ENGLISH TRANSLATION ERRORS IN ABSTRACT OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION STUDENTS
A Thesis
Submitted to Postgraduate School English Applied Linguistic Study Program in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
YUDI SETIAWAN
Registration Number: 082188330119
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN MEDAN
ENGLISH TRANSLATION ERRORS IN ABSTRACT OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION STUDENTS
A Thesis
Submitted to Postgraduate School English Applied Linguistic Study Program in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
YUDI SETIAWAN
Registration Number: 082188330119
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN MEDAN
ABSTRACT
Setiawan, Yudi. 082188330119. English Translation Errors in Abstracts of Educational Administration Students. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Post Graduate School. State University of Medan. 2013.
ABSTRAK
Setiawan, Yudi. 082188330119. Inggris Terjemahan Kesalahan dalam Abstrak Mahasiswa
Administrasi Pendidikan. Tesis A. English Program Linguistik Terapan Studi. Posting Graduate
School. Universitas Negeri Medan. 2013.
Penelitian ini menjelaskan wawasan dari kesalahan penerjemahan dalam abstrak. Tujuannya
adalah untuk menyelidiki jenis kesalahan terjemahan abstrak, untuk memastikan jenis yang
dominan dan mengontekstualisasikan penggunaan jenis yang dominan. Data diperoleh dari
abstrak tesis ini mahasiswa administrasi pendidikan dan dianalisis dengan menggunakan
beberapa langkah sebagai biasanya diterapkan dalam metode linguistik deskriptif. Instrumen
pengumpulan data adalah dokumen-yang abstrak tesis. Mereka dianalisis dengan
mengelompokkan mereka ke dalam dua jenis kesalahan, yaitu kesalahan tata bahasa dan konten.
Proposisi dari masing-masing jenis diubah menjadi persentase. Sebagai hasilnya, kesalahan tata
bahasa, kesalahan dalam Produksi Grup Verb mengambil 58% dan kesalahan konten, kesalahan
dalam arti yang berbeda membutuhkan waktu 38%. Kesalahan dalam produksi kelompok verba
ditemukan sebagai jenis yang dominan dalam hal kesalahan tata bahasa karena siswa masih
bingung berurusan dengan sistem tata bahasa Inggris terutama dalam penggunaan participle
(hadir / masa lalu), infinitive dan konkordansi (perjanjian verba dengan subjek). Kegagalan
dalam memilih kata yang tepat untuk bahasa target juga masih terjadi. Hal ini dapat dibuktikan
dengan kata-kata yang tidak tepat banyak yang memiliki rasa yang berbeda dengan bahasa targ
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
………. iTABLE OF CONTENTS
...ii
LIST OF APPENDICES
……….. .. vCHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study ... 11.2 The Problem of the Study ... 4
1.3 The Objectives of the Study ... 5
1.4 The Scope of the Study ... 5
1.5 The Significance of the Study ... 5
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 Translation ... 72.2 Abstract ... 9
2.3 Content errors in translation... 11
2.3.1 Different sense ... 11
2.3.2 Less precise or less accurate ... 11
2.3.3 Misuse of Phrases ... 12
2.4.4 Misuse of formal or official register... 12
2.5.5 Less coherent ... 12
iii
2.2.7 Added ... 13
2.2.8 Left out ... 13
2.4 Grammatical errors ... 13
2.4.1 Errors in the production of verb groups ... 14
2.4.2 Errors in the distribution of verb groups ... 14
2.4.3 Miscellaneous errors... 15
2.4.4 Errors in the use of prepositions ... 16
2.4.5 Errors in the use of articles ... 18
2.5 Consideration of Acceptable Translation ... 19
2.5.1 Equivalency in Translation ... 19
2.5.2 Accuracy in Translation ... 24
2.5.3 Naturalness in Translation ... 26
2.6 Conceptual Framework ... 27
2.7 The Previous Study……….. ... 29
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design ... 303.2 Data and Data Source ... 30
3.3 Procedure of Data Collection ... 30
3.4 Procedure of Data Analysis ... 31
iv
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Data analysis ………. 35
4.1.1 The Categories of Grammatical Errors and content errors …... 36
4.1.2 The Dominant Type of Error in Translating Abstract………... 40
4.2 Findings……… 41
4.3 Discussions………. 42
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions……… 435.2 Suggestions………. 43
REFERENCES
………... 45v
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A……… 47
Appendix B……… 61
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the StudyIn the present time, the role of translation has been widely known as important aspect of
communication. Considering western countries have become developed countries, they become
