TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH IMPERATIVE SENTENCES IN PROCEDURAL TEXTS INTO INDONESIAN

Ifoni Ludji

Teacher Training and Educational Sciences Faculty

PGRI NTT, Kupang University

III/40 Perintis Kemerdekaan, Kota Baru

Telepon 0380- 82182

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This study aims at exploring the types of English imperative sentences in procedural text and analyzing the reason why such translation procedures are applied. The method in conducting this study was descriptive qualitative method. The researcher did observation by taking notes and also applied the document analysis. The result of the study indicates that the types of English imperative sentences used in English procedural texts and their Indonesian translation in psychology book entitled “What I Wish I Knew at Eighteen” commonly use three types of imperative such as negative commands, requests, and positive commands. In addition, four kinds of translation procedures are used in this study. The existences of translation procedures become the reason of why such translation procedures are being applied and also there are three basic reason namely, semantic factor, syntactic factor and culture factor.

Keywords: procedural text, imperative sentences, translation procedures.

ABSTRAK

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi jenis kalimat perintah bahasa Inggris dalam teks prosedural dan untuk menganalisis alasan mengapa prosedur penerjemahan tersebut diterapkan. Metode yang digunakan dalam melakukan penelitian ini adalah metode deskriptif kualitatif. Peneliti melakukan pengamatan melalui mencatat dan juga menerapkan analisis dokumen. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa jenis kalimat perintah bahasa Inggris yang digunakan dalam teks prosedural dan terjemahan bahasa Indonesianya dalam buku psikologi yang berjudul"What I Wish I Knew at Eighteen”pada umumnya menggunakan tiga tipe kalimat perintah seperti, kalimat perintah negative, kalimat permintaan, dan kalimat perintah positif. Selain itu, terdapat juga empat macam prosedur penerjemahan yang digunakan yaitu prosedur peminjaman, modulasi, transposisi,dan literal. Selanjutnya, prosedur penerjemahan tersebut diterapkan berdasarkan faktor semantik, sintaksis dan faktor budaya.

Kata kunci: teks prosedural, kalimat perintah, prosedure penerjemahan.

INTRODUCTION

Conveying meaning of a sentence cannot be done by knowing the meaning of each single word in that sentence then the meaning is totally denoted. But the most important thing in

identifying meaning of a sentence construction is by explicating each meaning of each single word in sentence. It is not always done for each word in sentence because there is gapping in breaking down the meaning of each part of speech in sentence. Thus, it is quite difficult to translate certain sentences into the target language. For example the verb, noun, adjective and adverb in a sentence bring different concept. The different is in the main focus of that sentence.

Dealing with sentence, imperative sentence is one of the sentences that has uniqueness in conveying or expressing a meaning in a sentence construction, because this sentence constructions quite poorly understood, in the sense that it is not clear how they should be represented, or what rules should be used to describe them. The imperative sentences mostly found in procedural text, because the procedural texts tell us about the process of making and doing something by following the instruction. It explains the way people perform various processes in a sequence of steps, and it is often in imperative sentences. English imperative sentences are usually used to give command and prohibition to other people and have no subject and contain the basic verb. While Indonesian imperative gives the similar concept about the imperative like the English imperative, but English has simple types or form while Indonesian is quite complicated.

Those phenomena above become the interesting topic to be discussed, actually what the different between English imperative sentence construction and their Indonesian imperative sentence? This paper is discussing about the types of English imperative, the way of constructing English imperative and Indonesian imperative and the reason of such translation procedure are being applied.

