LEXICAL INTERFERENCES IN TRANSLATING DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE TEXT DONE BY STUDENTS OF SMAN 2 MENGWI
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LEXICAL INTERFERENCES IN TRANSLATING DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE TEXT DONE BY STUDENTS OF SMAN 2 MENGWI
By
FANNY VALENTINE
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURE
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
Abstrak
Terjemahan adalah substitusi kata-kata dari satu bahasa dengan kata-kata dari bahasa lain. Variasi yang ada antara bahasa sumber dan bahasa target membuat proses terjemahan menjadi tantangan tersendiri bagi penerjemah karena setiap bahasa memiliki aturannya sendiri. Begitu pula yang terjadi dalam terjemahan dari bahasa Indonesia ke bahasa inggris, variasi yang ada antara kedua bahasa menyebabkan terjadinya gangguan bahasa. Gangguan dalam terjemahan terjadi karena penerjemah lupa mempertimbangkan konteks dimana sebuah kata atau ekspresi dapat muncul dan memperkirakan arti lain yang mungkin atau lebih alami dipergunakan dalam bahasa target. Tujuan dari studi yang berjudul “Lexical Interferences In Translating Descriptive and Narrative Text Done by Students of Sman 2 Mengwi” ini adalah untuk menganalisis gangguan leksikaldalam terjemahan dan untuk mengetahui faktor-faktor yang menyebabkan terjadinya gangguan leksikal tersebut. Oleh karena itu selain teori tentang gangguan leksikal, teori yang membahas tentang faktor-faktor penyebab terjadinya gangguan leksikal tersebut juga disertakan untuk mencari tahu faktor yang mungkin mempengaruhi terjadinya gangguan leksikal tersebut.
Kata kunci: terjemahan, gangguan leksikal, faktor
English as one of the languages is mostly learned by people because English is known as the language of the world (Universal language). In learning English, the non-English native will find some difficulties. One of them is the difficulty in translation. Translation becomes a problem for a non-English native because every language has its own rule. The variation between source language and target
language makes the process of translating becomes a real challenge. The Indonesian people who get used to their mother tongue will also meet difficulty when doing translation. Most translations are, in some way, influenced by the language of the original text from which they are translated. The amount of interference depends on the proficiency of a translator; therefore, in translation done by students, interference is likely to occur with greater frequency.
Based on background above, the problems can be formulated as follows:
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1. What are the classifications of lexical interferences that occur in the students’ translation?
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2. What are the factors that participate in the occurrence of lexical interference in the students’ translation?
The aims of this study are focused on:
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1. To find out the lexical interferences which occur in the translation done by senior high school students and describe the classifications.
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2. To analyze the factors which participate in the occurrence of lexical interferences in the students’ translation.
The people who did the translation were senior high school students in English learning stage, which in this scope, have been chosen to be represented by the students of SMA Negeri 2 Mengwi. They were the second and the third grades of senior high school students. The decision for choosing these grades of students was based on the consideration that in this stage of learning, all of the students already got English lesson. The samples were then selected. The samples taken to involve in this study consisted of 2 kinds of texts, descriptive and narrative, which were translated by 7 students of the third grade and 9 students of second grade.
Therefore, the total of students were 16 students. The descriptive text was articles entitled ‘Bahaya Merokok’ and ‘Coklat’ and the narrative text was folktales entitled ‘Timun Mas’ and ‘Lutung Kasarung’.
The method applied in collecting data in this study was field research. Field research is the collection of raw data in natural setting. Field research involves the collection of new information. This was collected through translating texts that were made out for a purpose. First, the students were given a task to write the translation based on the texts given to them. Then the students wrote the translation of the texts by themselves. The students were also given enough time to write the translation. This time hopefully could give opportunity to the students to choose suitable words and arrange it grammatically. Then the data were collected. The students were allowed to use dictionary but they were prohibited to use online translator such as google translation.
The collected data were analyzed by using qualitative method. Qualitative method is method that does not involve measurement and statistics. The qualitative method provides the result of study descriptively by arranging explanation through words and sentences. This study was conducted to find out the factors that participate in the occurrence of interference in the students’ translation and analyze those interferences. Then the data were classified in order to find out the kinds of interferences and the reason why the interferences occur. The theory which was used to find out the factors of interference is based on Weinrich (1968), and the theory which was used to analyze the classification of interference is Thorovsky’s theory (2009).
