SYNTACTICAL INTERFERENCE AND TRANSLATION QUALITY OF TRANSLATED TEXT PHYTOCHEMICAL METHODS: A GUIDE TO MODERN TECHNIQUES OF PLANT ANALYSIS.

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SYNTACTICAL INTERFERENCE AND TRANSLATION QUALITY OF TRANSLATED TEXT “PHYTOCHEMICAL METHODS: A

GUIDE TO MODERN TECHNIQUES OF PLANT ANALYSIS”

A THESIS

Submitted to English Applied Linguistics Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for Degree of MAGISTER HUMANIORA (M.Hum)

By

MAITRI RAHMADHANI Reg.Number: 8106112013

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN MEDAN

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i ABSTRACT

Maitri Rahmadhani. 8106112013. “Syntactical Interference and Translation Quality of Translated Text of Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to modern Techniques of Plant Analysis.” English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Postgraduate school State University of Medan, 2012.

The objectives of this research are (1) to describe the types of translation interference occurred as well as the types of translation procedures applied in the translated text and (2) to explain the quality of the translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis”. This research uses qualitative research method especially the applied theory. The source of the data is a pharmacy text entitled “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis” as the ST and its translation version entitled “Metode Fitokimia: Penuntun Cara Modern Menganalisis Tumbuhan” as the TT. The data are analysed based on Bogdan and Biklen’s stages/steps; searching the data, arranging the data and interpreting. The validity of the data is taken by applying investigator triangulation i.e. by assessing the analysis to two key informants; a proffessional translator and a pharmacy expertise.

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ii ABSTRAK

Maitri Rahmadhani. 8106112013. “Syntactical Interference and Translation Quality of Translated Text of “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to modern Techniques of Plant Analysis.” Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris, Sekolah Pascasarjana Universitas Negeri Medan, 2012.

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah (1) untuk mendeskripsikan jenis gangguan dan prosedur penerjemahan yang digunakan pada teks terjemahan dan (2) untuk menjelaskan kualitas teks tejemahan berjudul “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to modern Techniques of Plant Analysis.” Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif khususnya terap-teori. Sumber data penelitian ini adalah buku teks farmasi berjudul “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to modern Techniques of Plant Analysis” sebagai Teks Sumber dan terjemahannya berjudul “Metode Fitokimia: Penuntun Cara Modern Menganalisis Tumbuhan” sebagai Teks Sasaran. Data kemudian dianalisis berdasarkan empat tahapan teori Bogdan and Biklen; mencari data, menyusun data dan mnginterpretasikan data. Validitas data pada penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan triangulasi yaitu dengan menilai analisis penelitian ini yang dilakukan oleh dua orang informan kunci; yaitu seorang penerjemah profesional dan seorang pakar farmasi dan apoteker.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This Piece of academic achievement is really the product of hardship and

endurance of many challenges in life. On top of everything a very sincere

gratitude is rendered to Allah for everything that has been poured to the writer in

completing her academic studies and thesis. Apart from that, many people for

sure, have assisted her in some ways, though not all names can be mentioned here

but some deserve her very special attention. The following people should be given

the credits.

First. Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M. Hum, being the first adviser, should

be addressed and thanked with deep appreciation because of much of her valuable

time have been given in terms of comments, corrections, and suggestions for

shaping the contents of this thesis.

Second. Dr. Eddy Setia, M.Ed., TESP, being the second adviser, a special

debt of gratitude is conveyed in regard to his ideas, attentions, and suggestions in

forming the contents of this thesis. He has been so kind and helpful in many cases.

Third. Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.

Hum, head and secretary of English Applied Linguistic Study Program and Farid

as the administration staff for completing the administrative procedures.

Fourth, Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd, Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.d

and Prof. D.P. Tampubolon, Ph.D, the reviewers and examiners for the valuable

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Fifth. A very special expression of gratitude is directed to the writer’s

beloved parents; Muhammad Rusdan Sadar and Sufiati Basri, the writer’s

brothers; Isdarto, Amd and M. Adlin Shalliya, S.Pd.I, the writer’s sisters; Efi

Winarti, Am.Pd and Ernita for their endless love, support and care.

