A study on common errors in Vietnamese English translation of labels and photo captions in tourist attractions in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

---------------

A STUDY ON COMMON ERRORS IN
VIETNAMESE - ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF
LABELS AND CAPTIONS IN TOURIST
ATTRACTIONS IN HO CHI MINH CITY,
VIETNAM
Submitted to the
Faculty of English Language
in partial fulfilment of the Master’s degree in English language
Course code: 1641900007
By
LUONG KIM HOANG
Supervised by
NGUYEN THI NHU NGOC, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, June 2018


i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:
A Study on Common Errors in Vietnamese – English Translation of Labels
and Photo Captions in Tourist Attractions in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
In terms of the statement of requirements for theses in Master’s programs
issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Faculty of English Linguistics, Ho Chi
Minh City University of Technology.

Ho Chi Minh City, June 2018

Lương Kim Hoàng


ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
I hereby state that I, Luong Kim Hoang, being a candidate for the degree of
Master of Arts (English Linguistics), accept the requirements of the University
relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis
deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care,
loan, and reproduction for theses.

Ho Chi Minh City, June 17th, 2018
Signature:………………………..
Lương Kim Hoàng


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc for her great support, constant guidance, and continuous
encouragement through the whole research process. Her prompt, insightful advice
was a light which led me to solutions whenever I was in dilemma. I am so admired
and grateful for her professional knowledge and guidance which have been a great

value for me in the process of doing my research.
I am also thankful for Dr. Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu’s huge devotion, suggestion
and assistance throughout my thesis process. She is a devoted dean and a
professional lecturer who always occupies a certain respect in my heart.
In addition, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the management and
all the staff of the War Remnants Museum, Fito Museum, the Reunification Palace,
and the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City for their great support in my research data
collection.
Besides, my special gratitude is intended for one expert in translation
industry and professional editors working for Foreign Science Journal, University
of Foreign Language in Hanoi and Translation Journal in Australia who helped me
increase the validity and reliability for my research.
The ones can be missed out of my thankful list are the lecturers, Hutech
President together with all the school staff who have created a very friendly and
favorable environment for my study.
Last but not least, my sincere and warm thanks are for my family and friends
who have supported me and been my companions during a long journey of doing
my research.


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ABSTRACT
Museums are fascinating, important tourist attractions which not only
conserve and display historical, scientific, or artistic objects but also satisfy visitors’
demand of leisure, education and research. However, international visitors may get
confused with the low quality of translation since a lot of errors are found in
museum texts. The thesis investigated common Vietnamese-English translation
errors in photo captions and labels at three most international tourist-attracted
museums and one historical gallery in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 450 photo

captions and labels were randomly collected from the museums, and processed into
a bilingual Vietnamese and English parallel corpus. Based on some popular models
in translation, linguistic errors, currently used in the world, a hybrid erorr-analysis
model was developed and applied to classfify the data in the corpus into 16 error
types affiliated to 4 major error categories. The findings revealed that 96.6% of the
corpus was found erroneous; and the most common errors were grammar,
punctuation, usage, spelling, omission, addition, word choice, mistranslation, text
type and inconsistency. Then, some recommendations were provided for translation
of photo captions and labels in the hope to provide a useful reference for translation
training as well as improve the translation quality for tourism texts in Vietnam.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ...........................................................................i
RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS.............................................................. ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ v
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................. viii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ......................................................ix
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................1
1.1. Background to the study ..............................................................................1
1.2. Problem statement........................................................................................ 2
1.3. Purpose of the study .....................................................................................3
1.4. Research questions and Hypothesis ............................................................. 4
1.5. Scope of the study ........................................................................................ 4
1.6. Significance of the study..............................................................................4

