79 

 

 

EEJ 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

  

English Education Journal 

  

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej 

 

Evaluating The Quality of The Indonesia-English Translation of Research 
Abstracts Written By The Students Of Harapan Bangsa University  

Ida Dian Sukmawati 1, Rudi Hartono 2, Djoko Sutopoo2 

 

1. Universitas Harapan Bangsa, Indonesia 

2. Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia 

 

Article Info 

________________ 

Article History: 

Accepted 27 

September 2020 

Approved 07 

December 2020 

Published 15 March 

2021 

________________ 

Keywords: 

Abstract, Translation 

Ideology, Translation 

Quality 

________________ 

Abstract 

 

This study was focused on evaluating the quality of the Indonesian-English 

translation of the research abstract written by the students of Harapan 

Bangsa University. The analysis included the analysis of translation quality in 

terms of accuracy, naturalness, acceptability, and readability as well as the 

translation ideology. The results of the study showed that the accuracy of the 

research abstract translation was dominated by highly accurate translation and 

less accurate translation in the target language which shared the same 

percentage as many as 36%. In terms of naturalness, it showed that 34% of the 

translation was categorized into highly natural. With regard to translation 

acceptability, it showed that 61% of the data belonged to acceptable. 

Meanwhile, in terms of translation readability, it showed that 75% of the data 

was categorized as readable. The register and genre of the research abstract 

texts and its translation were kept equivalent and holding the same purposes as 

it was translated overtly. In translating the research abstract text, it is suggested 

that the translator could highly consider the accuracy, naturalness, 

acceptability, and readability of the translation, particularly for target readers. 

With regard to the translation ideology, the translator is suggested to grasp the 

register and genre of the text before the translation process and regard the 

target readers to determine whether the text should be translated covertly or 

overtly. 

 
 Correspondence Address:  

Jl. Raden Patah No.100, Kedunglongsir, Ledug, Kec. Kembaran, 
Kabupaten Banyumas, Jawa Tengah 53182  
E-mail: idadian.shb@gmail.com 
 

p-ISSN 2087-0108 

e-ISSN 2502-4566
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

80 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

Translation has become a major means of 

communication among the people where people 

live in a multilingual world. By transferring the 

information from one language to another 

language, it enables the people to establish a 

relationship among nations. Larson (1984) 

stated that translation consists of transferring the 

meaning of the source language into the receptor 

language (p.3). This is done by going from the 

form of the first language to the form of a second 

language by way of semantic structure. It is 

meaning which is being transferred and must be 

held constant. While according to Bassnet 

(1998) translation is the rendering of a source 

language text into the target language (p.2). It 

means that when doing the translation process, a 

translator has to ensure that the surface meaning 

of source language and target language will be 

approximately similar. Besides, the structures of 

the SL will be preserved as closely as possible 

but not so close that the TL structure will be 

seriously distorted  

An abstract is a shortened version of a 

paper. It is a summary of the most important 

points in a scientific paper. It is also a summary 

of a research article, thesis, review, conference 

proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a 

particular subject and is often used to help the 

reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose. 

Abstracts enable professionals to stay current 

with the huge volume of scientific literature. An 

abstract may act as a stand-alone entity instead 

of a full paper. The typical length of abstract 

ranges from 200 to 250 words, but rarely more 

than a page. In the application, an abstract 

always appears at the beginning of a manuscript 

or typescript which is always provided both in 

the original language and English as 

international language, because it will help 

international reader to understand the research. 

However, providing an abstract in two language 

sometimes could bring to confusion for the 

readers when mistakes occur during the 

translation process (Arono & Nadrah, 2019).    

Writing abstract is a compulsory part in 

composing a research, especially for university 

students. In the nursing department of Harapan 

Bangsa University, the nursing students were 

given a course named English for academic 

purposes in semester 8 to prepare them in 

composing a research as well as the abstract. In 

this course, the students not only get academic 

writing but also translation. Thus, they are 

expected to translate the research abstract in a 

good form (Fitria, 2018 and Napitupulu, 2017).   

However, in order to fulfill the 

requirement to write an abstract in Indonesia 

and English, the students of Harapan Bangsa 

University, especially from the nursing 

department, translate their research abstract by 

themselves, and apparently, some students ask 

somebody else or translator to translate their 

research abstract. The translator who requested 

to translated might not a medical translator 

either because many of them do not focus on 

one kind of text but all kinds of text. On one 

hand, they are facing a big responsibility because 

the result of their translation can significantly 

influence someone’s health and medical 

condition because of most of the research article 

made by the nursing students of Harapan 

Bangsa University dealing with human health or 

medical condition. In other words, producing a 

bad translation of the medical text can lead to 

misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the 

facts that have been discovered by the students 

as the researcher. Since the translation of the 

abstract of the nursing student’s research article 

is influenced to someone’s health as the reader 

of the abstract, it is important to evaluate the 

Quality of the Indonesia-English Translation of 

Research Abstract Written by the Students of 

Harapan Bangsa University. 

In doing a translation job, there will some 

problems arise since sameness cannot exist 

between two languages (Bassnett, 2002, p.38). 

The translator cannot just transfer one language 

to another language. Linguistic or extra-

linguistic aspects of the languages will affect the 

translator in the translation process. It leads to 

problems that will interrupt the translator to 

transfer the meaning of the source language to 

the target language. Nida (1975) categorized 

difficulties which become translation problems 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

81 

 

into an ecological problem, social culture, 

material culture, religious culture, and linguistic 

culture (p.34). Concerning the linguistic 

elements, the translation unit covers the 

individual word, group, clause, sentence, or 

even the whole text, when working on the 

source text (Hatim and Munday, 2004, p.17). 

The level of difficulty in translating the units of 

translation is influenced by the unit type, for 

example in translating the text; the translator 

will find various kinds of problems that 

challenge the translator to find the equivalence 

in the target language. Hence, various 

translators have their own strategies and style in 

translation to recreate the text into the target 

language. 

In order to encapsulate the ways different 

perspectives about the evaluation of translation 

work by the assessor to evaluate objectively and 

effectively the quality of the final translation 

work, the translation quality assessment is 

undoubtedly needed. Furthermore, to improve 

the translation quality and to know whether the 

translated work is good or bad, its quality should 

be assessed (Kamil, 2014; Barezzi et al., 2018; 

and Admiati and Hartono, 2019). High quality 

of translation is achieved when the translation 

product meets certain standards and criteria. 

According to Schaffner (1998), translation 

quality assessment includes the process of 

comparing the target text (TT) to the source text 

(ST) to see whether the TT is an accurate, 

correct, precise, faithful, or true reproduction of 

the ST (p.1). 

Evaluating the quality of translation work 

has been one of the main concerns of translation 

studies recently. Many experts are emphasizing 

the importance of translation quality assessment 

in order to promote a good translation product. 

