An analysis of Equivalence of Culrural terms in some Cultural Articles in Indonesia’s Official Tourism Website
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background of Study. According to Newmark (1988), translation is a process of rendering the
meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended. When reflecting to Newmark’s perspectives of translation, it easily seen that the core of translating is the process of understanding meaning. Understanding meaning could help people to understand another language as well since whether the construction of both language is different, but similarly, both of language contain meanings.
How important meaning in a communication really? According to Husserl,” Being meaningful is essential to linguistic expression”. (Husserl 2008:12). Husserl outlines that linguistic expressions are objects due to their meanings or more precisely through the agency of a peculiar intention that bestows meaning upon them. Regarding to Husserl’s point of meaning, we may see that we absolutely read a meaning printed into books or texts or uttered by speakers. No matter how the language comes to us, but the core of men’s problem when having a conversation or reading a book is to catch the meaning, not to catch the words or the units. On this point, Husserl stresses on the importance of meaning. He describes clearly that meaning is one aspect of language. When someone is not able to catch the meaning in our language, then the language will fall to vain.
It is obviously understood that meaning entirely holds all the understanding in a man’s conversation. Without its existence, human’s communication would go nothing and end in absurdity. “My reading ends when I don’t know the word means”. That short statement describes clearly that it is really essential to get the meaning in an utterance by pretending how the meaning goes to us, whether in an abstract or concrete meaning. “Being meaningful is really essential in a linguistic expression”. In linguistics, meaning is deeply studied by using semantics theories. According to Locke, semantics is a branch of linguistics that deals with the study of meaning. In studying meanings, semantics deals with prior types of expression and not focus on the properties of speakers’ utterance. It means semantics study focuses to observe a construction of each sentence and then after observing it, the meaning included in could be found. Hence, when doing a study of meaning by using semantics approach, recognizing the units of language that constructs a text is the first step that should be done. Those units could be phonemes, syllable, morphemes, and words and so on. They are some of units of language that involved in building a text.
After reviewing the critical role of meaning in understanding languages, it is easily said that people’s communication may work if the speakers could catch up the meanings contained in those language. Yet, the problem which is appeared here, how do people catch up the meaning if people cannot figure out the meaning? In solving this problem, a translation theory is proposed as a way out in bridging this gap. The translation proposes a theory to figure out a foreign language and it is started by analyzing, transferring, and ultimately reconstructing the source language into target language.
In the west, from antiquity to the late nineteenth century theoretical statements about translation fell into traditionally define areas of thinking about language and culture: literary theory and criticism, rhetoric, grammar, philosophy. And the most frequently cited theorists comprise a fairly limited group. One such catalogue might include: Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Augustin, Jerome, Dryden, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Arnold Nietzsche. Twentieth-century translation theory reveals a much a much expanded range of fields and approaches reflecting the differentiation of modern culture: not only varieties of linguistics, literary criticism, philosophical speculation, and cultural theory, but experimental studies and anthropological fieldwork, as well as translator training and translation practice.
After reviewing the old perspectives of translation in West, then, this present thesis walks on a definition from Catford in Nababan (1999: 19) “Penerjemahan
sebagai proses penggantian suatu teks bahasa sumber dengan teks bahasa sasaran.
Dia juga mengartikan penerjemahan sebagai penggantian materi teks bahasa
bahasa sumber dengan materi teks bahasa sasaran”. Due of the opinion, it may be
concluded that translation is the process of transferring a meaning from SL to TL by regarding the style and the form of the language. Keeping the style and the form of the translation text is intended to maintain the message included in it. If the translator succeeds to maintain the meaning in the process of translating, then there will be no lost message to the readers of translation result.
Based on that issue, it is easily seen that maintaining the form and stylistic in transferring meaning is really important to make a good translation. In other word maintaining the form and stylistic is named as the equivalence effect. Equivalent effect is an important intuitive principle could be tested but, as is often the case, the research would not be worth the effort: however, it is usefully applied in reasonable discussion, particularly within the “skill” (as opposed to the ‘truth’, the ‘art’ and the ‘test’) area of language.
