Students’ Sight Translation Quality Assessment:

An Application of Back Translation Technique

Andang Saehu

, Asep Sopa Wijaya

Faculty of Adab and Humanities, UIN Sunan Gunung Djati, Jl. A.H. Nasution No.105, Bandung, Indonesia

Keywords: Back Translation, Accuracy, Clarity, Naturalness, Religious Text

Abstract: This research focuses on the quality of sight translated work of fifteen high score students in translation and

interpreting subject. Each student was given a piece of religious article taken from “Selection from the

Seerah of Muhammad” of which they then sight translated the article (SL) into Bahasa (TL). The process of

sight translation was recorded by using a recorder and transcribed carefully. Three professional translators

were involved to back translate the transcribed TL version of the article into SL. The students’ work and the

professional translators’ work were compared to assess the level of accuracy as proposed by Nida & Taber

(1974). One of the techniques to assess those works was Back Translation proposed by Colina et al. (2017).

Hence, the source of data for this descriptive qualitative research was oriented to (1) the students’ sight

translation work, and (2) the professional translator’s translation work. The result shows that, by comparing

the two source languages, the majority of students still need to improve the grammatical structure of

sentences and the dictions as those language components may result in the transfer of meaning could not be

delivered accurately and made the sight translation was considered to be inaccurate.

1 INTRODUCTION

Sight translation (ST) in Indonesia, especially in

English Department of Sunan Gunung Djati State

Islamic University (UIN SGD) where the study was

conducted, is not taught separately although Duong

(2006, p. 45); Gerzymisch-Arbogast (2005) state

that this deserves to be taught separately. By looking

at the definition of sight translation proposed by

Pochacker (2016) as “a special type of simultaneous

interpreting is the rendition of a written text at sight”

which was also supported by Fatollahi (2016) stating

that “Sight translation is a hybrid mode that

combines written texts and oral translation,” the

process of ST is integrated in the Simultaneous

Interpreting course (SI) since one of the focuses of

teaching SI is on strategies and qualities, including

ST’s.

In working with the process of teaching and

learning ST, the lecturers usually require three to

four class periods for sharing the ST theories and for

bringing the ST theories into practices. When

observing the process of transferring and practicing

the ST theories, some language skills and language

components students require to master are speaking

skill, reading skill, grammatical component, and

vocabulary component. By mastering those skills

and components, the students would be more

enjoyable to join the ST in all class periods. Thus,

to help them master their ability in transferring the

meanings of what they are reading from the text, the

English Department develops particularly, such as,

grammatical competences through these grammar

courses consisting of Basic Structure, Intermediate

Structure, and Advanced Structure. These must be

taught in order, meaning that the students cannot

join intermediate or advanced structure course

without passing from basic listening course. In other

words, Basic Structure course is a prerequisite for

intermediate structure course and from that course

forth, the intermediate course is a prerequisite for

advanced structure course. The Department also

develops other language skills and components, such

as speaking skill, reading skill, and vocabulary

component, as that of grammatical component to be

taught in order.

What has been served by the Department in

Faculty of Humanities in Sunan Gunung Djati State

Saehu, A. and Wijaya, A.

Students’ Sight Translation Quality Assessment: An Application of Back Translation Technique.

DOI: 10.5220/0008215900002284

In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 39-43

ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9

Islamic University is to complete the needs the

students need to support the translation and

interpreting courses as well as other courses.

Therefore, it is of utmost importance to measure the

students’ language skills and language

components

through one of the subjects taught in

the

Department. The subject to be taken as the

sample

of measurement is simultaneous interpreting

within

which it teaches ST for several class periods.

other words, this study is to measure the

students’

ST quality as the results of the study are expected

be used as the parameter to diagnose what level

quality must be increased. One of

measurements

used in this study to check the accuracy of ST

Back Translation (BT) method. Pym (2009)

and

Colina at el. (2015) that BT

“taking the translation and rendering it back

into

the source language, then comparing the

two

source-language versions”.

Unfortunately, there seems no one studies

relating to ST quality in Indonesian context

compared to those of studies conducted by Nilsen &

Monsrud (2012) in Norway, Korpal (2012) in

German, and Li (2014) in China. This study tried to

fill in the gap of ST research in Indonesian context.

It examined the students’ quality, in terms of

accuracy, in translating a religious text at sight.