Larson (1984) mentioned that there were some 

aspects to evaluate the translation quality, 

namely: accuracy, naturalness, naturalness, and 

readability. Moreover, House (2015) proposed a 

translation quality model that relies on detailed 

textual and culturally informed analysis and 

comparison. House’s 2015 model is a leading 

model in the field of TQA that places ST 

analysis and its comparison with the TT at its 

heart. According to House (2015) Translation 

should be able to transfer a text in the source 

language into the target language by a 

semantically and pragmatically equivalent one 

(p.23). Furthermore, the analysis leads to the 

ideology followed by the translators whether the 

translation is overt or covert. This indicates that 

translation of a text should be assessed based on 

semantic and pragmatic perspectives in order to 

reproduce the equivalent translation for target 

readers (Zainudin and Awal, 2012; Yuliasri and 

Hartono, 2014).  

There have been some previous studies 

discussing evaluating translation works in 

various kinds of objects, particularly academic 

text. Hartono and Priatmojo (2016) found out 

that translation quality is regarded as poor 

translation when did not meet translation 

accuracy, naturalness, and readability. However, 

there are still few studies dealing with how 

academic text is viewed by House’s translation 

quality assessment. It is a plausible fact since the 

analysis is quite updated as it was proposed in 

2015. Therefore, this study tried to reveal the 

quality of the translation of the research abstract 

and to explain the ideology used in abstract 

translation.  

 

METHODS 

 

The design of this study was descriptive 

qualitative study which aimed to evaluate the 

translation quality of research abstract text. This 

study focused on the accuracy, naturalness, 

acceptability and readability translation. In 

addition, the focus also goes into the analysis of 

translation quality assessment proposed by 

Fiederer and O’Brian (2009) for translation 

accuracy and naturalness; and Nababan (2012) 

for translation acceptability and readability. 

Finally, translation ideology was unveiled by the 

analysis of register and genre of the source text 

and target text.  

 

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 

 

This study analysed the abstracts of 

nursing students from Harapan Bangsa 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

82 

 

University with 20 research abstract texts from 

academic year 2019 and 2020 which were taken 

randomly from the campus library. The abstract 

was taken from thesis of the 

bachelor/undergraduate degree students who 

had finished their study. The 20 research 

abstract texts were extracted into 246 sentences 

as the data analysis in terms of translation 

quality elements. The research abstract texts as 

well as the English version were compared and 

analysed based on the translation quality 

assessment in terms of four aspects, namely: 

accuracy, naturalness, acceptability and 

readability. 

 

Translation Accuracy 

In terms of accuracy, the translation was 

also assessed using Fiederer and O’Brian (2009) 

rating scale which categorize the accuracy 

category into four types of accuracy, namely 

highly accurate, accurate, less accurate and 

inaccurate. Here was the result of translation 

accuracy. 

 

 

Figure 1. Translation Accuracy 

 

As presented in Figure 1, there were 90 

occurrences of highly accurate translation of 

research abstract text out of 246 data which 

made it as the highest category. Thus, the 

unique fact was that it was almost reached by 

less accurate translation. Meanwhile, there was 

only 13 data that was considered inaccurate 

translation. Most of the content of the 

translation was carried out accurately occurred 

only within 55 data. Furthermore, the example 

of highly accurate translation was provided in 

Table 1. 

 

 

Table 1. Highly Accurate Translation 

ST Hipertensi menjadi penyakit yang perlu 

mendapat perhatian khusus, agar tidak 

menimbulkan komplikasi. 

TT Hypertension is a disease that needs 

special attention, so it does not cause 

complications 

 

Table 1 showed that translation was 

regarded to have highly accurate translation as 

the translator has already transferred the 

meaning of the source sentence accurately by 

means of literal translation. Furthermore, the 

terminologies had already been transferred 

accurately such as hipertensi into hypertension, 

penyakit into disease, and komplikasi into 

complications. The sentence was also rendered by 

similar English grammatical rules which was 

matched with the Indonesian rules which made 

the translation able to maintain the meaning 

from the source language into target language.  

With regard to the function of the 

sentence, the sample belonged to the 

introductory paragraph that inform the readers 

about the general phenomena as it was provided 

also with into present tense, although in 

Indonesian there is no grammatical rules to 

emphasize the tense used. Hence, the translator 

had already accurately rendered the sentence 

from the source text. 

Meanwhile, the example of accurate 

translation was presented in Table 2. 

 

Table 2. Accurate Translation 

ST Perkembangan anak dapat terhambat apabila 

lingkungan tidak mendukung seperti asupan 

gizi yang tidak adekuat, kurang stimulasi, dan 

tidak mendapatkan pelayanan kesehatan yang 

memadai. 

TT Children's development can be hampered 

if they live in unsupportive environment 

such as inadequate nutrition, lack of 

stimulation, and inadequate health 

services. 

 

The example on Table 2 talked about the 

introductory paragraph of the research abstract. 

The sentence was accurately transferred into 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

83 

 

English, including the terminologies and the 

grammatical structure. The terminologies were 

almost completely transferred into English, such 

as terhambat into hampered, lingkungan tidak 

mendukung into unsupportive environment, asupan 

gizi yang tidak adekuat into inadequate nutrition, 

kurang stimulasi into lack of stimulation and 

pelayanan kesehatan yang tidak memadai into 

inadequate health services. Yet, there was only one 

terminology that was not accurately rendered, 

perkembangan anak into children’s development 

although the meaning was still close to the 

correct meaning. Since the terminology refers to 

scientific term, it was supposed to be translated 

without addition of belonging. Hence, the term 

perkembangan anak was supposed to be translated 

into children development. 

In term of grammatical structure, the 

sentence acted as general statement that had to 

be provided into present tense to represent its 

functions. Thus, the sentence had already 

proved that the function of the sentence had also 

been rendered into the target text which written 

in the form of present tense. 

Moreover, the example of less accurate 

translation was provided in Table 3. 

 

Table 3. Less Accurate Translation 

ST Penelitian ini merekomendasikan 

perlunya peningkatan kesadaran perawat 

dalam mengelola seragam sebagai upaya 

pencegahan terjadinya infeksi nosokomial 

dengan cara mengganti seragam dan tidak 

mencampurkan seragam dengan pakaian 

lainnya ketika di cuci. 

TT This research was recommend that 

increase the nurse’s behavior to keep the 

uniform as the intervention to prevent the 

nosocomial infection with washing the 

uniform and un mixing the nurse’s 

uniform and with other clothes. 

 

On Table 3, the data was categorized into 

less accurate translation because some factors. 

The terminologies used in the target language 

were not representing the meaning of the source 

language, such as: kesadaran perawat into the 

nurse’s behavior and seragam into the nurse’s 

uniform. The terminologies were not representing 

the same meaning as the source language, 

because the terminologies were classified as 

general words without determiners as the writer 

of the research abstract provided 

recommendation for general people. Hence the 

terminology the nurse’s behavior should be 

replaced by nurse awareness. Likewise, the term 

the nurse’ uniform should be replaced by nurse 

uniform which was also addressed to general 

nurse. 

With regard to the grammatical structure 

of the sentence, there were some mistakes made 

by the translator who made the translation 

became less accurate. The use of voice which 

different from the source language in the 

sentence created ungrammatical sentence in the 

target language. The sentence penelitian ini 

merekomendasikan which was translated into this 

research was recommend should be replaced by this 

research recommended. Although the sentence 

voice could be changed into passive voice, there 

were some changes that need to be considered to 

do so. When it was going to be changed into 

passive voice, the sentence might be change into 

it was suggested from this study that in order to 

render the same meaning as the source language. 

