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?
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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).
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
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be updated regularly and immediately. That is the reason why website is a useful instrument
to get the information the most easily.
* Description of observation
The researcher is professional in the field of paint, especially paint document

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
technical staffs where it is too often produced from the native into the foreign language by
natives as a matter of nation pride, for official documents such as treaties and contracts, for
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reports, papers, articles, correspondence, textbooks or for technical documents of for

3. Source
language culture
4. Source
language settings
and tradition
9. The truth (the facts
of the matter)
10. Translator
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Matters discussed in this study are involved in directions 3 and 7 between English and
Vietnamese.
1.3. Importance of developing translating skill
Although translating skill has been cared by anyone who is related to the reading and
writing foreign language technical documents, there are still many problems in reading and
writing, especially in translating. These problems are the results of the translators’
unawareness of the translating skill. Therefore, this section is going to discuss the
importance of translating the paint document along with the analysis of the knowledge 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.
In the same way, the understanding of a foreign language can be built up and
developed by learners. They can practice a foreign language day by day to create a new habit
an understanding of a foreign language. That is why the translating skill can be improved
when they read the technical documents daily. After reading and listening, the translator
responds and understands. Just think of all English documents you read in one day and

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
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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
documents. This causes limitations in their practice of translation when they work for a
company, especially when the text strictly requires proper writing style. “Finish” term likes
these, as observed, in shipbuilding field, it means “hoàn thiện” (complete a ship). In this
case, it is very easy to translate into Vietnamese because it has the same meaning of the daily
life when we do something okay. But in paint field, it means “sơn phủ” (the last paint layer
in the painting system). Some unskilled translators tend to use one neutral word to translate

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
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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
In fact, this includes competent knowledge of almost all aspects, such as
religions, traditional customs, social norms, and historical awareness. In paint industry, we
must understand all kind of paints: paint for ships, for offshore projects, for industry, for
architecture, and so on. Or other fields related to the paint industry such as construction,
shipbuilding industry, traffic road, etc. This kind of combined knowledge can be gained
along with the process of learning English and learning translation. Nevertheless, only a few
translators are aware of this. As a result, after graduating from universities, students know
just a little about the companies today and these companies are related to each other. This is

“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”
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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
technicians cannot fully understand it until they look at the translated handouts. Therefore,
only by understanding which career he is in, and which terminology he uses can a translator
make the technician understand the handouts. Translation is not simply a linguistic
transformation of texts, but it is also a rendering of career concepts from one
language to another. Some careers are in the same row such as Marine time, Shipbuilding,
Construction or Banking, Inspecting, Stock Exchange. Unless a translator is capable of
breaking through “decayed barriers” of his own career competence and opening his mind to
new and sometimes alien concepts, his translation cannot be considered successful.
To conclude this chapter, it is noteworthy that despite many challenges when
translating from English to Vietnamese and despite the actual untranslatability, be it

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
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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
the field of paint. In three parameters of register which are Field, Tenor and Mode, Field is a
variant used for reflective language to emphasize terminology. In the field of paint
translation, it is very difficult to translate from English into Vietnamese because English in
technical documents has been developed for a long time in the developed countries with high
technology. The challenges in Vietnamese here must be finding out the field of meaning
which has the same one with the long development history of English technical documents.
The most typical examples are words "user-friendly", "environment-friendly", "family-
friendly", “long-live performance” which have different meanings and are translated
generally into Vietnamese "thân thiện với người dùng", thân thiện với môi trường”, "thân
thiện với gia đình", “Bền mãi với thời gian”. Besides, some terms are rarely used and cannot
be found out in the dictionary of Oxford such as “polymer ester silyl”, “silance",

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
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Table 2.2
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.
On the other hands, these types of documents are quite common and contain a few of
technical words, or they are always in the specific form. That is why they are easy to be
translated with so few mistakes.
* The same explanation for the bidding documents. However, bidding documents are
often longer than certificates and advertisement. They often include at least 5 pages, even
100 pages. It is the reason why the frequency of mistakes in all levels is the problem for the
translators.
* The differences in the documents of technology and testing methods are easily
recognized. Most of these documents are only used for the technicians. They can understand
all the documents, and they apply the knowledge to their experiments. However, in the
translation between English and Vietnamese, the researcher discovers that these documents
contain so many terms (technical words) that make the translators feel dizzy. If there is no

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.
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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
Hardener (đóng rắn): used to make the paint film be created in chemical reaction.
(Someone that does not work in paint will translate “chất làm cứng”)
Silicon Coating: sơn chịu nhiệt
Touch-up: Sơn dặm
Striped coat: Sơn lưng
b. Some words have no Vietnamese equivalent, therefore, cannot be translated into
Vietnamese. Therefore, borrowing is very much likely a solution.
In the technical documents, there are many new words which must be used in English
original sound or word. For example:
Base: the basing substance to constitute a coating
Paste: a kind of coating substance is ready to replace coating with some added
powders.
Etching: is the coating of primer
3.1.2. Context matters
Study these examples:

sound) becomes the word in writings.
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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.
3.2. Recommendations for mistake correction
It is highly recommended that translators and translation learners equip themselves
with as many translation techniques as possible. They may be the strategies to overcome
linguistic difficulties, or the tactics to make your translation widely accepted by target
language readers in specific English terms.
3.2.1. Overcoming linguistic problems
3.2.1.1. Choose the right word
At the level of words, problems can only be solved if the translator works hard to
accumulate both his English and Vietnamese vocabulary to a level that he is capable
of choosing the right word in any case to produce a natural translation.
It is crucial for a translator to fully understand all the denotations and
connotations of a word so that he can avoid making any loss of connotational
meanings. To do that, he also needs flexibility in the use of words and does not
translate mechanically basing on an English – Vietnamese dictionary.
Besides, the translator must avoid the rigid use of parts of speech with the
following techniques:
a. Translate English nouns with Vietnamese verbs or adjectives
- Paint is a long-live performance product: Sơn bền mãi với thời gian
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