AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL TRANSFER
IN INDONESIAN TO ENGLISH TRANSLATED
TEXTS BY STUDENTS OF ENGLISH TEACHER
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TITLE SHEETTHESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd) in Teaching English
By
Nila Syarifun Nisak
NIM D35212053
ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER TRAINING
SUNAN AMPEL STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
SURABAYA
PERNYATAAN KEASLIAN TULISAN
Yang bertanda tangan dibawah ini
Nama : Nila Syarifun Nisak
NIM : D35212053
Semester : VIII
Fakultas/Prodi : Tarbiyah dan Keguruan/Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
Dengan ini menyatakan sebenar-benarnya bahwa skripsi yang berjudul “An Analysis
of Grammatical Transfer from Indonesian Language in Students’ English
Translation of English Teacher Education Department” adalah benar-benar merupakan hasil karya sendiri. Segala materi yang diambil dari karya orang lain
hanya digunakan sebagai acuan dengan mengikuti tata cara dan etika penulisan karya
ilmiah yang ditetapkan oleh jurusan.
Demikian pernyataan ini dibuat dengan sebenar-benarnya, apabila pernyataan tidak
sesuai dengan fakta yang ada, maka saya selaku penulis bersedia dimintai
pertanggungjawaban sesuai ketentuan peraturan perundang-undangan yang berlaku.
ADVISOR APPROVAL SHEET
This thesis by Nila Syarifun Nisak entitled “An Analysis of Grammatical Transfer in Indonesian to English Translated Texts by Students of English Teacher Education Department.” has been approved by the thesis advisor for further approval by the Boards of Examiners.
APPROVAL SHEET
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Sebagai sivitas akademika UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya:
Nama : NILA SYARIFUN NISAK NIM : D35212053
Fakultas/Jurusan : FTK/PENDIDIKAN GURU BAHASA INGGRIS E-mail address : kulo.nila@gmail.com
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, menyetujui untuk memberikan kepada Perpustakaan UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, Hak Bebas Royalti Non-Eksklusif atas karya ilmiah :
Sekripsi Tesis Desertasi Lain-lain (………)
yang berjudul :
AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL TRANSFER IN INDONESIAN TO ENGLISH TRANSLATED TEXTS BY STUDENTS OF ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan Hak Bebas Royalti Non-Ekslusif ini Perpustakaan UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya berhak menyimpan, mengalih-media/format-kan, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data (database), mendistribusikannya, dan menampilkan/mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain secara fulltext untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya selama
tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis/pencipta dan atau penerbit yang bersangkutan.
Saya bersedia untuk menanggung secara pribadi, tanpa melibatkan pihak Perpustakaan UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, segala bentuk tuntutan hukum yang timbul atas pelanggaran Hak Cipta dalam karya ilmiah saya ini.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Surabaya, 18 Agustus 2016
Penulis
(Nila Syarifun Nisak)
ABSTRACT
Nisak, Nila Syarifun. (2016). An Analysis of Grammatical Transfer in Indonesian to English Translated Texts by Students of English Teacher Education Department. A thesis. English Teacher Education Department, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training, State Islamic University Sunan Ampel Surabaya. Advisor: M. Hanafi
Key Words: Grammatical transfer, English translated texts by students
ABSTRAK
Nisak, Nila Syarifun. (2016). An Analysis of Grammatical Transfer in Indonesian to English Translated Texts by Students of English Teacher Education Department. Skripsi. Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Keguruan, Univeersitas Islam Negri Surabaya. Pembimbing: M. Hanafi.
Kata Kunci: Grammatical transfer, English translated texts by students
Menggunakan bahasa Inggris sebagai kebiasaan lebih mudah untuk dikatakan daripada diterapkan bagi mahasiswa program studi Pendidikan Guru Bahasa Inggris UIN Sunan Ampel. Bahasa Indonesia merupakan bahasa yang paling sering digunakan baik secara lisan maupun tulisan, hal tersebut menyebabkan Bahasa Indonesia memiliki pengaruh yang kuat terhadap Bahasa Inggris mereka. Didalam menerjemahkan teks berbahasa Indonesia kedalam Bahasa Inggris, terkadang mereka tanpa sadar menerapkan tata bahasa Indonesia untuk kalimat berbahasa Inggris. Apabila susunan kalimat tersebut sama, mereka akan terbantu, tetapi ketika tata bahasanya berbeda, maka mereka akan membuat kesalahan. Fenomena ini disebut sebagai grammatical transfer. Grammatical transfer adalah tepat atau tidaknya penggunaan tata bahasa yang dipelajari dipengaruhi oleh bahasa ibu atau bahasa kedua yang dimunculkan oleh seseorang yang mempelajari bahasa asing. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan jenis-jenis grammatical transfer dan faktor struktural yang muncul dalam terjemahan Bahasa Inggris dari para mahasiswa tersebut. Penelitian ini diharapkan bisa menjadi penjelasan terkait peran tata bahasa Indonesia terhadap bahasa Inggris dengna cara menunjukkan berbagai contoh bagi para pengajar dan pelajar. Penelitian dilakukan di program studi Pendidikan Guru Bahasa Inggris UIN Sunan Ampel dan para mahasiswa yang mengambil kelas Translation sebagai subjeknya. Khusunya, 25 mahasiswa diteliti dengan menerapkan data retention terkait dokumen hasil terjemahan mahasiswa tersebut dari peneliti sebelumnya. Sebagai data penunjang, mahasiswa juga diwawancara. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif qualitatif dan pendekatan contrastive analysis
untuk menguraikan data. Berdasarkan temuan data dan penjabarannya, penelitian ini menemukan terdapat 15 jenis grammatical transfer; dengan interference separuh lebih mendominasi dibandingkan dengan facilitation dalam kasus general. Secara specific, dalam
facilitation terdapat 1 kasus termasuk dalam preposition, 1 to be, 1 modal, 3 conjunction, dan 1 sebagai relative pronoun. Tetapi semua temuan tersebut dapat juga dikategorikan sebagai jenis word order. Untuk interference, ditemukan 2 word order, 9 number, 2 possessive pronoun, 1 relative pronoun, 1 article/determiner, 4 verb, 8 time, tense and aspect, 3 to be, 10 preposition dan 9 sebagai adjectives and adverb. Grammatical Transfer tersebut muncul sebagai akibat dari faktor structural yang berkaitan dengan tata bahasa dari kedua bahasa. Faktor yang mendasari munculnya positive transfer adalah the same relation pattern and the same grammatical systems (relasi susunan frase, klausa atau kalimat dan sistem tata bahasa yang sama). Disamping itu, faktor yang menyebabkan terjadinya negative transfers adalah
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER ... i