The final words are addressed to all that have shared their valuable insight

in making this thesis as it should be. May Allah SWT, The Almighty, be with us

always.

Medan, December 27th 2012

The writer,

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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3.2 Instrument of the Data 71

3.3 Data Analysis 71

3.3.1 Searching the Data 71

3.3.2 Arranging the Data 72

3.3.3 Interpreting the Data 73

3.4 Investigator Triangulation 74

CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Translation procedures and Syntactical

Interference 75

4.2 Translation Quality 161

4.3 Findings 167

4.4 Discussion 169

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusion 174

5.2 Implications 175

5.3 Suggestions 176

REFERENCES 178

APPENDICES

Appendix 1 181

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ix TABLE

Table 1 Characteristics of text-types ... ...56

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viii FIGURES

Figure 1 Map of disciplines interfacing with Translation Studies...9

Figure 2 Nida’s three-stage system of translation...12

Figure 3 Bell’s model of the translation process ...14

Figure 4 The translation methods...28

Figure 5 Reiss’s text-types and text varieties...55

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1 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of the Study

The arbitrariness of language is a cause for the variations among

languages. Speakers of different languages mix the sounds of those languages

differently to make the words which refer to objects / concepts; they mix the

words in different ways to make structural patterns. It makes translation is needed

to transfer information and knowledge from one community in one country to

another country. In an attempt to translate the message of Source Language into

the Target Language, the translator must understand SL and TL structures, have

the Writing skills in the target language, the knowledge of National characteristics

where the language is spoken, and need to consider different culture of both

languages.

When we are talking about translation, of course there are two senses

relates with it. The first of two senses relates to translation as a process which

focuses on the role of the translator in taking the original or source text (ST) and

turning it into a text in another language (the target text: TT), the second to the

product which centers on the concrete translation the product produced by the

translator.

Translation is a phenomenon that has a huge effect on everyday life. Every

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them is from English into Bahasa Indonesia. It is not surprising that the needs of

translation product increases nowadays. Translation itself is not only a linguistic

act, it is also a cultural one. It is said to be so because translation always involves

both language and culture as it cannot be separated. Translators should pay great

attention to the differences in kind and degree of conventionalization in the source

and target cultures when transferring a text from one culture to another.

Take an example in our country, the translation practice plays an important

role, especially in academic fields. Translation enables the university students

easily access to new information from the textbooks that have been translated into

Bahasa Indonesia. Most of textbooks used by the university students are written in

English. It leads the translating activities increase as well as the needs of using the

translation version in academic community. Some experts try to translate those

textbooks into Bahasa Indonesia with or without coordination with the linguists.

In translating the ST into TT, the translator always faces several problems.

One of them is the occurrence of interference. Interference is occurred simply

because every language in the world possesses different characteristics and

structures. It is also happened because of the linguistic and cultural gaps between

languages.

The notion of interference that can easily be seen in a cultural text brought

this investigation i.e. to investigate whether the interference also happened in the

translated scientific text as pharmacy textbook. It is a new phenomenon in

translation since there is no researches have investigated the interference in such a

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Since pharmacy textbook is considered as informative text which is

emphasizing the accurate information, it is needed be investigated whether the

phenomenon of interference occurred in such a scientific text as pharmacy

textbook or not. It is simply because this text is widely used by expertise in

pharmacy as well as by the pharmacy students in a university. It means that these

texts must be translated with no serious mistakes. If the interference disturbs the

translator in translating the scientific texts, moreover, if it is causing the translator

mistranslated these kind of text, the meaning of the ST will be distorted. This

situation will then lead the reader to misinterpret the meaning.

