VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY,
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
_______________********_______________
A TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF THE
VIETNAMESE VERSION OF US FINANCIAL &
ACCOUNTING APPLICATION SOFTWARE
(ĐÁNH GIÁ CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH THUẬT BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT CÁC
PHẦN MỀM ỨNG DỤNG VỀ TÀI CHÍNH-KẾ TOÁN MỸ)
M.A. THESIS
Field: English Linguistics
BY: TRAN THI CAM TU
SUPERVISOR: Assoc. Prof. Dr. LE HUNG TIEN
HANOI 2008
TABLE OF CONTENT
DECLARATION
ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
Part A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Reasons for Choosing The Topic 2
2. Aims of Study 3
3. Scope of Study 3
4. Research Method and Data 4
Part B: DEVELOPMENT 5
Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5
I.1. Translation 5
I.1.1. Definition of Translation 5
I.1.2. Types of Translation 6
a. Technical Translation 6
b. Form-based and Meaning-based translation 7

II.5. Summary of Chapter's Findings 29
Chapter III: COMPARISON OF THE TRANSLATION WITH
THE ORIGINAL
32
III.1. The Translation of The Topic 33
III.2. The Translation of Terms 34
III.2.1. Sub-technical Terms 34
III.2.2. Highly Technical Terms 35
• Single terms
35
Single terms as nouns, verbs and past participles 36
Single terms as acronyms 38
• Compound terms
38
The translation of Noun phrases 39
The translation of Verb phrases 40
III.2.3. The Translation of Application Messeges 41
III.3. The Evaluation of the Translation 42
III.4. Sumary of Chapter's Findings 44
Part C: CONCLUSION 45
1. Issues addressed in the study 45
2. Suggestions for further study 46
REFERENCES
APPENDIX
1. Screenshot of Enterprise Complete Business Application Suite
2. Screenshot of example form of US F&A Application Software
3. Term Type Classification
DECLARATION
I declare that this MA Thesis, entitled A Translation Quality Assessment of The
Vietnamese Version of US Financial & Accounting Application, is entirely the result of

in translation, his inspiring me the love in translation studies as well as his valuable
suggestions, advice and correction during my writing up the thesis.
I also wish to express my sincere thanks to my friend, Van Thi Thanh Binh M.A. and
Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, post-graduate student for their insightful comments and
suggestions.
I also take this opportunity to thank all my lecturers in the Post Graduate Department at
College of Foreign Language, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for many of their
interesting lectures, which have surely contributed to the foundation of my thesis.
I owe my debt of gratitude to my big managers Bettina Richard and Jeewon Kim from
Oracle Worldwide Product Translation Group (WPTG) who encouraged me to continue
my MA study after my accident by giving me favorable working condition.
Finally, I would like to show my deep gratitude to my parents, my son and my sister for
their support, encouragement and understanding and even my father's pushing, without
which my thesis would not have been accomplished.
Hanoi, March, 2008
Tran Thi Cam Tu
ABBREVIATIONS
SL: Source Language
TL: Target Language
F& A: Finance and Accounting
UI: User Interface
IT: Information Technology
N: Noun
GL: General Ledger
PART A: INTRODUCTION
Translating US F&A terms in application software into Vietnamese is in big need at the
moment as there are numerous IT companies who are implementing the localization of
US F&A software for both public sector like the Ministry of Finance and private one
covering many enterprises. FPT, for example, a famous IT company with thousands of
employees can only take responsibility for a small portion of the translation. In addition,

source text and an evaluation of the translation will be made.
1. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC
The first reason that makes me to propose for the research is that few researchers have
done about translation quality assessment. In addition, as mentioned in the introduction,
no researches about Translation Quality Assessment for Software Translation has been
done, according to the researcher’s knowledge from the finding in different sources like
professional translation web sites like translationjournal.com or other local sources.
With investigation on qualities employed in the source text of US F&A application, the
researcher hopes to bring about clearer view on the nature of a technical text, which will
result in better translation.
Secondly, the researcher hopes that this study will be of some help to language
reviewers, especially the reviewers for application software translation, which is very
challenging task because application software is a new industry in Vietnam and the
application software translation is even a newer industry with a huge bulk of
terminologies of different specialized fields.
Finally, I choose to write about Translation Criticism because I am now working as a
language specialist for a global software translation organization with the main
responsibility to do translation review and give feedback to the translators about the
errors they encounter. Therefore, I especially enjoy the topic.
2. AIMS OF STUDY
The study covers the following aims:
a. To discover what language qualities the SL text of US F&A application software has
based on the language qualities of a technical language text
b. To assess the translation quality of the translated version of US F&A application
software, in terms of the aspects discovered from theories raised by different scholars
including Julian House; Peter Newmark; Baker, M., yet he translation quality
assessment will be mainly based on the theory of Newmark in A Textbook of
Translation (1988).
c. To provide a translation quality assessment tool, especially in technical translation, for
translation teachers and students, technical translation editors/reviewers in general and