ADVISOR APPROVAL SHEET ... ii
APPROVAL SHEET ... iii
MOTTO ... iv
DEDICATION ... v
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ... vi
ABSTRACT ... vii
ABSTRAK ... ix
TABLE OF CONTENT ... x
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xii
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study ... 3
B. Research Question ... 9
C. Objectives of the Study ... 9
D. Scope and Limits of the study... 10
E. Significance of the Study ... 10
F. Definitions of the key terms... 11
CHAPTER II : REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Language Transfer ... 14
B. Translation ... 29
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHOD
A. Approach and Research Design ... 42
B. Research Setting ... 43
C. Data and Source of Data ... 43
D. Instruments... 44
E. Data Collection Technique ... 45
F. Data Analysis Technique ... 46
G. Checking Validity of Findings ... 49
H. Research stages ... 50
CHAPTER IV : RESEARCH FINDINGS A. Research Findings ... 53
1. Positive Transfer (Facilitation) ... 54
2. Negative Transfer (Interference) ... 59
B. Discussion ... 77
1. English Grammar Facilitated by Indonesian Grammar ... 78
2. English Grammar Interfered by Indonesian Grammar ... 83
3. Factors in Grammatical Transfer ... 104
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. Conclusion ... 107
B. Suggestion ... 108
REFERENCES ... 110
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents an introduction of the study that explains the reasons of
accomplishing this research. In addition, it has the research questions that come up
with some cases, goals of the study that show the aims of conducting this research,
significance of the study. Furthermore, scope and limitation of the study are also
presented in this chapter. Finally, definition of key terms defining the variables used
in this research is also provided to avoid misunderstanding of those terms.
A. Background of the Study
Students of English Teacher Education Department (ETED) in Sunan Ampel
State Islāmic University (UINSA) are multilingual English learners. They are
familiar with more than one language. Most of them have vernacular as their first
language and Indonesian language as their second language. In this condition,
English is being learnt as foreign language. They only use it in particular events
or in classroom. Therefore, their mother tongue and Indonesian language can be a
strong influence for their English. This issue refers tolanguage transfer.Richards
system to other language.1 Even though Indonesian language is not their first
language, they are likely to use Indonesian language in transferring words or
sentences into English. Their habit in using Indonesian language will give
influence in their English translation. With Ringbom, regarding to English as the
target language, it is widely noticeable that foreign learners from Asia and Africa
prefer to depend upon their second language rather than their first language.2
Additionally, Herwig’s neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic analysis suggest that
when EFL learners do translation, they tend to apply their knowledge of
non-native language in the production of the target language.3 Specifically, this
research only has the central concentration towards language transfer in L2
grammar. So, types of grammatical transfer from Indonesian language in
students’ translation and factors causing it are conducted in this study.
In grammatical transfer issue, English structure and Indonesian language
structure are not always different; sometimes, they have similarities. Swan and
Smith reveal that English word order is the same as Indonesian language’s word
order (“subject-verb-object”).4 In Ellis explanation, this is called as ‘positive transfer’ (facilitation). It occurs when the structure of L1 can ease learners in
1
Jack C. Richards and Richard W. Schmidt, Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (Harlow: Longman, 2010), p. 322.
2H kan Ringbom
, Cross-Linguistic Similarity in Foreign Language Learning (Clevedon [England]; Buffalo: Multilingual Matters, 2007), p. 2.
3Ingrid Heidrick, “Beyond the L2: How is Transfer Affected by Multilingualism”,
Retrieved May, vol. 8 (2006), p. 2.
4 Bernard Smith and Michael Swan, Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other
transferring into L2.5 However, there are many other fields in English grammar
that need to be concerned, such as number, pronouns, tenses, gender and so on. One of the examples that are mentioned by Swan and Smith is “reduplicated
verbs indicate repeated action” in this following sentence: “He beat and beat the
dog many times.” The difference of native language pattern causes errors in L2
pattern is known as ‘negative transfer’ (interference)6. Other example which also has been found by the researcher from one of students’ translation is “Islamic studies either in Germany or generally in Europe is always related to orientalism”. This case is related to number in English grammatical rules. Word
“studies” in the sentence is plural; therefore, it is supposed to be followed by “are” as the predicate.
Following Karimnia, investigating grammatical constructions of English as
foreign language, Corder prefers to apply procedure that requires direct
translation from source language to the target language. The advantages of
applying translation in examining language transfer are:
“it forces the subject to attempt to produce the structure
under investigation; it assures the researcher that the
subjects understand the semantics they are required to
produce; it helps researcher to figure out how learners
5
Rod. Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 300.
6
understand the language to operate and how they organize
new syntactic structures in their interlanguage.”7
Purposely, students’ translations that are used as the main data and have been
analyzed in this study are students’ assignments for Translation class in 6th
semester in academic year 2014/2015. Relating to previous research, Hurriyah
stated that in her finding semantic interference process, she also found amount of
grammatical interferences from Indonesian language. This is very interesting to
find complete linguistic phenomenon, especially Language Transfer (in both
facilitation and interference) in the same translated text. Moreover, Hurriyah also
explained that semantic interference and grammatical interference can be
interchangeably identified. In translating Indonesian language into English, the
students mostly tend to use word for word method.8 Therefore, it is very possible
for them to compose phrases or sentences which are inappropriate or sound
uncommon in English. In contrast, it is also possible for them to transfer their
knowledge about the sentence structure of Indonesian language to English
correctly; as explained above.
