v TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION……….. ABSTRACT ……… PREFACE ………..……….. AKCNOWLEDGMENT ………. TABLE OF CONTENS ………... CHAPTER 3 : INTRODUCTION
1.1.Background of The Study ... 1.2.Questions The Study Will Address ………....
1.3.Aims of The Study ……….
1.4.Significance of The Study ………... 1.5.Scope of The Study ... 1.6.Clarification of Key Terms ... CHAPTER 2 : TRANSLATION
2.1. Definitions of Translation ……….. 2.2. Principles of Translation…… ………. 2.3. Methods of Translation ………... 2.4. Problems in Translation ………. 2.5.1. The issue of Equivalence ……….. 2.5.2. Problems with Vocabulary ………... 2.5.3. Grammatical Problems ………. 2.5. Strategies of Translation……….. CHAPTER 3 : METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research Design ………. 3.2. Participants ………. 3.3. Techniques of Collecting Data ………... 3.3.1. Participants’ Translations ……… 3.3.2. Interview ……….. 3.4. Data Analyses ………. 3.4.1. The Analyses Participants’ Translation ………...
vi CHAPTER 4 : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Data from Participants’ Translations………... 4.1.1.Participants’ Translation Methods ……… 4.1.2.Participants’ Problems in Translation ……….. 4.2. Data from Interviews………...
4.2.1.Methods of Translation ……….……… 4.2.2.Problems in Translation………. 4.2.3.Strategies in Translation………... CHAPTER 5 : CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. Conclusions ………. 5.2. Recommendations ………..
5.2.1. Recommendation for Methods and Strategies to Solve the Translation Problems ……… 5.2.2. Recommendations for Further Research…………..
REFERENCES………
APPENDICES ………...
AUTHOBIGRAPHY
29 29 50 62 63 64 67
70 71
1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1. 1 Background of the Study
It is the fact that many books, research journals and magazines are written in English. To access the scientific information from those kinds of texts, students not only need to read and understand written documents in English but also make translation from English into Indonesian (Suryawinata, 1989: 38).
In relation to this, the translation of English written texts is also carried out by the students Biology Education of School of Graduate Studies. The translation done is as one of the ways to transfer information from English written sources which is needed to make use of related academic research and to deal with scientific information especially to fulfill the requirements of their studies
Meanwhile, in doing the translation, students in some cases frequently encounter various problems. Therefore, as argued by Lim (995: 478) that they tend to have misinterpretation of meanings and messages conveyed in the texts. However, these problems should be regarded as an inevitable part of the translation process.
With respect to the problems, Newmark (1984: 14) states that the translation problems are available at all aspects of translation, namely the aspects of language, the subject matter, and the translator himself.
These problems will be seen more clearly, for example, at the differences of grammatical systems of the source and the target languages (Baker, 1995: 83).
In the aspect of subject matter, the translation of natural sciences texts is mainly aimed at expressing facts, experiments and hypothesis. Accordingly, the translation of natural sciences texts is straight forward without superfluous words (Suryawinata, 1989: 42), while according to Qingjia (1995: 943) the requirement of preciseness, smoothness and conciseness in scientific translation is very strict.
In addition, as suggested by Nida (1964: 223), since natural sciences texts, including biology texts, rarely contain idiomatic or culture-bound expressions, the type of equivalence most common in the translation is formal equivalence which focuses attention on the message and content rather than its form.
3
With reference to the translation problems, Yusrida (2002), in her research, identified four types of problem in; 1) grammar, 2) lexicon, 3) grammar that causes global and local problems and 4. lexicon that causes global and local problems in translation.
Her study concludes that the students encountered problems in SL on the types of omission, addition, misformation and misordering. Within the types of lexical problems, content words constitute the greatest problems, and then followed by special terms. In the types of grammatical problems, syntactical problems had been the main problems and successively followed by morphological and function words problems.
The sources of the problem are; first, lack of knowledge of Indonesian grammatical equivalence for English function words, special terms and complex sentence constructions. Second, the lack of knowledge of Indonesian lexical equivalence of English idioms and special terms.
Similar to Yusrida, Harto (2003), in his study found that the translator’s problems in doing translation works are (1) finding the general terms relevant with the target language, (2) getting original texts not clearly written, (3) finding the relevant terms in accordance with the original cultures and concepts, (4) minimum subject knowledge about the materials being translated.
Besides, most of his respondents admitted that they still found difficult words to translate. The difficult words varied from one to the others ranging from less than five percent to ten percent of the whole text being translated.
between two languages namely Persian and English conducted in a university in Iran, revealed that finding equivalence is the most problematic stage in translation. The problems found in the study are a compound adjective in English may be translated into an adjective clause in Persian, a linguistic element which is explicit in Persian may be implicit in English and vice versa.
Based on the background above, this study attempted to investigate the methods, strategies applied in doing the translation and the problems the participants encountered in the translation of English biology texts
1.2 Questions the Study Will Address
Due to the purposes above, this research will address the following questions: 1. What methods do the participants use in translating English Biology
texts.
