Intratextual Factors in Source Text Trimming for Indonesian-English Machine Translation

Source text analysis is a crucial phase in the translation process. Several issues are proposed by experts in this particular field of study. Nord [1], for instance, proposes that this phase may be constrained by two types of factors, i.e. extra-textual and intra-textual ones, the latter consisting of eight factors which need consideration, i.e. subject matter, content, presuppositions, text composition, non-verbal elements, lexis, sentence structure, and suprasegmental features. This paper aims to consider the importance of each of the eight factors as the basis of trimming academic manuscripts in Indonesian before their mechanical rendering to English for international publication. The object of this study was 50 manuscripts in Indonesian prepared for the publication. The manuscripts were analyzed taking the eight factors into account. The trimming process, which refers to a process of making a text tidier for inter-lingual rendering, is applied to the texts considering the issues so as to be more ready for the translation. The effectiveness of the process is shown by means of comparing the results of rendering the original texts and the trimmed ones assuming that the latter is more qualified than the former. Given that the intra-textual factors are relatively influential in source text analysis for trimming purposes, it is suggestible to consider them as a supplementary procedure for the mechanical rendering of academic manuscripts in Indonesian prior to their translation to English.