Tài liệu A comparative study on english vietnamese translation of business texts

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG HÀ A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON ENGLISH -VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF BUSINESS TEXTS (Nghiên cứu so sánh bản dịch Anh – Việt trong lĩnh vực Kinh doanh) MAJOR: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 9.22.02.01 Doctoral Thesis of Philosophy in Linguistics SUPERVISORS: 1. ASSOC. PROF. DR. HOÀNG TUYẾT MINH 2. ASSOC. PROF. DR. LÊ HÙNG TIẾN HÀ NỘI, 2022 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP The thesis entitled “A comparative study on English-Vietnamese translation of Business texts” has been submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis, I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas and work of others in this thesis. The thesis does not contain work extracted from a thesis, dissertation or research paper previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any other university. Signature NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG HÀ NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC 1 PGS. TS. Hoàng Tuyết Minh NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC 2 PGS. TS. Lê Hùng Tiến CHỦ TỊCH HỘI ĐỒNG PGS. TS. Hồ Ngọc Trung PHÒNG QUẢN LÝ ĐÀO TẠO - TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ HÀ NỘI i ABSTRACT This descriptive, comparative, and evaluative research attempts to assess the equivalence extent of nominal groups and verbal groups related to market segments and marketing strategies with their semantic modifications in an EnglishVietnamese translation of a marketing text from the functional- pragmatic perspective. The data are extracted from the Source text (ST) “Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital”, published in 2017 and from the Target text (TT) “Tiếp thị 4.0: Dịch chuyển từ Truyền thống sang Công nghệ số”, published in 2018. The qualitative method is applied to the study, in which descriptive, comparative and interpretive procedures are adopted. The data are analyzed and assessed from the functional- pragmatic perspective of House’s model (2015) incorporated with the Attitudinal and Gradational resources of Appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005), in which component Field is combined with Gradational resources while component Tenor is integrated with Attitudinal resources. The findings show that, among the 661 nominal groups and 392 verbal groups collected, 553 cases in the both contain semantic modification in the translation. A large number of cases shows an ‘upscaled’ trend of equivalence extent while the ‘downscaled’ trend accounts for a small proportion. The upscale can be seen in the figurative expressions, using ‘stronger’ adverbs, modal verbs, more formal words, resorting the longer expressions and applying metaphors which are carefully put in double quotation mark. Especially, the cultural filters are employed to be more familiar to the target readers. Besides, for the abstract terms, notes of explanation at the end of the page are also carefully added right away to each page, revealing a respectful attitude towards the readership and enhancing the interpersonal function of the translation. The downscale in denotative and connotative equivalence occurs just very little in the translation with the phenomenon of ellipsis in several adjectives preceding the nouns, and untranslated proper names in the translation. The findings of this study can make theoretical contributions to applying House’s model in uncovering the equivalence of an English-Vietnamese translation of nonliterary texts. Also, the model shows the effectiveness when integrated with another theory, particularly with the Appraisal theory of Martin and White (2005) in ii translation studies. The practical contributions are for translators, and translator training programme, especially in translating non-literarty texts. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been made possible without the guidance and the support of individuals who contributed and extended their valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this study. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisors, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lê Hùng Tiến and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoàng Tuyết Minh, who inflame the fervent passion inside me towards the research topic and research progress. Without their continuously constructive feedback and encouragement, the thesis could not come into being. Additionally, I am deeply grateful to Dr. Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, whose guidance and insightful comments are of profound significance during my research completion. I also wish to extent my gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hồ Ngọc Trung, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Quế, Dr. Phạm Thị Thủy, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phạm Thị Thanh Thùy, Dr. Nguyễn Việt Hùng, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông, Dr. Nguyễn Đăng Sửu, Dr. Lưu Thị Kim Nhung and Dr. Lê Phương Thảo, who gave practical comments on my research proposal and presentations, and provided me with many valuable suggestions to develop my research effectively. My sincere thanks also go to the colleagues and friends at the English Faculties of Hanoi University of Business and Technology for their continuous motivation, support, and valuable advice for me across the path. I will never forget strong support from Mr. Lê Công Phú, Ms. Trần Thị Thúy Hà, Mr. Nguyễn Việt Xô, Mr. Phạm Đức Diễn, Ms. Đào Thị Thu Nga, Ms. Vi Thị Hồng Ngân, Ms. Nguyễn Thị Phương Anh, Ms. Nguyễn Thanh Nhàn, Mr. Nguyễn Việt Tiệp, Ms. Nguyễn Thị Hảo, Ms. Đỗ Thị Kim Dung, and Ms. Lê Thị Kiều Oanh. They have always supported me to overcome the obstacles during my research completion. Last but not least, I would like to thank my warm-hearted parents, my enthusiastic brothers, my sisters-in-law and my family with their restless assistance, especially my daughter and my son for their immense tenderness, deep empathy, strong inspiration, and firm support to motivate me throughout upheavals and realize the life values. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.............................................................................. i ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1 1. Rationale ............................................................................................................... 1 2. Research aim and objective of the study .............................................................. 3 3. Research question ................................................................................................. 4 4. Scope of the study ................................................................................................ 5 5. Methods of the study ............................................................................................ 6 6. Significance of the study ...................................................................................... 6 7. Organization of the thesis........................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................... 9 2.1. Translation Studies ............................................................................................... 9 2.1.1. Translation Studies as a discipline ................................................................. 9 2.1.2. Central issues of Translation Studies ........................................................... 11 2.1.3. Issue of translation equivalence ................................................................... 12 2.2. Approaches of Translation Assessment ............................................................. 16 2.2.1. Response-based approach ............................................................................ 16 2.2.2. Linguistics-based approach ......................................................................... 17 2.3. Two popular Models of Translation Assessment ............................................... 18 2.3.1. Newmark’s model of translation assessment (1988) ................................... 19 2.3.2. House’s model of translation assessment (2015) ........................................ 20 2.3.3. Overt, covert translation and culture filters ................................................. 27 2.3.4. Adaptation of House’s model for the research aim ..................................... 30 2.4. Appraisal Theory by Martin and White (2005) in House’s model .................... 34 2.4.1. Attitudinal resources of the Appraisal Theory ............................................ 38 2.4.2. Gradational resources of the Appraisal theory ............................................ 40 2.5. Nominal groups and verbal groups .................................................................... 44 2.5.1. Nominal groups............................................................................................ 46 2.5.2. Verbal groups ............................................................................................... 48 v 2.6. Business and marketing texts ............................................................................. 49 2.6.1. Business texts ............................................................................................... 49 2.6.2. Marketing texts ............................................................................................ 50 2.7. Market segments and marketing strategies ..................................................... 55 2.7.1. Market segments .......................................................................................... 55 2.7.2. Marketing strategies ..................................................................................... 56 2.8.1. Previous studies on Comparative Translation Studies ................................ 57 2.8.2. Previous studies on Marketing Texts ........................................................... 62 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................... 66 3.1. Research approach ............................................................................................. 66 3.1.1. Qualitative method ....................................................................................... 66 3.2. Analytical framework......................................................................................... 71 3.3. Data collection and procedures of data analysis ................................................ 75 3.3.1. Data collection ............................................................................................. 75 3.4. Summary ............................................................................................................ 82 CHAPTER 4: TRANSLATION EQUIVALENCE OF NOMINAL GROUPS AND VERBAL GROUPS RELATED TO MARKET SEGMENTS .............................. 83 4.1. Translation equivalence of nominal groups and verbal groups related to YWN market segment ......................................................................................................... 84 4.1.1. Nominal groups related to YWN market segment ...................................... 85 4.1.2. Verbal groups related to YWN market segment ......................................... 93 4.2. Translation equivalence of nominal groups and verbal groups related to the young market segment ....................................................................................................... 