TRANSLATION PROBLEMS FACED BY THE ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT STUDENT OF UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA BATCH 2013 IN TRANSLATING NARRATIVE TEXT
Translation Problems Faced by the English Education Department Student
of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Batch 2013 in Translating
Narrative Text
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Mardiana Harahap
20120540059
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
August 2016
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Acknowledgement
First of all, all praises be to Allah who give me mercy, blessing, strength
and love in accomplishing my skripsi writing and make this all possible.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to my beloved parents for their
forebearance and moral support, for always loving me. I dedicate this skripsi to
you my beloved father Usman Harahap and my beloved mother Linda Munthe. I
love you so much Ayah, Mamak. Thanks for your prayers and everything that you
have given to me for my whole life. I greatly indebted to my beloved brothers and
sisters, Siti Herlina, Syska Elida, Riswan and Salamat Gozali who always advice
and support me and never get tired of encouraging me.
Special gratitude belongs to my beloved supervisor, Mr. Gendroyono
S.Pd. M.Pd., for supporting, guiding and helping me in finishing this skripsi
writing. Thanks for the valuable feedback, motivation and nice supervising. I also
thank to my examiners, Mrs. Sri Sudarsih S.S, M.InT and Mrs. Maryam Sorohiti
S.S., M.H.Sc for all suggestions and valuable comments to improve my skripsi
writing. I also place my thanks to all lecturers of English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, for teaching and guiding me during my
study in this faculty. I take this opportunity to record our sincere thanks to all the
faculty member for their helps during my study and during my preparation of the
graduation.
I am grateful to the respondents of this study, my brothers and sisters in
EED of 2013. Thank you for providing me the time and valuable information. I
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am also grateful to my beloved friends in “Kongkowers” who help and motivate
me friend Suriyana, Riza Indriyastanti, Evita, April, Ghais, Nopa and Risna. I also
thank to my friend Lalu Radi Myarta for the great guidance, support and
motivation. Thanks for this friendship and togetherness and keep motivating each
other.
Sincerely, I am also grateful to my big family who gives me a valuable
chance to work with a wonderful team in Dapur Kamila Resto. Thanks for
believing and advising me. Thanks to my great team who always stay with me
having some laugh in all situation. I cannot mention your all names. See you on
top guys.
I also place on record, my sense of gratitude to one and all who, directly
and indirectly have helped me, supported me in this venture. I am extremely
grateful to have you all.
Mardiana Harahap
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Table of Contents
Cover ........................................................................................................................ i
Approval Sheet ........................................................................................................ ii
Statement of Authenticity ...................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgement.................................................................................................. iv
Table of Content ..................................................................................................... vi
Abstract ....................................................................................................................1
Chapter One : Introduction ..................................................................................2
Background of the Study ......................................................................................2
Statement of the Problem .....................................................................................5
Limitation of the Problem ....................................................................................6
Formulation of the Problem..................................................................................6
Objective of the Study ..........................................................................................6
Significance of the Study......................................................................................6
For Students ......................................................................................................6
For Translators ..................................................................................................7
For Translation Teacher ....................................................................................7
For Future Researcher.......................................................................................7
Outline of the Study..............................................................................................7
Chapter Two : Literature Review ........................................................................9
Translation ............................................................................................................9
Definition of Translation ..................................................................................9
The Process of Translation .............................................................................12
Analysis ......................................................................................................13
Transfer .....................................................................................................13
Restructure ................................................................................................13
Types of Translation .......................................................................................14
Intralingual Translation ..............................................................................14
Interlingual Translation ..............................................................................14
Intersemiotic Translation ...........................................................................15
Form-based Translation .............................................................................15
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Meaning-based Translation ........................................................................16
The Benefit of Translation Activities .............................................................16
The Problems in Translating the Text ............................................................16
Definition of Problem ...............................................................................16
Linguistic Problem ....................................................................................17
Lexical ...........................................................................................17
Semantical .....................................................................................17
Grammatical ..................................................................................18
Textual ...........................................................................................19
Contextual .....................................................................................19
Narrative Text .................................................................................................20
Definition of Narrative Text ......................................................................20
Structure of Narrative Text .......................................................................20
Language Feature of Narrative Text .........................................................21
Review of Related Study ................................................................................21
Conceptual Framework ...................................................................................23
Chapter Three : Methodology.............................................................................25
Design of the Research ......................................................................................25
Setting of the Research ......................................................................................26
Participant of the Research ................................................................................27
Data Collection Method ....................................................................................28
Analysis of the Data ..........................................................................................29
Chapter Four : Finding and Discussion .............................................................30
Finding 1 ............................................................................................................30
Finding 2 ............................................................................................................31
Finding 3 ............................................................................................................33
Finding 4 ............................................................................................................36
Finding 5 ............................................................................................................38
Chapter Five : Conclusion and Recommendation ............................................41
Conclusion .........................................................................................................41
Recommendation ...............................................................................................42
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For Students ..............................................................................................42
For Translators ..........................................................................................42
For Translator Teachers .............................................................................42
For Future Researchers ..............................................................................42
References ..............................................................................................................45
Appendixes ............................................................................................................49
Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................49
Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................51
Appendix 3 ............................................................................................................82
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1
Abstract
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
conducts translation class which aims to lead the students in translation and giving
them the basic knowledge of translation. However, the students face many
problems in translation especially in linguistic problems. This study aimed to
know the student's linguistic difficulties in translating a narrative text. Data were
collected from five students of batch 2013 and they were selected from the fourth
year of the English Education Department undergraduate students. To gather the
data, the researcher applied interview. Specifically, the data were analyzed using
three steps coding which were open, axial and selective coding. Subsequently, the
researcher applied descriptive qualitative to explain the result of data.
The data collected showed that there were five categories of the linguistic
problems faced by the students in translating narrative text namely lexical which
concerns about the vocabulary, semantical which concerns about the meaning and
the diction, grammatical concerns with the sentences rule, textual which concerns
about the writing and the sentence organization and contextual which concerns
about the background of the text.
Keywords: translation, linguistic problem, narrative text
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Chapter One
Introduction
This first part of this research presents an introduction that is about the
background of the study, statements of the problem, limitation of the problem,
formulation of the problem, objective of the study and the significance of the study.
The outline of the study is also presented in this chapter.
Background of the Study
Translation was significant for educational purpose. As Kaminskienë and
Kavaliauskienë (2007) argued that translation is the fifth skill alongside listening,
speaking, reading and writing skill. They argued that translation can assist the
students to be an active English usage and it could develop their skills. Therefore,
translators have to consider the meaning when translating a text especially when the
text was used in teaching and learning process.
Most of the translator faced many problems in translating, thus the most
problematic is culture and linguistic. As expressed by Nida and Taber (1986) that
translation is often accompanied by many problems that may be a result of the
differences in both languages or differences in the cultures represented by them.
Hoewever, many research conducted to find the translation problems. The first
problem which encountered by the students was the cultural problem. It strengthened
by Elyildirim (2013) who stated that translating cultural concept is one of the serious
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problems for Turkish's English learner. There were some words which were difficult
to translate such as the term City of London. This term is used to describe London as
the whole city and the city center, but not to describe the financial of London. He
further argued that the student has inadequate cultural knowledge about the target
language. His argument was supported by Sdobnikov (2011), Abbasi, Zadeh, Janfaza
and Dehghan (2012), Li (2014) and Samantaray (2015). They investigated that
translation problem mostly resulted or arisen from the collision of source language
and target language cultures as well.
The second problem was finding the equivalence between source text and the
target text Arffman (2007). Finding the equivalence between source text and the
target text was quite crucial. The target reader could not comprehend the message of
the text if the translator did not find the similar meaning of the text. Therefore, not
only finding the meaning but also organizing the structure or the utterance. The
structure of each language was different, and then the translator needed to find the
equivalent and appropriate structure to construct a comprehensive message for the
target reader. Those arguments was strengthened by Panou’s journal. He argued that
discovering the target language closest equivalent was complicated (Panou, 2013).
