COMMUNICATIVE AND SEMANTIC TRANSLATION
By: Lailatul Izza
Abstract: Language skill is not only listening, speaking, reading, and writing, but also translation. Translation is very important when it is related to the book of science and technology because most of them are written in foreign language, especially in English so the translator needs to know and be able to translate well. To acquire good translation from source language (SL) into target language (TL), the translator not only translate word by word, but should be translate semantically and be able to combine the meaning to achieve good translation in a communicative translation. This article helps the translator to give expression about the function of translation as communication.
Key word: communicative, semantic, translation
INTRODUCTION
Basically translation is the language transfer of a text from a source language (SL) into order language or target language (TL) which is related by the translator without changing the messages of the text from a source language. In the past, when we talk about language skill, always refer to listening, speaking, reading, and writing and clamed that speaking was a ultimate goal in learning English. Nowadays translation is really needed when it is related to the book of science and technologies are written in foreign language, Actually in English. Indonesia as developing country must not left behind to get newest information especially science and technology. So translation should be referring to the function as communication to express a concept or sense to other people.
Translation has broad scoop but in this article only discuses about communicative and semantic translation.
DISCUSSION
Communicative Translation
In theory, communicative translation addresses itself solely to the second reader who does not anticipate difficulties or obscurities, and would expect a generous transfer of foreign elements into his own culture as well as his language where necessary,[1] communicative translation is likely to be smother, simpler, clearer, more direct, more conventional, conforming to a particular register of language and tending to under translate. Basically, communicative translation emphasize the sift of massages. This method, pay attention to the reader or listener of target language that hope there is no difficulties and unclearly in text of target language and also effectiveness of target language
For example: awas anjing galak!
It can translate become:
- Beware of dog!, Than Beware of the vicious dog!
Because the first sentence was beckon that the dog is vicious[2]
- I would admit that a I am wrong
- I will admit that a I am wrong
For native speaker two sentences above will have difference effect, the differences is the employing words “would and” will, the first sentence indicate that someone desire to do something and the word “will” in second sentences indicate that activities will be done by subject of the sentence. Remember in this case tenses is not influence the meaning of the sentence. So two sentences above if translated in Indonesian language become
- I would admit a I am wrong
(saya mau mengakui bahwa saya salah)
- I will admit that a I am wrong
(Saya akan mengakui bahwa saya akan salah)[3]
In communicative translation, translation could repair the logic sentence in a source language. Change the words and structure that was cliff with the smoother and delete part of the sentences that unclearly[4]. The translator need to be able to do in order to translate, his approach would lead as to. Attempt the specify translator communicative competence which would consist of four components
1. Grammatical competence: knowledge of the rules of the code. Including vocabulary and word formatting. Pronunciation/spelling and sentence structure.
2. Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge of and ability to produce and understand utterances appropriately in context.
3. Discourse Competence: the ability to combine form and meaning to achieve unified spoken and written in different genre: this unity depends on cohesion in from and coherence in meaning.
4. Strategic Competence: the mastery of communication strategic which may be used to improve communication or to compensate for break downs.[5]
Communicative translation is always concentrated on the reader, normally makes the text smoother, lighter, more idiomatic and easier to read, but the equivalent-effect element is in operant if that the text is out of target language space and time.
Semantic Translation
Semantic translation remains within the original culture and assists the reader only in its commutations if they constitute the essential method is that where is a conflict. Semantic translation tends to be more complex more awkward, more detailed, more concentrated, and process the thought-process rather than the intention of the transmitter.[6]
Semantic translation is objective and neutral, only to translate naturally, is not adding, reduce or repairing. It only changes the meaning and text force of source language to the target language. Semantic translator should be considered element of estetict text of source language with compromise the meaning since in fittingness. Study example below:
SL : He is a book-worm
TL : Dia (laki-laki) adalah orang yang suka sekali membaca.
Book-room translated flexibelly appropriate with culture context and functional restriction that accepted in target language. But translated above appropriate less and have to translated become “Dia seorang kutu buku”.[7]
A semantic translation attempts to recreate the precise flavor and tone of the original the though-processes in the words are as significant as the intention behind the word in a communicative translation. This semantic translation is out of time and local space, where a communicative translation is ephemeral and rooted in the context. A semantic translation attempts to preserve its author’s idiolect. In preference to the spirit of the source language, in semantic translation, every word translated represents some loss of meaning, where in communicative translation the same words similarly translated lose a no meaning at all.