100 4.2.1. Nominal groups related to the young market segment .............................. 100 4.2.2. Verbal groups related to the young market segment..................................... 109 4.3. Translation equivalence of nominal groups and verbal groups related to women’s market segment ....................................................................................................... 117 4.3.1. Nominal groups related to women’s market segment ............................... 117 4.3.2. Verbal groups related to women’s market segment ...................................... 126 4.4. Translation equivalence of nominal groups and verbal groups related to netizens’ market segment ....................................................................................................... 133 vi 4.4.1. Nominal groups related to netizens’ market segment ............................... 133 4.4.2. Verbal groups related to netizens’ market segment ................................... 142 4.5. Summary of translation equivalence of nominal groups and verbal groups related to market segments .................................................................................................. 150 CHAPTER 5 : TRANSLATION EQUIVAENCE OF NOMINAL GROUPS AND VERBAL GROUPS RELATED TO HUMAN-CENTRIC MARKETING STRATEGY .............................................................................................................. 152 5.1. Translation equivalence of nominal groups related to human-centric marketing strategy .................................................................................................................... 152 5.1.2. Comparison of NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy in the source text and target text................................................................................................ 157 5.2. Translation equivalence of verbal groups related to human-centric marketing strategy .................................................................................................................... 164 5.2.1. Analyses of verbal groups related to human-centric marketing strategy in the source text ............................................................................................................ 165 5.2.2. Comparison of verbal groups related to human-centric marketing strategy in the source text and target text .............................................................................. 168 5.3. Summary of translation equivalence of Nominal groups and Verbal Groups related to human-centric marketing strategy ........................................................... 172 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 175 6.1. Recapitulation of the study............................................................................... 175 6.2. English-Vietnamese translation of Nominal groups and Verbal groups related to market segments ...................................................................................................... 176 6.3. English-Vietnamese translation of Nominal groups and Verbal groups related to human-centric marketing strategy ........................................................................... 179 6.4. Contributions of the study ................................................................................ 180 6.4.1. Theoretical contribution ............................................................................. 180 6.4.2. Practical contribution ................................................................................. 181 6.5. Limitations and suggestions for further research ............................................. 183 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 185 RESEARCHER’S ARTICLES RELATED TO THE THESIS ........................... 196 vii APPENDIXES ............................................................................................................... I Appendix A. Nominal groups and Verbal groups related to market segments ...........I Appendix B. Gradational resources embedded in NGs related to the young market segment....................................................................................................................... X Appendix C. The authors’ attitudes embedded in NGs related to the young market segment...................................................................................................................... XI Appendix D. Process and Graduation embedded in VGs related to the young segment ................................................................................................................................ XIII Appendix E. The authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related to the young segment ................................................................................................................................. XV Appendix F. Gradational resources of NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................................. XVII Appendix G. The authors’ attitude embedded in NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ............................................................................................... XXIII Appendix H. Some of the end-of-page explanation for NGs in the TT .............XXVII Appendix I. Equivalence extent in translating Nominal groups related to humancentric marketing strategy ................................................................................... XXXI Appendix K. The authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related human-centric marketing strategy ....................................................................................................XL Appendix L. Equivalence extent in translating VGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................. XLII Appendix M. Source Text and Target Text of Nominal groups and Verbal groups related to human-centric marketing strategy ....................................................... XLIV APPENDIX N: Previous Comparative Translation Studies ...................................... lv APPENDIX O. Previous Studies on Marketing Texts .............................................. lxi viii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES Figure 2.1. Relation between language and social context (Martin and Rose, 2008:10) ................................................................................................................. 