Guerra classified 15 techniques conducted in analyzing the translated text. They are adaptation, borrowing, calque, compensation, compression, description,
equivalence, explication,
generalization, literal
translation, modulation,
particularization, substitution linguistic-paralinguistic, transposition and variation. The aforementioned techniques are to be explained in alphabetical order.
a. Adaptation
Vinay and Darbelnet in Guerra, 2012: 7, define that adaptation can be used to translate source text which does not exist in the culture of the target text. It means
that the translator can re-create another term which still makes sense with source text, for example
SE : “hormat saya,”
TE : “your faithfully,”
In the source text, the phrase commonly appears in the letter. It shows the politeness of the sender to the receiver. Indeed, it is strongly tied to the culture. If the source text
is translated by using literal translation, the target readers might find it hard to accept the translated phrase. Hence by choosing the phrase related to the culture of target
text is a better option.
b. Borrowing
Borrowing aims to introduce an element of the culture of source text so that the element and style of source text are perceived by the translator in the target text. It
is also used when source language SL is transferred directly to the target language TL without translating the source language into target language. Vinay and
Darbelnet in Munday, 2001: 56 For example:
SE: You know, since I reached NYC ten years ago, I thought about you right away, Bule Gila
TE: You know, since I reached NYC ten years ago, I thought about you right away, Bule Gila
Based on the example, there are two underlined words which are taken from the source text and target text. In the source text, the author presents a phrase Bule Gila.
The phrase means crazy foreigner. Yet, it is commonly used by Indonesians to express how excited they are when seeing a foreigner whom acts foolish.
c. Calque
This technique is regarded as a special kind of borrowing by applying every single element in the target language. It is also similar to literal translation. What
makes it different is the way of translating the source text which is exactly the same whether the grammar or th
e words. In other words, calque is a strategy to ‘borrow’ the source language expression or structure and then transfer it into target language in
a literal translation. SE:
“Honeymoon” TE:
“Bulan madu”
The example shows that the source text is translated literally. The style is also borrowed by the translator
so that the translated text is “bulan madu”.
d. Compensation
