lot of difficulties
such as misinterpretation, mistranslation and confusion for learners, especially in
translation. The purposes of the study is to find out the problems that lead students to
confusion and difficulties in translating ambiguous sentences and then analyze the
problems to withdraw some suggested ways to help students perform well in their
translation. In order to carry out the survey, 70 seniors majoring in English Language

Studies at Can Tho University were chosen as the subjects. At the first stage, the
research instrument was the translation test which included 20 sentences divided into
2 parts: lexical ambiguity (ten items) and structural ambiguity (ten items). According
to their results of translation test, their marks were classified into three classes: below
average, average and above average. During the process of analysis, the researcher
recognized that most of the students did not translate lexical ambiguity and structural
ambiguity well. Most of the students’ translation were divergent and reflected the
sentence meanings differently toward the meanings of the source text. The data
collected proved that lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity were difficult to
translators. It also revealed that between lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity,
the lexical ambiguity was more problematic to students. At the second stage, interview
was conducted to translation teachers and some students to withdraw some possible
ways to help learners overcome their problems in translating ambiguous sentences.

iv


LIST OF CHARTS, TABLES AND FIGURES
Chart 1.1: The process of translation ........................................................... page 3
Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics of the test performance .............................. page 12
Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of the mean scores of lexical ambiguity
and structural ambiguity .............................................................. page 13
Table 3.1: The distribution of types of lexical ambiguity and the scores ..... page 32
Table 4.3: Students’ score ........................................................................... page 35
Table 4.4: Case processing summary ........................................................... page 37
Table 4.5: Reliability statistics ..................................................................... page 37
Table 4.6: Item statistics .............................................................................. page 37
Table 4.7: Summary item statistics .............................................................. page 37
Table 4.8: Item-total statistics ..................................................................... page 37
Table 4.9: Scale Statistics ............................................................................ page 37

Figure 4.1: The mean scores of lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity . page 13

v


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter begins with the rationale that the researcher chooses this field to study,
and then the research aims, research questions and some research hypotheses. It ends
with the research organization to help the readers know how this research is organized.

1.1 Rationale
Translation is a complicated field. During four years at university, many students
have been fully equipped with the knowledge of Linguistic such as An Introduction to
Language, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax, Phonology and Theory of Translation, so
they are able to translate exactly and fluently thanks to their understanding of
language meaning and language uses. However, to

Lam Quang Dong

(), a good translation at present, in the journal about “Về tính
chuyên nghiệp của nghề dịch thuật”, there are a few good translators who can do the
translation with high quality. Besides, if we take part in a translation forum, we will
really recognize that many students seldom succeed in translating even when it is a
simple sentence. Particularly, they have some problems in translation that stem from
the fact that ambiguity in sentence raises confusion and many other difficulties for
those who have learnt English as a foreign language. Moreover, human language
contains ambiguity at many levels of linguistic representation. (Altmann, 1990; Small,
Cottrell, & Tanenhause, 1998). Ambiguity arises in the sentence when more than one
interpretation, so translators can not decide which meaning should be understood. One

of the most significant issues that every translator should take account of is lexical
ambiguity (homonymy and polysemy) and structural ambiguity (attachment
ambiguity, gap-finding and filling ambiguity and coordination ambiguity), because
when a sentence contains ambiguity, it may have more than one meaning.
Furthermore, if a word or a sentence contains modifiers, the translators don’t know
what the modifiers are attached to. Also, different attachments in the sentence may
have more than one meaning. These are the problems that not only the translators but
also the teacher as well as students including the researcher usually face in the
translation, so in this study, the researcher would like to find out whether the last-year
English major students have these problems in translation, and between lexical
ambiguity and structural ambiguity, which one is more problematic. The researcher

1


also hopes to present some solutions to help translator overcome them. Therefore, the
research titled “An Investigation of Ambiguity in Translation of English-Major
Students” was conducted.
1.2 Research aims
The researcher is expected to get three aims. First, it is very necessary to conduct
the research to recognize whether the lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity are
problematic to English major students at Can Tho University or not. Second, the
researcher wants to find out which ambiguity is more problematic to students, lexical
ambiguity or structural ambiguity. Third, the researcher wants to withdraw some
recommendations to help students translate the ambiguous sentences better.
1.3 Research questions
In the study, the researcher will try to answer the following questions:
1. Are lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity problematic to English
major students?
2. Between lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity, which one is more

