An analysis of english vietnamese translation of the terminologies in electronics and electrical engineering texts

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN HÀ MY

AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION
OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS AND
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXTS
(Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt các thuật ngữ
chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1
Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201.01

HANOI - 2018


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SAU ĐẠI HỌC

NGUYỄN HÀ MY

AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION
OF THE TERMINOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS AND
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXTS
(Phân tích cách dịch Anh-Việt các thuật ngữ
chuyên ngành Điện Điện tử)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Ngành

: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã

: 8220201.01

GVHD

: PGS.TS. LÊ HÙNG TIẾN

HÀ NỘI - 2018


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, Nguyễn Hà My, herby claim the originality of my study. Unless
otherwise indicated, this is my own piece of academic
accomplishment.
Signature


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
On the completion of this thesis, I would like to express my deepest gratitude
to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof. Lê Hùng Tiến for his critical comments, helpful
suggestions as well as her supportive encouragement from the beginning stage of
working out the research proposal to the final stage of writing up the thesis. Without
his valuable guidance, this thesis would be far from completed.

I take this opportunity to extent my special thanks to all lecturers of Faculty
of Post-Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, for
their useful lectures during my course.
Finally, I would also like to thank to my family and my classmates for their
great support and encouragement during the time I was conducting this thesis.
Hanoi, November, 2018

i


ABSTRACT

Translation Studies always draws attention from students of English as a second
language and from translators who are major in Linguistics. And terminology
translation has been also aroused more concern from translators in recent time. In
this research, the analysis of English Vietnamese translation of Electronics and
Electrical engineering is studied. The purpose of this research is to classify
Electronics and Electrical Engineering terminology, then figure out the strategies
used to transfer them from English to Vietnamese.
Terminologies are taken from a dictionary in Electronics and Electrical Engineering.
These words were categories into two groups: single (simple) and nominal
(complex). After that, the analysis on these groups is made in terms of applied
strategies. For further studies, the related topics are open to many other researchers
in the application of the other majors‟ terminology and the expansion of the scope
of this study.

ii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... ii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................... v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale..................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Scope of the study ...................................................................................... 1
1.3. Aims of the study ....................................................................................... 2
1.4. Research questions ..................................................................................... 2
1.5. Organization of the study ........................................................................... 2
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 3
2.1.Terminology ................................................................................................ 3
2.1.1. Definition ................................................................................................ 3
2.1.2. Term creation .......................................................................................... 4
2.1.3. Classification of EEE term ...................................................................... 5
2.2. Translation theory ...................................................................................... 8
2.2.1. Definition ................................................................................................ 8
2.2.2. Translation strategies and procedures ..................................................... 9
2.2.3. Technical translation ............................................................................. 11
2.3. Translation of terminology....................................................................... 12
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 15
3.1.

Design of the study ............................................................................. 15

3.2.

Research method................................................................................. 15

3.3.

Procedure of data collection ............................................................... 16

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................ 17
4.1. The common strategies and procedures used in the translation of EEE
terms ................................................................................................................ 17
4.1.1. Translation of the single terms by literal translation ............................ 17
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4.1.2. Translation of the single terms by transference (the use of loan words) ..... 18
4.1.3. Transference and naturalization ........................................................... 21
4.1.4. The translation of compound terms by transposition procedure .......... 22
4.1.5. Other strategies and procedures ............................................................ 24
4.1.6. The translation of EEE terms by the use of Sino elements ................... 26
4.2. Possible causes and solutions ................................................................... 26
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION........................................................................ 29
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 33
APPENDIX ........................................................................................................ I

iv


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ST

Source Text

TT

Target Text

EEE

Electronics and Electrical Engineering

v


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the research topic and the reasons for choosing it. Besides,
the aim, objectives and the scope of the study are also provided in this chapter.

