PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In the process of worldwide industrialization, the needs for studying English become
more and more inevitable. Especially for the knowledge of the specific job, translators
must understand deeply all the skills of the job and must be ready for the translation into
second language if necessary.
In Vietnam, anyone coming into career, he or she must prepare all the knowledge of
job not only in Vietnamese but in English as well.
Deriving from translating technical documents of the paint company, the researcher
realizes the mistakes in translating paint documents which made by himself or by his
colleagues
Certainly, in order to get the skills of translation better, anyone who works as
translators should analyze thoroughly the mistakes and find out the solutions to correct and
avoid in the future.
2. Aims of study and research questions
Analysis on semantically terminological mistakes in the paint document translation
of specific purpose English is a very complicated matter for the researchers, especially for
the translators in the field of paint terminology in particular and in English in general. The
study aims at:
- Finding out the mistakes in translating paint terminology from English into
Vietnamese with the specific evidences.
- Suggesting the solutions to the problems to improve the current situation of
translating and avoid mistakes in the future.
Thanks to these ideas, the researcher will be aware of some suitable ways to avoid
the mistakes and correct themselves at work.
* Some research questions deducted from the study are as follows:
- What are the mistakes that the translators make when translating the documents?
- What are the solutions to these problems?
1
3. Scope of study
In this study, it is impossible to cover all the mistakes - concerning matters. The

Initializing the study, the researcher take advantages of some methods which help
him do the research in the right direction. There are two methods the researcher uses are
survey coming from documents observation and statistics applied with analysis and
synthesis.
Encouraging two above methods, the researcher carries out the corresponding tasks
as
- Collecting and classifying examples and
- Comparing the usage of language between Vietnamese and English
5. Instruments for data collection, subjects
Deriving from the career, the researcher finds the subject of the study and makes an
effort to deal with. It is obvious that working as a translator of the paint documents, the
researcher has ever got the difficulties in the job. ”Mistakes and how to correct them in
translating”, which is the reason for the subject.
The two data collection instruments used in the study are Description of experience
and Description of observation.
* Description of experience
To fulfill this study, the researcher has worked at Haiphong Paint Join Stock
Company for over 3 years. The experience he can get is through such all the documents he
has done with in translation as Technical data sheets, paint specifications, catalogue, and
color collection cards, etc.
And some international documents which are related to the Paint Marketing and paint
checking are ASTM (American Standard for Testing Measurement), ISO (International
Standard Organization), and JIS (Japanese International Standard), TCVN (Vietnamese
Standard).
3
Paint companies’ websites are also the resources for the researcher to do the study.
There are so many paint companies in the world. In the fact of worldwide economy, the
competition among companies is higher and more technological, and the information must
be updated regularly and immediately. That is the reason why website is a useful
instrument to get the information the most easily.

further study
5
PART II. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter focuses on the theoretical knowledge concerning semantically
terminological mistakes in the paint document translation of specific purpose English
including factors affecting the translation for the people who read and write the paint
technical documents.
1.1. What is translation?
Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production
of an equivalent text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message
in another language. The text to be translated is called the "source text," and the language
that it is to be translated into is called the "target language"; the final product is sometimes
called the "target text." (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation). And, “Translation
consists of producing in the target language the closest natural equivalent of the source
language message, firstly with respect to meaning and secondly with respect to style.”
Nida (1959)
Often it is rendering meaning of signs, symbols (both verbal and non-verbal) by
means of other signs, symbols in the same language or in other languages. Common sense
tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one
language as in another. On the other hand, it may be seen as complicated, artificial and
fraudulent, since by using another language, the language user may be pretending to be
someone he/she is not. Hence, working in translation has its own interests and its own
excitement. Since a translator works on a text, he/she is always trying to extent his/her
knowledge and improve his/her means of expression, he/she is always pursuing facts and
words, so a satisfactory translation is always possible, but a perfect or ideal translated
version may never be obtained.
1.2. Functions of translation
Translation functions as a means of communication and information transferring. It is
used for multilingual notices in public places, for instructions issued by companies, for

