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October 1999 by Nicholas Sparks Enterprises, Inc. A Walk to Remember contains 13 chapters and 94 pages. Related to the case of this study, this novel is very
suitable to be used as the object of research because there are many romantic elements that can be found in the text. Romantic elements, stated by Stanford, are
an expression that represents an engaging love or affection between a boy and a girl 1999: 58.
In order to gain the respondents for this study, the text, Nicholas Sparks’s
A Walk to Remember, is translated by four students two females and two males as the subjects of the study who have passed both Translation I and Translation II
course from the English Letters Department of Sanata Dharma University. The translated text made by four students will be compared by the researcher to see if
there is any difference between male and female subjects in this study.
B. Problem Formulation
The researcher attempts to answer the following questions. 1.
What are the equivalents found in the translations of romantic elements in Nicholas Sparks
’s A Walk to Remember? 2.
How readable are the translations of romantic elements in Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember?
3. What are the influences of gender in translation of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk
to Remember?
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C. Objectives of the Study
This research has three objectives. The first objective is to find out the equivalence in the translations
of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember produced by the subjects of this study. In this study, is revealed that the
translations might have the formal equivalence or dynamic equivalence. The second objective is to assess the readability of the romantic texts in Nicholas
Sparks’s A Walk to Remember that are translated by the subjects. The assessment of readability is essential in order to relate the importance of the equivalence in
the transla ted text of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember. It is important
because the readability of the translated text of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember depends on the equivalence of the translation. In this research, the
researcher compares the translated text with formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence in order to assess which one is more readable.
The third objective is to find out whether or not gender of the subjects translators influences the process of translating a text. In order to achieve the
third objective, the result of the translated text of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to
Remember produced by both male and female translators is assessed by the researcher. The assessment of the translated text of Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to
Remember is essential, for the result reflects to the contribution of gender in influencing the way the subjects male and female translate the text. The
assessment is done by seeing the specific expressions produced by both male and female subjects in order to highlight the difference of the translated text. In the
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end, the difference can be related to the influence of gender towards the translation process.
D. Definition of Terms
Translation is the replacement of a representation by an equivalent text in the second language Bell, 1991: 6. According to Bell, equivalence means that
the source language SL and target language TL must be similar in the content of message. In other words, translation is a process of transferring an idea from an
SL to a TL as equivalent as possible.
According to Nababan 1999: 62, readability focuses on how easily and
naturally a text can be read. The readers could easily understand if the text shows naturalness. To sum up, readability is a degree to determine whether a text can be
read and understood or not.
Based on Stanford, romantic text
is “prose romances representing a love affair involves a beautiful love story between a boy and a girl” 1999: 58. It is
elaborated by Stanford that romantic fiction presents life as we would have it be –
more picturesque, fantastic, adventurous, or heroic than actuality with its romantic
elements. In identifying romantic elements, Stanford argues that romantic
elements are expression that covers: the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings in a character 1999: 177 and perfected description of passion 1999:
218. In brief, romantic text is a text portraying a love story between two people, usually a boy and a girl, and romantic elements are expressions that promote
powerful affection and passion among the characters in the romantic text.