dominant countries which hold essential role. It makes western countries which mostly use
English which dominant as an international language. Every nation communicates each other
using English. With this condition, people need to study English. The English speaker's
communities spread out everywhere and it causes global communication. The use of English
language occurs in a variety of areas such as politics, economy, technology, and education. On
the other hand, Indonesia is a developing country which is also influenced by western. University
students need to absorb ideas from developed countries. To get ideas from those countries, they
need to understand how they communicate by learning their language. English has been one of
the subjects taught from elementary school to tertiary level. But as, a matter of fact, majority of
Indonesian people do not speak and even do not know English. Therefore, English, particularly
translation work is truly needed. For national interest, translation is used for a tool in order to
understand ideas from different language. Considering the weakness, the role of translating is
still very important. Besides, our country absorbs ideas from western; we must be able to express
our ideas globally by translating them into English. Therefore, in recent years many of
Indonesian texts are translated into English in order to circulate them around the world.
Translation work focuses in the area of education, particularly in higher education.
Indonesian people absorb knowledge from developed countries and on the other hand institution
feel the need of translation work into English in order to inform what they have done. It is a
contribution to the development of science. Post Graduate Program State University of Medan,
especially educational administration department also takes this role. It makes an attempt to
convey the ideas of original text in the thesis to the outside world. An abstract is the important
part of a thesis containing the basic ideas of a thesis. By reading the abstract, the reader can
decide whether he or she needs to read the whole content of thesis or not. The final step of
writing a thesis is abstract writing. In this case, students of Post graduate Program State
University of Medan are required to write the thesis abstract in English. In recent years students
of Post graduate Program are required to write thesis abstracts in English, although they are not
English department students. The post graduate school has given English as subject in the first
semester of their study. However not all Post graduate students have good skill in English,
particularly in doing translation. Therefore some translation errors still occurred.
Some students could be able to transfer their ideas into English just like what they want
to write in abstract, so readers could get the understanding as precisely as the author means.
Unfortunately, some others fail in doing translation. They fail in grammatical and content errors;
grammatical errors include errors in the production of verb groups, errors in the use of
prepositions, Miscellaneous Errors in the Distribution of Verb Groups, etc (Richards ).
furthermore content errors include different sense, less precise or less accurate, Misuse of
phrases, Misuse of formal or official register and etc. (Newmark, Barnett and Stubbs, 1980)
Here is one of the example of grammatical errors:
Pengumpulan data penelitian dilakukan dengan teknik observasi dan pengkajian dokumen. (Ngatman, 2005)
The translation is:
The translation of English statement in the first example contains grammatical errors.
Firstly, the translator makes error in the word execute, it should be is/was executed because it is
a passive voice (S+ to be + Verb 3). Secondly is the word observation which should be changed
observational as an Adjective because the word technique is a noun which should be followed by
the adjective (-al suffix), and thirdly as well as the word document should be changed into
documentary.
Here is an example of content error :
Maka nara sumber dalam penelitian ini mencakup ketua dan pengurus komite sekolah, kepala sekolah, guru, staf tata usaha dan siswa.
The translation is:
Hence the guest speakers in this research include chief and official member of commitee, school headmaster, student and school
administrator. (Ngatman, 2005)
In this phrase the school headmaster should be written headmaster. Because, for the natives
speaker's perspective the word headmaster has the meaning of the leader of school already. So it
is no need to put the word “ school” there.
