TRANSLANGUAGING PRACTICE IN THE HUMAN AND AI TRANSLATION OF FOOD MENU

Abstract

Translanguaging practice is common in food menu naming. This study aims to uncover the translanguaging practices that occur in the food menu naming, food menu descriptions and their translations. For example, “mie goreng seafood” in source language (SL) contains Indonesian words ‘mie goreng’ and an English word ‘seafood’ and the structure is following Indonesian noun phrase. Translanguaging practice on public signs such as food menu can be dependent upon the context of the signages, including the locus, time, speakers/creators, and the intended audience. The data were 70 food menu names and their descriptions that were  gathered from food stalls around a private university campus in West Jakarta. The food menu names and their descriptions, which were collected under a set of criteria, were then translated into English by a group of students taking a  translation class of the above university  (hereafter named Human translator) and by Chat GPT (hereafter dubbed AI translator). Thus, the total data were 70 food menu names and descriptions in Indonesian, 70 human translations, and 70 AI translations. The data were then analysed using translanguaging theory and translation theory, to find out how the translanguaging practice can affect the translations of food menu names. This study implies that the translanguaging practices in food naming and translation is necessary to do to gain wider understanding of the rationale behind the above practices in public spaces, which may be related to not only language, but also another aspect such as the marketability of the product to targeted consumers around the research site.