7
Amin Karimnia, An Analysis of Grammatical Errors among Iranian Translation Students: Insights from Interlanguage Theory (Fasa: EuroJournals Publishing Inc., 2011), p. 503.
8
Ismi Ajeng Hurriyah, Thesis: An Analysis of Semantic Interference from Indonesian Language in
According to Weinreich, there are two factors in L1 involvement towards TL;
those are structural factors and non-structural factors.9 Structural factors deal with
the language pattern in both SL and TL and non-structural factors refer to social
and cultural aspects of learners. Specifically, this study only focuses on
investigating the structural factors that cause the transfer made by students.
Several researches regarding to this issue have been widely conducted. In
Indonesia,Subhan through his research entitled Identifying Grammatical Error as the Result of Native Language Interference in Students’ Compositions (a Study at
Writing III Class at ELT Department of IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the Academic Year of 2010/2011) investigated the contribution of L1 in L2 writing in
negative transfer aspect. The researcher calculated the errors in form of percentage.10 Study of Indonesian language roles for EFL was also conducted by
Marianti; yet she also did not discuss about the positive transfer of first language pattern for the structure of target language.11 In general, previous researches about
language transfer, particularly in Indonesia, commonly focused on language
interference or the negative transfer of the first language. This matter is also
noteworthy for Peukert, as he emphasizes Vildomec, in his writing entitled
9
Uriel Weinreich, Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems (New York: Linguistic Circle of New York, 1953), p. 3.
10
Muhammad Subhan AS, Identifying Grammatical Error as the Result of Native Language
Interference in Students’ Compositions (a Study at Writing III Class at ELT Department of IAIN
Multilingualism, that the study of positive transfer effects (facilitation) has been generally neglected.12 Therefore, this research discusses about Indonesian
language grammar towards English in students’ written translation in both
positive and negative transfer. In the same academic year, Hurriyah had
investigated semantic interference of the same students and the same translation
finding out that there are also amount of grammatical interference that need to be
revealed.13 This study is taken under consideration that the students were learning
translation in 6th semester and have learnt English grammar since their school age.
Moreover, they have finished the language skills courses and structure 1, 2, 3, 4 in
the previous semesters.
All of above-mentioned reasons of this study; the students use word for word
translation method, and strongly influenced by Indonesian language; also, amount
of studies commonly only focused on the grammatical error, the researcher
conducted the research about ETED students of Translation class in academic
year 2014/2015 to find out the language transfer from the source language
(Indonesian language) on their English translation.
12
Hagen Peukert (ed.), Transfer Effects in Multilingual Language Development, vol. 4 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015), p. 1
B. Research Questions
In relation to the background of the study previously outlined above, the
problem of the study can be formulated as these following questions:
1. What are the types of grammatical transfer in Indonesian to English
Translated Texts by Students of English Teacher Education Department, State
Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya students’ translation?
2. What are structural factors that cause the grammatical transfer in Indonesian
to English Translated Texts by Students of English Teacher Education
Department, State Islamic University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya students’
translation?
C. Objective of the Study
This research aims to find out:
1. Types of grammatical transfer in Indonesian to English Translated Texts by
Students of English Teacher Education Department, State Islamic University
of Sunan Ampel Surabaya students’ translation.
2. Structural factors that cause the grammatical transfer in Indonesian to English
Translated Texts by Students of English Teacher Education Department, State
D. Scope and Limits of the Study
The scope of this study is linguistics in English education. Specifically, the
main data is taken from the students’ English translations in form of written
assignment which were taken from Translation course. The translated text is
Indonesian article entitled “Studi Islam di Jerman” which was given by the
lecturer. The types of language transfer focused on grammar from Indonesian
language in English phrases and sentences of students’ translation and structural
factors that cause them are elaborated. Furthermore, the study is limited to
students who have done the translation assignment from the lecturer. They were
6th Semester Students of English Teacher Education Department in State Islāmic
University of Sunan Ampel Surabaya in academic year 2014/2015. Purposefully,
this study only focuses on apllying contranstive analysis approach as the analyzed
data is translation text; so this is very useful to find the accurate findings.
E. Significance of the Study
The result of the study is expected to give contribution for both English
learners and teachers. In particular, this study can be one of sources in
recognizing and realizing language transfer focused on grammar from Indonesian
language in students’ writing, especially translation. For students who tend to
have grammatical transfer in form of positive or negative transfer, this study can
In addition, this research can give extra information about one of students’ lack in
translating Indonesian language into English, and probably the reasons of it.
Furthermore, this study can show alternative ways in teaching or explaining
grammar. As learners are possibly trapped by Indonesian language system,
lecturers can begin to give Indonesian language as examples. The positive transfer
of Indonesian language system can be examples of correct English grammar;
while the negative transfer can be examples of wrong sentences or utterances,
which learners should consider. Additionally, this research can be extra
information for students in the next academic year as the new curriculum that has
been applied for them excludes translation course. The phenomenon that will be
discussed in this study can be further examples for them in their linguistics
courses.
F. Definition of Key Terms
In order to have the same idea and concept in this study, the researcher
clarifies the terms used in this study, as the details are:
1. Grammatical Transfer :
- Richards explained that grammatical transfer is the involvement of a
language structure toward other learnt language.14
14
- According to Ellis grammatical transfer can be positive transfer that
facilitate EFL/ESL learners or negative transfer that interfere EFL/ESL
learners dealing with constructed sentence and elements in it which
influenced by native language.15
- Specifically, grammar is related to sentence construction, and transfer refers
to one language’s contribution to other language. Thus, grammatical transfer
is appropriate and inappropriate pattern of targeted language involved by
first or second languages which occur in students who learn foreign
language.
- The grammar of students’ English translated sentence, clause, and phrase
that are influenced by Indonesian language.
- The students’ English translation syntactically and morphologically
appropriate or inappropriate in English grammatical systems that are
involved by Indonesian language systems.
- In this study, grammatical transfer that occurs from EFL learners.