The third problem was the linguistic problem. The translator might have many
problems in terms of linguistic as supported by Wong and Shen (1999). They stated
that each language has its own grammatical rule or structure such as Indian people
might organize an interrogative sentence differently with the Australian. Al-Nakhalah
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(2013) as well stated the students or translators commonly felt difficult in identifying
the lexical and semantic collocation since one lexical may have more than one
semantic. Those problems could be the main difficulties in translation.
As mentioned above concerning the skill, ability and problems in translation,
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta held
translation class. In the sixth semester, the students of EED took that course which
consists of translating text from Indonesian into English and vice versa. The subject
aimed at creating the students to be a good translator and at least knowing the basic
knowledge of translation. Hence, English Education held translation class once in
their study from the first until the last semester. It did not continuously apply as like
another subject that was regularly reviewed in each semester such as grammar,
reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The students stated that they are a lack of
practice in translating the text since they only practiced translating the sentences
during the class. It would be different if they are asked to translate the text which its
cohesion should be considered. They argued that translation need more practice to
have a good result since translation skill cannot be achieved automatically or
magically.
Then, the final project for translation class was translating a Narrative text.
The students were asked to translate two Narrative texts which were Indonesian –
English and English – Indonesian. When translating Narrative text some students
found it difficult to arrange the text into a good structure and comprehensible
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meaning for the target text. Some of the students actually translated the text literally
without considering the equivalent meaning of some words. They did so since the
vocabularies used were not familiar with them. So, their statements showed that they
mostly faced linguistic problems in translation. This was the reason why did the
researcher choose narrative text.
English Education Department was a new department which is mainly
produced qualified teachers every year. Therefore, they also could be a translator
since they have learned translation technique or at least the teachers know the basic
knowledge in translation. However, there were limited research and sources
concerning to the translation. Based on the above issues, the researcher was interested
in conducting research on "Linguistic Problems Faced by the English Education
Department Students of UMY Batch 2013 in Translating Narrative Text".
Statement of the Problem
English Education Department students have learned translation in the sixth
semester. They have learned from the basic translation such as the translation
technique and procedure. They have practiced translating the sentences and text of
Narrative. English Education Department students face some problems in translation
that explained by Wong & Shen (1999). They classified the problems into three types
which are linguistic, culture and personal problem. Linguistic problems included
lexical, semantic, grammatical textual and contextual problems. Cultural problem was
the second problem such as intercultural and intra-cultural which discussed the
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specific expression, political interference, the regions differences of a country and
style period/time period. The last problem was personal problems which expressed
the translator competence while doing the translation and personal attitude toward the
target reader or the reader's need. Based on the researcher observation, the students
commonly felt difficult in identifying the grammar and finding the appropriate word
to use in the target text. To identify the students' problems in translating Narrative
Text, it was important to conduct a study related to the translation problems.
Limitation of the Problem
Translation problems comprised a lot of areas to be studied. Many studies
have been conducted in some areas such as cultural problems and linguistic problems.
This research, however, focused on finding out the linguistic problems in translating
Narrative Text. This research was conducted in PBI UMY and the participants were
the students who have joined translation class batch 2013.
Formulation of the Problem
In order to find out the problems or difficulties in translating Narrative Text,
the researcher designed question. It was stated in the statement below: what are the
linguistic problems faced by the English Education Department students batch 2013
in translating Narrative Text?
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Objective of the Study
The aim of this research was to find out the linguistic difficulties encountered
by the students of English Education Department UMY in translating Narrative Text.
Significance of the Study
After finding the linguistic problems in translating Narrative text, this
research gave some benefits:
For students. This research was expected to give knowledge to the students
on the diverse problems in linguistic. The students could find the issues in translating
Narrative Text. They could use this research as their guidance or assistance when
translating Narrative Text.
For translators. It could give the further understanding about the difficulties
in translation so they can expect the problems. Hence, this research could be used as
their evaluation to create better translation result.
For translation teacher. It could be used as the material comment or
additional material in educating and teaching the students to improve the learning
success in translation.
Future researcher. This research could be their reference when doing the
research since this study offers further information or evidences which were related to
the translation difficulties.
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Outline of the Study
This study consisted of five chapters. The first chapter focuses on the
background of the study which described the research context, problems and the
responds, statement, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problem, objective
of the study, significance of the study and outline of the study. The second chapter
discusses the literature review of the title which consisted of the translation and
narrative text explanation and conceptual framework. This chapter helped the
researcher to find many references and gave the further understanding about the
difficulties in translation. The third chapter talked about the design of the research
used by the researcher, research setting, participants, data collection method and
analysis of the data. The researcher applied interview to obtain the data. The result of
the research was discussed in the fourth chapter which talked about the finding and
the research discussion. This chapter focused on the result of the data collected. The
last chapter discussed the conclusion of the research which answered the research
question. Therefore, the researcher also suggested some recommendation for the
students, translator, translation teacher, and the future researcher.
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Chapter Two
Literature Review
Literature review contains theories from the books or experts which are
closely related to the research. The theory is needed to help and support the
researcher during analyzing the data. The literature discusses translation and narrative
text. The points encompass definition of translation, translation types, translation
processes, problems in translation, definition of narrative text, structure and the
language feature of the narrative text. The conceptual framework is also presented in
this chapter.
Translation
In this part, the researcher explained more about translation followed by some
theorist from the experts. The discussion were about the definition of translation, the
process of translation, types of translation and the benefits of translation activities.
Definition of Translation. Many experts defined the word translation into
many variations. The experts are mostly from the linguistic field and their
definition based on point of view. They have their own opinion in defining
translation but the whole opinions have the same core idea. Munday (2001)
defined the translation generally. He says that "translation can be the universal
subject field, the creation (the text which has been transformed into target
language) or the process (the action of producing the translation, which is
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known as translating)". He mentioned that translation can be the process of
transforming a source text (ST) into target text (TT) and the result of the
translating which is the text has been translated. Another scholar who defined
the translation as the process was Lilova (1985). He stated that translation was
oral or written activity aimed at the recreation of an oral or written text
(utterance) existing in one language into a text in another language,
accompanied by keeping the invariance of content, qualities of the original
and author's authenticity. Therefore, Hatim and Munday (2004, p.6) further
stated that translation was "the process of transferring a written text from
source language (SL) into the target language (TL)". In this definition, they
stated the translation as the process. In this case, translators were faced with
text as the unit of meaning in the form of sets of words or sentences. This
meant that language which was used was the unit of meaning which could be
understood by the readers or participants.
There were another definition given by Newmark (1988). He defined
translation as "rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the
way that the author intended the text"(p.5). This definition stressed on
rendering the meaning of the source language text into the target language text
as what was intended by the author. He explicitly expressed the object being
translated is message or meaning. Another scholar (Samantaray, 2015) said
that translation was an effort of discovering the similar meaning of a text into
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the target language. Furthermore, Nida and Taber (1982) argued that
translating consist of reproducing the target language with the closest, natural
and equivalent source language meaning. This definition was more
comprehensive than the previous one. It was necessary to understand the exact
meaning of "equivalent". According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's
Dictionary, 2008), "equivalent" meant something which has the same amount,
value, purpose, qualities, etc. as something else. It meant that equivalent was
significantly similar. As a significant concept in translation theory, equivalent
cannot be interpreted in its scientific sense. It can only be understood in its
common sense as a general word. Logically, there were no things that were
totally identical (Nida, 1986). He expressed this view as follows:
“There are no two stones alike, no flowers the same, and no two
people who are identical. Although the structures of the DNA in the nucleus
of their cells may be the same, such persons nevertheless differ as the result of
certain developmental factors. No two sounds are ever exactly alike, and even
the same person pronouncing the same words will never utter it in an
absolutely identical manner (p.60)”.
Nida’s view was strengthened by Yinhua (2011) who stated that there
are no two absolute synonyms within one language. Reasonably, there are no
two words in any languages are completely identical in meaning. As
translation involved at least two languages and since each language has its
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own uniqueness in phonology, grammar, vocabulary, ways of representing
experiences, and reflects diverse culture it is complicated to find the
equivalent meaning in the TT. Furthermore, it was impossible to create the
absolute identity between the source text and the target text. Therefore, we
could say that the equivalence in translation should not be approached as a
search for sameness with the target language, but only as a kind of similarity
or approximation. This naturally indicated that it was possible to establish
equivalence between the source text and the target text on different linguistic
levels and different degrees through discovering the word synonymy.
