Vol.4, No.07, July 2023
E-ISSN: 2723-6692
P-ISSN: 2723-6595
http://jiss.publikasiindonesia.id/
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 4, No. 07, July 2023 595
Semantic And Pragmatic Linguistic Aspects In Translation
Juni Ahyar
1
, Mohd Yusri Ibrahim
2
Muzir
3
Prodi Bahasa Indonesia, Universitas Malikussaleh, Indonesia
1
University Malaysia Terengganu
2,3
Email: juniahyar@unimal.ac.id
1
, yusri@umt.edu.my
2
, muzirhusin@gmail.com
3
Corresponding Author: j[email protected]
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Keywords: Language,
translation, Semantic.
Pragmatic
Research language deployed translation issues, mainly concerning
from linguistic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. Discussion was
started by stating the importance of linguistic aspects
comprehended and applied by a translator, such as grammar,
phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics,
sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. Research presented six
meaning problems in translation, those related to lexical meaning,
grammatical meaning, contextual meaning or situational meaning,
textual meaning, sociocultural meaning, and idiomatic meaning. It
can be concluded that the ability to apply linguistic aspect both from
the source and targeted languages take important role to produce a
good translation.
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
1. Introduction
Language activities especially in translation cannot be separated from the influence of
linguistic aspects. Mastery of linguistic aspects can affect the work of translation produced by a
translator. The higher the understanding and mastery of linguistic aspects possessed by a
translator, the better the translation work produced.
According to Sakri (1985:5) explains that the linguistic aspects contained in the language,
both the source language and the target language are very instrumental in shaping the work of
translation. Meanwhile, according to Udaya in Samiati (1998:3) linguistic aspects have a strategic
role in translation. He gave an example of grammar (grammar). Grammar really determines a
translator to be able to translate well. Without having grammatical or understanding grammar
Adequately, a translator will have difficulty understanding the text and transfer the meaning into
the Target Language. Therefore Udaya states that grammatical adjustment is a practical theory.
This linguistic aspect can provide a strong basis for a linguist to become a good translator.
Likewise with students who are learning to translate, existing linguistic aspects will provide a
critical foundation in conducting translation activities.
e-ISSN: 2723-6692 🕮 p-ISSN: 2723-6595
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 4, No. 07, July 2023 596
2. Materials and Methods
This research uses a qualitative descriptive approach. Qualitative research is a type of
approach that seeks to interpret the meaning of an event as an interaction of human behavior in
certain situations. This descriptive research can be interpreted as a problem-solving process that
is investigated through portrayals and observations by describing the present state of the subject
and object of research based on facts that appear as they are (Moleong, 2007).
Techniques to obtain data (information) used in this study were taken several steps
Observation (interview), Interview (interview), Documentation/Literature (Thorne, 2000).
Techniques to obtain data (information) used in this study were taken several steps Observation
(interview), Interview (interview), Documentation / Literature (Thorne, 2000).
This study uses several words from the translation of other words such as the word "run".
The sentence "Boy is running" translates "The boy is running", "The clock is running" means "The
clock is spinning", "The nose is running" talking "The child is running a cold", and the last
sentence "River flows" becomes "The River" flow ". From words derived from run, i.e. "run",
"spin", "runny nose", and "flow" meaning from one word that is not fixed by the lexicon alone,
but is also discussed by other factors, for example, factors grammatical structure, conversation
and background in the field of science.
3. Results and Discussions
Conversion Term and Eigendom Rights.
Sakri (1985:5) explains that the linguistic aspects contained in the language, both the
source language and the target language are very instrumental in shaping the work of translation.
Meanwhile, according to Udaya in Samiati (1998:3) linguistic aspects have a strategic role in
translation. He gave an example of grammar (grammar). Grammar really determines a
translator’s ability to translate well. Without having grammatical or understanding grammar
Adequately, a translator will have difficulty understanding the text and transferring the meaning
into the Target Language. Therefore Udaya states that grammatical adjustment is a practical
theory.
Actually, when discussing linguistic aspects, grammatical adjustment is just as one example
of a linguistic aspect. Many other aspects of linguistics will be able to assist a translator in doing
work.. These aspects are phonology (including how to learn language sounds and meanings),
morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, as well as psycholinguistics (Udaya
in Samiati (1998:4)).
This linguistic aspect can provide a strong basis for a linguist to become a good translator.