1.1. Rationale
Equivalence has always been in the center of argument since translation study
appeared. There exists several points of view on the equivalence of source text and
target text in terms of form, meaning, function,…but in general, equivalence needs
to be considered seriously and requires to be studied carefully with knowledge and
experience from researchers.
In translation field, terminology is seen as a challenge for translator to convey the
meaning from source language into target language depending on the purpose and
the context each terminology is used. And that is not exception for translation of
Electronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE) terms. As a branch of English for
Specific Purposes (ESP), vocabulary related to each major is very crucial and paid a
lot of attention from translators also teachers to get the equivalent meaning in target
language with researching or teaching targets. And as a very useful tool for this
challenge, dictionary for each field has been developed to assist in transferring
meaning and helping language users save time and have a closer look on the
terminology.
However, the equivalence of these translation versions has not been studied to build
up an equivalence system or categorize the equivalent levels for terminology. Users

can read the word in both source language and target language wondering the
conveyed meaning in many circumstances.
Therefore, the researcher would like to carry out this thesis research in the hope for
standardizing the equivalence system applied for terminology and classifying the
translated words into each type of equivalence.

1.2. Scope of the study
Due to limitedness of time, experience also knowledge, this paper only covers EEE
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terminologies in the dictionary book: “An English – Vietnamese Usage Electricity
Dictionary” by Engineer Truong Quang Thien, Quang Hung published in 2004 by
Statistics Publisher.
As stated above, the researcher only chooses one book to explore and analyze
appeared terminologies.

1.3. Aims of the study
 To draw out the strategies that may apply to the translation of EEE terminologies
 To suggest some implications for translating EEE terminology

1.4. Research questions
To reach the aims above, researcher is going to answer this research question:
What strategies are used to translate EEE terminologies in EEE texts?

1.5. Organization of the study
The paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter provides readers an overview of the study including the reason for
choosing the topic, scope, aims, and its organization.

Chapter 2: Literature Review
Theoretical background in the light of which the research matters is discussed in
this chapter.
Chapter 3: Methodology
The chapter describes the strategies applied to investigate the research matters.
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion
This chapter presents analyses and discusses the results that the researcher found
out from the collected data. It also gives answer to the two research questions.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
The chapter summarizes the overall study and suggests some forms of further
studies on the field.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This second chapter presents the literature review of the study or the background
knowledge of translation, translation of terminology, translation equivalence. To
begin with, definition of translation and terminology will be shown. The second
focus of this chapter is on translation methods and strategies applied in transferring
technical terminology.

2.1.Terminology
2.1.1. Definition
Several linguists, for a long time, raised a question about the definition of
terminology regarding to establish its structure and meaning. According to Dubuc
(1997), “Terminology originally referred to the technical terms and expressions
used in art, a science or a specialized subject.” In another sense, “Terminology took
a broader meaning to refer to the investigation of such special or technical terms, it
involves the systematic research and identification of the terms specific to a subject

and the concepts they present”. It has to be differentiated with normal words in
daily life or the ordinary conversation when coming to terminology, a word can has
a meaning in normal sense but it can be totally different referring to a concept or a
phenomenon in scientific field.
Moreover, he also defined terminology as a “discipline aimed at systematically
identifying specialized terms in the context in which they are used, analyzing the
concepts the they present in that context, and creating and standardizing terms if
need be, to meet the user‟s need for means of expression.”
The terminologist mentions three types of terminology: simple terms, complex
terms and phrase. This is one of the ways researchers can apply to record the
terminologies and categorize them.
Simple terms
Simple terms are one-word units which can be different parts of speech. Each
represents a single concept in a subject field. Architecture (n), to query (v),
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dedicated (adj) are examples of simple terms in office automation.
Complex terms
Complex terms are made up of two or more words. Like simple terms, they represent a
single concept in a given field and can be different parts of speech. Desktop publishing
(n), computer-aided design (n), integrated services digital network (n), user-friendly (adj)
are examples of complex terms in office automation. Elimination of any word in a
complex unit would change the concept: desktop publishing and publishing have quite
different meanings, as do user-friendly and friendly.
Terminological phrases
Although phrasal units are never used as main entries by the lexicographer, they
hold particular interest for the terminologist, as they constitute turns of phrase
characteristically used in a special field. Examples of phrases in office automation
include to automate office procedures (verbal), in broadcast mode (prepositional)