The data for the study will be taken from 15 forms (screens) of the F& A application
software and their corresponding forms in the translation.
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I.1. Translation
How do we know when a translation is good? This simple question lies at the heart of all
concerns with translation criticism. But not only that, in trying to assess the quality of a
translation, one also addresses the heart of any theory of translation, i.e., the crucial
question of the nature of translation or, more specifically, the nature of the relationship
between a source text and its translation text.
From this viewpoint, we can see that translation quality assessment touches a lot of
areas, the nature of a good translation, the nature of relationship between a source text
and the translation text, which in other words can be called translation equivalence and
of cause the central issue would be translation quality assessment.
To understand the theoretical background for these issues in translation quality
assessment, the researcher would introduce literature review of translation, translation
equivalence, and translation quality assessment, and technical language. Especially, due
to the fact that there is a huge volume of terms in the SL text, then a part of theoretical
background is to deal with terminology.
I.1.1 Definition of translation
In Stolze's view, a 'good' translation can only come about when the translator identifies
him/herself fully with the text to be translated.
In Approaches to Translation, Newmark (1982, p7) states "Translation is a craft
consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language
by the same message and/or statement in another language".
Followings are the definitions presented in What is translation and how does it work?
retrieved from />According to Bell, R.T (1991, p5), "Translation is the expression in another language (or
TL) of what has been expressed in another, SL, preserving semantic and stylistic
equivalence'.
Translation is the procedure which leads from a written SL text to an optimally

repetition; (3) the descriptive term is being used to make a contrast with another one.
According to Newmark, where a SL technical term has no known TL equivalent, a
descriptive term should be used.
b. Form-based and Meaning-based translation
Treatments of the two text properties, form and meaning, is the main distinction between
the two main types of translations: the form-based and the meaning-based ones (Larson,
1984, cited by Binh, V.T.T.).
Form-based translations, known as literal translations, attempt to follow the form of the
source language text. Meaning-based translations, or idiomatic translations, make every
effort to communicate to text receivers the meaning of the source language text in the
natural forms of the target language (Larson, 1984).
In practice, translation is a mixture of a literal transfer of the grammatical units a long
with some idiomatic translation of the meaning of the text.
Larson gives more details of these two types of translation in the following part:
Translation is basically a change of form. When we speak the form of a language, we are
referring to the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences or paragraphs, which are
spoken or written.
Translation consists of transferring the meaning of the source language into the receptor
language. This is done by going from the form of the first language to the form of a
second language by way of semantic structure. It is the meaning which is being
transferred and must be held constant, only the form changes. Translation, then, 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.
With regard to meaning, Larson states that most words have more than one meaning.
There will be a primary meaning – the one which usually comes to mind when the word
is said in isolation and secondary meanings – the additional meanings which a word has
in context with other words.
I.2. Translation Equivalence