Therefore, we could summarize that translation was the process of
transferring message between the source language and the target language
with discovering the equivalent word so that the target reader could
understand the message properly.
The Process in Translation. There were many scholars clarified the
translation process. Hence, the works of translator consisted of reading the
text and writing a new task from the source language. Therefore, the source
text and the target text were the main points that translators have to consider.
The source language here referred to source text that the translators should be
able to analyze and determine the type of the text and to identify the meaning
contained in the source language. The meaning in the source language was
apparently one of the essential aspects. Then, the target language referred to
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the target reader in which are the translators should consider about for who the
application of the translation used for the child, adult, academic or general
people. Thus, the translators should adjust his/her translation depended on the
reader in the target language. The translation process should not only consider
the word-by-word, but also the culture of both source language and target
language as discussed below (Nida, 1964). He stated that there are three
stages in translating a text: analysis of the respective language, source and
receptor, careful study of the source language text (transfer) and determination
of the appropriate utterance (restructuring).
Analysis. The analysis was the stage where the relation between
grammatical and the meaning of each word and a combination of
words were analyzed and reviewed. At this stage what was written
(source text) should be analyzed based on the grammatical relation
(grammar), meaning of a word or a combination of the word
(semantic), textual and contextual meaning to obtain understanding on
what were the message will be delivered.
Transfer. The transfer was the stage of transmission; a text that has
been analyzed and reviewed in the first phase was diverted or
transferred from the source text into the target text. Translators have to
find out the equivalent term in the target language which is relevant to
the field or area translated as well as the cultural equivalent that
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relevant with the source language. At this stage, the translators'
interpretations were necessarily needed to find the equivalence in each
information of the first stage.
Restructure. Restructure was reconstruction stage where the
translators re-wrote or expressed a text that has been proceeding
during the first and the second phase. The text should be appropriate
for the author's purpose, the target readers' expectation, along with
target language norms. Probably, the translators reviewed the first and
the second stage if they found anomalies in their translation result.
This stage aimed at finding an understandable translation. The result
of this stage can produce an acceptable language style and rule in the
target text.
The processes were described below:
SL text
TL translation
Analysis
Restructuring
Transferring
Figure 1. The translation process (Nida, 1964 p.241)
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Types of Translation. Translation has been divided into different types by
different scholars. Jakobson (1959) stated that there are three kinds or types of
translation as explained below:
Intralingual translation. Intralingual translation basically reworded
something within the same language or paraphrased within one
language.This type translated a word, phrase, sentence, expression,
and others in the same language. By this process, translators may
translate the verbal codes by means of other codes in the same
language. This type used synonymous strategy as shown below:
My mother goes to the market – my mother buys some vegetables
Interlingual translation. Interlingual translation commonly called as
translation proper. This type comprised the translation of the verbal
codes of one language by means of the verbal codes of another. It
meant that translators paraphrased between two languages. However,
in interlingual translation, the translators concerned not merely with
matching symbols (i.e. word for word translation) but also with the
equivalence of both symbols and their arrangements. Therefore,
translators have to know the meaning of the entire utterance.
Ibu saya pergi ke pasar – my mother goes to the market
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Intersemiotic translation. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation
which asked the translators to interpret verbal codes by means of some
other codes of nonverbal codes systems. This type dealt with the
transference of a message from one kind of symbolic system to
another. This type was undertaken in such a written text or poem
translated or transformed into music, dance, film and drawing, so that
a creative transposition is a way to explain and explore it.
Another scholar who defined the translation type was Larson (1984).
He classifies the translation into two main types, namely form-based
translation and meaning-based translation.
Form-based translation. Form-based translation attempted to follow
the form of the source language. It usually known as literal translation.
In modified literal translation, translators modified the order and
grammar to use acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language.
Therefore, lexical items were translated literally. The literal translation
of words, idioms, figures of speech, etc. result in unclear, unnatural,
and sometimes nonsense translation. The literal translation can be
understood if the general grammatical form of the two languages was
similar.
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Meaning-based translation. Meaning-based translation made every
effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the
natural form. Its practice needed the whole comprehension or
understanding of the source text included the cultural context different.
The Benefit of Translation Activities
Translation truely played the significant role in the English learning,
especially for the second language learner. However, translation was important in
English language teaching as well. The fundamental benefits of translation activities
included the practice of all language skill such as reading, writing, listening and
speaking (Kaminskiene & Kavaliskiene, 2007). They also said that teachers and
learners have started to use translation to teach and learn the English language as
well. They applied translation as the teaching strategy. The other benefits of
translation activities were that translation was the most important social skill since it
improved communication skill and understanding stranger. According to Schaffner in
Dagilien (2012) stated that translation exercise can be beneficial for foreign language
learning in some aspects such as improving verbal agility, expanding student's
vocabulary in their second language, developing their style, improving their
understanding of how languages work, consolidating second language structures for
active use, monitoring and improving the comprehension of the second language.
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The Problems in Translating the Text
In this part, the researcher described the definiton of problems and linguistic
problem. The categories of the problems were explained in this part as well.
Definition of Problem. The problem meant a situation, person or thing that
needs attention and needs to be dealt with or solved (Cambridge Advanced
Learner's Dictionary, 2008). Translation problems were (linguistic) problems
that the translation faced with when making a translation. Translation
problem, more specifically, occured when translator realized that s/he was
unable to transfer adequately a source language text into the target language.
Many researchers have conducted some researches to find out the problems or
issues in translation. According to Wong and Shen (1999), linguistic problem
exerted a direct and crucial influence upon the process of translating. Each of
linguistic problems can interfere with translation. They stated that there were
five types of problems in linguistic that are lexical, semantic, grammatical,
textual and contextual problems. The other experts who described the
linguistic problems were Burdah (2004), Al-nakhalah (2013), Newmark
(1988) and Arffman (2007).
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Linguistic Problem. There were five linguistic problems in translation which
are the lexical, semantic, grammatical, textual and contextual problem. Each
problem will be discussed below:
Lexical. Lexical dealt with vocabulary. Translators should be deeply aware of
the nature of lexical of each text they are translating. One of the most
problematic was lexical as stated by Burdah (2004) “lexical is the most
difficult problem faced by the translator then it has the important role in
translating”. The problems were due to the misunderstanding or the total
ignorance of the words meaning as supported by Al-nakhalah (2013) who said
that one of the problematic parts in translation was lexical. The first lexical
problem which translator faced was to have many vocabularies in the source
language with no direct counterparts in the target language.
Semantic. Semantic meant the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text.
An English word can vary in meaning drastically according to context, verbal
relation, time, place, participants, topic, mode, media and many more
situations. Finding the meaning of each word might be difficult for the
students as supported by Al-nakhalah (2013) and Newmark (1988). They
stated that the students mostly faced the semantic problem or choosing the
suitable meaning for each word or lexical item were hard. Moreover, Arffman
(2007) said in his book that discovering the similar word for the target
language was hard. Here were some examples, the mouse spoken of by a
housewife means something entirely different from the mouse mentioned by a
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computer user, travelers in an airport and soldiers in a military camp will react
very differently to the word attention. The meaning of a phrase in one
language cannot always be translated literally. The Indonesian phrase
kambing hitam was not always translated as „black goat’ in English language,
it posed the problem. If it meant „a goat which is black’, the phrase can be
translated as „a black goat’. However, it has a specific meaning which was „a
person who was blamed for something that someone else has done’. It will be
equivalent to the English phrase „scapegoat’. Therefore it was not easy for
students to select the right terms for the translation.
Grammatical. Grammar meant the sets of rules that explain how words were
in a language. The English and the Indonesian languages have different
etymological origins, as they belonged to different families. This difference in
origins caused a difference in grammar and created wide gaps for learners
when translating. According to Haque (2012), the most particular problems
that the translators faced include several constructions of grammar. According
to Ali, Brakhw, Fikri, and Ismail (2012), tense and verb were the most
obvious problems that translator usually faced while translating text or
document. Then, Newmark (1988) added some grammatical problems and one
of the most complicated features was that translating idioms since idioms
were expressions whose meaning cannot be completely understood from the
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meanings of the component parts. It cannot be translated word by word with it
structure.
