A STUDY ON GRAMMATICAL ERRORS OF THE 5 th SEMESTER STUDENTS’ TRANSLATION OF INDONESIAN-ENGLISH AT MUHAMMADIYAH U NIVERSITYOF PURWOKERTO - repository perpustakaan

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Previous Research To support this research, there were some research related to analysis on

  grammatical errors in translation. Those previous researches show that there are some categories of grammatical errors made by the students‟ in translation.

  The areas of grammatical errors analyzed are different from researcher to others.

  A research was conducted by Hambali (2 011) entitled “Investigating

  Grammatical Errors in Translation” identified six different types of grammatical errors made by the students in translation. The types of grammatical errors are: 1). Absence of subject and verb in a clause, 2). Subject missing in a clause, 3). Verb missing in a clause, 4). Subject

• – verb agreement, 5). Absence of subordinators, and 6). Absence of plural nouns. The finding indicates that the highest number of students making errors is on plural nouns and the lowest one is on the absence of subject and verb. Hambali said that errors are affected by students‟ lack of knowledge of grammar and source language interference. He states that those factors are the major possibilities of causes of grammatical errors in translation.

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B. Translation 1. Definition of Translation

  Translation is a process not only to change a language into another language but also from one state to another. According to Newmark (1987:7) translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a wrtten message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language. He focuses on the maening of a text in translating which should have similarity and equivalence in both of the original text and the target one.

  Meanwhile, Munday (2001: 4) in his book states that translation can refer to general subject field, the product (the text has been translated), or the process (the act of producing translation, otherwise known as translating). The process of translation involves the translator changing an original written text or the source text into a written text in the target language. This kind of translation is called “interlingual translation”.

  Translation is regarded as a field of research that needs a skill to practice it. A proses of translation is related to the term of source language (SL) and target language (TL). The main skill to practice translation is the ability to process the data or information in source language then transfer them into target language. There are three categories of translation according to Jakobson (in Munday, 2001: 5), they are: a. Intralingual translation, this kind of translation occurs when one rephrases a text in the same language to clarify or explain something; b. Interlingual translation, is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language, this happens in translating a text from one language to other language; and,

  c. Intersemiotic translation, this kind of translation would occur if a written text were translated into music, film or painting.

  2. Approaches to Translating

  To consider something, approach has to be carried out, likewise, in translating a text. Newmark (1988: 21) in his book mentions two approaches to translating, they are:

  a. Start translating sentence by sentence, for say the first paragraph or chapter, to get the feel and the feeling tone of the text, and then deliberately sit back review the position, and read the rest of the SL text; b. Read the whole text three or two times, and find the intention, register, tone, mark the difficult words and passages and start translating only when it has taken one‟s bearings.

  3. The Methods of Translation

  A method is needed in the process of translating to recognize the way how to do translation. Newmark (1988: 45) divides two different emphases in the methods of translation; they are source language emphasis and target language emphasis. The following diagram shows the kinds of translation methods of SL emphasis and TL emphasis in the form of flattened V diagram:

  SL emphasis TL emphasis Word-for-word translation Adaption Literal translation Free translation

  Faithful translation Idiomatic translation Semantic translation communicative translation

a. SL (Source Language) emphasis

  1) Word-for-word translation This is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with TL immidiately below SL words. The SL word-order is preserved, and the words translated singly by their most common meanings, out of context. Cultural words are translated literally.

  The main use of word-for-word translation is either to understand the mechanics of the source language or to construe a difficult text as a pre-translation process. 2) Literal translation

  The SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context. As a pre-translation process, this indicates the problems to be solved.

  3) Faithful translation A faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL gram matical structures. It „transfers‟ cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical „abnormality‟ (deviation from SL norms) in the translation. It attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text-realization of the SL writer. 4) Semantic translation

  Semantic translation differs from „faithful translation‟ only in as far as it must take more account of the aesthetic value (that is, the beautiful and natural sound) of the SL text, compromissing on „meaning‟ where appropriate so that no assonance, word-play or repetition jars in the finished version.

b. TL (Target Language) emphasis

  1) Adaption This is the „freest‟ form of translation. It is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture converted to the TL culture and the text rewritten.