follows:
1. One-to-one: There is a single expression in the TL for a single expression in the SL.
2. One-to-many: There is more than one expression in the TL for a single SL one.
3. Many-to-one: There is more than one expression in the SL, but there is only a single
expression in the TL that is equivalent to them.
4. Whole-to-part/Part-to-whole: A TL expression is only equivalent to part of the
concept designated by a single expression in the SL, or the equivalent in the TL has a
broader meaning than the concept in the SL.
5. One-to-zero: There is no expression in the TL for a single expression in the SL.
Koller (1979) stated the following five types of equivalence referring to the lexical
meaning equivalence: (1) Denotative equivalence: the SL and TL words refer to the
same thing in the real world, (2) Connotative equivalence: this type of equivalence
provides additional values besides denotative value and is achieved by the translator's
choice of synonymous words or expressions, (3) Text-normative equivalence: the SL
and the TL words are used in the same or similar context in their respective languages,
(4) Pragmatic equivalence: With readership orientation, the SL and TL words have the
same effect on their respective readers, and (5) Formal equivalence: This aims to
produce an "analogy of form" in the translation by exploiting the formal possibilities of
the TL or even by creating new forms if necessary.
Baker, M. (1992) views the concept of equivalence differently by discussing the notion
of non-equivalence at word level and above word level, grammatical equivalence,
textual equivalence and pragmatic equivalence.
• Non-equivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct
equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text. Common problems of non-
equivalence then involve such cases as culture-specific concepts, the SL concept
is not lexicalized in the target language, the SL word is semantically complex,
the SL and TL make different distinctions in meaning, the TL lacks a super-
ordinate, the TL lacks a specific term, differences in physical or interpersonal
perspective, differences in expressive meaning, difference in form, difference in
frequency and purpose of using specific forms, the use of loan words in the

Translation quality assessment is named as translation criticism by Newmark. In his
book, A Textbook of Translation (p184), "Translation criticism is an essential link
between translation theory and its practice."
Friederich (1963, p350) says that "quality in translation rests largely on the translator's
precise understanding of whatever it is that the original writer wants to convey".
Friederich's view emphasizes the meaning accuracy in guaranteeing quality in
translation.
Another scholar, Savory, with his famous translation principles, also emphasizes the role
of accurate reflection of source text in translation in the following statement "A
translation must give the words of the original/ A translation must give the ideas of the
original".
It is noticed that understanding the original text qualities is the key significance in
translation quality assessment.
I.3.2. Aspects of Translation Quality Assessment
Newmark, P., in A Textbook of Translation (1988, p184), states that "you can assess the
translation by its standard of referential and pragmatic accuracy."
According to House, J. (p.21), "It is imperative to develop an objective method of
determining the particular semantic, stylistic, functional, pragmatic qualities of source
text, and then try to determine whether and to what extent the translation matches these
characteristics".
I.3.3. Steps in Translation Quality Assessment
House, J. states that translation quality assessment has two steps including analysis of
source text in term of semantic, stylistic, functional and pragmatic qualities and
comparing it to the translation text.
According to Koller, there are 3 main stages in translation quality assessment including
(1) Source text criticism, (2) Translation comparison and (3) Evaluation of translation.
Newmark (1988, p.184) gives more detailed steps, stating that any comprehensive
criticism of a translation has to cover five topics: (1) a brief analysis of the SL text stress
on its intention and its functional aspects; (2) the translator's interpretation of the SL
text's purpose, his translation method and the translation's likely readership; (3) a

terminology and technical documents, thereby including vocabulary, grammar, sentence
structure, and document organization. Technical language can be found in legislation,
contracts, policy, consent forms, and even in newspaper articles
(Understanding Technical Language:A
Literature Review, Retrieved from
/>Aslo described in the above link, linguistic factors of technical language encompass
barriers such as technical terminology, jargon, passive sentences, lengthy sentences, etc.
Together, these factors make it very difficult for the general public to access technical
language.
According to Newmark, P. (1988, p16), "in a non literary text, the denotations of a word
normally come before its connotation".
Newmark (1988, p151) presents technical style as "jazzed up and popularized, it is
usually free from emotive language, connotations, sound effects and originally
metaphor".
Newmark (1988, p.152) says “the best approach to an opaquely technical text is to
underline what to be its key terms". Obviously from this definition, terminology will be
most important feature in technical text. Therefore, the researcher would like to present
literature review for terminology with focus on information technology, financial and
accounting terminology.
I.4.1. Terminology
Terminology in technical text is said to primarily distinguish it from other language
styles.
Giap, N. T. (1999, p207-278) states "Terminology is a special part of language. It
contains fixed words or phrases, which are exact names of concepts and objects in
human specialized fields".
According to Wikipedia, "Terminology is the study of terms and their use — of words
and compound words that are used in specific contexts", (Retrieved on Feb 20, 2008,
from From this definition, we find that
terminology focus on words, not phrases, clauses or sentences.
Further description is found in Wikipedia: Terminology also denotes a more formal