Furthermore, the use of preposition dengan cara 

that was translated into with should be replaced 

by the words by to create accurate translation as 

delivered by the source language. 

In addition, the example of inaccurate 

translation was provided in Table 4 

 

Table 4. Inaccurate Translation 

ST Hasil penelitian menunjukkan dengan 

menggunakan spearman rank, untuk 

variabel lingkungan kerja dikatakan baik 

sebanyak 27 responden (90.0%), untuk 

variabel motivasi kerja dikatakan tinggi 

sebanyak 25 responden (83.3%), dan 

untuk variabel kinerja dikatakan baik 

sebanyak 27 responden (90.0%)). 

TT - 

 

Based on Table 4, this sentence was not 

transferred into the target language although this 

statement was regarded as important part of the 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

84 

 

research since it contained the supporting data 

as consisted within the research. Yet, the 

abstract translation only discussed the 

conclusion of the research. As the requirement 

of good abstract structure, the abstract have to 

be attached by the research result which are 

supported by data as the proof of the analysis. 

The translator did not render the sentence into 

the target language; instead, the translator left 

the translation blankly. 

 

Translation Naturalness 

Translation naturalness refers to the how 

easy the translation to be understood (Fiederer 

and  O’Brian, 2009). The translation is deemed 

to have high naturalness when the target readers 

are able to fully understand the translation. 

Larson (1998, p.529) emphasised that translation 

naturalness constitutes that the text is easy to be 

read which is proved by the appropriate 

language style of the target language.  The result 

of translation naturalness could be seen in 

Figure 2. 

 

 

Figure 2. Translation Naturalness  

 

Based on Figure 2, the naturalness 

translation category was dominated by natural 

category with 91 occurrences of the data. This 

indicated that most of the translation was mostly 

understandable in the target language. 

Meanwhile, there was only 10 occurrences of 

unnatural translation within the research 

abstract translation. The description of 

translation naturalness of the research abstract 

translation was provided in this following 

description. 

 

 

 

Table 4. Highly Natural Translation 

ST Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui 

hubungan sikap dan frekuensi 

pemeriksaan gigi dengan status 

kebersihan mulut pada siswa SD Negeri I 

Karangjati Kemranjen Banyumas. 

TT This study was aimed to investigate the 

correlation between the attitude and the 

frequency of dental checkup and the 

status of oral hygiene of the students of 

Karangjati State Elementary School I 

Kemranjen Banyumas. 

 

Based on Table 4, the sentence was 

regarded to accomplish highly natural 

translation as represented by the use of 

appropriate terminologies and the grammatical 

structure of the sentence. In terms of 

terminologies, the medical terminologies from 

the source language were clearly rendered into 

target language, such as sikap into the attitude, 

frekuensi pemeriksaan gigi into frequency of dental 

checkup, and status kebersihan mulut into status of 

oral hygiene. Those terminologies were 

considered highly natural since the equivalence 

of the words existed among source and target 

languages. Thus, the message consisted within 

the terminologies were received well for the 

target readers. Furthermore, there was a 

terminology that was translated literally which 

might sound not completely normal, such as SD 

Negeri into State Elementary School. The concept 

of state elementary school might exist differently 

according to educational system the country 

followed. However, the translator helped the 

target readers by rendering the terminology 

using description. In addition, some of the 

proper names were left as it was for the sake of 

site identification of the research, such as 

Kemranjen and Banyumas. Hence, the 

terminologies did not create any ambiguity for 

the target readers. 

With regard to the grammatical structure 

of the sentence in the table, it followed the past 

tense structure as the research had been done 

before the abstract was written. Moreover, the 

choice of the preposition had already been 

natural following the grammatical rules in the 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

85 

 

target language, such as 

correlation…between…and… This pair of 

prepositions was naturally used in English to 

express the correlation between two things. 

Furthermore, the function of the sentence was 

conveyed well in the target language that was 

informing the readers about the research being 

conducted. 

Furthermore, the natural translation 

example was presented in Table 5. 

 

Table 5. Natural Translation 

ST Faktor lain yang dapat menunjang 

pelaksanaan praktek keperawatan secara 

profesional adalah dengan 

memperhatikan lingkungan kerja. 

TT Another factor that can support the 

implementation of nursing practice 

professionally is paying attention to the 

work environment. 

 

The sentence provided in Table 5 had 

reached the category of natural translation 

because the content of the sentence in the source 

language had already conveyed into the target 

text by means of medical terminologies and the 

grammatical structure of the sentence. The 

terminologies within the sentence were rendered 

naturally into the target language, such as 

pelaksanaan praktek keperawatan into 

implementation of nursing practice, secara professional 

into professionally, and lingkungan kerja into work 

environment. However, there was a bit ambiguity 

in the target language as it might conveyed 

different meaning. The phrase faktor lain yang 

dapat menunjang pelaksanaan praktek keperawatan 

secara professional that was translated into another 

factor that can support the implementation of nursing 

practice professionally yielded an ambiguity about 

which one was embedded by the word 

professional. According to the meaning of the 

sentence in the source language, the phrase that 

was embedded by the word professional was 

nursing practice, although the word secara 

profesional functioned as adverb. Furthermore, 

this small ambiguity could be overcome if the 

translation of the sentence faktor lain yang dapat 

menunjang pelaksanaan praktek keperawatan secara 

professional was translated into another factor that 

can support the implementation of professional 

nursing practice.  

With regard to the grammatical structure 

of the sentence, it had also been translated 

naturally following the structure of the source 

language as it functioned as the introduction of 

the research and preliminary information for the 

target readers. The tense used was present tense, 

because the sentence informed the target readers 

about general thing although the source 

language did not mention it due to its 

grammatical structure. Furthermore, the 

translator had already understood how to 

arrange the words in the process of translation. 

In addition, the less natural translation 

was provided in Table 6. 

 

Table 6. Less Natural Translation 

ST Bagi peneliti selanjutnya, supaya 

bereksperimen dengan penambahan 

frekuensi dan memperbaiki metode 

monitoring pada saat melakukan Self 

Tapping. 

TT For researcher furthermore, so that 

experiment with increase frequency and 

repair monitoring method, enough 

moment performed Self Tapping. 

 

As it could be seen on Table 6, the 

sentence was categorized as less natural 

translation because there were some 

terminologies that were not well transferred into 

the target language and also the grammatical 

structure that was still needed to be revised. The 

choice of diction in the target language did not 

clearly rendered into the target language which 

could not represent the real meaning of the 

source language. Although there were some 

terminologies that were translated naturally into 

the target language, such as peneliti into 

researcher, frekuensi into frequency, and metode 

monitoring into monitoring method, it was not 

enough to create natural translation. The 

terminology self tapping was supposed to be 

naturally translated to the target language 

become self-tapping with addition of dash (-) 

because it was a punctuation mark between parts 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

86 

 

of compound words and also the keyword of the 

research abstract. Furthermore, the word 

memperbaiki that was rendered into repair was 

not naturally translated considering the context 

of the sentence. It would be natural if the word 

was replaced by improve as the word has already 

carried the concept of repairment. In addition, 

the word selanjutnya was also translated 

unnaturally into furthermore that was conveying 

the different concept from the source language. 

