Geographic Indonesia April 2020 Issue
on
https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/linguistika/
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24843/ling.2021.v28.i02.p06
LINGUISTIKA, SEPTEMBER 2021
p-ISSN: 0854-9613 e-ISSN: 2656-6419
Vol. 28 No.2
Geographic Indonesia April 2020 Issue
Luh Gde Titah Madriyanthi Utama
Denpasar-Indonesia e-mail: [email protected]
Drs. I Nyoman Udayana, M.Litt., Ph.D.
Denpasar-Indonesia
e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract - This research aims to study news translation in magazines, specifically about textual manipulation which occurred in the National Geographic Indonesia April 2020 issue. The analysis applied the theory of translation strategies by Chesterman (2016) but only referred to the syntactic strategy. This study also applied a qualitative method and the analysis is presented descriptively. The analysis revealed the textual changes that occurred in the articles in the National Geographic Indonesia Magazine April 2020 issue. Textual manipulations are the results of the application of translation strategies which are observable through the comparison of both the translation product itself and the original text. Therefore, they can be linked with Chesterman’s syntactic strategies which are found in the data. Based on the data analysis, the following strategies were found, they are literal translation, loan or calque, transposition, unit shift, phrase structure change, clause structure change, sentence structure change, cohesion change, and level shift.
Keywords: textual manipulation, syntactic strategy, news translation.
Abstrak - Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mempelajari penerjemahan berita di majalah, secara spesifik yaitu mengenai manipulasi tekstual yang terdapat di majalah National Geographic Indonesia issue April 2020. Analisisnya menggunakan teori strategi penerjemahan oleh Chesterman (2016), tetapi hanya berdasarkan strategi sintaksisnya. Studi ini juga menggunakan metode kualitatif dan analisisnya dijabarkan secara deskriptif. Analisis mengungkap bahwa ada beberapa perubahan tekstual yang terdapat di artikel-artikel yang termuat di majalah National Geographic Indonesia isu April 2020. Manipulasi tekstual merupakan hasil dari penerapan strategi penerjemahan yang dapat dilihat melalui perbandingan kedua produk penerjemahan dan teks original itu sendiri. Oleh karena itu, manipulasi tekstual tersebut dapat dihubungkan dengan strategi sintaksis Chesterman yang ditemukan pada data. Berdasarkan analisis data, strategi yang ditemukan yaitu penerjemahan literal, loan atau calque, transposisi, pergeseran unit, perubahan struktur frasa, perubahan struktur klausa, perubahan struktur kalimat, perubahan kohesi, dan pergeseran level.
Keywords: manipulasi tekstual, strategi sintaksis, penerjemahan berita.
Recently, linguists refer that translations in the field of journalistic is a fruitful topic to be discussed (Bassnett, et al., 2006). This particular genre in translation, which is also known as journalistic or news translation, includes translation
works in newspaper, magazines and other types of textual mass media (Bani in Bassnett, et al., 2006). During the process, most translators are strictly required to follow ethics in journalism. According to Widarmanto (2017), ethics in journalism are institutional ethics, personal ethics, and
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professional ethics. Institutional ethics are related to formal regulations by news agencies and authorities which serve as supervision of the news agencies. Personal ethics are related to the values and morality of the journalist itself. Professional ethics are related to the proper ways of delivering news and information to the audience. Those ethics aim to create news translators to serve with integrity and objectivity.
At the same time, news agencies are also developing to cope with changes. For efficient purposes, most news agencies have built their local offices in several different countries where news reports will be written while the regional or global centers will filter, translate and edit (Bielsa and Basnett, 2009). During the process of translating, news agencies also have their own specification aside the general code ethics of journalism. Therefore, in most of its practices, translators of a certain news agency often consult the editors about the relevance of a story for a specific audience before translating it. This might happen because of the involvement of political correctness, selections of the appropriate gender-specific pronouns when it is not apparent from names in the original language, transforming short-sentenced, to-the-point grammar constructions into more periphrastically structures, and going from a culture where imprecision is considered elegant to a more fastidious language (Gutiérrez in Bassnett
et al., 2006). Those factors are highly contributed to changes, and those changes can lead to textual manipulation.
Textual changes, according to Chesterman (2016), are referred to textual manipulation. It is the results of the application of translation strategies which is observable when the comparison is done between the source text and the target text. Furthermore, textual manipulation is changes in text-linguistic behaviour as the translators consciously processed strategies for their translation works. This text-linguistic behaviour is occurred in the changes of the text’s form (syntactic) like it is included in Chesterman’s syntactic strategies. The syntactic strategies are parts of Chesterman’s translation strategies where it involves changes in syntax and primarily manipulate the form of the text.
