1.0 Quality assessment

An assessment of translation quality was made of texts gathered from personal experience and a number of texts taken from pre-published and published translated materials for the Vietnamese communities in Australia.

2.0 Translation into Vietnamese

A personal encounter will demonstrate the difference between an average translator and a skilful translator. In the early 1980s, whilst I first worked as a translator/broadcaster with the BBC in London, President Joseph Tito of Yugoslavia lay very ill. As his death seemed imminent, the BBC had his obituary prepared and taped to be used at any time. We waited for weeks for the Grand Old Man of Yugoslavian politics to die, but Tito went on living, day after day. In a dispatch by a BBC correspondent from Belgrade, the story of the ailing Tito went something like this: "... Tito was held in such high regard by his people that they almost believed he was immortal. When his illness lasted so long, the Yugoslavian people gradually came to the realization that he was simply mortal'. An average translator would render the expression 'simply mortal' simply as rồi cũng phải chết ('will die eventually'). However, an experienced colleague of mine rendered the last part of the text as "... Khi thấy ông bị đauốm lâu nhưthế, ngườidân Namtư mới dầndần hiểura rằng Tito cũng chỉ là người. ('His illness lasted so long that the Yugoslav people then gradually came to the realization that Tito was merely human'). To a Vietnamese listener, the concept of 'mortality' is implied in the phrase 'cũng chỉlà người' ('merely human'), which is considered a better rendering of the phrase than 'simply mortal'.

Another personal experience below may serve as an informal illustration of the problem of quality in translation in Australia. Some ten years ago, on being called to help with a police interview as an interpreter at the high-security women's prison in New South Wales, I arrived at the prison gates flanked on one side by a lanky, young constable armed with a portable typewriter and manilla folders, and on the other side by a burly, plainclothes Detective Sergeant holding an armful of dossiers. While the police officers signed in their assorted weaponry at the main desk, I had a chance to look about me. My professional curiosity was drawn to a poster on a nearby wall. It was the type of multilingual poster often seen displayed at railway stations and other such places. The poster, which was rendered into 11 different community languages, reads as follows:

"CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT"
"It's often closer to home than you think"

The original text's message had been totally misinterpreted because of the translator's lack of knowledge of the full background of the campaign to protect children within the community. Under the Child Protection Act the slogan 'Stranger Danger' was first used, indicating to parents and children that they must not talk to or go with strangers, for fear of being harmed by them. The next phase of the campaign was then to focus on the fact that it was not only strangers who could harm children, but that danger could also exist within the homes in which children lived. It was understandable then, that on reading the translation, Vietnamese parents would not understand the meaning of the text, and so unwittingly, by their actions of sticking to what the poster recommended they do, they may have put their girl or boy in physical or sexual danger at the hands of a family member or friend.

Suffice it to say that against expectations, most Vietnamese published translated materials showed at best they are awkward or unnatural as well as nonsensical or incomprehensible. Common errors are indicative of the translators' poor performance in three general areas; namely 'literalness', 'grammaticalness', and 'idiomaticity'.

2.2.1 Literalness

Literal errors were found in the description of body positions and the forms of address.

2.2.1.1 Body positions

A clear example of literalness was detected in a translated text in which a young mother with a baby is directed in a pamphlet to put the baby on its stomach. In Vietnamese this would be translated as nằmsấp 'prone' (literally 'lie, (face) down'). It is not necessary for this to be translated as "nằmsấp trên bụng" (literally 'lie, down, on, stomach") because this translation has been influenced by the source text, in this case, English, and the Vietnamese translation sounds superfluous, naive and awkward. By the same token, if someone is asked to 'lie on their back' the translation would be "nằmngửa" "supine' (literally 'lie, (face) up') in place of "nằmngửa trên lưng" của họ as it is literally translated from the English text.

2.2.1.2 Forms of address

The personal pronoun 'you' has a high frequency of occurrence in English. In Vietnamese there is no universal 'you' as in English. The translator needs to consider each instance 'you' is used in order to choose the closest equivalent, which, in Vietnamese must be based on age, sex, marital status, social status. When 'you' is translated as bạn (literally 'friend') as is often the case found in translated publications, it would sound at best, unnatural, at worst, condescending and would keep the reader at a distance. Therefore, "bạn" in place of 'you' should only be used as a last resort.

