Translation I (March, 29 2011)

Here is my little note from the 2nd meeting of translation I
I know that it is far away from perfection, bottom line I just wanna share it with you all guys. Hope it will be help you up. For some people, it may be like a garbage for them. It's okay. Nothing to loose :)


1) Analyzing : when we analyzing we'll try to find

• Deep structure : we'll find the message inside of the SL text
• Surface structure : we'll try to find the style, sentence structure, language style, collocation, idiom, metaphor. One thing that must be concern is metaphor, wise-word, collocation and idiom can't be translated but it must be replaced with the equivalence fit with the TL.

For example :

"It's no use crying over the spilled milk"
we can't translate it as "tak ada gunanya menangisi susu yang telah tumpah". In cultural adjustment we must transform it to the Indonesian Idiom and find the closest equivalence. The closest equivalence for those idiom is "Nasi sudah menjadi bubur".

2) Transferring : this activity is happen in translator mind. It often called as internal process.
For this part, my lecture do not explain it further. I don't know why. She just skip it.

3) Restructuring : make a rough draft in TL and doing some adjustment (Grammatical adjustment, Lexical adjustment, Cultural adjustment)

• Grammatical adjustment : related with SL rule and TL rule. Our translation have to follow the TL rule without ignoring the SL rule. (correcting tenses, gerund, article, modal, etc)
• Lexical adjustment : related with the difference use of word construction between SL and TL. (Unfortunately, I lost my concentration in this part. My bad)
• Cultural adjustment : related with the difference culture between SL and TL. I've already provide you the example.But, I'll copy-paste it again, just for you. LOL.
  
  "It's no use crying over the spilled milk"
  we can't translate it as "tak ada gunanya menangisi susu yang telah tumpah". In cultural adjustment we must transform it to the Indonesian Idiom and find the closest equivalence. The closest equivalence for those idiom is "Nasi sudah menjadi bubur".
  There are two problems in Cultural Adjustment;
  1) Translatable : when a word or sentence can be translated (of course using cultural adjustment) into TL. For example "Noodle" it's easy to recognize what it mean. In Indonesia it is called "Mie"
  
  2) Untranslatable : when a word or sentence can't be translated (of course using cultural adjustment) into TL. For example "Hot dog", you can't translate it as "Anjing Panas" because there will be no one able to eat that food if you translate it like that. Most recommended, you use the original one without translate it into the TL, in here the example of TL is Indonesian.
  
  Criteria of a good translation :
  

  • Readable, simply said easy to understand, easy to be understood.
  • Accurate, the meaning of SL and TL is almost same. You're only allowed to change the style and the form but not the meaning of SL.
  • Natural, can be said natural if the reader "feels comfortable and feels like home" when they read the translation. 
  
  

http://www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/resined/qualitative%20methods%202/qualrshm.htm

Translation I (March, 19 2011)

Here is my note which I got from the first meeting
(That's what I saw at the whiteboard, don't blame me if there's some mistake)

Translation is divided into :
- Written translation
Written translation produce written text and the person who doing this activity called Translator
- Oral translation
Oral translation produce utterances and the person who doing this activity called Intrepeter

1) Catford 
"Replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by textual material in another language (TL)"

Example:

Source Language (SL) English -> Target Language (TL) Indonesian
She is beautiful girl -> Dia perempuan adalah cantik gadis
In this case, in this definition, we only translate the source language in to the target language. Ignoring the meaning and the style itself. In Indonesian "Dia perempuan adalah cantik gadis" is meaningless but readable.
Simple, we can say that this one is TRANSLATION FOR DUMMIES.

2) Nida and Taber
"Reproducing the receptor language, the closest natural equivalence of source language message, first in term of meaning, second in term of style"

Example:

Source Language (SL) English -> Target Language (TL) Indonesian

Take me in your dream -> Bawalah aku kedalam mimpimu

This definition more concern about the meaning and the style to produce the closest natural equivalence.

The word "take" could be translated in Indonesian as "ambil, jinjing, etc" but here we find the closest equivalence of those word. So, the closest equivalence is "bawa".

Other case, we have "as white as snow". We can't translate it as "seputih salju", because there is no snow in Indonesia. (that was my lecture said)

the closest translation could be "seputih kapas". The reason is because "kapas" is more natural than snow in Indonesia. (that was my lecture said again). This phenomenon called Cultural Adjustment. And what the Cultural Adjustment will be explained next week. (that was my lecture said again and again)

My lecture said that

"every language has their own rules and when we're trying to translate the source language into the target language, we must follow the target language's rule"

3) Larson

"Consist of transfering the meaning of the source language in to the receptor language. It mean, it is being transfered and must be held constant, only the form is allowed to changed."

Example:

Larson emphasize on

- Transfering the meaning

- The meaning itself must be held constant

- Finding equality

Right, we go to the further explanation. Here is the simple example:

She is beautiful girl -> Dia adalah gadis cantik

S + Adj + N         ->    S + N + Adj

We can see that the form of these sentence is changed when it translated into Indonesian. In English, adjective is always placed before the noun but not in Indonesian. That's what "meaning must be held constant, only the form is allowed to changed"

Note :
- SL = Source Language, language which is used in SL text
- TL = Target Language, language which is used in TL text

- Equivalence = Translating word by word
- Meaning = Core of the text or we can called it Main Idea

Ok, that's all for the first meeting of translation 1.

Hope it'll help you up.