LEXICAL MEANING AND ITS LOSS, GAIN, AND SKEWING OF INFORMATION IN TRANSLATION

Abstract

Every word in a culture can be expressed in another. However, some concepts of meaning in the source language do not have lexical equivalents in the target language due to thedifference of the two cultures which are not in the same families. The study aims to present the equivalence of the lexical items which are unknown in the target language. Descriptive qualitative methods will be used to describe the lexicalcultural gap of expressions in a novel Mirror Image which was translated in Belahan Jiwa. Three approaches; Reference Theory, Componential Analysis, and Meaning postulatesused to compare and contrast the semantic features of a lexical meaning concept.. Meanwhile, Knowledge-Based Theory utilized to describe the loss / gain of the semanticfeatures and changes of the linguistic forms in translation. It was found in this study that either loss or gain of information in translation was due to the difference of two linguistic systems, cultures, and changes of linguistic formwere due to translator preference.