Textual. The textual problem concerns to the writing which related to the
word order or word connection as well. Reordering of words and phrases were
a necessary part of the translation process. Basically, English and Indonesian
were a fixed word order language and followed the SVO (Subject-VerbObject) structure. Therefore, English and Indonesian language have structural
differences and they differed in morphological and syntactic feature which
may cause some problems. According to Wong and Shen (1999), Jawaid and
Zeman (2011) they argued that ordering the sentences between two languages
were not always straightforward.
Contextual. The contextual problem involved the text situation or background
which illustrate the text. In translation, language was not a simple matter of
vocabulary and grammar, but that it can never be separated from the culture it
operated in and was always part of a context. Recognizing the sentence
meaning which based on the context was challenging since language use will
vary according to different contexts. According to the research result done by
Miller in 2008, the students were familiar with the words, but they did not
recognize and understand the meaning. He further stated that it was because
the students did not know the background knowledge of a different language
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or culture. Thus, the researcher may not neglect, ignore or misjudge the
context in which a word is used.
Narrative Text
In this part, the researcher presents the definition of narrative text, structures
of narrative text, language feature in the narrative text followed by the common
problems in translating the narrative text.
Definition of Narrative Text. Narrative text was a story that dealt with
complications or problematic events which lead to a crisis or an emergency
and in turn finds a resolution (Sudarwati and Grace, 2007) such as in fairy
stories, science fiction, romance, horror stories and folk tails. The narrative
text included in a fictive story and literary work which was challenging to
translate. Narrative text needed to translate feelings, cultural nuances, humor
and other delicate elements of a piece of work (Haque, 2008). Additionally,
Sun (2011) enhanced that narrative serves as a means of organizing human
experience, or as a process to construct meaning by summarizing past
experience. The purposes of narrative text were to amuse and entertain the
reader and to deal with actual/imaginative experiences in different ways.
Structures of Narrative Text. Then, Sundarwati and Grace (2007) proposed
four narrative organizations or the guidance in writing narrative text:
Orientation: in this stage, the author set the scene: where and when the story
24
happened and introduced the participants of the story as well: who and what
was involved in the story. Complication told the beginning of the problem
which lead to the crisis (climax) of the main participants. Resolution: the
problem (the crisis) was resolved, either in a happy ending or in a sad (tragic)
ending. Re-orientation: this was a closing remark to the story and it was
optional. It consisted of a moral lesson, advice or teaching from the writer.
Their argument was strengthened by Sun (2011), he argued that the features of
the narrative text were "sequenced and interrelated events, fore-grounded
individuals and crisis to resolution progression; on the other hand, proposes
the idea that addresses can learn from narratives" (p.3).
Language Features of Narrative Text. Actually, there were many language
features in Narrative Text. Sundarwati and Grace (2007) argued the language
characteristics used in Narrative Text. First, the use of particular nouns to
refer to or describe the particular people, animals and things that involved in
the story. Second, the use of pronoun such as they, their, its, it, etc. Third, the
use of noun phrases such as the dusty and rough road and a big old tree.
Fourth, the use of connectives and conjunctions to sequence events through
time: one day, a week later, then, a long, long time ago, when. Fifth, the use
of adverbs and adverbial phrases to locate the particular incidents or events:
angrily. Sixth, the use of past-tense action verbs (material process) and saying
25
verbs (verbal processes) to indicate the actions and saying in the narrative:
arrived, ate, went and laughed.
Conceptual Framework
Translation was significant for the educational purpose since translation can
assist the students to be an active English usage and it can develop their skill.
However, someone who dealt with translation should be skillful. The important thing
to do before dealing with the real field of translation was that the translators have to
perform some practices in order to be used in constructing the sentences and solving
the problems in translation.
There were many problems encountered by the students and translators. Thus,
the researcher focused on finding the problems in translating Narrative Text. Based
on the theorist statements, there were five linguistic problems: lexical, semantic,
grammatical, textual and contextual problem. Those five problems were the crucial
problem, and it was important to have more attention when facing the translating.
The researcher applied the interview to find the students linguistic difficulties
while translating the text. The researcher applied the interview session to get in-depth
information on the problems they got in translating the text given by the lecturer at
the end of the semester. The interview were based on their answers. The last step was
describing or reporting the result of interview.
26
Translation
What are the linguistic problems faced by the English Education Department students batch 2013 in translating Narrative Text?
Linguistic Problems
Lexical
Semantic
Grammatical
Textual
Interview
Result
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Research
Contextual
27
Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter provides the discussion about the methodology used in this
study. The following methodology is going to discuss the research design at the
very early, subsequently the discussion will be about description of setting of the
research and the participant involved. The next, this chapter also talks about the
instrument and data collection method.
Design of the Research
The students have translated narrative text as their final project for
translating class. As they have been done translating the text, the researcher needs
to follow up the problems encountered by the students by interviewing the
students. Moreover, this study aims at exploring translation problems faced by
students of EED in translating Narrative Text. Thus qualitative research was
employed in this study. Creswell (2012) stated that qualitative research is
conducted from a small number of individuals in order to gain in-depth
information. In addition, Strauss and Corbin (1998) also maintained that
qualitative research is the method used to gain in-depth understanding of certain
phenomena such as feelings, though processes, and emotion, which is difficult to
learn through another research method. In this case, translation problems are seen
as a phenomenon which is needed to be explored in detail.
28
Therefore, this study employed descriptive qualitative to investigate
certain phenomena. As qualitative research involve in-depth information,
descriptive qualitative enables the researcher to develop a level of detail from
being highly involved in the actual experiences (Creswell, 2012). Besides, another
reason for choosing qualitative research is it is sufficient to describe students’
perception or opinion in depth, whereas when we apply quantitative method or
questionnaire there are certain words or items found unfamiliar. It affected the
students' understanding of the items in the questionnaire. Since the researcher
wants to investigate the problems or phenomena faced by the students of EED
UMY in translating Narrative Text, this method was sufficient and appropriate to
use.
Setting of the Research
This study is conducted at the English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta in February 2016. There are two reasons
why the English Education Department of UMY was chosen as the research
setting in this study. Firstly, since the English Education Department is a new
study program which was established in 2010, there is no research on translation
especially in translating Narrative Text that have been done in this setting. In
other words, little is known about students’ problems in linguistic concerning to
the translation. Hopefully, the result of this study can be used as the evaluation to
improve students' ability in the translation process. Another consideration for
choosing English Education Department was the accessibility of the research
29
setting. In this case, the researcher had access to obtain the data from the English
Education Department of UMY. Based on those reasons, the English Education
Department of UMY was chosen as the research setting in this study.
Participant of the Research
The participants of this study were the students of the English Education
Department of UMY batch 2013 for those who have taken translating class. Based
on the researcher’s observation, they have practiced translating the text.
Moreover, they claimed that they find many difficulties in the translation process.
To enable the researcher obtaining the suitable participants, the researcher used
the purposive sampling method to select the participants. The purposive sampling
method is one of the most effective samplings when one needs to study a certain
phenomenon. The purpose of selecting purposive sampling is whether the
participants are rich of information (Creswell, 2012). Additionally, Brink (1996)
enhanced that the process of selecting the sample from a population in order to
obtain information regarding a phenomenon in a way that represents the
population of interest. The researcher consciously selected five students who
engaged in translation class for their attributes to take part in the research.
Purposive sampling required some criterions for the participants. Hence, the
participants were chosen based on two criteria. First, the participants were the
students of EED batch 2012 who have been joined in translation class. Second,
30
the students who have just translated narrative text and found the problem during
translation activities.
Data Collection Method
The researcher applied the interview as data collection method to get in
depth information which is one on one interview (Kvale, 1996). An interview was
a method of data collection in which one person (the interviewer) asks questions
from the other (a respondent), interview is conducted either face-to-face or by
telephone. One on one interview was a data collection process in which the
researcher asked questions to and record answers from the participants who
engaged the interview session face to face. The most important advantage of an
interview for this research was that it was a flexible method of data collection and
the researcher could also explain and elaborate on questions, what they imply, in
case they were not clear to the participants.