23 Figure 2.2. Three levels of text analysis (Martin and Rose, 2008:17) ................... 24 Figure 2.3. House’s model of translation quality assessment (House 2015:127) .. 28 Figure 2.4. Theoretical framework of the study .................................................... 32 Figure 2.5. The Appraisal framework (Martin and White, 2005 from https://www.google.com/search?q=appraisal+framework+(martin+and+white) ................................................................................................................................ 36 Figure 2.6. The selling and marketing concept (Kotler 1991 cited in MacKenzie 2001:53) ................................................................................................................. 53 Figure 3.1. Analytical framework of the study ...................................................... 72 Figure 3.2. Procedures of data analysis in the study .............................................. 81 TABLES Table 2.1. ‘Affect’ category with its types (Martin and White, 2005: 51) ............ 38 Table 2.2. ‘Judgement’ esteem with its variables (Martin and White, 2005: 53) .. 39 Table 2.3. ‘Judgement’ sanction with its variables (Martin and White, 2005: 53) 39 Table 2.4. ‘Appreciation’ category with its variables (Martin and White, 2005:53) ................................................................................................................................ 40 Table 2.5. Variables of Force-intensification (Martin and White, 2005:137-143) 41 Table 2.6. Variables of Force-quantification (Martin and White, 2005: 146) ....... 43 Table 2.7. A nominal group, showing multivariate experiential structure ............ 46 Table 2.8. Experiential structure of the verbal group ............................................ 48 Table 2.9. The factors related to Marketing mix ‘4Ps’ .......................................... 53 Table 2.10. Some previous comparative translation studies directly related to this paper ....................................................................................................................... 57 Table 2.11. Some previous translation studies of a ST with TTs in the same language ................................................................................................................. 58 ix Table 2.12. Some previous translation studies of a ST with TTs in different languages ................................................................................................................ 59 Table 2.13. Some previous comparative translation studies of theoretical issues . 61 Table 2.14. Some previous studies on marketing texts in Vietnam ....................... 62 Table 3.1. Description of the Source Text and Target Text .................................. 79 Table 4.1. Summary of equivalence extent gained in semantic modification of NGs and VGs related to market segments ..................................................................... 84 Table 4.2. Gradational resources embedded in NGs related to YWN market segment ................................................................................................................................ 86 Table 4.3. The authors’ attitude embedded in NGs related to YWN .................... 88 Table 4.4. Comparison between ST and TT in translating NGs related to YWN . 92 Table 4.5. Process of VGs related YWN market segment in the ST ..................... 93 Table 4.6. Gradational resources embedded in VGs related to YWN market segment in the ST ................................................................................................................. 94 Table 4.7. Authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related to YWN market segment in the ST ..................................................................................................................... 95 Table 4.8. ST-TT Comparison in translating VGs related to YWN market segment ................................................................................................................................ 98 Table 4.9. Gradational resources embedded in some NGs related to the young market segment .................................................................................................... 100 Table 4.10. The authors’ attitudes embedded in NGs related to the young market segment ................................................................................................................ 102 Table 4.11. ST-TT Comparison in translating NGs related to the young market segment ................................................................................................................ 108 Table 4.12. Process and Graduation embedded in VGs related to the young segment .............................................................................................................................. 109 Table 4.13. The authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related to the young segment .............................................................................................................................. 111 Table 4.14. ST-TT Comparison of VGs related to the young segment ............... 