Translation Equivalence

            Equivalence is very important in translating a language into other languages; it lies between the source and the target language. In understanding the equivalence, Catford stated a statement about equivalence in his book A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965).

            According to Catford, it is possible to generalize the condition for translation equivalence as follows:

Translation equivalence occurs when a SL and a TL text or item are relatable to (at least some of) the same features of substance (Catford, 1965: 50).

            Based on the statement, it means when a source language text or item has some language relations at least the some features of substance with the target language, it is possible for the translation equivalence to occur. The translation cannot be based only upon some of meanings but however it must be related to some situations or contexts where the equivalence should be established.

            If the requirement of the equivalent in the source language and target language are relatable, a problem that usually faced in founding this relation is caused by the quit difference cultures of the people who speak the target language with the target language.

Examples:

1)      SL : Jam tangan anda sangat canggih.

TL : Your watch is very sophiscated (Margono, 1999: 7).

2)      SL : Lontong

TL : Cooked rice wrapped in banana leaf (Margono, 1999: 2).

The example (1) jam tangan in source language has an equivalence watch in the target language, so there is not translating problem found here. But in example (2), lontong is difficult to translate to English. There is not English word that can be used to match lontong. So, the translator decided to modify it by using an explanation that is cooked rice wrapped in banana leaf.

The Process of Translation

The Process of Translation

Larson described about the process or steps of translation in her book entitled Meaning-Based translation; and here is the overview of the translation task:

Based on the diagram, it can be found that there are three major steps in the process of translation. Firstly, a translator needs to discover the meaning of the message in the source language (there is a text to be translated). After the translator gets the meaning, the process of determining the meaning that related to the communicated is needed. Finally, a translator needs to re-explain or re-express the meaning (the message) in target language using the translation equivalent.

            According to Margono, in his Essential of Theory and Practice of Translation, he proposed a diagram of translation process:

 

Margono explained that the processes of analyzing a translation may consist of:

(a)    Analyzing grammatical relationship between constituent parts.

(b)   Identify the meanings of the semantic units.

(c)    Finding the connotative meanings of the grammatical structures and semantic units.

For example, here is a translation from English as the source language into Indonesian as target language.

SL    : The Balinese themselves are drawn to exhibition of trance and find them as interesting as the tourist (Margono, 1999: 14).

TL    : Pertunjukan tarian yang penarinya mengalami kerauhan dikunjungi banyak penonton, termasuk wisatawan asing dan orang Bali sendiri. Pertunjukan itu sama menariknya bagi wisatawan maupun orang Bali (Margono, 1999: 14).

In the example above, the original meaning is not changed when translating the source language text into target language text. As we see above, almost all of the meanings in the source language text are translated again in the target language.

Kinds of Translation - Literal / Idiomatic Translation

According to Larson in her book entitled Meaning-Based Translation, there are two kinds of translation, one is form-based and the other is meaning-based translation. They are called the literal translation and idiomatic translation. To make it clear, let us see the discussion below.

1. Literal Translation

            Literal translation is a form-based translation; in literal translation, the form of the source language is transferred into the form of the target language. Although this literal translation is useful for the purposes that related to the study of the source language, it has little help to the speakers of the receptor language who are interested in the meaning of the source language text. A literal translation has little communication value.

            According to Larson in his book entitled Meaning-Based translation, literal translation is:

Form-based translations attempt to follow the form of the source language and are known as literal translations (Larson, 1984: 17).

Here is an example of literal translation:

SL: Koan daro (Chuava – Papua New Guinea).

TL: Your-name call! (Larson, 1984: 17).

            Larson stated that this literal translation makes little sense in English. The appropriate translation would be What is your name? (Larson, 1984: 17).

            This literal translation gives priority to form whether that in words, clause, or sentence and it makes the result of the translation sounds unnatural and has a little communication value. This translation often becomes a bad translation because the translator makes over the use of equivalent of the appropriate words with the contextual meaning.

Examples:

1)      SL : Who has he been living with? (Margono, 1999: 4)

TL : Siapa telah dia tinggal dengan? (Margono, 1999: 4)

2)      SL : Beliau sudah mendahului kita (Margono, 1999: 7).

TL : He has left before us (Margono, 1999: 7).

The translations above sound unnatural. The word who is simply translated into siapa. Has is translated into telah, he is translated into dia, been living is translated into tinggal and with is translated into dengan. The result is translated by word – for – word translation and it causes the combination of the target language sentence sounds unnatural and it usually makes the readers confused. This case also happens in the second example. The word beliau is simply translated into he, sudah into has, mendahului into left before and us into kita.