METHOD OF RESEARCH

The data of the research were taken from one English psychology book text (SL) entitle “What I Wish I Knew at Eighteen” along with their translation into Indonesian psychology book text (TL) entitled “What I Wish I Knew at Eighteen” used as the data source. In collecting the data, the writer employed certain techniques such as “observation”: the aim of this technique is finding

the imperative sentences, underlined them and compared them by reading the target language in order easy to observe how they are being translated into target language and taking note of them. Furthermore, in analyzing data the identify method proposed by Sudaryanto (2011:239) is used while the technique such as, identifying the types and their translation, describing the data qualitatively, exploring the implied phenomena deals with linguistics and the discourse of text in data, and classifying the translation procedures applied by the translator in the product of translation in terms of imperative sentences and their translation. In presenting the data, the researcher uses the formal method (Sudaryanto, 1993). It deals with the way of presenting a topic by describing and explanation in words about the findings.

DISCUSSION

This chapter discusses about the types of English imperative sentences and their Indonesian equivalent sentences. Moreover, it also elaborates the reason of applying translation procedures. Those topic above are important to be discussed because English has simple types while Indonesian is quite complicated. For the detail, let considering the following sub-sections.

The Types of Imperative Sentence in English Procedural texts and their Translation

English imperative sentence used in procedural text of “What I Wish I Knew at Eighteen” can be classified into three types, they are: (1) Negative imperative command, (2) request command, and (3) positive command.

Negative Commands Types of Imperative Sentence

The negative commands in English are not dynamic in terms of syntactic level, while Indonesian negative commands are dynamic because of morphological operation. The morphological operation is marked by word formation in particular verbs in Indonesian. This issue

is elaborated in five sub section of negative commands type of imperative sentence, such as following:

EI do not + base verb ⇒jangan + prefix meng- + base verb+ suffix –kan and Their Indonesian

The English pattern is quite different from Indonesian. Indonesian insists morphological process which is means that, the complexity of the semantic form is important. The complexity represents the notion which is meant by a sentence. For example: the word “ mengandalakan” derives from ‘andal’ it is the root or the base. It has prefix meng- and suffix –kan. If the prefix meng- is omitted thus the meaning of the form will be different. The prefix meng- means that the subject is an agent which does or do the implied meaning. One representative data below describe the issue.

Example:

  • (1)    SL: Don’t make promises you can not keep

TL: Jangan menjanjikan hal-hal yang tidak bisa kamu penuhi

The example above shows that the sentence is negative commands. This called as negative commandbecause the construction of the sentence is marked of do not and jangan. Thomson (1986: 280) stated that negative command in English imperative sentence reported by not + infinitive (base verb) in the sentences. The SL data is translated into Indonesian in the same type of imperative, namely negative imperative command. Sneddon (1996:325) stated that negative commands are formed with jangan or do not before the verb. the process of imperative construction of the SL is formed by syntactical process that is do not + base verb, while in TL it is formed by morphological process by attaching jangan + meng + base verb + -kan. The affixation of meng- kan functioned to form the active transitive verb. The prefix meng represent a sound which changes depending on the first sound of the base. By attaching the prefix meng to a verb root word does not change the meaning of the verb but gives the new verb a sense of having the main focus of the sentence on the

actor and not on the action or the object of the action. Further, adding kan- to show that the subject get someone else to perform the action, for example “menjanjikan”.

The example (1) shows the transposition procedures is relying on. It is called transposition procedure since the translator in TL translates the phrase ‘make promises’ in SL into the verb ‘menjanjikan’ in TL. Vinay and Dalbernet (2001:56), stated that transposition involves replacing one word class with another without changing the meaning of the message. In this case, the grammatical change occurs in changing the word class or part of speech from the ‘phrase’ in SL become sthe ‘verb’ in TL.

EI do not + base verb ⇒jangan + meng- + base verb and their Indonesian.

