Abstract
This paper focuses on identifying meaning components in the translation of English medical terms into Indonesian. The data used in this study are the English medical term disorder and its Indonesian equivalent penyakit (disease). The two terms are purposively chosen as the data of the present study, which is a comparative research on the lexical meaning investigation in two different languages. The investigation involving a particular term in one language and its equivalent in the other language is worth doing since the lexicons in every language have their own specific concepts that may be synonymous, yet they are not always interchangeable in all contexts. The analysis into meaning components is called decomposition by means of several semantic theories to analyse the meaning of a lexical item (Löbner 2013). Here, the meaning components of the two compared terms are demonstrated through a semantic approach, particularly Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) supported by the investigation on their synonyms and how the terms are used in different contexts. The results show that the meaning components of a particular term in one language like the English term disorder are not always found in the Indonesian term penyakit, or, conversely, some of the meaning components of the Indonesian term do not always exist in the English term.
Highlights
The identification of meaning components to comprehen‐ sively analyze the meaning of a lexical item is necessarily done since the lexical meaning consists of complex compo‐ nents that must be carefully interpreted in its context
The meaning components of the two compared terms are demonstrated through a semantic approach, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) supported by the investigation on their synonyms and how the terms are used in different contexts
The results show that the meaning components of a particular term in one language like the English term disorder are not always found in the Indonesian term penyakit, or, some of the meaning components of the Indonesian term do not always exist in the English term
Summary
The identification of meaning components to comprehen‐ sively analyze the meaning of a lexical item is necessarily done since the lexical meaning consists of complex compo‐ nents that must be carefully interpreted in its context. The analysis of meaning components is called decomposi‐ tion that focuses on the identification of the words’ meaning and how the measuring tools of meaning identification are applied and combined to make the measurement sensible It is the converse of composition by which the meaning of a complex expression is determined on the basis of its com‐ ponents and its structure (Löbner, 2013: 221). It is necessary to introduce the convincing ways used to vis‐ ibly prove the principle of loss and gain in translation In accordance with this principle, the identification on meaning components has been commonly done through a semantic approach to show the equivalence of the lexicons in different languages
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