CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study This study essentially examines the shifts in cohesion and any changes in
meaning or message in the field of translation from Indonesian into English in Tempo magazines. It especially examines the shifts of cohesion which occur in these magazines since shifts of cohesion can influence the meaning found in a text.
Changes in meaning which are observed, particularly those related to cohesion in any translation, especially of texts which involve political and social issues in the product of translation, influence readers’ perception on the issues.
Moreover, the issu es are related to political or social will make people’s wrong understanding of the
larger implications since the Indonesian people’s perception on the national politics
overt relationship holding between part of the text. Coherence on the other hand can be viewed as a covert potential meaning relationship among part of a text, made overt by the reader or listener through process of interpretation (Kulka in Venuti, 2000: 299). This, however, is not the focus of this particular study.
There are many sources of information in the mass media such as the newspapers, agencies’ brochures, magazines, tabloids, and so on. A magazine in
particular, is one of the types of media which carries an important mission from the institution that manages it, particularly in conveying not only information but messages to its readers. A popular magazine that has a wide readership, especially one that is generally related to political, social, and economic issues, therefore has the potential to influence and sway public opinion.
A magazine constitutes one of the media of communication and has to have texts whose meaning is clear and unambiguous. For this to happen, clauses in the text must have cohesion and coherence, the cohesive components must be able to connect the clauses.
researcher is interested to study if the translations performed by the translators have added or make changes in the form of cohesive shifts that may alter meaning and message.
Realizing the rapid advancement of the magazine circulation, the management of the magazine then published the English version of the TEMPO magazine, on September 20, 2000. The English version adopted 80 percent of the content of the Indonesian version and 20 percent from other countries. However, the content of the Cover Story was adopted 100% from the Indonesian version: Berita Utama (http://www.anneahira.com/majalah-tempo.htm).
1.2 Translation Shifts
Translation is a form of communication, and communication must not change the messages in the SL in the course of being transferred from the source language to the target language. Bell (1991: 6) points out that ‘Translation is the replacement of the representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language’. Therefore the task of the translator is to
transfer what is intended by the writer in SL to TL.
to minimize the inevitable loss of meaning when rendering a text from one language into another (Al Zoubi and Ali All Hasnawi: 2001).
In a text, we can find words, phrases, and clauses which have to be united and bound to one another. By using cohesive components, texts can have a unity in connecting words, phrases, and clauses. The result is that if a text has a good unity, readers will understand the content more easily and if the readers are the translators, will be able to translate it well.
The print media, including the magazines, of different countries and different cultures differ in a variety of ways. In fact they are a kind of cultural artifacts. The Indonesia press, for example, has magazines that are very different in format, and in many ways in context, from, for instance, magazines in some of the Middle Eastern countries. This is not to say that the Indonesian press is necessarily worse or better than the press of other countries; but whatever it is, it is a product of the culture where it comes from. This is an important point to bear in mind when dealing with the content of magazines since everything that is written in a magazine has to be transmitted through the medium of its culture and language.
more cohesive the text is. The solid text is characterized by the extensiveness and intensiveness of the variation of cohesive devices in the text (Saragih, 2001: 137-08).
On the level of cohesion, Kulka in Venuti divides shifts in cohesion into two: 1) Shifts in the level of explicitness; namely, the general levels of the target text’s textual explicitness are higher or lower than those of the source text; 2) Shifts
in the text meaning(s); namely, the explicit and implicit meaning potential of the source text changes through translation (Kulka in Venuti, 2010).
Every language has a set of cohesive devices and preferred meaning for creating cohesive harmony (Hasan, 1985) and bonding pattern (Hoey, 1991). As a result, shifts in cohesion inevitably occur in translation. Shifts in cohesion presumably occurred in the magazines which will be analyzed in this dissertation. Tempo magazine was deliberately chosen as the object of the analysis, due to reasons given below.
The researcher assumed that there are many shifts of cohesion in the translation of TEMPO into the English version. These shifts could be seen clearly in the translation of the titles of the headlines of the articles.
For examples:
1) ST: Aktivis Partai Amanat Nasional menjajakan izin pinjam pakai kawasan hutan di Kementerian Kehutanan. Sumber dana taktis Menteri
Kehutanan dan Partai. (Tempo, 3 Juli, 2011).
functionaries as a source of tactical funds for the Ministry and his party. (Tempo, July 5, 2011)
LIT: Activists of the National Mandate Party peddled the use-borrow license of forest area at the Ministry of Forestry. Tactical fund source of the Minister of Forestry and Party.
Here, we can see obviously the shifts of cohesion. The ST consists of two sentences while the TT consists of one sentence. In this case, it can be said that the general level of target text’s textual explicitness is lower than that of the source text. The word, ‘Activists’ in the literal translation refers to the activists of the
National Mandate Party who actively (in an active sentence) play their role in
committing the graft, whereas the word, Activists in the actual translation refers to the activists of non-government agencies who are investigating the graft committed by the party’s functionaries.
