Abstract
One growing population of non-native English speakers in the U.S. education system are native Vietnamese speakers, yet no studies have examined how higher education communication could be made more accessible for Vietnamese speakers. As a result, this case study reports on human and machine translational linguistics work conducted in partnership with the University of Iowa focused on simplifying and translating English enrollment management information into Vietnamese. Findings suggest that the institution increased the clarity and accessibility of enrollment management information by using second-person pronouns, shorter sentence structures, clearer diction, and explanations of institution-specific jargon. Moreover, analyses of machine and human translations of English to Vietnamese suggest that human translation should be preferred over machines, as Google Translate and Chat GPT provided adequate but not perfect translations of Iowa’s information. Implications for practice and college access are addressed.
Recommended Citation
Taylor, Z.W.; Do, Alan; Kugiya, Jase; and Le, Tuan
(2026)
"Translating Higher Education into Vietnamese: An Applied Linguistics Approach to Language Equity and Higher Education Access,"
Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement: Vol. 21
:
Iss.
1,
Article 3.
DOI: 10.7771/2153-8999.1377
Available at:
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jsaaea/vol21/iss1/3