2. Indonesian language :
- Based on The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,
Indonesian is “a dialect of Malay that is the official language of Indonesia; it
is related to Indonesia; language or cultures.”16
15
Ellis, The Study of Second Language… p. 300
16
- Standard language of students in translating into English.
- Students’ native language and language that is habitually used by students
for their communication and source language in Translation class
assignment.
- Indonesian article entitled “Studi Islam di Jerman” which was given by the
lecturer.
3. Students’ translation :
- Hardwick suggested that “an action of translating any part of language
involves translating the elements of the source language into the ‘receiving
culture cultural framework’ of the target language.”17
- Along with Karimnia, specifically, translation is one of methods used for
investigating transfer grammar; in this study, students’ translation means
students’ assignment in Translation class; translating an article from SL
(Indonesian language) to TL (English).18
- Specifically, students’ translation in this research is students’ works in form
of assignments from the lecturer to translate the Indonesian text into
English.
17
Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter, A Companion to Translation Studies (2014), p. 15 18
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter discusses about all of related review of the study. There are two
main points that will be discussed, those are: language transfer and translation. In
addition, some previous studies related to this linguistic field also will be revealed.
A. Language Transfer
Ellis describes language transfer assuming that language learning takes the
form of habit formation, which means the study is related to sociolinguistic and
psycholinguistic matters.1 In particular, Richards and Schmidt define language
transfer as the involvement of one language system to other language.2 In the
other words, language transfer is phenomena when ESL/EFL learners use the
structure of L1 in producing L2. Occasionally, those happen beyond the learners’
awareness.
There are two types of language transfer. Those are positive transfer and
negative transfer. Positive transfer, also known as facilitation, is transfer that helps learners in translating or constructing phrase, clause, sentences, and even
utterances in English. This can be happening when the first language and the
1
Ellis, The Study of Second Language … p. 299
2
target language have similar structure. Negative transfer, or interference, is using
first language form as the reference which causes an error or inappropriate pattern
in the target language. This phenomenon of course can possibly happen because
the rules of both languages are different.3
This research is only focused on the grammatical field. Well structured and
understanding translation sometimes starts from how the translator constructs and
relates sentences in the text. As Weinreich cited Meillet, “The grammatical
systems of two languages … are impenetrable to each other.”4 Therefore,
researcher is going to find out whether Indonesian language grammatical concepts
give positive or negative impact to English grammatical rules in students’
translation.
1. Types of Language Transfer in Grammar
As what Richards and Schmidt explained, grammar is a description of the
structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units such as words and
phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language.5 In dealing with set of
principles in producing phrases, clauses or sentences in English, it is not only
related to word order. There are several focuses in English grammar that cannot
be avoided, such as subject-verb agreement, pronoun, numeral, and many others.
3
Richards and Schmidt, Longman Dictionary… p. 322
4
Weinreich, Languages in Contact: ….. 29
5
However, not all of them give contribution in transferring source language to
target language.
Positive Transfer (Facilitation)
As explained above that language transfer happens as the result of similarities
and differences between two languages or more are sometimes imperfectly
acquired. Following Ellis and Barkhuizen example, learners sometimes may
produce a grammatically correct sentence; “The big box contained a snake.”6
When learners produce a correct grammar in translating to target language
because of the source language’s involvement, this can be positive transfer or
known as facilitation.
Richards mentioned that positive transfer is the influence of one language to
another which helps or facilitates learning easier, and may occur when both the
native language and the target language have the same pattern or rule.7 In
particular, this study of course discusses about the grammatical transfer. A
specific example has been showed by Swan and Smith in this following sentence:
“She is/was teacher.”8 In most cases, “be” has meaning “adalah”
in Indonesia;
therefore, this may help learners in transferring the sentence from the source
language to the target language.
6
Rod Ellis and Gary Patrick Barkhuizen, Analysing Learner Language (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 22
7
Richards and Schmidt, Longman Dictionary … p. 322
8
As Ellis pointed out that Odlin explored when there are learners with different
native languages are studied and learner comparisons are carried out; the
facilitative effects can be observed. Additionally, learners sometimes can produce
sentence with development rules of the target language; then they realize that it is
compatible with the source language.9 This obviously shows that positive
contribution of native language cannot be ignored and significant to the
development of language learning. Hence, though learners’ knowledge and
mastering English structure through grammar lessons and courses, their first
language’s roles are essentially considerable.
Negative Transfer (Interference)
There have been a lot of studies in this field; grammatical interference or
grammatical error caused by second English language learners or foreign English
language learners. This focus indeed is very interesting to be discussed. Richards
clearly stated that negative transfer is “the pattern of source language or native
language inappropriately used; then causes error in the target language.”10 In this
point of view, the involvement of source language can cause errors in learners’
translation. For instance, as mentioned by Weinreich, “he comes tomorrow home”. This sentence is influenced by German word order pattern.11
9
Ellis, The Study of Second Language… p. 302-303
10
Richards and Schmidt, Longman Dictionary … p. 323
These following points are some features in English grammatical principles
that are usually involved by Indonesian language structure which have been
discussed by Swan and Smith.12
a. Word Order
Indonesian language and English have the same word order; SVO ( subject-verb-object), therefore, most of ESL/EFL learners never have problem in this point. It can be seen in this example: “He explained that the electric range has
not met the needs of the outer islands.”
b. Number
Reduplication is one of characteristics in Indonesian language which indicates
plural noun (e.g. buku-buku); “He beat and beat the dog many times.” Furthermore, the noun might be dropped after plural quantifiers (e.g.
beberapa buku) or numbers (e.g. tiga buku); however, nouns in Indonesian language are not inflected; there is no additional morpheme for a noun. For
example: “a number of boy” and “She have three sister and two brother.”
Additionally, singular and plural forms of quantifiers and demonstratives are
often incorrectly used: “this pictures” and “The teacher gave too much
corrections.”
