AN AN ANALYSIS OF LITERALNESS ASPECT OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE IN TRANSLATING BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE

Abstract

Google Translate is a common platform to help Indonesian employees ensure their English writing and the accuracy effects in a business letter. An unclear and confusing business letter can cause many problems and lead to misunderstandings, delays, lost business, and poor relations. This study aimed to examine the literalness aspect of Google Translate by analysing the produced text in English previously translated from Bahasa. Letters of notification from an insurance company in Indonesia based in Pontianak were chosen as the primary data. This study used a descriptive method and a qualitative approach. The translation indicators from Ismail (2016) was chosen to be used in this research. The analysis findings showed that there were 53% of literalness error, along with other 19% errors of cohesion error, 9% errors of faithfulness error, 11% of grammar error, 2% of omission error, and 6% of usage error. The data findings also showed the inability of Google Translate to understand the texts' contexts as a whole. Another aspect was errors in the source texts that carried into translation errors in the target texts were also the causes of translation errors.