It is found that Indonesian verb determines the sentence pattern of imperative sentence. Not all the types can be categorized in this issue. The verb which can have this kind of issue is stative verb and the verb which accepts the prefixation meng- only. Thus, Indonesian imperative sentence’s pattern structurally. The example below show the simplification:

  • (2)    SL: Don’t make an important decision while your upset

TL: Jangan membuat keputusan penting saat marah

The example above shows that the sentence is negative commands. This called as negative command the construction of the sentence is marked of do not and jangan. Thomson (1986: 280) stated that negative command in English imperative sentence reported by not + infinitive (base verb) in the sentences. The SL data is translated into Indonesian in the same type of imperative, namely negative imperative command. Sneddon (1996:325) stated that negative command are formed with jangan or do not before the verb. The data (2) has a base “buat” is categorized as verb in Indonesian. So it means that “buat” in that context is accepted as well. However, it has a prefix meng- in the form is called inflectional bound morpheme because it does not change the word class of the root or base “buat”.

The translation result in data (2) indicates transposition occurs due to the translation effect in the sentence that the word important decision in SL is translated into keputusan penting in TL. Transposition is a shift of word class as a change of grammatical category. In this case, the data shows the structural shift result from the fact that the word or phrasal structure of the SL different from that of the TL. The SL phrasal made up of a modifier followed by a head, important decision while in the TL the head is followed by the modifier, keputusan penting.

EI do not + base verb ⇒jangan + ber + base verb and their Indonesian.

In English, the stative verbs come with prefixation. The prefix is ber-. For the detail, let see the example below:

  • (3)    SL: Don’t expect your spouse to change his or her ways

TL: Jangan berharap pasanganmu bisa merubah cara-caranya

Considering the data (3) above, it claims that it is involved in negative command which is marker by jangan+ber+base verb. it can be seen that the negative imperative command “ do not and jangan are markers of the negative command constructions in the sentences. The same type of imperative is translated into Indonesian, namely negative imperative command which is formed with “jangan” or do not before the verb. The data (3) above indicates that the SL is equivalent with the Indonesian sentence. However, they are different morphologically. In SL there is a base verb ‘expect’ without undergoing morphological process. While in TL, the word “berharap” undergoes morphological process. It shows that the form can be broken down into “ber-“ and “harap”. The word “harap” itself is involved in verb class. Even, the existence of “ber-“ at the beginning of “harap” does not change the word class.

The transposition translation occurs in the level of structural shift in the example (3). The structural shift result from the fact that the word or phrasal structure of the SL different from that of the TL. SL phrasal structure is made up of a post modifier your followed by a head life become your

life. Whereas, in the TL the head hidup is followed by the modifier “mu” or “kamu” thus it becomes “hidupmu”.

EI do not + base verb ⇒jangan+base verb+

-kan and their Indonesian

Indonesian base verb undergoes suffixation –kan, it means that –kan as bound morpheme also has implication in terms of conveying meaning in grammatical sentence.

  • (4)    SL: Don’t say something about someone else

TL: Jangan katakan sesuatu tentang orang lain

The meaning of –kan in Indonesian is to form verb- morphologically. moreover, syntactically it is supported. It means that the context of sentence structure makes the meaning of – kan becomes explicitly. The suffix –kan changes the word class of “kata” as (noun) to be “katakan” (verb). Further, semantically, suffix-kan means that something which is being told is moving or undergoing the event of the verb. the example above clear that the topic ‘sesuatu tentang orang lain’ is the main purposes of –kan to be moved on. In addition, the speaker of the expression in that example wants to state that the event of the verb should be done if the verb stands alone.

The example of the data(4) above relying on literal translation in which literal translation is word-for word translation which follows closely the form of source language. In addition, Molina and Albir (2002:510)states that literal translation is to translate a word an expression word for word.

EI never + base verb⇒TL jangan pernah + base verb + meng + kan and their translation.

Negative command of imperative sentence is enriched by another sentence pattern. The sentence pattern is shown in the example below:

  • (5)    SL: Never say anything in writing form

TL: Jangan pernah mengatakan apapun dalam bentuk tertulis

The imperative construction in English and Indonesian as shown in example above, thus it can be included in negative command. The marker never is conveying the similar meaning with do

not, that is ‘jangan pernah’. Further, the word “mengatakan” is equivalent to the English base verb “say”. The Indonesian “mengatakan” is complicated in form and meaning. The prefix meng indicates that there must be an agent. The agent is the actor of the event or the action implied in the verb.