1.7. Definition of key terms ................................................................................5
1.8. Organization of the study .............................................................................5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................7
2.1. Museums as favorite tourist attractions ........................................................... 7
2.2. Labels and captions in museums and their language features ......................... 8
2.2.1. Labels and captions as main types of museum texts .................................8
2.2.2. Language features of museum labels and captions .................................11
2.2.2.1. Language features of exhibit labels .................................................11
2.2.2.2. Language features of photo captions ...............................................16
2.3. Translation and its function in museum communication ............................... 20
2.3.1. Translation............................................................................................... 20
2.3.2. Translation functions in museum communication ..................................21
2.4. Translation errors and error analysis .............................................................. 22
2.4.1. Translation errors .................................................................................... 22
2.4.2. Error analysis .......................................................................................... 24
2.5. Models of error analysis in translation .......................................................... 25
2.5.1 Error analysis procedure ..........................................................................25
2.5.2. Models of error taxonomy .......................................................................28
2.6. A review on previous studies in translation errors of tourism texts ..............35
2.7. The conceptual framework for the thesis ....................................................... 36
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................38


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3.1. Research design .......................................................................................... 38
3.2. Research site............................................................................................... 38
3.3. Samples and sampling procedure ............................................................... 40
3.4. Research instruments .................................................................................43
3.5. Data collection procedure ..........................................................................45

3.6. Data analysis procedure .............................................................................45
3.7. Validity and reliability ...............................................................................46
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................... 48
4.1. The statistics of common translation errors ...............................................48
4.2. The analysis of error categories and types .................................................50
4.2.1. Syntactic errors........................................................................................ 50
4.2.2. Semantic errors..................................................................................... 56
4.2.3. Pragmatic errors ...................................................................................62
4.2.4. Translation-specific errors ...................................................................65
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ..................................................................................69
5.1. Major findings ............................................................................................ 69
5.2. Implications and recommendations ........................................................... 70
5.3. Limitations and suggestions of further research ........................................72
REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................75
APPENDICES........................................................................................................... 84
Appendix A: The Bilingual Vietnamese - English Text of the Thesis ..................... 84
Appendix B: The Translation Error Report by a Professional Translation Editor . 146
Appendix C: Explanation of Error Categories by ATA (2017) .............................. 161
Appendix D: Definitions of Error Categories in the Developed Model in the Thesis
by the thesis author.................................................................................................. 167
Appendix E: The Thesis Author’s Article Publication Certificate ......................... 171
Appendix F: The Plagiarism Check Report of the thesis ........................................ 173


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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1. The Error Categories proposed by LIZA in 200 ...................................... 28
Table 2.2. The Error Categories of Liao (2010) ....................................................... 30
Table 2.3. The Hybrid Model of Error Types by Dastjerdi & Abdolmaleki (2012) . 32

Table 2.4. The Model of Translation Error Categorization adapted from that of
Dastjerdi & Abdolmaleki (2012) ............................................................................... 33
Table 3.1. The Table for determining sample size from a give population by Morgan
and Krejcie (1970, p. 607) ........................................................................................ 41
Table 3.2. Samples collected from the four research sites........................................ 43
Table 3.3. The Bilingual Vietnamese-English Text Corpus ...................................... 43
Table 4.1. The Error Types and Their Frequency .................................................... 48
Table 4.2. The Frequency of Semantic Errors .......................................................... 56


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LIST OF FIGURES
Fig 2.1. The Error Analysis Procedures adapted from Pinker (1986)’s .................. 27
Fig 2.2. The Conceptual Framework for the thesis .................................................. 36
Fig 4.1. The Frequency of All the Errors in the Corpus ........................................... 49
Fig 4.2. The Frequency of Syntactic Errors.............................................................. 50
Fig 4.3. The Frequency of Pragmatic Errors ........................................................... 62
Fig 4.4. The Frequency of Translation-specific Errors ............................................ 65