Seeing this condition, the researcher is concerned with those problems in considering
that those abstracts would be published globally. Outside world could underestimate the
educational quality of post graduate student from seeing the translation abstracts which contain a
lot of errors. In addition, they do not pay attention to the technique of translation. In doing a
translation, at least the students should master two languages, in this case, Indonesian and
English. Unfortunately, by seeing the result of the translation, the students still face an ambiguity
of Indonesian word, phrase, and sentence.
Doing translation is not an easy task. The translator should have equal knowledge of the
translating a text particularly abstract is not just translating the words but also explaining
concepts and ideas. Moreover, the the researcher chooses the translated abstracts of Post
Graduate theses as a source of investigation to find out the error translation which is from
Indonesian text into English.
As a student of linguistics who has learned about theories of translation and also interested in this
field, the researcher wants to reveal whether the translation is accurate or not.
1.2 The Problems of the Study
In this study the research problems are common. Translation errors occur in content and
grammatical error. Beginner in translating abstracts from
Indonesian texts into English may make errors or fails in translating abstract. For this analysis
the problems are elaborated by the following:
1. What types of translation errors found in abstracts of educational
administration student?
2. What is the dominant type of translation errors found in abstracts?
3. Why do the dominant type of translation errors result occur?
1.3The Objectives of the Study This Study attempts:
1. to investigate the types of translation errors in abstracts of educational
administration students
3. to contextualize why the dominant type of errors in translation result
occur
1.4 The Scope of the Study
The translation field is very wide. Nevertheless, in doing his research, the researcher
deals with the error analysis in translation. The researcher wants to reveal content and
grammatical errors made by students in translating the abstracts into English, within the scope of
translation in semantics and grammar theories. The researcher focuses on content and
grammatical errors which occur in the thesis abstracts of educational administration students of
post graduate program of State University of Medan . However, spelling errors which do not
affect content and grammar of the text are ignored.
1.5 Significance of the Study
The researcher thinks that this analysis can develop the knowledge in translation study,
particularly in the pattern of error. Considering that many students make errors in doing
translation, the researcher wants to contribute the betterment by showing the common problem.
So, the lecturers and the students know and realize that there are many errors English translated
abstracts in educational administration department. The researcher hopes that after they know
about it, Post graduate program of State University of Medan holds further action, for example
by giving training for the student in going translation. So, their English-translated abstracts will
be more accurate, correct and understandable.
This study is also necessary to make students more aware and careful in translating the abstract
subject in order to make their abstracts good and understandable for those who read abstract in
43
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
Having analyzed the data in the thesis abstracts. The conclusion are drawn as the
following:
a. The errors in translating abstracts of educational administration theses from Bahasa into
English often occur. The errors include both grammatical and content errors. In general
the tendency of the categories errors is more or less the same.
b. Errors in the production of verb group belong to the dominant type in grammatical
errors and different sense belongs to the dominant type in terms of content errors.
c. The occurrence of errors in the production of verb group because the abstract translators
are lack of comprehending the English grammatical structure such as tense, participle
and concordance, consequently they cannot write good ‘structured’ sentences. The
occurrence of different sense because they fail in finding the appropriate words for the
target word. This is because the lack of English vocabularies they have.
5.2 Suggestions
In relation to the conclusion, it is suggested that
a. The findings of grammatical and content errors in abstract of educational
administration students should encourage the students in studying more about
44
be more careful in translating the abstract by avoiding the errors and paying attention in
the use of appropriate grammar and lexical.
b. More teaching and training about translation should be conducted in the classroom
especially for the students who are required to write the abstract in English. This is
conducted to minimize the translation error found in abstract in the future.
c. The translation material to be taught to the student should be focused on specific area of
translation such as how to minimize errors in the production of verb group as it reflected
the dominant and frequent errors made by student based on the research findings . So
hopefully it will lessen or even omit the errors made by student and it is suggested to
enrich and widen the use of appropriate vocabularies in abstracts.
45
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