12
c. Countability
Related to plural quantifiers above, there are countable and uncountable nouns
in English which does not occur in Indonesian language structure. This,
sometimes, make them interchangeably use the quantifiers and/or inflectional
morpheme‘s’ as the symbol of plural form. Errors caused by this are considered as grammatical interference phenomena: “many furnitures”. Also,
they are not aware abstract nouns which do not need the additional morpheme
‘s’: “some works to do” and “very good educations”.
d. Gender
Pronouns for third person in Indonesian language are all the same; ‘dia’. This
word is usually placed as subject or object. In possessive form, the nouns are
directly dropped before the owner or add “nya” right after the noun. However,
in English, third-person-pronouns referring to female and male are different.
This can be negative transfer; for example “John sat for exam and passed. She cannot believe got five distinction. Her parents very happy.”
e. Personal Pronouns
Different languages of course have different ways to express the words. Most
Indonesian learners repeat using noun phrase when they write a paragraph or
text in English. Those are supposed to be removed or replaced by anaphoric
hard. Many of them work all day in the library. Is sad many students cannot pass the English test.”
f. Genitive and Possessive Pronouns
As mentioned above, besides the differences between genders, English systems in forming possessive relations also often cause some errors; it can be
seen in this phrase “My wife friend”.
g. Relative Pronouns
In Indonesian language, “yang” is the only relative word. It represents that, wh-pronoun and zero in English. Therefore some grammatical interference might occur. For instance: “People whichlive in town are rich.”
However, both languages have the similar standard in word order when there
is a relative pronoun; as can be found in this sentence: “The letter that I
haven’t received it yet.”
h. Reflexive Pronouns
Literally, the reflexive ‘self’ means diri in Indonesian language. As the reflexive pronouns in both languages are completely different; this often
confuses most of Indonesian learners, for example “Ali hurt heself.”
i. Topicalisation structures
Indonesian learners mention the topic of a conversation or utterance before
which can affect their English translation. Grammatical interference can be
shown in this case: “My homework I have to do first.” In addition, learners
often state the subject or the object of the sentence repeatedly; this is also
known as pronoun copying: “My sister and me, we always fight.”
j. It and there
Sentences that state “there is something in somewhere”, in Indonesian language almost always begin with the word “Ada”. Therefore this can cause
error in students’ translation; “Got/Has/Is a pen on top table.”
k. Articles/determiners
There is no article in Indonesian language, and there are only two
determiners; “this” (ini) and “that” (itu). The complexity of articles and
determiners in English seems not easy to understand for them: “How was
exam?” Besides, learners often use demonstratives with their reduplicated
plurals; this makes them drop article with plural form inappropriately: “It
have the four legs.” The indefinite article is also particularly dropped before
abstract nouns: “change for the worse”; it is also alternatively overused: “My
hobbies is a sleeping when I have a problems.” In addition, indefinite article
and definite article may be used inappropriately: “They have to deal with a
l. Verbs
Indonesian language does not have transformation in its verbs. Subjects,
tenses and auxiliary elements do not affect the verbs. This is very different
from English. Therefore, interference occurs in this case: “Tono goto school.”
m. Time, tense, and aspect
1) Past time
Past tense in Indonesian language can be indicated only by words
“sudah/telah/pernah”. Therefore, interference often happens in learners’
translation: “I write the letter yesterday.”
2) Present time
There is no specific time and complexity in Indonesian language, and it
does not affect its verbs. Therefore, some errors are commonly appeared:
“Now he swim.”
3) Future time
In Indonesian language, sentence that has future meaning sometimes can
be indicated by word “akan”; but sometimes it can only known by
mentioning the time. Also, the position of the modal is sometimes
inappropriate: “This book will we read.”
4) Progressive/continuous
“Sementara/sedang/sewaktu/semasa/pada saat/pada waktu” are
which has meaning ‘ongoing event’. Learners tend to use the “-ing” form
of English verb; however, they do not really pay attention on the auxiliary:
“They eating their dinner tonight.”
n. To be
There is no such a form of “to be” in Indonesian language. Those are often expressed in some particular words which have particular meaning based on
the context of the sentence. Most learners assume that “to be” has various
meaning “berada, adalah, and ialah”. Frequently, it can facilitate them in
transferring sentence; for example, sentence “Fatimah (adalah/ialah) guru sekolah.”turns out to be “Fatimah is/was a teacher school.”
However, adjective expressing condition or stating of existence never follows
any linking verb in Indonesian language: “Yusoff sangat gembira.” becomes
“Yusoff very happy.”
o. Modal auxiliary verbs
Modal auxiliary verbs have particular meaning and function. Indonesian
learners have difficulties in using those words appropriately. Instead of using
complex modals in English, they tend to use two main modals; can and must.
Basically, the meaning of “can” in Indonesian may help them in rendering
Additionally, they may replace modals with adverbs or ordinary verbs, like in
this following sentence: “I think Samy joking. / Maybe Samy joking.” (for
“Samy could be joking.”)
p. Active and Passive
Frequently, academic writing in Indonesian language uses passive form.
Prefix “di” is added before the verb. There are no transformation verbs in
passive voice. Interference can occur; as this following sentence: “That car
drives by Amin.”
q. Question forms and question tags
There are various forms of questions in Indonesian language. Those do not
always begin with the question words, and there is no auxiliary element in it.
It can be seen in this example: “What Ali buy?” Additionally, most of
Indonesian learners only use “isn’t it” and “is it” in question tag; for there are
only two words in Indonesian language, “iya, kan” and “tidak, kan” or even
only one word “kan”. Thus, interference arises as this following sentence:
“She will remember, isn’t it?”
r. Negatives
Indonesian language has only two words in indicating negative meaning;
“tidak/tak” and “bukan”. Most learners assume that those refer to “no/not” in
Therefore, one of the common errors is: “I not want to be a teacher after I
graduate.”
s. Complex sentences
Indonesian learners sometimes have difficulties in building a complex
sentence because conjunctions and linking expressions may be duplicated
without they realize it. Also, the position of dependent clause and independent
clause might be interchangeable. In some cases, negative transfer can occur; it
can be seen in this following example: “Education although expensive but is
valuable for a good future.”
t. Prepositions
Exact prepositions for particular word class do not exist in Indonesian
language; therefore, when translating into English, they sometimes write them
interchangeably. This following sentence can be an example of it: “He doesn’t
work at Monday.”
u. Adjectives and Adverbs
Differences between adjectives and adverb in Indonesian language are very
acknowledgeable. Therefore, they often use them inappropriately; as this
2. Factors Affecting Learners in Producing Grammatical Transfer
The structures of different languages can play important roles in carrying
grammatical transfer. Specifically, types of language transfer in grammar as
have mentioned above strongly affect in stating the factors.13 Regarding this,
Weinreich stated that the differences among languages based on the structure
of the languages themselves are called as structural factors.14 When the types
of transfer are based on English grammar’s point of view, the factors reflect
on both languages’ rules.