the translators of paint technical documents.
For the purpose of analysis, language has been divided into different skill areas.
These can be discussed in the framework of how we can understand our first language. A
child can first learn to practice language by speaking, combined with listening. Then, when
school begins, children learn the skills of reading and writing. As the child grows in their
language ability and use, the different skills are most often integrated with each other so
that they are being used in coordination with each other. Thanks to these skills
coordination, the understanding of a language will be developed and can be improved day
by day.
text
5. Target language
readership
6. Target language
norms
7. Target language
culture
8. Target language
settings and
tradition
1. Source
language writer
2. Source
language norms
3. Source
language culture
4. Source
language settings
and tradition
9. The truth (the facts
of the matter)

do is to have both the knowledge of their specialism or career and the ability of the second
language understanding.
9
1.4. Reasons for translating mistakes
There are, in fact, many things that contribute to the success of translators. The
followings are some typical factors affecting translating English documents.
1.4.1. Subjective causes
A translation of high quality must be the work of a skillful translator. To be able to
produce good translation, the translator must be competent in both the source and
target languages and have extensive background knowledge of different fields.
1.4.1.1. Insufficient language competence
First and foremost, the practice of translation belongs to the linguistic realm. Thus,
the primary reason of a poor translation must be the insufficiency of the translator’s
language competence. The incompetence may be of Vietnamese, the target language in
English – Vietnamese translation, and/or of English, the source language.
* Insufficient target language (Vietnamese) competence
Before becoming a translator, one must be a good writer. That is to say that
he/she is capable of using his mother tongue effectively to express the ideas.
Translation, hence, is most of the time direct consequence of a poor or insufficient target
language competence. In the English – Vietnamese translation, the target language is the
Vietnamese language.
Vietnamese is known for its sophisticated grammatical rules on which not all
Vietnamese people hold appropriate knowledge. In fact, only a few Vietnamese translators
excel at their own mother tongue, let alone students who are still learning to become
translators.
Language incompetence can be observed in the areas: the vocabulary and the
grammatical structures. Insufficient knowledge on either of the two areas may lead to
translations of poor quality.
Noticeably, many would-be translators learning at university nowadays do not know
a remarkably large number of specific Vietnamese words are often used in technical

Along with a considerable basic vocabulary that can be used in texts neutral in stylistics,
translators must “equip” themselves with terminology vocabulary so as to be as
flexible as possible in their translation. Most Vietnamese unskilled translators lack both
11
the academic words in their English vocabulary. On the other hand, they tend to abuse the
words and phrases they know and risk making themselves sound improper in certain
contexts. For example, comparing between a sentence in English: “Technology of
Haiphong Paint is under the license of Chugoku-Japan.” and in Vietnamese “Công nghệ
của công ty Sơn Hải Phòng là theo li xăng của hãng Sơn Chugoku – Nhật Bản”. In the
process of translation, there are wrong habits of the translator. First is Haiphong Paint and
“Công ty sơn Hải Phòng” because the translator always considers Haiphong Paint
Company is unique. That is why, as anything about Haiphong Paint is about Haiphong
Paint Company. And the same thing in “License” and “li xăng”. Maybe, “Li xăng” is the
borrowing word which has been used so much by the translator that he forgets the original
meaning of “license” to be “bản quyền”. So Vietnamese sentence must be “Công nghệ Hải
Phòng bản quyền của hãng Chugoku – Nhật Bản”. “License” as you know, has some
meanings such as “giấy phép, cấp quyền, bản quyền, bằng cấp, chứng chỉ, đăng ký”. But
in this case, Haiphong Paint Company has been authorized from Chugoku Company to
produce and sell paint products. The meaning “giấy phép” seems to be used for the laws
documents and for registration. But this sentence has been used for advertisement to show
the power and authorization. So, we should understand the suitable meaning like “bản
quyền”.
Finally, it is critical to understand that the sufficiency in both languages is not enough
for a translator. He/she needs to flexibly compare and contrast, be aware of the differences
between the two languages so that he/she can easily find an equivalent whenever necessary
or at least know how to make himself/herself understood when encountering untranslatable
concepts. The art of translation requires a lot more than proficiency in languages. This
may explain why bilingual people are not always good translators. One of the other crucial
criteria is the terminology, without which the translation would be made with mistakes.
1.4.1.2. Inadequate terminology