The phrase untuk peneliti selanjutnya was 

supposed to be rendered into for further researcher 

in order to bring the equivalence from the source 

language. 

In regard to the grammatical structure, 

there was some mistakes on the words 

arrangement which produced ambiguities for the 

target readers. The sentence did not contain any 

subject and verb as the requirement of a clause as 

the smallest unit of a sentence which indicated 

that the translator did not understand with the 

content of the source language. The ambiguity 

was also caused by the form of adjective phrase 

dengan penambahan frekuensi dan memperbaiki 

metode monitoring that was translated into with 

increase frequency and repair monitoring method. The 

translation could replace it by using gerund 

concept into by increasing frequency and improving 

monitoring method. Furthermore, the translator 

should be creatively rendered the sentence by 

rendering them into for further researcher, it is 

suggested to experiment by increasing frequency and 

improving monitoring method during Self-Tapping 

practice in order to produce highly natural 

translation. 

Moreover, the unnatural translation 

example was provided in Table 7. 

 

Table 7. Unnatural Translation 

ST Hubungan Kinerja Perawat Dengan 

Kepuasan Pasien Di Ruang Rawat Inap 

RSUD dr. R. Goeteng Taroenadibrata 

Kabupaten Purbalingga Tahun 2019 

TT The Relationship The Performance of a 

Nurse With Satisfaction of Patients in 

Inpatient Rooms Local Public Hospital 

Dr. R. Goeteng Taroenadibrata 

Kabupaten Purbalingga Year 2019 

Based on Table 7, at glance, the title of 

the abstract was unnatural for English as the 

target language which were caused by the 

terminologies that were not naturally rendered 

and also the grammatical structure that was 

carelessly composed. With regard to the 

terminologies used in the sentence, there were 

some words that were transferred natural in the 

target language, such as hubungan into the 

relationship, kinerja perawat into the performance of 

nurse, and kepuasan pasien into satisfaction of 

patients. However, some terminologies were 

needed to be revised in the target language such 

as inpatient rooms into inpatient wards (ward is 

used in referring a suite of rooms shared by 

patients in a hospital) and also Local Public 

Hospital into Regional Public Hospital since the 

concept would bring different perception for the 

target readers. There was also a terminology 

kabupaten that was left by the translator without 

any change that was supposed to be rendered 

into target language. This could give more 

meaning toward the sentence in the target 

language.  

In terms of grammatical structure, the 

sentence was arranged ungrammatically which 

resulted in meaningless sentence. The sentence 

which acted as the title of the research could not 

deliver the function to the target readers and 

only created confusion. At first, the translator 

should focus on the pair of prepositions utilized 

within the sentence, such as Hubungan Kinerja 

Perawat Dengan Kepuasan Pasien which was 

translated into The Relationship The Performance of 

a Nurse With Satisfaction of Patients. Discussing 

about relationship, the pair of prepositions that 

was supposed to be used was …between…and… 

in order to create natural sentence which align 

with English grammar because it really helps to 

create meaning. The translation was supposed to 

be replace by The Relationship between the 

Performance of a Nurse and the Satisfaction of 

Patients in Impatient Wards of Dr. R. Goeteng 

Taroenadibrata Regional Public Hospital Purbalingga 

Regency Year 2019. 

 

 

 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

87 

 

Translation Acceptability 

The acceptability of the translation 

focused on how well the translation text could 

be accepted by the target readers. According to 

Nababan (2012) acceptability of the translation 

text is represented by how natural the translation 

is. Moreover, the characteristics of translation 

acceptability is when the terminologies are usual 

and familiar to the addressed readers which is 

proved by the sentence elements that already 

aligned with the target language rules. Although 

the terminologies utilized in the translation have 

been accurately rendered; however, it does not 

mean that the translation is acceptable because it 

has different meaning in the sentence level. The 

result of acceptability analysis was provided in 

Figure 3. 

 

 

Figure 3. Translation Acceptability  

 

Based on the data presented in Figure 3, it 

could be seen that more than 150 occurrences of 

the research translation that were categorized as 

acceptable translation which also indicated that 

most of the abstract translation had already been 

in accordance with target language rules. There 

was also some translation which categorized as 

less acceptable as many as 76 times. Meanwhile, 

unacceptable translation only occurred 19 times. 

This indicated that most of the research abstract 

translation was regarded as acceptable 

translation. Thus, the example of acceptable 

translation was provided in Table 8. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 8. Acceptable Translation 

ST Senam memiliki banyak manfaat seperti 

menurunkan tekanan darah, memperbaiki 

denyut nadi dan memperkuat fungsi 

jantung. 

TT Gymnastics has many benefits such as 

lowering blood pressure, improving pulse 

rate and strengthening heart function. 

 

On the presented Table 8, the medical 

terminologies were rendered by appropriate 

choice of dictions in the target language which 

made the translation became acceptable and 

generally familiar, such as senam into gymnastics, 

tekanan darah into blood pressure, denyut nadi into 

pulse rate and fungsi jantung into heart function. 

Those terminologies were generally utilized in 

the medical field that made them to be easily 

recognized and accepted by the target readers. 

Thus, the terminologies within the target 

language were recognizable for the target readers 

because of it had already followed the 

grammatical rules of target language. 

With regard to the grammatical structure, 

the sentence was well translated following the 

parallel structure in which the noun phrases 

were arranged using similar forms of gerund 

verb-ing, such as lowering blood pressure, improving 

pulse rate and strengthening heart function. Hence, 

this sentence was categorized as acceptable 

translation. There was only a small problem in 

punctuation coma (,) which should be put before 

the words such as. 

In addition, the example of less acceptable 

translation was presented in Table 9. 

 

Table 9. Less Accetable Translation 

ST Senam jantung sehat efektif dapat 

menurunkan tekanan darah di 

Perkumpulan Jantung Sehat 

TT Healthy heart exercises can effective 

reduce blood pressure in healthy heart 

association RSUD Prof. Dr. Margono 

Soekarjo Purwokerto. 

 

Based on Table 9, there were some 

terminologies that were generally used in the 

target language, such as tekanan darah into blood 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

88 

 

pressure that was universally used and 

perkumpulan jantung sehat into healthy heart 

association that was transferred literally in 

English. However, the translation of senam 

jantung sehat was translated inconsistently into 

healthy heart exercises which had been translated 

into healthy heart gymnastics in the previous 

sentences. This condition supported the status of 

less acceptable for the translation because the 

terminology used in the abstract should be 

consistent and easy to be grasped by the target 

readers. However, there was a mistake that was 

made by the translator by adding the word 

RSUD Prof. Dr. Margono Soekarjo Purwokerto. 

The abbreviation of RSUD could be replaced 

either by the word hospital or Regional Public 

Hospital. Hence, the translation was categorized 

as less acceptable translation. 