2.1.2. Term creation
The main purpose of terms is to name concepts. When a concept appears, it is made
in a culture, or is transferred to a new culture, it also involves the creation of a new
term to name it.
Primary and secondary term formation is pulled by different factors:
+ Primary term formation occurs when a newly created concept has to be named
while secondary term formation occurs by either the monolingual revision of a
given terminology for the purpose of producing a standard document, or a transfer
of knowledge to another linguistic community – a process in which the creation of
new term in the target language is required.
+ Another fundamental difference between the two formation methods lies in the
fact that in primary term formation, there is no linguistic precedent although there
are rules for forming appropriate terms. In contrast, in secondary term formation,
there is always the precedent of an already existing term in another language with
its own motivation.
+ Secondary term formation focuses more on guidelines than primary term
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formation which are on the basis of patterns of terms and word formation already
prevalent in the subject field and natural language in question.

2.1.3. Classification of EEE term
Newmark (1981b) states “Neologisms which can be defined as newly coined lexical
units or existing lexical units that acquire new sense are perhaps the non-literary and
professional translator‟ biggest problems.” The main reason that leads to the arrival
of neologisms is that new objects and processes are continually created in
technology, new ideas and variations on feelings come to the media and new terms
from the social sciences, slang, dialect and transferred words come into the main

stream of language. Newmark (1981b) also proposes twelve types of neologisms
according to their structural patterns: single terms and compound terms.
2.1.3.1.

Single terms

Single terms are made up of one word (usually a noun or a verb), and neologisms
can be new coinages, eponyms, acronyms…
a. Single terms which appear in the form of a verb
 synchronize (làm cho đồng bộ)
 conduct (dẫn điện)
 transmit (phát, truyền)
One important feature of these terms is that they are not „fixed‟ i.e they can appear
either in the form of a verb or a noun at different time in the same text or in the
same sentence to avoid repetition. Almost all the verbs have their nouns to be used
as alternatives:
Noun synchronization (sự làm cho đồng bộ)
 conduction (sự dẫn điện)
 transmission (sự phát, truyền)
Another important feature of these verbs is that each verb usually goes with (in
collocations) one or two certain nouns. Examples of verbs and nouns that go
together are:
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 rectify a current (chỉnh lưu dòng điện)
 transmit signal/ wave (truyền tín hiêu / sóng)
 accelerate a beam (gia tốc chùm tia)
b. Single terms which appear in the form of a noun
The terms which are nouns can be divided into subgroups as the followings:

Terminologies referring to newly created concepts
These rises a need for neologisms to name newly invented objects or processes in
technology. These neologisms are initially used in the culture where the concepts
are invented. Later, the concepts are transferred to other cultures, and consequently
the original name may be transferred together with the concepts:
 Transistor

 Radar

 Thyristor

 Stator

 Vector

 Rotor

 Piston

 Dynode

 Ion

 Triton

These terminologies may be strange to readers at first time using due to the
unfamiliarity and requiring them to read and write more to remember. Transference
is applied when the translator cannot fine the true equivalence of a technical term.
Eponyms derived from the names of inventors or discoveries
These are terms that designate objects, processes, laws, theorem, which are labeled

after the inventors or discoveries.
For example, Morse code (Mã morse) is named after Samuel Morse (1791-1872),
the U.S inventor of the first electric telegraph and the Morse code.
Other examples:
 Zener diode (điôt Zenơ)
 Zener effect (Hiệu ứng Zenơ)
 Kevin degree (Độ Kevin)
 Edison cell (Pin Edison)
Eponyms derived from objects
6