ST : Izin pinjam pakai kawasan hutan (at the Ministry of Forestry) TT : The land-use licensing process (at the Ministry of Forestry)
Again, the general level of target text’s textual explicitness is lower than that of
the source text.
The phrase, sumber dana taktis Menteri Kehutanan is literally translated into ‘tactical fund source of the Minister of Forestry’. In the TEMPO magazine of the English version, we find the translation of the phrase above as ‘a source of tactical funds for the Minister’. Here, we see the shift in cohesion: in the ST, there
is no preposition since the ST (Indonesian) reader understands that sumber dana taktis Menteri Kehutanan means the source of tactical funds is intended to be given
to put the preposition ‘for’ in the translation in order to clarify the intended meaning. Again, we find another shift in cohesion in the English translation: ‘his party’. There is no preposition in the ST since the phrase ‘dan Partai (and Party) has cohesive tie with the previous phrase a source of tactical funds (2) ‘for the Minister of Forestry’. It is also necessary for the translator to put the pronoun ‘his’ as it is related to the Minister’s party.
The TT has added more information/thus more explicit, and gave the impression that a graft has indeed been committed by using the phrase ‘looking into reports’ which actually mean ‘accusations’ and using the word ‘brokered’
2) ST: Ada dugaan perda syariah hanya dibuat… (Tempo, Sept.6, 2011) TT : Some suspect that these regulations are only… (Tempo, Sept 8, 2011). LIT: There is an assumption that syariah regional regulation ….
We do not find conjugation in this clause. It is started with expletive subject.
The clause begins with ‘There is’, followed by a noun (an assumption) while in the Tempo magazine of the English version, we find the translation as follows:
‘Some suspect that these regulations are only…’
Here, we see that the noun ‘suspicion’ in the SL is changed to the verb ‘suspect’ in the TL.
ST : ….peraturan-peraturan daerah berbasis syariah (Tempo, 6 Sept, 2011)
LIT: …regional regulations based on syariah
Here we find the shift of cohesion: the synonym law or syaria is in the TL translator added information/made more explicit, while there is no synonym in the SL. Adding the word ‘Islamic law’ made the point stronger in the TT as the
majority of Indonesian public are Muslims and this will have more impact.
3) ST : …kini terdapat lebih dari 150 peraturan syariah (Tempo, 6
September, 2011).
TT : …today there are more than 150 such regulation… (Tempo, Sept. 8, 2011).
LIT: …now there are more than 150 syaria regulations.
In this case, there is the repetition of the words syaria, since it also means regulation. It can also be said that there is the redundancy in this clause. Therefore, in the TEMPO magazines of the English version, the translation (or the TT) becomes the word syaria which has been mentioned in the previous clauses. The word ‘such’ here, of course, refers to the word syaria.
The shift of cohesion occurred in the text: ST : repetition
TT : substitution
The researcher believes that there is a great abundance of shifts of cohesion found in the translation of TEMPO magazine from the Indonesian version into the English version. There are also numerous shifts in the level of explicitness in which the general levels of the target text’s textual explicitness are higher or lower than
shifts may change the meaning of the message and may result in misunderstanding and misperception among the readers of the target text.
1.3 Statement of the Problems
Based on the background of the study above, the researcher proposed the following questions which will form the core problems in the research study:
1. How do the explicit and implicit meaning potential change in the translation from Indonesian text to the English one in Tempo magazine? 2. How do shifts of cohesion influence the meaning of the translation from
Indonesian text to the English one in Tempo magazine?
3. To what extent does shift of cohesion change in the translation Tempo magazine?
1.4 Objectives of the Study
Based on the statement of the problems above, the researcher formulated the objectives of the study as follows:
1. To show how the implicit and explicit meaning potential could change in the meaning in the translation from Indonesian text to the English one in TEMPO magazine.
2. To show how shifts of cohesion affect the meaning of the translation from Indonesian text to the English one in Tempo magazine.
3. To show how culture changes the shifts of cohesion in the translation from Indonesian text to the English one in Tempo magazine.
1.5Scope of the Study
require a huge amount of elaboration if texts are taken from greater number of editions. The researcher only selected topics that are related to political and social issues and not other topics or stories even thought they might be the current interest at the time. This is because the researcher is of the opinion that political and social issues are more influential in the mind of the public than ordinary stories. Similarly, translation of other texts; for example, on religious issues was not covered. The study did not include any other magazines.
The researcher chooses to analyze shifts in cohesion in the translation, as choice of cohesion components can certainly alter meaning and message. She does not include shifts in coherence, although this is included in the discussion.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This dissertation may be able to give valuable contribution to:
1) Translation studies, especially in the area of cohesion and coherence. 2) Researchers, as a reference for their researches to understand the shifts
of cohesion.
4) Readers of popular political magazines, in order to understand more about language and how the translation of a text and the role of functional linguistics in these studies.
1.7 Organization of the Dissertation