Beyond those structural factors, there are also other factors in facilitating
and interfering language learning. Especially for grammatical transfer, it is
known as non-structural or extra-structural factors.15 Those factors are related
to many things around learners. He also explained that linguists or language
learning researcher cannot simply figure out the extra-structural factors in
grammatical transfer because the process is sometimes obscure.16
Additionally, he mentioned that those factors can be obtained in the natural
setting of communication process. Data related to the complexity of
13
Ellis, The Study of Second Language… p. 312
14 Weinreich, Languages in Contact… p. 3
15
Weinreich, Languages in Contact… p. 3
16
structural factors in grammatical transfer can be collected from the relativity
of learners’ language in communication.17
As the researcher did not do direct observation in the translation class
process, non-structural factors cannot be conducted. However, the structural
factors in grammatical transfer are significantly important to be reviewed; to
make sure that the students’ English translations are facilitated or interfered
by Indonesian language grammar.
Rooted in Weinreich, there are five structural factors in grammatical
transfer which are related to each type of grammatical transfer itself. Although
Weinreich had different classifications of grammatical transfer from Swan
and Smith’s; they had similarities in common. Weinreich explored those types
in larger scale; while Swan and Smith preferred to categorize them in detail.
The theories are strongly related; the analogy is being revealed here. These
are the structural factors explained by Weinreich18:
a. Congruent systems. Negative transfer can happen because English has
non-congruent systems and complicated functions of morpheme. This factor
can cause transfer of morpheme. Transfer of morpheme is strongly
connected to Inflectional morphemes and grammatical function. In the
other words, this factor is an inherent reason for these following
17
Weinreich, Languages in Contact… p. 45
18
grammatical transfer types: Numbers; Countability; Genitive and Possessive Pronouns; Verbs; Time, Tense and Aspects; Active and Passive;
and Adjectives and Adverbs.
b. Relation pattern. When the grammatical relations between two languages
are not the same; then interference arises, this appears as the factor, or
Weinreich called it as “conflict with the existing relations”. Conversely, if
relation pattern in both languages are the same, positive transfer will occur.
Transfer in grammatical relation can occur because of this factor.
Grammatical relations in Swan and Smith’s enlightenment are including:
Word order; Topicalisation Structure; To be; Question forms and question tags; Complex sentences.
c. Greater explicitness of model. Commonly, this factor brings the change in
function of “indigenous” morpheme or category. This transfer is related to
functions or meaning of grammatical forms. Grammatical transfer happens
when source language has the same morpheme; when it is used and helps
the learners in translating the text, this can be a facilitation phenomenon,
but when it is wrongly applied; this drives to interference. Thus, according
to Weinreich, this phenomenon turns out to be the more explicit pattern;
the model for imitation. In this case, some transfers in the past happened
then created a new set of format; and developed the preexisting
Countability; Genitive and Possessive Pronouns; Verbs; Time, Tense and Aspects; Active and Passive; and Adjectives and Adverbs.
d. Grammatical systems. This causes desertion of compulsory categories.
When foreign learners still neglect the grammatical categories of a
language (English), this factor becomes the basic reason of grammatical
interference. In contrast, if there are grammatical systems that are not
different, this can be facilitation. At this point, the types of grammatical
transfer that can appear because of this factor are: Gender; Personal Pronoun; Relative Pronoun; Reflexive Pronoun; It and there; Articles/determiners; Modal auxiliary verb; Negatives; Preposition
e. Homogeneous word structure in recipient language. It causes integration of
loanwords. This factors and types are strongly connected to the new
formation of language; especially English. Exactly the same as Greater explicitness of model factor above; this factor focuses on the order of an English word. So, this factor causes a new construction as the result of
source language. Types caused by this are: Word order; Topicalisation Structure; To be; Complex sentences.
B. Translation
Richards and Smith describe translation as the process of rendering written
language that was produced in one language (the source language) into another
process.19 In the other words, translation refers to transferring written messages
between two languages. This facilitates people to communicate when they have
different language and different culture. As Aissi points out the diversification of
languages and the need of people to communicate is the result of why translation
exists. It is an important factor in establishing contact among people of diverse
language and culture.20
In Hatim and Munday, translation relates to two senses; process and product.
Their research revealed that product is centered to the role of translator in taking
the source language and transferring it into the target language. The sense that
focuses on the translated text which is produced by translator is known as the
product.21 Regarding to linguistics field as the target of this study, Robinson
stated that semantic transfer of words, phrases, and whole texts from source
language to target language occasionally happens to translators. In twentieth
century, linguists creating popular theories about translation believe that
translation has a strong connection with linguistic as language performance.22
Generally, translation is divided into two kinds: free translation and literal
translation. Translation that prefers to focus on the overall meaning in the text
19
Richards and Schmidt, Longman Dictionary … p. 610
rather than exact meaning in each words of the SL is free translation.
Contrastingly, translation which estimates the meaning of word for word from SL
is called as literal translation. Specifically, there are several kinds of translation;
those are commonly based on the method of translation and the type of the object
that being translated. As mentioned in Fauziyah’s thesis, there are eight
translation methods explained by Newmark; (1) Word-for-word method, (2)
Literal translation, (3) Faithful translation, (4) Semantic translation, (5) Adaption,
(6) Free translation, (7) Idiomatic translation, and (8) Communicative translation.
Those methods of course have particular characteristics which might be
performed by translators.