Some terms are proper names, brand names, trade names and proprietaries of
devices, instruments, substance…For example, the term Greenfield is the trademark
of a gas-filled tube that has three electrodes and can be switched between an “off”
state and an “on” state.
Example:
 Geiger counter tube: Ống đếm Geiger
c. Single terms which appear in the form of an adjective
Besides noun and verb, terminology is created as a form of adjective which can
show the characteristics of an object or a phenomenon, it can precede the noun also.
Example:
Asymmetrical (không đối xứng)
Aperiodic (không có tính chu kỳ)
Athermic (không thấm nhiệt)
2.1.3.2.

Compound nouns

a. Terms consisting of Classifier (noun) + thing

A term of this group consists of two nouns, the first noun acts as Classifier
differentiating the Thing (the second noun) from other concepts of the same group.
For example, there are many types of capacitors (Thing) that can be distinguished
from one another by different Classifiers that precede them, e.g., air capacitor (tụ
không khí)>< ceramic capacitor (tụ sứ) >< filter capacitor (tụ lọc).
 Barrier region: vùng chắn
 Banana plug: phích cắm điện
 Absorption machine: máy hấp thu
b. Terms consisting of Classifier (Adjective) + Thing
A term of this group consists of an adjective that functions as Classifier and the
head noun (Thing).
Example:
 Electrical energy (năng lượng điện)
 Chemical energy: năng lượng hóa học
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 Black box: hộp đen
 Binaural tape : băng từ kép
The Classifier can be further modified by another Subclassifier which takes on the
form of a noun, or an adjective:
 Surface leakage current (dòng điện rò bề mặt)
 Insulation resistance value (giá trị điện trở cách điện)
 Error frequency limit (giới hạn tần số sai sót)
c. Terms consisting of Classifier(past participle) + Thing
In this group, some V-ing function as Classifier, e.g transmitting antenna = antenna
which transmits signal. In this example, the scanning beam means the beam which
is scanning the electrode. Still, others can be Classifier when interpreted in different
situation:
 Modulating wave (sóng điều biến)

 Decoupling capacitor (tụ tách rời)
 Conducting band (dải dẫn điện)
 Bucking coil (cuộn biến điện)
d. Term consisting of Classifier (Past participle) + Thing
Like V-ing participle, some V-en function as Classifier:
 Printed circuit (mạch in)
 Inverted speech (âm tần nghịch)
 Distilled water (nước cất)
 Balanced circuit (mạch đối xứng)

2.2. Translation theory
2.2.1. Definition
Newmark (1995) defined translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into
another language in the way that the author intended the text”. Another definition
given by Thomas G Mansella (2005) is that “translation is the rendering of written
communication across barriers created by different languages and cultures.”

8


Obviously, these two concepts mention “rendering” which can be understood as
interpret from original language (source language) into another language (target
language). It can be seen that in Newmark‟s definition, he focuses on the meaning
or the nature of language when it is translated. Thomas, in the second explanation,
states “culture” together with “language” as barriers of translation. In a nutshell, it
can be stated that translation is transferring both language and the “soul” of text
from one language into another language.
Gentzler (1993) says that “a translation should have the same or similar impact and
effect on TL readers as the original on SL readers”. Therefore, the role of translators
is very crucial. They have to create the link between countries and countries,

cultures and cultures. Translators not only transfer the language but also transfer the
writer‟s perspective and emotion, and make it natural in target language.
In conclusion, in the scope of this paper, translation can be understood as the
process of conveying the accurate meaning and the intended effects of writers from
source language to targeted language.

