SEMANTICS AND TRANSLATION

A.       Semantics          

a.      Definition of Semantics

According to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary, semantics is “1. The study of the meanings of words and phrases, 2. The meaning of words, phrases or systems.”[1]

According to Charles, “Semantics is the systematic study of meaning, and linguistic semantics is the study of how languages organize and express meanings.”[2]

According to Palmer, “Semantics is technical term used to refer to the study o meaning.”[3] While according to Wagiman, “Semantics is the study of meaning in language.”[4]

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that semantics is a term refer to study of meaning in language.

b.      Meaning is complicated

A word’s meaning cannot be simply gained by consulting the dictionary, because the dictionary definitions of a word are “context-free”, e.g.:

（1）Out in the west where men are men.

（2）Do you mean funny, peculiar, or funny, ha ha?

（3） He helped many young writers to find themselves and then to find publishers.

In the above examples, the two men, funny, and find have different meanings, and it is just through this difference of meaning that the effect of humor is achieved. No wonder that Wittgenstein said, “The meaning of a word is its use in the language.”(Wittgenstein, 1953)

In deciding the precise meaning, we would have to distinguish different kinds of meanings. Besides, the semantic relations should also be taken into consideration, such as polysemy, synonymy, antonymy, etc..

c.       Different types of meanings

Meaning is complicated. The first difficulty in the study of meaning is that the word “meaning” itself has many different meanings. In their book the Meaning of Meaning written in 1923, C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards presented 16 major categories of them, with sub-categories all together, numbering 22.

Different linguists have categorized multiple types of meanings.

1.      Charles Morris’ three types of meanings

According to Charles Morris, there are three types of meanings: referential meaning (the relationship between signs and entities in the world), pragmatic meaning (the relationship between signs and their users; it includes identificational meaning, expressive meaning, associative meaning, social meaning, and imperative meaning), and intralingual meaning (the relationship between different signs; it includes phonological meaning, graphemic meaning, morphological or lexemic meaning, syntactic meaning, and discoursal or textual meaning).

2.      G. Leech’s seven types of meanings

Leech identified seven types of meanings. They are: conceptual meaning (logical, cognitive, or denotative content), connotative meaning (what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to), social meaning (what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use), affective meaning (what is communicated of the feeling and attitudes of the speaker/writer), reflected meaning (what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression), collocative meaning (what is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word), thematic meaning(what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis). Types 2-6 are also categorized as associative meaning.

3.      Peter Newmark’s model of meaning

There are three types of meanings according to Newmark: expressive meaning, informative meaning, and vocative meaning.

4.      Roman Jakobson’s model of meaning

Jakobson classified meanings into 6 types: expressive meaning, informative meaning, vocative meaning, aesthetic meaning, phatic meaning, and metalinguistic meaning.

These different types of meaning are not classified according to the same criteria, and different linguists have different opinions for classifying meanings. Thus some types of meaning are overlapping, which causes much confusion.

All these meanings can be stratified into lexical, phraseological (idiomatic), sentential (prepositional), and discourse meaning. Lexical meaning includes denotational, connotational, affective, collocational, metaphorical, and cultural meaning, and discourse meaning includes literary (hermeneutically construed) and epistemic (analytically construed) meaning.

B.     Translation

a.      Definition of Translation

According to Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary, 1. translation is “ Process changing someting that is written or spoken into another language. 2. A text or work that has been changed from one language into another.”[5]

According to Peter Newmark, translation is “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text” (Peter Newmark, 1988: 4).

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that translation is process changing the meaning of something from one language into another language, it is not only text or written but also spoken.

C.      Relationship between Semantic and Translation

Semantics is a part that cannot be separated with translation . talking translation must be combine with talking semantics because the purpose of translation has closed relationship with term transfer meaning that included to one language into another language.

According to Nida (1975) in Rudolf Nababan, “A word can have many defferent meanings.”[6]  Rudolf states that “Meaning of a word is not only influenced by the position in a sentence but also influenced by science field that use the word.”[7] Further, he states that sometimes meaning of a word is decided by the situation and culture.[8]

For example:

1.      He sat on the chair.

2.      He has the chair of philosophy at the university.

3.      He will chair the meeting

4.      He was condemned to the chair.

If that sentences are translated into Indonesian so the translation are

1.      Dia duduk di kursi

2.      Dia menjabat mahaguru dalam ilmu filsafat di universitas itu.

3.      Dia akan memimpin rapat itu.

4.      Dia dihukum mati dikursi listrik.

Practically, a translator is not only focused on transfer meaning of a word. His attention extend to transfer massage. It can be seen below:

a.       Lexical meaning

Lexical meaning is meaning that is included in dictionary. For example: bad have meaning jahat, buruk, jelek, susah, tidak enak, busuk. It cannot be known surely what the meaning is. It can be understood when word bad stay in a sentence.

b.      Gramatical meaning

Gramatical meaning relate to word class in a sentence. For example: can have meaning bisa or dapat, kaleng, mengalengkan. That meaning depend on the class or position of a word in a sentence. Word can in sencente “ They can the fish” has function as a predicate or verb.

c.       Contextual meaning

Contextual meaning relate to the contex or the situation when the word is used. For example: Good morning  is not always translated selamat pagi. That utterance  can be translated to keluar! If that utterance said by the chief to his employee that always come late.

From the explanation above it can be conclude that Translation is the transfer of meaning, and semantic analysis is an important way of defining meaning, which can help us to have a better understanding of the source text. We should combine the translation studies with linguistics, and try to use the discoveries of the linguistics to help the study of translation.

Conclusion

Semantics is a term refer to study of meaning in language. A word’s meaning cannot be simply gained by consulting the dictionary, because the dictionary definitions of a word are “context-free”. Meaning is complicated. The first difficulty in the study of meaning is that the word “meaning” itself has many different meanings.

Ttranslation is process changing the meaning of something from one language into another language, it is not only text or written but also spoken.

Semantics is a part that cannot be separated with translation. A translator is not only focused on transfer meaning of a word. His attention extend to transfer massage. It can be seen below:

a.       Lexical meaning is meaning that is included in dictionary. For example: bad have meaning jahat, buruk, jelek, susah, tidak enak, busuk. It cannot be known surely what the meaning is. I

b.      Gramatical meaning relate to word class in a sentence. For example: can have meaning bisa or dapat, kaleng, mengalengkan.

c.       Contextual meaning relate to the contex or the situation when the word is used. For example: Good morning  is not always translated selamat pagi.

We should combine the translation studies with linguistics, and try to use the discoveries of the linguistics to help the study of translation

REFERENCES

As Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010.

Charles Kreidler, Introducing English Semantics, Routledge, New York, 1998.

Palmer, SEMANTICS: Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981.

Rudolf Nababan, Teori Menerjemah, cet. 3,  Pustaka Pelajar, Yogyakarta, 2008

Wagiman, SEMANTICS: An Introduction to the Basic Consepts, Penerbit andi, Yogyakarta, 2008

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[1] As Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p. 1342.

[2] Charles Kreidler, Introducing English Semantics, Routledge, New York, 1998, p.  3.

[3] Palmer, SEMANTICS: Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981, p. 1.

[4] Wagiman, SEMANTICS: An Introduction to the Basic Consepts, Penerbit andi, Yogyakarta, 2008, p. 1.

[5] As Hornby, op. cit,  p. 1588.

[6] Rudolf Nababan, Teori Menerjemah, cet. 3,  Pustaka Pelajar, Yogyakarta, 2008, p. 47.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.