ASSESSMENT ON VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF OBJECT LABELS AT VIETNAMESE WOMEN’S MUSEUM THROUGH FOREIGN TOURISTS’ PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Translation of culture-specific items has posed many difficulties to translators as it requires thorough knowledge of both languages and cultures. This study aims to investigate the assessment of foreign tourists on the translation of object labels at Vietnamese Women’s Museum and to shed light on tourist’s preferences for cultural word translation procedures. In order to fulfil these objectives, a mixed-method research was conducted in which questionnaire and interview were used as the primary data collection instruments. The model proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (2000) was applied to analyze the procedures of the cultural word translation. The findings showed that the translation at Vietnamese Women’s Museum generally came up to tourists’ expectation and successfully helped them understand the majority of Vietnamese culture exhibited at the museum. However, some contents relating to religion or Vietnamese customs such as Mother worshipping, consecration ritual, 13 celestial Mothers full-month ceremony and traditional outfits such as fabric-making or fabric-dyeing methods, names of traditional costumes caused some challenges to the readers. Suggestions from tourists were valuable for both translators and the museum to improve their translation and display at the museum.