The example of translation practices in pharmacy is the translation of

pharmacy textbooks from English into Bahasa Indonesia. One of them is the

translation of “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant

Analysis” into “Metode Fitokimia: Penuntun Cara Modern Menganalisis

Tumbuhan.” This book is considered as an important textbook for pharmacy

students at University of Sumatera Utara, especially for those seventh semester

students whom are intended to conduct their thesis.

But there is something unnatural in translating the ST into the TT. It is

started with title of the book. Lexically and semantically, the title should be

Metode Fitokimia: Sebuah Panduan Cara Moderen Analisis Tumbuhan. By

translating Plant Analysis into Menganalisis Tumbuhan, the translator uses

Newmark’s translation procedures i.e. transposision. It is the changing of one part

of speech for another such as from verb to noun, from noun to adjective, from

noun to verb, and so on. Although this procedure is the commonest structural

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pharmacy it should not be happened. Not only that, the translator also eliminates

the word a in which can be translated into sebuah as its equivalence.

The unnatural equivalence in the title of the book becomes the starting

point in choosing that textbook as the primer data of this research. Relating to this

phenomenon, the assumption in our society which more or less stated that

medicines from abroad is more effective and clinically tested qualified than those

medicines produced by our country becomes the first reason to conduct this thesis.

It is assume that this situation happened not because of the unqualified

pharmacists but the textbooks which read by them have wrong interpretation

because of the distorted meaning from the ST in the TT which means that the

translated textbooks have bad quality.

To solve the problems during translating process, such as interference,

several methods and procedures of translation are applied by the translator. He

should choose and decide the best translation methods and procedures to find the

best equivalence for the translated text. In this way, he has minimized the

percentage of inaccurateness in the translated text.

As it has mentioned previously that the translated text of “Phytochemical

Methods: A Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis” is used by the

seventh semester students of USU, it is necessary to evaluate the quality of this

translated text. So, this thesis is aimed to describe the translation procedures and

translation interference occurred in the translated text of “Phytochemical

Methods: A Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis” and to evaluate the

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based on the theory of translation quality assessment which consist of three main

parts i.e. accuracy, acceptability and readability. It is simply to prove whether this

translated text is appropriate for the readers or not.

1.2 The Problems of the Study

Based on the background of the study, the problems of the study are:

1. What syntactical interference and translation procedure applied in the

translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern

Techniques of Plant Analysis”?

2. How is the quality of the translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a

Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis”?

1.3 The Objectives of the Study

Based on the problems of the study, the objectives of this study are:

1. To describe the syntactical interference occurred as well as the types of

translation procedures applied in the translated text of “Phytochemical

Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis”.

2. To explain the quality of the translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a

Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis”

1.4 The Significance of the Study

This thesis is expected to be able to give some significance both

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general understanding of the interference in translation in translating such a

serious text as pharmacy textbook, especially in “Phytochemical Methods: a

Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis” into Metode Fitokimia: Penuntun

Cara Modern Menganalisis Tumbuhan and to be the base investigation for the

next researchers to deepen the analysis as well as to enrich the translation field.

Realizing that pharmacy textbooks are serious textbooks that may not be

translated inaccurately, this research is aimed to awaken the awareness of the

translators to have synergy between the linguists and the expertise in pharmacy to

produce the best translation version of pharmacy textbooks. It is also to awaken

the awareness of the pharmacy textbook readers to be more selective in choosing

a qualified guiding book.

1.5 The Scope of the Study

This thesis is focused on translation as a product. The translation product

in this case refers to a written text, specifically, a translated pharmacy textbook

which is used by USU’s pharmacy students entitled “Metode Fitokimia: Penuntun

Cara Modern Menganalisis Tumbuhan” (from the original “Phytochemical

Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis”).

The analysis in this thesis only focuses on the translation procedures, the

translation interference and the quality of translation in a translated text of

“Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis”. The

units of translation used in this analysis are only focused on word, phrase, clause

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Thus, the analysis and findings in this thesis are not related with the

translator directly and the translator competence since the translation procedures,

the translation interference and the quality of translation are analyzed and

concluded based on the studies and theories of translation as a product.

