ABSTRACT
Pratiwi, Meyta D. 2017. Erros in Translating Idioms Made by the Students of
English Department in 3rd Year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya.
Thesis: English Letter Department, Art and Humanities Faculty, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya.
Key words: Idioms, Translation, Errors
The study is about Erros in Translating Idioms Made by the Students of
English Department in 3rd Year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya.
The purpose of this study is to analyze errors that made by the students in translating the idioms. Most of researchers analyze errors in translating the idioms, but the researcher settled to analyze errors in translating the idioms in different focus on the study and the way to collect the data. The researcher chooses the students of English Department in 3rd year as the object because they have already get translation course.The researcher used the quantitative and qualitative methods to describe and analyze the data. There are some steps that used by the researcher. The first is identifying the errors idiom translation in the text. The second is counting the amount of errors from the data get. And the last is analyzing the problems that faced by the students in translating idiom.
INTISARI
Pratiwi, Meyta D. 2017. Erros in Translating Idioms Made by the Students of
English Department in 3rd Year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya.
Thesis: English Letter Department, Art and Humanities Faculty, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya.
Kata kunci: Idioms, Translation, Errors
Skripsi ini menganalisis tentang Erros in Translating Idioms Made by the
Students of English Department in 3rd Year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University
Surabaya. Tujuan dari skripsi ini adalah untuk menganalisa kesalahan-kesalahan
yang dibuat oleh para mahasiswa dalam menerjemahkan idiom. Kebanyakan peneliti meneliti tentang kesalahan dalam menerjemahkan idiom, tetapi peneliti tetap meneliti tentang kesaalahan dalam menerjemahkan idiom dengan fokus pembahasan dan cara pengambilan data yang berbeda dari penelitian sebelumnya. Peneliti memilih mahasiswa juruan Sastra Inggris di tahun ke-3 Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Ampel Surabaya karena mereka sudah mendapatkan materi penerjemahan. Peneliti menggunakan metode kualitatif dan kuantitatif untuk memaparkan dan menganalisa data. Ada beberapa cara yang digunakan oleh peneliti. Yang pertama adalah mengidentifikasi kesalahan-kesalahan dalam menerjemahkan idiom di dalam teks. Yang kedua adalah menghitung jumlah kesalahan-kesalahan dari data yang telah dikumpulkan. Dan yang terakhir adalah menganalisa kendala-kendala atau masalah-masalah yang ditemui oleh para mahasiswa dalam menerjemahkan idiom.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INSIDE COVER PAGE ... i
INSIDE TITLE PAGE ... ii
DECLARATION ... iii
THESIS ADVISOR APPROVAL ... iv
THESIS EXAMINERS APPROVAL ... v
MOTTO ... vi
DEDICATION ... vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... x
ABSTRACT ... xii
INTISARI ... xiii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of Study ... 1
1.2 Problems of the Study ... 6
1.3 Objectives of the Study ... 6
1.4 Significance of the Study ... 7
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the Study ... 7
1.6 Definition of Key Terms ... 8
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Translation Theory ... 9
2.2 Idiom ... 10
2.3 Categories of Idioms ... 11
2.4 Strategies in Translating Idioms ... 14
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research Design ... 21
3.2 Data and Data Sources ... 22
3.2 Research Instrument ... 22
3.4 Data Collection... 22
3.5 Data Analysis ... 23
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Findings ... 24
4.2 Discussion ... 41
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ANDSUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 44
5.2 Suggestion ... 45
REFERENCES ... 47
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
Language is a tool of communication that is used by people.
Communication means delivering messages, opinions or ideas from one to another. In a good language, people who used language are obediently to a set of rule in language thus the function of language as tool of communication can be implementable. Catford (1965:1) said that language is a type of patterned human behavior. It is a way, perhaps the most important way, in which human beings interact in social situations. Language-behavior is externalized or manifested in some kinds of bodily activity or the part of performer, and presupposes the existence of at least one other human participant in the situation, an addressee.
Language has some functions: language can be tool of integration and adaptation. It means that with language people can clarify live together in social relation, such as relation in an institution, family, business and others. There is another function of language that is tool of social control. It means that language is used to control communication thus people within communication can understand each other. Each speaker and listener keeps watching expressions, gestures and signs that indicate communication.
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modern era, we have to learn language which is agreed as international language, it means that language which can be used to communicate with people who do not know our language such as English.
Cited in book Pengajaran Bahasa Inggris di Indonesia which is written by Prof. H. Ali Saukah, M.A., Ph.D, Gladdol (1997) said that almost whole human who live internationally, English has very dominant role as international language among other international languages. Sadtono and Huda (1997) also said that English has been the first foreign language that must be taught in comprehensive school in Indonesia since Dutch invasion. And nowadays, English has been taught since elementary education.
To learn English, the things we have to know are English vocabularies and grammars. After we learn both vocabularies and grammars, we have to learn how to translate source language text, English, into target language, Bahasa Indonesia. Sentence structure in English is not really different from Bahasa Indonesia. But if people do not really understand how to translate well, they will make an error thus the meaning of source language cannot be delivered to target language correctly.
