Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

English is, of course, only one of the many languages, perhaps as many as three thousands, which are spoken today. 1 In Indonesia, English is studied and becomes one of the subject matters taught at school. Since 1994, English has been decided as one of the local-content subject at the elementary school in fourth, fifth and sixth year. 2 It is considered as the first foreign language and becomes a compulsory subject learned by students from elementary school up to the university. 3 Learning English is mastering four basic skills of English, namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Speaking is a really important skill because it is used to communicate. Speaking English as a foreign language is not as easy as ABC for a great number of students in Indonesia. Nevertheless, they keep trying to speak up their minds by translating the sentences word for word with limited grammatical knowledge they have. For instance, in the Indonesian culture when they wanted to go home and left from an occasion or a meeting they would say ‘I’m first…’ saya duluan ya…. It might be acceptable to some Indonesian for they totally understand what it means, but not at the international communication level. For spoken English people, that statement means something else like 1 W. Nelson Francis, The English Language An Introduction, New York: W.W Norton Company. NC, 1965, P.1 2 Anonymous, Kurikulum Muatan Lokal untuk sekolah dasar, Jakarta: Depdibud, 1994, P.30 3 Anonymous, “Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris perlu diperbaharui”, Kedaulatan Rakyat, http:222.124.164.132webdetail.php?sid=159835=38 . Accesed on June 13, 2008. 1 ‘the first thing’ and it may mislead their communication. Instead, for the same purpose, native speakers usually say ‘Ok, see you around…’, or ‘I’m leaving’ and so on. One of translating problems is finding lexical equivalents of a word or a phrase or an expression that has unknown concept in the target language modulation. It is because, in the target language English, there is no equal lexical term which can be used to re-express the message contained in the word or phrase or expression from the source text Bahasa Indonesia. That the concept of the source text does not have a lexical equivalence in the target language is probably because of the difference of view point, custom, geography, belief, or other factors. The difficulty level in translating process increases for Indonesian speakers when the source language is unfamiliar or unknown in the receptor language. In this situation, Larson said that a translator is supposed to find the best method not only to refer to something which has become a part of the target language but also to reveal the concept which is absolutely new for English native speakers 4 . Speaking English shall be easier if the speakers simply use popular English expressions to represent their ideas rather than forcedly translate their Indonesian sentences word for word, by all means, the speakers should well understand the culture of both languages. It is because some language patterns in Indonesian and English are pretty different as well as the culture of both languages and the language style of every single 4 Larsen. Mildred, Meaninng-Based Translation. A Guide to cross Language Equivalence.Lanham :University Press of America,1984, p.163 2 person. A. Widyamartaya said that translating is not only expressing the meaning of language but also expressing the style of language 5 . Generally, people tend to assume that someone who has learned and had a skill in using a foreign language will be able to translate the language. By all means, this opinion is not entirely true. Translating is not a simple work as translators need to keep improving not only their linguistic knowledge but also sociolinguistic horizon. Perhaps, it would be great if the students could watch and understand how the native speakers for example start a conversation or dismiss a meeting so that they could be away easier to choose the most proper expressions which could precisely represent their ideas and of course can be widely understood. Consequently, speakers of English as a foreign language should make their translation meaningfully accurate and should adjust the lexical and grammatical form in the target language in order to produce the most appropriate language equivalence. 6

B. Focus of the Study