problematic?
3. What are some possible ways to help translators overcome their problems
of ambiguity in translation?
1.4 Research hypotheses
When conducting this research, the researcher formulated these hypotheses. First,
the students face problems in lexical and structural ambiguity when translating.
Second, between lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity, lexical ambiguity is more
problematic to students. Third, the respondents will give a lot of possible ways of
overcoming ambiguity problems.
1.5 Research organization
The study consists of 5 chapters: Introduction, Literature Review, Research
Methodology, Results, Discussions, Limitations and Suggestions for Further Practice.
Chapter one: Introduction generalizes the rationale, research aims, research
questions, research hypotheses and research organization.
Chapter two: Literature Review provides the background to the research questions.
Chapter three: Research Methodology includes a description of design, participants,
instruments and procedures of the research.
Chapter four: Results analyzes the results of the translation test.
Chapter five: Discussions, Limitations and Suggestions for Further Practice

2


CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Being a key to open the door to all development of the study, part one will start by
giving some definitions of translation. Next, it will introduce process of translation.
Some definitions and typical types of lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity and
ambiguity in translation will be presented in the next parts.

2.1 Some definitions of translation
Prochazkas (as cited in Lawrence Venuit, 2001, p. 131) defines a good
translation in terms of certain requirements which must be made of the translator,
namely:(1) “He must understand the original words thematically and stylistically”, (2)
“He must overcome the differences between the two linguistic structures” and (3) “He
must reconstruct the stylistic structures of the original words in his translation”.
A next definition of translation is that “Translation is the replacement of a
representation of a test in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a
second language” (Bell, 1991).
“Translation (from http:www.completetranslation.com) is the accurate rendering
of a document into another language so that it is suitable for its intended purpose. To
be effective, a translation must be accurate and complete but also grammatically
correct, stylistically appropriate and terminologically consistent.”
2.2 Process of translation
“Translation

consists

of studying the lexicon,

grammatical

structure,

communication situation, and cultural context of the source language text, analyzing it
in order to determine its meaning, and then reconstructing this same meaning using
the lexicon and grammatical structure which are appropriate in the receptor language
and its cultural context.” (Larson, l998, p. 3)

Chart 1: Process of translation (Larson, l998, p. 4)

3


As illustrated in this chart, translation is a process based on the theory that it is
possible to abstract the meaning of a text from its forms and reproduce that meaning
with the very different forms of a second language. In this translation process,
meaning is a very important factor deciding the fidelity of any translation.
2.3 The translation methods (NewMark, 2001)
Here are some typical translation methods normally used in translating.
Word-for-word translation: The source language word-order is preserved and the
words translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context.
Literal translation: The source language grammatical constructions are
converted to their nearest target language equivalents but the lexical words are again
translated singly, out of context.
Faithful translation: A faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise
contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the target language
grammatical structures. It “transfers” cultural words and preserves the degree of
grammatical and lexical “abnormality” in the translation.
Semantic translation: Semantic translation must take more account of the
aesthetic value (that is, the beautiful and natural sound) of the source language text,
compromising on “meaning” where appropriate so that no assonance, word-play or
repetition jars in the finished version.
Free translation: Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or
the content without the form of the original. Usually it is a paraphrase much longer
than the original, a so-called “intralingual translation”, often prolix and pretentious,
and not translation at all.
Communicative translation: Communicative translation attempts to render the
exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that content and language are
readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership.

Service translation: That is translation from one’s language habitual use into
another language.
Information translation: This conveys all the information in a non-literary text,
sometimes rearranged in a more logical form, sometimes partially summarized, and
not a form of a paraphrase.
2.4 Definitions of ambiguity
Ambiguity is an expression whose meaning cannot be determined from its
context. In other words, phrase or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one

4


meaning (Le, 2003). An example for ambiguous word is that the word “light” can
mean “not very heavy” or “not very dark”. An example for ambiguous phrase is that
the phrase “an old English teacher” can mean an old teacher/ experienced teacher
who is from England or an old teacher/ experienced teacher who teaches English
language or a teacher who teaches the old English language. The ambiguous sentence
“Sherlock saw the man using binoculars.” can mean whether Sherlock saw the man
who has binoculars or Sherlock used binoculars to see the man.
There are many kinds of ambiguity in English, but in the study, the researcher
only focus on presenting lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity. In the next part,
the definition of lexical ambiguity and its types will be looked at.
2.5 Lexical ambiguity and types of lexical ambiguity
2.5.1 Definition of lexical ambiguity
Lexical ambiguity is the ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that can be
used (in different contexts) to express two or more different meanings (Small, Cottrell
& Tanenhause, 1988). A good example is that “she cannot bear children” means
whether she is unable to give birth to children or she cannot stand children, because it
contains the ambiguous word “bear” with two possible meanings.
2.5.2 Types of lexical ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity can be further subdivided into homonymy and polysemy.
2.5.2.1 Polysemy
Polysemy occurs when a word has several related meanings but one etymology.
The different meanings of a polysemic expression have a base meaning in common
(Small, Cottrell & Tanenhause, 1988). An example is that the word “point” can mean
“punctuation mark”, “sharp end”, “detail”, and “argument".
2.5.2.2 Homonymy
Homonymy occurs when two different words have the same written and phonetic
representation, but unrelated meanings, different etymologies, and different histories
of development. Each of the homonyms has its own semantics (Small, Cottrell &
Tanenhause, 1988). For example, “bark” means both “the noise a dog makes” and
“the stuff on the outside of a tree”.
Homonyms consist of homograph and homophones. However, the study focuses
on the problems in written translation not in oral translation. Therefore, the case of
homophone will be ignored because this case can be recognized easily when it is

