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Translation and the Construction of Identity: Abstracts
Date: 12-14 August 2004
Venue: Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, Korea
Pham Phu Quynh Na Previous research on the syntactic typology of
Vietnamese has led to two controversial findings. One set of studies has
claimed that the language is a subject-prominent language (Ly 1948, Chinh &
Le 1973, Ban 1987, Thin 2001). The other set states that the basic structure
of Vietnamese manifests a topic-comment relation rather than a
subject-predicate relation (Thompson 1965, Dyvik 1984, Hao 1991, Anh 2000).
This uncertainty between these two schools of thought has resulted in an
undeniable inconsistency in the definitions and classification of different
types of Vietnamese sentences among Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese scholars.
Anh, N. T. M. 2000. Vò töø Tieáng Vieät theo quan
ñieåm ngöõ phaùp chöùc naêng. Baùo caùo taïi Hoäi Nghò Khoa Hoïc, Ñaïi Hoïc
Khoa Hoïc Xaõ Hoäi & Nhaân Vaên TPHCM (Proceedings of university-level
conference in September 2000, University of Social Sciences and Humantities
of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam).
Panel 8: Teaching Translation - Global Challenges for the Twenty-First Century
Errors In The Translation Of Topic-Comment Structures Of Vietnamese Into
English
School of Languages and Literature, University of Western Sydney,
Australia
With the assumption that Vietnamese is a topic-prominent language, the aim
of the study is to investigate to what extent the typological differences
between the two languages influence the process of translating authentic
Vietnamese sentences into English, through a preliminary report on an error
analysis of the Vietnamese-English translations of Vietnamese EFL students.
The subjects include 100 students from the first, second, third, and fourth
years of the Department of English Language and Literature at the University
of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The data will
be the translation texts of about 100 students from the same source text.
Using an error analysis technique often adopted in studying the deviated
forms produced by second language learners (James 1998, Richards 1974,
Corder 1974), this study will also classify the errors based on the kind of
deviation (addition, omission, misordering or misselection, etc) or the
cause that generates them (interlingual or intralingual, etc.). However, as
a translation error may be attributable not only to a lack of linguistic
competence but also to a lack of translation competence and a deficiency in
comprehension ability of the source text, the study hopes to build up a
taxonomy of specifically translation errors, especially in the field of
translation into a second language. Hopefully this taxonomy will open up a
possible way to prevent future errors from learners in translating the
topic-comment structure of Vietnamese, as well as helping teachers in
teaching Vietnamese-English Translation.
This paper also suggests some practical guidelines in applying the
techniques of error analysis into the teaching of Vietnamese-English
translations, especially topic-comment structures of Vietnamese. REFERENCES
Ban, D. Q. (1987). Caâu Ñôn Tieáng Vieät. Haø Noäi. Nhaø Xuaát Baûn Giaùo
Duïc (Publisher of Education, Vietnam).
Chinh, T.V & Leâ, N.H. (1973) Khaûo Luaän veà Ngöõ Phaùp Vieät Nam. Hueá:
Ñaïi Hoïc Hueá (University of Hue).
Corder, S. P. (1974). Error Analysis. In J. P. B. Allen and S. Pit Corder
(eds.) Techniques in Applied Linguistics (The Edinburgh Course in Applied
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© IATIS 2003