A translation is pre-eminently a matter for discussion rather than fiat. Too often it is still being imposed as a teacher’s ‘fair copy’ or model. In fact, the simplest sentence- ‘the gorgeous girl walked gingerly through the closet’- would, in or in spite of any context, be translated variously by a dozen experts in a dozen different language).
Regarding that issue, it can be seen that it is really important to keep maintaining the transferring meanings from SL to TL. Through maintaining the meaning, the readers will not meet vagueness when reading the translation result and the original text. The vagueness appears because of misinterpreting the source text.
As stated above that when the translator misinterprets the meaning intended in the SL then the translation result in TL will fall in same mistake as well.
The misinterpretation in equivalence often occurs in cultural terms. It often happens since the cultural terms are sometimes delivered in very specific language so the very specific terms could be found in target language. In avoiding this problem, the translator should know the theory of equivalence since through knowing this theory; the translator will easily find an ultimate solution in translating the very specific cultural terms.
This thesis deals with the equivalence theory since this present analysis is going to analyze is the Indonesia’s cultural internet website which is written in two languages (bilingual). Since this site is closely related to the culture of a certain place, then it can be easily concluded that most words in this site is related to the cultural terms. The reason for choosing this cultural site are this site is providing complete information about culture which is written in two languages. Besides, the information contained in this site is also in various ways. There are many menus offered by this site to make the visitor of this seat have many choices in reading article. This site is also enriched with updated news about something happens in our society.
Another reason that makes this site is pointed to be analyzed is this site closely stands with people. As a cultural site owned by the government this site is fully dedicated to the society. Through its existence, this site could help people to understand more about their culture. Based on the reason it can be concluded that this site is mostly read by the society. Therefore through the discussion of equivalence in translation in this analysis it hopefully gives a significant help to the readers of this site in understanding the translation of the terms.
Maintaining the culture can be started by maintaining the language. Through the analysis of translation in this thesis, people who read this thesis will love their culture and also love learning the translation theory.
1.2. Problems of Study
Regarding that background above, some questions are formulated to elaborate the analysis about the equivalence in translation. The questions which are going to be answered in this analysis are:
1. What are the profiles of cultural phrases in the articles of Indonesia’s official tourism website?
2. What equivalence strategies are used in translating cultural terms in Indonesia’s official tourism website?
3. What is the dominant equivalence strategy found in translating the cultural terms in those cultural articles?
1.3. Objectives of Study
After reviewing the problems which are going to be analyzed in this present thesis then the focus moves to the objectives of doing this analysis. Based on those problems viewed above, the objectives of this analysis are:
1. To find out the profiles of cultural phrases in the articles of Indonesia’s official tourism website.
2. To elaborate the translation techniques are used in translating cultural terms in Indonesia’s official tourism website.
1.4. Scope of the Analysis.
In doing an analysis it is essentially needed to make a limitation in discussing the cases since this limitation helps to make the focus of the problems which are intended to be revealed. This limitation is designed through considering the theory and the needs this analysis walks on.
Based on those issues, the scope of this analysis is begun with the articles of the website. There are various articles which are available in Indonesia’s official website. However, this present analysis merely focuses on selected articles dealing with cultural aspects in Indonesia so this analysis declines other articles available in this website but those are not linked with culture.
In analyzing those articles this present thesis elaborates the profile of the cultural phrases in this website. There are some units of linguistics which build a language but the analysis is only focused on the cultural phrases. This analysis then reveals how the profile is to the readers. After revealing the profile of the cultural phrases in those articles, this then analysis tries to convey some techniques used in translating those cultural phrases.
1.5. Significance of the Analysis.
The significances of doing something could be seen theoretically and practically. Through this analysis, this present thesis hopefully gives some significance where:
1. This analysis could enrich the readers’ knowledge about equivalence translation.
2. This analysis could help the readers to understand the translation of cultural terms in Indonesia’s official website.