5


written. It may not create challenge for translators. The study focuses on homograph
which causes difficulties for students in translation from English to Vietnamese.
Homographs are words that are spelled the same yet have different meanings.
They may be pronounced differently in speech (Small, Cottrell & Tanenhause, 1988).
For example, the word “watch” functions as the verb which means “look at closely” or
the noun which means “portable timepiece for the wrist or pocket.”
The lexical ambiguity and its types have just been presented above, and the next
part is the definition of structural ambiguity and its types.
2.6 Structural ambiguity and types of structural ambiguity
2.6.1 Definition of structural ambiguity
Structural ambiguity arises when a complex phrase or a sentence can be parsed in

more than one way (Hirst, 1992). An example is that “He ate the cookies on the
couch.” It could mean whether he ate those cookies which were on the couch, or he
was sitting on the couch when he ate the cookies.
2.6. 2 Types of structural ambiguity
There are many types of structural ambiguity in English, but its three types
(attachment ambiguity, gap finding and filling ambiguity and coordination ambiguity)
are chosen to examine. The first type presented is attachment ambiguity.
2.6.2.1 Attachment ambiguity
The first class of structural ambiguity is attachment ambiguity. There is more
than one node to which a particular syntactic constituent may legally be attached.
Attachment problems are mostly problems of modifier placement. The most common
example is that a prepositional phrase may either modify a verb or an immediately
preceding noun phrase (Hirst, 1992). The sentence “Mary saw the man with the
telescope.” is a typical example. The preposition phrase “with the telescope” is either
a manner adverbial modifying the verb “saw”, or preposition phrase modifying the
noun “the man”. It means whether Mary uses the telescope to see the man or Mary
saw the man who has the telescope.
Here is the other occasion on which attachment ambiguity may occur. When a
sentence contains a sub-sentence, both may contain places for the attachment of
prepositional phrase or adverb (Hirst, 1992). A good example for this case is that:
“Madia knew that Ross fried the chicken with garlic.” In this example, the preposition
phrase “with garlic” can be attached to the verb “knew” or “fried” or the noun

6


(object) “the chicken”. As a result, it means whether Madia biết rằng Ross đã chiên
thịt gà với tỏi or Madia biết rằng Ross đã chiên thịt gà mà đã được ướp tỏi sẵn.
2.6.2.2 Gap-finding and filling ambiguity
Gap-finding ambiguities occur when a moved constituent has to be returned to its

pre-transformational starting point, and there is more than one place that it might go
(Ford, Bresnan, and Kaplan, 1982). A good instance is that “Those are the girls that
the police debated about fighting.” In this sentence, there are two possible gaps in the
relative clause which we denote by

that the relative pronoun (whose referent is

underlined) may fill: Those are the girls that the police debated

about fighting

.

Taking the first gap means the police debated with the girls on the topic of
fighting. The second gap means the police debated among themselves about fighting
the girls.
2.6.2.3 Coordination ambiguity
Coordination ambiguity is the ambiguity that occurs from the use of coordinators
such as and and or. In other words, ambiguity occurs when more than one conjunction
like “and” or “or” is used in a sentence “I saw Peter and Paul and Mary saw me.”, or
when one conjunction is used with a modifier “young man and woman”. Words and
phrases of all types can be coordinated (Okumura & Muraki, 1994), with the external
modifier being a word or phrase of almost any type and appearing either before or
after the coordination. In this sentence: “Assumptions and dependencies that are of
importance.” the external modifier “that are of importance” may apply either to both
“assumptions and dependencies” or to “dependences”.
The lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity have showed above. In order to
know some problems that translators usually face when translating ambiguous
sentences, we will consider the following part.
2.7 Ambiguity in translation

Translation is a complex process of transferring meaning from one language to
another because it is related to grammar structures, lexis, vocabulary knowledge, word
meaning, and so on. Human language contains ambiguities at many levels of linguistic
representation, but two kinds of ambiguity, lexical and structural, have received the
most attention in recent psycholinguistic research (Altmann, 1990; Small Cottrell &
Tanenhaus, 1988). The ambiguities of language, especially those highlighted by the
process of translation, do of course carry the threat of misinterpretation and false
conclusions.

