MODULATION TRANSLATION PROCEDURE IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH CONTENT WORDS

Polce Aryanto Bessie

STIBA Cakrawala Nusantara Kupang

Jalan Bunga Jati No 88, Oesapa Barat, Kupang, NTT

Ponsel 085253000184

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at examining the linguistic factor which triggers the modulation translation procedure. Furthermore this paper also discusses about the way of applying modulation translation procedure in translating English Content Words into Indonesian. Qualitative method was conducted in collecting data. The data source of this research Managing Risk and Creating Value with Microfinance book, written by Mike Goldberg and Eric Palladini and its Indonesian translation, translated by M. Ramdhan Adhi.

The result of the analysis indicates that semantic is the main factor in determining modulation translation procedure in translating content words in English into Indonesian. Besides that, the way of applying modulation translation procedure in translating English content words into Indonesian is by considering the point of view or the implicit meaning in two different sentence structures (either in English or Indonesian).

Keywords: semantics, modulation translation procedure, content word.

ABSTRAK

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji faktor linguistik yang menentukan prosedur terjemahan secara modulasi. Penelitian ini juga membahas mengenai cara menerapkan prosedur terjemahan secara modulasi dalam hal menerjemahkan content words dari Bahasa Inggris ke dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode qualitatif deskriptif. Sumber data penelitian adalah buku ekonomi keuangan yang berjudul Managing Risk and Creating Value with Microfinance ditulis oleh Mike Goldberg dan Eric Palladini serta terjemahan bahasa Indonesianya yang diterjemahkan oleh M. Ramdhan Adhi.

Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa semantik merupakan faktor utama dalam menentukan terjadinya prosedur terjemahan secara modulasi untuk menerjemahkan Content Words Bahasa Inggris ke dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Selain itu, cara menerapkan prosedur modulasi dalam menerjemahkan Content Words adalah dengan cara memperhatikan Point of View atau makna yang tersirat dalam dua struktur kalimat yang berbeda (baik dalam bahasa Inggris maupun dalam bahasa Indonesia).

Kata Kunci: semantik, prosedur terjemahan modulasi, kata penuh.

INTRODUCTION

In translating a text absolutely there must be a translation procedure because the translation

procedure enables the translator to get the representative words in conveying the meaning on source 1

language into the target language. It means that the translator must obey the rule of the translation procedure itself. The rule refers to the way of applying it.

The theory applied in this writing are; first, according to Haspelmath (2002: 149) a content word means that the word can stand alone and have meaning. For example teach, book, yesterday and the like. Furthermore, the theory of bound morpheme (Haspelmath, 2002: 3) is applied. There are two types of bound morphemes; inflectional bound morphemes and derivational bound morphemes. Inflectional bound morpheme is those which do not change the word class of a base when they attach to. Meanwhile, derivational bound morpheme is those which change the word class of a base when they attach to. Both bound morphemes either inflectional or derivational can be affixes (prefix, suffix and circumfix) and clitic. Prefix is bound morphemes which come at the beginning of a base for example bermain. The bold one is prefix in Indonesian while suffix is bound morphemes which come at the end of a base for instance worked in English. The morpheme –ed at the end of worked is a suffix. The circumfix is two bound morphemes accompany a base (one is at the beginning and another is at the end) for example permainan. The bound morphemes per-an is circumfix in Indonesian.

Regarding to the meaning, Kearns (2000: 1) stated that meaning is categorized into several kinds namely lexical meaning, structural meaning, categorematic and syncategorematic expression. Lexical meaning refers to the meaning of the individual words while structural meaning is the way the words are combined. It is closely related to syntactic rules, how words are structured to be a good sentence.

Finally the theory of modulation translation procedure proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet is applied. According to Vinay and Darbelnet in (Hatim and Munday (2001: 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.

The research on modulation translation procedure has been ever done by Sudana (2012) but in his research he was not relying on the reason why a translation procedure occurs linguistically. The expalanation is just based on the definition of modulation but this recent research is supposed as a different one because it focuses on the reason on why a translation procedure comes in translation product.