2. What problems do the participants encounter in translating English Biology texts.
3. What strategies do the participants apply to overcome their difficulties in translating English biology texts
1.3 Aims of The Study
5
1.4 Significance of The Study
The findings of this study would hopefully contribute to shed light on the difficulties in translating English Biology text into Indonesian. It is also expected to provide both theoretical and practical benefits for students or to those interested in translation work in the context of solving problems in translating English biology texts into Indonesian. The results of the research are expected to;
1. be utilized as an input for improving the translation of natural sciences in general and English biology texts in particular
2. give contribution to the profession and the teaching of translation particularly the methods and strategies of translation.
1.5 The Scope of The study
This research is limited to the final product of translation. The study limits itself and focuses on the methods, problems and strategies in translating English biology texts.
1.6 Clarification of Key Terms:
1. Problem refers to the difficulties encountered by the participants in translating English Biology texts.
2. Method refers to a way of doing something, particularly the translation of English biology texts into Indonesian.
4. English biology texts are the texts written in English which is concerned with the discussions of animals, plants and human being.
5. Translating refers to the act of transferring meaning of a text from one language into another
24 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes the steps that were taken in conducting the research. It presents the research design, participants of the study, techniques of collecting data, and ended by the data analyses.
3.1 Research Design
Since this study was designed to investigate methods, strategies and problems in translation, it was described from the perspective of the qualitative or naturalistic research paradigm (Creswell, 1994:2), embracing the characteristics of a case study. This study employed a case study.
Case study is an examination of specific phenomenon such as a program, an event, a person, a process, an institution or a group (Merriam 1988:9). This design was conducted as an attempt to gain an in-dept understanding of situation and its meaning for those involved (Marriam, 1988:9). Furthermore, a case study requires the collection of very extensive data in order to produce an in-depth understanding of the entity being studied (Borg and Gall, 1989: 402), and it is relevant to this study which is also connected with investigating a phenomenon that is problems in translating English biology text into Indonesian.
3.2 Participants
The participants of this study were 3 students majoring in Biology Education of Science Education Program, School of Graduate Studies Indonesia University of Education. These students were chosen to be the participants of this study since they had experiences in translating various English Biology texts into Indonesian to fulfill one of the requirements of their study.
They also indicated that translation is a must for them, as graduate students, due to the fact that they are required not only to read but also to interpret documents with the topics are related to their field of study in order to follow advancements in science and technology.
3.3 Techniques of Collecting Data
The data were collected by ways of collecting participants’ translations and interviews
3.3.1 Participants’ Translations
The texts consist of different branches of Biology namely Plant
Development and Animal Development. The two texts were previously discussed
with the participants and agreed by them as the materials for the translation works. The participants translated the texts by their own methods and strategies. The translated texts were then collected from the participants as the major data to be analyzed.
3.3.2 Interview
26
interview is the preferred tactic of data collection when it will get better data or more data at less cost than other tactics.
The purpose of interview is to crosscheck the vague points and to explore much more about the problems, methods and strategies of Biology text translation that cannot be gained through participants’ translation. Since it cannot be observed, the interviewer has to ask the right question in the right way to get meaningful information or special kind of information. Meanwhile, Lincoln and Guba (in Moleong: 1988: 115) say that the purpose of interview is to construct people, event, activity, organization, feeling, motivation, demand, request, concern and entity as experienced in the past.
The researcher conducted face to-face and semi structured interview to the participants to ensure the quality of the data. The interviews were carried out after the analyses of theleading data were completed.
The interviews were held on March 5th, 6th and 15th, 2007 to the three participants in one of the rooms in School of Graduate Studies, Indonesia University of Education. The questions for interviews were related to the methods, strategies and problems in translating English biology texts..
[image:11.595.112.500.640.732.2]The guided questions for the interviews and the results of the interviews are attached on the Appendices in this thesis while the schedule of the recorded interviews can be seen in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1. The Schedule of Recorded Interviews
Interviewee Place Date Time
Participant No.1 The third floor of Graduate
School UPI
March 5th, 2007 13.30
Participant No.2 The second floor of Graduate
School UPI
March 6th, 2007 13.30
Participant No.3 The third floor of Graduate
School UPI
In doing the interviews, the researcher used audio tape recorder. To avoid anything unwanted, the researcher also made interviews notes.
3.4 Data Analyses
It is mentioned that the analyses of data in qualitative research is ongoing (Smith in Maxwell, 1996:34). The data in this study were obtained from interview audio-tape recording and translation analyses.
In order to get complete data, the researcher used a triangulation technique (Maxwell, 1996:75) while to enhance the validity of this study, the data from different sources i.e. interviews and participant’s translation works were compared.
After the data were collected, they were analyzed by using descriptive method. The reason is that the study applied content analysis. Besides, the researcher classified the methods, strategies and problems according the types they belong to, and then they were explained.
additionally, to enhance the validity of the data analyses, the translated texts have been proofread by an expert, Eni Nuraini who is also a lecturer at Biology Education Indonesia University of Education and is a specialist in Development Biology.