The example of the data indicates the transposition procedure. It claims as transposition procedure in the level of structural shift because the structural shift result from the fact that the word or phrasal structure is made up of modifier “writing” followed by a head”form”, whereas in the TL the head “bentuk” is followed by the modifier “tertulis” .

Requesting Type of English Imperative with Base Verb are Translated into TL Base Verb + Particle –lah and Their Indonesian.

Requesting type of English imperative sentence and Indonesian imperative is unique. The uniqueness is shown by the particle –lah in Indonesian. For the detail, let see the data below: (6) SL: Be proactively nice

TL: Jadilah pribadi yang aktif dan menyenangkan

The data above including in request type. It is called as request since the concept of request is an intention of the speaker, so that listener does something. Hornby (1976:193). While the Indonesian has different types of imperative namely, addresse in imperative and particle –lah. Sneddon (1996:328) stated that –lah in Indonesian makes an imperative polite. It is similar like in English when the word “please” is coming as the request. The process of imperative construction of the SL it is formed by syntactical process that is SL + infinitive (base verb), whereas in TL it is formed by morphological process by attaching base verb + particle –lah.The particle –lah in Indonesian writing and speech –lah is optionally added to the verb in imperative construction. This can occur in informal styles but is much less frequent. Its occurrence here is to mark the predicate, which is out of its normal position, occurring at the beginning of the clause as an example above “jadilah”.

Dealing with the translation procedure, the example (6) has two translation procedures they are transposition and borrowing. It claims as transposition because there were changes of rank from the SL to TL. The changes of rank were from words (adverb of manner) “proactively” which was translated into Indonesian to become clause in post modified noun phrase “yang“ construction.. Thus it becomes pribadi yang proaktif. The borrowing also is relying on with the word proactive into proaktif in Indonesian.

Positive Command Types of English Imperative with Base Form of Verbare Translated into Base Verb + -kan and Their Indonesian.

There is Indonesian base verb undergoes suffixation –kan as bound morpheme and also has implication in terms of conveying meaning in grammatical sentence.

  • (7)    SL: Put relationship before things

TL: Letakkan hubungan pribadi diatas harta benda

The example above is including in positive command type. Hornby (1976:245) stated that, the command is given when there is a power between speaker and listener, the speaker has an authority to command the listener to do something. The process of imperative construction of the SL is formed by syntactical process, while in TL it is formed by morphological process that is by attaching base verb + suffix –kan.

The translation procedure is included in modulation. It is called modulation since it occurs when the translator translate the source text in many different ways in target text. It is like the example above in which in SL put relationship before things is translated into letakakan hubungan pribadi diatas harta. Here the word “relationship” is translated into “hubungan pribadi” and “before things” is translated into “di atas harta”. The idea or meaning is the same but the phrases that are used in SL and TL are different.

EI base verb⇒base verb form

The following example shows that in Indonesian imperative construction the stative verb can be put in the beginning of an imperative sentence. The main rule is, the Indonesian stative verb should not undergo morphological process because it is not necessary. In this context, the object

determines the meaning of the stative verb.

  • (8)    SL: Remember their name

TL: Ingat nama mereka

The data above indicates that the source text has the same form and meaning in the target text.Thus this translation relying on literal translation in which the concept of literal translation is word-for-word translation which closely the form of source language. The real one indicated by the clause of the data above “remember their name” is translated into “ ingat nama mereka”.

Reason of applying such translation procedures in English imperative sentences translated into Indonesian

The linguistic factor of the existence of translation procedures are becoming the reason of such translation procedures are applying. The factor are classified into three, they are semantic factor, syntax, and culture factor.

