Focus of the Research

B. Focus of the Research

Film is one of many ways to learn English. Through films we can learn not only the language, but also the country and people‟s customs, manners, tradition, etc. There are conversations in films that can reflect or represent their daily lives, besides the movement or the setting. Conversation or dialog in films is one of the most important things. By observing the dialog, we can know about all of those things above. Of course, the source to “dig” deeper to their culture through film is not only by learning from their dialog, but still dialog can be a great helper if you want to learn about their culture. One of the best ways to learn by observing the dialog is through subtitle. By reading the subtitle, you can understand what the actor said. There are so many subtitles that are provided in any variations and languages in the world that you can easily get from the internet. Using the English subtitle while you watch the film is best, but if you cannot do that yet, you can use the Indonesian one. If you use the English, you will get used to their daily speech, how they arrange a sentence on particular purpose, the grammar, etc. Tropic Thunder is a 2008 American action comedy film co-written, co- produced, directed by, and co-starring Ben Stiller. The film also co-stars Robert Downey, Jr. and Jack Black. The story is about Ben Stillers satirical look at Hollywood, Tropic Thunder concerns the production of an epic Vietnam War film that quickly derails thanks to the giant egos of everyone involved in the production. The film was casted by Stiller stars as Tugg Speedman, he was an action hero trying to surge out of that genre. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a drug-addicted fat comic also attempting to change his image by taking on such a serious film. They star alongside Kirk Lazarus Robert Downey Jr., one of the worlds most awarded actors, and a man who insists on immersing himself totally in a role. In this case, that means Lazarus has had his skin dyed in order to portray an African-American soldier. Brandon T Jackson played as Alpa Chino, a rapper that promoting his drink product. Steve Coogan acted as Damien Cockburn, the director of the movie, and there was Tom Cruise played as Les Grossman. The movie started in the making of Tropic Thunder, a book written by Vietnam War veteran, John “Four Leaf” Tayback, into a movie. The problem arose when rookie Director, Damien Cockburn could not control the actors who behave on their own way and the movie could not follow the initial schedule. The production was reported to be in one month behind schedule in the initial shooting. The producer, Les Grossman, got angry and ordered Cockburn to get the filming back into the track or he would cancel the filming. Follow advice from Four Leaf, Damien dropped the actors into the middle of the jungle, with hidden cameras and rigged special effects explosions to film guerrilla-style. The actors were given fake guns and a map which would lead them to the place where they would be picked by helicopter to the hotel and that would be the end of the filming. The map was given to Tugg as the leading actor, who suddenly behave like he was the leader of the group. Damien, incidentally, walked into an active landmine and died instantly. Most of the group believed that he was hiding and the blow was a visual effect. Then, the group met the real drugs dealer who thought that the actors are real American soldiers who came to catch them. The actors did not know the fact they dropped in the middle of Golden Triangle, where drug dealer named Flaming Dragon had its home base operation built in it. The actors started firing the drug dealers, thought that they were still filming and successfully drove the drugs dealer away thanks to the help of explosion effect that were set beforehand. When Four Leaf and pyrotechnics operator Cody Underwood tried to locate the dead director, they were captured by Flaming Dragon, it was time when Four Leaf revealed that he did not lost his arms in the war. As the actors continued through the jungle, Kirk and Kevin discover that Tugg was leading them in the wrong direction. Then, the rest of actors took the map from Tugg and left him alone to the direction which he thought the right one. Unfortunately, he was captured by Flaming Dragon and brought to their heroin factory, which he thought it was the POW camp from the movie. Kirk, Alpa, Jeff, and Kevin unintentionally discovered Flaming Dragons heroin factory. After seeing Tugg being tortured, they planned a rescue attempt based on the films script. Kirk disguised as a farmer towing a captured Jeff on the back of a water buffalo, distracting the armed guards so Alpa and Kevin could locate Tugg. After the gang noticed a hole in Kirks story, the actors open fire, temporarily subduing them. When the gang realized they were being guarded by actors, they gathered their guns and began firing. The four actors located Tugg, Four Leaf, and Cody, and they crossed a bridge rigged to explode to get to their helicopter. Tugg asked to remain behind with the gang which he considers his family and fans but quickly returned when Flaming Dragon firing him. Four Leaf detonated the bridge allowing Tugg to reach safety, but as the helicopter took off, the gang fired an RPG at the helicopter. Rick unexpectedly came out of the jungle carrying a TiVo box and throws it in the path of the RPG, saving them. The crew returned to Hollywood, where footage from the hidden cameras was compiled into a feature film, Tropic Blunder , which became a major critical and box office hit. The film made Tugg won his first Academy Award, which Kirk presented to him at the ceremony and all of the actors presented as the audience. The first reason why the researcher chose the film is that the film has received many good appreciations and it has many famous actors playing in it. The second reason is that the detail plot of the film. The theme of the film is interesting because it consists of social critics about filming in Hollywood. The critics are wrapped with action-comedy on the film. The last is, researcher found many slang expressions that are used in dialogue in the films. The slang that is found in the film is a kind of slang words that are unique according to researcher and it gives a challenge to translate it. The researcher limits the source of data only on the use of slang language. The translator should use many techniques when translating the original text. Still, there are possibilities that the translation lost or lack some accuracy and naturalness in the Target Language TL. According to the researcher, the power of the film is in the dialog and the acting of the actors and actress. The acting can be seen when the viewers watch the film. The dialog has to be translated according to t he viewers‟ need. The dialog is originally in English. If the viewers understand English well, they can understand well the dialogs that appear during the film. Problem will arise if the viewers do not understand English; they have to use their native language subtitle in order to understand the film. The problem arises when the subtitle does not match the accuracy and naturalness that the English subtitle has. Lost meaning can appear because of the techniques that the translator used when he translated the subtitle. This research is held in order to measure the accuracy and naturalness of slang language translation in the subtitle and the techniques that the translator used. The reason why the researcher chooses only accuracy and naturalness is because the researcher thought these two factors are the most important aspect in Translation Quality Assessment. Accuracy dealt with the meaning between SL and TL. It means how far the meaning on the TL matches the original form on the SL. Then, naturalness deals wit h how the translation “tastes” like the TL. It means how the native of the TL understand the translation as they understand if it is a literature in their own language, not a literature written in foreign language and be translated. Based on the background and the focus of the research above, the formulation of problems in this research can be stated as follows: 1. How are the accuracy of meaning represented in the Bahasa Indonesia subtitling expressions of the English slang expressions of Tropic Thunder movie texts? 2. How are the naturalness of expression represented in the Bahasa Indonesia subtitling expressions of the English slang expressions of Tropic Thunder movie texts?

C. Research Objectives