COLLOCATION CONVENTIONALITY IN THE TRANSLATED THESIS ABSTRACTS OF THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF THE ECONOMICS FACULTY A THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

COLLOCATION CONVENTIONALITY
IN THE TRANSLATED THESIS ABSTRACTS
OF THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF THE ECONOMICS FACULTY

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education

By
Andriyana Wahyu Saputro
Student Number: 031214151

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA

2009

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

COLLOCATION CONVENTIONALITY
IN THE TRANSLATED THESIS ABSTRACTS
OF THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF THE ECONOMICS FACULTY

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree
in English Language Education

By
Andriyana Wahyu Saputro
Student Number: 031214151

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION

FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2009

i

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

.
iii

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

I dedicate this work to:
Jesus Christ, for giving me life and time to learn

my parents, brothers, and sisters for their great love
my sweetheart, Emma, for her patience
and for myself

iv

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work
or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the
references, as a scientific paper should.

Yogyakarta, 22 June 2009
The Writer

Andriyana Wahyu Saputro
031214151

v

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama

: Andriyana Wahyu Saputro

Nomor Mahasiswa

: 031214151

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

COLLOCATION CONVENTIONALITY IN THE TRANSLATED THESIS

ABSTRACTS

OF

THE

UNDERGRADUATE

STUDENTS

OF

THE

ECONOMICS FACULTY

Dengan demikian, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata
Dharma

hak

untuk

menyimpan,mengalihkan

dalam

bentuk

media

lain,

mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas dan
mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa
perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap
mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal: 22 Juni 2009

Yang menyatakan

Andriyana Wahyu Saputro

vi

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ABSTRACT
Saputro, Andriyana Wahyu. 2009. Collocation Conventionality in the Translated
Thesis Abstract of Undergraduate Students of Economic Faculty. Yogyakarta:
English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University.

Collocation has become one of the characteristics of academic writing. The
use of conventional collocation might become an obstacle in producing an
academic writing. For a non native writer, inappropriate translation of collocation
might lead to an ineffective academic text. This thesis analyzed the collocation used
in the translated thesis abstract of undergraduate students of Economic Faculty of

Sanata Dharma University. There were two problems formulated in this research. 1)
What are the types of collocations of translated thesis abstracts of the economic
faculty students? 2) To what extent does the deviation from the standard forms of
conventional collocations occur in the translated thesis abstracts?
The research was a qualitative research. Document analysis was used to
investigate the collocation. The research subjects were 20 thesis abstracts of
undergraduate students of Economic Faculty of Sanata Dharma University. There
were five instruments used to investigate the collocation conventionality.
Concordance v.3.2 and Wordsmith Tools v.5 were used to find out the collocation
used in the translated abstracts. Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of
English and Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary were used to determine the
standard collocations. The last instrument used in this research was human
instrument. The instrument was used to decide the collocations that were going to
be analyzed.
The research findings revealed that there were two kinds of collocations
used in the translated thesis abstracts. Those collocations were grammatical
collocation and lexical collocation. The use of grammatical collocation met the
standard form of English collocation. Nevertheless, most of the grammatical
collocations were uncommonly used in the international academic journal. In
lexical collocation, there were three types of collocations: verb-noun collocation,

noun-verb collocation and, adjective-noun collocation. In contrast to the use of
grammatical collocation, the use of lexical collocation was not standard and not
commonly used is international journal. It was also revealed that the deviation of
the standard form of collocation could be categorized into grammatical
transformation, over-generalization, and blend. From the research result, it could be
concluded that conventional collocation needed to be improved.
Some suggestions are addressed to lecturers and thesis sponsors, students,
and other researchers. The lecturer may provide great exposure to authentic
material of academic reading. The thesis sponsor should supervise the abstract more
intensely and provide valuable feedback to the abstract to maintain academic style.
The students should expose themselves with more English academic reading
passage.
Keywords: collocation, conventionality, translated thesis abstracts.
vii