116 Table 4.15. Gradational resources embedded in NGs related to women’s segment of the ST ............................................................................................................... 118 x Table 4.16. The authors’ attitude embedded in NGs related to women’s segment .............................................................................................................................. 119 Table 4.17. ST-TT comparison in translating NGs related to women’s segment 125 Table 4.18. Process and Gradational resources embedded in VGs related to women’s segment of the ST ................................................................................ 127 Table 4.19. The authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related to women’s segment of the ST ................................................................................................................... 128 Table 4.20. ST-TT comparison in translating VGs related to women’s segment 132 Table 4.21. Gradational resources embedded in NGs related to netizens’ segment in the ST ............................................................................................................... 133 Table 4.22. The authors’ attitude embedded in NGs about netizen segment in the ST ......................................................................................................................... 135 Table 4.23. ST-TT comparison in translating NGs related netizens’ market segment. .............................................................................................................................. 141 Table 4.24. Process and Gradational resources embedded in VGs related to netizens in the ST ............................................................................................................... 142 Table 4.25. Authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related to netizens’ segment of the ST ......................................................................................................................... 144 Table 4.26. ST-TT comparison in translating VGs related to netizens’ market segment ................................................................................................................ 149 Table 5.1. Summary of equivalence extent gained in semantic modification of NGs and VGs related to human-centric marketing strategies ...................................... 152 Table 5.2. Graduation embedded in NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy of the ST ................................................................................................. 153 Table 5.3. The authors’ attitude embedded in NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 155 Table 5.4. Translation of proper names in NGs of human centric-marketing strategy .............................................................................................................................. 157 Table 5.5. Some suggestions for translating proper nouns in the NGs ................ 160 Table 5.6. ST-TT comparison in translating NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 161 xi Table 5.7. Full equivalence of some NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................................. 161 Table 5.8. Partial gain of Field and Tenor in some NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 162 Table 5.9. Partial loss of Field and Tenor in some NGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 163 Table 5.10. Process and Graduation embedded in the VGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 165 Table 5.11. The authors’ attitude embedded in VGs related human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 167 Table 5.12. Equivalence extent in translating some VGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 168 Table 5.13. The ST-TT comparison in translating VGs related to human-centric marketing strategy ................................................................................................ 171 xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CTS: Comparative Translation Studies NG: Nominal group SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar ST: Source Text SL: Source language TL: Target language TS: Translation Studies TT: Target Text VG: Verbal group YWN: Young, Women, Netizens xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Translation studies has gone through a long history with many turning points appearing and developing into the mainstream research trends of this discipline, especially “cultural turn” dated from the 1980s with many well-known studies, such as the works of Bochner (1981), Bassnett & Lefevere (1998), Snell-Hornby (2006), Munday (2006) and Katan (2014), etc. In recent years, the concept “transdisciplinary perspective” has emerged in linguistics studies, also affecting translation and interpreting studies. From the 1970s, Holmes’s map has been recognized as a comprehensive large picture in which almost realms of translation studies are covered with two huge branches: pure translation studies and applied translation studies, containing different research fields. The pure branch consists of theoretical and descriptive translation studies and the present study belongs to the descriptive research field, from which its outcomes serve the aim of applied branch, particularly in translation teaching and learning as well as in translation studies. With his map, Holmes identifies that the theoretical, descriptive and applied areas influence one another. As Toury states (1991: 180; 2012: 93), the main merit of the divisions is that they cover a clarification and a division of labor between the various domains of translation studies which, in the past, have often been overlapped. The divisions are flexible enough to contain developments such as the technological advances in recent years. Munday indicates “James S. Holmes’s ‘The name and nature of translation studies’ is considered to be the ‘founding statement’ of a new discipline” and “translation studies has expanded hugely, and is now often considered an interdiscipline” (Munday (2016:7). Lately, the concept of ‘transdiscipline’ has emerged in translation studies when interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies in humanities, and linguistics which reflects the integrative processes of contemporary science refer to anthropocentrism as a combination of methodological principles with the knowledge-related fields. 