7


As we know, a word normally conveys several meanings, especially lexical
ambiguity which results from polysemy and homonymy, which cause the confusion
for the translators. Also, words can bear various meanings in terms of polysemes and
homographs. Pustejousky and Boguvaev (1996) present that lexical ambiguity creates
the difficulty in considering the meaning of language. They also emphasize that words
in languages usually convey more than one meaning. To put it in another way, the
word with multiple meanings creates lot of difficulties for the learners. It is necessary
to overcome the difficulties so that we can avoid misunderstanding as well as making
mistakes in translation. Moreover, there is no one to one equivalent between form and
meaning of a word. To deal with the word with several meanings, it is not an easy task
because we cannot decide which meaning is appropriate; in particular, it stands in
isolation. Kempson (1997), who has the same ideas with Pustejousky and Boguvaev,
recognizes that the concepts of ambiguity is far from clear, and yet, as the part of the
problem of interpreting forms of natural language, the explanation of ambiguity is an
essential task. This idea makes clear that words with multiple meanings create a lot of
difficulties. It is necessary to surmount the difficulties in order to avoid
misunderstanding as well as making mistakes and to transfer exactly the meaning of
the source language. The more carefully we figure out the meaning of the ambiguous

words, the more clearly, exactly and deeply we understand them. By now, this study
addresses some typical problems of words and some grammar structures with multiple
meanings that can arise in translation.
In brief, there are many kinds of lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity in
English. However, the study focuses on analyzing some typical kinds. To lexical
ambiguity, polysemy and homonymy will be analyzed, then three common types of
structural ambiguity: attachment ambiguity, coordination ambiguity and gap-finding
and filling ambiguity will be examined. Research methodology will be presented in
the next section.

8


CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To start this chapter, the research design will be recommended first, then participants
and research instruments that the researcher uses to carry out the study. The procedures
of the research will be presented at the end of this chapter.

3.1 Research design
The design of this study is a descriptive research. Quantitative techniques such
as translation test and interview were used to collect data. The researcher graded the
test and interviewed the translation teachers and some last year students directly. The
data collected were analyzed by SPSS software.
3.2 Research participants
3.2.1 Student participants
The participants in this study were 70 seniors majoring in English Language
Studies from course 32. All of them belong to two different groups at CTU, academic
year 2009-2010. These participants were randomly chosen as subjects to availability.
Therefore, they are fully equipped with linguistic knowledge and theory of translation.

It means that they learnt and knew ambiguous sentences in English. They were chosen
for doing the translation test and ten of them were chosen to answer the interview.
3.2.2 Teacher participants
Besides, two translation teachers at CTU were chosen to answer the interview
questions (see appendix 4, p. 33). Both of them have been teaching the subjects
relating to translation for years, so they can withdraw some recommendations to help
students translate ambiguous sentences better.
3.3 Research instruments
3.3.1 Translation test
To know whether lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity are problematic to
students and which ambiguity is more problematic, the translation test was used as the
first instrument. It consisted of 20 sentences that included 10 sentences for lexical
ambiguity and 10 sentences for structural ambiguity for students to translate from
English into Vietnamese (see appendix 1, p. 28).These sentences were ranked in
suitable spaces so that the participants could write down their translations after each
sentence. The researcher selected them from many books, newspapers and the

9


Internet. Some typical textbooks are Automatic ambiguity resolution in natural
language (1996), Semantic interpretation and the resolution of ambiguity (1992), Cẩm
nang ngữ âm, từ vựng, cú pháp Tiếng Anh (2003) and other sources (see references, p.
38). Moreover, these sentences were neither too easy nor too difficult to translate
because they were simple sentences and consisted of many grammar structures and
familiar words that they have worked on many times. Most sentences focused on some
typical problems that students could face with.
In the test, the highest mark was 10, the lowest mark was zero, and the score for
lexically ambiguous sentences and structurally ambiguous ones were equal (5 marks
for lexical ambiguity and 5 marks for structural ambiguity) to withdraw which

