VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITYOF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGES TEACHER EDUATION
GRADUATION PAPER
TRANSLATION PROCEDURES APPLIED IN
TRANSLATING OBJECT LABELS AT
VIETNAM MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY
Supervisor: Vuong Thi Thanh Nhan, M.A.
Student: Bui Thi Yen
Course: QH2010.F1.E21
Hanoi 6, 2014
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH
KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP
CÁC THỦ THUẬT ĐƯỢC ÁP DỤNG TRONG DỊCH
TÊN CÁC HIỆN VẬT TẠI
BẢO TÀNG DÂN TỘC HỌC VIỆT NAM

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn
Sinh viên: Bùi Thị Yến
Khoá: QH2010.F1.E21

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2014
DECLARATION
I hereby stated that I: Bui Thi Yen, QH 2010. F1.E21, being a candidate for
the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accepts the requirements of the College
relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the
library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in

the researcher expects to provide suggested procedures for translators to translate
culture-specific items and reveal errors that can be made during the translation
process to improve the quality and usefulness of the information given to visitors.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
LIST OF ABBREVIATION iv
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
2.7 Previous studies 18
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 18
3.1 Data collection 19
CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 23
CHAPTER 5.CONCLUSION 41
5.1 Major findings and implications. 41
5.2 Limitations 42
5.3 Recommendation for further study 43
REFERENCES 44
APPENDIX 1 47
APPENDIX 3 54
APPENDIX 4 57
APPENDIX 5 58
APPENDIX 6 59
APPENDIX 7 60
60
APPENDIX 8 61
iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
VME: Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

of cultural overlap between two languages. Thus, to obtain equivalent effects, the
translators may have to use typical procedures to translate such cultural items. The
researcher decides to choose the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology due to its huge
number of exhibits that serve aims of the study.
Secondly, translating cultural items, especially exhibits in museum is quite
specific, which hardly appears in thesis or proposal at schools. Thence, the
researcher wants to set a frame, if possible, in translating such exhibits.
Lastly, this study is conducted to assess the quality of translations and see
how translation theory is applied in the real world and equivalence effect it brings.
It may be useful for students who want to study thoroughly in the field of cultural
translation. With the above reasons, the researcher carries out this study to answer
questions left open.
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1.2. Aims of the study and research questions
The study is firstly aimed at researching translation procedures used in
translating names of exhibits at the museum. Culture- related objects are symbols
of a nation and do not exist in the target language. Therefore, the researcher hopes
to find the most common procedures applied in translating object’s titles based on
her own synthesis. Besides, due to large number of objects displayed in the
museum, some certain errors could be made, urging the researcher to study on.
Thus, the following questions will be addressed:
1. What are the frequently used translation procedures in translating
exhibit labels at VME?
2. What are common errors found in the translations of exhibit titles
at VME?
1.3. Significance of the study
The study is conducted in the context that there are few studies on
translating exhibits labels at museum or cultural places in Hanoi. Therefore, the
right translation of exhibits can satisfy visitors and bring best results in
broadcasting Vietnamese culture to the world. Thence, the study can be a useful

Nida (1969, p.33) stated that “Translating consists of producing in the
receptor language the closest natural equivalent to the message of the source
language, first in meaning and secondly in style.”
Hatim & Mason (1990, p.3) said “Translation is a communicative process
which takes place within a social context.”
“Translation is basically a change of form. In translation the form of the
source language is replaced by the form of the receptor (target) language”
according to Larson (1984, p.3).
Bell (1991, p.5) emphasized, “Translation is the expression in another
language of what has been in another, source language, preserving semantic and
stylistic equivalences.”
4
Translation definition appears in dictionary. For example, in Oxford
Dictionary (2010), translation is a “process of changing something that is written or
spoken in another language”.
Whatever translation is defined, it is considered as a way to turn texts from
one language to other languages to ensure not only the meaning but also the styles
of the text.
2.2Translation procedures
According to Newmark (1988, p. 81), translation procedures are used for the
translation of sentences and smaller units of language. As stated by Newmark,
translation procedures include:
- Literal translation
- Transference
- Naturalization
- Cultural equivalent
- Functional equivalent
- Descriptive equivalent
- Synonym
- Through translation