Before conducting the interview, the interviewer did interview planning
based on the research procedures as suggested by Kvale
of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Batch 2013 in Translating
Narrative Text
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree
Sarjana Pendidikan
Mardiana Harahap
20120540059
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
August 2016
i
ii
Acknowledgement
First of all, all praises be to Allah who give me mercy, blessing, strength
and love in accomplishing my skripsi writing and make this all possible.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to my beloved parents for their
forebearance and moral support, for always loving me. I dedicate this skripsi to
you my beloved father Usman Harahap and my beloved mother Linda Munthe. I
love you so much Ayah, Mamak. Thanks for your prayers and everything that you
have given to me for my whole life. I greatly indebted to my beloved brothers and
sisters, Siti Herlina, Syska Elida, Riswan and Salamat Gozali who always advice
and support me and never get tired of encouraging me.
Special gratitude belongs to my beloved supervisor, Mr. Gendroyono
S.Pd. M.Pd., for supporting, guiding and helping me in finishing this skripsi
writing. Thanks for the valuable feedback, motivation and nice supervising. I also
thank to my examiners, Mrs. Sri Sudarsih S.S, M.InT and Mrs. Maryam Sorohiti
S.S., M.H.Sc for all suggestions and valuable comments to improve my skripsi
writing. I also place my thanks to all lecturers of English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, for teaching and guiding me during my
study in this faculty. I take this opportunity to record our sincere thanks to all the
faculty member for their helps during my study and during my preparation of the
graduation.
I am grateful to the respondents of this study, my brothers and sisters in
EED of 2013. Thank you for providing me the time and valuable information. I
iii
am also grateful to my beloved friends in “Kongkowers” who help and motivate
me friend Suriyana, Riza Indriyastanti, Evita, April, Ghais, Nopa and Risna. I also
thank to my friend Lalu Radi Myarta for the great guidance, support and
motivation. Thanks for this friendship and togetherness and keep motivating each
other.
Sincerely, I am also grateful to my big family who gives me a valuable
chance to work with a wonderful team in Dapur Kamila Resto. Thanks for
believing and advising me. Thanks to my great team who always stay with me
having some laugh in all situation. I cannot mention your all names. See you on
top guys.
I also place on record, my sense of gratitude to one and all who, directly
and indirectly have helped me, supported me in this venture. I am extremely
grateful to have you all.
Mardiana Harahap
iv
Table of Contents
Cover ........................................................................................................................ i
Approval Sheet ........................................................................................................ ii
Statement of Authenticity ...................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgement.................................................................................................. iv
Table of Content ..................................................................................................... vi
Abstract ....................................................................................................................1
Chapter One : Introduction ..................................................................................2
Background of the Study ......................................................................................2
Statement of the Problem .....................................................................................5
Limitation of the Problem ....................................................................................6
Formulation of the Problem..................................................................................6
Objective of the Study ..........................................................................................6
Significance of the Study......................................................................................6
For Students ......................................................................................................6
For Translators ..................................................................................................7
For Translation Teacher ....................................................................................7
For Future Researcher.......................................................................................7
Outline of the Study..............................................................................................7
Chapter Two : Literature Review ........................................................................9
Translation ............................................................................................................9
Definition of Translation ..................................................................................9
The Process of Translation .............................................................................12
Analysis ......................................................................................................13
Transfer .....................................................................................................13
Restructure ................................................................................................13
Types of Translation .......................................................................................14
Intralingual Translation ..............................................................................14
Interlingual Translation ..............................................................................14
Intersemiotic Translation ...........................................................................15
Form-based Translation .............................................................................15
v
Meaning-based Translation ........................................................................16
The Benefit of Translation Activities .............................................................16
The Problems in Translating the Text ............................................................16
Definition of Problem ...............................................................................16
Linguistic Problem ....................................................................................17
Lexical ...........................................................................................17
Semantical .....................................................................................17
Grammatical ..................................................................................18
Textual ...........................................................................................19
Contextual .....................................................................................19
Narrative Text .................................................................................................20
Definition of Narrative Text ......................................................................20
Structure of Narrative Text .......................................................................20
Language Feature of Narrative Text .........................................................21
Review of Related Study ................................................................................21
Conceptual Framework ...................................................................................23
Chapter Three : Methodology.............................................................................25
Design of the Research ......................................................................................25
Setting of the Research ......................................................................................26
Participant of the Research ................................................................................27
Data Collection Method ....................................................................................28
Analysis of the Data ..........................................................................................29
Chapter Four : Finding and Discussion .............................................................30
Finding 1 ............................................................................................................30
Finding 2 ............................................................................................................31
Finding 3 ............................................................................................................33
Finding 4 ............................................................................................................36
Finding 5 ............................................................................................................38
Chapter Five : Conclusion and Recommendation ............................................41
Conclusion .........................................................................................................41
Recommendation ...............................................................................................42
vi
For Students ..............................................................................................42
For Translators ..........................................................................................42
For Translator Teachers .............................................................................42
For Future Researchers ..............................................................................42
References ..............................................................................................................45
Appendixes ............................................................................................................49
Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................49
Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................51
Appendix 3 ............................................................................................................82
vii
1
Abstract
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
conducts translation class which aims to lead the students in translation and giving
them the basic knowledge of translation. However, the students face many
problems in translation especially in linguistic problems. This study aimed to
know the student's linguistic difficulties in translating a narrative text. Data were
collected from five students of batch 2013 and they were selected from the fourth
year of the English Education Department undergraduate students. To gather the
data, the researcher applied interview. Specifically, the data were analyzed using
three steps coding which were open, axial and selective coding. Subsequently, the
researcher applied descriptive qualitative to explain the result of data.
The data collected showed that there were five categories of the linguistic
problems faced by the students in translating narrative text namely lexical which
concerns about the vocabulary, semantical which concerns about the meaning and
the diction, grammatical concerns with the sentences rule, textual which concerns
about the writing and the sentence organization and contextual which concerns
about the background of the text.
Keywords: translation, linguistic problem, narrative text
3
Chapter One
Introduction
This first part of this research presents an introduction that is about the
background of the study, statements of the problem, limitation of the problem,
formulation of the problem, objective of the study and the significance of the study.
The outline of the study is also presented in this chapter.
Background of the Study
Translation was significant for educational purpose. As Kaminskienë and
Kavaliauskienë (2007) argued that translation is the fifth skill alongside listening,
speaking, reading and writing skill. They argued that translation can assist the
students to be an active English usage and it could develop their skills. Therefore,
translators have to consider the meaning when translating a text especially when the
text was used in teaching and learning process.
Most of the translator faced many problems in translating, thus the most
problematic is culture and linguistic. As expressed by Nida and Taber (1986) that
translation is often accompanied by many problems that may be a result of the
differences in both languages or differences in the cultures represented by them.
Hoewever, many research conducted to find the translation problems. The first
problem which encountered by the students was the cultural problem. It strengthened
by Elyildirim (2013) who stated that translating cultural concept is one of the serious
4
problems for Turkish's English learner. There were some words which were difficult
to translate such as the term City of London. This term is used to describe London as
the whole city and the city center, but not to describe the financial of London. He
further argued that the student has inadequate cultural knowledge about the target
language. His argument was supported by Sdobnikov (2011), Abbasi, Zadeh, Janfaza
and Dehghan (2012), Li (2014) and Samantaray (2015). They investigated that
translation problem mostly resulted or arisen from the collision of source language
and target language cultures as well.
The second problem was finding the equivalence between source text and the
target text Arffman (2007). Finding the equivalence between source text and the
target text was quite crucial. The target reader could not comprehend the message of
the text if the translator did not find the similar meaning of the text. Therefore, not
only finding the meaning but also organizing the structure or the utterance. The
structure of each language was different, and then the translator needed to find the
equivalent and appropriate structure to construct a comprehensive message for the
target reader. Those arguments was strengthened by Panou’s journal. He argued that
discovering the target language closest equivalent was complicated (Panou, 2013).
The third problem was the linguistic problem. The translator might have many
problems in terms of linguistic as supported by Wong and Shen (1999). They stated
that each language has its own grammatical rule or structure such as Indian people
might organize an interrogative sentence differently with the Australian. Al-Nakhalah
5
(2013) as well stated the students or translators commonly felt difficult in identifying
the lexical and semantic collocation since one lexical may have more than one
semantic. Those problems could be the main difficulties in translation.