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ABSTRAK

Saputro, Andriyana Wahyu. 2009. Collocation Conventionality in the Translated

Thesis Abstract of Undergraduate Students of Economic Faculty. Yogyakarta:
Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Kolokasi merupakan salah satu satu karakteristik penulisan karya ilmiah.
Penggunaan kolokasi dapat menjadi hambatan dalam penulisan karya ilmiah.
Terjemahan kolokasi yang tidak tepat menghasilkan karya ilmiah yang tidak
efektif. Skripsi ini menganalisa penggunaan kolokasi dalam abstrak terjemahan dari
skripsi mahasiswa Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Sanata Dharma. Ada dua rumusan
masalah yang diajukan dalam skripsi ini. 1) Apa saja kolokasi yang terdapat dalam
abstrak terjemahan dari skripsi mahasiswa fakultas ekonomi? 2) Sejauh mana
penyimpangan dari kolokasi yang konvensional terjadi dalam abstrak terjemahan
tersebut?
Metode yang digunakan dalam skripsi ini adalah penelitian kualitatif.
Analisa dokumen digunakan untuk meneliti kolokasi dalam abstrak terjemahan.
Dokumen yang dipelajari adalah 20 abstrak terjemahan dari mahasiswa Fakultas
Ekonomi Universitas Sanata Dharma. Ada lima instrumen yang digunakan untuk
meneliti konvensionalitas kolokasi. Concordance v.3.2 and Wordsmith Tools v.5
digunakan untuk melihat kolokasi yang terdapat dalam abstrak terjemahan. Oxford
Collocations Dictionary for Students of English and Oxford Advanced Learner s
Dictionary digunakan untuk menentukan kolokasi yang standar. Instrumen manusia

juga digunakan untuk menentukan kolokasi yang akan dianalisa
Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat dua jenis kolokasi yang
terdapat dalam abstrak terjemahan, yaitu kolokasi leksikal dan kolokasi gramatikal.
Penggunaan kolokasi gramatikal sesuai dengan bentuk standar kolokasi bahasa
Inggris. Meskipun demikian, sebagian kolokasi yang digunakan merupakan
kolokasi yang tidak lazim digunakan dalam jurnal akademik internasional. Hasil
penelitian juga menunjukkan bahwa terdapat tiga jenis kolokasi lexical, yaitu
kolokasi kata kerja-kata benda, kolokasi kata benda-katakerja, dan kolokasi kata
sifat-kata benda. Penggunaan kolokasi lexical dalam abstrak terjemahan tidak
sesuai standar dan tida lazim digunakan dalam jurnal akademis internasional.
Dalam penelitian ini juga ditemukan bahwa ada penyimpangan bentuk standar
kolokasi dapat dikategorikan menjadi tiga, yaitu grammatical transformation,
overgeneralization, dan blend. Dari hasil penelitian, dapat disimpulkan bahwa
penggunaan kolokasi yang konvensional dalam karya ilmiah perlu ditingkatkan.
Beberapa saran ditujukan kepada para dosen dan pembimbing skripsi,
mahasiswa, dan peneliti lainnya. Para dosen hendaknya memberikan materi bacaan
akademik yang autentik. Pembimbing skripsi hendaknya memperhatikan abstrak
dengan lebih teliti dan menyediakan umpan balik untuk menjaga gaya penulisan
akademik. Para mahasiswa hendaknya meningkatkan kemampuan mereka dengan
membaca text yang bersifat akademik dalam bahasa Inggris.
Kata kunci: kolokasi, konvensional, abstrak terjemahan.

viii

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to give my praise and greatest gratitude to Jesus
Christ for His blessing, grace, love, and guidance both in my ups and my downs
during my study and thesis completion. My gratefulness is worth giving to Mother
Mary, to whom I go whenever I face problems.
I am greatly indebted to FX. Ouda Teda Ena, S.Pd., M.Pd. my sponsor, for
giving me attention, suggestions, guidance, and motivation during the completion
of my thesis. My sincere gratitude also goes to all lecturers of English Education
Study Program, who have given me so many valuable things during my study. I
owe a debt of gratitude to Laurentia Sumarni, S.Pd. for kindly proofreading and
providing valuable feedback on my thesis. I also indebted to Dewi Widyastuti,
S.Pd., M.Hum. for helping me to get the collocation dictionary.
My sincere gratitude also goes to my beloved father and mother, Leobardus
Soebardi and Anastasia Tri Rahayu, who have given me financial support, love,
encouragement, and prayer. Also, I would like to express my appreciation to my
brothers, mas Agung and mas Novi; my sisters dik Pipit and dik Dyah for all their
support, love; kindness, and warmth. My greatest thank goes to my sweetheart,
Yohana Thresmaningsih Malvinas, who always encourages and helps me to
accomplish my thesis. Her love, care, smile, and patience mean a lot for me. My
gratitude also goes to the big family of Padmowiyono, Wignyodiharjo, and St.
Sumarinto for their love, support, and prayer.

