Analysis of Translation Techniques in Thesis Abstracts of English and Indonesian Language and Literature Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Writing a quality abstract is important because abstract is a factor that determine whether a paper is worth to read or not. For researchers or students whose first language is not English, translation techniques must be taken into consideration as well, especially if they aim for international publication. Various studies related to translation techniques have been done previously, but not many analysed abstracts, especially from undergraduate students' theses that were written in two languages. Therefore, this study aims to analyse translation strategies of abstracts from English Language and Literature and Indonesian Language and Literature students of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. A total of 30 English and Indonesian abstracts along with the translations were taken from UPI's online repository to be analysed using Molina and Albir's (2002) translation techniques. From the analysis, it is shown that the translation technique that was used the most in abstracts from both study programs was Literal Translation, followed by Borrowing. However, 11 translation techniques are identified in abstract written by English Literature students, while only nine are identified from Indonesian Literature students' abstracts. The findings show that despite writing in different languages, students from both study program used similar translation techniques to translate their abstracts.

Translation Technique Used in for the Sake of Sita Webtoon by Haga

“…They are: adaptation amplification, borrowing, discursive creation, established equivalent, generalization, linguistic amplification, linguistic compression, literal translation, modulation particularization, reduction transposition and variation. Furthermore, the finding of this study agree with the study done by Humaira et al (2020) [11], Pidia et al (2021) [12], Firdausyiah et al (2021) [13], and Nasution (2020) [14] who find out that the most dominant technique used in translating text is literal translation. In the current study, Adaptation occurs 4 times (1%), Amplification occurs 18 times (6%), Borrowing occurs 17 times (6%), Discursive creation occurs 11 times (4%), Established equivalent occurs 14 times (5%), Generalization occurs 3 times (1%), Linguistic amplification occurs 16 times (5%), Linguistic compression occurs 23 times (8%), Literal translation occurs 120 times(39%), Modulation occurs 54 times (18%), Particularization occurs 3 times (1%), Reduction occurs 13 times (4%), Transposition occurs 6 times(2%), Variation occurs 3 times (1%).…”

“…The finding was from both study program students used the same technique of translation in abstracts even though they write in different languages. This study also found the dominant technique used by the students is literal translation followed by borrowing [13]. Nasution (2020) investigated translation techniques and quality text translation impact.…”

“…The study found that there was 124 data translated using literal translation so that literal translation the most dominnat technique used in translating Aladdin 2019 : A Whole New World movie subtitle [12]. Moreover, Firdausyiah et al (2021) explored translation techniques used by students of English Language and Literature and students of Indonesian Language and Literature. Object of this study is 30 abstracts taken from students' thesis.…”