  2) Free translation Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form of the original. Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so- called „intralingual translation‟.

  3) Idiomatic translation Idiomatic translation reproduces the „message‟ of the original but tends to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloqualisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original.

  4) Communicative translation Communicative translation attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership.

  The limitation on the method of translation in this research is only literal and idiomatic translation. It is because literal translation focuses on the grammatical aspect in the SL language to be transferred to the closest TL equivalence. Besides, idiomatic translation makes the meaning of the text more acceptable in the target language with appropriate lexical and grammatical structure. Baker (1992: 86) explains that differences in the grammatical structures of the source and target language often result in some change in the information content of the message during the process of translation. Moreover, she states if the SL lacks a grammatical category which exists in the SL or on the contrary, the information expressed by that category may have to be ignored.

4. The Level of Translation

  Before starting translating, it is important to know the level of translation, so it will be easy to translate a text with each certain level.Newmark (1988: 22) states that translation work needs four levels more or less consciously in mind. The four levels of translation are: a. Textual level

  This is the level of literal translation of the source language into the target language.

  b. Referential level This level is the level of objects and events, real or imaginative, where the students mentally sort out the text and build up the referential picture in the mind when transforming a text from the SL into the TL.

  c. Cohesive level This level is general and covers both the structure and the moods of the text. The structure here includes some grammatical aspects in a text such as connective words. Meanwhile the moods are about feeling and emotion in the text.

  d. The Level of Naturalness Translating a text of a language into another language should be naturally done. It means that the translator has to make the text in the target language sound grammatically and lexically natural. Because of that, the translator has to ensure:

  1. That the translation makes sense;

  2. That it reads natural, that it is written in ordinary language, the common grammar, idioms and words that meet kind of situation (Newmark, 1988: 24).

5. The Process of Translation

  In reproducing a good translation which has the closest meaning of the target language, the process of the translation has to be undergone.In this research, the process of translation used consists of three steps; analysis, transfer and restructuring, as described in the following diagram.

  A (source) B (receptor/target) Analysis

  Restructuring

  X Transfer Y (Nida and Taber, 1974: 33)

  Scheme 2.1. Translation Process

  a. Analysis step: the surface structure is analyzed in terms of the grammatical meaning, lexical meanings, and combinations of words.

  b. Transfer: the analyzed material is transferred in the mind of translator from the SL to the target language.

  c. Restructuring: the transferred material is restructured in order to make the final message fully acceptable in the target language.

6. Evaluation of Translation

  To evaluate translation result, first thing that has to be known is what aspects should be assessed and then the second is how to evaluate the translation result.

  First of all, the aspect should be evaluated in translation according to Nadar (in Alim, 2011: 169) are in the following: a. Accuracy

  Accuracy refers to the semeness level of meaning between the source language text as the input and the target language text as the product or output.

  b. Clearness Clearness means that the translation result is easy to be understood and acceptable either in terms of grammar or meaning.

  c. Naturalness Finally, naturalness refers to the purity of the translation result, and it has to be felt as the original one.

  The second thing that is important to be known to evaluate translation result is the way of evaluating translation. Newmark (1988: 186-189) proposed some ways of evaluating translation result, they are text analysis, the translator‟s purpose, comparing the translation with the original, and the evaluation of translation.

C. Grammatical Error in Translation

  Grammatical error are mistakes made by human that can cause problems in the grammatical structure. Based on Baker‟s statement (1992: 86), differences in the grammatical structure of the source and target languages often cause some changes in the information content of the message during the process of translation, for instance, Indonesian and English languages. Indonesian and English languages have different grammatical characteristic. As the consequence, the translator gets problems of grammatical adaptation when the translator translates English text into Indonesian one or on the contrary. Indeed, this will be worst if one of the languages has a grammatical category which another one lacks. For sure, it tends to be a big problem faced by translator.