In link to linguistics, Jakobson as cheated by Hatim and Munday, there are
there are three different ways in translating language: intralingual, interlingual,
and intersemiotic translation. Intralingual translation relates to transferring words (other other signs) into other words from the same language; this is also known as
rewording or paraphrase. On the other hand, interlanguage translation or
translation proper is transferring words or other sign from one language into another language. Likewise, intersemiotic translation, also named as
transmulation, is related to the way of the language is translated; image or music.23
23
Yet, as Richards stated above, translation is the transferred language in form
of written text. Hatim and Munday also discuss about wider issues regarding to
sub-types of translation; such as subtitling and machine translation. Amount of
studies about the development of rendering language; research into audiovisual
translation including subtitling and dubbing have been conducted. Those came to
finale that the result of translation has to be a written product. Thus, they
suggested in their book that we should still consider using traditional translation
as basic meaning of translation itself.
From this, Hatim and Munday took Reiss’ theory in distinguishing three types
of text in translation, those are24:
1. Plain Communication of Facts (Transmission of information)
This text is informative type which is contained of facts. Lotmann explained
that this text is centered to one focus; semantic-syntactic level. The
communicative purpose of this text is informative; even when the author takes
literary writing; it is just for secondary feature. At this point, the topic that is
discussed is the main part of the text. In addition, functional language is used
dominantly. Some examples for this type are: report text, newspaper,
arguments, book, judgments, opinions, reviews, etc.
24
2. Creative Composition (Creatively Shaped Content)
Lotmann stated that this type of text has two focuses; those are:
syntactic-semantic level and artistic organization level. In this type of text, the sender
roles as the basic foundation; it means this text refers to artistic meaning. In
link to the communicative situation, instead of referring to informative
intention just like the plain communication of fact above, creative
composition is more centered to expressive intention. The content of the
writing is based on writer’s though and feeling, and it is communicated
expressively and creatively. Examples for this type are: poem, novel, song
(lyrics), poetry, and other literary style texts.
3. The inducing of behavioral responses express (Impulses to Action)
This type focuses on two, even sometimes three level structures: the
syntactic-semantic level, occasionally artistic organization level, persuasion level.
Specifically, this type concerns to make readers to do action or to give
reaction. Therefore, the communicative purpose of this type is operative.
C. Previous Studies
A research related to language transfer had been done by Shaozhong Liu,
entitled Studies on Transfer in Second Language Acquisition. The research can be the basic information for this study. The main purpose of the researcher was to
review the theories about linguistics, non-linguistics and second language
speakers’ attitudes toward transfer, and especially transfer made by English
learners from China. Looking at amount of studies and theories as mentioned
above, Liu came to the conclusion that generally in linguistic field, transfer
studies focus on phonology, grammar, lexicon to meaning. Likewise,
communicative strategies and pragmatic failure, among other things, were
examined in pragmatic field. Additionally, it has been a big issue among
researchers that transfer studies involved from a linguistic-to-non-linguistic
path.25
A research was done by Marianti about grammatical interference from
Indonesian language to English in articles of a newspaper. This research focused
on negative transfer from Indonesian language as first language to English in
form of written constructions. The study aimed to find out the grammatical
interference into English usage and the factors that cause grammatical
interference in English sentences of the articles. It was a qualitative research; the
researcher analyzed the sentences construction in the articles; then found the
errors and corrected the errors by using particular theories. Marianti concluded
the study by explaining the most common errors in the articles and the reasons for
it.26
25Shaozhong Liu, “
Studies on Transfer in Second Language Acquisition”, Guangxi Normal University, 1997
26
AS. Muhammad conducted a research for his thesis entitled “Identifying Grammatical Errors as the Result of Native Language Interference in Students’
Compositions”. Following the objectives which are to identify grammatical errors
as the result of native language interference in students’ compositions and to
describe the possible causes of the errors, the researcher used descriptive
qualitative method and utilized test (the result of the test as documents) and
interview guidelines as the instruments. In the end of the research, the researcher
showed the calculation of the errors based on the classifications.27
Again, research about grammatical interference had been done by Aslimah
and Maniam for their journal. Begin with Aslimah, her journal, under the title
“The Interference of Indonesian Grammar in Writing English Dialogue: A Contrastive Analysis of the Tenth Grade Students of Man Purworejo in the Academic Year 2012/2013”, was centered on grammar in writing English dialogue of tenth grade students. Particularly, the study was aimed to find out
types of errors as the result of interference of Indonesian grammar in students’
English dialogue writing and their effort to reduce it. By using qualitative method,
the research used documentation and questionnaire in collecting the data. The
researcher figured out that there were eight types of errors caused by Indonesian
grammatical interference, they are errors in the use of: tenses (13.33%), word
27
Muhammad Subhan AS., Thesis: “Identifying Grammatical Errors as the Result of Native Language
order (13.33%), articles (11.11%), pronouns (13.33%), linking verbs (26.68%),
pluralities (4.44%), prepositions (8.89%), and subject-verb agreements (8.89%).