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meaning-based translation. Form-based translation attempts to follow the form of the source language and is known as literal translation. While meaning-based translation makes every effort to communicate the meaning of the source language text in the natural forms of receptor language. Such translation is called idiomatic translation.
Choliludin (2006:12) said that the first step in translating is to discover the meaning accomplished through meaning analysis. Analyzing the text by using the framework set by Halliday (1985:12) will give the readers comprehensive ideas to produces a translation work. Every text, spoken or written, unfolds in some context of use. Together with text surroundings, a text creates meaning.
Padalik (2008), in his diploma thesis said that when learning a foreign language, everyone has confronted a situation where they have been able to understand meanings of all the words in a sentence, though they have not been able to identify the meaning of the whole sentence, as something has obstructed the process of interpretation of meaning. Consequently, it represents a rather demotivating aspect of language learning when they can understand all the expressions in a sentence, though they cannot comprehend its overall meaning. This inability indentifies correct meaning of a particular sentence often results from an occurrence of idiomatic expressions or phrases within the sentence.
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the standard belief is that they too must be arbitrarily determined in memory (Chomsky, 1980; Cruse, 1986; Fraser, 1970; Katz, 1973). Idioms can be defined as a number of words which when taken together will have different meaning from the individual meaning of each word (Seidl, 1988:13).
As stated before that the meaning of a text is influenced by its surrounding context, such as idiom. Occasionally even frequently, if we translate English’s idiom to Bahasa Indonesia literally, the meaning of idiom will not be delivered appropriately as the meaning of source language that it will be misunderstanding into target language. Choliludin (2006:17-18) said that relating to translation, the connection between language and culture often becomes problems. Nababan (1984:51), cited by Choliludin, gives an example of this case that is the use of the word village. The word village in English is not the same as village in Bahasa Indonesia since village and desa have different concept. Village refers to the place smaller to the town where there are houses and shops, and usually a Church or school, while desa commonly refers to the place far away out of town with wide farm and undeveloped place as opposed to town. Therefore, the term Jakarta as a big village used by foreign writer will lose its meaning if it is translated into desa yang besar. In this matter, translator should treat the source language differently, apart from the way of thinking of the original writer is very likely to differ from the situation faced by people in the target language.
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transfer of ‘meaning’ contained in one set of language signs into another set of
language signs through competent use of the dictionary and grammar (Bassnett, 2002:22). There are some researchers that used idiom as their subject of the research: Saputro, 2012; Howwar, 2013; Suwardi, 2013; Putri, 2014; Maisa & Karunakaran, 2013; Nurjannah, 2014. Most of the researches talk about the types of idiom and the appropriate strategies to translate idioms. Hence, to fill the gap, the researcher wants to count how many percentages of errors did by English Department students of Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya in 3rd year. Then the researcher wants to analyze more about what are problems and errors of the students of English Department, especially Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya in 3rd year, made in translating idioms.
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1.2 Problems of the Study
This research is conducted to answer the problems formulated in the following questions:
1. What are the results of idiomatic translation errors done by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya?
2. What are the problems faced by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya in translating idioms?
1.3Objectives of the Study
Based on the problems above, the objectives of this research are aimed: 1. To describe the idiomatic translation errors and percentage of errors done
by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya.
2. To describe the problems faced by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya in translating idioms.
1.4 Significance of the Study
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is not only useful for the students, but also for the lecturers. The researcher hopes that this paper could help the lecturers to know what are the problems experienced by the students in translating English to Bahasa Indonesia, especially in translating idiom, thus the lecturers could convey the course especially in translating text effectively.
And for further researchers, the researcher hopes that this paper could be the guidance for the researchers who put their interest in linguistics major especially translation.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the Study
The scope of the study concern with the errors made and the problems faced by the students of the English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya in translating text. And then the limitation of the study the researcher focuses on translating idiom done by students of the English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya.
1.6 Definition of Key Terms a. Idiom
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b. Translation
Translation is general term referring to the transfer of thoughts and ideas from one language (source) to another (target), whether the languages are in written or oral form, whether the languages have established orthographies or do not have such standardization, or whether one or both languages are based on signs, as with sign languages of the deal (Brislin, 1976:1).
c. Errors
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Considering the statement of the problems explained above, the researcher presents the related literature about translation theory, idiom, kinds of idioms, strategies in translating idioms, and errors in translating idioms.
2.1 Translation Theory
There are many translation theories from the experts, and here some of them. According to Nida and Taber (1982:12), translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of a source language message, firstly in terms of style.
Another expert, Will (1982:112) said that translation is a procedure which leads from a written source language text to an optimally equivalent target language text and requires syntactic, semantic, stylistic, and text pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text.
From journal titled Common Errors Committed in Translating (not only) Legal Documents by Miroslav Bazlik, in translating text there must complete some categories, those are:
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from that such translated information should be usable for the same purpose as the original.
2. Conceptual Adequacy: the terminology used should cover the same semantic area. Because the system in one language to others is different in named something, thus to solve the problem there must be footnote given.
