Strategies in Solving Equivalent-related Problems in Translation: Implications to Cross-cultural Understanding

Rusdi Noor Rosa

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijclts.v.9n.3p.8

Abstract

Any translation practice is intended to produce a text which is equivalent in meaning with its source text. However, to arrive at such equivalence is not an easy task due to a number of differences between the source language and the target language. Therefore, finding the right equivalence is a problem often encountered by translators, especially student translators. Suggested by such problem, a study on equivalence problems and possible strategies to solve the problems is obviously necessary. This article aims at finding out the problems of equivalence encountered and the strategies to solve such problems applied by student translators in translating a historical recount text. This is a descriptive study taking 10 student translators as the participants who were asked to translate a historical recount text from English into bahasa Indonesia. The data were collected using Translog that recorded all the translation process done by the student translators. The results of the study were: (i) the student translators encountered five equivalence problems while translating a historical recount text from English into bahasa Indonesia; and (ii) to solve such problems, they applied six strategies (naturalization, borrowing, description, deletion, addition and generalization). The findings imply that the problems were motivated by the student translators’ lack of cultural understanding of the source language.

Highlights

Translation is intended to reproduce a text in another different language
The data were the translation process done by student translators who were selected based on the predetermined criteria as suggested by Rosa et al (2018). 10 students were selected because: (i) they have passed three courses on translation studies offered in their study program; (ii) they have good English proficiency proved by their TOEFL score; (iii) they never worked as professional translators; and (iv) their mother tongue is bahasa Indonesia
IJCLTS 9(3):8-15 problem encountered by the student translators in translating the historical recount text from English into bahasa Indonesia is the SL interference in the TT

Summary

Introduction

Translation is intended to reproduce a text in another different language. The term “reproduce” implies that a translated text or target text (TT) should be equivalent in meaning with its source text (ST); in other words, a TT is not a newly created text. Using the idea of nothing absolute in translation (Newmark, 1988), accuracy can be achieved under certain conditions To reveal such conditions, a number of studies on translation accuracy have been conducted. In addition to human translation, other studies have been conducted to examine the accuracy of translation performed by translation machines (Baldwin & Tanaka, 2001; Aiken et al, 2009; Aiken & Balan, 2011). They found that, despite their small number of weaknesses, translation machines are helpful in achieving accuracy in translation

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