
Meaning Accuracy Analysis of Geotechnical Terms in English and
Their Translations in Indonesian
Siti Aisiyah S.
1
and Imam Hariadi. S.
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Jakarta State Polytechnic
Keywords: Meaning accuracy, English terms in Civil Engineering, their translations in Indonesian, and meaning
componential analysis.
Abstract: In the study of science and technology translations, equivalence problems of words and terms usually arise
since not all scientific words and terms can be translated directly and equivalently in accordance with the
message (meaning) transfered to the target language. Equivalence of words and terms can be achieved
through meaning accuracy analysis. This research was aimed to translate and describe the accuracy of the
meaning of Geotechnical terms in English into Indonesian using comparative model analysis. Meanwhile, the
approach used in this research was descriptive qualitative. A number of terms in forms of single words and
phrases with their meanings were analyzed without their context in sentences using componential analysis of
meaning. In this analysis, the meaning accuracy of English terms and Indonesian terms in Geotechnical
science could be obtained. The result of the analysis indicated that all terms were classified accurate, and no
term was classified less accurate or inaccurate. The findings of this research are expected to become the basic
knowledge for the development of the translation theory, particularly the translation of Geotechnical terms, as
well as to contribute to the preparation of a glossary and a dictionary of Civil Engineering Terms.
1 INTRODUCTION
Translation studies have three focuses in which one
of them is product-oriented, such as the study of
translation equivalence. The study of translation
equivalence is a comparative study in which the
source text is compared with its translation text in
the target language. In translation study of books on
science and technology equivalence problems of
words and terms usually arise because not all words
and terms in scientific books and papers can be
translated directly and equivalently in accordance
with the message transfered in the source language.
To restrict the study of this research, the equivalence
of terms in Geotechnical science was brought up.
Therefore, this research brought up the topic of
meaning accuracy of English terms in Geotechnical
science and their translation into Bahasa Indonesia
since the Geotechnical science terms derived from
western countries are mostly in English, so that their
translation into Bahasa Indonesia will arise some
problems. The terms which are unequivalently nor
inappropriately translated into Bahasa Indonesia will
result in misnderstanding to a reader. Therefore, they
need to be translated properly by looking for the
appropriate equivalent terms.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Every language has lexicon that includes among
others words and terms. A word is not necessarily a
term, but a term can be a word. A word is a
morpheme or monem, the smallest meaningful unit.
Furthermore, a word is the smallest unit that is
expected to have a meaning. A word can have more
than one meaning (polysemy). However, a term has
a different definition. According to Pedoman Umum
Pembentukan Istilah, istilah adalah kata atau frasa
yang digunakan sebagai nama atau lambang dan
dengan cermat mengungkapkan makna konsep,
proses, keadaan, atau sifat yang khas dalam bidang
ilmu pengetahuan, teknologi, dan seni. In addition, a
term is defined as a name that can be defined in a
system that is coherent, similar and/or structured.
Terms are frequently found in form of words (nouns,
adjectives, and verbs) and phrases. That is in line
with Rey’s opinion. Although the term is defined
164
S., S. and S., I.
Meaning Accuracy Analysis of Geotechnical Terms in English and Their Translations in Indonesian.
DOI: 10.5220/0009979700002905
In Proceedings of the 8th Annual Southeast Asian International Seminar (ASAIS 2019), pages 164-169
ISBN: 978-989-758-468-8
Copyright
c
 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved


differently, there is a similarity found regarding both
of the definitions − terms are words or phrases.
Furthermore, based on the definitions of a term, it
can be said that a term is conceptual, informative
and explicit. Therefore, containing only one definite
meaning (monosemy) a term has no synonym.
However, according to Pedoman Umum
Pembentukan Istilah, if two terms or more have the
same or similar meaning, one of them is determined
as a standard term, e.g hutan bakau determined as
the equivalent term of mangrove forest is the better
term than hutan payau.