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS
ATA

American Translation Association

CNN

Cable News Network

EFL

English as Foreign Language

ESL

English as Second Language

GDP

Gross Domestic Products

ICOM

International Council of Museums

ID

Identification

LIZA

Localization Industry Standards Association

NAATI

National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters

NSW

New South Wales

TFAO

Tradition Fine Arts Organization

TWA

Tourism Western Australia

USA

United Nations of America


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the study
The growing world economy has created a number of intercultural
communications involving various languages that commit people to communicative
obstacles. Therefore, the birth of translation studies brings an effective solution for
these problems. Over the past decades, the field of translation studies has played a
crucial role in all sectors, especially in tourism industry. This industry appeals
international tourists to a certain country every year and translation practice is
compulsory. As a result, translation quality assessment treated as a sub-field in
translation studies is beneficial to both individuals and organizations in the field of
tourism.
The growth of the international travel industry has led to the increase of

opportunities for intercultural communication. However, the barrier due to distinct
languages which hinders international visitors from communicating with local
people, searching and collecting information consequently affects these guests’
satisfaction. In order to tackle with the problem, tourism translation has become
essential. Webster (2002) defines “tourism translation is an activity which will cross
culture, language, society and space” and the role of tourism translation is to help
transfer communication messages between foreign visitors and local people
(Leclerc & Martin, 2004). In other words, tourism translation bridges the gap in
intercultural tourism communication.
In particular, tourism communication as a type of business communication is
categorized into three basic forms: Verbal communication, nonverbal communication
and written communication which is defined as printed messages including memos,
brochures, emails, letters, proposals, signs, captions and labels (University of
Minnesota, 2015, p. 523). They are generally referred as tourism texts. These tourismwritten materials are very important in providing information about tourist destinations,
promoting tourist attractions, instructing travelers in tourism areas and describing

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historical objects, and explaining events in historical sites. However, these special texts
printed in the language that is unfamiliar to intended readers, and visitors to a specific
country are multicultural. Therefore, English translation of these tourist texts is an
integral part of tourism communication.
On the other hand, in terms of tourist attractions, Robinson (2013) defines
tourist attractions are natural places or features, objects and man-made buildings
and structures for appealing tourists and local residents. Also, Tourism Western
Australia (2009) explains that tourist attractions are cultural features of a specific
place that meet tourists’ entertainment and leisure-related needs and these features
may be particular to a location such as theater, museum, or waterfall. In this respect,
museums and historical sites are considered tourist attractions. The written

communication takes place in these cultural and historical places and museums
through special materials generally called museum texts. Therefore, museum texts
are crucial and the translation of this text type is essential in museum
communication because these written messages represent cultural and historical
values of a nation that are unfamiliar to visitors from another country. However,
there is a fact that some of the museum materials are produced with low quality due
to various reasons, so it is an urgent need of tourism-specialized text assessment.
1.2. Problem statement
In respect to tourism, this non-smoking industry has globally become the primary
international sector because it is the most rapidly growing and profitable industry in
the world. In line with the world’s tourism development, Ho Chi Minh City has
made a great progress in growing its tourism recently. Cable News Network (CNN)
channel in United States of America (USA) has released that Ho Chi Minh was
voted as one of the 10 top fastest tourism growing cities in the world (Thu Giang,
2015). According to Tuoi Tre News (2016), the number of foreign visitors to Ho
Chi Minh has annually increased 8.2% on average and there has been a yearly

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average increase of 16.4% in the revenue of tourism services occupying 9% of the
city’s gross domestic products (GDP) during the past decade.
Regarding Ho Chi Minh’s tourism development stategy, heritage tourism,
now globally called cultural tourism, is an established sustainable tourism
development aim, so historical, cultural sites and museums are an important
component constructing the success of this tourism line. They have served the
majority of international vistors to Ho Chi Minh City and most exhibits displayed in
these cultural, historical buildings are for the purposes of study, education, and
enjoyment of the public including foreigners. As a result, translated musuem texts,
particularly photo captions and labels, play an important role in transferring

Vietnamese culture-related and history-related messsages to foreign visitors.
However, errors in the inapproriate, inconsistent translation of museum texts
cause embarassing messages, cultural, historical and social misunderstandings, and
confusion for visitors, especially international ones. This can lead to negative
images to visitors in Vietnam’s museums, reduces the attractiveness of these tourist
attractions, and so declines the competitiveness of tourist destinations in
comparison with other international tourist places. In additon, museums in Ho Chi
Minh City are open to the local people, especially vietnamese students for one of
the purposes that is education. Translation errors in the captions and labels lead to
negative impacts on their English language learning and proficiency and hence,
there is a desirable evaluation of these museum texts.
In Vietnamese context, there is a lack of studies on the assessment of tourism
texts, particularly photo captions and labels in museums. In this thesis, a proposed
conceptual framework is developed for evaluating the quality of these special
toursim texts. This thesis, focusing on translation errors in Vietnamese-English
bilingual captions and labels in museums, will be a new research direction in
Vietnam. Thus it is quite essential and useful.
1.3. Purpose of the study