In regard to grammatical structure of the 

sentence, there was a mistake created by the 

translator in rendering the meaning of the 

sentence by means of inappropriate diction. The 

word efektif which acted as adverb was translated 

into adjective effective which was supposed to be 

rendered into effectively following the form of the 

source language form. Hence, the sentence 

senam jantung sehat efektif dapat menurunkan 

tekanan darah di Perkumpulan Jantung Sehat was 

supposed to be translated into healthy heart 

gymnastics can effectively reduce blood pressure in 

healthy heart association Prof. Dr. Margono Soekarjo 

Regional Public Hospital Purwokerto in order to 

achieve acceptable translation. Moreover, 

regarding to the function of the sentence, the 

sentence was arranged as recommendation part 

of the research abstract which still possessed its 

function in the target language. 

Furthermore, the example of unacceptable 

translation was provided in Table 10. 

 

Table 10. Unacceptable Translation 

ST Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui 

gambaran colony bacteria pada seragam 

perawat di RSUD dr. R. Goeteng 

Taroenadibrata Purbalingga.   

TT The purpose of this research is to description 

the colony bacteria at nurses’s uniform at dr. 

R. Goeteng Taroenadibrata Public Hospital 

Purbalingga.   

On the presented Table 10, the purpose of 

the research was arranged by inacceptable 

translation in the target language. In terms of 

terminology, there were some words that were 

not appropriately transferred in the target 

language, such as mengetahui into description, 

gambaran colony bacteria into the colony bacteria, 

seragam perawat into nurses’s uniform. Those 

terminologies were not usually used and did not 

equivalent toward the source language that 

created the translation became inacceptable. 

Although, there was only one terminology that 

had close meaning with the source language di 

RSUD dr. R. Goeteng Taroenadibrata Purbalingga 

which was translated into dr. R. Goeteng 

Taroenadibrata Public Hospital Purbalingga, it did 

not change the status of unacceptability of the 

translation. The term public hospital has close 

meaning as Regional Public Hospital in term of 

universality of medical terminology, while the 

name of the hospital was kept untranslated 

because it was the proper name. 

In addition, in term of grammatical 

structure, the sentence was provided in the 

present tense which was supposed to be 

arranged by past tense since the research had 

been done before. Furthermore, there was no 

verb to describe the function of the sentence as 

the purpose of the research. Thus, the sentence 

penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui gambaran 

colony bacteria pada seragam perawat di RSUD dr. 

R. Goeteng Taroenadibrata Purbalingga could be 

appropriately rendered into the purpose of this 

research was to find out the bacteria colony description 

on nurse uniform at dr. R. Goeteng Taroenadibrata 

Regional Public Hospital Purbalingga in order to 

achieve the acceptable translation category. 

 

Translation Readability 

Translation readability refers to the 

comprehensibility of the content within the text. 

According to Nababan (2012) the translation 

text is regarded to have high readability when 

the content is comprehensible, although there 

are some errors of style and/or of spelling and if 

certain words are missing, or are badly 

translated, yet close to the target language. In 

this study, the readability of 20 research abstract 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

89 

 

texts were possessing the various kinds of 

readability levels as provided in the figure 

 

 

Figure 4. Translation Readability 

 

Based on Figure 4, most of the translation 

was readable which was proved by the total 

occurrences 185 for readable translation. This 

was represented that most of the research 

abstract translation had already been easy to be 

comprehended by the target readers. The 

example of readable translation was presented in 

Table 11. 

 

Table 11. Readable Translation 

ST Hasil uji statistik menunjukan ada 

hubungan antara stimulasi dengan 

perkembangan anak usia 3-5 tahun di 

PAUD Insan Mentari (p-value = 0,028) 

dan tidak ada hubungan antara status gizi 

dengan perkembangan anak usia 3-5 

tahun di PAUD Insan Mentari (p-value = 

0,311). 

TT Statistical test results show that there is a 

correlation between stimulation and the 

development of children 3-5 years old in 

ECE Insan Mentari Banyumas (p-value = 

0,028) and there is no correlation between 

nutritional status and children 

development of aged 3-5 years in ECE 

Insan Mentari Banyumas (p-value = 

0,311). 

 

From Table 11, it could be seen that the 

terminologies utilized in the sentence that were 

rendered from the source text into target text 

were comprehensible by the target readers, such 

as stimulasi into stimulation, PAUD (Pendidikan 

Anak Usia Dini) into ECE (Early Childhood 

Education), status gizi into nutritional status, and 

perkembangan anak into children development. 

Those terminologies utilized in the target 

language had already served to the readability of 

the sentence that made the meaning within the 

sentence become easy to be comprehended. 

There was also a proper name Insan Mentari 

which was left by the translator as the identity of 

the place that was also added by the name of the 

town Banyumas as the location of the school.  

However, in terms of the grammatical 

structure of the text, the translator tended to use 

the present tense which was supposed to be 

changed into past tense as the research had been 

done in the past. Although, there was only few 

errors in terms of tense usage, the content of the 

sentence had already been comprehensible for 

the target readers. Hence, if the tense was 

changed into past tense, it would be perfectly 

readable. 

Moreover, the example of less readable 

translation was provided in Table 12. 

 

Table 12. Less Readable Translation 

ST Tujuan penelitian untuk mengetahui 

efektivitas senam jantung sehat terhadap 

penurunan tekanan darah pada lansia di 

perkumpulan jantung sehat RSUD Prof. 

Dr. Margono Soekarjo Purwokerto. 

TT The purpose of this study was to 

determined the effectiveness of healthy 

heart gymnastics against the reduction of 

blood pressure in the elderly in the healthy 

heart association of RSUD Prof. Dr. 

Margono Soekarjo Purwokerto. 

 

Based on Table 12, the sentence was 

categorized as having less readable translation 

which were proved by utilization of 

terminologies in the target language and also the 

grammatical structure where the meaning 

resided. Some of the medical terminologies had 

successfully rendered into target text, such as 

senam jantung sehat into healthy heart gymnastics, 

penurunan tekanan darah into reduction of blood 

pressure, lansia into elderly, and perkumpulan 

jantung sehat into the healthy heart association. 

Those medical terminology translations 

supported the level of readability in the target 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

90 

 

language. However, there was also translation 

mistake in rendering the medical terminologies 

into target language, such as RSUD into RSUD 

which was supposed to be rendered as Regional 

Public Hospital. Without mentioning the term 

hospital, the readers would need more time to 

comprehend the meaning of the terminology. 

Moreover, the proper name of the hospital was 

left as it was, since proper name was supposed 

not to be translated which might gave different 

perception toward the readers. Thus, the term 

Prof. Dr. Margono Soekarjo Purwokerto was left 

untranslated as it was the name of the hospital. 

In regard to the grammatical structure of 

the sentence, the translator seemed to forget the 

change of the verb when it functioned as 

infinitive. The word to determined should be 

replaced by the word to determine. In addition, 

there was also a revision which could be made in 

term of preposition used in the translation, such 

as the term pada could be replaced by on. 

Furthermore, the sentence tujuan penelitian untuk 

mengetahui efektivitas senam jantung sehat terhadap 

penurunan tekanan darah pada lansia di 

perkumpulan jantung sehat RSUD Prof. Dr. 