As mentioned above concerning the skill, ability and problems in translation,
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta held
translation class. In the sixth semester, the students of EED took that course which
consists of translating text from Indonesian into English and vice versa. The subject
aimed at creating the students to be a good translator and at least knowing the basic
knowledge of translation. Hence, English Education held translation class once in
their study from the first until the last semester. It did not continuously apply as like
another subject that was regularly reviewed in each semester such as grammar,
reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The students stated that they are a lack of
practice in translating the text since they only practiced translating the sentences
during the class. It would be different if they are asked to translate the text which its
cohesion should be considered. They argued that translation need more practice to
have a good result since translation skill cannot be achieved automatically or
magically.
Then, the final project for translation class was translating a Narrative text.
The students were asked to translate two Narrative texts which were Indonesian –
English and English – Indonesian. When translating Narrative text some students
found it difficult to arrange the text into a good structure and comprehensible
6
meaning for the target text. Some of the students actually translated the text literally
without considering the equivalent meaning of some words. They did so since the
vocabularies used were not familiar with them. So, their statements showed that they
mostly faced linguistic problems in translation. This was the reason why did the
researcher choose narrative text.
English Education Department was a new department which is mainly
produced qualified teachers every year. Therefore, they also could be a translator
since they have learned translation technique or at least the teachers know the basic
knowledge in translation. However, there were limited research and sources
concerning to the translation. Based on the above issues, the researcher was interested
in conducting research on "Linguistic Problems Faced by the English Education
Department Students of UMY Batch 2013 in Translating Narrative Text".
Statement of the Problem
English Education Department students have learned translation in the sixth
semester. They have learned from the basic translation such as the translation
technique and procedure. They have practiced translating the sentences and text of
Narrative. English Education Department students face some problems in translation
that explained by Wong & Shen (1999). They classified the problems into three types
which are linguistic, culture and personal problem. Linguistic problems included
lexical, semantic, grammatical textual and contextual problems. Cultural problem was
the second problem such as intercultural and intra-cultural which discussed the
7
specific expression, political interference, the regions differences of a country and
style period/time period. The last problem was personal problems which expressed
the translator competence while doing the translation and personal attitude toward the
target reader or the reader's need. Based on the researcher observation, the students
commonly felt difficult in identifying the grammar and finding the appropriate word
to use in the target text. To identify the students' problems in translating Narrative
Text, it was important to conduct a study related to the translation problems.
Limitation of the Problem
Translation problems comprised a lot of areas to be studied. Many studies
have been conducted in some areas such as cultural problems and linguistic problems.
This research, however, focused on finding out the linguistic problems in translating
Narrative Text. This research was conducted in PBI UMY and the participants were
the students who have joined translation class batch 2013.
Formulation of the Problem
In order to find out the problems or difficulties in translating Narrative Text,
the researcher designed question. It was stated in the statement below: what are the
linguistic problems faced by the English Education Department students batch 2013
in translating Narrative Text?
8
Objective of the Study
The aim of this research was to find out the linguistic difficulties encountered
by the students of English Education Department UMY in translating Narrative Text.
Significance of the Study
After finding the linguistic problems in translating Narrative text, this
research gave some benefits:
For students. This research was expected to give knowledge to the students
on the diverse problems in linguistic. The students could find the issues in translating
Narrative Text. They could use this research as their guidance or assistance when
translating Narrative Text.
For translators. It could give the further understanding about the difficulties
in translation so they can expect the problems. Hence, this research could be used as
their evaluation to create better translation result.
For translation teacher. It could be used as the material comment or
additional material in educating and teaching the students to improve the learning
success in translation.
Future researcher. This research could be their reference when doing the
research since this study offers further information or evidences which were related to
the translation difficulties.
9
Outline of the Study
This study consisted of five chapters. The first chapter focuses on the
background of the study which described the research context, problems and the
responds, statement, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problem, objective
of the study, significance of the study and outline of the study. The second chapter
discusses the literature review of the title which consisted of the translation and
narrative text explanation and conceptual framework. This chapter helped the
researcher to find many references and gave the further understanding about the
difficulties in translation. The third chapter talked about the design of the research
used by the researcher, research setting, participants, data collection method and
analysis of the data. The researcher applied interview to obtain the data. The result of
the research was discussed in the fourth chapter which talked about the finding and
the research discussion. This chapter focused on the result of the data collected. The
last chapter discussed the conclusion of the research which answered the research
question. Therefore, the researcher also suggested some recommendation for the
students, translator, translation teacher, and the future researcher.
10
Chapter Two
Literature Review
Literature review contains theories from the books or experts which are
closely related to the research. The theory is needed to help and support the
researcher during analyzing the data. The literature discusses translation and narrative
text. The points encompass definition of translation, translation types, translation
processes, problems in translation, definition of narrative text, structure and the
language feature of the narrative text. The conceptual framework is also presented in
this chapter.
Translation
In this part, the researcher explained more about translation followed by some
theorist from the experts. The discussion were about the definition of translation, the
process of translation, types of translation and the benefits of translation activities.
Definition of Translation. Many experts defined the word translation into
many variations. The experts are mostly from the linguistic field and their
definition based on point of view. They have their own opinion in defining
translation but the whole opinions have the same core idea. Munday (2001)
defined the translation generally. He says that "translation can be the universal
subject field, the creation (the text which has been transformed into target
language) or the process (the action of producing the translation, which is
11
known as translating)". He mentioned that translation can be the process of
transforming a source text (ST) into target text (TT) and the result of the
translating which is the text has been translated. Another scholar who defined
the translation as the process was Lilova (1985). He stated that translation was
oral or written activity aimed at the recreation of an oral or written text
(utterance) existing in one language into a text in another language,
accompanied by keeping the invariance of content, qualities of the original
and author's authenticity. Therefore, Hatim and Munday (2004, p.6) further
stated that translation was "the process of transferring a written text from
source language (SL) into the target language (TL)". In this definition, they
stated the translation as the process. In this case, translators were faced with
text as the unit of meaning in the form of sets of words or sentences. This
meant that language which was used was the unit of meaning which could be
understood by the readers or participants.
There were another definition given by Newmark (1988). He defined
translation as "rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the
way that the author intended the text"(p.5). This definition stressed on
rendering the meaning of the source language text into the target language text
as what was intended by the author. He explicitly expressed the object being
translated is message or meaning. Another scholar (Samantaray, 2015) said
that translation was an effort of discovering the similar meaning of a text into
12
the target language. Furthermore, Nida and Taber (1982) argued that
translating consist of reproducing the target language with the closest, natural
and equivalent source language meaning. This definition was more
comprehensive than the previous one. It was necessary to understand the exact
meaning of "equivalent". According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner's
Dictionary, 2008), "equivalent" meant something which has the same amount,
value, purpose, qualities, etc. as something else. It meant that equivalent was
significantly similar. As a significant concept in translation theory, equivalent
cannot be interpreted in its scientific sense. It can only be understood in its
common sense as a general word. Logically, there were no things that were
totally identical (Nida, 1986). He expressed this view as follows:
“There are no two stones alike, no flowers the same, and no two
people who are identical. Although the structures of the DNA in the nucleus
of their cells may be the same, such persons nevertheless differ as the result of
certain developmental factors. No two sounds are ever exactly alike, and even
the same person pronouncing the same words will never utter it in an
absolutely identical manner (p.60)”.
Nida’s view was strengthened by Yinhua (2011) who stated that there
are no two absolute synonyms within one language. Reasonably, there are no
two words in any languages are completely identical in meaning. As
translation involved at least two languages and since each language has its
13
own uniqueness in phonology, grammar, vocabulary, ways of representing
experiences, and reflects diverse culture it is complicated to find the
equivalent meaning in the TT. Furthermore, it was impossible to create the
absolute identity between the source text and the target text. Therefore, we
could say that the equivalence in translation should not be approached as a
search for sameness with the target language, but only as a kind of similarity
or approximation. This naturally indicated that it was possible to establish
equivalence between the source text and the target text on different linguistic
levels and different degrees through discovering the word synonymy.