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The study aims to discover translation errors in translated versions of
Vietnamese photo captions and labels in some major museums in Ho Chi Minh City
with the application of the most appropriate conceptual framework proposed in
chapter 2 of the thesis.
1.4. Research questions and Hypothesis
To complete the aim above, the study is conducted under the guidance of the
following research question:
What are common translation errors in Vietnamese - English bilingual photo

captions and labels in museums in Ho Chi Minh City?
The hypothesis is that the thesis author will figure out the most appropriate
model for the analysis of translation errors and based on the proposed model of the
translation error analysis, translation errors will be identified and categorized
effectively.
1.5. Scope of the study
The study only covers translation errors relevant to Vietnamese and English
linguistic features; and it is applicable to tourism texts in museums. Specifically, the
thesis author mainly addresses on labels and captions generally referred as museum
texts in major museums in Ho Chi Minh City and therefore, tourism texts in other
tourist sites are not bound in this research.
1.6. Significance of the study
Theoretically, the study contributes to verifying language features in photo
captions and labels in museums. Practically, the study sets up some criteria for
identifying, evaluating and categorizing translation errors in bilingual museum
photo labels and captions as tourism-specialized texts.
The results of this thesis are applicable to the evaluation of translation
product, helping improve the quality of tourism translation in Vietnam; and they are

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able to used as a useful reference for courses of translation and English for Tourism
at university in Vietnam.
1.7. Definition of key terms
Some important terms and concepts are used in this thesis. They are: tourism,
museum texts, museum language, translation, translation errors. Their definitions
and interpretation are presented in detail in Chapter 2.
1.8. Organization of the study
The study consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 Introduction states the background of the research problem from
which some solutions related to translation error analysis in photo captions and
exhibit labels (museum texts) in several museums in Ho Chi Minh. To make it more
specific, the aims and the research questions with hypotheses are proposed; then the
structure of the study is introduced.
Chapter 2 Literature Review gives relevant theories and literature that form
and strengthen the conceptual framework for the study. It handles with discussions
of the concepts of tourist attraction, translation and its role in tourism
communication, especially in museum communication, photo captions and exhibit
labels (museum texts), language features of museum texts, translation errors, error
analysis and eventually figures out a concept-specific foundation for this thesis. The
model of error analysis in translation as the conceptual framework is developed.
Also, a review on previous studies of translation errors in tourism texts, especially
photo captions and labels is negotiated to identify the gap for the research.
Chapter 3 Methodology presents the qualitative method for this thesis.
Accordingly, a detail description of research design, research site, samples, and research
instruments is provided; and the data collection and data analysis procedures are
discussed in detail.

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Chapter 4 Findings and discussions figures out translation error categories
and their frequency. They are discussed and interpreted to reveal some significant
results.
Chapter 5 Conclusion summarizes the main findings and draws relevant
implications. Also, limitations of the study are discussed; then some recommendations
on further research regarding translation errors are provided.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter consists of six sections highlighting literature review and conceptual
framework for this thesis which are presented as follows:
2.1. Museums as favorite tourist attractions
Cambridge University Press (2018) defines tourist attraction as a place where
tourists visit for their leisure and other interests when they are on vacation. This
definition is quite general to identify a tourist attraction and in this view, tourist
attractions may include some places reached by tourists occasionally such as sport
venues, theaters, cinemas, and other locations for entertainment that mainly serve
local residents. In the same line, Tourism Western Australia (2009) explains tourist
attraction through following definitions: 1. Tourist attraction is a physical or natural
feature of a specific destination that meets each traveler or tourist’s leisure-related
needs. These features refer to inner or outer components (eg. climate, scenery,
culture, history, vegetation) of a particular location such as museum, waterfall, or
theater performance. 2. Tourist attraction is advantageous aspects of a place for an
activity or sets of activities as wanted by a consumer, service user or market,
consisting of climate, scenery, culture, history and vegetation. In particular, manbuilt attractions are physical buildings, sites and events; meanwhile, natural
attractions are physical phenomena considered extraordinary and spectacular. In this
research, tourist attractions are meant to be man-made cultural, historical sites and
buildings which are open to tourists and local residents for purposes of leisure,
education and other interests. Specifically, museums and historical sites were
primarily researched.
A museum is defined as a permanently established institution which is open
to the public and where cultural, historical value conservation and exhibitions are
held for the purpose of leisure, study and education but not for profit gaining
(International Council of Museums (ICOM), 2010). Museums play an important