morphology (and pronunciation) to the expression or word in question. You can
often do this with names of concepts in the humanistic sciences such as '-ism'-
words.
For example, the word coffee can be translated as “cà phê”, or the word
“turbine” is translated as “Tuốc bin”.
2.2.4 Cultural equivalent
This is an approximate translation where an SL cultural word is translated by
a TL cultural word. These are approximate cultural equivalents. Their translation
uses are limited; since they are not accurate, but this procedure can be used in
general texts, publicity and propaganda, as well as for brief explanation to TL
readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture. This procedure can give greater
pragmatic impact than culturally neutral words.
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For example, the sentence “He graduated after obtaining a degree of
distinction”. The phrase “a degree of distinction” here can be translated as “một
tấm bằng loại giỏi”.
2.2.5 Functional equivalence
According to Newmark, this procedure can be used to deal with cultural words.
Translators use “culture-free word” to express the original word into the target text.
With this procedure, translators can add some information to the target text,
therefore the source text is not kept when transferred into the target text. Also,
when combining this procedure with transference procedure, it can deal with the
cultural word very well and form the couplet procedure.
2.2.6 Descriptive equivalent
It is a task of translating a source language/text word using a description of
the concept it refers to in the target language. It is to neutralize or generalize a SL
cultural word by using a description.
For example, Samurai is defined as Japanese aristocracy from the eleventh
to the nineteenth century.
2.2.7 Synonym

When the translation see a institutional terms, they can add some information in
inverted commas. The procedure is applied though literal translation. Then, in the
later text, it can be removed.
2.2.13 Compensation
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When the information is lost in a sentence, it can be added in another sentence to
compensate for what is lost.
2.2.14 Componential analysis
This is a procedure that “spitting up of a lexical unit into its sense
components, often one-to-two, -three, - four translations” as Newmark (1988, p. 90)
mentioned.
According to him, transference and componential translations are the two
most popular procedures applied to translate cultural words. In which, transference
is applied to translate literal texts providing places, colors, etc. Componential
analysis is “the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and
highlights the messages” (p.96).
2.2.15 Reduction and expansion
The procedure is based on the original text when the translator wants to add or to
reduce some necessary or unsuitable information.
2.2.16 Paraphrase
The translator can explain further meaning of an “anonymous” text to not lost any
important ideas.
2.2.17 Couplets
Basically, couplets are the combination of two translation procedures besides
triplets, quadruplets.
2.3Translation of cultural concepts
2.3.1 Definition of culture
Culture is not easy-to-understand concept. It varies from person to person.
Hall (1976, p.16) defines culture is a value shared by people in the society. It
cannot be alive without people who delivered and spread the culture. Oxford

culture but not in other cultures. It may be unique among all of cultures in the
world. However, the world becomes flatter and flatter that everything tends to
integrate into each other, especially in the cultural field. Because of its
characteristic that culture-specific items can be in culture, these items require
typical translation procedures to translate into other languages.
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Another definition of culture-specific concepts comes from Baker (1998,
p.21) when she claimed that such concepts will not be present in the target culture.
They are “abstract or concrete, it may relate to a religious belief, social custom or
even a type of food”. Such, the culture-specific concepts can be the unique words,
not existing in another culture.
In the same way, Nord defines cultural word as the term “cultureme” (Nord,
1997, p.34) which is a “cultural phenomenon that is present in culture X but (not
present in the same way) in the culture Y”.
Gambier affirms that culture-specific concepts as culture-specific references
are the terms used for depicting different aspects of daily life such as education,
politics, history, place names, food, drinks (Gambier, 2007)
There are still many different definitions of culture-specific concepts but
they share the same point is that those terms can appear in this culture but not other
cultures in the world.
2.3.4 Translation of culture-specific concepts
Although culture-specific concept translation is just a way to translate this
word or phrase into target language, it depends much on translators and level of
readers. Newmark (1988, p.96) suggests transference and componential analysis as
the two popular ways of translation cultural words. Transference, in his opinion,
offers “local color and atmosphere” which make readership identify and understand
the referent. Meanwhile, “componential analysis, the most accurate translation
procedures, excludes the culture and highlights the message”. He emphasizes that
translators should identify his readership and their level of knowledge to get best
effects on translating.