In addition, the result of the responds in the questionnaire showed that reading
English novels, watching English movies, and listening English songs were
activities that had been done by the students to minimize the interference. Finally,
the author concluded that Indonesian grammar interfered students’ writing a lot,
and there were some activities as effort in reducing it.28
Following studies conducting grammatical interference; beside Aslimah, there
was also a research which was conducted by Maniam with the title “The
Influence of First Language Grammar (L1) on the English Language (L2) Writing of Tamil School Students: A Case Study from Malaysia.” What Maniam had been done was almost the same as Aslimah. This research was centered on the
interference of Tamil grammar rules in English writing. The researcher used
qualitative method in investigating the research. In collecting the data, research
instruments needed were questionnaire, interview, and documentation
(specifically, samples’ book; exercise books, workbooks and worksheets). From
the collected data, the researcher arrived at the result that the linguistic items
interference in L2 writing as this following explanation: 8.7% wrong spelling for
28
plural nouns, 25.23% the use of Tamil word order, 43.39% missing verb to be,
and 34.31% punctuation.29
The involvement of Indonesian language towards English of course has been
widely a popular issue for researchers; however, we cannot neglect the role of
English influence in transferring the language into Indonesian. Supriyanto with
her research in title A Descriptive Study on Grammatical Interference from English into Indonesian Language Made by English Native Speakers in Salatiga
brought up two main points; syntactic and morphological interference from
English to Indonesian language made by English native speakers. It was a
descriptive study. By interviewing, recording and transcribing, the data of this
research had been collected. From the data, those could be figured out that
syntactic interference happened in English native speakers’ sentences, phrases,
and dictions. In particular, Phrase constructions errors mostly appeared; they
tended to construct head and modifier interchangeably. Besides, for the
morphological interference, the subjects still put inflectional morphology in the
verbs of sentences in Indonesian language. In conclusion, amount of syntactical
and morphological interference happened in English native speakers’ Indonesian
language.30
29
Mahendran Maniam, "The Influence of First Language Grammar (L1) on the English Language (L2) Writing of Tamil School Students: A Case Study from Malaysia" Language In India, Vol. 10, 2010 30
Intentionally, not only Indonesian language interference had been conducted;
there was also a research in title Grammatical Interference of Javanese Language in Indonesian Language by Kindergartens’ Children which was conducted by Wati. From the title of the research, we can briefly believe that this research
might concern on the involvement of Javanese Language towards Indonesian
Language. Particularly, this research aimed to identify the types of Javanese
language interference that occasionally made by kindergartens’ children in their
Indonesian language and the factors causing it. Guided by the theory of
Weinreich about language interference; phonology, grammatical and lexical, this
research used descriptive method. As the result, the researcher found some
syntactical and morphological interference from Javanese language to Indonesian
language in subjects’ speaking. Indonesian language verbs were likely interfered
by Javanese language; also, inflectional morphology commonly appeared as well.
Those could happen because the subjects were bilinguals; and they had not
mastered the Indonesian language pattern very well. In addition, the subjects’
environment, family and school significantly influenced those cases.31
Grammatical interference causing errors seemingly happen very often. Bakar
et.al examined how first language interferes second language. A study in title
First Language Influence on Second Language Performance: A Study of Common English Grammatical Errors among Rural Secondary School Students mainly
31
Mei Rita Dwi Puspita Wati, Thesis: “Grammatical Interference of Javanese Language in Indonesia
purposed to analyze the common errors made by three hundred second language
learners in the acquisition of Subject-Verb agreement, Tenses and Relative
Pronouns. Also, the difficulties and possible solution were purposefully revealed.
By combining the theory of Norrish in Error Analysis and Contrastive Analysis,
this research figured out that a lot of grammatical interference caused by first
language in their English commonly happened. In addition, teaching method and
learning environment should get more attention as well.32
A study relating to language transfer also had been done by Isurin in title
Cross linguistic transfer in word order: Evidence from L1 forgetting and L2 acquisition. This research aimed to show the evidence on possible cross-linguistic transfer in word order from two different points of view: transfer as a problem in
second language acquisition, and transfer as a form of native language that causes
errors. A brief comparative analysis of word order in Russian and English was
followed by the results of the longitudinal case study. By using semi-spontaneous
speech task, picture description tasks and storytelling tasks the data were
collected. Finally, the findings from the experimental cross-sectional study
confirmed that two studies reported that language transfer in L1 forgetting and L2
acquisition might almost work in similar way. From the longitudinal study, it
showed that unique problematic situations involving subjects could give priceless
32
data for research on L1 forgetting. However, the proof for the involvement of
environment in L1 forgetting could not be maximally presented in this research.33
In link to linguistic studies, beside grammatical transfer there was also
semantic interference which was conducted by Ismi Ajeng Hurriyah in her thesis;
An Analysis of Semantic Interference from Indonesian Language in Students’
English Translation of English Teacher Education Department. This study described the error of students’ English translation in semantic point of view.
Applying descriptive qualitative method, the researcher concluded that basically
the translators used word for word method; therefore amount of semantic
interference appeared in the translated texts. She also explained that beside
semantic interference, errors caused by Indonesian language also occur
grammatically.34
From all previous studies mentioned above, there are variety of differences
between those researches and this research. Most of the researches tended to
focus on grammatical interference or grammatical error. The involvement of first
language in distracting learners’ structure in target language was likely more
remarkable rather than the source language pattern that might help learners in
transferring or even building sentences. Study about language transfer in general
was also conducted; particularly, this study only focuses on grammatical field. In
33 Ludmila Isurin, “
addition, the researchers mostly used students’ writing as the data in examining
the transfer; while according to Herwigs it necessarily use learners’ translation in
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter presents about the researcher’s step in conducting the study. The
explanation consists of approach and research design, setting of the study; including
time and place of the study, data and sources of the data, research instruments, data
collection technique, and data analysis technique, checking validity of findings, also
research stages.
A. Approach and Research Design
This research uses qualitative descriptive to find out the research question.
Newman and Benz stated that qualitative method is used when the research aims
to develop a theory that will explain what was experienced by observing and
interpreting reality.1 Additionally, the study uses contrastive analysis as the
approach in determining the data. As Gass and Selinker explained contrastive
analysis is a way of comparing languages in order to determine potential errors
1
for the ultimate purpose of isolating what needs to be learned and what does not
need to be learned in a second-language-learning situation.2
B. Research Setting
This study takes place in English Teacher Education Department (ETED) of
Sunan Ampel State Islāmic University of Surabaya. It is located at St. Ahmad
Yani, 117, Surabaya. Furthermore, the research has been done in June 2016. As
the data that has been examined was secondary data, the researcher analyzed it as
soon as the thesis proposal appraisal had been done.
C. Data and Source of Data
1. Data
The data that is used in this study is words, phrases, and sentences which
have been produced by students in their translation text from Indonesian
language to English. Researcher tended to retain the data from the previous
researcher as mentioned above to answer the research questions.
2. Source of Data
Related to the data that are needed in this research, as the documentation
is students’ submitted assignments; the documents will be obtained from
students of English Teacher Education Department in Sunan Ampel State
Islāmic University who were enrolling translation class in 2015 event
2