Margono Soekarjo Purwokerto would be 

appropriately translated into the purpose of the 

study was to determine the effectiveness of healthy 

heart gymnastics against the reduction of blood 

pressure on the elderly in the healthy heart association 

of Prof. Dr. Margono Regional Public Hospital 

Soekarjo Purwokerto. 

In addition, the example of unreadable 

translation was presented in Table 13. 

 

Table 13. Unreadable Translation 

ST Survey kepuasan pasien, ada tiga hal yang 

mungkin muncul dari pengukuran kinerja 

perawat yaitu kinerja sama dengan harapan 

pasien, kinerja lebih besar dari harapan pasien, 

atau kinerja lebih kecil dari harapan pasien. 

TT Patient satisfaction survey, there are three 

things that might be occurred nurse 

performance of the measurement of the 

performance of the same in the hope of 

patients, the performance of greater than hope 

patients, or the performance of smaller than 

hope patients. 

Based on Table 13, there was some 

mistakes which made the translation was 

categorized into unreadable translation. The 

translator did not really comprehend the source 

text that resulted in the difficulties of the 

sentence meaning to be grasped. It could be seen 

that some medical terminologies from the source 

language had already been rendered successfully 

into target text, such as survey kepuasan pasien 

into patient satisfactory survey, kinerja perawat 

into nurse performance. Yet, there were some 

mistakes also in the translation of medical 

terminologies in the target language, such as 

harapan pasien into hope patient and pengukuran 

kinerja perawat into nurse performance of the 

measurement.  

Furthermore, in terms of grammatical 

structure, the mistake happened as it really 

affected the meaning of the sentence. The 

translation was arranged without considering the 

grammatical structure of the sentence in the 

target language as the words seemed to be 

randomly placed in the sentence. The sentence 

survey kepuasan pasien, ada tiga hal yang mungkin 

muncul dari pengukuran kinerja perawat yaitu 

kinerja sama dengan harapan pasien, kinerja lebih 

besar dari harapan pasien, atau kinerja lebih kecil 

dari harapan pasien was supposed to be translated 

into based on patient satisfactory survey, there are 

three categories that might be occurred form nurse 

performance measurement, namely: performance is 

equal with patient hope, performance is higher than 

patient hope, or performance is lesser than patient 

hope, in order to achieve readable translation that 

was easy to be comprehended by the target 

readers. 

 

Translation Ideology of Abstract Translation 

Translation ideology followed by the 

translator could be traced by means of the 

analysis of translation quality assessment. It 

could be unveiled by the analysis of register 

(field, tenor and mode) and the genre of the 

source text in order to find the mismatches 

between the text and its translation. As the type 

of the 20 text was the same which functioned as 

research abstract, translation was possessing the 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

91 

 

same function as it had the same structures and 

it was put on the same part of a thesis. 

 

Register and Genre 

As the sample of the analysis, a research 

abstract and its translation were analysed by 

means of text register. The sample analysis was 

provided in Table 14. 

 

Table 14. Readable Translation 

Source Text Register 

Field  

Subject Matter Nursing education 

Social Action Specific 

Tenor  

Author’s Provenance 

and Stance 

University students 

Social Role 

Relationship 

Asymmetrical   

Social Attitude Formal 

Mode  

Medium Simple  

Participation Simple  

Source Text Genre Nursing Academic 

Source Text Function Interpersonal 

 

On the Table 14, it showed that field that 

dealt with the nature of social action is taking 

place was divided into two parts, namely subject 

matter and social action. The research abstract 

text presented the summary of the summary of a 

thesis research in the field of nursing education. 

With regard to the research abstract text no 1, 

the text discussed the study about relationship 

between dietary habit and hypertension on the 

elderly at Baturaden II Public Health Centre in 

Banyumas Regency. The text was composed by 

the introduction of hypertension and the causes 

in relation with dietary habit. Thus, the writer 

described the characteristics of the study, such as 

the purpose, methodology and the result of the 

analysis. Furthermore, the result was provided 

along with the supporting data, such as the sex, 

educational level, dietary habit status, and blood 

pressure. At the end, the keywords were 

attached mentioning 3 keywords to help the 

other researcher finding the similar field of study 

as reference. In term of lexical means, the 

clinical and medical words were utilized within 

the text as represented in the title of the research 

abstract text, such as eating pattern, elderly, 

hypertension, and Health Centre. As a summary of 

a research, there were some research technical 

phrases used in the text, such as the purpose of the 

study, respondents, descriptive correlational method, 

and analysis. As academic text, there was not any 

use of collocation and idiomatic expression 

within the sentence. With regard to the syntactic 

means of the text, it was dominated by long 

sentences with complex structures throughout 

the text, such as diet is closely related to the 

incidence of hypertension, because what we eat affects 

the occurrence of hypertension. The writer mostly 

began the sentence by using noun and noun 

phrase such as, prevention of hypertension and 

unhealthy eating patterns. The writer also made a 

strong cohesion between sentences through the 

use of repetitive words, such as diet, blood pressure 

and elderly.  

In term of tenor, the writer of the text is 

nursing students from bachelor / undergraduate 

degree program in Harapan Bangsa University 

located in Purwokerto Academic Year 2018 and 

2019. Those who have finished their study are 

required to conduct a research in medical field. 

The research is composed and supervised by two 

supervisors to help them write a good research 

thesis. As academic research, the thesis is 

written in formal language without any 

emotional interference. As one of the elements 

of research, abstract text functioned as a 

summary of the research. It is written as a small 

short version of the thesis which also consists of 

research elements, such as: title, introduction, 

aims, methods, results/discussion, conclusion 

and recommendation. Once the thesis done, the 

students are examined in a seminar to present 

their research report. Hence, the writer presence 

as well as the two advisors were mentioned after 

the title of the research abstract, such as Dewi 

Lantasih, Indri Heri Susanti, Wasis Eko Kurniawan 

indicating that the research was written by the 

student as well as the lecturer of university. The 

writer of the research abstract text did not 

mention emotional and intellectual stance, 

because the text was composed formally. The 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

92 

 

social role relationship between the addresser 

and the addressee of the thesis research abstract 

written by nursing students is asymmetrical 

because the nursing students as the author of the 

abstract and publish the abstract text for the 

general readers, particularly for the further 

research in clinical field.  

In regard to mode, the medium of the text 

was simple because the text was basically to be 

read. According to House (1997), an emic text is 

one which is determined by text-immanent 

criteria, and etic text is one which is determined 

through text-transcending means. Thus, research 

abstract texts, and specifically text under study is 

etic because the writer of the research abstract 

compose the text as the summary of the research 

that has been done before. Since the research 

abstract text is based on the scientific research, 

the abstract text is written objectively based on 

the scientific study. There was no any dialogic 

nor conversational parts in the text which 

indicated that the text was monologue format. 

Regarding to the genre, Research abstract text is 

categorized as special genre text which presents 

either the summary of a thesis or a report of a 

research based on the field of the research. 