Furthermore, in poetry in particular and imaginative writing in general all common general concrete words have connotation and therefore have some of the force of a metaphor without its image or vehicle. Sooner or later, they themselves are used as images or vehicles, and become metaphor, when these words are translated. They lose their connotations or metaphorical sense, unless there is cultural overlap between source and target language. In previous paper, the importance of aesthetic value or of poetic truth in semantic translation is dependent on the following factor:
a. Structure: for the translation, the plan of the text as a whole and the shape and balance of the individual sentence.
b. Metaphor: the visual images which may also evoke sound, touch (including temperature and climate), smell and tested.
A semantic translation is not a rigid procedure. It is admittedly more objective than communicative translation. Since the source language words as well as the sentences are operative as from of control. If the structure in the source language is unit, that mean source language have not the structure, so both of translation are different because semantic translation have to consider the structure, but communicative translation have to change the structure to be accepted in target language. Study the following example:
SL : It is wrong to assume that our people do not understand what a real democracy is.
Sem : Adalah keliru untuk mengungkap bahwa rakyat kita tidak memahami apa demokrasi yang sesungguhnya.
Com : Kelirulah kalau kita menganggap bahwa rakyat kita tidak memahami apa demokrasi yang sesungguhnya.
SL : Keep of the grass
Sem : Jauhi rumput ini
Com : Dilarang berjalan di atas rumput.[9]
Communicative and Semantic Translation
Communicative and semantic translation may well coincide in particular, where the text conveys a general rather them a culturally bound message and where the matter is as important as the manner. Not ably than in the translation of the most important religious, philosophical, artistic and scientific text assuming second reader as informed and interested as the first. Only communicative and semantic translation fulfill the two main aims of translation, which, the first accuracy, and second in general. A semantic translation is written at the author’s linguistic level, a communicative at the readership semantic translation is used for expressive text, communicative for in formative and vocative text.
Semantic and communicative translation treat the following items similarly: stock and dead metaphors, normal collocations, technical terms, slang, colloquialisms, standard notices, phaticisms, ordinary language. The expressive components of ‘expressive’ texts (usual syntactic structures, collocations, metaphors, words peculiarly used, neologisms) are rendered closely, if not literally, but where they appear in informative and vocative text, they are normalized or toned down (except in striking advent, tenements). Cultural components tend to be transferred intact in expressive texts transferred and explained with culturally neutral terms in informative texts; replaced by cultural equivalents in vocative texts. Badly and/or inaccurately written passages must remain so in translation if they are ‘expressive’, although the translator should comment on any mistakes of factual or moral truth, if appropriate. Badly and/or inaccurately written passages should be ‘corrected’ in communicative translation.
So much for the detail, but semantic and communicative translation must also be seen as wholes. Semantic translation is personal and individual, follows the thought processes of the author, tends to over-translate, pursues nuances of meaning, yet aims at concision in order to reproduce pragmatic impact. Communicative translation is social, concentrates on the message and the main force of the text, tends to under-translate, to be sample, clear and brief, and is always written in a natural and resourceful stole. A semantic translation is normally inferior to its original, as there is both cognitive a communicative translation is often better than its original. At a pinch, a semantic translation to explain.
However, in the communicative translation of vocative texts, equivalent effect is not only desirable, it is essential; it is the criterion by which the effectiveness, and therefore the value, of the translation of notices, instructions, publicity, propaganda, persuasive or eristic writing, and perhaps popular fiction, is to join the Party, to assemble the device-could even be quantified as a percentage rate of the success of the translation.
In information texts, equivalent effect is desirable only in respect of their (in theory) insignificant emotional impact; it is not possible if SL and TL culture are remote from each other since normally the cultural items have to be explained by culturally natural or generic terms, the topic content simplified, SL difficulties clarified. Hopefully, the TL reader reads the text with the same degree of interest as the SL reader, although the impact is different. However, the vocative (persuasive) thread in most informative texts has to be rendered with an eye to the readership, i.e., with an equivalent effect purpose.
In semantic translation, the first problem is that for serious imaginative literature, there are individual readers rather than a readership. Secondly, whilst the reader is not entirely neglected, the translator is essentially trying to render the effect the SL text on himself (to feel with, to empathize with the author), not on any putative readership. Certainly, the more ‘universal’ the text (consider ‘To be or not to be’), the more a broad equivalent effect is possible, since the ideals of the original go beyond any cultural frontiers. The metalingual sound-effects which the translator is trying to reproduce are in fact unlikely to affect the TL reader, with his different system, similarly, but here may be compensation. In any event, the reaction.[10]
All translation a craft requiring a trained skill, continually renewed linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge and a deal of flair and imagination, as well as intelligence and above all common sense. There is no one communicative nor one semantic method of translating a text. There are in fact widely overlapping bond of method.