ix

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

I also would like to thank the Language Institute of Sanata Dharma
University for giving me great responsibilities and opportunities to learn and apply
my knowledge in English teaching. My gratitude goes to my colleagues in the
Language Institute of Sanata Dharma University: Dr. Retno Muljani, M.Pd., tante
Di, Dian, Tika, Ucan, Yere, mas Sandi and all colleagues that I cannot mention
personally. Their willingness and support encourage me so much to complete my
thesis.
My appreciation goes to my Ex-Seminari friends, especially Wisnu,
Bangun, Febri, Jii, Lukas, Jempol, Yuli, Kebo, Jampes, Tessy, mBud. Last but not
least, I would thank my friends of English Education Study Program 2003 and
Cantus Firmus Choir of Sanata Dharma University. God bless them all.

x

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
TITLE PAGE ..............................................................................................

i

APPROVAL PAGES ...................................................................................

ii

PAGE OF DEDICATION…………………………………………..……….

iv

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY .............................................

v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI …………………...

vi

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................

vii

ABSTRAK ....................................................................................................

viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .........................................................................

ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................

xi

LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................

xiv

LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................

xv

LIST OF APPENDICES ..............................................................................

xvi

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
A. Research Background......................................................

1

B. Problem Formulation ......................................................

5

C. Problem Limitation .........................................................

5

D. Research Objectives ........................................................

6

E. Research Benefits............................................................

7

F. Definition of Terms.........................................................

7

xi

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
A. Theoretical Description ...................................................

11

1. Collocation ................................................................

11

a. Definition of Collocation .....................................

11

b. Criteria of Collocation .........................................

12

1) Non-compositionality……………………...

12

2) Non-substitutability…………………….……

12

3) Non-modifiability………………….……....

13

2. Phraseology Framework ............................................

16

3. Translation ................................................................

19

a. Definition of Translation .....................................

19

b. First and Second Language Translation ...............

21

c. Translating First Language Essay into Second
Language Essay ...................................................

23

d. Translation Method .............................................

24

e. Translation Process..............................................

26

B. Theoretical Framework ...................................................

28

CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY
A. Research Method ............................................................

32

B. Research Subject Studied ................................................

33

C. Research Instruments ......................................................

34

D. Data Gathering Technique...............................................

35

xii

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

E. Data Analysis Technique.................................................

36

F. Research Procedure.........................................................

38

CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Collocation of Translated Abstract ..................................

39

1. Grammatical Collocation...........................................

40

2. Lexical Collocation ...................................................

42

a. Verb-noun Collocation ........................................

42

b. Noun-verb Collocation ........................................

44

c. Adjective-noun Collocation .................................

46

B. Deviation of Conventional Collocation ...........................

47

1. Deviation on Grammatical Collocation ......................

49

2. Deviation on Lexical Collocation ..............................

52

a. Grammatical Transformation ...............................

52

b. Over-Generalization ............................................

53

c. Blend ...................................................................

53

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions ...............................................................

55

B. Suggestions ...............................................................

57

REFERENCES ..........................................................................................

59

APPENDICES ............................................................................................

62

xiii

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Sample List of Grammatical Collocation ......................................

37

Table 3.2 Sample List of Lexical Collocation...............................................

37

Table 3.3 Descriptors for Conventionality ....................................................

37

Table 4.1 Number and Percentage of Collocation .........................................

39

Table 4.2 Categories of Grammatical Collocation ........................................

40

Table 4.3 Number and Percentages of Lexical Collocations .........................

42

Table 4.4 Categories of Verb-noun Collocations ..........................................

43

Table 4.5 Categories of Noun-verb Collocations ..........................................

45

Table 4.6 Categories of Adjective-noun Collocations ...................................

46

Table 4.7 Comparison of Number and Percentages between Grammatical
and Lexical Collocation Based Categories ....................................

48

Table 4.8 List of Unconventional Grammatical Collocations........................

49

Table 4.9 List of Unconventional Lexical Collocations due to Overgeneralization...............................................................................

53

Table 4.10 List of Unconventional Lexical Collocations due to Blend ..........

54

xiv

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure. 2.1 Phraseology Framework Based on Cowie ..................................

17

Figure 2.2 Composite Unit of Lexical and Grammatical Collocation ............

18

Figure 2.3 An Overview of Translation Process ...........................................

27

xv

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A List of Grammatical Collocations .............................................

62

Appendix B List of Verb-Noun Collocations................................................

64

Appendix C List of Noun-Verb Collocations................................................

68

Appendix D List of Adjective-Noun Collocations ........................................

69

Appendix E Sample of Translated Abstracts ...............................................

70

xvi

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the researcher reviews the research background, problem
formulation, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and
definition of terms.