1 In practice, translating texts from English into Vietnamese, especially nonliterary texts have always put many challenges for translators, interpreters and publishing houses. The reason lies in the fact that the scientific and technological revolution in the world is developing faster than ever before, how translators can convey new concepts, new ideas and new terms so that the target readers are able to keep up with the evolvement pace and with the modern life breath. The translators must retain the accuracy of the content in the source text (ST) as an equivalent factor, they still need to show the naturalness and aesthetics of the target language (TL) in the translated text, on the other hand. Among the nonliterary texts, the texts of both scientific and economic genres reveal their own difficulties due to Vietnam is a developing country, so almost all materials about science, technology and commerce are translated from the publications in foreign languages, in Russian formerly and in English currently. In the publications always exist collocations in the ST, which probably have not been heard in the TL before, causing challenges for the translators in rendering their meaning in the target text (TT). In any language, nouns and verbs are always assessed as the most essential parts of speech, so their collocations also play crucial roles in conveying semantic meanings. That is the reason why nominal groups and verbal groups are selected to analyze in this study. In terms of genre, business texts are texts containing the content related to business operation and transaction either in theory or in practice. Of the business activities run by companies and corporations, marketing operation holds a crucial part through which their products or services can attract, persuade customers to purchase goods, generating turnovers and profits – the final goals of any business. Thus, the research priority is given to marketing texts with the aim to find out the equivalence extent of linguistic units between the ST and TT. In particular, comparative previous studies on English-Vietnamese in business mainly focus on formation of economic terms (Nguyễn Thanh Tùng, 2017), of marketing terms (Hà Thị Hương Sơn, 2019), on sentence structure of advertisings texts (Bùi Diễm Hạnh, 2013), on language usage of posters (Nguyễn Thanh Tùng, 2009), or the use of capital letters in English-Latvian marketing 2 texts (Birzniece, 2006). In fact, the equivalence assessment on semantic modification embedded in nominal groups and verbal groups of English – Vietnamese translation of marketing texts has not been researched so far. This is actually a gap for the present study to be conducted. Thus, this study attempts to investigate the equivalence in semantic modifications of nominal groups (hereafter nominal groups- NGs), and verbal groups (hereafter verbal groups – VGs) related to market segments and the core marketing strategy of digital era 4.0 manifest in an English-Vietnamese marketing translation. To complete this task, the marketing text entitled “Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital” (2017) is selected as the ST of this study for several reasons. Firstly, this publication was written in English by Kotler who is regarded as “the world’s Father of the modern marketing”, together with Kartajaya – the founder of MarkPlus, the biggest marketing firm of Indonesia and Setiawan – the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of MarkPlus, who are both experienced experts in marketing of Asia. Secondly, this text is a newly-published works reflecting the on-going shift of marketing field from the traditional to the digital society. Thirdly, this publication was translated into Vietnamese by a group of qualified translators, whose team leader is Nguyễn Khoa Hồng Thành gaining a BA in Vietnamese Diplomatic Policy in Vietnam, an MBA at University of Hawaii at Manoa in the USA, and currently being the COO of Isobar Vietnam. The Vietnamese translation which is examined in this study was published by Trẻ Publisher in 2018 (5th edition). Because of the aforementioned reasons, the research entitled “A Comparative Study on English-Vietnamese Translation of Business texts” is carried out to partly fill in the existing gap in translation studies on business texts, specifically marketing texts. 2. Research aim and objective of the study The overarching aim of the study is to assess the equivalence extent of semantic modifications embedded in NGs and VGs of a Vietnamese marketing translated text compared to its English original. As the theoretical background, 3 House’s model (2015) is applied to identify the translation equivalence of NGs and VGs of a marketing text in the English-Vietnamese translation, the study is expected to draw out the theoretical supplementation for such context of nonliterary texts. In order to achieve this aim, the objective set for this study is to investigate the equivalence extent of the NGs and VGs with semantic modifications in the Vietnamese translation compared with those in the English original on the basis of the functional-pragmatic perspective of House’s model. NGs and VGs related to market segments and human-centric marketing strategy as language units play an essential role in conveying the ideational and interpersonal meaning of the ST. Thus, their translation in the TT is taken into analysis and comparison to find out the differences between the two texts. 