Some English vocabulary is peculiar. A word in English may mean a lot of other
words in Vietnamese. For example, you may translate the word “primer” as “sơn lót”,
“sơn chống rỉ”, “sơn lót phân xưởng”, “sơn lớp 1”, “sơn lớp nền”, …depending on the
context.
13
On the contrary, a Vietnamese word “sơn” has many meanings in translated English
case such as “film”, “coating”, “paint”, “varnish”, “bitumen”, “lacquer”, ”layer” …; or
“mẫu sơn” is the same as “specimen”, “sample”, “panel”… depending on the context.
English, especially American English, has a tendency to convert nouns to
verbs. This is problematic for speakers of the Vietnamese language who cannot as easily
convert nouns to verbs. For examples: a word “weather” you write down in the form of
gerund “weathering” in the sentence “Testing method for coating weathering”. It can be
said for sure that if anyone who knows little about paint field, he/she is more likely to
translate into Vietnamese like this: “Kiểm tra thử quá trình phong hóa của màng sơn”.
This problem comes from inexperienced translators. It is completely correct if it is
translated into Vietnamese “Phương pháp thử độ bền thời tiết của sơn”. The word “phong
hóa” is only inferred from the translator who does not know the method and the properties
of paint. They think “Weathering is the decomposition of Earth rocks, soils and their
minerals through direct contact with the planet's atmosphere”, in Vietnamese: “Phong
hóa là quá trình phá hủy đá, đất và các khoáng vật chứa trong đó khi tiếp xúc trực tiếp với
môi trường không khí” ( Paint is also test
under the condition of weather influence, but for the qualified translator, he/she must take
in that “weathering” is a testing method for the paint under all the natural and human
factors influence happening in the environment.
All of these peculiarities of English grammar often make it difficult for non- native
English speakers to get a full command of the language. It is also difficult when it comes to
translating English writing into other languages.
1.4.2.2. Career differences
For a translator, the understanding of the terminology in the job he/she translate is
very important. He/she can translate everything but sometimes correctly or incorrectly. The

domains of human activities, through research and analysis of terms in context, for the
purposes of documenting and promoting correct usage. This study can be limited to one
language or can cover more than one language at the same time (multilingual terminology,
bilingual terminology, and so forth) or may focus on studies of terms across fields.
15
Terminology is not connected to information retrieval in any way but focused on the
meaning and conveyance of concepts. "Terms" (i.e. index terms) used in an information
retrieval context are not the same as "terms" used in the context of terminology, as they are
not always technical terms of art.
2.1.2. Characteristics of paint terminology
2.1.2.1. Origin of terminology
Terminology of paint lies in the area of science and technology. The system of
terminology of science and technology is often Latin words such as: otorhinolaryngology,
electro-encephalography, Homo sapiens, biocide, acrylic, epoxy, alkyd, etc or comes from
Latin: “to assert”, “to state”, “to declare” instead of the verbs “to say”, “to contaminate”
instead of the verbs “to soil”, “to purify” instead of the verb “to clean”.
2.1.2.2. Variants of terminology
* Dialects
Dialect is commonly used in a community, a group of people or a specific field. One
of the most characterized variants in English technical documents is geographical dialect
between English language of British English and of American English. Take these
examples relating to the dialect of British English and American English:
British English American English
Depot Terminal
Flammable Inflammable
Gear level Stick shift
Mobile phone Cell phone
Polystyrene Styrofoam
* Register
Register is one kind of language variants used for one specific situation, especially in