ambiguity is more problematic. Moreover, these sentences represented different kinds
of lexical and structural ambiguity such as homonymy, polysemy, attachment
ambiguity, gap-finding and filling ambiguity and coordination ambiguity (see
appendix 3, p. 32). The time allotted was 45 minutes. The score of each correct
translation was 0.25 marks. The total score of a correct sentence was 0.5 marks. The
score of each incorrect translation was zero.
3.3.2 Interview
Interview was another instrument that aimed at getting more problems that
students had when translating and some possible solutions to help them perform their
translation well. To carry out the interview, the researcher conducted two sets of
interview questions for ten students and two translation teachers (see appendix 4, p.
33). The interview questions related to the research questions conducted in chapter 1
and some recommendations to translate the ambiguous sentences better.
In summary, through the translation test and interview, the answers to the
research questions would be clear.
3.4 Research procedure
The research procedure consisted of 2 main stages. The first stage was the
development of the translation test. After designing the translation test to students, the
researcher piloted it by asking ten students (the same major and course with the
participants) to do first to measure its internal consistency. Then this test was
delivered to the participants. They were asked to do the test individually at the class
and the researcher waited to collect them back. To make sure the test-takers had
enough serious-mindedness, the researcher administrated the classes. They had totally
45 minutes to do the test without using dictionary. After collecting the tests, the

10


researcher began sorting the answers, valuing the internal consistency again, and
working out the results.

In the second stage, the researcher spent two weeks to interview some translation
teachers and ten students randomly to get some recommendations that help translators
transfer ambiguous sentences better (see appendix 4, p. 33). When they gave the
answers, the researcher took note to save their time, and then synthesized their
answers to withdraw the appropriate recommendations.
3.5 Data Analysis
The data that the researcher collected were analyzed in two ways. First, they
would be analyzed in forms of simple illustration and calculation. The scores of the
translation test would be shown in the tables. Another way was in modern method by
Excel and SPSS. The Excel was used to input the data collected, draw the figure, and
reckon. The researcher used SPSS program to check the reliability of the test, the
mean score of the translation test in total and the mean scores of lexical ambiguity and
structural one. These instruments help the researcher have a better view of the results
of work.
The data will be analyzed in the next chapter.

11


Chapter 4
RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
To answer the research questions, the students' problems with ambiguity and the
differences in the score between lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity will be
analyzed in this chapter. Then some suggested ways will be withdrawn to help students
translate ambiguous sentences better.

4.1 Students' problems with ambiguity
To know whether lexical ambiguity and structural one are problematic to English
majors or not, the researcher used the translation test with 20 items (10 items for
lexical ambiguity and 10 items for structural one). The items for lexical ambiguity

were composed of polysemy and homonymy. The items for structural ambiguity
included attachment ambiguity, gap-finding and filling ambiguity and coordination
ambiguity. After piloting the test, the researcher measured the internal consistency,
which was .78. Then the researcher delivered the test to the participants, collected all
of the papers to score them, and analyze the results with the SPSS program. The
consistency of the translation test in total was checked again. It was higher in
comparison with the pilot time. The internal consistency .83 indicates the rather high
reliability of the translation test.
After valuing the internal consistency of the test, the total mean score, minimum
and maximum of the translation test was checked to compare with the hypotheses in
chapter 3. The results of the descriptive statistics are shown in table 4.1.
Number of

Minimum Maximum Mean

Standard

participants (N)

(Min.)

(Max.)

(M)

Deviation

Total

70

1.5

7.8

4.761

1.5081

Valid N (listwise)

70

Table 4.1 Descriptive statistics of the test performance
Through table 4.1, it can be seen that students may have some problems with lexical
ambiguity and structural one, because the total mean score of the translation test was
quite low (M= 4.76). The minimum score was 1.5 and the maximum score was 7.8.

12


Meanwhile the lowest mark was 0 and the highest mark of the test was 10. Besides,
when we look at the table 1.4 (see appendix 5, p.35), we will recognize that most
students did not have good results in the translation test. None got the excellent scores
and only one student got the highest score (7.75). Whereas, the students got the marks
from 1.5 to 3 in total are very high.
4.2 Differences in the score between lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity
4. 2.1 The test result in lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity
As the researcher mentioned in the research methodology, lexical ambiguity and
structural one were included in the research. In the following section, the mean scores

of these ones will be presented in order to conclude which one is more problematic to
students. Table 4.2 will show the descriptive statistics of the mean scores of each type.
N

Minimum Maximum Mean Standard Deviation

Lexical

70

.50

4.00

2.3143

.81836

Structural total

70

.75

4.25

2.5464

.83220

Valid N (listwise)

