Casual-Oriented Sentences in Sea Today News: A Study of Translation Techniques

Abstract

The forms of casual communication in both oral and written media do not necessarily retain grammatical elements. This is driven by the relatively short and/or concise sentences. The initial concept of casual language is as a colloquial language that has a reasonable structure among its users. In practice, the elements of regional languages are so inherent in the speech community. In addition, foreign language terms are also used through insertion which is then influence one’s language habit. This often triggers problems whenever it comes to translate casual sentences. Therefore, this research is done to explore the translation techniques used in translate casual sentences uttered by the host, co-host, and guest star in talk show although there have been many discussions about casual language, it is still rare to find research in the study of casual language translation. This study examines the translation product of a talk show from the official website of the English-language news channel owned by Sea Today News. The data was collected by doing document analysis including the simak (listen) and catat (record) methods. The source data were obtained in the form of document and cite. The result shows that establish equivalent technique (24.55%) dominates the translation. It is then followed by the other techniques such as paraphrase (11.65%), modulation (9.02%), reduction (7.49%), pure borrowing (4.16%), and discursive creation (3.74%). Translation techniques can function effectively depending on the translator’s understanding of the context in the source language. Techniques are used contextually and can only be identified through comparison between the source and target languages. Nonetheless, the application of translation techniques should be adjusted based on the nature of the technique whether it tends to be obligatory or optional for it may be applied more than one technique in a lingual unit. The implications of this research is to be a supportive reference for the next researchers who are interested in colloquial language translation and gives rise to the other translation variables that exclude from this present study such as translation shifts and translation quality.