A. Research Background
English has been the lingua franca for science literature (Navarro, 2001).
The statement proposed by Navarro is based on a recent trend in Western world
since the 1950s. Of all the scientific genres, research articles are the most
important and prestigious communicative tool of the discourse community for
scientific experts (Swales, 1990; Rodriguez, 2000). Research articles in science
have been the subject of much investigation (e.g. Bazerman, 1988; Myers, 1989;
Butler, 1990; Hunston, 1994). From the numbers of investigation, it is considered
essential for every scientific expert who wants to be part of his/her discourse
community to be able to write adequate research articles. Because of the
importance of research articles and of English as the main language of the
international science community, many scientists whose native language is not
English prefer to publish their research results in English in international scientific
journal.
Such a situation also exists in Indonesia. The research papers, either by
undergraduate or graduate students, are required to be published for either
1

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

2
common readers or academic community. In the future, it is expected that
research results can be published internationally. Therefore, English is one of the
requirements for a research result to be internationally read. In short, ability to
write in English has always been held in high esteem in Indonesian education
program, particularly in university level. While writing directly in English has
been considered as a complex activity, translation has become an alternative to
reflect writer’s communicative skills (Shokrpour & Fallahzadeh, 2007).
The abstract in universities in Indonesia is required to be written in two
languages. Those are Indonesian and English (hereafter, Source Text (ST) and
Target Text (TT)). Based on the preliminary survey conducted to twenty graduate
students of the Economics Faculty of Sanata Dharma University, all of the
respondents stated that they constructed their abstract in the first language and
then translated it in the second language.
The demand to publish research paper in English has required students to
have sufficient knowledge and skill in English. In Indonesian setting, since
English is considered as a foreign language, it is assumed that not all students
have sufficient knowledge and skill in English. It is implied that writing the whole
research paper in English seems to be impossible for non English learners.
Therefore, the requirement is simplified. It is now required that the abstract must
be written in English. Nevertheless, students do not write abstract directly in
English. They make use of translation in producing English abstract.
Translating is always a very complex task, even when two languages seem
to display a very similar organization of the linguistic resources for the expression

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

3
of certain conceptual domains. Problems might occur in the translation process.
One of the problems is verb usage. Since there is no exact equivalence between
ST and TT, there are always possibilities that a word in ST could be translated
into some other words in TT. In this situation, students use wrong words in the
translation. Diction becomes one of the problems that students will face.
While facing problems arising in translation, another problem hinders the
students to produce an effective and conventional text. The problem mentioned
here is the problem in the translation of some verbs and phrases which lexicalize
universal conceptual domains. The word “conventional” itself is vague.
Nevertheless, Howarth (1998) defined “conventional” in two complementary
senses, to mean: firstly, the degree to which writers of academic English use
familiar, prefabricated word combinations (which in this research are limited to
certain types of collocation); and secondly, the extent to which those
combinations are used in their standard forms.
Collocation becomes one of the characteristics of an academic paper.
While translating collocation in ST into TT, students would think about whether
the collocation chosen in TT is conventional or not. The choice of adequate words
is crucial. Writing or translating a research article on a specialized topic is not
only difficult because of its specialized content and terminology, but also because
of the need to apply specific writing conventions which may change from one
academic community to another. Non-native speakers often lack this competence.
Even at a fairly high level of proficiency this aspect of linguistic competence is

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

4
frequently not well developed, hampering the easy comprehension of and
reducing the effectiveness of their translation (Howarth, 1998).
Two different collocations might have similar constructions. Nevertheless,
they are unpredictable for non-native speakers and usually do not have a literal
translation. Consider, for instance, the collocation to beat the record. This
collocation is used to translate Indonesian collocation memecahkan rekor. A nonnative speaker of English would literally choose break as the support verb for the
noun record. In fact, this collocation could not be translated in a word-for-word
fashion into English as to break a record, but as to beat a record.
While students are able to find the most equivalent words, they might face
the problem of finding the correct collocation. Recent corpus-based studies (Biber
et al. 1999; Oakey 2002; Biber 2004; Biber et al. 2004) have pointed to the
existence of an EAP phraseology characterized by word combinations that fulfil
organizational and rhetorical functions that are prominent in academic writing,
such as it has been suggested, it should be noted that, as shown in figure, for
example, as a result of, and in the presence of. Howarth (1998) claimed that
learners need lexical means that will allow them to conform to the native stylistic
norms for a particular register, which entails not only making appropriate
grammatical and lexical choices but also selecting conventional multi-word units
to an appropriate extent for effective communication in academic settings.
This research is concerned with translation issues at the university level.
This research is aimed to investigate some possibilities of collocation occurred in
translation project produced by the undergraduate students of the Economics

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

5
Faculty of Sanata Dharma University. The subject studied is a research result that
is represented by abstract. Tippet (2007) stated that an abstract is condensed
version of a longer piece of writing that highlights the major points covered. It
concisely describes the content and scope of the writing, and reviews the writing’s
contents in abbreviated form. Writing an excellent abstract is vital to encourage
readers to obtain the full paper, read it, and cite it. With the phenomenon of
information overload, many researchers will read only the abstract of a paper.
With the advent of abstract databases, many readers will see an abstract separately
from the rest of the paper.