70

Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of the mean scores of the lexical ambiguity and
structural ambiguity
2.6

2.55

2.55
2.5
2.45
2.4
2.35

2.31

Lexical ambiguity
Structural ambiguity

2.3
2.25
2.2
2.15

Figure 4.1: The mean scores of lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity

13

According to table 4.2, it can be seen that the mean score of the lexical ambiguity
are lower than that of structural one. The mean score of lexical ambiguity that
participants employ was 2.31, whereas that of the structural ambiguity was 2.55.
These means indicate that between lexical ambiguity and structural one, lexical
ambiguity is more problematic to English-major students. In addition, the minimum
score of lexical ambiguity (Min= 0.5) was lower than that of structural one
(Min=0.75). Similarly, the maximum score of lexical ambiguity (Max=4) was lower
that that of structural ambiguity (Max=4.25).
4.2.2 An analysis of each item
By now we will consider each sentence that all students did not find ease in
translation.
4.2.2.1 Polysemes
The data related to polyseme was examined by item 10.
Item 10: Dr. Jacket gives the talk on moon.
This sentence is unclear to what noun the preposition “on” refers, whether Dr.
Jacket is on the moon when he gives the talk or he gives the talk which is about the
moon. Since this sentence itself is far from clearness, we have to rewrite or paraphrase
to make it easier to understand. The fact is that the students did not do that and did
translate one of the two possible meanings of the sentence that they based on the
meaning of the preposition phrase “on the moon”. 29% students could translate this
sentence exactly and express what the writer wants to show as in the source text.
However, there were 40% of the students who mistranslated the meaning of the
preposition “on”. Here are their unacceptable translations: Tiến sĩ Jacket đã nói quá
sức tưởng tượng của tôi, or Tiến sĩ Jacket có cuộc hẹn vào đêm trăng rằm, or Tiến sĩ
Jacket nói chuyện viễn vong.
In addition, the data collection indicates that many students recognized that this
sentence should be understood in two different ways, and they did try to express these
possible meanings, but they failed because the meanings they translated were not clear
enough to help the readers distinguish the two different meanings of this item. It was

translated as: “Tiến sĩ Jacket có buổi nói chuyện trên mặt trăng” or “Tiến sĩ Jacket nói
chuyện trên mặt trăng”. Thus, being good at mother tongue is also important to
translators because mother tongue or target language can help them express more
accurately what they mean. The mean score of this item was 0.21.

14


4.2.2.2 Homonymy
Another aspect of word with multiple meanings that creates a series of major
problems such as misinterpretation, mistranslation and confusion for translators is
homonymy. Here are some typical items that will be considered.
Item 2: Marriage is not a word; it is a sentence.
The immediate problem in this item is the misunderstanding. There were 9% of
the students that could understand the implication of the author and their translation
was nearly correct. Meanwhile, the translations of 37% students were deviatory and
more than 50% students who could translate one meaning among two possible
meanings. And the following is the samples of the divergent translations: Hôn nhân là
việc không thể nói bằng lời là hiểu hết được, or Hôn nhân không phải chuyện đơn
giản mà nó phức tạp hơn ta nghĩ. The meanings “câu” or “bản án” may lead people to
understand differently toward the word “sentence” of the source text. Thus, these
translations were not good. Compared to the mean score of other testing items, the
mean score for item 2 was rather low. Its mean score was 0.18.
Item 4: I saw her run to the bank.
There are the homonymous noun “bank” and the polysemous verb “run” that
made students difficult to translate, but in this case, we only focus on the meanings of
the word “bank”. 44% of the students could recognize that the word “bank” here falls
into two possible word classes and clarified it. However, 47% students transferred one
accurate meaning. The rest of the students translated incorrectly. These are the
inappropriate translations that they gave: Tôi thấy cô ấy khi tôi đi đến ngân hàng, or

Tôi đã thấy vị trí của cô ấy trong ngân hàng, or Tôi thấy cô ấy hết cạn tiền. The mean
score was 0.35, which was pretty high. It indicates that most students translated this
sentence well.
Item 7: The captain corrected the list.
This sentence contains the homonymic word “list” which made most students
confused. Although they usually meet this word in their reading or writing many
times, some of them forgot its meaning. There were 13% of the students who
completely failed to translate this item. Here are the inexact translations: Đội trưởng
đã trả tiền, or thuyền trưởng đã đúng về cái danh sách or Đại úy đã trừng phạt những
người có tên trong danh sách. They did not know that the word “list” can mean
“inventory” or “tilt”. 86% students transferred the common meaning that they
normally work on. This is the translation: đội trưởng đã chỉnh sửa lại danh sách. Only

