45 Since there were thousand combinations of verbs and prepositions which had each
own meaning, it was impossible for the students to know the whole meanings out of them.
However, students could learn to avoid this kind of translation mistakes by making an effort to memorize the commonly used phrasal verbs, as it is suggested
by Ghazala 1995, “they are able to know and memorize the most important combinations of the common widely used phrasal verbs” p. 137. Additionally,
idioms were fixed phrases that required the students the translate carefully. Students had to carefully consider the context and actively check idioms in good
dictionaries.
2. Complicated Source Language Grammar
When the students were translating the source language text into Indonesian, they had to deal with grammar. Grammatical problems of translating
English as the SLT into Indonesia as the TLT are various, translations of verbs, modal verbs, adjectives, tenses, gerund, or word order, for instance. English and
Indonesian have each different grammar. In this section, the researcher discusses how the complicated source language grammar made the students translate the
text meaningly incorrect. In other words, the the result of the students’ translation did not give the intended meaning. Here is the first example of complicated source
language grammar problems.
46 Original Source Language Text
3
Paper 8
In this complex sentence, student encountered a confusion in translating
the noun clause the economic, social and cultural attributes and opportunities associated with being a woman or a man. This clause had a head word
attributes and opportunities, which was modified by the adjective economic, social and cultural, and then associated with came as the subject modifier. This
complexity made the student confused that eventually he or she separated the
subject into cultural attributes and opportunities.
Furthermore, the student also had a problem with the past participle
associated with, which he or she tried to omit and replace it with the word untuk menjadi. The Indonesian meaning did not have anything to do with kesempatan
untuk menjadi seorang wanita atau pria. The sentence tried to say that istilah gender mengacu pada permasalahan dan peluang ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya,
terkait menjadi wanita atau pria. Here is the second example of complicated
source language grammar problems. Original Source Language Text
3 The term gender refers to the economic, social and cultural attributes and
opportunities associated with being a woman or a man.
Istilah gender mengacu pada masalah ekonomi, sosial, dan kebudayaan, juga kesempatan untuk menjadi seorang wanita atau pria.
In most societies, being a woman or girl, man or boy means facing different expectations due to socially assigned roles which we learn as we grow up. It is
about who has power to make decisions and constraints of women, men, girls and boys.
47 Paper 11
3
This is another complicated grammar that the students found in translating the source language text. This translated sentence showed that the complex
sentences led the student into confusion in determining the head word of each
clause. The original source language text said facing different expectations, but the student translated it into menghadapi beberapa perbedaan sosial. This
mistake could probably occur because of the presence of the past participle
socially assigned roles, of which the student regarded it as an object.
All of these complexities then made the student become more confused in
relating one sentence to the next sentence. The word it in the sentence It is about who has power to make decisions and constraints ... should be referring to
socially assigned roles Instead, the student referred the word it to kedewasaan .
This problem made the sentences become incoherent and possibly created different or even wrong intended meaning. Here is the third example of
complicated source language grammar problems. Original Source Language Text
3 4
Kebanyakan masyarakat, menjadi seorang wanita atau perempuan, seorang pria atau laki-laki berarti harus menghadapi beberapa perbedaan sosial yang
dipelajari seiring dengan bertambahnya kedewasaan kita. Kedewasaan itu sendiri mempengaruhi kita dalam membuat keputusan dan mengatur sumber
penghasilan yang ada.
Historically, it has included a heavy emphasis on addressing women’s needs and circumtances as they are typically more disadvantaged than men.
Increasingly however, the humanitarian community is recognising the need to know more about what men and boys face in crisis situation.
48 Paper 1
Another complicated source language grammar was found when the students were translating conjunctions or sentence connectors. As Ghazala 1995
stated, “it is hard to imagine in a text or two or more sentences without some conjunctions used to connect its parts with one another” p. 72. It meant that a
sentence connector is important to relate one sentence to another. However, if the sentence connector is irrelevant to the sentences, the meaning of the sentences
could be different and difficult to comprehend. The student who worked on translation task as displayed in Paper 1
encountered problem when translating the conjunction increasingly however.
Those two sentences of the original text try to say that there is a gender problem on which women are more disadvantaged than man, but, eventually the
humanitarian community is improving the capabilities in solving the issue. In this
case, the student was not aware that the conjunction increasingly however tried
to give the opposite side between the previous and the following sentence. The
student translated increasingly however into ditambah lagi instead of meskipun demikian. This misunderstanding way in translating the sentence created a
different meaning which coulf make the target readers difficult to comprehend. Secara historis, hal itu sudah termasuk penekanan yang berat dalam
menangani kebutuhan wanita dan kenyataan mereka lebih cenderung dirugikan ketimbang pria. Ditambah lagi lembaga kemanusiaan lebih
mengetahui apa yang pria dan laki-laki butuhkan dalam menghadapi situasi genting.
49
3. Collocations