B. Problem Formulation
There are two major questions that appear in this research, namely:
1. What are the types of collocations of the translated thesis abstracts of the
Economics faculty students?
2. To what extent does the deviation from the standard forms of conventional
collocations occur in the translated thesis abstracts?

C. Problem Limitation
This study was conducted through the discourse analysis of thesis abstracts
of twenty undergraduate students of the Economics Faculty. This study was
limited to the analysis of three parts of speech. Those are verbs, adjectives, and
nouns that are used in the translated abstracts. These three parts of speech are the
main components of collocation. By referring to the ST thesis abstract products,

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

6
the research investigates possibilities of diction on verbs translation from
Indonesian to English.
The research discussed the abstract produced by the economics students,
particularly accounting study program. The chosen thesis abstracts were those
which had been submitted to the Library of Sanata Dharma University and had
been the input in the library thesis data base in September 2007. The abstracts
were those that were first written in the ST (Indonesia) and translated into the TT
(English). The translated abstracts were chosen regardless who the translators are.
In other words, the choosing of abstract products disregarded the fact whether the
students translated the abstract by themselves or using professional translators.

D. Research Objectives
This research was conducted to investigate collocations that were used in
translated thesis abstracts. Since the abstracts must be written in two languages,
that were Indonesian (ST) and English (TT), undergraduate students of the
economics faculty opted to write the abstract in Indonesian and translate it into
English rather than write it directly in English. The research aimed to provide data
of the collocations that were translated from Indonesian into English. From the
data, this research depicted features of collocation translation that occurred in the
products of translated thesis abstract, particularly in economic field. This research
also answered the question of the extent of the deviation of conventional
collocation that occurred in translated thesis abstracts.

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

7
E. Research Benefits
The study will be useful for the people who are concerned with language
teaching and learning, particularly in translation. The result of this study can
recommend alternative approach in translation. This study may call attention to
the ways how students use their source language when preparing and translating
an abstract into target language. Results from this study would support the notion
that using source language benefits for some students in certain translation tasks,
and therefore the study seems to lend some support to the value of coaching
materials dealing with translation strategies, especially in lexicon level.
This study benefits learners in choosing the right diction in translating
collocation into the target language. By translating collocation appropriately, the
students can also maintain the characteristics of academic writing. The study will
also benefit the future researchers. This is because there are possibilities that
question will arise after the results of this study are presented. This question can
be the basis to conduct further more specific research.

F. Definition of Terms
There are terms used in this study. The writer will give the explanation of
each term in order to avoid misinterpretation. Those terms are collocation,
conventionality, translation, abstract, translated abstract, undergraduate
students, and the economics faculty. The terms are stated in the following
discussion.

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

8
1. Collocation
Firth (1957: 181) defined collocation as a statement of the habitual or
customary places of word. In the other words, it is a combination of adjacent
words which frequently occur together. There are two kinds of collocation, among
others, that are studied in this research. Those are grammatical collocation and
lexical collocation.

2. Conventionality
Conventionality is defined as the degree to which writers of academic
English use familiar and prefabricated word combinations. The second definition
about conventionality is the extent to which those combinations are used in their
standard forms. In this research, conventionality is perceived as whether or not the
collocation is commonly used the international journal and exists in their standard
form in the dictionaries

3. Abstract
Abstracts are found at the beginning of journal, articles, research papers,
reports, thesis, and dissertations. An abstract is a complete but concise and
informative account of researchers’ work. It is a condensation that makes sense
without reference to the full document. An abstract is not merely a descriptive
guide to the paper’s content. It is an abbreviated version of the paper. The
abstracts chosen in this research are the abstracts of the twenty undergraduate

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

9
students of the Economics Faculty that have been submitted to the university
library during September 2007.

4. Translated Abstract
Translated writing is an approach of putting ideas in the first language
(L1) and then translating it in the second language (L2). The first language in the
context of this paper is Indonesian. One of the processes involved in this kind of
writing is translation process. The students engaging in this writing would put
their ideas in L1 and then translate in L2. In the context of undergraduate students
of the economics Faculty, an abstract is written in Indonesia and then translated
into English.