1. Translation Problems

  Since translation is a process of replacing one language into another language in which they have such differences, of course, during the process the translator must find some problems. Alim (2011: 169) that classifies translation problems fall into the following categories: a. Accurary or equivalence

  To achieve the equivalency, a translator has to think about how to choose the appropriate vocabularies, to arrange them in a grammatical sentence that reflects the meaning of the SL text. b. Ecological terms Ecological terms related to flora and fauna are sometimes difficult to translate because of geographical difference between those terms in both SL and TL.

  c. Technical or material terms This term includes the translation of the kinds of food, beverages, fashions, transportation, etc.

  d. Social terms and custom Social terms and custom reflects social and political life of a nation such as terms in social organizations, political parties, state bodies, ministry positions, etc. This could be a problem since each nation has different terms to mention those parts.

  e. Language problem Language problem is caused by the difference system between source and target language and the essential confusion is on the grammatical structure difference.

  From those problems, the problem investigated in this research is language problem that happen the most in translation. This research only corners in this problem, especially in grammatical structure in both source and target language. The different grammatical structure in both source and target languages causes many problems and it becomes errors if this occurs some times in the process of translation.

  Furthermore, the fact that the translator, in this case, the student of

  English Education Department lack language competence may lead grammatical errors in translation. Sometimes grammar aspect is unintentionally ignored by the students. They are not aware of that aspect, whereas grammar is an important aspect as the goal in the translation.

2. Some Differences on Grammar between Indonesian and English Language

  Differences of grammatical rules may cause problems, even in translating a text in another language. Suryawinata and Sugeng (2003: 77- 85) in their book entitled “Translation” present some grammatical differences between Indonesian and English languages which have potential to be problems in translation.

  a. Article There are two kinds of articles in English, definite and indefinite.

  Definite article is „the‟ which can be translated into Indonesian as „nya‟, „itu‟, „ini‟, and „tersebut‟. While, indefinite article is such as „a‟, or „an‟, which can be translated into Indonesian as „sebuah‟, „sebutir‟, „seekor‟, „sekuntum‟, „seorang‟, etc. Moreover, an Indonesian sentence that does not have articles can be translated in English with articles. For example: Indonesia English Kendaraanku adalah kuda. My vehicle is a horse.

  Ayahku mengendarai motor. My father drives a motorcycle.

  The indefinite article is used before a singular countable noun when it is mentioned for the first time and represent no particular person or thing (e.g. a horse, an hour); with a noun complement (e.g. a dozen, a couple). On the other hand, definite article used before nouns of which there is only one (e.g. the earth); before a noun which is mentioned a second time; representing only one particular thing (e.g.

  Ann is in the garden – the garden of Ann‟s house). As a result, the students have to be careful when translating Indonesian text into English one because of lack of articles in Indonesian.

  b. Plural Noun Plural is not needed to be translated in Indonesian. English has nominal concord and agreement but Indonesian does not. The rule forces a plural noun should be in the form of plural. For example:

  English Indonesian Two people Dua orang (not dua orang-orang) Many cars Banyak mobil (not banyak mobil-mobil)

  c. Pronoun English has some personal pronouns, but it is not as complex as in

  Indonesian. There is a division based on gender or sex, singular or plural, and inanimate things. For gender we can use she, her, hers, he,

  

him, his, whereas for singular or plural, it, its, they, them, their, theirs,

  we, our, and ours.

  As a result, the students can translate „she‟ or „he‟ as „dia‟ in Indonesian without mentioning the sex.

  For example: English Indonesian She is a student. Dia adalah seorang siswa. (not Dia perempuan adalah seorang siswa) He is a good doctor Dia adalah seorang dokter yang baik. (not Dia laki-laki adalah dokter yang baik) In addition, the use of „it‟, „its‟ and „they‟ and „them‟ for inanimate things is unusual in Indonesian d. Noun Phrase