Furthermore, this research is focused to find out the syntactical

interference in the translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern

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174 CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

In chapter I, it has been described that the objectives of this research are to

describe the types of translation interference occurred as well as the types of

translation procedures used in the translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a

Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant Analysis” and also to explain the quality of

the translated text of “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern Techniques of

Plant Analysis”.

Having in depth anaysis on the data in chapter IV, there is conclusion that

can be draw. This chapter consists of three parts i.e. the conclusion, implication

and the suggestions.

5.1 Conclusion

Based on the findings in this thesis, it can be concluded that the translated

pharmacy textbook entitled “Phytochemical Methods: a Guide to Modern

Techniques of Plant Analysis” is quite accurate to be a reference book for the

pharmacy’s students in USU, but not as a guidance book since there a lot of

ungrammatical construction, some uncommon terminologies and meaning loss as

well as ambiguity of meaning that then lead to the distortion of meaning in

translating the ST into the TT. It is true that a translator must has a synergy with

the linguists in order to produce the best translated text. Thus, this pharmacy

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5.2 Implications

Based on the conclusion previously stated, there are some implications

from this research as follows:

1. First, the result of this research reveals that the translation procedures

applied by the translator are ideally to overcome the translation problems,

such as interference, occured during translating process. Single translation

procedure is normally used in the translating process. Couplet and triplet

translation procedures are normally used when single translation procedure

is not enough to convey the intended message of the ST into the TT.

Ideally, these translation procedures are applied to overcome the

translation problems such as syntactical interference, but as a matter of

fact, some translation procedures make the meaning of the ST is blurred

and even distorted when it is translated into the TT, deletion, modulation

and reduction for instance. Therefore, it implies that the translator does not

really aware of choosing the best translation procedures to avoid meaning

distortion and to produce the best translation product such a serious text as

a pharmacy textbook.

2. The last findings of this research reveals that the quality of the translated

text of “Phytochemical Methods: A Guide to Modern Techniques of Plant

Analysis” is fairly good to be the additional textbook for the pharmacy

students at USU. But not to be the guidance textbook from them. It is

because of several reasons such as ungrammatical sentences and the

uncommon terminology used by the translator based on the syntax of

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are not clear to be understood by the readers of the TT. Therefore, it

implies that the translator does not consult or has synergy with the

linguists and consult to the dictionary of Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) in

translating such a serious text as a pharmacy textbook. As a matter of fact,

a good translated textbook will be achieved when the translated textbook

has no syntactical interference by applying the best translation procedures

and sentence construction and common terminologies based on syntactic

rules of Bahasa Indonesia and KBBI.

5.3 Suggestions

There are some suggestions for the translator, the next researcher and the

target text readers.

1. For the translator

All of the information in the informative text such a pharmacy textbook

are important to be translated into the TT. Thus, deletion, modulation and

reduction may not be applied in translating the ST into the TT. To produce an

accurate translated text, there must be a synergy between a pharmacyst or the

pharmacy expertise with a linguist to translate such a serious text as pharmacy

textbook which is considered as informative text and produce the best translation

version of pharmacy textbook.

2. For another researcher

The orientation of this research is on the translation product which is

analysed and measured for its quality. Thus, it is suggested for the next researcher

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analysis and findings in this thesis are only oriented to the translation product, it is

also suggested that there should be in depth analysis on the translator competence.

3. For the readers

A pharmacy textbook is considered as an informative text which has to be

translated accurately. It is because this text is one of the sources of information to

create a medical agent by creating medicines to cure the diseases. Thus, the

readers of the pharmacy textbook must be aware to choose the translated guidance

book with the best quality to prevent the misinterpretation of the source text that is

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SYNTACTICAL INTERFERENCE AND TRANSLATION QUALITY OF TRANSLATED TEXT PHYTOCHEMICAL METHODS: A GUIDE TO MODERN TECHNIQUES OF PLANT ANALYSIS.