members of some occupations from 90 countries in the world. ATA provides a lot
of programs, holds conferences and its certification is one of the industry’s most
respected and recognized credentials. Based on that fact, the researcher decides to
take ATA’s Framework for Standardized Error Marking as the theoretical
background to find assess translation quality. This framework provides 23 types of
errors in total that can be found in the translated version. The scope of this study is
to research on translating exhibits labels which just belongs to word or phrases
level, not text level. Therefore, the researcher just focuses on some types of errors
that can be discovered in the English version in word level. Following is types of
errors given by ATA:
- Addition(A)
Addition error is made when translators add more information that is not
included in the source text, which can change the stylistic effects of the source
language and change its meaning.
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- Ambiguity (AMB)
Ambiguity errors happen when both source text and target text have more
than interpretation of its meaning, which makes the reader not clarify what meaning
that the translator wants to mention.
- Capitalization (C)
Capitalization error happens when in the source language, the text are in the
upper or lower case of letter but the target language does not include that.
- Cohesion (COH)
Cohesion error refers to incoherently translated version, in which
terminology, lexical and grammatical relations are not assured. Cohesion is
considered as a factor that can connect words or sentences in a text to make it
united and smooth. However, if this condition is not assured, it can make the reader
difficult to understand what the translators want to convey. The translators can
make some mistakes like use wrongly terminology, pronoun, linking works.
Therefore, the text is easy to cause misunderstanding for readers.

A lack of translation happens when translators omit some segments from
source texts into target texts such as prepositions, articles, verb tense or mood.
- Misunderstanding (MU)
Misunderstanding error happens when the translator cannot read
comprehensively the text or fails to understand what is conveyed, therefore, the
translation cannot be correct.
- Omission (O)
Omission happens when some elements of information is omitted such as
titles, headings….
- Punctuation (P)
Punctuation error happens when the target text do not meet punctuation
related to using quotation marks, commas, semicolons…
- Register (R )
Register error happens when the translator uses words that are not suitable
for class and knowledge of readers. The translator should have translated into
poplar language or dialect for people who have low qualification but they use
academic words instead.
- Spelling (SP)
As it name, spelling error occurs when the text is not spelled correctly
according to the source text.
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- Style (ST)
Style error happens when the translated version fails to maintain the style of
the source text. They use different style to translate, which brings unexpected
desire.
- Syntax (SYN)
Syntax error happens when the order of the words or sentences are confused,
not in syntactic rules of target languages.
- Terminology (T)
Terminology error occurs when the correct term is not used in the target text,

- Credit panel may include some donations, especially government,
organizations.
2.6The Vietnam Museum of Ethnography (VME)
VME was established on the decision of the Prime Minister under National
Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities on October 24, 1995. Two years later,
on November 12, VME official opened to the public.
VME is both a research centre and a public museum exhibiting the ethnic
groups of Vietnam. VME has a variety of functions as: scientific research,
collection, conservation and preserving the cultural and historic patrimony of
nation’s different ethnic groups.
Nowadays, through more than ten years of development, VME possesses
three exhibiting area which consist of indoor area, outdoor area and a new Museum
of Southeast Asia. The indoor area is composed of the exhibition building, office,
research centre, library, storage, technical lab and auditorium. It also includes 700
exhibits and 280 photographs. The different collections are displayed according to
the language groups and territories. Most of the objects are presented in 97
showcases are original. Each object has a label denoting its name, the ethnic group
and the place where it was created. There are also other tools to help visitors
understand about the objects such as video tapes, photographs, models, cassettes,
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etc. The indoor area is the focused area with the objects from different ethnic
groups showing their most typical customs and daily life.
The outdoor exhibition area is not large enough to present all ethnic groups
in Vietnam, so that there are only 9 popular architectural styles are displayed: The
Ede long house, the Tay Stilt house, the Yao house half on stilts, half on earth, the
Hmong house whose roof is made of pomu wood, the Viet house with tile roof and
the Giarai tomb, the Bahnar communal house, the Cham traditional house, and the
Hani house. All the houses are originally presented after the real model. The houses
show visitors the way the people in ethnic groups communicate as one family. In
each house, there are information boards depicting generally about the process of