In the present study, the steps of the data analyses were done as follows: 3.4.1 The Analyses of Participants’ Translations
28
problems in translating English biology texts which included the problems with equivalence, problems with vocabulary and grammatical problems adopted some theories from some experts as described in chapter 2. The analyses also used the principles of translation drawn from Nida (1964: 165).
3.4.2 The Analyses of Interview with Participants
70 CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter consists of two parts. The first section presents conclusions derived from the findings presented in the previous chapter. The second part provides recommendations made on the basis of the research findings.
5.1 Conclusions
The findings showed that there was a phenomenon that all participants employed different types of translation methods particularly communicative translation method, literal translation method, word for word translation method and free translation method. Of the four methods employed in the translation, literal translation method was used mostly by the three participants i.e. 22 times, followed by communicative translation method 17 times and free and word for word translation methods each 4 times. The use of these methods were just based on their “implicit knowledge”, since, as admitted by the participants, they never learned these kinds of methods formally.
Based on the findings it was concluded that:
1. The use of communicative translation method seemed to be based on their good understanding on the concept and context of the source texts.
2. The use of literal, word for word and free translation methods were caused by their lack of knowledge about translation principles such as naturalness, clarity, closeness and smoothness.
71
of translation as suggested in chapter 2 and really helped them in undertaking their translation.
These strategies are applicable to do their translation and to solve the problems they encountered in the translation mainly for searching equivalences and minimizing vocabulary problems and grammatical problems.
5.2 Recommendations
The recommendations are of two kinds. The first, is the suggestion to use particular methods of translation, to apply particular strategies in conducting translation works in order to minimize or to solve the translation problems. The second one is recommendation for further studies.
5.2.1 Recommendations for Translation Methods and Strategies to Solve
Translation Problems
It is also recommended to apply some translation strategies which were discussed in chapter 2 in undertaking the translation of biology English texts. 5.2.2 Recommendations for Further Research
By conducting this research I have tried to investigate the effectiveness of the use of methods and strategies in translation and also tried to look into the problems occurred in the translation of English biology texts. However, it is believed that this research does not give the perfect result yet due to limitation of the study.
Therefore it is recommended to for further studies to investigate these aspects in order to make better achievement in the translations of Biology English texts. It is also recommended for the other studies to investigate the use of other translation methods and strategies which are suggested by the other theorists.
73 REFERENCES
Allen, S. W. (1995). Living English Structure. London. Longman Group Limited Azar, B.S. (1989), Understanding and Using English Grammar: Second Edition,
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents.
Baker. M (1995). In Other Words; A Course Book on Translation. New York. Routledge
Brislin, R. W. (1976), Translation: Application and Research. New York: Gardner Press Inc.
Brislin, R. W. (1995). Back Translation: A Tool for Cross-cultural Research. Hong Kong, Chinese University Press.
Cambell, Neil. A, Jane. B, Mitchell, Lawrence G. (2004). Biology. Illinois: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Cartford, J, C. (1971). A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London. Oxford University Press
Creswell, J.W. 1994. Research Design Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. California: Sage Publication Inc.
Finlay, I (1974). Translating. London St. Paul’s House
Gutt, Ernst-August. (1991), Translation and Relevance : Cognition and Context. Oxford. Brazil Blackwell Inc.
Hatim. B and Mason. I (1994). Discourse and the Translator. New York. Longman Inc.
Karimi. L. http://accurapid.com/journal/35equiv.htm Kulwindar . http://accurapid.com/journal/34edu.htm.
Lam, J, (1995). Thinking-aloud Protocol. Hong Kong. The Chinese University Press Larson, M. L, (1984). Meaning-Based Translation. New York. University Press of
Lim, T.C, (1995). Language Teaching and Translation. Hong Kong. The Chinese University Press
Lorscher, W. (1995), Psycholinguistics. Hong Kong. The Chinese University Press. Meriam, S. B, (1988 ), Case Study Research in Education: A Qualitative Appraoach.
California Jossey-Bass Inc
Maxwell J. A, (1996), Qualitative Research Design : An Interactive Approach. London. Sage Publication
Moleong, L. J. (1988), Metodologi Penelitian Kualitatif. Jakarta DEPDIKBUD, Dikti PPLPTK
Murphy. R. (1998), Essential Grammar In Use. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press
Newmark (1988), A Textbook of Translation. UK Prentice Hall International
Newmark, P. (1984), Approaches to Translation. Headington Hill Hall Pergumon Press LTD
Nida, E. A. (1964), Towards a Science of Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill
Nida and Taber. (1982), The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden. E. J. Brill Taiz and Zeiger. (2002), Plant Physiology, Third Edition. Massachusettes, Sinauer
Associates, Inc, Publishers
Qingjia, Y. (1995), Scentific Translation. Hong Kong. The Chinese University Press. Suryawinata, Z. (1989: 39) Terjemahan: Pengantar Teori dan Praktek. Jakarta.
Deaprtemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan
Yusuf, S. (1994). Teori Terjemah: Pengantar ke Arah Pendekatan Linguistik dan Sociolinguisitik. Bandung. : Mandar Maju.
Weber, K.W. (1984). Training Translators and Conference Interpresters. New Jersey. Prentice Hall Inc.