Translation of terms is done due to most of
scientific concepts being studied, used and
developed by experts in science and technology.
Translation of terms is always associated with a field
or a particular science, for example: the term active
Rankine state is associated with soil mechanics, and
the term curettage is associated with medical
science. Unlike translation of terms, translation of
words is not only associated with the lexical
meaning of words (propositional, expressive,
presuppositional meaning), but also related to
external factors of language, such as the purpose of
translation, order, culture, ecology, and situation.
The word live in English can be translated hidup,
tinggal, or langsung in Bahasa Indonesia. On the
contrary, menerima in Bahasa Indonesia can be
translated receive or accept in English.
In order to properly translate the term, a
translator must be able to describe the concept or the
information contained in a term properly or
accurately, so a reader can understand it well. The
concept or meaning of a term will arise a problem;
moreover, the translation of a new term, even an
existing term which is unequivalent will arise more
problems. Some of the problems are ambiguities in
the definition or concept of the term, and translation
style of a term that is less accurate or inaccurate
translation of a term in a target language (TL).
Translation process is carried out through several
steps, namely finding and understanding the
message (meaning) in the source language (SL) and
then analyzing and finding the equivalence in the
target language (TL). This opinion was supported by
Albertus Suwardi. From both experts’ opinions,
meaning is very important in the translation process.
Furthermore, in translation process the meaning
accuracy takes an important role and top priority due
to the basic concept of translation which means the
process of transferring messages. Thus, the message
in the source language (SL) must be transferred
accurately into the target language (TL). A concept
or meaning of a word in a language can be broken
down into one or more meaning components.
Meaning components are necessary or sufficient
features that distinguish any form from another
form. Kridalaksana defines meaning components as
'satu atau beberapa unsur yang bersama-sama
membentuk makna kata atau ujaran'. For example,
meaning components of [+ sheep], [+ male], [+
uncastrated] make up the concept or the meaning of
ram in English which is equivalent to bandot in
Bahasa Indonesia which consists of meaning
components [+ kambing], [+ jantan], and [+
dewasa].
To determine whether the meaning of the English
term in civil engineering is translated into Bahasa
Indonesia equivalently, it is necessary to analyze the
meaning components of each term (known as
componential analysis). Meaning of a word or a
phrase is based on the result of componential analysis
of meaning. Componential analysis of meaning is
used to achieve the meaning accuracy of translation.
Componential analysis in translation process is
conducted by comparing words or terms in a source
language with their translations in a target language.
Therefore, in order to find out the meaning accuracy
of a word or a term, it is necessary to conduct an
analysis using the theory of componential analysis
proposed by Eugene Nida. The theory of
componential analysis was used for translating the
meaning of English preposition “in”.
3 METHODS
This research used a qualitative method. One of the
characteristics of qualitative research is that it
explores and explains a phenomenon. In this case the
phenomenon was the meaning accuracy of
Geotechnical science terms in English and their
translations in Bahasa Indonesia. The design used in
this research was qualitative descriptive. Meanwhile,
this study used a comparative model in which all
Geotechnical science terms in English were
compared with their translations in Bahasa
Indonesia.
As many as 52 terms were collected from a few
sources on Geotechnical science. Then, the
meanings (definitions) of the terms were collected
from various online dictionaries of civil engineering
and various Internet websites. Furthermore, in order
to obtain the expected result of this research the
meanings or definitions of the terms taken from a
variety of sources and verified by a Geotechnical
science expert were analyzed The stages of this
research were carried out as follows;
Meaning Accuracy Analysis of Geotechnical Terms in English and Their Translations in Indonesian
165

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1. Identified the terms in words and phrases forms
from various sources.
2. Made a list of English terms and their
translations in Indonesian alphabetically.
3. Verified all the collected data by a Geotechnical
science expert.
4. Searched the meaning or definition of each
English term in various sources or working tools.