Therefore, we could summarize that translation was the process of
transferring message between the source language and the target language
with discovering the equivalent word so that the target reader could
understand the message properly.
The Process in Translation. There were many scholars clarified the
translation process. Hence, the works of translator consisted of reading the
text and writing a new task from the source language. Therefore, the source
text and the target text were the main points that translators have to consider.
The source language here referred to source text that the translators should be
able to analyze and determine the type of the text and to identify the meaning
contained in the source language. The meaning in the source language was
apparently one of the essential aspects. Then, the target language referred to
14
the target reader in which are the translators should consider about for who the
application of the translation used for the child, adult, academic or general
people. Thus, the translators should adjust his/her translation depended on the
reader in the target language. The translation process should not only consider
the word-by-word, but also the culture of both source language and target
language as discussed below (Nida, 1964). He stated that there are three
stages in translating a text: analysis of the respective language, source and
receptor, careful study of the source language text (transfer) and determination
of the appropriate utterance (restructuring).
Analysis. The analysis was the stage where the relation between
grammatical and the meaning of each word and a combination of
words were analyzed and reviewed. At this stage what was written
(source text) should be analyzed based on the grammatical relation
(grammar), meaning of a word or a combination of the word
(semantic), textual and contextual meaning to obtain understanding on
what were the message will be delivered.
Transfer. The transfer was the stage of transmission; a text that has
been analyzed and reviewed in the first phase was diverted or
transferred from the source text into the target text. Translators have to
find out the equivalent term in the target language which is relevant to
the field or area translated as well as the cultural equivalent that
15
relevant with the source language. At this stage, the translators'
interpretations were necessarily needed to find the equivalence in each
information of the first stage.
Restructure. Restructure was reconstruction stage where the
translators re-wrote or expressed a text that has been proceeding
during the first and the second phase. The text should be appropriate
for the author's purpose, the target readers' expectation, along with
target language norms. Probably, the translators reviewed the first and
the second stage if they found anomalies in their translation result.
This stage aimed at finding an understandable translation. The result
of this stage can produce an acceptable language style and rule in the
target text.
The processes were described below:
SL text
TL translation
Analysis
Restructuring
Transferring
Figure 1. The translation process (Nida, 1964 p.241)
16
Types of Translation. Translation has been divided into different types by
different scholars. Jakobson (1959) stated that there are three kinds or types of
translation as explained below:
Intralingual translation. Intralingual translation basically reworded
something within the same language or paraphrased within one
language.This type translated a word, phrase, sentence, expression,
and others in the same language. By this process, translators may
translate the verbal codes by means of other codes in the same
language. This type used synonymous strategy as shown below:
My mother goes to the market – my mother buys some vegetables
Interlingual translation. Interlingual translation commonly called as
translation proper. This type comprised the translation of the verbal
codes of one language by means of the verbal codes of another. It
meant that translators paraphrased between two languages. However,
in interlingual translation, the translators concerned not merely with
matching symbols (i.e. word for word translation) but also with the
equivalence of both symbols and their arrangements. Therefore,
translators have to know the meaning of the entire utterance.
Ibu saya pergi ke pasar – my mother goes to the market
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Intersemiotic translation. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation
which asked the translators to interpret verbal codes by means of some
other codes of nonverbal codes systems. This type dealt with the
transference of a message from one kind of symbolic system to
another. This type was undertaken in such a written text or poem
translated or transformed into music, dance, film and drawing, so that
a creative transposition is a way to explain and explore it.
Another scholar who defined the translation type was Larson (1984).
He classifies the translation into two main types, namely form-based
translation and meaning-based translation.
Form-based translation. Form-based translation attempted to follow
the form of the source language. It usually known as literal translation.
In modified literal translation, translators modified the order and
grammar to use acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language.
Therefore, lexical items were translated literally. The literal translation
of words, idioms, figures of speech, etc. result in unclear, unnatural,
and sometimes nonsense translation. The literal translation can be
understood if the general grammatical form of the two languages was
similar.
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Meaning-based translation. Meaning-based translation made every
effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the
natural form. Its practice needed the whole comprehension or
understanding of the source text included the cultural context different.
The Benefit of Translation Activities
Translation truely played the significant role in the English learning,
especially for the second language learner. However, translation was important in
English language teaching as well. The fundamental benefits of translation activities
included the practice of all language skill such as reading, writing, listening and
speaking (Kaminskiene & Kavaliskiene, 2007). They also said that teachers and
learners have started to use translation to teach and learn the English language as
well. They applied translation as the teaching strategy. The other benefits of
translation activities were that translation was the most important social skill since it
improved communication skill and understanding stranger. According to Schaffner in
Dagilien (2012) stated that translation exercise can be beneficial for foreign language
learning in some aspects such as improving verbal agility, expanding student's
vocabulary in their second language, developing their style, improving their
understanding of how languages work, consolidating second language structures for
active use, monitoring and improving the comprehension of the second language.
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The Problems in Translating the Text
In this part, the researcher described the definiton of problems and linguistic
problem. The categories of the problems were explained in this part as well.
Definition of Problem. The problem meant a situation, person or thing that
needs attention and needs to be dealt with or solved (Cambridge Advanced
Learner's Dictionary, 2008). Translation problems were (linguistic) problems
that the translation faced with when making a translation. Translation
problem, more specifically, occured when translator realized that s/he was
unable to transfer adequately a source language text into the target language.
Many researchers have conducted some researches to find out the problems or
issues in translation. According to Wong and Shen (1999), linguistic problem
exerted a direct and crucial influence upon the process of translating. Each of
linguistic problems can interfere with translation. They stated that there were
five types of problems in linguistic that are lexical, semantic, grammatical,
textual and contextual problems. The other experts who described the
linguistic problems were Burdah (2004), Al-nakhalah (2013), Newmark
(1988) and Arffman (2007).
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Linguistic Problem. There were five linguistic problems in translation which
are the lexical, semantic, grammatical, textual and contextual problem. Each
problem will be discussed below:
Lexical. Lexical dealt with vocabulary. Translators should be deeply aware of
the nature of lexical of each text they are translating. One of the most
problematic was lexical as stated by Burdah (2004) “lexical is the most
difficult problem faced by the translator then it has the important role in
translating”. The problems were due to the misunderstanding or the total
ignorance of the words meaning as supported by Al-nakhalah (2013) who said
that one of the problematic parts in translation was lexical. The first lexical
problem which translator faced was to have many vocabularies in the source
language with no direct counterparts in the target language.
Semantic. Semantic meant the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text.
An English word can vary in meaning drastically according to context, verbal
relation, time, place, participants, topic, mode, media and many more
situations. Finding the meaning of each word might be difficult for the
students as supported by Al-nakhalah (2013) and Newmark (1988). They
stated that the students mostly faced the semantic problem or choosing the
suitable meaning for each word or lexical item were hard. Moreover, Arffman
(2007) said in his book that discovering the similar word for the target
language was hard. Here were some examples, the mouse spoken of by a
housewife means something entirely different from the mouse mentioned by a
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computer user, travelers in an airport and soldiers in a military camp will react
very differently to the word attention. The meaning of a phrase in one
language cannot always be translated literally. The Indonesian phrase
kambing hitam was not always translated as „black goat’ in English language,
it posed the problem. If it meant „a goat which is black’, the phrase can be
translated as „a black goat’. However, it has a specific meaning which was „a
person who was blamed for something that someone else has done’. It will be
equivalent to the English phrase „scapegoat’. Therefore it was not easy for
students to select the right terms for the translation.
Grammatical. Grammar meant the sets of rules that explain how words were
in a language. The English and the Indonesian languages have different
etymological origins, as they belonged to different families. This difference in
origins caused a difference in grammar and created wide gaps for learners
when translating. According to Haque (2012), the most particular problems
that the translators faced include several constructions of grammar. According
to Ali, Brakhw, Fikri, and Ismail (2012), tense and verb were the most
obvious problems that translator usually faced while translating text or
document. Then, Newmark (1988) added some grammatical problems and one
of the most complicated features was that translating idioms since idioms
were expressions whose meaning cannot be completely understood from the
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meanings of the component parts. It cannot be translated word by word with it
structure.