Likewise, with students who are learning to translate, existing linguistic aspects will provide a
critical foundation for conducting translation activities.
From the above opinion, it can be concluded that the linguistic aspects need to be
understood by prospective translators. This is because the linguistic aspect is able to provide a
strong foundation for a translator or prospective translator in carrying out activities.
Lyons (1995:3) Stated that “Semantics is traditionally defined as the study of meaning.”
Crystal (1985:273) Said that “Semantics is a major branch of linguistics devoted to the study of
meaning in language.” Nida (1975:26) Explained:
“In other words, the meaning consists of that set of necessary and sufficient conceptual
features which make it possible for the speaker to separate the referential potentiality of any one
lexical unit from that of any other unit which might tend to occupy part of the same semantic
domain”.
Nida opinion was confirmed by Subroto et al (1999:2) who explained that "The formula is
e-ISSN: 2723-6692 🕮 p-ISSN: 2723-6595
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 4, No. 07, July 2023 597
related to the meaning of lexical and a certain lexical unit." The lexical meaning of a lexical unit
(or more accurately called (lexeme) consists of a bundle of structured cognitive traits. This means
that meaning (meaning) is understood or mastered by the language user empirically based on
cognitive abilities from the beginning he began to learn and master the language.
Alwasilah (1984:146) says that "The meaning is behind the word." Meanwhile, Nida
(1975:1) explains that "A word can have a number of different meanings." Besides that Lepschy
in Samiati (1998:3) revealed that "Meaning tends to be used only as a means of defining linguistic
units only." Another expert explained that "Meaning should be examined in terms of its function
as a communication tool so that the study of meaning needs to refer to various functions that are
relevant to acts of language" (Jakobson, 1960 in Samiati, 1998: 3). Meanwhile Leech (1993: 8)
defines pragmatics as, "The study of meaning in relation to word situations" (Speech Situations).
An example is the use of the word "run" in the following sentence (Larson, 1984: 8), viz (1)
The boy runs, (2) The clock runs, (3) The nose runs, dan (4) The river runs. The sentence uses the
same word, i.e run”. Sentences The boy runstranslated as "The child ran”, The clock runs” be
interpreted as The clock is spinning, “The nose runs” translated as The child has a cold”, and the
last sentence The River runs” Becomes The river flows. From the comparison of the four
sentences obtained several different meanings of the words run, that is run”, spinning”, cold”,
dan flowingso that the meaning of a word is not fixed by the lexicon, but is also influenced by
other factors, for example, grammatical structure, speaking situation and background in the field
of science.
In relation to translation, Samiati (1998:3) groups meaning into five types, namely lexical
meaning, grammatical meaning, contextual meaning, textual meaning, and situational meaning.
The lexical meaning and grammatical meaning refer to the micro-linguistic context, while the
contextual, textual, and situational meaning refers to the micro- and macro-linguistic context. A
similar opinion was expressed by M. R. Nababan (1997:36-38), that, "The problem of meaning in
translation can be classified into 5, namely; lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, contextual
meaning or situational meaning, textual meaning, and socio-cultural meaning. " Lexical meaning
is the meaning of the elements of language as a symbol or event. Lexical meaning can also be
called the meaning that is in the dictionary, given the word in the dictionary regardless of its use
or context. For example, as an adjective, the word 'bad' can have six meanings which are 'evil',
'bad', 'bad', 'hard', 'bad', and rotten '.
If the lexical meaning is stated that the meaning is separated from the context, the
grammatical meaning is the opposite. Grammatical meaning is the relationship between
elements of language in a larger unit. He gave an example of the use of the word can’. The word
can mean got ',' can ', and shake’, depending on the position of the word in the sentence. Use of
the word canin the sentence They can the fishdifferent meaning from the use of the word can
in sentence ‘He kicked the can hard’. Contextual or situational meaning, namely the meaning of a
word related to the situation of language users. This is made clear by Kridalaksana (1984:120)
that "Contextual meaning is the relationship between utterance and the situation in which it is
used contextually."Good Morning to greet employees who are late for the office. The words can
be interpreted as 'out' if the boss says in a tone of anger and annoyance.
Textual meaning is the meaning associated with the contents of a text or discourse. Different
types of texts can also cause the meaning of a word to be different. The use of the word
morphologyin biological texts has different meanings than the word morphologyin linguistic
text. While the socio-cultural meaning is the meaning of a word that is closely related to the socio-
cultural language user. Because he comes from the Acehnese, said timphanbe made an example.