5. Translated the meanings or the definitions of all
terms into Bahasa Indonesia.
6. Made cards on which the terms, their
translations, their meanings in Bahasa Indonesia,
sample sentences which containned the terms,
their translations and the meanings in both
languages in order to facilitate the analysis
process.
7. Verified and consulted all the terms to the
Geotechnical expert who is a PhD. in
Geotechnical science and has been teaching
Geotechnical science for more than 10 years at
Jakarta State Polytechnic.
8. Analyzed each term and its definition in English
and Bahasa Indonesia by comparing the English
terms and their translations in Bahasa Indonesia
using the meaning componential analysis.
9. Classified the meaning of each term into
accurate, less accurate, and inaccurate. The more
meaning components of the terms were
identified, the more accurate the translation
terms were withdrew the conclusion.
4 DISCUSSION
In the discussion will compare the meaning source
language (SL) to meaning in translation language as
follows:
1. Alluvial soil :: Tanah aluvial
The meaning of tanah aluvial term in Indonesian
is jenis tanah butiran halus yang dibawa oleh arus
sungai (yang melayang atau mengendap didasar
sungai) ke dataran rendah atau daerah dataran
banjir akan mengendap pada arus sungai yang lebih
kecil (adanya aliran sungai yang
bercabang/berkelok), terdiri dari partikel tanah
lempung, lanau atau partikel kerikil. The meaning
components of tanah aluvial are [+ jenis tanah], [+
butiran halus], [+ partikel tanah lempung], and [+
partikel tanah kerikil/lanau]. Meanwhile, the
meaning of alluvial soil in English is a fine-grained
soil carried out by river stream water (floating or in
river bed particles) to lowland or flood plains and
deposited where the stream slows down (braided
streams or meandering belt), consists of clay, silt or
gravel. The meaning components of alluvial soil are;
[+ a fine-grained], [+ soil], [+ clay or silt] and [+
gravel]. The meaning component overlapping of
both terms was described as follows.
Table 1.
No. Meaning in
SL
Allu-
vial soil
Meaning in
TL
Ta-nah
alu-vial
1
2 3
4
5
6
a fine
grained soil
relation
carried out
by river
stream
water
(floating or
in river bed
particles)
to lowland
or
flood plains
and
deposited
where the
stream
slows down
(braided
streams or
meande-
ring belt)
consists of:
clay, silt or
gravel
+
+ +
+
+
+
jenis tanah
butiran halus
relasi
dibawa oleh
arus sungai
(yang
melayang
atau
mengendap
didasar
sungai)
ke dataran
rendah atau
daerah
dataran banjir
dan
mengendap
pada arus
sungai yang
lebih kecil
(aliran sungai
yang
bercabang/
berkelok)
terdiri dari
tanah
lempung,
lanau atau
kerikil
+
+
+
+
+
+
From the table the diagnostic meaning
components of alluvial soil are [+ a fine-grained
soil], [+ carried out by river stream water (floating
or in river bed particles)] and [+ and deposited
where the stream slows down (braided streams or
meandering belt)], whereas the diagnostic meaning
components of tanah aluvial are [+ jenis tanah
butiran halus], [+ dibawah oleh arus sungai (yang
melayang atau mengendap didasar sungai)], and [+
akan mengendap pada arus sungai yang lebih kecil
(adanya aliran sungai yang bercabang/ berkelok)].
The diagnostic meaning components of alluvial soil
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are the same as the diagnostic meaning components
of tanah aluvial, so the translation of the term in
Indonesian was accurate. Therefore, tanah aluvial
was the equivalent term of alluvial soil.
2. Homogenous soil:: Tanah homogen
The meaning of tanah homogen term in
Indonesian is suatu massa tanah di mana jenis
tanahnya mempunyai satu karakteristik yang
memiliki sifat-sifat teknik dan indeks yang sama.