The discussion about modulation is very significant so that this paper aims at defining the factor that triggers modulation translation procedure occurs in translating English content words with inflectional morpheme into Indonesian and also to examine the way of applying the modulation translation procedure in translating English content words with inflectional morpheme into Indonesian.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In conducting this research descriptive qualitative method was applied since the objectiveness of this study is closely related to identifying the phenomenon and describing the result of the analysis (Creswell, 2009: 176). Thus it is suitable to use descriptive qualitative method rather than quantitative method. The data sources of this study are the words, clauses and sentences which have content words with inflectional bound morphemes. The content words can be in different word class such as verbs, nouns and adjectives. The content words which undergo morphological process by attaching one or two inflectional bound morphemes were noted. The object of this study is Managing Risk and Creating Value with Microfinance book by Mike Goldberg and Eric Palladini (2010) and its Indonesian translation Pengelolaan Risiko dan Penciptaan Nilai Melalui Pnedanaan Usaha Mikro (2011) by M. Ramdhan Adhi.

The data were analyzed by using idendity method by Bryman ( in Muhammad, 2011: 234) that “...qualitative method can be constructed as a research strategy that usually emphasizes words rather quantifications in the collection and analysis of data and that predominantly emphasizes an inductive approach to the relationship between theory and research...”

Meanwhile the technique in analyzing data was dividing key factor technique (Sudaryanto in Muhammad, 2011: 239). In that technique, the data were classified based on word class. After that the equivalent meaning of English content words and their translations are explained by considering

the applied theories in this research.

DISCUSSION

Modulation is one of translation procedures which is proposed by Vinay and Darbelenet (in Hatim and Munday, 2001). It is used because the translator focuses on the point of view of a source language sentence therefore absolutely there will be modulation in terms of meaning structure. Furthermore, I can argue that meaning construction can be in different structure between English sentence and Indonesian sentence.

This translation procedure is very significant in translation because it needs semantic comprehension. The semantic comprehesion that is meant here is meaning reconstruction. It means that the translator must understand well the implied meaning in source language then the representative sentence in target language can be constructed. The target language construction is not depending on the sentence pattern but meaning. Meaning triggers the sentence to be good construction then it is acceptable semantically. This concept can be illustrated in the data below.

  • (1)    SL: It also assesses whether the operation is profitable and whether

costs are adequately covered (p. 11)

TL: Di sini juga dinilai apakah operasi menguntungkan dan apakah biaya cukup tertutup (p. 12).

The data (1) above indicates that there is changing in form. The word assess is a transitive verb. It means that it needs an object. Moreover the existence of inflectional bound morpheme –es

at the end of the word proves that the word is appropriately occurring in the sentence pattern in particular active sentence pattern. It is different from the sentence pattern in target language. The word formation dinilai indicates that the object of the sentence is the main focus. In addition, the existence of the prefix di- at the beginning of the word nilai tokenizes that it is passive construction in Indonesian since prefix di- means that something undergone by the object of the verb dinilai. This concept goes with Kearns (2000) opinion that the prefix di- in Indonesian is indicating that the object is the main topic of a sentence. Furthermore, the finding above is also relying on the statement from Baker (2005: 11) that meaning can be carried by units smaller than the word.

It also refers to meaning construction. Meaning construction determines the notion that is denoted in the sentence. Moreover Modulation as a type of translation procedure proposed by Vinay and Darbelenet (in Hatim and Munday, 2001) is relying on the point of view of SL and TL. The sentence construction “It also assesses whether the operation is profitable and whether costs are adequately covered” means that assessing of the company’s operation and costs are the topic of that sentence.

Regarding to meaning operation thus the data (1) is a good example of modulation translation procedure. Meaning operation that is meant here is meaning determines sentence construction not grammatical operation (Payne, 1997: 4-6). It means that it depends on the point of view of source language MEANING. Furthermore, it can be argued that the existence of word assesses in SL and the word dinilai in TL have the same notion. They are in different structure but the meaning is similar. The SL sentence indicates that in the step of identifying the institution’s unique risk profile, the activity “assessing” is important to do. Thus the TL sentence is in passive to indicate the importance of doing assessing.

The data above also proves that Bell’s opinion (1993: 35) about knowledge background of a translator is important in translating because the readability and the accuracy of translation result absolutely occur. The translator must comprehend the linguistics of target language too. Therefore, target language sentences have same value and sense as in source language sentences. This is

supported by Foley (1997: 171) that Anthropology linguistics also affects in doing translation. If translators know the culture of a language thus they are able to investigate and examine the sense of a word; for example, in doing translation of figurative language, translators have to be able know the background of social life of source language speakers and target language speakers. Furthermore, they can determine the appropriate translation of a figurative language of a source language into target language. The last is translator preference. The preference of a translator also affects translation result. It can be in mode of rendering message in target language. It depends on translator’s knowledge background too.