Examples of journalistic translation can be seen in magazines with foreign language editions, such as National Geographic magazine which becomes the object of this current study. As the official magazine of the National Geographic Society, the magazine primarily features articles about science, geography, history, and world culture. National Geographic magazine is published monthly in both print and online. It’s also available in 35 foreign languages around the world, including in Indonesian since April 2005. The Indonesian edition of National Geographic
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magazine features translated articles from its native language— English, which is believed to have undergone extensive editing from the in-house’s professional editors and translators. With that in mind, it is felt that there is some urgency to conduct a study about textual manipulation in the National Geographic Indonesia April 2020 issue from the view of Chesterman’s syntactic strategies. Two problems that will be discussed in this article are the syntactic strategies found in the National Geographic Indonesia April 2020 issue and the textual manipulation which occur in the magazine.
Previously, are only few studies regarding translation in the journalism field, specifically about textual manipulation in the translation of the magazine. However, the discussion about news translation in several of the following studies is relevant. The first is about news translation in corpus according to Branco (2007) which reveals that the translations results of the investigated online news reports to be target-text oriented where the source texts are mostly edited, shortened or expanded, divided into sections, and then published in accordance to the regulation of the news agency. Besides that, it is also found that the environment where the corpus was published influenced the results of the news translation where the translation is likely to follow the features of online journalism.
Another study by McLaughlin (2013) reveals that syntactic borrowing as the result of the
syntactic influence of English has occurred in the news translation in Italian, specifically in the adjective position, passive constructions, and Italian verbal -ndo forms. Unlike Branco, McLaughlin considered that the syntactic borrowing as the result of the syntactic influence has brought less diversity and creativity in the result of the news translation from English to Italian. One of the many factors is contributed by the translators’ capability in translation since many of them are real journalist with less to no experience in a formal study of translation.
The article written by Pan (2015) presents an interesting remark about objectivity in news translation through a study on ideological positioning in some of the translated news texts from English into Chinese. The data is taken from several news articles from BBC, Reuters, and The Washington Post, whilst the combination of Fairclough’s Three Dimensions Model and Martin and White’s Appraisal Theory is used in the analysis. It is revealed that the deviations in identifying news actors and present news actions are crucial for distinct positioning in the translated news that leads to different interpretations of the reported event. Therefore, news translation is not free from judgments and implicit attitudes which make them less objective towards the news realities. Rahnemoon, et al. (2017) applies Halliday and Matthiessen's concept of thematic
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structure to analyze English translated news into Persian. The analysis suggests that the translated news in Persian does not preserve its English thematic structure.
Based on the above studies, this article emphasizes the topic of textual manipulation in journalistic translation which is based on the concept of syntactic strategy by Chesterman (2016). This topic is rare among the research in translation; meanwhile, the concept of syntactic strategy derived from Chesterman’s translation strategies is being claimed as heuristic and flexible among other theory of translation strategies. Besides, the data used in this study are taken from reliable sources with proven translation quality such as National Geographic magazines.
A qualitative method is applied in this study. Refers to Litoselliti (2010:52), qualitative research in linguistics is related to structure, patterns and how the language is thus it only involves collecting and analyzing non-numerical data such as texts. Here, the data is sourced from several articles in the National Geographic Indonesia April 2020 issue with comparison to its English version.
Before the analysis, the data collection is done by note-taking. The procedures are done through the following orders, (1) reading all of the articles from both magazines; (2) note-taking all the words,
phrases, clauses, and sentences from both versions; (3) and comparing the translation of the source text to the target text.
Meanwhile, the descriptive method is applied in the analysis to provide a comprehensive exploration regarding the phenomenon of textual manipulation. This is done by analyzing the syntactic strategies and then investigating the relationship between the textual changes and the textual manipulation as the result of the application of syntactic strategies. In the analysis, this study applied the theory of syntactic strategies in Chesterman’s (2016) translation strategies.
The data reveals that there are textual changes applied in the National Geographic Magazine April 2020 Issue after comparison to its English version. These changes can be discovered through the application of Chesterman’s (2016) syntactic strategies. Each of its analysis can be written as follows.
Literal Translation (G1)
Data 1
|
Source |
Life would be different and |
|
text: |
warmer-in 2070. (page. 18) |
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|
Target text: |
Hidup akan berbeda dan lebih hangat-pada 2070. (page. 19) |
Literal translation, according to Chesterman (2016), referred to the translation which follows the source language form as closely as possible. It was similar to the default literal translation according to other linguists, such as Newmark and Vinay and Darbelnet. Here in Data 1, the target text followed the rule of literal translation which was translated parallel according to the source text. The detail can be written as follows; life was translated into hidup, would be was translated into akan, different was translated into berbeda, and was translated into dan, warmer was translated into lebih hangat, and in was translated into pada.
As the target text followed the language form in the source text, the closest the syntactic meaning would be. This would also minimize the interference of the translators’ own opinion to the target text that could affect the objectivity of the translation so that translators could deliver a correct information from the source language to the target language readers.