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role in tourism development, especially heritage tourism. Pekarik (2003) (as cited in
Perera (2013)’s study) argues that the appearance of museum remains the existence
of something valuable and relevant, which is shared with the museum audiences. He
also adds the main role of museum is for the protection of cultural heritage and the
attraction of more tourists. In support of this view, Perera (2013, p.5) emphasizes
that the power of museum is to teach its visitors about history, culturally and
naturally inherited values of a city, region and country or a special subject which is
interested in.
Ho Chi Minh City has a rich source of culture and heritage which establish a
foundation for its heritage tourism development. According to the report on heritage
sites ranked in Ho Chi Minh by May 2017, there are total 172 recognized heritage
structures including 02 archeological sites, 96 art architecture works, 74 historical
sites (Department of Culture and Sports of Ho Chi Minh City, 2017). The precious
valuable heritages largely contribute to the success of cultural tourism in Ho Chi
Minh City, especially historical sites.
In this research, both private and government museums which are connected
with archeological, historical, art, cultural studies in Ho Chi Minh were researched.
It means that their labels and captions have contents about archeological, historical,
art, cultural studies.
2.2. Labels and captions in museums and their language features
2.2.1. Labels and captions as main types of museum texts
Museum texts are referred as texts in museums whose either spoken or
written language form is produced by the museum for the consumption of visitors,
and which commit to the interpretation within the museum (Ravelli, 2006, p. 1).
The author argues museum texts take their different forms called labels, brochure
descriptions, extended texts, wall texts, catalogue entries, and explanatory texts.
Otherwise, Dordová (2016) categorizes museum texts into two basic types

called panel texts and exhibition labels. He explains panel texts are often written
with full sentences and paragraphs and provide some information about an entire

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museum or exhibition, including the introduction and context to a particular field.
On the contrary, exhibition labels carry details describing a specific object in a
museum.
Moi (2013, p. 4) refers texts in art museums as wall texts, hand-outs and
interpretive labels next to the art works, which apparently negotiate the art and
allow visitors’ interpretive experiences. In some museums specializing in art,
science, history and other specific disciplines, the terms “label” can be referred to
“caption” which is embedded in a displayed painting or a photo to provide
information about them. In this thesis, both terms “label and caption” were used.
Particularly, they were called exhibit labels (object labels, exhibition labels, or
museum labels) and photo captions (painting captions or cutlines).
The Tradition Fine Arts Organization (TFAO) (2003) explains an object
label whose information illustrates its artist, title and dimensions, media, owner and
date of creation, and accession number and they add that label is also referred as
caption or tombstone. Dordová (2016, p. 9) defines label as a description with detail
information about a particular exhibit or object in the museum or museum displays.
Collins (2014) as cited in Farlex (2018)’s The Free Dictionary states a label is “a
piece of paper, card, or other material attached to an object to identify it or give
instructions or details concerning its ownership, use, nature, destination, etc.”.
In short, in this thesis, “label” is understood as a text attached to an exhibited
object in a museum, an exhibition or a historical site, which provide identifying
information about it and also draw visitor’s attention.
Collins (2017) defines “a caption is the words printed underneath a picture or
cartoon which explain what it is about”. Similarly, Webster (2017) characterizes a

caption as “the explanatory comment or designation accompanying a pictorial
illustration”. And Oxford University Press (2017) explains “a caption is words
printed underneath a picture, cartoon, etc. to explain or describe it”. In detail, some
researchers affirm that photo journalism relies on a polysemiotic text of visual and