Larson in her book Meaning-Based translation quoted Barnwell’s statement (Barnwell 1980:18). It says: If the two languages are related, the literal translation can often be understood, since the general grammatical form may be similar. However, the literal choice of lexical items makes the translation sound foreign. The following bilingual announcement was overheard at an airport.

2. Idiomatic Translation

            Idiomatic translation is the second types of translation. It can be found that the definition of idiomatic translation in Larson’s Meaning-Based translation which is written:

Idiomatic translation is meaning-based translations which make every effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the natural forms of the receptor language (Larson, 1984: 17).

Based on Larson’s statement, idiomatic translation uses meaning-based in the translating process. It means that a translator basically needs to know about the meaning of the source language before he transfers this meaning into other languages. Idiomatic translation uses the natural forms of the receptor language, both in the grammatical constructions and in the choice of lexical items. The idiomatic translation does not sound like a translation, it sounds like it was written originally in the receptor language.

Usually, some good translations are finished using mixtures of a literal transfer of the grammatical units along with some idiomatic translation. So, by doing it, the results of the translation will sound more natural.

Example:

SL   : Who has he been living with? (Margono, 1999: 4)

TL   : Dengan siapa dia tinggal? (Margono, 1999: 4)

In example above, we can see that there is a change of structure. The word dengan is placed in front of the sentence and it makes the sentence better. The result of the translation is easier to understand and to accept by the readers.

Reproducing a good receptor language text which communicates the same message as the source language but using the natural grammatical and lexical choice of the receptor language becomes the main purpose of a translator. Here is one more example of idiomatic translation:

Example:

SL   : She is a woman of steel (Margono, 1999: 7).

TL   : Dia wanita yang berjiwa kuat (Margono, 1999: 7).

Idiomatic translation above is acceptable for the target readers because it sounds natural. The phrase a woman of steel is not simply translated into seorang wanita dari besi but idiomatically translated into wanita berjiwa kuat because the translator understands the original meaning and knows both languages well.       

            Further, there are some types of translation proposed by Margono (1999).This explanation is based on Essential of Theory and Practice of Translation (Margono, 1999: 4). According to Margono, there are several types of translation:

a.       Morpheme-by-morpheme Translation

English	Who	Has	He	Been	Liv-	-Ing	With
Indonesian	Penanya orang	Kata bantu aspek perfect	Personal tunggal maskulin	Past Participle be	hidup	Sedang	Dengan

Example above shows that the type of translation that used is morpheme-by-morpheme translation. Lexical morpheme (in this example live: hidup) in the translation is presented differently from grammatical morphemes. In this case, every morpheme is given an explanation about its function rather than its equivalent in the target language.

b.      Word-by-word Translation

English	Who	Has	He	Been	Living	With
Indonesian	Siapa	Telah	Dia		Tinggal	Dengan

Word-by-word translation is used in the example above. Each word in the source language is translated into a word in the target language. If one of them has not a corresponding form, the word can be left untranslated (e.g. been).

c.       Sentence-by-sentence Translation

English	Who has he been living with?
Indonesian	Dengan siapa dia tinggal?

A sentence above is considered as a unit of grammatical structure, it is not a text. Because it has not contexts, the translation is usually disappointed.

d.      Contextual Translation

Margono concerned the discussion in this type of translation. When the translation is related to its context, a possible translation might be like this:

English	Who has he been living with?
Indonesian	Selama ini dengan siapa dia tinggal disana?

To make the sentence better and also fits the context, an addition selama ini in the beginning of the sentence and di sana in the end of the sentence is needed. These additions make the result of the translation better and acceptable in the target language.

Definitions of Translation

There are many definitions of translation defined and it is defined in many ways. If we analyze the translation, we will see that there are two languages involved in translation. That is the reason of knowing what translation is.

In her book entitled Meaning-Based Translation (1984), Larson argued the definition of translation by some statements. She stated that:

Translation is basically a change of form. When we speak of the form of a language, we are referring to the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, etc., which are spoken or written. These forms are referred to as the surface structure of a language (Larson, 1984: 3).

She also added that:

The form from which the translation is made will be called the source language and the form into which it is to be changed will be called the receptor language (Larson, 1984: 3).

Another definition of translation was also proposed by Catford in his book entitled A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), he stated about the definition of translation that says:

Translation is an operation performed on languages: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in other (Catford, 1965: 1).

He also added:

Translation can be defined as follows: The replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL) (Catford, 1965: 20).

Catford also stated about translation, as a process, is always uni-directional: it is always performed in a given direction; from a Source Language into a Target Language. He used the abbreviations: SL for Source Language and TL for Target Language.