The componential of meaning of tanah homogen
were [+ suatu massa tanah], [+ jenis tanahnya], [+
mempunyai satu karakteristik], dan [+ memiliki
sifat-sifat teknik dan indeks yang sama]. Meanwhile,
the meaning of homogenous soil term in English is a
mass of soil where the soil is of one characteristic
having the same engineering and index properties.
The componential of meaning were [+ mass of soil],
[+ where the soil is of one characteristic], and [+
having the same engineering and index properties].
The meaning component overlapping of both terms
was described as follows.
Table 2.
No.
Meaning in
SL
Homoge
-nous
soil
Meaning in
TL
Tanah
homogen
1
2 3
4
a mass of
soil
relation
where the
soil is of
one charac-
teristic
having the
same
enginee-
ring and
index
properties
+
+
+
+
suatu massa
tanah
relasi
di mana
jenis
tanahnya
mempu-
nyai satu
karakteris-
tik
yang
memiliki
sifat-sifat
teknik dan
indeks yang
sama
+
+
+
+
From the table above the diagnostic meaning
components of tanah homogen were [+ suatu massa
tanah], [+ di mana jenis tanahnya], [+ mempunyai
satu karakteristik], dan [+ yang memiliki sifat-sifat
teknik dan indeks yang sama]. Meanwhile, the
diagnostic of meaning components of homogenous
soils are [+ mass of soil], [+ where the soil is of one
characteristic], and [+ having the same engineering
and index properties]. The diagnostic meaning
components of homogenous soils are the same as the
diagnostic meaning components of tanah homogen,
so the translation of the term in Indonesian was
accurate. Therefore, tanah homogen was the
equivalent term of homogenous soil.
3. Moisture content:: Kadar air
The meaning of kadar air term in Indonesian is
perbandingan dalam persentase antara berat air
dengan berat partikel padat pada satuan massa
tanah. The meaning components of kadar air were
[+ perbandingan yang dinyatakan dalam
persentase], [+ berat air], [+ berat partikel padat],
dan [+ pada satuan massa tanah]. Meanwhile, the
meaning of moisture content term in English was
the ratio expressed as percentage of weight of water
in a given soil mass to the weight of solid particles
under a specified testing condition. The meaning
components of moisture content were [+ weight of
water], [+ weight of solid particles], and [+ specified
testing condition]. The meaning component
overlapping of both terms was described as follows.
Table 3.
No.
Meaning in
SL
Moist-
ure
content
Meaning in
TL
Kadar
air
1
2
3
4
5
the ratio
expressed
as percent-
age of
weight of
water in a
given soil
mass
relation
to the
weight of
solid
particles
under a
specified
testing
condition
+
+
+
+
+
Perbanding-
an yang
dinyatakan
dalam
persentase
antara berat
air dalam
tanah
relasi
dengan berat
partikel-
partikel padat
pada kondisi
satuan massa
tanah
+
+
+
+
+
From the table the diagnostic meaning
components of kadar air were [+ perbandingan
yang dinyatakan dalam persentase], [+ antara berat
air], andn [+ dengan berat partikel padat] the
diagnostic meaning components of moisture content
were [+ the ratio expressed as percentage of weight
of water in a given soil mass] and [+ to the weight of
solid particles], whereas the diagnostic meaning
components of moisture content were equivalent to
the diagnostic meaning components of kadar air, so
the translation of the term in Bahasa Indonesia is
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167


accurate. Therefore, kadar air was the equivalent
term of moisture content.
4. Undisturbed sample:: Sampel uji asli
The meaning of sampel uji asli term in
Indonesian was sample uji tanah yang diperoleh
dengan cara tertentu untuk memperoleh hasil uji
yang akurat. The meaning components of sampel uji
asli were [+ sample uji tanah], [+ yang diperoleh
dengan cara tertentu], and [+ untuk memperoleh
hasil uji yang akurat]. Meanwhile the meaning of
undisturbed sample term in English was a soil
sample that has been obtained by methods in which
every precaution has been taken to minimize
disturbance to the sample The meaning components
of undisturbed sample were [+ soil sample], [+ that
has been obtained], [+ by methods in which every
precaution has been taken], and [+ to minimize
disturbance to the sample]. The meaning component
overlapping of both terms was described as follows.