Nursing research abstract is composed by using 

medical, technical and clinical terminologies. As 

the summary of a research, nursing abstract text 

is written as small version of the research by 

containing generic structure of a research, such 

as title of the research, background, aims, 

methods, results and conclusion and 

recommendation. In order to accomplish its goal 

of informing the readers about the whole 

research in a short text, research abstract retain 

its unique approach of using concise description 

of the whole research. 

Meanwhile, the function of this text is 

interpersonal based on the genre of the research 

abstract. The writer’s intention is to give a 

glimpse of information about the research based 

on the result and discussion within the research. 

Through the abstract, the students want to share 

and communicate the research experience as 

well as the personal recommendation based on 

the findings. The title functions as the same as 

the title of the research informing the readers 

about the matter being examined. Thus, the 

introduction is presented as a bridge to bring the 

readers about the topic and the problems to be 

solved as elaborated in the aims why the 

research is conducted. Moreover, the 

methodology is simply stated about how the 

research is conducted as well as the analysis 

framework. Furthermore, the result of the 

analysis is provided elaborated by the numerical 

proof as well as the description of the result. In 

addition, the conclusion is also stated concisely. 

Finally, the recommendation is made by the 

writer of the research as the personal point of 

view based on the findings for the sake of the 

further research as the research novelty. At the 

end of the abstract, generally the writer also put 

some keywords of the research to help the 

readers to find the reference. With regard to the 

nursing research abstract in Harapan Bangsa 

University, the students write the abstract as the 

second page of the thesis after the title. It is 

intended to help the readers to easily grasp the 

whole research in just only one page without 

going too far. The research abstract of nursing 

students is written based on the scientific 

experience on clinical field as the requirement of 

graduation. It also gives benefit for the other 

researchers to develop the new research.  

With regard to the comparison of the 

original and the translation of research abstract, 

the research abstract of nursing student is 

translated in Indonesian into English by the 

students themselves as stated in the declaration 

of originality of the thesis mentioning that the 

students are responsible in conducting and 

writing the research paper as well as the 

translation of the abstract text. On the aspect of 

field, there were some lexical mismatches 

because the formality of the words was reduced 

because of the process of translation, such as 

pendidikan dasar into basic education. On the 

aspect of tenor, the social relationship was 

maintained because there were no changes of the 

personal pronoun in the translation, such as kita 

into we. As a result, the social role relationship 

and the social attitude were conveyed well in the 

target language.  On the aspect of mode, there 

were lexical mismatches in the medium because 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

93 

 

some of the colloquial words were translated 

informally into English, such as pola makan into 

diet. Moreover, the translator seemed to be 

inconsistent in translating the nursing 

terminology, such as pola makan into eating 

patterns and diet indicating that the translator did 

not confident in rendering the terminology.  

Furthermore, the mismatches between the 

research abstract text and the translation 

happened in the area of mode that need to be 

revised. It could be argued that the research 

abstract text held nearly the same function that 

was ideational despite some changes which did 

not change the whole message although some 

errors occurred (Maisa, 2018; Muchtar and 

Kembaren, 2018; and Nafisah et al., 2019). 

Meanwhile, the accuracy of the 

translation was dominated by the accurate 

replacement of the words, phrases, and the 

sentence in nursing field. It turned out that the 

meaning conveyed within the source text was 

possessing the same information as in the source 

text. As stated by Larson (1984) that the 

meaning between the source text and target text 

is simply correct. However, some revision was 

needed because some of the translation only 

conveyed some of the content accurately. 

Furthermore, it also turned out that a few 

numbers of the translation failed to convey the 

same information as the result of inaccurate 

translation.  

On the translation naturalness, the 

research abstract translation showed that they 

were dominated by natural and highly natural. 

This meant that most of the meaning within the 

translation was clearly expressed in the target 

language. The terminologies utilized in the 

translation mostly did not create any ambiguous 

meaning toward the target readers. The 

grammatical structure showed good 

arrangement as it could clearly conveyed the 

source language meaning into the target 

language. In line with Nida (1964, p.167) 

mentioned that the naturalness of translation 

was highly influenced by the lexical and 

grammatical aspects of a sentence. However, it 

was also found that some of the translation of 

research abstract were considered less natural 

and unnatural in the target readers. This 

indicated that some of the words and sentences 

rendered from the source text were responded 

differently by the target readers. This is in line 

with Putranti (2018) that the respond between 

the source language reader and target language 

reader toward the translation might be different 

because even the correct words and sentence are 

expected to express the message of source 

language into the target language, the message 

would not be responded substantially the same 

manner as the source language readers.  

With regard to the acceptability of the 

translation, it turned out that most of the 

research abstract translation showed acceptable 

category which held more than 50% of the 

whole data. This finding indicated that most of 

the translation had utilized usual terminologies 

and also had followed the English grammatical 

rules. The translator had successfully rendered 

the terminologies clearly to the target readers 

and made the translation text acceptable for the 

target readers.  Therefore, most of the translation 

was understandable for the target readers which 

was proved by familiarity of the terminologies 

and also well-application of the grammatical 

rules. However, it was also found that some of 

the translation was categorized as less natural 

and unnatural translation. If a translation is 

accurate in terms of its content or message, the 

translation will be rejected by the target reader if 

the method of disclosure is contrary to the rules, 

norms and culture of the target language 

(Nababan, 2012; Putranti, 2018; and Prafitasari 

et al., 2019). Therefore, acceptability of 

translation was considered to have a close 

relationship between the translation and how the 

target reader accepts it. As mentioned by Sutopo 

(2019) mentioned that the accurate translation 

cannot guarantee whether the translation had a 

good quality, instead the acceptability of the 

translation was also determined by the 

familiarity of the translation in the target 

language by the target readers.  

In regard to the readability of the 

translation, the research abstract translation was 

also mostly readable as most of the data reached 

the category of readable translation. It indicated 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

94 

 

that most of the words, phrases and the 

sentences were rendered clearly and easy to be 

comprehended without any difficulties by the 

target readers by means of only once reading. 

However, there was still some revision needed in 

the translation to improve its readability of the 

translation since there were also some less 

readable translation which need more 

understanding and reading activity more than 

once to comprehend the translation. As 

mentioned by Larson in Hartono (2016) that the 

choice of diction, structure and organization of 

sentences, spelling and even the punctuation 

influence the level of readability of the 

translation. Moreover, there was also found a 

few findings that were considered unreadable in 

the target language. Although some of the 

terminologies within a sentence had been 

identified as readable translation, the 

understanding about the meaning of the 

sentence also constituted to the readability of the 

translation. The finding also turned out that 

there were a few unreadable translations found 

in the translation of research abstract which 

made the target readers hard to comprehend the 

translation. Some of the findings indicated that it 

was caused by the difference between the 

sentence arrangement and also the meaning 

conveyed. It was indicated that the translators 

sometimes failed to comprehend the text in the 

target language. This is in line with Sutopo 

(2019) stated that a translator needs to 

understand the concept of readability both of the 

source language and also target language in 

order to be able to produce well translation 

work. 