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verbal signs and verbal signs are usually shaped as captions and cutlines (Park,
2015, p. 498); a caption helps describe the content of a picture and the picture with
its caption tells a story (Ijeh, 2015, p. 58).
In brief, all these statements share a common view, helping us to get a simple
definition that a caption is a kind of texts used as an explanatory comment to clarify
a photo or picture for a specific purpose in a certain place. Lewis (1994), a
journalism professor in California University, depicts that photos and words work
together, and the words of the caption are a vital part of the communications
package. Words explain, clarify, and are added to a photo. Captions are to interpret
the photo, and provide information not found within the image.
For the concept of tourist texts, Kelly (1998) defines that tourist text is any
kind of writings released by a public or private tourism-intended organization to
provide visitors with information, to transfer advertisement of a destination and to
appeal travelers to a particular tourist attraction. In this view, texts in museums can
be referred as tourist texts because they perform the roles of museums in helping
visitors be exposed to a great amount of cultural, historical information, transferring
communication in these special tourist attractions, and attracting tourists. Samson
(1995), McManus (2000) (as cited in MacLulich, 2000), Schiele (1995), and Jacobi
and Poli (1995) all confirm this educational goal of exhibition texts.
Also, Ravelli (2006, p.3) states that museum texts, especially exhibition
labels are crucial because they form a main part of communication in a museum. In
the same line, Calvi (2012, p. 8) (as cited in Dordová, 2016) argues that informative

and persuasive are the two crucial functions of museum texts, which give a specific
description of exhibited object and catch the readers’ attention respectively.
In case of the language use in museums, Schmidt and Bui (2013, pp. 53 - 54)
impart that the text used in museums, like other communicative medium, is a means
of public communication to facilitate visitors’ need of understanding the cultural
and historical values; and its functions are to provide relevant information and

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explanation of displayed objects, photos and other things to visitors. In respect to
the museum language in Vietnam, they emphasize the museum texts play a
fundamental role in conducting communication and attracting visitors to have
deeper research for exhibited objects, help create favorable and independent
conditions to perceive and understand the information released.
The labels and captions found in the photos at the research museums and
historical sites are to provide its visitors with specific information and explain them
the meaning of captured historical events and objects associated with the past
events. They are, therefore, considered as a type of tourist texts and have full
functions of tourist texts.
2.2.2. Language features of museum labels and captions
In this section, the thesis author separately and specifically discusses and
analyses language features of the two genres of museum texts called exhibit labels
and photo captions.
2.2.2.1. Language features of exhibit labels
Serrell (1996, p. 234) states that labels become effective when they are in a
tight combination with exhibitions and therefore, they together enhance and deter
communication. She adds a useful, friendly label should start with information
related to the exhibit that visitors can experience at where they are standing. A label
should be varied in the length of sentences and often written with short sentences

and small chunks. Using an informative paragraph title or subtitle, exclamation
marks for emphasis, and a snappy ending is an advice for writing a helpful label
(Serrell, 1996, pp. 84-91). Moreover, the Powerhouse Museum (n.d) in Sydney
proposes a guideline for writing exhibition labels and advises that a label should be
appropriate to the exhibition and its purposes and visitors, concise but relevant to
the intended object, and contain accurate information and contents that are simply
and clearly explained.
Example 1:
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Collier Flintlock Revolver
English, early 19th century
This ingenious five-shot revolver was
well-ahead of its day. The inventor, E.
H. Collier, an American living in
England, tried to sell it to the military,
but it was rejected as being too
complicated and unlikely to stand up in
battle. Collier also made a musket with
a revolver chamber.
(Source: Glenbow Museum, Canada)
In this label, the title is informative of notifying visitors the name, origin, day
of creation of the exhibit. The first sentence is an introduction and the following
sentences provide its contextual information. The label is written in short sentences
and chunks with simple contents to facilitate the readers’ understanding.
In terms of a label organization, the Powerhouse Museum (n.d) in Sydney
suggests that a label should be structured similarly to writing a newspaper story.
The label writer should start a label with a heading and move from the specific to
general information. He should begin the label with information about the object