  Noun phrase consists of „article + adjective + noun‟ in English‟. It is different from Indonesian which consists of „(article) + noun + adjective‟ and it has to begin by a noun. For example: English Indonesian a patient man (seorang) lelaki yang sabar an intelligent young girl (seorang) gadis muda yang cerdas a tall water tower (sebuah) menara air yang tinggi Meanwhile, there is another arrangement of noun phrase in English. It is different from the rule above that adjective may be after noun. For example: English Indonesian Something interesting Sesuatu yang menarik A girl in red (seorang) gadis berpakaian merah

  e. Gerund Gerund is the form of Verb 1 + ing in English and its function is as a noun. It can be placed as subject, object, after preposition and certain verbs. Because Indonesian does not have gerund, it can be translated into verb or noun in the form of gerund.

  f. Participle Participle is an adjective derived from verbal phrase. There are two kinds of participle. The first is present participle which is derived from verb 1 + ing and the second is past participle that is formed by verb 3. In addition, present participle is translated as an active sentence, while past participle is translated as a passive in Indonesian.

  For example: English Indonesian The topic is boring Topiknya membosankan She is bored of the topic Dia bosan dengan topik tersebut

  g. Tenses English has three basic tenses namely past, present, and future. The verb in tenses is changed by the time when situation happens. However, Indonesian does not have such the tenses. The English sentences in form of tenses are translated to be „sudah/telah‟ for the past, „sedang‟ for the present, and „nanti/akan‟ for future.

  h. Question Tag Question tag is a question added to at the end of a declarative sentence which is used to engage the listener and verify that something has been understood, or confirm that an action has occured. It can be translated as „bukan‟, „kan‟, or „ayolah‟ in Indonesian.

  For example: English Indonesian You are not serious, are you? Anda tidak serius, bukan? He came to your house last Dia datang ke rumahmu tadi malam, bukan? night, didn‟t he? i. Conditional Sentence

  There are three types of conditional sentences. Conditional type 1 refers to the future. An action in the future will only happen if a certain condition is fulfilled by that time. Type 2 refers to the situations in the present time. Type 3 refers to the situations in the past. The following formula is to translate conditional sentences. English Indonesian I. If . . . V1, . . . will V1.

  I. Jika . . . V, . . . akan V.

  II. If . . . V2, . . . would V1.

  II. Jika saja . . . V, . . . akan V.

  III. if . . . had V3, . . . would have V3.

  III. Seandainya . . . V, . . . akan V For example:

  Indonesian English

  

I Jika saya punya cukup waktu, If I have enough time, I will

saya akan menonton TV sampai watch TV later on tonight.

larut malam.

  

II Jika saya tidak punya teman, If I did not have any friends, i

saya akan kesepian. would be lonely.

  

III Seandainya mereka belajar, If they had studied, they would

mereka akan lulus ujian. have passed the exam.

  j. Passive Voice Passive voice is the opposite of active one. The passive of an active tense is formed by putting the verb to be into the same tense as the active verb and adding the past participle (V3) of the active verb. In other words, the object of an active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb. The passive voice is used in English when it is more convinent or interesting to stress the thing done or when the doer is unknown. In a passive sentence the agent, or doer of the action, is rarely mentioned. When the a gent is mentioned it is preceded by „by‟ For example:

  Indonesian English Jam tanganku telah dicuri. My watch was stolen. Dia makan apel. An apple is eaten (by her).

  Beside the above grammatical differences, other categories of grammatical differences between Indonesian and English language that can be errors in translation are from Hambali. These categories are based on the findings of his research entitled “Investigating Grammatical Errors in Translating”. The categories are (Hambali, 2011: 4):

  a. Subject and verb missing in a clause In both Indonesian and English language, every sentence must have a subject and a predicate. In English a predicate must consists of at least a verb, but in Indonesian, beside a verb, a predicate can be an adjective, a noun or even a prepositional phrase such as the following examples.

  English Indonesian That house is expensive. Rumah itu mahal. The floating house is a Rumah terapung adalah rumah traditional house. adat.