3. Grammatical Correctness: the grammar must be correct. Because in each structure of a text have different meaning.
4. Stylistic Adequacy: repeating some noun often happened in source text. When translating it, the translators tend to use synonym, hyponym, pronoun, etc. to avoid ambiguity.
5. Correct Spelling: when we used tool to translate such as dictionary in mobile phone, when we say a word which we want to know the meaning then we are wrong in spell it, caused the information get is different.
6. Geographical Quality: the text should have a visual appearance corresponding to the normal appearance of texts of a similar type. For example, a short story text should have the lay-out that short story normally have, etc.
2.2 Idiom
Idiom is a „frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in
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as idiomatic translation are multi word-phrases whose overall meanings are idiosyncratic and largely unpredictable, reflecting speaker meanings that are not derivable by combining the literal sense of individual words in each phrase according to the regular semantic rules of the language (Hurford, Heasley, & Smith 2007: 328). In addition, according to Irujo (1986) “idiom is a conventionalized expression whose meaning cannot be determined from the meaning of its parts”. Cited from article English Teaching Forum, an idiom is
expression that cannot be understood literally. Even the person knows the meaning of all the words and understands the grammar; the overall meaning of the idiom may be unclear. Idioms differ from other figurative expressions, such as similes and metaphors, in that they have conventionalized meanings.
Example: in a sentence “They can‟t go fishing, it is raining cats and dogs”
For those who are not familiar with this idiom will think about a situation in which cats and dogs are falling from the sky. In fact, the cats and dogs itself means a very heavy rain.
2.3 Categories of idioms
Based on Longman Dictionary of Idioms (1979), idioms are divided into some categories:
1. Traditional Idioms
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subject needs to be added to make full sentences of given verb phrases. Other types of idioms are not almost full sentences but rather function like particular parts of speech. An idiomatic noun phrase will often function in a sentence in the same way a noun would, such as a subject, direct object and frequently as a complement.
2. Idioms in which actions stand for emotions or feelings
A number of idioms which refer to actions that have specific meaning in English culture may be misunderstood if one is just starting to learn English. It is important to note that these actions are not literal and that the meaning associated with a particular action in English may not be the meaning associated with that action in some other language or culture. In idioms the action referred to may never really happen. For example, put some lipstick on the pig does not mean that the speaker really performs this action.
3. Pairs of words
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4. Idioms with “it”
A number of idiomatic and verb phrases have the pronoun it as a fixed part of the idiom. The pronoun does not refer to word coming before it as it normally does like in live it up. 5. Allusions
Certain common phrases and a few single words have special significance in English society and their meanings are often not defined in ordinary dictionaries, ex. Whitehall.
6. Sayings
These are usually complete sentences and can be divided into two groups: the informal sayings; you can’t take it with you and older and more metaphorical sayings; a rolling stone
gathers no moss.
7. Typical conversational phrases
Some fixed conversational phrases whose meanings are not literal and which therefore may be difficult to understand, such
as how do you do and so to speak.
8. Similes
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Certain verbal idioms, ex. work like horse, are also similes and function in a similar way to the adjective phrases.
9. Archaisms
Archaisms are phrases that are no longer in use. However, several common idiomatic expressions contain archaic or very unusual words and are widely used, ex. to and fro and kith and kin.
10.Phrasal verbs
Expressions that consist only of a verb and one or more adverbial particles or prepositions, ex. put up with, make up etc, are another representatives of idioms.
2.4 Strategies in Translating Idioms
The writer will use the strategies in translating idioms by Baker (1992). There are 4 strategies stated by Baker:
1. Using an idiom of similar meaning and form
This strategy includes utilizing an idiom in target language which conveys approximately the same meaning as that of the source language idiom and, for addition, consists of equivalent lexical items.
2. Using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form
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3. Translation by paraphrase
This is by far the most basic method for translating idiom when a match cannot be found in the target language or when it seems inappropriate to use idiomatic language in the target text because of differences in stylistic preferences of the source and target languages.
4. Translation by omission
Likewise single word; an idiom may sometimes be omitted altogether in the target text. This may be because it has no close match in the target language, its meaning cannot be easily paraphrased, or for stylistic reason.
2.5 Problems in Translating Idioms
A language, however, has its meaning only in the culture, as Newmark (1981:183) states that a language is partly the repository and reflection of a culture. Thus, different languages may contain different cultures or different ways of thingking.
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undeveloped place as opposed to town. Therefore, the term Jakarta as a big village used by foreign writer will lose its meaning if it is translated into desa yang besar. In this matter, translator should treat the source language differently, apart from the way of thinking of the original writer is very likely to differ from the situation faced by people in the target language.
2.6 Translation Errors
Errors in translation mostly result of the non-equivalence between the source and target languages (Baker, 1992). Cited from Handbook of Translation Studies vol. I by Gide Hansen, the translation error can be caused by misunderstandings of translation brief or of the content of source text, by not rendering the meaning of the source text accurately, by factual mistakes, terminological of stylistic flaws and by different kinds of interfaces between source text and target text.
Chrisna Buana in his research stated that there are two types of error in translating text. There are absolute error (Newmark 1988:189) and pragmatic error (Thomas 1983:91). