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CHAPTER THREE: TRANSLATION OF TERMINOLOGY ON
CREDIT CARD

Section A: An overview of credit card and credit card terminology

1. An overview of credit card
1.1. The definition of credit card and its operation
• What is credit card?
Credit card is small card, usually made of plastics, containing a means of
identification, such as a signature or picture, that authorizes the person named on
it to charge goods or services to his account, on which he is billed periodically.

• How does it work?
A user is issued a credit card after an account has been approved by the
credit provider (often a general bank, but sometimes a captive bank created to
issue a particular brand of credit card, such as American Express Centurion
Bank), with which they will be able to make purchases from merchants (cơ sở
chấp nhận thẻ) accepting that credit card up to a pre-established credit limit (hạn
mức tín dụng)

When a purchase is made, the credit card user agrees to pay the card
issuer. Originally the user would indicate his/her consent to pay, by signing a
receipt with a record of the card details and indicating the amount to be paid, but
many merchants now accept verbal authorizations via telephone and electronic
authorization using the internet.
English-Vietnamese translation of terminology on credit card

salesmen who often needed to dine with clients. At that time, Diners Club had
English-Vietnamese translation of terminology on credit card - 21 -
signed up 14 restaurants in New York City. Membership grew quickly as both
new customers applied for the card and more restaurants signed on. By the end
of 1950, Diners Club had 20,000 customers and was accepted at over 1000
restaurants.

• The development of credit card
The new way of payment quickly appealed to people and increasingly
improved and developed. Diners Club cards were followed shortly thereafter by
American Express, Western Union, Trip Charge, Golden Key, Gourmet Club,
Esquire Club, etc. At this time, most of cards were intended for business circle,
however, issuers soon got to know that individual from middle class should be
targeted. Then came the introduction of the biggest credit card issuers
nowadays: Visa and Master Card. Bank of America created the BankAmericard
in 1958, a product which eventually evolved into the Visa system ("Chargex"
also became Visa). MasterCard came to being in 1966 when a group of credit-
issuing banks established MasterCharge.

There are now countless variations on the basic concept of revolving
credit for individuals (as issued by banks and honored by a network of financial
institutions), including organization-branded credit cards, corporate-user credit
cards, store cards and so on.

1.3. Types of credit cards
Credit cards are diversified in type. Credit card can be classified into five
major types according to its production technology, issuer, payment

- Cash cards: are cards used to withdraw money at ATMs or at
banks. Users are required to deposit money at banks or have
overdraft account. English-Vietnamese translation of terminology on credit card - 23 -
• Based on geographical distribution, there are two types:
- Domestic credit card: issued and used within one country only.
Transaction currency is the local money.
- International credit card: is accepted worldwide and
transactions are carried out by hard currencies.

• On the basis of cardholder classification:
- Individual cards: are cards for individual cardholder and use
- Corporate cards: Its cardholders are companies, organizations

2. Credit card industry of Vietnam
Credit card, a payment measure free of cash has been popular and
favoured all over the world, accounting for 15-22% profits of banks in
developed and industrialized countries. However, in Vietnam, such product
remains new and the use of credit card is confined to some groups of people
only.

Since the Doi Moi (Renewal) policy was initiated in Vietnam, the banking
system has been renovated rapidly with new banking products and services
developed in line with the economic growth of the country. In 1990, for the first
time, Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) became the settlement

Banking and Finance in general.

In terms of lexical construction, the credit card terminology indexed in last
pages of the Paper is comprised by:
1. single words
2. shortenings
3. word groups or phrases:
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• phrases contain derived words
• phrases contain shortenings

Comparison between English and Vietnamese version of credit
terminology has revealed that Literal translation is favoured other than
Communicative translation to render source-language terms into target language
ones. It is also found that non-equivalent terms are dealt with by methods
including paraphrase, transference, connotative and denotative equivalence, and
implicit and explicit components of lexical items. Besides, the use of Sino-
Vietnamese factor in the translation of listed credit card terms is employed
widely and successfully. Each translation method will be analyzed quite
profoundly as follows.


credit card terminology. According to Peter Newmark, Literal translation ranges
from one word to one word, group to group, collocation to collocation, clause to
clause, to sentence to sentence, and that it ensures an one-to-one relationship
between originals and translated versions. Therefore, most translators rely on
this method to bring about the most satisfactory equivalents.

Examples:

Account Number : Số tài khoản

Complaint Fee : Phí khiếu nại
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Customer Code : Mã khách hàng

Data Protection Method : Phương pháp bảo vệ dữ liệu

Credit Limit : Hạn mức tín dụng

Credit insurance : Bảo hiểm tín dụng

Digital Signature : Chữ ký kỹ thuật số

Expired Card : Thẻ hết hạn

Gold card : Thẻ vàng


Nevertheless, this rule only applies in the case of one specialized field
because there still exist polysemy terms in fields of different professions.
For instance, “clearing” in forestry is defined as an open space in a forest
where there are no trees. Its Vietnamese word is “khoảng rừng trống”. But
“clearing” in “Automated Clearing House Payment” in the field of credit
card in Vietnamese means “thanh toán bù trừ tự động”

• Original terms and their counterparts are equivalent in terms of the
referent and pragmatic effect. • Word alienisms and neologism are rarely found

Though Literal method proves to be useful in the translation of
terminology, it is adopted when terms are translated singly, out of context or the
source language term and its equivalents in the target language keeps a
corresponding relation. Often, terms are translated directly based on its nearest
original meaning. However, there are terms whose meaning could only be
transposed based on the context they appear in and of the specialized knowledge
that the translators possess.