2 METHOD

Applying descriptive qualitative design in this study,

which involved fifteen high score students in

translation and interpreting subject, is to understand

and report the characteristics of current and past

situation by describing what already exists in a focus

group as individuals with similar characteristics. A

piece of religious article taken from a book entitled

“Selection from the Seerah of Muhammad” was

given to fifteen students to be sight translated into

Bahasa. The fifteen students were purposively

selected based on the criteria of those gaining A

score in translation and interpreting subjects. Those

students were taken from class A to E, each of which

was five students. In the process of taking the data,

the students involved in this study were asked to

wait for outside the classroom. The lecturer then

called them one by one to sight translate the

religious text in front of the class. The process of

sight translation was recorded by using a recorder

(Sony T-Mark) and the recorded sight translation

was then transcribed carefully.

The researcher then applied Back Translation

(BT) technique, proposed by Colina et al. (n.d.), to

check the accuracy of the transcribed sight

translation article. The application of BT technique

was adopted from Yu, Diana, and Woo (2003).

Figure 1: The Process of Back Translation

The application of BT technique was done by

involving three professional translators from

different areas: one was from Lampung (Bandar

Lampung), one was from Yogyakarta (Central Java),

and the rest was from Bandung (West Java). The

consideration of involving three professional

translators was based on the statement by Wild et al.

(2005) mentioning that “the people who develop the

translations from the target language back to the

source language should be professional translators,

native speakers of the language of the source

measure, and ﬂ uent in the target language.” She also

adds that they should have no prior knowledge of the

measure and should not see the source or any other

language version before or during back translation.

Besides, those three professional translators

were chosen based on the accessibility and

professionalism. The researcher felt easy to access

their existence as they felt over the moon involved in

this study. The professionalism means that they had

a certificate or licence showing that they are

qualified to be chosen as the sample of the study.

They were involved to back translate the transcribed

Bahasa version of the article (TL) into English (SL).

The process of back translating the article was done

by mailing the articles to them. They were not asked

to sight translate the articles as those of the students.

They were asked to translate the transcribed

students’ ST in short time and to send back the

BELTIC 2018 - 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference

English version of the article to the researcher.

Afterwards, the professional translators’ work was

compared to assess the level of accuracy as proposed

by Nida and Taber (2003).

3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

After having compared the two language sources

(the professional translator’ work and the original—

existing source language), it was found that the

majority of them (8 students) sight translated the

religious text inaccurately; 5 students were less

accurate; and 2 students sight translated the religious

text accurately. This shows that most of them still

need to improve their translation accuracy.

3.1 Students’ Accurate Sight

Translation

Accuracy is important because it is closely related to

equivalence, the nature of translation. Baker and

Malmkjær (1998) state that equivalence refers to the

relationship between an original and its translation

where both fulfil the same communicative function.

A text is sight translated accurately if the words,

terms, clauses, and sentences are not partially

translated. A meaning of the message is of great

importance not to be added, reduced, or deleted

because, quoting Nida and Taber’s (2003) statement

that, meaning must be of utmost attention. It was

found that two students sight translated the religious

text accurately into Bahasa. Here is one of data

showing accurate sight translation.

Table 1: Data of accurate sight-translation

The P

het (saaw) was not just a hu

eing.

He received a revelation from Allah (swt).

He was thus a Messenger.

abi

uhammad

aw bukan

ekedar manu

biasa. Beliau saw adalah manusia yang

memperoleh wahyu dari Allah swt. Beliau saw

adalah seorang manusia sekaligus seorang

ul.

The P

het (

uh) was not just a hu

eing,,

he received a revelation from Allah (swt),

and thus he was a Messenger.

The ST above was accurate as the compared

work of SL and BT version was showing the

accurate meaning. It means that the student’s TL

was also accurate both viewed from the meaning and

the grammatical structure of the TL. Therefore, the

more close the BT version to the SL, the more

accurate the TL version. This is in line with the

statement by Shuttleworth and Cowie (1997) that “a

term used in translation to refer to the extent to

which a translation matches its original.”

3.2 Students’ Less Accurate Sight

Translation

A text is sight translated less accurately by five

students involved in this study. Their translations

were considered less accurate because the meanings

they transferred were not fully conveyed—there was

omission in the target language. One of the data can

be seen below.

Table 2: Data of less accurate sight-translation

The life of the P

het (saaw)

ovides a sou

of legislation to each and every one in all

ects of thei

life.

ehidupan

abi

aw men

adi

umber hu

bagi setiap manusia dalam berbagai aspek

kehidupan.

The life of the P

het (

uh)

eco

es a sou

of law to each hu

an in seve

al as

ects of life.

When comparing the SL given by the

professional translators and the original SL, there

were words ‘every one’ and ‘all’ that were not

conveyed into target language. This hampered the

accuracy of meaning which should be “Kehidupan

Nabi saw menjadi sumber hukum bagi setiap dan

seluruh umat manusia dalam seluruh kehidupan

mereka.” This coincides with the statement by

Gatenby (2000) that “translator shall render the

message faithfully without deletion, omission, or

addition.”