17
This section presents the results collected from the survey and from observation of 15
translators who work with 5 types of documents. Of course, in each type of document,
there are many sheets of documents which the translators work with everyday. In the limit
of time and area of presentation, the researcher has worked with 75 sheets of technical
documents.
From the observation, three most common mistakes are found out; they are mistakes
at three levels of word, sentence and paragraph. All of them are going to be discussed in
the Chapter 3 after the analysis of the results in this chapter. So, study the below:
Mistake level
Document
Word Sentence Paragraph
Advertisement R R R
Technical documents A U U
Certificates R N N
Bidding documents S S S
Testing methods A O O

(Note: N-never, R-rarely, O-often, S-sometimes, U-usually, A-always is frequency of mistakes)
In the tables 2.2, N explains for mistakes of 0 translators
O explains for mistakes of 0 - 2 translators
S explains for mistakes of 2 – 4 translators
U explains for mistakes of 4 – 8 translators
A explains for mistakes of > 8 translators
From the result of the survey, the some main points will be discussed as follows.
* It is very important that the documents of advertisement and certificates get the
lowest level of mistakes. This can be explained that these types of documents need to be
shown in the world, especially to the customers who buy the paints products. The
correctness must be highest, which helps the manufacturer get the belief from the
customers.

paint.
And this is Vietnamese version from an unskilled translator
21
Comparing with the translated version of a skilled one:
22
And now, I will analyze all the mistakes in the way of basing on the collected
documents characteristics. In my opinion, there are three kinds of mistakes that the
translators are more likely to make:
3.1.1. Incompetence in properties of paint
For the best translators, the most important thing is terminology. However,
terminology is used fluently or not, easy to be remembered or not, the translators must
analyze deeply each related word to the field of paint in both English and Vietnamese
languages.
Study these examples:
a. Some words can be translated
Solvent (dung môi) A solvent is a liquid or gas that dissolves a solid, liquid, or
gaseous solute, resulting in a solution. The most common solvent in everyday life is water.
Most other commonly-used solvents are organic (carbon-containing) chemicals. These are
called organic solvents. Solvents usually have a low boiling point and evaporate easily or
can be removed by distillation, leaving the dissolved substance behind.
Resin (chất tạo màng) is a kind of gelled solution to be the main component of paint
constitution.
Vehicle (chất mang, dung môi dẫn) = solvent + resin
When looking at the word ”vehicle”, we think it is like ”car”, “truck”, or something
relates to the moving machine. In fact in the field of paint, vehicle is a kind of chemical
substance. The same as the word resin, in Vietnamese, we often consider it “nhựa”, which
leads to wrong translation.
Here are some other examples:
Wall-paint (sơn nước): is the same meaning with emulsion paint
23

3.1.3. Habit of English translator
In this part, I would like to mention the bad habit of the translators which is
repeatedly and unconsciously used. Take a look at the following examples:
“Công ty cổ phần Sơn Hải Phòng thành lập ngày 25 tháng 01 năm 1960.
Trên cơ sở kinh nghiệm, công nghệ truyền thống đặc biệt được chuyển giao công nghệ sản
xuất sơn theo Lixăng của hãng Chugoku Marine Paints”
In English: “Haiphong Paint Joint Stock Company was established in 25
th
January
1960. Basing on the long-timed experience, special technology licensed from Lixang
Technology of Chugoku Marine Paints of Japan”
We can see the bold words. Lixăng is used very naturally because the translators
always hear about the lixăng from Vietnamese people who are not professional in English.
These people often see the word “license” and they understand what it means. In fact,
whenever they want to use it, they use the word “lixăng As a result, what is heard (the
sound) becomes the word in writings.
Moreover, when we look at the above paragraph, it appears that the grammar applied
is something wrong. In English version, there is no Subject for the second sentence. The
matter here is mistake in grammar.
In general, there are many mistakes and misunderstanding in the process of
translation. However, if the translators can not correct them immediately, it will become
the big problems in the future. Basing the experience from the colleagues who work as
qualified translators, the would-be translator must make an effort to correct the mistake
basing on the basic grammar and career experience. Some suggested ways to correct the
mistakes will be discussed in section 3.2. below.
25