15


1 student among 70 could translate this sentence exactly and naturally. The following
is the correct translations: Đội trưởng đã sửa lại danh sách or Đội trưởng đã sửa lại
trạng thái nghiêng của thuyền. The mean score for this item was 0.21.
The data collection proved that most students translated one meaning among
many meanings of a word despite the fact that they were explicitly informed of how
the test task was done. They did not transfer fully the message that the writer wants to
send to his readers and all of them did not recognize the ambiguous word within the
sentence which should be done.
Item 9: Flies like bananas.
Similarly, this item can have more than one meaning. However, ten students
gave exact meanings similar to the proposed translations. Meanwhile, 51,73% of the
students translated one meaning of ambiguous word “flies” used in this sentence. They
also gave the second meaning, but it was not closed to the source text. There were
13% of the students who transferred incorrectly the messages that the writer wants to

send to his readers. They did not recognize that the word “flies” can function as the
noun with meaning “con ruồi” or the verb meaning “bay”. These are some examples
of the unacceptable translations: Chuối thì rất hấp dẫn, or Chuyến bay như chuối ấy,
or Trắng như chuối, or Loài ruồi thích ngửi chuối, or Mèo nào mà không mê mở, or
Loài ruồi to như trái chuối, or Trượt vỏ chuối. The mean score was 0.25.
Item 11: The present is a good time to present the present.
Although this sentence is not complex and difficult, all the students did not find
out all its meanings. The word “present” here can be either a noun which means “món
quà”, or “thời hiện tại”, or “hiện tại” or a verb which means “tặng” or “thể hiện, trình
bày”. 29% of the students translated its two possible meanings accurately and
naturally. The others could translate one meaning. Here is their translation: Hiện tại là
thời điểm tốt để tặng quà.
One of the most possible factors that lead the students to translating one possible
meaning of the word “present” is that this word is familiar to the general meaning.
When they work on it, they will translate it immediately as their natural reaction. If
the students try to think and analyze the meanings of this item carefully, they are able
to find out another meaning, but it seemed that they ignored or refused to do that.
Besides, they didn’t distinguish the part of speech and different meanings of the word
“present” clearly, so they couldn’t translate this sentence better. There were 40% of
the students who failed to translate all meanings of this sentence. Here are the typical

16


mistranslations: Hiện tại là nền tảng của tương lai, or hãy sống với thực tại! or lúc
này là lúc tốt để xuất hiện. The mean score for this item was 0.21. The result of test
showed that more than 50% students learn the most common meaning of the word, so
they could only provide one precise meaning they know.
Item 12: They passed the port at midnight.
More than 50% students have met the word “port” many times, so they gave one

correct meaning of this sentence. Most of them translated the word “port” as
“harbor”. Therefore, they translated item 12 as: Họ đã rời khỏi cảng lúc nửa đêm or
họ đã đi qua cảng lúc nửa đêm. Its second meaning which is “strong sweet wine”
seems to be so strange to them. As a result, the number of the students who gave the
first exact meaning was very high, accounting 70% of the students. Meanwhile, only
4% students could give its two possible meanings exactly and 26% of the students
mistranslated its meanings. The following is the unacceptable translations: Họ chuyển
cảng lúc nửa đêm, or Họ đã băng qua trại tỵ nạn vào lúc nửa đêm, or Họ đã xuống
suối vàng vào đêm qua. Some of them did not translate this sentence. Its mean score
was the same with item 11 (M= 0.21).
Item 15: She is reserved.
Most of the students said that they recognized that the word “reserved” can have
more than one meaning, but they only remembered the generalized meaning. They did
not know that the word “reserved” can function as the form of past participle of the
verb “reserve” which means “đã có nơi có chỗ” or the adjective which means “kín
đáo”. Half of them gave one correct meaning and only two students could give its two
possible meanings correctly. These translations overlapped with the proposed
translations. Meanwhile, there were 47% students who gave the inexact meaning. It
was translated as: Cô ta được bảo quản or Cô ấy xứng đáng với điều đó or Cô ấy là
người xứng đáng. Among the 47% of the students, there were 30 % of them who
didn’t do this sentence. The mean score (M= 0.15) was pretty low compared to the
other items of homonymy.
Item 17: Mary is wearing a light coat.
Similarly, this is a simple sentence which contains the familiar words to the
students. The ambiguous word “light” as an adjective can mean whether “of
comparatively little physical weight or density” or “having relatively small amount of
coloring agent”. Consequently, more than half of the students translated one meaning
among two possible meanings of the word “light”. Most of them gave the first