In Acehnese, the word is not merely meaningful foodbut it is far more extensive and complex
because it is related to the cultural context.
Yusuf (1994:93) explains that "In studying the meaning of words, it is usually
e-ISSN: 2723-6692 🕮 p-ISSN: 2723-6595
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 4, No. 07, July 2023 598
distinguished between denotative meanings and connotative meanings." Denotative meaning is
the meaning of the dictionary, meaning that is general, objective and has not been boarded with
a certain content, value, or taste. Conversely, connotative meaning is subjective in the sense that
there are other meanings behind the general meaning or meaning of the dictionary. While
Beekam and Callow (in Larson 1989:110), "Using the terms primary meaning and secondary
meaning". The primary meaning is the meaning that appears in the mind of the speaker of the
language if the word is pronounced separately, while the secondary meaning is the meaning that
depends on the context.
Departing from these views and opinions, it can be concluded that the problem of meaning
in translation can be classified into six, namely lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, contextual
or situational meaning, textual meaning, socio-cultural meaning, and idiomatic meaning.
a. Lexical meaning
Lexical meaning tends to refer to the meaning that is in the dictionary, namely the
independent meaning as it is and has not changed the form or words that have not been used in
the sentence. For example, the word 'sentence' means 'sentence' or 'punishment'. Cannot be
distinguished because the word is still independent. The word has not been influenced by other
factors. In this connection, Machali (2000:24) revealed that "The lexical meaning (of the word
lexicon: the word) is the meaning as we encounter it in dictionaries in general, for example: in
the Indonesian-English Dictionary," cat " = “cat.”
b. Grammatical Meaning
Grammatical meaning is the meaning possessed by the word after undergoing a
grammatical process, which can be in the form of affixing, repetition, or compounding due to the
influence of the use of the sentence structure used. Definition of words sentencein sentences It
is an active sentenceor ´At least a sentence provides subject and predicate’ different meaning with
the word sentencein sentences The sanction can be fine, a jail sentence or both’. Besides that,
Machali (2000:24) said, "Grammatical meaning is the meaning formed by the arrangement of
words or phrases, clauses, or sentences, for example, the meaning formed due to the suffix added
in the words" borrow "and" lend ", which in English becomes “to borrow” dan “to lend”.
c. Contextual Meaning
Contextual meaning is the meaning contained in the conditions of its use. a word whose
existence is highly dependent on the situation and condition "Contextual meaning is also called
situational meaning" (Nababan 1997: 37). This contextual meaning is the meaning of a word or
sentence because of the situation in the use of language. An interesting example is (Soemarno in
Nababan, 1997:38) the use of the sentence I really hate you’ which was said by a couple who
were making out in the park. The woman pinches her lover's arm while saying the sentence in
voice games. Of course, the sentence has the opposite meaning, especially the use of the word
hate’.
d. Textual Meaning
Textual meaning means the meaning that arises or is obtained from the contents of a
particular text or reading. An example is the word sentenceas stated before. In reading about
language, of course, the word refers to the use of sentences and their surroundings. However, if
e-ISSN: 2723-6692 🕮 p-ISSN: 2723-6595
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 4, No. 07, July 2023 599
the word is found in the legal field reading, of course, the meaning will lead to punishment and
the like.
e. The Socio-Cultural Meaning
The meaning of socio-culture is very closely related to culture and social relations in
society. Ahyar (2019:8) says that the language used by people living in Jakarta is different from
the Indonesian language used by people who live in Aceh, Bali, Jayapura, and Tapanuli. Each has
different characteristics. For example, the Indonesian dialect of Central Javanese appears in
pronunciation / b / in the initial position when pronouncing the names of cities such as Bogor,
Bandung, Banyuwangi, and others. Indonesian dialect of Balinese appears in pronunciation / t /
as in the words ithu, kitha, canthik, etc.
Soemarno (1997:3-8) gives a lot of good examples relating to family relationships, ways
of looking at the world of his life, stereotypical terms, cultural events, language terms, and
greeting problems. For example, translating bah mbah awkward’,‘udeg-udeg’,‘selapanan’, od
midodareni’, ‘droplets’ to the use of the phrase Meng "Meng mom as a fish in the tail of a kitchen".
