The quality of Google Translate's Vietnamese translations of English film titles.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ THANH HUYỀN

THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE’S

VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH

FILM TITLES

Field: English Language

Code: 8220201

Supervisor: LÊ NHÂN THÀNH, PhD

Binh Dinh, October 2021

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

TRẦN THỊ THANH HUYỀN

CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH TIÊU ĐỀ FILMS TIẾNG ANH

SANG TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: TS. LÊ NHÂN THÀNH

Bình Định, 10/2021

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I now confirm that I am the author of the thesis on the quality of

Google Translate‟s Vietnamese translations of English film titles. This topic

is the result of my research, except for the references mentioned in the thesis.

Furthermore, I also certify that I have never submitted this thesis to any other

academic institutions.

Quy Nhon, 2021

Student

Trần Thị Thanh Huyền

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would love to express my deep and sincere gratitude to all those who

helped me finish this thesis.

First and foremost, I would like to express my boundless gratitude and

sincere respect to my supervisor, Dr. Le Nhan Thanh, for his enthusiastic

guidance, unconditional help, valuable suggestions, and timely

encouragement. Without these things, I would not have been able to complete

my thesis.

Secondly, I would like to express my indebtedness to the lecturers of

the Foreign Languages Department at Quy Nhon University for providing

valuable knowledge, giving me enthusiastic help, and creating a great learning

environment during my course here.

Thirdly, my warm thanks are to my classmates of the 22nd MA Course

on the English Language at Quy Nhon University. Without their deep

sympathy and valuable support, I could not have completed this course.

Last but not least, I wish to send my profound gratitude to my family,

friends, and colleagues. Their precious encouragement and boundless love

were the motivation for me to finish the thesis.

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ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the quality of Google Translate (GT)‘s Vietnamese

translations of English film titles. Today, the need to communicate is a must, but

the language barrier is an obstacle. Therefore, GT, a free direct translation tool,

has been widespread. So far, GT's translation quality has not shown high

reliability, so it needs much research. The research questions were: (1) What are

the error types in GT‘s Vietnamese translations of the English film titles? (2)

What are the frequencies of the translation errors in GT‘s Vietnamese

translations of the English film titles in terms of translation error types? To

complete these questions, 130 English film titles with suggested Vietnamese

translations and GT‘s translations were analyzed through Farrús, Costa-jussà,

Marin˜o, & Fonollosa‘s (2010) translation error classification with orthographic,

morphological, lexical, semantic, and syntactic errors. Besides, content analysis,

both qualitatively and quantitatively, was used to analyze the data. The first

finding is that GT produces no morphological errors and commits four error

types: orthographic, lexical, semantic, and syntactic errors. Second, the highest

rate belongs to semantic errors. The study is helpful for GT users, GT developers,

and researchers. The findings suggest that users should consider film contexts

when using GT to translate film titles. The conclusion is that GT fails to translate

English film titles into Vietnamese, committing four broad error types at high

rates, because it cannot consider films‘ context.

Key words: English film titles, Vietnamese, Google Translate, errors,

translation quality

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP................................................................... i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................................................ii

ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................iii

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................... vii

LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................viii

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1

1.1. Rationale ................................................................................................. 1

1.2. Aim and Objectives ................................................................................ 3

1.2.1. Aim. .................................................................................................. 3

1.2.2. Objectives. ........................................................................................ 3

1.3. Research Questions................................................................................. 3

1.4. Scope of the Study.................................................................................. 4

1.5. Significance of the Study........................................................................ 4

1.6. Organization of the Study....................................................................... 5

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 6

2.1. Film Titles............................................................................................... 6

2.1.1. Introduction to film titles. ................................................................ 6

2.1.2. Functions of film titles...................................................................... 7

2.1.3. Characteristics of film titles.............................................................. 8

2.2. Translation .............................................................................................. 8

2.2.1. Definition of translation.................................................................... 8

2.2.2. Translation process. ........................................................................ 10

2.2.3. Translation methods........................................................................ 13

2.3. Machine Translation ............................................................................. 15

2.3.1. An overview of Machine Translation. ............................................ 15

2.3.2. Google Translate............................................................................. 17

2.4. Error Analysis....................................................................................... 23

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2.4.1. Translation errors............................................................................ 23

2.4.2. Translation error classifications...................................................... 24

2.4.3. The conceptual framework for the thesis........................................ 26

2.5. Film Title Translation........................................................................... 30

2.5.1. Film title translation strategies........................................................ 30

2.5.2. A review of the previous studies on the translation of film titles. .. 31

2.6. Translation Quality Assessment ........................................................... 32

Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................... 35

3.1. Research Methods................................................................................. 35

3.2. Data Collection ..................................................................................... 37

3.3. Data Analysis........................................................................................ 39

Chapter 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.................................................. 42

4.1. Translation Error Types in GT‘s Vietnamese Translations.................. 42

4.2. Frequencies of the Translation Errors in GT‘s Vietnamese Translations

of the English Film Titles............................................................................ 44

4.2.1. No errors. ........................................................................................ 44

4.2.2. Translation error sub-types in GT‘s Vietnamese translations. ....... 46

4.3. Quality of Google Translate in Translating Film Titles from English

into Vietnamese ........................................................................................... 63

Chapter 5. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.................................... 65

5.1. Summary of the Main Findings............................................................. 65

5.2. Limitations of the Study ....................................................................... 69

5.3. Implications of the Study...................................................................... 70

5.3.1. Implications for teachers and students of translation...................... 70

5.3.2. Implications for translators. ............................................................ 71

5.3.3. Implications for other researchers................................................... 71

PUBLICATION ............................................................................................. 73

REFERENCES............................................................................................... 74

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ABBREVIATIONS

GT: Google Translate

MQM: Multidimensional Quality Metric

MT: Machine Translation

SL: Source language

TL: Target language