Dealing with this factor there is another illustration that close related to it. We know that modulation appears since there are two sentences which have same meaning. In other words, the different forms have same value or content. In addition, semantics is related to meaning knowledge. Thus in this case this section does not talk about sentence construction but the real main idea that implied in the sentence.

Perhaps people can argue that semantics cannot be separated from syntax but here we have to consider from another aspect. The aspect is how a sentence is rendered into another form which is categorized in the equivalent translation of a source text. In other words, sentence construction is not always constructed based on the sentence pattern’s objective but due to meaning as the basic reason. The data (2) below is a good case in point.

  • (2)    SL: While rewards, such as interest rate rebates for perfect performances, should also be clear (p. 6)

TL: Demikian pula, potongan bunga sebagai penghargaan atas Kinerja pembayaran yang baik juga harus dibuat jelas (p. 5).

The data indicates that the Source Language (SL) has different structure from Target Language (TL). The translation result is involved in modulation technique. The technique is used

since the concept of both SL and TL is same. The real one indicated by the clause, ‘should also be clear’ is equivalent to ‘juga harus dibuat jelas’. The forms of the sentence structure are really different. Thus when the source text should be rendered into ‘harus jadi jelas’ thus it does not make sense dealing with the main topic of the sentence, namely such as interest rate rebates for perfect performance.

Furthermore it can be stated that in translation the result of translation should make sense. It does not relate to translation procedure. It means that translation procedure is only the external factor or the part of process of translating (Bell, 1993) but the most important is the sense of the language of TL in conveying the meaning of SL. Furthermore, considering the statement proposed by Bell (1993: 38) that the entity of meaning is the main point in rendering message from source language into target language. Therefore the data (2) is appropriately occurs in modulation translation procedure.

The data (2) above is in modulation translation procedure because the SL indicates that the clause should also be clear and its translation juga harus dibuat jelas rely on the essence of lexical meaning proposed by Baker (2005:12) that,

“Lexical meaning is a word or lexical unit may be thought of as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system and the personality it acquires through usage within that system”.

Therefore the Indonesian juga harus dibuat jelas has similar notion as the English should also be clear even though they have different category such as be clear is an active sturcture but it has same notion with dibuat in Indonesian. thus finally it is true that the data (2) is in modulation translation procedure and it is triggred by semantics.

Furthermore the culture of the source language and target language should be concerned by the translator. The culture that I mean here is language structure. The knowledge of constructing sentence in terms of structure also determines representative words in target language. In addition culture is in meaning. This statement is similar to Foley (1997) that knowledge about culture either in source language and target language should be known by a translator. For example; the word

saya and aku in Indonesian (Foley, 1997: 270) are different in context of use. The pronoun saya has different usage from pronoun aku. A servant cannot say to president by saying aku. It will be polite if he says saya. The contradictive application occurs in aku. The pronoun aku is only used by a president for instance when he talks to his servant. This context is a good illustration of pragmatics effect in translation.

CONCLUSION

Based on the discussion in the previous section it can be concluded that modulation occurs in translation product because of semantic operation. It means that meaning determines the sentence construction in target language not because of grammar a meaning is denoted. Furthermore it is due to point of view of either source language and target language comes as the main target. In addition the way of applying modulation translation procedure is by reconstructing the point of view of source language sentence into target language sentece.

DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Baker, Mona. 2005. In Other Words a Course Book on Translation. New York: Routledge.

Bell, Roger. 1993. Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice. England: Longman House.

Creswell, John W. 2009. Research Design Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 3rd Edition. London: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Foley A. William. 1997. Anthropological Linguistics An Introduction. Massachusetts. Blackwell. Haspelmath, Martin. 2002. Understanding Morphology. America: Oxford University Press Inc., Hatim Basil and Jeremy Munday. 2001. Indtroducing Translation Studies. London: Routledge. Kearns Kate. 2000. Semantics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Payne, E Thomas. 1997. Describing Morphosyntax, A Guide for Field Linguists. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sudana, I Ketut. 2012. “The Equivalence of the Noun Suffixes for People –er/-or, -ist, and –an/-ian in the translation of the Novel ‘Eclipse’ into Indonesian” (Tesis). Denpasar: Universitas Udayana.

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