Without being clearly explained, the consumers of the translation will have difficulty
understanding terms related to these cultural problems. Besides that, Machali (2000:25) calls
socio-cultural meaning as socio-cultural meaning, that is "meaning formed by local culture or
also has a certain social content". An example is the phrase "Bon appetite" that does not exist in
"English" culture so there is no such sentence Good eat”. For meaning that is socially charged is
for example words lunchand luncheonin English; the second word is used more by those
from higher social classes than other classes.
f. Idiomatic meaning
Idiomatic meaning or other expressions -proverb, maxim and collocation-also need to be
considered in the translation process. What is meant by idiomatic meaning is a language
expression whose meaning cannot be directly translated from its elements (Moeliono,
1984:177). According to Badudu (1989:47), "idiom is a condensed language" Therefore, every
word that forms an idiom means that there is a unity of form and meaning. The form of the idiom
cannot be changed in its structure, eliminated one of the elements of the word, added or replaced
by the word element or its structure has been altered. Idiom is a form of language that has been
frozen and is not possible to add variations to its form and its meaning cannot be concluded from
the components separately. For example idiom ‘Half a loaf is better than one’ be interpreted
better late than never and idiom It’s raining cats and dogs’ be interpreted 'It's raining very
heavily.' For more details Baker (1992:62) confirms that, “In the case of idioms, often carry
meaning which cannot be deduced from their individual components.” other than that, Blight
(1999:27) declare idiom is, “A fixed combination of words whose meaning is derived from
perceiving the unit as a whole rather than as individual words.”.
4. Conclusion
From some of these meanings, it can be concluded that understanding and mastery of
linguistic aspects both in the source language and in the target language is very instrumental in
producing the work of translation. Meaning can be generated by the straightforward form of
language itself, meaning can be due to the structure of the language used, meaning can be realized
due to the situation and condition of the language user itself, meaning can have meaning because
of its use in certain fields of science. The meaning can also emerge from the existing socio-culture
culture. So, it can be seen that the problem of meaning can be found in various contexts.
e-ISSN: 2723-6692 🕮 p-ISSN: 2723-6595
Jurnal Indonesia Sosial Sains, Vol. 4, No. 07, July 2023 600
5. References
Alwasilah, A.C. 1984. Linguistik: An introduction. Bandung: Angkasa.
Ahyar, Juni. 2019. Careful Indonesian Language and Scientific Writing for Higher Education.
Lhokseumawe: Sefa Bumi Persada.
___________. 2019. Dictionary of Scientific Terms. Jejak Publisher: Suka Bumi.
Baker, M. 1992. In other words. A Coursebook on Translation, Great Britain: Clays Ltd.
StIves Plc. Blight, R.C. 1999. Translation problems from A to Z. Dallas Texas: Summer
Institute of Linguistics, Inc.
Crystal, D. 1985. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, Great Britain: Cornwall press
Ltd. Kridalaksana, H. 1984. Kamus linguistic, Jakarta: PT. Gramedia.
Larson, M.L. 1984. Meaning based translation, a guide to cross-language equivalence, New York:
University Press of America.
Leech, G. 1989. Principles of pragmatics, Singapore: Longman Singapore Publishers (Pte) Ltd.
Lyons, J. 1995. Linguistic semantics: An introduction, Cambridge University Press.
Machali, R. 2000. Guidelines for translators. Jakarta: PT Grasindo.
Nababan, M.R. 1997. The aspects of translation and interpretation theory. Surakarta: PPS UNS.
Nida, E.A. 1975. Componential analysis of meaning: An introduction to semantic structures,
Netherland: Mountain & Co. Publisher.
Palawi, Bina Yusuf. 2009. Aspek Semantik, Prakmatik dalam Penerjemahan. Journal Lingua
Cultura
Sakri, A. 1985. Happenings translate. Bandung: ITB Press.
Subroto, D.E, dkk. 1999. Study the stilistics of Javanese novels in the 1980s. Jakarta: P3B,
Depdikbud.
Soemarno, T. 1997. Around cultural issues in translation. Papers in the National Linguistics
Congress: Surabaya.
Tarjana, S. 1998. Problems of meaning and the search for equivalents in translation.
Linguistics S-2 seminar papers: Surakarta.
Yusuf, S. 1994. Translation theory: Introduction to the linguistic and sociolinguistic
approaches.Bandung: Mandar Maju.