The quality of Google Translate's Vietnamese translations of the English personifications in "La Fontaine's Fables"

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

THÁI THỊ THANH MINH

THE QUALITY OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE'S

VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS OF THE ENGLISH

PERSONIFICATIONS IN LA FONTAINE'S FABLES

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Lê Nhân Thành, Ph.D.

Binh Dinh, 2021

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHON

THÁI THỊ THANH MINH

CHẤT LƯỢNG DỊCH CỦA GOOGLE TRANSLATE

KHI NHÂN HÓA TRONG CÁC TRUYỆN NGỤ NGÔN

CỦA LA FONTAINE KHI DỊCH SANG TIẾNG VIỆT

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8220201

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS. Lê Nhân Thành

Bình Định, 2021

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, at this moment, declare this study is entirely my work carried out at

Quy Nhơn University for the degree of Master of Arts in English Language

and that it has not been submitted for a degree at any other Institution. Where

other sources of information are used, they are acknowledged.

Binh Dinh, 2021.

Thai Thi Thanh Minh

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, it is a pleasure to express my sincere gratitude to

many people who made this thesis possible. I wish to give my deepest

gratitude and appreciation to my profound advisor, Ph.D. Lê Nhân Thành, for

his continuous support and encouragement. Without his help, I would not

complete this thesis. Throughout my thesis-writing period, he encouraged me

whenever I encountered problems with careful and inspiring advice, good

teaching, and exciting ideas. His extensive knowledge of Google Translate

has given me valuable experience in conducting the study. Especially in the

data analysis, thanks to his helpful tutorials and recommendations, I had

overcome the difficulties of the figure process and software. In short, it is an

honor for me to be instructed by Ph.D. Lê Nhân Thành, who never accepted

less than my best efforts.

I would like to thank all professors at Quy Nhơn University, especially

professors and staff in the Foreign Language Administration, who always do

their best to make all thesis procedures as convenient to students as possible.

Finally, my beloved family deserves a special mention for their

unconditional love and support throughout the research study.

To all of them, I dedicate this thesis.

.

Bình Định, 2021

iii

ABSTRACT

This thesis is conducted to investigate the quality of Google Translate's

Vietnamese translations of the English personifications in La Fontaine's

fables. The data are the personifications in La Fontaine's fables and their

Vietnamese equivalents in GT's translations. The classification of

personifications presented by Nguyễn Thế Truyền (2001) and the

categorization of translation errors suggested by Farrús et al. (2011) are used

as the conceptual frameworks for this study. This study is carried out (i) to

identify and classify the personifications in La Fontaine's fables, (ii) to

identify and classify the translation errors in GT's Vietnamese translations of

the English personifications, and (iii) to evaluate GT's translation quality in

translating the English personifications into Vietnamese in terms of

translation errors. The results of the data analysis show that all three types of

personifications are present in the fables. The Activities and Characteristics

personifications account for the most significant number. The results also

indicate that three out of five translation error types are found, and Semantic

errors account for the highest rate of the errors committed by Google

Translate. Lexical errors rank second. The third rank is Syntactic error.

Google Translate does not commit any Morphological and Orthographic

errors. The findings suggest that much care should be taken when using

Google Translate to translate English personifications into Vietnamese. Some

suggestions and implications are proposed for EFL teachers and learners

majoring in translation, human translators, and researchers interested in the

related fields.

Keywords: Google Translate, personifications, translation errors,

Translation Quality Assessment, Vietnamese

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................ii

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................... iv

ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................viii

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

LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................... ix

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION................................................................. ix

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

1.2. Aim and Objectives................................................................................. 2

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

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

1.3. Research Questions................................................................................. 2

1.4. Scope of the study................................................................................... 2

1.5. Significance of the study......................................................................... 3

1.6. Structure of the thesis.............................................................................. 3

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 6

2.1. Theoretical background .......................................................................... 6

2.1.1. Personifications ........................................................................... 6

2.1.2. Translation theory..................................................................... 10

2.1.3. Machine Translation .................................................................. 21

2.2. Previous studies..................................................................................... 26

2.3. Jean de la Fontaine's life and works...................................................... 29

CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY........................................ 36

3.1. Research Method................................................................................... 36

v

3.2. Data collection ...................................................................................... 37

3.3. Data analysis......................................................................................... 38

CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ....................................... 43

4.1. Types of personifications...................................................................... 43

4.1.1. Verbal personifications .............................................................. 43

4.1.2. Naming personifications ............................................................ 44

4.1.3. Activities and Characteristics personifications ............................ 44

4.2. Translation errors made by Google Translate....................................... 45

4.2.1. Morphological errors ...................................................................... 46

4.2.2. Orthographic errors......................................................................... 46

4.2.3. Syntactic errors............................................................................... 47

4.2.4. Lexical errors.................................................................................. 49

4.2.5. Semantic errors............................................................................... 54

4.2.6. No errors......................................................................................... 57

CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS........62

5.1. Summary of the findings....................................................................... 62

5.2. Limitations of the study ........................................................................ 63

5.3. Implications........................................................................................... 64

5.3.1. Implications for EFL teachers and students of translation ............. 64

5.3.2. Implications for translators............................................................. 64

5.3.3. Implications for future researchers................................................. 65

REFERENCES.............................................................................................. 66

APPENDIX