2.2.2. Translation strategies and procedures
Newmark distinguishes between translation and translation strategies in the way
that “[While] translation methods relate to the whole text, translation procedures are
used for sentences and smaller units of language.” Newmark (1981).
Newmark (1988) also points out translation strategies as follow:
1. Transference: it is the process of transferring a SL word to a TL text. It is also
called “emprunt”, “loan word” or “transcription”. It is the same as Catford‟s
transference which includes transliteration, relating to the conversion of different
alphabets like Arabic or Chinese into English. Harvey (2000, p. 5) also calls this
strategy as “transcription”.
2. Cultural equivalent: It means replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one.
The translation uses of these approximate equivalents are limited because they are
not accurate, but they can be used in general texts, publicity and propaganda.
3. Synonymy: it is a “near TL equivalent”. This is the translation procedure used for
9


a SL word where there is lack of clear one-to-one equivalent and the word is not
important in the text.
4. Naturalization: according to Newmark (1988), this procedure succeeds
transference and adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the
normal morphology (word forms) of the TL.
5. Recognized TL Translation: Newmark (1988, p. 89) suggests that the translators
“should normally use the official or the generally accepted translation of any

institutional term”. He believes that in translating it is not good to give translators‟
own titles or a brief explanation and just the accepted term should be used in the
translation because changing the term may cause confusions especially in official or
serious informative texts.
6. Functional equivalent: it is a common procedure which is usually applied to
cultural words. It requires the use of a cultural free word, sometimes with a new
specific term, therefore, it “neutralizes or generalizes the SL word; and sometimes
adds a particular thus” (p. 83). This procedure is a cultural componential analysis
and based on Newmark (1988) is “the most accurate way of translating. i.e.,
deculturalising a cultural word” (p. 83). According to Hegedus (2005), neologisms
can also be considered in this category since they do not exist even in the SL culture
but just belong to the culture of the imaginative world created by the SL author.
7. Descriptive equivalent: in this procedure the description has to be weighed
against function. Both description and function are essential elements in the
explanation and therefore translation.
8. Literal Translation: to Newmark (1988) this procedure is approximately a wordfor-word representation of the original word which transfers the primary (isolated,
out-of context) meaning of the SL word; however the syntactic structures of the
target language are respected.
9. Translation Procedure Combinations (couplets etc): Newmark (1988) refers to
couplet as “the combination of two translation procedures for one unit” (p. 83).
Moreover, triplets and quadruplets combine three or four of the procedures for
dealing with a single problem.
10


10. Through – Translation: Newmark (1988, p. 84) uses this term for the literal
translation of common collocations, names of organizations, the components of
compounds and phrases which is known as “calque” or “loan translation”. Also,
Vinay and Darbelned (1995, as cited in Venuti, 2000, p. 85) define „calque‟ as a
special kind of borrowing whereby a language borrows an expression from another,

but then translates each of its elements literally. This translation is supposed to fill
in the gaps in contiguous cultures. The most typical examples of throughtranslations are the names of international organizations which consist of universal
words which may be transparent for some languages and semantically motivated for
some other languages.
11. Shifts or transpositions: it involves a “change in the grammar from SL to TL,
for instance, (i) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when a
specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TL
word, change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth” (Newmark, 1988, p.
86). 12. Modulation: this strategy appears when “translator reproduces the message
of the original text in the TL text in conformity with the current norms of the TL,
since the SL and the TL may appear dissimilar in terms of perspective” (Newmark,
1988, p.88).
13. Compensation: this strategy is applied when “low of meaning in one part of a
sentence is compensated in another part” (Newmark, 1988,p.90).
14. Paraphrase: In this strategy, the “meaning of the corpus based translation is
explained. Here the explanation is much more detailed than that of descriptive
equivalent” (Newmark, 1988, p. 91).

2.2.3. Technical translation
Sofer (1991) reaches technical translation by distinguishing it from literary
translation. “The main division in the translation field is between literary and
technical translation”. He claims that technical translation is done by a much greater
number of practitioners and is an ever growing and expanding field with excellent
opportunities. In contrast, literal translation covers such areas as fictions, poetry,
11


drama and humanities in general and is done by writers of the same kind in the
target language.
Newmark (1981) considers this kind of translation as “one of specialized

translation; institutional translation, the area of politics, commerce, finance,
government ect., is the other”.

