Study of Translation Quality and Techniques used in Translating Mandailing Folklore Anak Na Dangol Ni Andung into English

Translation is essentially a process of transfer of ideas from the source language (SL) into its equivalences in the target language (TL). In the process of translation, a good translator should understand the relevant techniques to translate a text especially a text which has many cultural terms and connotations. In this respect, the aims of this study were to find out translation techniques applied by the translator while translating Mandailing Folklore Anak Na Dangol Ni Andung into English and to elaborate on the quality of the translation. To this end, a descriptive approach to assess qualitative data from relevant documents was employed. The findings of the study revealed that the translator used different techniques for translating cultural terms such as- literal translation (34.8%), pure borrowing (23.9%), addition (15.2%), transposition (10.9%), description (6.5%), deletion (4.3%), amplification and reduction, both of them formed (2.2%) of the data. On the quality of the translation aspect, the results of this study indicate that 50% of the translation was assessed as accurate whereas 50% of the translation was found to be as less accurate. In terms of acceptability, 77.3% of the translation was acceptable whereas 22.7% was termed as less acceptable. On the aspect of readability, 86.4% was rated with high readability and 13.6% with medium readability. Thus, the study has certain implications for translators while translating cultural aspects in the text using appropriate techniques to maintain good quality of the translation.