Loan, Calque (G2)
Data 2
|
Source text: |
It is February 1970, a few months before the first Earth |
|
Day, and students at San Jose State College in California are throwing a “Survival Faire” during which they plan to bury a brand new yellow Ford Maverick. (page. 18) | |
|
Target text: |
Saat itu Februari 1970, beberapa bulan sebelum Hari Bumi pertama, dan para mahasiswa San Jose State College di California mengadakan acara Survival Faire. (page. 19) |
Loan, Calque according to Chesterman (2016) referred to the borrowing of single terms and following the structure of the source text which is foreign to the target reader. Here in Data 2, the phrase Survival Faire in the source text, which is written in bold, was translated as Survival Faire. The target text preserved the foreign phrase thus followed the Loan strategy.
Survival faire was an event dated back to the 1970s by the students of San Jose State University then San Jose State College which included a series of teach-ins and protests. The event was related to protests against environmental breakdown and was done before the first commemoration of Earth Day. The phrase survival faire comes from French
which can roughly be translated into bertahan hidup in Indonesian.
The loan strategy allowed translators to retain the definition of the phrase itself without losing or gaining more contexts which could avoid misconception or disambiguation. However, readers were required a knowledge regarding the phrase or they might be required to look for more information themselves.
Transposition (G3)
Data 3
|
Source text: |
Be careful how you use flea and tick products containing pesticides. (page. 28) |
|
Target text: |
Berhati-hatilah dengan penggunaan produk kutu berpestisida. (page. 32) |
Transposition according to Chesterman (2016) referred to changes in word class. This included changes from noun to verb, adjective to an adverb, etc. Here in Data 3, the word pesticides in the source text referred to as a noun. However, the Indonesian berpestisida served as a derivative verb. According to Alwi (2014), derivative verbs were formed by transposition, affixation, reduplication, or compounding. Berpestisida derived from the attachment of affix ber- to a root
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noun pestisida. As the affix ber- was attaching the noun pestisida, the lexical meaning of berpestisida was also changed into “objects which contain pesticides”. This textual form is acceptable because it implies the same lexical meaning as the phrase containing pesticides in the source text. Here, pesticides was the noun required by the transitive verb containing. Therefore, the translation from pesticides in the source text to berpestisida in the target text involved changing in the word class thus indicating the application of transposition strategy.
As it is written in the target text, the transposition strategy in pesticides to berpestisida resulted in minimum use of words. This allowed translators and editors to adjust the target text for the minimum or the maximum text length which is specifically required by the publisher. Therefore, it is clear that extra-textual factor such as in this case also contributed to the use of transposition strategy that automatically linked to textual changes and textual manipulation in news translation.
Unit Shift (G4)
Data 4
|
Source text: |
One analysis has suggested that the gap in per capita GDP between the poorest and richest countries is already 25 percent wider than it would be without climate change, largely because |
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|
temperature increases in tropical countries reduce agricultural productivity. (page. 26) | |
|
Target text: |
Sebuah analisa mengemukakan bahwa selisih dalam PDB per kapita antara negara termiskin dan terkaya telah menjadi 25 persen lebih lebar ketimbang selisih tersebut. Hal ini terjadi jika tanpa ada perubahan iklim, terutama karena peningkatan suhu di negara tropis mengurangi produktivitas pertanian. (page. 25) |
Unit shift according to Chesterman (2016) referred to shifts that occurred in the levels of morpheme, word, phrase, clause, sentence and paragraph. This occured when a unit in the source text is translated as a different unit in the target text. Here in Data 4, the shift occured in the level of phrase. In English, tropical countries emphasized a quantity that is more than one tropical country. Meanwhile, the translated phrase negara tropis did not imply the quantity hence the shift in the phrase. This particular shift became common when translating English text into Indonesian since the plurality and singularity of a
noun could only be identified through other noun words which state the quantity of the said word.
Phrase Structure Change (G5)
Data 5
|
Source text: |
Be sure to properly insulate your home and replace old drafty windows with energyefficient ones. (page. 28) |
|
Target text: |
Pastikan menginsulasi rumah Anda dengan benar dan ganti jendela lama yang berangin dengan jenis yang hemat energi. (page. 32) |
Phrase structure change according to Chesterman (2016) referred to changes that take place in the internal structure of the noun phrase or verb phrase, although the phrases in the source language itself might be translated by a corresponding phrase in the target language. Here in Data 5, the structure of the phrase energyefficient in the source text was changed into hemat energi in the target text. Specifically, the phrase structure was changed from noun+adjective into adjective+noun. This phrase structure change was typically occurred in the translation from English
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into Indonesian as both languages own different grammatical system.