Textual. The textual problem concerns to the writing which related to the
word order or word connection as well. Reordering of words and phrases were
a necessary part of the translation process. Basically, English and Indonesian
were a fixed word order language and followed the SVO (Subject-VerbObject) structure. Therefore, English and Indonesian language have structural
differences and they differed in morphological and syntactic feature which
may cause some problems. According to Wong and Shen (1999), Jawaid and
Zeman (2011) they argued that ordering the sentences between two languages
were not always straightforward.
Contextual. The contextual problem involved the text situation or background
which illustrate the text. In translation, language was not a simple matter of
vocabulary and grammar, but that it can never be separated from the culture it
operated in and was always part of a context. Recognizing the sentence
meaning which based on the context was challenging since language use will
vary according to different contexts. According to the research result done by
Miller in 2008, the students were familiar with the words, but they did not
recognize and understand the meaning. He further stated that it was because
the students did not know the background knowledge of a different language
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or culture. Thus, the researcher may not neglect, ignore or misjudge the
context in which a word is used.
Narrative Text
In this part, the researcher presents the definition of narrative text, structures
of narrative text, language feature in the narrative text followed by the common
problems in translating the narrative text.
Definition of Narrative Text. Narrative text was a story that dealt with
complications or problematic events which lead to a crisis or an emergency
and in turn finds a resolution (Sudarwati and Grace, 2007) such as in fairy
stories, science fiction, romance, horror stories and folk tails. The narrative
text included in a fictive story and literary work which was challenging to
translate. Narrative text needed to translate feelings, cultural nuances, humor
and other delicate elements of a piece of work (Haque, 2008). Additionally,
Sun (2011) enhanced that narrative serves as a means of organizing human
experience, or as a process to construct meaning by summarizing past
experience. The purposes of narrative text were to amuse and entertain the
reader and to deal with actual/imaginative experiences in different ways.
Structures of Narrative Text. Then, Sundarwati and Grace (2007) proposed
four narrative organizations or the guidance in writing narrative text:
Orientation: in this stage, the author set the scene: where and when the story
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happened and introduced the participants of the story as well: who and what
was involved in the story. Complication told the beginning of the problem
which lead to the crisis (climax) of the main participants. Resolution: the
problem (the crisis) was resolved, either in a happy ending or in a sad (tragic)
ending. Re-orientation: this was a closing remark to the story and it was
optional. It consisted of a moral lesson, advice or teaching from the writer.
Their argument was strengthened by Sun (2011), he argued that the features of
the narrative text were "sequenced and interrelated events, fore-grounded
individuals and crisis to resolution progression; on the other hand, proposes
the idea that addresses can learn from narratives" (p.3).
Language Features of Narrative Text. Actually, there were many language
features in Narrative Text. Sundarwati and Grace (2007) argued the language
characteristics used in Narrative Text. First, the use of particular nouns to
refer to or describe the particular people, animals and things that involved in
the story. Second, the use of pronoun such as they, their, its, it, etc. Third, the
use of noun phrases such as the dusty and rough road and a big old tree.
Fourth, the use of connectives and conjunctions to sequence events through
time: one day, a week later, then, a long, long time ago, when. Fifth, the use
of adverbs and adverbial phrases to locate the particular incidents or events:
angrily. Sixth, the use of past-tense action verbs (material process) and saying
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verbs (verbal processes) to indicate the actions and saying in the narrative:
arrived, ate, went and laughed.
Conceptual Framework
Translation was significant for the educational purpose since translation can
assist the students to be an active English usage and it can develop their skill.
However, someone who dealt with translation should be skillful. The important thing
to do before dealing with the real field of translation was that the translators have to
perform some practices in order to be used in constructing the sentences and solving
the problems in translation.
There were many problems encountered by the students and translators. Thus,
the researcher focused on finding the problems in translating Narrative Text. Based
on the theorist statements, there were five linguistic problems: lexical, semantic,
grammatical, textual and contextual problem. Those five problems were the crucial
problem, and it was important to have more attention when facing the translating.
The researcher applied the interview to find the students linguistic difficulties
while translating the text. The researcher applied the interview session to get in-depth
information on the problems they got in translating the text given by the lecturer at
the end of the semester. The interview were based on their answers. The last step was
describing or reporting the result of interview.
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Translation
What are the linguistic problems faced by the English Education Department students batch 2013 in translating Narrative Text?
Linguistic Problems
Lexical
Semantic
Grammatical
Textual
Interview
Result
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Research
Contextual
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Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter provides the discussion about the methodology used in this
study. The following methodology is going to discuss the research design at the
very early, subsequently the discussion will be about description of setting of the
research and the participant involved. The next, this chapter also talks about the
instrument and data collection method.
Design of the Research
The students have translated narrative text as their final project for
translating class. As they have been done translating the text, the researcher needs
to follow up the problems encountered by the students by interviewing the
students. Moreover, this study aims at exploring translation problems faced by
students of EED in translating Narrative Text. Thus qualitative research was
employed in this study. Creswell (2012) stated that qualitative research is
conducted from a small number of individuals in order to gain in-depth
information. In addition, Strauss and Corbin (1998) also maintained that
qualitative research is the method used to gain in-depth understanding of certain
phenomena such as feelings, though processes, and emotion, which is difficult to
learn through another research method. In this case, translation problems are seen
as a phenomenon which is needed to be explored in detail.
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Therefore, this study employed descriptive qualitative to investigate
certain phenomena. As qualitative research involve in-depth information,
descriptive qualitative enables the researcher to develop a level of detail from
being highly involved in the actual experiences (Creswell, 2012). Besides, another
reason for choosing qualitative research is it is sufficient to describe students’
perception or opinion in depth, whereas when we apply quantitative method or
questionnaire there are certain words or items found unfamiliar. It affected the
students' understanding of the items in the questionnaire. Since the researcher
wants to investigate the problems or phenomena faced by the students of EED
UMY in translating Narrative Text, this method was sufficient and appropriate to
use.
Setting of the Research
This study is conducted at the English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta in February 2016. There are two reasons
why the English Education Department of UMY was chosen as the research
setting in this study. Firstly, since the English Education Department is a new
study program which was established in 2010, there is no research on translation
especially in translating Narrative Text that have been done in this setting. In
other words, little is known about students’ problems in linguistic concerning to
the translation. Hopefully, the result of this study can be used as the evaluation to
improve students' ability in the translation process. Another consideration for
choosing English Education Department was the accessibility of the research
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setting. In this case, the researcher had access to obtain the data from the English
Education Department of UMY. Based on those reasons, the English Education
Department of UMY was chosen as the research setting in this study.
Participant of the Research
The participants of this study were the students of the English Education
Department of UMY batch 2013 for those who have taken translating class. Based
on the researcher’s observation, they have practiced translating the text.
Moreover, they claimed that they find many difficulties in the translation process.
To enable the researcher obtaining the suitable participants, the researcher used
the purposive sampling method to select the participants. The purposive sampling
method is one of the most effective samplings when one needs to study a certain
phenomenon. The purpose of selecting purposive sampling is whether the
participants are rich of information (Creswell, 2012). Additionally, Brink (1996)
enhanced that the process of selecting the sample from a population in order to
obtain information regarding a phenomenon in a way that represents the
population of interest. The researcher consciously selected five students who
engaged in translation class for their attributes to take part in the research.
Purposive sampling required some criterions for the participants. Hence, the
participants were chosen based on two criteria. First, the participants were the
students of EED batch 2012 who have been joined in translation class. Second,
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the students who have just translated narrative text and found the problem during
translation activities.
Data Collection Method
The researcher applied the interview as data collection method to get in
depth information which is one on one interview (Kvale, 1996). An interview was
a method of data collection in which one person (the interviewer) asks questions
from the other (a respondent), interview is conducted either face-to-face or by
telephone. One on one interview was a data collection process in which the
researcher asked questions to and record answers from the participants who
engaged the interview session face to face. The most important advantage of an
interview for this research was that it was a flexible method of data collection and
the researcher could also explain and elaborate on questions, what they imply, in
case they were not clear to the participants.
Before conducting the interview, the interviewer did interview planning
based on the research procedures as suggested by Kvale