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5. Analysis of Lexical Interference in the Translation done by students of SMAN 2 Mengwi
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5.1 Lexical Interferences
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1. Surface lexical interference (false friend)
According to Thorovsky, false friend is interference that occurs because a word has similar form in the two languages (source language and target language) but their meaning is not always the same, in other words, a word cannot be translated by sound. Example:
Mengandung anti-depresi translated into Contain anti-depression Depresi was translated into depression by the translator. Because of the sound is quite similar, the translator chose depression as the translation of depresi. Depresi in this example is combined with anti and it makes a new meaning. Anti-depresi means a type of medication used to treat depression or prevent it from recurring. In English, anti-depresi had anti-depressant as its equivalent translation. Therefore, the suggested translation: Contain anti-depressant.
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2. Semantic interference
Semantic interference occurs because translator relies on one of the first meaning from a dictionary or on their own current knowledge. In this kind of interference, translators use the meaning they know without considering the context of the word. Example:
Raksasa mendengar doa mereka…translated into A giant heard their pray… Translator chose the word pray as the translation of doa. It could be correct if doa in the sentence is a verb. In this sentence, doa refers to a noun. Therefore, the suggested translation of doa is prayer. The suggested translation: The giant heard their prayer.
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3. Idiomatic interference
Idiomatic translation is incorrect translation of idioms. Example: Purbararang tidak mau kehilangan muka translated into Purbararang won’t to lost her face
The translator translated idiom tidak mau kehilangan muka literally into English. This idiom means that Purbararang doesn’t want to be shame or less respected or looks stupid because of something she has done. Therefore, the suggested translation of this idiom is: Purbararang didn’t want to be ashamed.
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4. Interference in Collocation
Interference in collocation is interference that occurs because multiword expressions which have single-word equivalent in target language translated literally by the translator. Example:
Cokelat mengandung zat yang mampu memperlambat penuaan translated into Chocolate contents something which can lating the old
Yang mampu memperlambat penuaan is translated literally by the translator into which can lating the old. This translation is not correct because there is no word lating and also the translation sound unnatural in target language because the translator translated it based on the source language arrangement. Yang mampu memperlambat penuaan are words that have function to explain zat or in simple word, those words stand as an adjective. The suggested translation of yang mampu memperlambat penuaan is anti-aging. Anti aging means designed to prevent the appearance of getting older. The suggested transation : Chocolate contains anti-aging substance.
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5. Cultural interference
Cultural interference occurs because the translator is unable to deal with the cultural difference between the source language and the target language culture. Example:
Timun Mas translated into Golden Cucumber
Timun Mas is the name of a character in Indonesian folktale. It means that Timun Mas in here is a cultural icon that does not have equivalent in English as target language. The words Timun Mas should not be translated but should be borrowed into English because there is no direct equivalent in the target language.
According to Weinrich, there are many factors that contribute to interference. The first is because of the speaker’s bilingualism background. It occurs because the translator is influenced by both of the source and the target language. In the translation, the translators used their mother language and applied it to the translation into target language. Besides, this factor also occurs when the
translators translate words by its sound, they tend to use the words without considering that the meaning is not always the same and depends on the context of the sentence in source language and the spelling might be different. This factor also makes the translator unable to deal with the cultural difference between the source language and the target language culture.
The second factor is disloyalty to target language. This factor leads to disobedience to target language structure. The translator disobeyed the target language structure. They translated the sentences by following the source language structure or in other words, they did literal translation and it makes the translation sound unnatural and clumsy in target language.
The third factor is the limited vocabulary of target language mastered by the translator. In order to be able to make a communicative translation, vocabulary takes a big role. The translation done by the translators shows that they have limited vocabulary and they tend to use the first meaning from a dictionary or on their own current knowledge without considering any other possibility.
Semantic interference is the interference which occurs with great frequency and there are only few examples of false friend, idiomatic interference, interference in collocation, and cultural interference. The factors that contribute to interference in the data are the speaker’s bilingualism background, disloyalty to target language, and the limited vocabulary of target language mastered by a learner. The speaker’s bilingualism background causes surface lexical interference and cultural interference. Disloyalty to target language causes literal translation and idiomatic interference. Limited vocabulary of target language mastered by a learner causes semantic interference and interference in collocation. The most interference in the data was caused by limited vocabulary of the target language mastered by the translators.
Echols and Shadily. 2007. An English-Indonesian Dictionary. Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Echols and Shadily. 2006. An Indonesian-English Dictionary. Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Hornby, A.S. 2005. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Thorovský, Martin. 2009. Lexical Linguistic Interference in Translations of Science-Fiction Literature from English into Czech. Ostrava Journal of English Philology, vol. 1: 86–98
Weinrich, Uriel. 1968. Language in Contact. Mouton: The Hauge-Paris
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