  The words „expensive‟ and „mahal‟ are adjectives. Adjectives near word „is‟ and „are‟ in the sentences above as verbs (linking verbs). Meanwhile, in the sentences “Rumah itu mahal”, “Rumah terapung adalah rumah adat”, and “Layang-layang itu di atas rumah rakit”, they do not require verbs.

  b. Subject-verb agreement Azar (1999: 88) provides 5 major rules of basic subject-verb agreement. They are: 1). If the subject is third person singular in the simple present tense, the verb will be added

• –s/es, but if the subject

  are plural, the verb is in the form of V1, 2). Two or more subjects connected by and require a plural verb, 3). Every and each are always followed by singular nouns, 4). Sometimes a phrase or clause separates a subject from its verb, but it does not affect basic agreement, 5). A gerund used as the subject of the sentence requires a singular verb. Hambali (2011: 4) tells generally subject-verb agreement describes how the simple verb or be verb is formed when the subject is singular or plural. Those rules do not exist in the simple present tense in Indonesian so that this grammatical difference leads problems in translating Indonesian text into English one.

D. Error Analysis 1. Definition

  Error is different from mistake. Error exists when the learners do not master target language very well. They have lack of knowledge and competence of the target language.

  The explanation previously mentioned is supported by Tarigan‟s statement (1995: 75) that error can happen because the learners do not yet understand linguistic system of target language. He adds that error always occurs consistently and continuously if it is ignored by the teacher. That‟s why an error analysis should be taken in order to fix learners‟ errors.

  Error analysis is a procedure for collecting sample of error, identifying, explaining, classifying and evaluating errors done by a researcher or a language teacher (Tarigan, 1995: 68).

  It is similiar with the definition from Ellis & Barkhuize (in Taher, 2011: 7) that error analysis is described as “a set of procedures for identifying, describing and explaining learners‟ errors”.

  In summary, error analysis is a set of procedures for collecting sample of error, identifying, explaining, and evaluating learners‟ errors.

2. Procedures of Error Analysis

  To conduct an error analysis, we need to carry our some steps that are included in the process. Tarigan (1995: 71) in his book modifies the steps of error analysis. They are: a.

  Collecting sample of learners‟ work In the first ste p, data or sample is collected from student‟ work. When collecting the data we have to consider what the purpose of the research so that the data taken are revelant to the research problem.

  b. Identifying errors Next step, errors should be identified and classified based on certain category, for example, when identifying grammatical errors in learners‟ texts, they have to be compared to what is grammatically correct in English grammar books.

  c. Ranking the errors After identifying the errors, we have to rank the errors according to frequency of their occurrence. d. Explaining the errors This step is to describe the errors, the causes of errors and give the correct example.

  e. Error evaluation The last step in error analysis is to evaluate errors and draw a conclusion on the results. In this step, the different errors are being weighed in order to distinguish which error should get more attention and be taught in class.

3. Types of Error

  Error can happen because one lacks of competence of the language when he is learning one language or more. According to Tarigan (1995:85) Error is divided into two general types, they are: a.

  Intralingual error, this error is caused by the students‟ difficulties in learning the language itself.

  b. Interlanguage error, this error occurs because of interference of mother tongue to target language being learned.

  Interlanguage error can be divided into some sub-types, they are omission, addition, misinformation, and misordering.

  1) Omission Omission happens when there is a word omitted or deleted.

  Even though each word has a potential chance to be omitted, some kinds or words have more potential to be omitted such as auxiliary verb, preposition, article, conjunction, and other part of speech. For example “My sister happy”, the auxiliary verb “is”is omitted in that sentence. It should be “My sister is happy”.

  2) Addition Addition is on the contrary of omission. This is marked when a word appears in the sentence, meanwhile it should not be there.

  Addition can be separated into three types, namely (a) double markings exists if there are two words which have the same characteristic; (b) regularization, this type happens when one applies rules of regular words (verb and plural noun) to the irregular or one has added a word or an ending to another word which is grammatically incorrect; (c) simple addition is caused by the use of incorrect grammatical rules. 3) Misformation/Substituation

  Misformation is caused by the use of wrong form of a morpheme or structure. It can be distinguished into three types.

  4) Misordering Misordering is marked by incorrect arrangement of a morpheme in a sentence.