Features of Semantic and Communicative Translation
Although in theory, both of communicative and semantic translation are separable, but in practice of translation of a long text there are no one communicative nor one semantic unvarnished. There is a translation inclined to communicative or to semantic, or in certain part is communiativelly and in other semantically. To more clearly, we can study the features of semantic and communicative translation in this table:
Features of semantic and communicative translation (Newmark, 1991: 11-13)
| Semantic Translation | Communicative Translation |
| 1. Author-centered | Reader-centered |
| 2. Pursues author’s thought process. Related to though. | Pursues author’s intention. Related to speech. |
| 3. Concerned with author as individual | Adapts and makes the thought and cultural content of original more accessible to reader. |
| 4. Semantic-and syntactic-oriented. Length of sentences, positions and integrity of clauses, word position, etc., preserved whenever possible. | Effect-oriented. Formal features or original sacrificed more readily. |
| 5. Faithful, more literal. | Faithful, freer. |
| 6. Informative | Effective. |
| 7. Usually more awkward, more detailed, more complex, but briefer. | Easy reading, more natural, smoother, simpler, clearer, more direct, more conventional, conforming to particular register of language, but longer. |
| 8. Personal | Social |
| 9. Source language biased | Target language biased |
| 10. Over-translated: more concentrated and more specific than original | Under-translated: us of ‘hold-all’ terms. |
| 11. More powerful | Less powerful |
| 12. Always inferior to the original because of loss of meaning. | May be better than original because of gain in force and clarity, despite loss in semantic content. |
| 13. Out of time and local place ‘eternal’. | Ephemeral and rooted in its context, ‘existential’. |
| 14. Wide and universal | ‘Tailor-made’ or targeted for one category of readership; does one job, fulfils one particular function. |
| 15. Inaccuracy is always wrong | A certain embroidering, a stylistic synonymy, a discreet modulation is condoned, provided the facts are straight and the reader is suitably impressed. |
| 16. The translator has no right to improve or to correct. | The translator has the right to correct and improve the logic and style of the original, clarify ambiguities, jargons, normalize bizarre personal usage. |
| 17. Mistakes in the original should (and must) be pointed out only in footnote. | The translator can correct mistakes of fact in original. |
| 18. Target: a ‘true’ version, i.e. an exact statement. | Target: a ‘happy’ version, i.e. a successful act. |
| 19. Unit of translating: tends to words, collocations and clauses. | Unit of translating: tends to sentences and paragraph. |
| 20. Applicable to all writings with original expressiveness. | Applicable to impersonal texts. |
| 21. Basically the works of translating is an art. | Basically the work of translating is a craft. |
| 22. Usually the work of one translator. | Sometimes the product of a translation team. |
| 23. Conforms to the ‘relativist’ position of cultural relativity. | Conforms to the ‘universalist’ position, assuming that exact translation may be possible. |
| 24. Meaning | Message |
CONCLUSION
Communicative translation being set at the reader level of language and knowledge is more likely to create equivalent than is semantic translation at the writer’s level. In communicative as in semantic translation, provide that equivalent effect is secured, the literal to word for word translation is not only the best. It is the only valid method of translation, there is no exercise for unnecessary synonyms or elegant variations, let alone for a phrase, in only type of translation. There is no one communicative or one semantic method of translating a text. These are in fact widely overlapping hands of methods; a translation can be more or less, semantic, more, or less. Communicative even a particular section or sentence can be treated more communicatively or less semantically.
REFERENCES
Anggota IKAPI, Translation: Bahasan Teori dan Penuntun Praktis Menerjemahkan. Yogyakarta: Kanisius, 2003.
Bell, Roger T., Translation and Translating Theory and Practice. New York: Longman Inc, 1991..
Nabababn. M. Rudlof, Teori Menerjemahkan Bahasa Inggris. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2003.
Newmark, P., Approaches to Translation. London: Prentice Hall International, 1988.
Newmark, P., About Translation. London: Prentice Hall International, 1991.
Newmark, P., A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall International, 1988.
http://thebest-rd69.blogspot.com/2009/03 translation-assignment.htm, diakses tanggal 25 Desember 2009.
[2] Mabababn. M. Rudlof, Teori Menerjemahkan Bahasa Inggris (Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2003), p. 4.
[3] Ibid., 43.
[5] Bell. Roger T., Translation and Translating: Theory and Practic (New York: Longman Inc, 1991), p. 41.
[6] Newmark, P., Approaches to Translation (London: Prentice Hall International, 1988), p. 39.
[7] http://thebest-rd69.blogspot.com/2009/03 translation-assignment.htm, diakses tanggal 25 Desember 2009.
[8] Newmark, P. Approaches to Translation, P. 65.
[9] Anggota IKAPI, Translation: Bahasan Teori dan Penuntun Praktis Menerjemahkan (Yogyakarta: Kanisius, 2003), P. 49
[10] Newmant, P., A Textbook of Translation (London: Prentice Hall International, 1988), P. 47-48.