Table 3: Data of less accurate sight-translation

The P

het (saaw) was not just a hu

eing.

He received a revelation from Allah (swt).

He was thus a Messenger.

abi

uhammad

aw bukan

ekedar manu

biasa. Sang Nabi saw adalah manusia yang

memperoleh wahyu dari Allah swt. Dia saw

adalah seorang manusia sekaligus seorang

ul.

The P

het (

uh) was not just a hu

eing.

He received a revelation from Allah (swt).

He thus was a Messenger.

The ST in the Table 3 was actually accurate as

the compared work of SL and BT version was

showing the accurate meaning and grammatical

structure. In fact, as seen in the TL grammatical

structure, the student’s ST was less accurate because

Students’ Sight Translation Quality Assessment: An Application of Back Translation Technique

there was a repetition of the word “Nabi” in the

second sentence of which it should use a personal

pronoun ‘He’. Appropos of this, Bartlomiejczyk

(2014) states that:

“Accuracy is no doubt an important aim in

translation, but is is also important to bear

in mind that the use of common target-

language patterns which are familiar to the

target reader plays an important tole in keeping

the communcation channel open.”

The statement shows that accuracy is not only

viewed from the meaning but also viewed from the

grammatical structure of sentence in the target

langauge.

3.3 Students’ Inaccurate Sight

Translation

Inaccuracy can be simply viewed from the label

‘wrong, bad, and low quality’ as the opponent of

‘right, good, and high quality.’ According to Steiner

and Erich Steiner and Yallop (2001), inaccuracy in

translation is indicated by unequivalence between

SL and TL which results different idea. The

following is a data showing inaccurate ST.

Table 4: Data of inaccurate sight-translation

Many writings have only talked about one aspect of

the life of the Prophet (saaw), the family aspect. By

doing this a major aspect of his (saaw) life was

ignored or over shadowed. Thus, this paper discusses

the untold aspect of his personality in order to know

how to obey him.

Sejauh ini tulisan-tulisan mengenai beliau hanya

berbicara tentang satu aspek kehidupan yaitu aspek

keluarga. Melihat hal tersebut, tulisan ini mencoba

mengetengahkan aspek-aspek lain dari kepribadian

sosok manusia yang Agung itu, yang selama ini

belum terekspos.

So far, many papers about him have only talked about

one aspect of life, namely the family aspect. Looking

at this, this paper presents unexposed aspects of his

personality.

The table 4 shows an inaccuracy in the ST of a

religious text from English to Indonesian. The

inaccuracy can be easily found from the not

translated words or sentences. The student did not

sight translate the sentence “a major aspect of his

(saaw) life was ignored or over shadowed” and “in

order to know how to obey him.” Therefore, the

professional translator left them blank as they were

not sight translated into Bahasa. The cause of this

inaccuracy was the student failed to understand the

meaning, word choices, and the structure of the

sentence. This may result the back translation done

by the professional translators was much different

from the original (SL). This coincides implicitly

with Anderson’s (2018) statement that the further

the gap of the translator’s work with the original, the

more inaccurate the target language.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The sight translation quality of fifteen students of

English Department of Faculty of Humanities Sunan

Gunung Djati State Islamic University was in the

category of inaccurate after being compared to the

professional translators’ work. The inaccuracies

were caused by not translated sentences and

incorrect grammatical structure of sentences. This

may result in the transfer of meaning could not be

delivered accurately and made the sight translation

was considered to be inaccurate.

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APPENDIX

Direction: Please translate at sight the following

religious text into good Bahasa.

The Prophet (saw) was not just a human being, he

received a revelation from Allah (swt) and thus,

he was a Messenger. His (saw) roles in life were not

limited to being a father, a grandfather, and a

husband. He (saw) was a judge, a ruler, an army

commander and a statesman. Thus to understand his

personality we have to understand all his (saw) roles.

And for him (saw) to be our example he (saw)

should be obeyed in all of these aspects. The life of

the Prophet (saw) provides a source of legislation to

each and every one in all aspects of their life. From

the private citizen and to the head of the state. From

the father and to the husband. And from the

neighbour to the judge. Many writings have only

talked about one aspect of the life of the Prophet

(saw), the family aspect. By doing this a major

aspect of his (saw) life was ignored or over

shadowed. Thus, in this book we discuss the untold

aspect of his personality in order to know how to

obey him.

Students’ Sight Translation Quality Assessment: An Application of Back Translation Technique