IMPACT OF ENGINEERING, METHOD, IDEOLOGY AND TRANSLATION

ABSTRACT
Roswita Silalahi. 058107013. “The Impact of the Translation Techniques, Methods,
and Ideologies on the Quality of the Translated Text Medical-Surgical Nursing in
Indonesian ". Dissertation. A Doctorate Degree Program in Linguistics, the
Graduate School of Universitas Sumatera Utara, 2009
The objectives of this study are (1) to formulate translation techniques applied to
translate “Medical-Surgical Nursing” text into bahasa Indonesia, (2) to describe
translation methods chosen, (3) to interpret translation ideologies adopted, and (4) to
assess the impact of the translation techniques, methods and ideologies on the quality of
the translated text into bahasa Indonesia.
This descriptive-qualitative research is an embedded-case study and oriented to
translation product involving objective and affective aspects. The sources of data for this
study consist of documents, key informants, and respondents selected with purposive
sampling technique. The documents refer to the first chapter of “Medical-Surgical
Nursing” and its translation in bahasa Indonesia. The key informants constitute one
translation expert and three medical practitioners and the respondents are five medical
students. The research data comprises of (1) words, phrases, clauses, and sentences of
“Medical-Surgical Nursing” and its translation in bahasa Indonesia, (2) the translation
expert’s statements about the accuracy level, (3) the medical practioners’ statements
about the acceptability level, and (4) the medical students’ statements about the
readability level of the translation. The research data were collected with document
analysis, questionnaires, and in-depth interview and analyzed using an interactive data
analysis technique.
Findings of this study show the followings. First, eight translation techniques
were used to render “Medical-Surgical Nursing” into bahasa Indonesia. These include
literal, pure borrowing, naturalized borrowing, layer, transposition, modulation,
deletion, and addition technique. On the basis of the frequent use of each of the
translation techniques, literal appears to be in the first rank (489) followed by pure
borrowing (224), naturalized borrowing (222), transposition (68), layer (67),
modulation (25), deletion, (16), and addition (9). Second, theoretically speaking, literal,
pure borrowing, naturalized borrowing, and calque are oriented to source language while
transposition, modulation, deletion and addition are oriented to target language. This
means that the translator tended to choose literal, faithful, and semantic translation
methods. Third, the use of translation techniques and the selection of translation methods
tend to be based on the adoption of the ideology of foreignization. Fourth, in terms of the
quality of the translation, it was found that 338 (64,75%) data are accurate, 136 (26,05%)
less accurate, and 48 (9,20%) inaccurate. Meanwhile, 396 data (75,86%) are acceptable,
91 (17,44%) less acceptable, and 35 (6,70%) unacceptable. It was also found that 493
data (96,29%) have a high readability level and other 19 (3,71%) have an adequate
readability level. Pure borrowing, naturalized borrowing, layer, and also literal
technique contribute significantly to the accuracy of the translation while the application
of transposition, modulation, deletion, and addition appears to have a negative impact on
the accuracy. It was also identified that some data were less acceptable and unacceptable
and this mostly relates to the use of ungrammatical target sentences. In addition, the use
of some foreign technical terms, inappropriate collocations, unfamiliar Indonesian lexical
items, and mistyping make some data less readable for the target readers.
Based on the research findings, the following suggestions are proposed. First, a
medical text is a sensitive text containing important information and therefore the
deletion technique should be carefully used. Second, an excessive addition of information
should also be avoided as it tends to violate messages intended by the original author.
Third, subject matter competence is an important element of translation competence but
the fundament of translation competence is language competence. Fourth, the translated
text Keperawatan Medikal Bedah needs to be revised due to grammatical mistakes and
distortions of original message. Fifth, a further study needs to carry out to get more
insights into the phenomena of medical text translation; this may be done through the use
of different approach and the involvement of not only objective and affective aspects but
also genetive aspect. Sixth, the Indonesian government needs to establish an institution
responsible for quality assurance and control of quality of translations within the areas of
science and technology in particular.