Table 4.
No.
Meaning in
SL
Undis-
turbed
sample
Meaning
in TL
Sam-pel
uji asli
1
2
3
4
5
a soil
sample
that has
been
obtained
relation by
methods
in which
every
precaution
has been
taken
to mini-
mize
disturb-
ance to the
sample
+
+
+
+
+
sampel uji
tanah
yang
diperoleh
relasi
dengan
cara
tertentu
untuk
mempero-
leh hasil
uji yang
akurat
+
+
+
+
+
From the table above the diagnostic meaning
components of undisturbed sample were [+ a soil
sample that has been obtained], [+ by methods in
which every precaution has been taken], and [+ to
minimize disturbance to the sample], whereas the
diagnostic of meaning components of sampel uji
asli were [+ sampel uji tanah yang diperoleh], [+
dengan cara tertentu], and [+ untuk memperoleh
hasil uji yang akurat]. The diagnostic meaning
components of undisturbed sample were equivalent
to the diagnostic meaning components of sampel
uji asli, so the translation of the term in Bahasa
Indonesia was accurate. Therefore, sampel uji asli
was the equivalent term of undisturbed sample.
5. Water table:: Muka air
The meaning of muka air term in Indonesian was
permukaan tanah di mana tekanan hidrostatik air
sama dengan nol. The meaning components of
muka air were [+ permukaan tanah] and [+ di mana
tekanan hidrostatik air sama dengan nol].
Meanwhile, the meaning of water table term in
English was the level in a body of soil at which the
hydrostatic water pressure is zero. The meaning
components of water table were [+ the level in a
body of soil] dan [+ at which the hydrostatic water
pressure is zero]. The meaning component
overlapping of both terms was described as follows.
Table 5.
No Meaning
in SL
Water
table
Meaning
in TL
Muka
air
1
2
3
the level
in a body
of soil
relation
at which
the
hydrosta-
tic water
pressure is
zero
+
+
+
permuka-
an tanah
relasi
di mana
tekanan
hidrostatik
air sama
dengan
nol
+
+
+
From the table above table the diagnostic
meaning components of water table were [+ the
level in a body of soil] and [+ at which the
hydrostatic water pressure is zero], whereas the
diagnostic meaning components of muka air were [+
permukaan bagian tanah] and [+ dimana tekanan
hidrostatik air sama dengan nol]. The diagnostic
meaning components of water table were equivalent
to the diagnostic meaning components of muka air,
so the translation of the term in Bahasa Indonesia
was accurate. Therefore, muka air was the
equivalent term of water table.
5 CONCLUSION
Translation process of scientific terms from English
into Indonesian requires mastery of both source
language (SL) and target language (TL), expert
knowledge and a good collaboration between
experts in science and technology and experts in
English and Bahasa Indonesia in order to avoid
ambiguity in meaning as well as avoid a reader’s
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
misunderstanding. In this research a good
collaboration could be attained from a construction
management expert who verified all the terms and
their meanings. Therefore, all the data could be
analyzed using componential analysis of meaning.
From the result of the analysis, it was concluded that
the meanings of all the data or terms and the
meanings of their translation terms in Bahasa
Indonesia were accurate. Therefore, all the
translation terms in Indonesian were the equivalent
terms of their English terms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to acknowledge the support of the funding
agencies: Kemenristek Dikti of Republik Indonesia,
Politeknik Negeri Jakarta and PPPM Politeknik
Negeri Jakarta, Indonesia. We also wish to express
our gratitude to the Geotechnical expert from
Department of Civil Engineering, Jakarta State
Polytechnic who verified the data analyzed in this
research.
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