2.3. Translation of terminology
Newmark (1988, p. 150) proposed 12 types of neologisms and goes into the
translation of particular instances as follows:
1. New Words: according to Newmark (1988) “old words with new senses tend to
be non – cultural and non – technical”. Since these words do not normally refer to
new objects or processes they are rarely technological. They are usually translated
“either by a word that already exists in the TL or by a brief functional or descriptive
term”. (p. 142).
2. Old words with new sense: existing collocations with new senses can be technical
or non – technical. Newmark (1988) believes that existing collocations with new
senses are a translator‟s trap. They are usually “normal descriptive terms which
suddenly become technical terms” and therefore “their meaning sometimes hides
innocently behind a more general of figurative meaning” (p. 142). Further, for their
translation, based on Newmark (1988) if the concept exists in the TL, a recognized
translation or through translation can be used. If the concept does not exist like “tug
– of – love” of the TL speakers are not yet aware of it, a journalistic descriptive
equivalent can be given.
3. New Coinages: they can be brand of trade names like “Oxo” or “Bisto” which are
usually transferred unless the product is marketed in the TL culture under another
name. According to Newmark (1988) if the trade name has no cultural or
identifying significance “the proper name may be replaced by a functional or
generic term”. For example, “Revlon” may be translated by different components as
“Revlon”, “Lipstick”, or “Fashionable American” (p.142). Therefore, if they are
original, they should be transcribed, and recreated, if they are recently coined and
12

are brand names they should be transcribed, or given their TL brand names.
4. Derived Words (including blends): based on Newmark (1988) most neologisms
are words derived by analogy from ancient Greek and Latin morphemes with
suffixes such as –ismo etc. which were naturalized in the appropriate language. For
example, “Bionomics” has given way to “ecology” and “ergonomics” to
“biotechnology” (p.143).
5. Abbreviations: like “Video” and “Uni”. Unless they coincide (“prof”) they are
written out in the TL. (p. 145).
6. New Collocations: based on Newmark (1988), in linguistics a collocation is “the
habitual co-occurrence of individual lexical items” while for a translator it “consists
of lexical items that enter mainly into high frequency grammatical structures” (p.
212). Collocation has three common types: A) adjective plus noun (e.g. heavy
labor), B) noun plus noun (eyeball), and C) verb plus object (score a victory).
7. Eponyms: to Newmark (1988), it is any word derived from a proper name like
“Hallidayan” and “Joycean”. Whenever they directly refer to the person, they are
translated without difficulty. But, when they refer to the referent‟s ideas or qualities
the translator may need to add some comments.
8. Phrasal Words: “new phrasal words are restricted to English‟s facility in
converting verbs to nouns” like “work-out” and “knock-on effect”. They are
translated by their semantic equivalents. They are often more economical than their
translation and “occupy the peculiarly English register between “informal” and
“colloquial”, whilst their translation are more formal” (p. 147).
9. Transferred (new and old referents): newly transferred words keep only one
sense of their foreign nationality. They are the words their meanings are least
dependent on their contexts. If they are frequently used, they change or develop
additional senses, and can sometimes no longer be translated back straight into their
languages of origin. Some examples are “Adidas” and “Levi” (p. 147).
10. Acronyms (new and old referents): to Newmark (1988), acronyms refers to “the
initial letters of words that form a group of words used for denoting an object,
13

institution (like „UNESCO‟) or procedure” (p. 200). With regards to the translation,
there is either a standard equivalent term or, if it does not exist, a descriptive term.
Also, acronyms for institutions and companies‟ names are usually transferred.
11. Pseudo-neologisms: when “a generic word stands in for a specific word e.g.
“rapports (d‟engrenage) – “gear rations” (Newmark, 1988, p. 148).

14


CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
This chapter represents the methodology of the research in which research design
will be defined. It also provides the description of the subject, sampling steps, data
collection procedure and data analysis procedure.