5. Undergraduate Students
The students that produced the abstracts are the undergraduate students of
the Economics Faculty that have finished conducting the research and writing the
abstracts. They submitted the full version of their theses to the Library of Sanata
Dharma University on August 2007. The students have graduated in the academic
year 2007 and obtained a Sarjana Ekonomi degree.

6. The Economics Faculty
The economics faculty, in this study, is one of the faculties in Sanata
Dharma University. This institution participates actively in developing knowledge
in economic field. The institution serves to educate the students to have

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

10
competence in managing and developing company or organization and to provide
the students with academic competence so that they can continue their studies to
the higher degree.

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Some theories are considered to be the bases of this research. In this
chapter, the researcher reviews those basic theories and then gives the theoretical
framework of this thesis. This chapter is divided into two main parts; those are
theoretical description and theoretical framework. Some sources are cited on the
text.

A. Theoretical Description
There are four major issues underlying this research. Those are the issues
on collocation, phraseology framework, and translation. Each issue is reviewed in
terms of the theories and previous research findings of the issues mentioned.
1. Collocation
a. Definition of Collocation
There are actually different definitions of the notion of collocation.
Collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or customary places of
that word Firth (1957: 181). Most of the researchers who define collocation agree
that it is a lexical unit consisting of a cluster of two or three words from different
parts of speech, (Baker, 1992; Benson, Benson and Ilson, 1997; Williams, 2002).
Most of the definitions are paraphrases of Firth’s (1957, p.183) definition that
collocations are “words in habitual company”. Regarding the types of collocation,
there are open collocations and restricted ones. In open collocations, the words
11

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

12
can cluster with a wide range of other words whereas in restricted collocations,
they are fixed (Al- Salmani, 2001; Emery, 1991).
Some authors in the computational and statistical literature define a
collocation as two or more “consecutive” words with a special behavior. Choueka
(1988) defines collocation as a sequence of two or more consecutive words, that
has characteristics of a syntactic and semantic unit, and whose exact and
unambiguous meaning or connotation cannot be derived directly from the
meaning or connotation of its components.

b. Criteria of Collocation
The following criteria are typical of linguistic treatments of collocations
(see for example Benson (1989) and Brundage et al. (1992)).
1). Non-compositionality
The meaning of a collocation is not a straightforward composition of the
meanings of its parts. Either the meaning is completely different from the free
combination (as in the case of idioms like kick the bucket) or there is a
connotation or added element of meaning that cannot be predicted from the parts.
For example, white wine, white hair and white woman all refer to slightly
different colors, so a writer can regard them as collocations.

2). Non-substitutability
A writer cannot substitute near-synonyms for the components of a
collocation. For example, it is not acceptable to say yellow wine instead of white

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

13
wine even though yellow is as good description of the color of white wine as
white is (it is kind of a yellowish white).

3). Non-modifiability
Many collocations cannot be freely modified with additional lexical
material or through grammatical transformations. This is especially true for frozen
expressions like idioms. For example, we can’t modify frog in to get a frog in
one s throat into to get an ugly frog in one s throat although usually nouns like
frog can be modified by adjectives like ugly. Similarly, going from singular to
plural can make an idiom ill-formed, for example in people as poor as church
mice.
A moderate way to test whether a combination is a collocation is to
translate it into another language. If we cannot translate the combination word by
word, then that is evidence that we are dealing with a collocation. For example,
translating make a decision into Indonesian, a writer would get membuat
keputusan which is correct. In English a writer cannot write create a decision to
translate membuat keputusan. So that is evidence that make a decision is a
collocation in English.
Some authors have generalized the notion of collocation even further and
included cases of words that are strongly associated with each other, but do not
necessarily occur in a common grammatical unit and with a particular order (cases
like doctor – nurse or plane – airport). It is probably best to restrict collocations
to the narrower sense of grammatically bound elements that occur in a particular

