Aug 2026· Jurnal Pendidikan dan Sastra Inggris· Vol 6, pp. 268-280· 0 citations
Abstract
Translating English modal auxiliary verbs into Indonesian presents a unique linguistic challenge because the two languages express modality through entirely different grammatical structures. In literary texts, these verbs do far more than indicate tense or possibility; they are crucial for establishing tone, perspective, and character depth. Despite their narrative weight, modal verbs are often overlooked in English-Indonesian literary translation studies. This study addresses the gap by identifying the core modal auxiliary verbs in Aurélie Moeremans’s memoir Broken Strings and analyzing how they are rendered into Indonesian. Utilizing a descriptive qualitative approach supported by quantitative data, the study tracked nine core modals—can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would—through the lens of Molina and Albir’s (2002) translation techniques framework. The analysis revealed 682 total occurrences, with could appearing most frequently at 245 instances (35.92%), followed by would at 216 instances (31.67%). Five specific translation techniques emerged: established equivalent, reduction, transposition, modulation, and variation. Established equivalent was the dominant strategy, used in 382 cases (56.01%), which underscores the translator's strong preference for natural Indonesian phrasing over the rigid preservation of English grammatical forms. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that translating modal verbs relies heavily on contextual nuance and communicative intent, requiring flexible structural and semantic shifts to ensure clarity and readability in the target text.
Translation plays an important role in transferring meaning across languages, particularly when translating idiomatic expressions whose meanings cannot be interpreted literally. This study aimed to identify the translation strategies employed by sixth-semester students in translating English idiomatic expressions into Indonesian and to investigate the translation difficulties they encountered. The study employed a descriptive quantitative design involving 24 sixth-semester students of the English Department at UIN Fatmawati Sukarno Bengkulu. The research instrument was a translation test consisting of 15 idiomatic expressions selected from Barack Obama's speech Ignorance is Not a Virtue. The students' translations were analyzed using Baker's (1992) translation strategies, while translation difficulties were classified based on Baker (1992) and Larson (1998). The findings revealed that Translation by Paraphrase was the dominant strategy, accounting for 345 translations (95.83%), followed by Using an Idiom of Similar Meaning but Dissimilar Form with 15 translations (4.17%). No data were categorized as Using an Idiom of Similar Meaning and Form or Translation by Omission. Regarding translation difficulties, Contextual Difficulty was the most dominant category with 161 cases (73.85%), followed by Linguistic Difficulty with 33 cases (15.14%) and Cultural Difficulty with 24 cases (11.01%). The findings indicate that students experienced greater difficulty in interpreting the intended meanings of idiomatic expressions within their communicative contexts than in understanding linguistic or cultural aspects. Furthermore, 218 translations (60.55%) were classified as less accurate and inaccurate, indicating that contextual interpretation substantially influenced translation quality. The study suggests that translation instruction should emphasize contextual interpretation alongside linguistic and cultural competence to improve students' ability to translate idiomatic expressions accurately
This pilot study examines how the English adverb actually is rendered in Slovak translation, drawing on a corpus of literary texts and their translations. As a multifunctional item, actually performs a range of syntactic and pragmatic functions in context, most notably those of emphasizer and disjunct. The analysis draws on three Slovak translations of works by the same English-speaking author. Although each translator worked on a different set of books, the corpus still makes it possible to compare translation strategies within a relatively consistent authorial style and to observe how individual translators deal with the same multifunctional source item. The study combines qualitative functional analysis with quantitative observations in order to identify recurrent Slovak renderings of actually, including lexical substitution, structural reformulation, attenuation, and omission. The findings suggest that translation difficulty arises not from the lack of Slovak expressive resources, but from differences between English and Slovak in the grammatical encoding of discourse-related meaning. In particular, functions expressed in English through sentence adverbials do not always correspond to a single formal category in Slovak, which increases the likelihood of functional shift or translation loss. The study contributes to translation studies and contrastive linguistics by showing how the pragmatic contribution of a frequent multifunctional item may be preserved, reinterpreted, weakened, or omitted in translation, and how these outcomes vary across translators.
Zuzana Knižková· Studies About Languages· 0 citations
Assessment of how GT and GPT-4o translate English VPE into Arabic focuses on the accuracy of ellipsis reconstruction and the translation strategies employed, highlighting the importance of better-quality training data for NMT and LLM tools for both discourse-level processing and context-dependent data.
Eassa Ali, Abbas Brashi, Dana Awad et al.· The International Journal of...· 0 citations
This study investigates the contribution of lexical and grammatical modality devices towards conveying intentionality in media discourse through a comparative analysis of feature journalism articles from The Times of India (TOI) and The Los Angeles Times (The LA Times). Mixed-methods corpus-assisted discourse analysis was employed on 20 climate feature articles. There were 85 lexical modal markers and 81 grammatical markers identified in the dataset. Findings show that TOI employs more epistemic modals such as “may” and “could” (over 50% of its modal verbs) and passive voice (15 times), indicative of a conservative, fact-reporting tone. The LA Times, on the other hand, uses more deontic modals (must, should) and evaluative adverbs (nine compared to three for TOI), and recurring conditional clauses (14 times), connoting urgency and commanding force. These patterns demonstrate how modality is not only a semantic category but also a rhetorical tool that resonates with journalistic intentionality, building persuasion, hedging, and depersonalization.
S. Rajeswari· Studies in Linguistics, Cult...· 0 citations
This study investigates the translation of gender from English into Arabic, focusing on the performance of senior-level translation students in a literary context. Building on previous research on verbal and adjectival translation, the article adopts a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative frequency analysis with qualitative examination of error types. The corpus consists of selected passages from Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley, translated into Modern Standard Arabic by student translators. Gender-related renderings are classified as similar, different or unattempted in order to assess both accuracy and omission. The findings indicate that while gender is generally handled correctly at the lexical level, significant difficulties arise in maintaining agreement within phrases and clauses, particularly in cases involving inanimate or abstract nouns and structurally complex constructions. The study highlights the impact of grammatical asymmetry between English and Arabic on translation performance and underscores the need for more systematic instruction in contrastive grammar and contextual analysis. It contributes to a more nuanced understanding of gender as a key factor in English–Arabic literary translation and provides implications for translator training.
K. Mansoor, Daniel Dejica· Scientific Bulletin of the P...· 0 citations
This article examines the linguistic description of compound sentences in modern English linguistics from syntactic, functional, and communicative perspectives. The study analyzes theoretical approaches proposed by prominent linguists such as N. Chomsky, G. Leech, J. Svartvik, R. Quirk, M.A.K. Halliday, R. Huddleston, and G.K. Pullum regarding the structure and formation of compound sentences. Special attention is given to coordination as a syntactic mechanism connecting independent clauses and to the derivational processes underlying the formation of compound constructions. The article explores the semantic, pragmatic, and communicative functions of compound sentences, emphasizing their role in expressing complex thoughts and maintaining coherence in discourse. Comparative observations between English and Uzbek compound sentence structures are also presented, highlighting similarities and differences in coordination, punctuation, and stylistic realization. The findings demonstrate that compound sentences represent an essential component of syntactic organization, allowing speakers to convey interconnected ideas effectively while preserving the independence of individual clauses. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the theoretical foundations of compound sentence formation and their significance in contemporary linguistic research.
Azizova Dildora· SCIENCE TIME· 0 citations
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