but should not describe the object because its audiences are standing next to it, they
clearly see it. Instead, the writer should provide relevant information that appeals
the visitors with its significance and engages them with better understanding. After
finishing writing some specific information about the object, the writer can move on
something general. There is an acknowledgement to include the person or organization
that provides the object and their permission to the display of it. This information is
often listed at the bottom of the label in a smaller type size.
In addition, the Museum and Galleries of New South Wales (NSW) (n.d)
suggests basic information of a label structure including its artist or maker, title, date,
medium or materials, dimensions, provenance or collection, and description. Serrell
(1996, p. 26) mentions that an exhibition label consists of two primary parts called
the title and the brief description. She adds the title should be clear and concrete,
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communicate the basic idea of exhibition and make audience curious and the brief
description is to highlight the big idea of exhibition and its importance.

Example 2:
PANCHAMUKHALINGGA
Central India
9th -10th Century A.D.
sandstone
Shiva, the Hindu god of Destruction, is
often-presented as a phallic-shaped linga.
This complex symbol contains the five
(pancha) faces (muka) of Shiva. The fifth
face is understood to exist at the top of the
structure. Each of these faces is associated
with a particular aspect of Shiva, either

ferocious or peaceful. The four faces
symbolize the four cardinal directions, with
the top indicating the abstract skyward
direction.
The linga is the most important icon in
temples for shiva and the god in this form is
worshiped through ritual offerings of water,
milk, purified butter, or flowers. The
darkened top of this linga shows it was once
an object of such ritual worship.
Collection of Glenbow Museum, DE 22.
Gift of the Bumper Development Corporation
Ltd.

(Source: Glenbow Museum, Canada)
This label begins with the title, origin, day of creation and material of the
object. It was written with two primary paragraphs and the first one provides
visitors with specific information about the object and its significance and the
second one is general information of it. At the bottom of the label, there is a
highlight of the donor of the object.
In reality, a label structure is different in the length concerning its types and
objectives. Serrell (1996) suggests a label should be written with two or three short

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sentences or chunks. For instance, an ID label embedded to a book or an artifact is
often produced to identify the author, the title, the origin, the day of creation, the
source of the object and no description (Serrell, 1996). The example below is a
demonstration.

Example 3:
Club
Anishinabeg, 1800s
Wood, brass, feathers
AP76

(Source: Glenbow Museum, Canada)

However, Romanowski (2015, p. 6) suggests that based on its type, a label
can lengthen from one to three paragraphs but the number of word does not exceed
150 (see example 1, 2).
In regard to language style in a label, the J. Paul Getty Museum (2011, pp. 4
- 16) in its proposed complete guideline to adult audience interpretive materials
suggests that a label should be written with language that attracts looking and
thinking and stimulates visitors’ sense of discovery. Its title is informative and
visitor-friendly. The label maker should translate inscriptions and define specialized
terminology, avoid using infrequently words, use strong verbs and active voice, use
the simple present tense when referring the immediacy sense of the object and the
past tense for its contextual information. The example below is an illustration.
Example 4:

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(Source: J. Paul Getty Museum, LA, USA)
In the Vietnamese context, object labels in Vietnam’s museums should be
written in compliance with the mentioned points. Their structure should be
organized consistently, formed with the language that fosters visitors’ discovery,
used with active, conversational sentences, and included an explanation whenever
there are terms (Schmidt & Bùi, 2013).

Example 5:
Cờ: Bà Nguyễn Thị Định dùng để trao tặng các đơn vị,
Hội liên hiệp phụ nữ xuất sắc trong các kỳ Đại Hội.
Flag: Ms Nguyen Thi Dinh used to give units, Association
of excellent women in the Congress meetings.
(Source: The War Remnants Museum, HCMC, Vietnam)

This label is written with a title and one simple active sentence that gives
specific information about it.

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