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

14
order and use the terms “association” and “co-occurrence” for the more general
phenomenon of words that are likely to be used in the same context.
The concept of collocation can be perceived through some subclasses of
collocations. Verbs with little semantic content like make, take and do are called
light verbs in collocations like make a decision or do a favor. There is hardly
anything about the meaning of make, take or do that would explain why we have
to say make a decision instead of take a decision and do a favor instead of make
a favor, but for many computational purposes the correct light verb for
combination with a particular noun must be determined and thus acquired from
corpora if this information is not available in machine-readable dictionaries.
Dras and Johnson (1996) examine one approach to English lexicon. Verb
particle constructions or phrasal verbs are an especially important part of the
lexicon of English. Many verbs in English like to tell off and to go down consist
of a combination of a main verb and a particle. This type of construction is a good
example of a collocation with often non-adjacent words. Proper nouns (also called
proper names) are usually included in the category of collocations in
computational work although they are quite different from lexical collocations.
They are most agreeable to approaches that look for fixed phrases that reappear in
exactly the same form throughout a text.
Terminological expressions refer to concepts and objects in technical
domains. Although they are often fairly compositional (e.g., hydraulic oil filter),
it is still important to identify them to make sure that they are treated consistently
throughout a technical text. For example, when translating a manual, we have to

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

15
make sure that all instances of hydraulic oil filter are translated by the same term.
If two different translations are used (even if they have the same meaning in some
sense), the reader of the translated manual would get confused and think that two
different entities are being described.
Respectively, word combinations are also classified as grammatical and
lexical collocations (Al- Salmani, 2001; Emery, 1991). Grammatical collocations
are combinations where a preposition is used with a noun, a verb, or an adjective,
(for example: by accident, admiration for, agree with, account for, afraid of,
amazed at). Lexical collocations include: verb+noun (e.g. break a code, lift a
blockade); verb+adverb (e.g. affect deeply, appreciate sincerely); noun+verb (e.g.
water freezes, clock ticks); adjective+noun (e.g. strong tea, best wishes);
adverb+adjective (e.g. deeply absorbed, closely related)
Acquisition and correct production of such word combinations is a mark of
an advanced level of proficiency in a language. As Lewis (1997, p.15) puts it
“fluency is based on the acquisition of a large store of fixed or semi-fixed
prefabricated items.” James (1998, p.152) also agrees that the correct usage of
collocations “contributes greatly to one’s idiomaticity and nativelikeness.” Taiwo
(2004) sees lexical errors and grammatical errors as equally important. Sonaiya
(1988) goes even further to say that lexical errors are more serious because
effective communication depends on the choice of words.
Firth, Halliday, and Sinclair (1957) pay close attention to collocation
phenomena. Structural linguistics concentrates on general abstractions about the
properties of phrases and sentences. In contrast, Firth’s Contextual Theory of

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

16
Meaning emphasizes the importance of context: the context of the social setting,
the context of spoken and textual discourse, and, important for collocations, the
context of surrounding words. These contextual features easily get lost in the
abstract treatment that is typical of structural linguistics.
A good example of the type of problem that is seen as important in this
contextual view of language is Halliday’s example of strong vs. powerful tea
(Halliday 1966: 150). It is a convention in English to talk about strong tea, not
powerful tea, although any speaker of English would also understand the latter
unconventional expression. Arguably, there are no interesting structural properties
of English that can be collected from this contrast. However, the contrast may tell
the readers something interesting about attitudes towards different types of
substances in readers’ culture (why do we use powerful for drugs like heroin, but
not for cigarettes, tea and coffee?) and it is obviously important to teach this
contrast to students who want to learn idiomatically correct English. Most
collocations are also assumed adjacency of words. But in most linguistically
oriented research, a phrase can be a collocation even if it is not consecutive (as in
the example provide

information).

2. Phraseology Framework
Within the general framework of phraseology, the present research focuses
on a possibly narrow but linguistically and numerically prominent area. Figure 2.1
shows phraseology framework proposed by Cowie (1988).

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

17
word combinations

functional expressions

gambits

formulae

proverbs etc

composite units

grammatical
collocations

lexical
collocations

Figure 2.1 Phraseology Framework Based on Cowie (1988)

The first major division in word combinations is between “functional
expressions” and “composite units”. The former "have evolved meanings which
are largely a reflection of the way they function in discourse" (Cowie 1988:132),
and can frequently be identified with specific speech acts such as greeting (good
morning) or discourse functions such as recapping (as has been shown), many of
them, especially in speech, consisting of grammatically complete sentences.
Although fixed expressions with a discourse structuring function can easily be
identified in academic writing, they are not sufficiently central to the main focus
of this research to be included in the analysis.
The latter, “composite units”, are characterized by being grammatically
well-formed constituents of a clause or sentence and having a primarily
propositional function. These units can be further subdivided into grammatical
and lexical collocations (a distinction made in Benson et al., 1986), the first being
combinations of a content word and a function word (for example,
verb+preposition such as get on or adjective+preposition as in keen on), the
second consisting of two or more content words (many different combinations of
verb, noun, adjective and adverb), though other grammatical material may