Furthermore, the comparative analysis of 

research abstracts and its translation was leading 

to the ideology followed by the translators in 

rendering the text. Through the analysis of 

register and genre, the research abstract texts 

were rendered overtly by the translator. It turned 

out that the translator was preferred to tie to the 

source language, community and culture which 

was represented by the literal translation utilized 

by the translator and also source text cultures 

that were brought to the target language. The 

words, phrases and sentence employed by the 

translator in rendering the research abstract text 

were accurate, natural, acceptable and readable 

for target language readers although there were 

some mismatches between the source language 

and target language. There were some overtly 

erroneous errors occurred in the translation of 

research abstract text which was dominated by 

slight change of meaning and grammatical 

mismatches. The error was also caused by the 

untranslated elements, omission and addition in 

the target language. With regard to the function 

of the research abstract text, the translator had 

already kept equivalent in the target language 

which was represented by the similarity of 

register and the genre of the text between the 

text and its translation. The research abstract 

and its translation still possessed the same 

purpose that was passing on the essential parts 

of the texts which was addressed for nursing 

field. This is in line with Shakernia (2014) stated 

that overt translation is used when the text was 

intended for special purposes. Furthermore, the 

information resided within the research abstract 

was not covered by the translator instead of 

transferred as it was in the source language. 

Therefore, the research abstract texts were 

rendered following the overt translation than 

covert translation. This was in line with House 

(2015, p. 68) abstract text was translated overtly 

in the target text, because the most essential facts 

from the source language were only passed on to 

the target language. 

 

CONCLUSION  

 

Based on the analysis of the study, the 

accuracy level of research abstract translation 

still belonged to accurate translation and 

although some revisions were considerably 

needed. Some of the information within the 

source text was accurately rendered into the 

target text, while some of meaning within the 

translation were missed in the target language. 

In term of naturalness, most of the research 

abstract translation was possessing high level of 

naturalness which also referred that the 

translation was fully understandable for target 

readers. On the accuracy aspect, it did not 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

95 

 

merely affect the acceptability of the translation, 

because the familiarity of the language also 

determined the acceptability. Therefore, the 

translation had been in accordance with the 

rules, norms and culture within the target text 

that was easily understood and acceptable in the 

target language. 

Furthermore, the analysis of ideology 

followed by the translator of research abstract 

was overt translation. The result showed that the 

register and genre of the research abstract and its 

translation were kept equivalent and holding the 

same purposes. Thus, translation was tied to the 

source language including the community and 

its culture. Therefore, the ideology followed by 

nursing students in rendering the research 

abstract translation was overt translation. 

Although there were some erroneous errors 

found, it was dominated by slight change of 

meaning in the target language which need some 

replacement of the dictions. 

For further research, it is expected that the 

future research could examine the translation 

quality of various kinds of text by means of 

various kinds of translation quality assessment 

perspective. Since this study only focused on the 

research abstract from nursing department, it is 

better if the future research could also compare 

the quality of the translation work done by other 

field of study. 

 

REFERENCES 

 

Admiati, A., & Hartono, R. (2019). Translation 

quality of idiomatic expressions in "lenka 

kripac’s & quot; song lyrics from English 

into Indonesian. Rainbow: Journal of 

Literature, Linguistics and Cultural 

Studies, 8(2), 41-51.  

Arono, A., & Nadrah, N. (2019). Students’ 

difficulties in translating English text. 

Journal of Applied Linguistics & 

Literature, 4(1), 88-99.   

Barezzi, R. H., Nababan, M., & Santosa, R. 

(2018). Techniques and quality of 'Civil 

War: Whose side are you on?' comic 

translation. LEKSEMA: Jurnal Bahasa 

dan Sastra, 3(2),  

Bassnett, S., & Mc Guire. (1998). Translation 

Studies. Methuen & Co. Ltd. 

Bassnett, S. (2002). Translation Studies. London 

Routledge 

Fiederer, R. & O’brien, S. (2009). Quality and 

Machine Translation: A realistic 

objective?. The Journal of Specialised 

Translation 11, 52-74. 

Fitria, T. (2018). Translation techniques found 

in english to indonesian abstract 

translation of journal edunomika 2018. 

ELITE Journal 5(2). 

Hartono, R. (2012). Teori penerjemahan 

(Handbook for translators). Cipta Prima 

Nusantara Semarang.  

Hartono, R., & Priyatmojo, A. (2016). 

Translation errors of soft drink product 

labels from Indonesian into English. The 

International Seminar Prasasti III (659-

664). Surakarta: Linguistics Doctoral 

Program of Sebelas Maret University. 

House, J. (2015). Translation quality 

assessment: past and present. Routledge 

House, J. (1997). Translation quality 

assessment: A model revisited. Narr 

Print. 

Kamil, M. (2014). An analysis of English-

Indonesian translation quality on twitter 

web pages (a case study). Journal of 

English and Education, 2(1), 27-38. 

Larson, M. L. 1984. Meaning-based Translation. 

University Press of America Inc. 

Maisa, M. (2018). The analysis of translation 

technique of children story: “Lila, the 

clumsy witch”. Academic Journal 

Perspective : Education, Language, and 

Literature, 1(2), 96.   

Muchtar, M., & Kembaren, F. R. (2018). 

Translation techniques and quality in the 

English version of Nganting Manuk 

text. International Journal on Language, 

Research and Education Studies, 2(2), 

195-207.   

Nababan, M. R., Nuraeni, A., & Sumardiono. 

(2012). Pengembangan model penilaian 

kualitas terjemahan’. Kajian linguistik 

dan sastra, 24(1),39-57. 



Ida Dian Sukmawati, et al. / English Education Journal 11 (1) (2021) 79-96 

96 

 

Nafisah, N., Hartono, R., & Yuliasri, I. (2019). 

Translation methods and degree of 

equivalence in English-Indonesian 

translation of Leo Tolstoy’s “God sees the 

truth but waits”. Rainbow: Journal of 

Literature, Linguistics and Cultural 

Studies, 7(2), 1-10.  

Napitupulu, S. (2017). Analyzing indonesian-

english abstracts translation in view of 

translation errors by google translate. 

International Journal of English 

Language and Linguistics Research, 5(2), 

15-23. 

Nida, E. A., & Taber, C. R. (1982). The theory 

and practice of translation. E.J Brill. 

Prafitasari, A., Nababan, M. R., & Santosa, R. 

(2019). An analysis of translation 

technique and translation quality in poem 

book entitled Love & Misadventure. 

Indonesian Journal of English Language 

Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 3 (2).    

Putranti, A. (2018). Modulation: A translation 

method to obtain naturalness in target 

language texts. Journal of Language and 

Literature, 18(1), 98-101.   

Shakernia, S. (2014). Study of Nida’ s (formal 

and dynamic equivalence) and Newmark’ 

s (semantic and communicative 

translation) translating theories on two 

short stories. Semantic Scholar.  

Sutopo, A. (2019). The Assesment and Reserach 

on translation studies. Proceedings of the 

Fifth Prasasti International Seminar on 

Linguistics (PRASASTI 2019).   

Yuliasri, I., & Allen, P. (2019). Humour loss in 

the Indonesian translation of Harry Potter 

and the sorcerer's stone. Indonesian 

Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(1).   

Zainudin, I. S., & Awal, N. M. (2012). 

Translation techniques: Problems and 

solutions. Procedia - Social and 

Behavioral Sciences, 59, 328-334.