Clause Structure Change (G6)
Data 6
|
Source text: |
…, but visiting for brief periods is safe. (page 4) |
|
Target text: |
…, namun selama periode yang singkat kita masih aman mengunjunginya. (page 64) |
Clause structure change according to Chesterman (2016) affected the organization of the constituent phrase or clauses. For example, changes from active to passive sentences, finite to infinite, or rearrangement of the clause constituents. Here in Data 6, the clause structure of the source text was changed from passive to active. This is indicated by the usage of subject kita in the target text. The subject or the doer in the source clause is not revealed, but it was written in the target clause thus indicated an active sentence and hence the clause structure change.
Sentence Structure Change (G7)
Data 7
|
Source |
In the summer of 2019, forest |
|
text: |
fire burned through more than 17 million acres in Siberia; this is an area nearly as large as Ireland. (page 17) |
|
Target text: |
Pada musim panas tahun 2019, kebakaran hutan menggosongkan lebih dari tujuh juta hektar di Siberia. (page 74) |
Sentence structure change according to Chesterman (2016) referred to changes in the structure of the sentence unit. It meant a change in the relationship between the main clauses and subordinate clauses. Here in Data 7, the source text sentence which initially consists of two subordinate clauses was changed into only one subordinate clause in the target text. The translation of the second subordinate clause of the source text which was written in bold was omitted hence the change in the sentence structure of the target text.
Cohesion Change (G8)
Data 8
|
Source text: |
Days before starting our trip, I’d visited a man who’d run for president proposing to do just that. (page 68) |
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|
Target text: |
Beberapa hari sebelum memulai perjalanan, saya mengunjungi seseorang yang mencalonkan diri sebagai presiden dengan berkampanye tentang hal itu. (page. 52) |
Cohesion change according to Chesterman (2016) referred to ways in which parts of sentences join together to make a fluent, comprehensible sentence. Specifically, this is a term that referred to a strategy that affects intra-textual cohesion. Cohesion change mainly took place in the form of reference by pronouns, ellipsis, substitution or repetition. Here in Data 8, the addition of the conjunction dengan affected the intra-textual cohesion of the target text hence the cohesion change. Dengan as conjunction connected the main clause and the compliment which create the translated result to sound more natural.
Level Shift (G9)
Data 9
|
Source text: |
Most of them aren’t cuddly or charismatic, but they’re no less crucial to ecosystems, (page 29) |
|
Target |
Kebanyakan tak menggemaskan atau karismatik, tetapi tak kalah |
|
text: |
pentingnya bagi ekosistem. (page 82) |
Level shift according to Chesterman (2016) referred to changes in the levels of phonological, morphological, syntactical, and lexical levels as those levels might be expressed differently in various languages. Here in Data 9, the changes occurred in the level of syntactical into morphological. As it was written in bold, the phrase they’re was not explicitly translated into the target text. Instead, the Indonesian affix -nya was added. In Indonesian grammar, -nya served as a third pronoun which referred to the subject being discussed (Alwi et al., 2014). Therefore, rather than using mereka, the English they’re was translated into -nya in the target text.
The analysis revealed that there were textual changes that occurred in the articles in the National Geographic Indonesia Magazine April 2020 issue. Textual manipulations were the results of translation strategies which are observable through the comparison of both the translation product itself and the original text. Therefore, they can be linked with Chesterman’s syntactic strategies which are found in the data. Based on the data analysis, the following strategies were found, they were literal translation, loan or calque,
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transposition, unit shift, phrase structure change, clause structure change, sentence structure change, cohesion change, and level shift.
Literal translation became the most applied syntactic strategy in the articles. It produced the textual form of the target text to become as close as possible to the textual form of the source text. Meanwhile, the loan or calque strategy allowed the translator to adopt foreign terms from the source text into the target text to preserve its lexical and semantic meaning. On the other hand, transposition strategy involved changes in the word class which also affect the structure of the target text – dissimilarities in grammar and text structure from English to Indonesia often resulted in a longer or shorter text which allowed editors to edit and cut the length of the sentences. Unit shift frequently occurred in noun phrases that indicate singularity, plurality or gender of the object. This was normal since there is no concept of singularity and singularity indicated by morphemes, and gender in the Indonesian language system. Phrase structure change often involved the modifications of the structure of the phrases, whilst the same modification also happened but in the level of clause and structure. Cohesion change involved the addition of conjunction in the source text to connect phrases in a sentence, and the level shift involved modification in the morphological level
with the addition of suffixes that serves as pronouns.
Based on the previous result and discussion, the textual manipulation in National Geographic Indonesia April 2020 issue occured as textual or syntactical changes in literal translation, loan or calque, transposition, unit shift, phrase structure change, clause structure change, sentence structure change, cohesion change, and level shift. They manipulated the textual form in the target text to become closer as possible to its textual form in the source text. This also supported by the result in which the adoption of the literal translation strategy becomes the most frequently used.
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References
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