The quality of Google Translate's Vietnamese translations of the English metaphors in " The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI THU HIEN

THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE'S

VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH

METAPHORS IN "THE COUNT OF MONTE

CRISTO" BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201

SUPERVISOR: LE NHAN THANH, PhD.

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN

CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE

KHI DỊCH CÁC ẨN DỤ TRONG “THE COUNT OF

MONTE CRISTO” CỦA ALEXANDRE DUMAS SANG

TIẾNG VIỆT

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: TS. LÊ NHÂN THÀNH

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I confirm that the thesis entitled "The quality of Google Translate's

Vietnamese translations of the English metaphors in 'The Count of Monte

Cristo' by Alexandre Dumas" is my work's result except for the reference

mentioned in the thesis. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any degree

or other institution.

Quy Nhon, August 2021

Nguyen Thi Thu Hien

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It can be said that I can't complete this thesis without help from many

supporters.

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

supervisor, Dr Le Nhan Thanh, for his patient and continued guidance during

the research. He is always willing to spend his precious time guiding me to

finish the thesis.

Secondly, I would like to send many thanks to all the lecturers of the

Foreign Languages Department at Quy Nhon University. They helped me to be

more confident in the process of researching due to their lectures.

Last but not least, I extend my thanks and gratitude to my family and my

colleagues who keep me positive and strong enough to pass my two years of

studying and researching.

iii

ABSTRACT

While many people use Google Translate (GT) to support their

translation task, GT has not met their expectations because of its quality,

especially the translation of literary rhetoric. This study aims to investigate the

quality of Google Translate's Vietnamese translations of the English metaphors

in the novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Duma. This study

investigated GT's Vietnamese translations of 120 metaphorical expressions in

the book The Count of Monte Cristo. GT's Vietnamese translations of English

metaphorical expressions from the novel were analyzed using quantitative and

qualitative content analysis to identify translation errors. The study used the

framework of Johnson (2019) to categorize types of metaphors and ATA's

Framework for Standardized Error Making to classify translation errors. The

study's key findings were that (1) In terms of metaphor types, GT had trouble

translating metaphorical expressions. (2) In terms of translation errors, GT

committed 9 out of 22 types of errors suggested in ATA's framework,

consisting of Word-for-word, Mistranslation into Target Language, Usage,

Style, Ambiguity, Grammar, Syntax, Punctuation, and Case errors. This study

suggests that GT could be beneficial for the pre-translating process to get

perfect translations. Still, it has not yet been a trustworthy translation machine

for translating English metaphors into Vietnamese.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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

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

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

ABBREVIATIONS.......................................................................................viiii

LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................ix

LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................xi

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

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

1.2. Aim and Objectives of the Study......................................................... 2

1.2.1. Aim............................................................................................ 2

1.2.2. Objectives ................................................................................. 2

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

1.4. Scope of the Study ............................................................................... 3

1.5. Significance of the Study ..................................................................... 3

1.6. Organization of the Thesis................................................................... 4

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 5

2.1. Metaphors............................................................................................. 6

2.1.1. Definition of metaphors............................................................ 6

2.1.2. Classification of metaphors ...................................................... 7

2.1.3. Metaphor identification features............................................... 9

2.2. Translation Theory............................................................................. 11

2.2.1. Definition of translation.......................................................... 11

2.2.2. Definition of translation theory............................................... 11

2.2.3. Translation methods................................................................ 12

2.2.4. Equivalence in translation....................................................... 13

vi

2.2.5. Translation quality assessment (TQA) ................................... 15

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

2.3.1. Definition of Machine Translation ......................................... 15

2.3.2. Google Translate..................................................................... 16

2.3.3. Translation errors.................................................................... 17

2.4. "The Count of Monte Cristo" Novel.................................................. 24

2.5. Previous study.................................................................................... 25

Summary ................................................................................................... 26

Chapter 3. RESEARCH METHODS.......................................................... 27

3.1. Research methods .............................................................................. 27

3.1.1. Research approaches............................................................... 27

3.1.2. Research method..................................................................... 29

3.2. Data Collection .................................................................................. 31

3.2.1. Procedures............................................................................... 31

3.2.2. Product .................................................................................... 32

3.3. Data Analysis..................................................................................... 33

3.3.1. Procedures............................................................................... 33

3.3.2. Product .................................................................................... 34

Summary ................................................................................................... 35

Chapter 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION............................................... 36

4.1. Types of metaphors............................................................................ 36

4.1.1. Implied metaphors .................................................................. 37

4.1.2. Dead metaphors ...................................................................... 37

4.1.3. Direct metaphors..................................................................... 38

4.2. Translation error types in GT's Vietnamese translations................... 39

4.2.1. No error................................................................................... 39

4.2.2. Translation errors.................................................................... 42

4.2.3. Quality of Google Translate in translating metaphors............ 64

vii

Summary ................................................................................................... 65

Chapter 5. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS ................................. 66

5.1. Summary of the main findings........................................................... 66

5.2. Limitations......................................................................................... 69

5.3. Implications........................................................................................ 69

REFERENCES.............................................................................................. 71

viii

ABBREVIATIONS

ATA: American Translators Association

GT: Google Translate

MT: Machine Translation

QCA: Qualitative Content Analysis

SL: Source Language

ST: Source Text

TL: Target Language

TQA: Translation Quality Assessment

TT: Target Text

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Flanagan's Error Categories (Flanagan 1994, p. 67).............. 18

Table 2.2. ATA's Framework for Standardized Error Making (Doyle 2003,

pp. 22–23) ............................................................................... 21

Table 3.1. Quantitative versus Qualitative Research (VanderStoep &

Johnston 2009, p. 7)................................................................ 28

Table 3.2. English metaphors and Mai The Sang's translations............. 32

Table 3.3. Google Translate's translation errors ..................................... 34

Table 3.4. The number and percentage of translation errors made by

GT ........................................................................................... 35

Table 4.1. The number and frequency of metaphors.............................. 36

Table 4.2. Frequencies of translation errors and no errors in GT’s

Vietnamese translations.......................................................... 39

Table 4.3. Frequencies of no errors in each type of metaphor in GT's

Vietnamese translations.......................................................... 40

Table 4.4. Frequencies of translation errors in GT’s Vietnamese

translations.............................................................................. 42

Table 4.5. Frequencies of Word-for-word errors in each type of metaphors

................................................................................................. 44

Table 4.6. Frequencies of Mistranslation into Target Language errors in

each type of metaphors ........................................................... 48

Table 4.7. Frequencies of Usage errors in each type of metaphors...... 52

Table 4.8. Frequencies of Style errors in each type of metaphors......... 54

Table 4.9. Frequencies of Ambiguity errors in each type of

metaphors................................................................................ 56

Table 4.10. Frequencies of Grammar errors in each type of

x

metaphors................................................................................ 58

Table 4.11. Frequencies of Syntax errors in each type of metaphors... 60

Table 4.12. Frequencies of Punctuation errors in each type of

metaphors................................................................................ 62

Table 4.13. Frequencies of Case errors in each type of metaphors...... 63

Table 4.14. The number and frequency of translation errors made by

Google Translate..................................................................... 64