CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 The Understanding of Translation
This thesis talks about the grammatical unit shifts in a translation work in the case of the translation from English to Bahasa Indonesia, so the writer wants
to explain about translation in brief first.
2.1.1 Definition of Translation
According to Manser 1996:441, translation is the activity of changing something spoken or written into another language. It means that whatever we are
doing with something e.g. information, idea, when changed into another language is called translation. Next we will see some other definitions stated by
some linguists. Nida and Taber 1974 : 12 state that translating consists of reproducing
in the receptor language RL the closest natural equivalent of the source language SL message, first in terms of meaning, and secondly in terms of style. Here, we
know that in reproducing the message there is a good relationship between RL and SL that should be equivalent.
Catford 1965:1 defines that translation is an operation performed on languages: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another.
The writer assumes that all of the activities of transferring a text from one language to another are called translation.
Larson 1984:1 states that translation consists of studying the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation, and cultural context of the SL
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text, analyzing it in order to determine its meaning, then reconstructing the same meaning using the lexicon and grammatical structure which appropriate in the RL
and its cultural context. Larson also says that translation has three steps; they are studying the source text, analyzing it and reconstructing the meaning.
Newmark 1988:28 says that translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. In short, the
meaning of a text should be the same with the author’s aim when it is translated. Yusuf 1994 :8 says that “terjemahan dapat diartikan sebagai semua
kegiatan manusia dalam mengalihkan seperangkat informasi atau pesan baik verbal maupun non-verbal- dari informasi asal atau informasi sumber ke dalam
informasi sasaran” translation can be defined as all of human activities in transferring information or message-verbal or non-verbal- from original
information into target information. It means that when we transfer information from one source to another then we do translation.
Simatupang 1999:2 defines translation as “menerjemah adalah mengalihkan makna yang terdapat dalam bahasa sumber ke dalam bahasa sasaran
dan mewujudkannya kembali di dalam bahasa sasaran dengan bentuk-bentuk sewajar mungkin menurut aturan-aturan yang berlaku dalam bahasa sasaran”
translating is transferring the meaning of SL into RL and rewaken it in RL with natural forms that follow the valid rules in RL. It means that translation is closer
to the meaning than the style form but translation should follow the rules of target language.
From the definitions above, the writer may say that translation is defined as the process of transferring the idea or information from the source language to
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the target language. For instance, when a teacher explains his idea to the students, he does a translation activity, i.e. he transfers the idea the material of the lessons
from his mind to the students by using language that can be understood by them. In short, in wider meaning translation is the process of transferring the meaning of
the idea, verbally and non-verbally from one to another. The RL reader’s response to the translation work has to be the same with
the SL reader’s response to the original text itself. Actually, the response of the SL and the RL readers will never be identical because the difference in both
readers cultural and historical settings. The following example shows how a translation work makes the different response we put our head together. If the
sentence is translated into Bahasa Indonesia as kami meletakkan kepala kami bersama-sama, the response or idea is different from English. In other words, the
response of the English people and Indonesian people is not the same. The response or understanding will be the same if it is translated as bermusyawarah.
The same response between the source and receptor readers can reach the goal if the message expressed as natural as possible in the RL.
From all of the explanations above, the writer assumes that there are four important elements in translation. They are: source language, text, equivalence,
and receptor language. Source language is the original language of a work that is used by its author to assert his idea. Text is the material of a work that will be
translated. Equivalence is the suitable form whether in meaning and style. While receptor language is the aim language that has been translated from the SL.
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2.1.2 The Kinds of Translation
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