Semantic Factor

Semantic is a linguistic branch. It studies about languages meaning. When we are doing translation, meaning becomes the main point. Here the study of meaning become one factor that triggers out a translation procedure comes up. Meaning which means here is not linguistic meaning but also pragmatic meaning.

Related to this topic, the context also is exploring meaning as well. Context is the place of meaning. It means that it is not considering the words meaning only but also the time or the event of the existence of the words which is called context. Therefore, the researcher consider also about the speaker’s meaning. Since the context of an utterance creates meaning as well. The effects of semantic become the main factor of why modulation in translation procedure is applied in translating the text of English imperative sentence in “What I Wish I knew at Eighteen”. According

to Hatim and Munday (2004:150), modulation is a variation of the form of the message obtained by a change in the point of view. In other words, modulation means restructuring a message of source language text in a target language text in different structure but the meaning is not different. One of the example can be taken as an example of modulation procedure is in data below:

SL: Put relationship before things

TL: Letakkan hubungan pribadi diatas harta benda

The word relationship and before things in SL indicates that there is changing in form. The changing is in target language. The context of the expression put relationship before things is supported by the whole context on the sub section title “relationship and communication”. In addition, the previous expressions have meaning that “things” in SL is wealth.

Syntactic Factor

The syntactic construction of Indonesian and English is different. It is caused by the possibility of function words using in English is more frequent rather than Indonesian. In syntactic factor, the translation procedure which is having potential occurring is literal procedure. Literal translation or word-for-word translation is the direct transfer of a source language text into a grammatically and idiomatically appropriate target language text. Syntactically, literal procedure and transposition are relying on the sentence structure. The literal procedure comes up when the grammar of SL and TL is in the same order, while the transposition comes up from the word function in sentence level. Thus, it is influenced by syntax. It can be seen in the example of the data which is showing the literal procedure.

SL: Remember their name

TL: Ingat nama mereka

According to Newmark (1998), states that extended literal translation ranges from one word to one word, through group to group, collocation to collocation, clause to clause, and sentence to sentence. Moreover, Molina & Albir (2002:510) states that literal translation is to translate a word or an expression word for word. What is meant by word for word in this case does not mean

that it is translated one word to the other word, but more tend to translate word for word based on

their function and meaning in the sentences.

Culture Factor

Culture which is mean in translation perspective is not only the way of life of a group but also the concept or the understanding of a group of people about something. The most common in translation is borrowing culture in sequences perspective. The sequences perspective which is mean here is the translator only considers about the environment of the target readers’ culture then the translation product is referred to the words the words that can represent such concept as in source language text.

Borrowing is coming up in translation procedure as one of a good solution in rendering the message from SL to TL. The data below is an example:

SL: Don’t let technology control your life

TL: Jangan biarkan teknologi mengendalikan hidupmu.

The data above shows that “technology” is translated into “teknologi” in TL. It claims as borrowing because the word “technology” in SL is translated into “teknologi” in TL in which it refers to a case where a word or an expression is taken from the SL and used in the TL. In this case based on the data in SL and TL it is included in borrowing with changes in form but without change the meaning, Haugen in Sari (2009:29).

CONCLUSION

Considering the elucidation above, then it can be concluded that three types of imperative sentence of English imperative sentence in procedural text entitled “What I wish I knew at eighteen” translated from English into Indonesian, they are: negative command, request and positive command. Seeing from the process of imperative constructions of the SL, it can obviously be stated that it is formed by syntactical process, whereas in TL it is formed by morphological process that is by attaching the marker.

There are four types of translation procedure used in this study. All of them are oriented towards the target language. Those procedures are: borrowing, modulation, transposition, and literal translation. The translation procedure mostly used is transposition. The used of transposition in this study that it changes the grammatical category of the SL when it is translated into to TL. The factors leading to the application of particular techniques of translation in this study are linguistic factors such as; semantic factor, syntactic factor, and culture factor.

REFERENCES

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