17

meaning of the word “light” and did not give its other meaning. Besides, 13% of the
students translated this item well and conveyed the readers. However, 3% students
failed completely to express all possible meanings of the sentence. They translated
item 17 as: Mary đang mặc một chiếc áo phai màu and Mary đang mặc áo lông trắng
mịn or Mary thích làm nổi. Among the testing items of homonymy, this item had the
highest mean score (M= 0.34). It proved that students translated item 17 correctly and
naturally.
Item 19: The proprietor of the fish shop was the sole owner.
In this sentence, the problems in transferring meaning of homonymy from
English to Vietnamese are obviously shown. Compared to other testing items, this
item seems to be difficult to students. None of them had the correct translations. They
did not recognize the word “sole” can be an adjective meaning “one and only” or a
noun meaning “small edible flatfish”. There were 41% students could give one
acceptable meaning. Most of them translated item 19 as: Người chủ của cửa hàng cá
là người cô đơn. They also gave the second meaning, but it was different from the
meaning of the source text. The number of students who failed to translate this
sentence was very high. It accounts for 59% of the students. Here are the incorrect
translations: Người chủ của hàng bán cá này đang lâm vào tình trạng ế ẩm, or Chủ
cửa hàng cá là người tứ cố vô thân, or Chủ cửa hàng bán cá này chỉ có một người, or
Người chủ tiệm cá là người sở hữu những con cá. Many of them did not translate this
item. They may seldom meet the word “sole” in their materials and may not have
looked up this word in the dictionary, so they do not remember its possible meanings.
On the contrary with the mean score of testing item 17, that of item 19 was the lowest.
In short, we can see that there are a lot of causes that make students unable to
convey fully the message of the writer, but now I list some typical reasons that stop
students from doing so well: first, they could not find the way to express what they
meant in the receptor text like item 10, item 9, and item 7; second, because the
sentence is simple and consists of some familiar words such as item 4, item 11, and

item 17, they did not analyze it carefully to find out the appropriate meanings. Thus,
they did not realize semantic possibilities that a word can carry; last, they are novice
student translators, so they did seem to ignore the translation methods. Hence, they did
not know that it is necessary to specify the meanings of polyseme and homonymy.

18


4.2.2.3 Attachment ambiguity
This type of structural ambiguity is popular in English and it causes many
difficulties for translators like problems of modifier placement. Here are some
sentences that students normally mistranslated.
Item 5: I would like to try the red dress by the window.
The preposition phrase “by the window” is either a place adverbial modifying the
verb “try”, or preposition phrase modifying the noun “the red dress”, so it has two
possible meanings. It means whether I stand by the window and try the red dress or I
would like to try the red dress which is by the window. 38% of the students who could
translate all the exact meanings of the preposition phrase. 40% students based on the
surface structure of the sentence to translate one meaning of the preposition phrase.
They did not analyze the sentence structures carefully and did not guess all possible
meanings. Besides, 22% of the students misunderstood and didn’t know what the
preposition modifies for. Here are mistranslations they gave: Tôi muốn thử cái áo đầm
đỏ bằng cách dựa vào cửa sổ, or Tôi muốn thử tấm rèm đỏ cho cửa sổ, or Tôi rất thích
mặc chiếc váy đỏ đứng trước cửa sổ. The mean score was 0.29.
Item 8: A: What are you being asked to do in the morning?
B: “Put the box on the table by the window in the kitchen.”
Similarly, this item also has two possible meanings. It means whether put the box
in the kitchen which is a specific box that is on the table by the window or put the box
on the table and this table is by the window in the kitchen. Most of the students did not
know whether the preposition phrase “in the kitchen” modifies the verb “put” or the

preposition phrase “on the table”. Consequently, only 21% of the students translated
its two meanings correctly. 69% students translated the first meaning and failed to
translate the second meaning because they were confused to decide what each
preposition was attached to it. 6 students couldn’t recognize this attachment, so they
mistranslated or they did not translate item 8. Here are the unacceptable translations:
Đặt cái hộp lên bàn rồi đặt chúng cạnh cửa sổ trong nhà bếp, or Đặt cái hộp trên bàn
trong cái nhà bếp, or Đặt cái hộp gần cửa sổ lên cái bàn trong nhà bếp. The mean
score was the same with item 5 (M=0.29)
Item 13: The burglar threatened the student with the knife.
The preposition phrase “with the knife” is either a manner adverbial modifying
the verb “threatened” or the noun “the students”. Thus, this sentence has two
meanings which are whether the burglar used the knife to threaten the student or the

19