Let us consider an example of inappropriate rendition of the pronoun 'you'. A translated post-natal pamphlet in public hospitals addresses mothers who have had premature babies as quíbà ('distinguished ladies'), the term of address used for older women from a high-class background, and who would possibly be receiving medical help only in a private French hospital in the former South Vietnam. The appropriate form would have been to use the word chị or các chị ('you') to address a woman or women of child-bearing age from a lower socio-economic background.

The automatic rendition of the English pronoun 'I' into Vietnamese in community information translated texts is considered unnatural. In English, people ask questions using the first person pronoun 'I'. For example, "How do I find out how our baby is doing?' or 'How will I manage when the baby comes home?'. Vietnamese people do not ask themselves questions as such, particularly in a written form as titles. If they do, they say something like "How does one find out about...?' or "How will one manage...?". The personal pronoun tôi ('I') should be replaced with ta, mình ('one, I, we') or with nothing at all.

2.2.2 Grammaticalness

Grammatical errors were found in the use of Vietnamese numerals, plural markers, classifiers, time adverbials, passive construction, and law of continuity.

2.2.2.1 Numerals

Articles in English are not synonymous with Vietnamese numerals or classifiers. In an unpublished text the English indefinite article a(n) seemed to be consistently rendered into Vietnamese, as một ('one') as in the following example:

(1) When a man and a woman decide to have a baby

('When one man and one woman decide to have one baby')

('When two people of the opposite sex decide to have a baby with each other")

2.2.2.2 Pluralization

In principle, Vietnamese words các, những are used as plural noun markers to convey the notion of plurality. However, the automatic use of các or những in rendering plural nouns in English is considered ungrammatical. Examples are found in the rendition of the titles or subheadings "Premature babies', "Breathing problems', "Doctors and nurses'. Preferred translations would be "Trẻsinhnon" without "những" , "Chứngkhóthở" without các, and "Bácsỹ" và "ytá" without các.

2.2.2.3 Nominalization

The term nominalization is used here to refer to the process whereby Vietnamese translators automatically render English nouns into Vietnamese nouns by using noun markers such as sự and việc. In doing so, the risk is run of sounding ineffective or nonsensical. There are instances, whereby translation shifts will help make the use of Vietnamese noun markers redundant and make the message clearer. For example, the sub-heading 'Warmth' in the context of premature babies can be rendered as "Giữ trẻ cho ấm" ('Keeping the baby warm') in place of "Sựấmáp" ('Warmth') which sounds obscure and absurd in Vietnamese.

2.2.2.4 Time adverbials

2.2.2.5 Passive construction

Vietnamese people observe the law of continuity in syntax, which means, what happens first should be described first, whereas in English emphasis is often placed on the importance of the event rather than the chronological order of events. Let's compare the following sentences:

(7) Dad has just come home from work.

(7a) Bố vừa đilàm về. ('Dad, just, go, work, return'), in place of the less typical:

(7b) Bố vừa từ sở về ('Dad, just, from, work, return')

(8) The Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson has returned to Canada from Seoul.

2.3 Idiomaticity

Errors in non-idiomatic usage of Vietnamese involved translations in the distinction between positiveness and negativeness, between hyponymy and super-ordinateness, as well as in the field of fertility, sex and sexuality.

2.2.3.1 Positiveness vs negativeness

In English there are words which occur comfortably with others to form phrases or sentences, but which carry a positive or negative connotation according to the phrases or sentences with which they co-occur. The translation of these words will sound very un-Vietnamese unless the correct Vietnamese collocation is chosen. For example, the word 'contribute' in English usually co-occurs with words or phrases which can carry either a positive or a negative meaning. Let's consider the 'goodness' and the 'badness' inherent in the term 'contribute' in the following sentences:

(7) We must all work together to contribute to the building of a strong nation. (positive)

(8) The Labor Government was blamed by many Australian people for contributing to the poor economy. (negative)

An improved rendition should read:

(Many people have blamed the Labor Government for having made the Australian economy worse)

2.2.3.3 Hyponymy vs super-ordinateness

The term 'rocking', as mentioned in the leaflet "Premature Babies HTS 1980" is another case in point. The occasion often arises when a translator has to choose a specific meaning for the word "rocking' in the following text:

(9) Playing with your baby means talking, smiling, putting on some music, putting brightly coloured objects close by (8-12 inches from the head), rocking, hugging.

2.2.3.4 Sex and sexuality