3. Research question To achieve the overarching aim of this study, the research question is formulated as follows: “To what extent are the nominal groups and verbal groups related to market segments and human-centric marketing strategy in the Vietnamese translation version “Tiếp thị 4.0: Dịch chuyển từ Truyền thống sang Công nghệ số” (2018) equivalent with those in the English original text “Marketing 4.0Moving from Traditional to Digital” (2017) from the functional-pragmatic perspective? ”. The thesis attempts to gain the answer to the research question through an appropriate research approach with suitable methods presented in the following sections. NGs and VGs with their semantic modifications in the translation can be seen as the differences resulting from the outcome of comparative analysis. The similarities in semantic meaning of NGs and VGs between the ST and TT are exclusive and out of this research question. The reason lies in the fact that, the similarities in terms of semantic meaning are commonly understood as fully equivalent factors. 4 4. Scope of the study The present study concentrates on uncovering the equivalence extent of the English-Vietnamese translation at lexical level namely NGs and VGs related to market segments and human-centric marketing strategy with semantic modifications in the chosen translated marketing text “Tiếp thị 4.0: Dịch chuyển từ Truyền thống sang Công nghệ số” published by Trẻ Publisher in 2018 (5th edition) in comparison with the original text “Marketing 4.0- Moving from Traditional to Digital” (2017). Therefore, in terms of time, the language embedded in the data of this study is restricted to the period of time in 2017 for the ST and in 2018 for the TT, that is considered to be contemporary with the time of this study completion between 2018 and 2021. Only NGs and VGs which contain semantic modifications in the translation are taken into consideration with its ST in the present study. In fact, the nature of comparison lies in discovering similar and different characteristics between the phenomena and objects, and suggesting possibilities to bridge the gaps. However, the similarities between the ST and TT can be seen as the common characteristics shared between the two languages and cultures, so they are not inclusive in this study. Thus, in terms of space, this study is limited to the semantic modification of NGs and VGs related to market segments and humancentric marketing strategy between the two texts. There are also several reasons for selecting the differences in semantic meaning (or semantic modifications) of NGs and VGs as research objects for this study. As can be seen, NGs and VGs are combinations of nouns and verbs with other linguistic elements and they appear in all locutions, sentences of a text in any language. Thus, the differences contained in these language units have a tendency to reveal the translators’ intentions and attitudes toward the text’s content. In other words, they play an essential part in expressing the pragmatic expectations of the translators, which consequently brings uniqueness to the translation. Moreover, these categories promise interesting findings on differences in the equivalence extent at lexical level of the ST and the TT. That is why focusing on these groups would facilitate in-depth analysis and valuable comparison. 5 5. Methods of the study This research is a comparative study of a business text, specifically a marketing text in English and its translation in Vietnamese. The research approach employed for this study is mainly qualitative while the quantitative analysis plays a supplementary role in providing statistics of the data. On the theoretical basis of House’s model (2015) with the combination of Appraisal theory by Martin and White (2005) as a benchmark to measure the equivalence extent, the comparative, descriptive, interpretive and evaluative methods of qualitative approach are applied to reach an in-depth analysis. It can be argued that this present study heavily relies on the qualitative approach while the quantitative approach just contributes to calculating the statistics. Therefore, by nature, this study is descriptive, comparative, interpretive and evaluative. 6. Significance of the study Theoretically, House’s functional-pragmatic model (2015) is proven to be effective and valuable not only with literary texts, but also with non-literary texts. The workability of the combined framework merging elements of House’s model (2015) with the components of Martin & White’s Appraisal Theory (2005) is confirmed via this study on a marketing text – a non-literary text. The extended supplementary along with the achievements of the previous studies facilitates the researcher to explore the events’ graduation and the translators’ attitudes embedded in the semantic modifications of NGs and VGs in the translation. Practically, the research findings enable translators and translator training to properly translate NGs and VGs in a non-literary text, particularly in a marketing text. Unlike the common assumptions of arguing that for non-literary texts the most popular translation strategy is the literal or word-for-word, the chosen translated marketing text resorts several strategies at the same time to reach the translation equivalence. These translation strategies contribute to creating the semantic modifications of the NGs and VGs, leading to different nuances of equivalence of the translation compared to the ST. Additionally, the differences 6