3.1.

Design of the study

In this study, qualitative approach is chosen to decide the way of collecting and
analyzing data. First of all, “qualitative approach is a type of research that focuses
on qualities such as words or observations that are difficult” (Glesne‟s, 2011), its
aim is to “emphasize understanding the subjects point of view” (Bogdan and Biklen,
2007). On this approach, Stake (2010) is more specific when she writes that “all
research requires interpretations. Qualitative research relies heavily on interpretive
perceptions throughout the planning, data gathering, analysis, and write-up of the
study to quantify and lend themselves to interpretation or deconstruction”.
Therefore, it can be seen that qualitative research involves visible materials like
texts, sound and images which can be collected and analyzed and interpreted

through several steps at the same time (Nelson et al.‟s, 1992g). That is the reason
why it requires certain competences from researcher to conduct a good qualitative
research.
The role of qualitative approach is undeniable for helping researcher to understand
the issues accurately and comprehensively. More important, “it encourages us as
investigators to be mindful of who we are and how our perspectives can influence
how we interact with others and make sense of the world around us” (Chenail,
2010). In conclusion, the choice of qualitative research is appropriate which
determines the choice of subject, sample selection method and data analysis
procedure in the study.

3.2.

Research method

Due to the aim of the study to investigate of strategies applied in translating EEE
terminologies in the dictionary from English to Vietnamese, the researcher chose
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document analysis to be the main data collection method in this study.
To be more specific, the dictionary is selected to categorize EEE terminologies into
certain groups with the analysis to figure out which strategy is used to transfer these
terms. Qualitative approach is also used to inspect the document. The data for this
study is collected through the procedure of critical analyzing, based on Newmark‟s
methods.

3.3.

Procedure of data collection

Data collection procedure was divided into three steps:
Step 1: Collecting English terminologies in the original and Vietnamese equivalents
in translated version.
Step 2: Classifying collected English terminologies.
According to categorized term groups in chapter 2, collected English and
Vietnamese terminologies in step 1 are classified into set groups to prepare for
answering research questions.
Step 3: Classifying Vietnamese equivalents in the translated version.
After categorizing in the first step, researcher bases on the framework of translation
strategies mentioned in chapter II to conclude to strategies used by translator to
render the original. Then, the researcher gives the answer to the research question:
What strategies are used to translate EEE terminologies in EEE texts?
The result, then, are recorded for data analysis to figure out the main findings of the
study. Within the time limitation and scope of this study, this paper is accomplished
with samples of translation methods/procedures which are profoundly presented
throughout the investigated data. Analysis and description of data are demonstrated
with cases or example taken from the dictionary.

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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the researcher focuses on the ways the translator used to transfer
English terminologies in the dictionary to Vietnamese. Besides, collected data is
analyzed and discussed to answer two research questions respectively.
Based on the procedures in Chapter II, the categorization of term types and their
strategies were implemented. And the results will be the instrument to answer the
research question mentioned in the first part of the paper:
What strategies are used to translate EEE terminologies in EEE texts?

4.1. The common strategies and procedures used in the translation of
EEE terms
4.1.1. Translation of the single terms by literal translation
Group 1: Single terms transferred by literal translation
Newmark (1981b) clarifies literal translation by distinguishing it from word-forword and one-to-one translation: “Word-for-word translation transfers SL grammar
and word order, as well as the primary meanings of all the SL words, into the
translation”. This translation is supposed to be effective only for brief simple neutral
word. (absorb – hấp thụ). Literal translation goes farther than one-to-one translation.
It ranges from one word to one word (charge – nạp), group to group (Flying spot
scanner – máy quét điểm di động).
As following are some example of applying literal translation to single noun, verb
and adjective:
Noun




Verb

English
Absorber
Absorption
Accessory
Acceleration






English

Vietnamese
Bộ hấp thụ
Sự hấp thụ
Phụ tùng
Gia tốc
Vietnamese

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