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

18
intervene between the two primary elements in the collocation and form a
compulsory constituent: for example: have a significant effect on someone. This
combination is a recognisable unit as a whole and at the same time is composed of
both grammatical and lexical collocations. Figure 2.2 shows an example of
composite unit of lexical and grammatical collocation.

have

a

significant

effect

on

sth

lexical
lexical
grammatical

Figure 2.2 Composite Unit of Lexical and Grammatical Collocation

These are lexical collocations and grammatical collocation of the above
kind that are the focus of this study. The following list presents examples of such
composites. The list indicates the range of syntactic structures that are associated
with verbal patterns and given the coding

adj + n
crying shame
n + PrepP
tissue of lies
n + adj
battle royal
adv + adj
woefully inadequate
adv + v
richly deserve
S+V
common sense prevails
Verbal patterns
Tn
cast a vote
Tn.pr
serve notice on sb
Tn.p
run up a bill
Ipr
resort to violence

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

19
It is essential to consider lexical collocations as realisations of specific
syntactic patterns, rather than as mere co-occurrences of word forms on the
surface of texts. The psycholinguistic evidence points to word combinations being
stored and retrieved in combination with their syntactic structures (Pawley &
Syder 1983: 209). They are to varying degrees manipulated as wholes, or
'lexicalised' (Pawley, 1985). The more lexicalised they are the less language users
analyse them into their constituent parts and the more speedily they can be
retrieved and comprehended (Gibbs & Gonzales, 1985). The most extreme
instances of this phenomenon are idiomatic expressions which are semantically
unanalyzable (e.g. kick the bucket) and occasionally syntactically inconsistent
(trip the light fantastic). In addition, there are numerous idiosyncratic structural
features of lexical combinations. Compare, for example, the idiom take steps to
do something, which cannot be used in that sense with a singular noun and is
frequently found in the passive form, with take a step/two steps forward, as a
figurative idiom and take a step/several steps towards somebody, a restricted
collocation, which can be used with either a singular or plural noun and would be
unusual in the passive. Indeed the co-occurrence of step and take in a passive
construction would strongly bias the interpretation towards the idiomatic sense.

3. Translation
a. Definition of Translation
Although some definitions of translation are provided, each definition is
not different in its essence with each own emphasis. Dubois (1973), as cited by

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

20
Bell (1991) defined translation as the expression in another language (or target
language) of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving
semantic and stylistic equivalences. Through this definition, Dubois perceived the
notion of movement of some sort between languages, content of some kind and
the obligation to find equivalent which preserve features of the original.
The idea of equivalence is also supported by Meetham and Hudson (1972),
as cited by Bell (1991). They stated that translation is the replacement of
representation of a text in one language by representation of an equivalent text in
a second language. Texts in different languages can be equivalent in different
degrees (fully of partially equivalent), in respect of different levels of presentation
(equivalent in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.), and at
different ranks (word-for-word, phrase-for phrase, sentence-for-sentence)
(Meetham and Hudson, 1972).
Languages are different from each other. They are different in form having
codes and rules regulating the construction of grammatical stretches of language
and these forms have different meanings. It implies that in translation; something
might be lost (or even, gained).
Another definition of translation is proposed by Newmark (1981). He
stated that
Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message
and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in
another language. Each exercise involves some kind of loss of meaning,
due to number of factors. It provokes a continuous tension, dialectic, an
argument based on the claims of each language. The basic loss is on a
continuum between overtranslation (increased detail) and undertranslation
(increased generalization).

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

21

From this definition, some points concerning translation can be
highlighted. Those three points are: (a) replacement of written message, (b) some
kind of loss meaning, and a continuous tension. In other words, translation is an
act to replace written massage in one language into another language in which a
translator might experience tension when doing translation. During this process,
there might be a loss of meaning in the form of increasing detail, i.e.
overtranslation and/or increasing generalization, i.e. undertranslation.
Nida and Taber (1969), as cited by Suryawinata (1989) stated that
translating consists of reproducing message in the receptor language, the closest
natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and
secondly in terms of style. The definition proposed by Nida and Taber brings an
implication that translation has four important ideas. Those ideas cover
reproducing message, natural equivalence, meaning, and style

b. First and Second Language Translation
Comprehension in a first language might be superior to that in a second
language (Johnson, 2006). Skill in composition does not necessarily equate with
first language competence; and it cannot always be assumed, even if a translator
has balanced bilingual skills, that either of the two translation languages is at a
very high level. Editing of a translation will often be carried out by someone other
than the translator. Translating a well composed and natural text in second into the
first language is much easier than translating