WP NON WP Techniques to Translate the Wordplay in The Lego Movie
Datum number 1 This conversation takes place in the first scene of the movie. The story
begins when Lord Business comes to Vitruvius’ castle and he is about to destroy Master Builders’ kingdom. Vitruvius has a feeling that Lord Business will come
to destroy his castle. Vitruvius hides Kragle and Lord Business took it from him. Therefore, the whole story is about eight years later after Lord Business takes
Kragle away from Vitruvius. When Lord Business is on the way to Vitruvius’ castle, Vitruvius tell his guards to protect them because the enemy is about to
come. He uses the phrase ‘cover your butt’ in order to tell his guard to save them. The way Vitruvius tells his guard to save themselves creates a humorous effect. It
can be said that Vitruvius’ sentence contains wordplay because he uses the phrase ‘your butt’ instead of just saying ‘cover yourself’ to his guard.
As seen in the target text, the translator does not recreate the wordplay in the target text. When it is translated into Bahasa Indonesia, the phrase ‘cover your
butt’ turns into ‘lindungi diri kalian’ by the translator. It seems that the translator knows the meaning of the phrase, but, instead of confusing the audience, the
translator chooses to translate it literal meaning and phrase that contains wordplay is deleted. If the phrase is translated in literal meaning but the wordplay is forced
to be maintained, the result of the translation would be ‘tutuplah bokong kalian’, which is not related to the purpose of the sentence. In other word, the meaning of
the message could not be delivered. However, if the translation of the source text is based on the message of the sentence said by the speaker, which is ‘lindungi
diri kalian’, the meaning of the sentence would be delivered correctly although
the wordplay is not recreated. Hence, the audience also can understand the meaning of the sentence in Bahasa Indonesia.
Meanwhile, literal translation may leads to the mistranslation of wordplaythat is based on paronymy wordplay. As seen in the datum below,
paronymy wordplay in sourcetext becomes unrelated in the target text.
ST Wyldstyle: Hold on We need to meet up with Vitruvius and tell him the
Piece has been found. Emmet Brickowoski: Uh-huh.
Bad Cop: Caught up with them on a rail. Release the Copper Choppers
TT Wyldstyle: berpeganglah Kita harus bertemu dengan Virtuvius dan
mengatakan padanya bahwa kelompok perlawanan telah ditemukan. Emmet Brickowoski: A-ha.
Bad Cop: jatuhkan pada rel tunggal itu. Polisi akan menghalanginya.
Datum number 9 In the datum above the word ‘copper choppers’ refers to a very big
motorbike driven by Bad Cop’s team in the movie. The phrase ‘copper choppers’ itself is termed as paronymy because the phrase is actually derived from copper
choppers as a special edition of motorbike Lego bricks in Lego toys. In this movie, ‘copper choppers’ is described as a very big motorbike whose driven by a
police. When Bad Cop says ‘release the Copper Choppers’ it means that he wants to release his weapons, which is ‘Copper Choppers’ to catch Emmet. However, in
this movie, ‘Copper Choppers’ refers a motorbike driven by a police, which is one of Bad Cop’s team, in a fast speed to caught Emmet.
The result of the translation in the target text is somehow confusing. It can be seen that the meaning of the sentence in the source text and in the target text is
not fully equivalent. The message of the sentence in the source text is that Bad Cop asked his team to release the ‘Copper Choppers’ to caught Emmet. However,
after it is translated into Bahasa Indonesia, the meaning is different from the source text. In Bahasa Indonesia, the sentence the sentence turned into ‘polisi
akan menghalanginya’. The meaning of the target text is very different from the source text because in the target text Bad Cop only said that ‘police will cover up’
not asking to release the ‘Copper Choppers’. There are two intriguing problems that can be discussed in this result of
translation. First, even the translator gave a result of translation to the target text differently from the target text in terms of meaning, the message of the sentence is
delivered correctly. In the source text Bad Cop asked to ‘release the Copper Choppers’ and in the target text the meaning of the sentence would be ‘police will
cover up’ which means the translator replaced the phrase Copper Choppers into police. As seen in both of the sentences in target text and source text, the message
of the sentences are similar; a police that drove Copper Choppers was about to caught Emmet. Second, in the target text, the translator did not translate ‘Copper
Choppers’ into other wordplay meaning. Instead, the translator only replaced the phrase ‘Copper Choppers’ into ‘police’, which is still related to ‘Copper
Choppers’ that also derived from the word ‘cop’. The reason that the translator did not translate the phrase might be because it is hard to find other words that are
related to ‘Copper Choppers’ but still contain wordplay.
Another wordplay that is translated in literal meaning by the translator is found in this datum. The example comes from idiomatic expression that is
translated into non-idiomatic expression by the translator.
ST Wyldstyle: Wait. Whats your favorite restaurant
Emmet Brickowoski: Any chain restaurant. Wyldstyle: Favorite TV show?
Emmet Brickowoski: Where are my pants. Wyldstyle: Favorite song?
Emmet Brickowoski: Everything is Awesome Wyldstyle: Oh, no
Bad Cop: Darn, darn, darn, darny-darn
TT Wyldstyle: Tunggu, apa restoran favoritmu?
Emmet Brickowoski: Restoran apapun. Wyldstyle: Acara tv favoritmu?
Emmet Brickowoski: Dimana celana dalamku?” Wyldstyle: Lagu favoritmu?
Emmet Brickowoski: Semuanya Keren Wyldstyle: Oh, tidak
Bad Cop: Tidak, tidak, kau tidak boleh mati
Datum number 10 Bad Cop is failed to caught Emmet because Emmet suddenly go through a
wall and he does not have an access to go inside the wall. His team also fails to caught Emmet because Emmet drives his vehicle very fast and none of them can
beat his vehicle with their own Copper Choppers. After that, Bad Cop becomes very angry because he fails to make done his mission to caught Emmet. He is very
angry that he kicks anything around him. He also kicks his polices and he said ‘darn, darn, darn, darny-darn’ to express his anger.
The word ‘darn’ said by Bad Cop is actually derived from ‘damn’. It is a common idiomatic expression, sometimes can be said as a swearing word, among
people with English as a native language. The word ‘darn’ is a politer way to say ‘damn’ since ‘damn’ is somehow can be a negative word to say if it is addressed
for kids. The word ‘darn’ itself is to represent his anger to other polices because he could not caught Emmet and his team also could not caught them even the
amount of his team is many. When the word ‘darn’ is translated into Bahasa Indonesia, the idiomatic
expression is not recreated in the target text. It seems that the translator has known that the word ‘darn’ is related into swearing words, and since this movie is
addressed for kids below 16, the swearing word is deleted and hshe replaces the word ‘darn’ into ‘tidak’. The result of the translation would be ‘tidak, tidak, kau
tidak boleh mati’. Nevertheless, if the translator wants the word ‘darn’ to be translated into Bahasa Indonesia with maintaining the wordplay, it would be hard
to find the right related word refered to ‘darn’. The translator could only translated into ‘sial’ as it is the meaning of ‘darn’ in literal meaning, but if the whole words
are translated into Bahasa Indonesia, the result of the translation would be non- sense. The word ‘sial’ also seems a little harsh for kids because it represents a
disapointment and can refer to a swearing word. Hence, it is the right choice for the translator to use ‘tidak, tidak, kau tidak boleh mati’ as the result of translation
in the target text to translate the word ‘darn, darn, darn, darny-darn’.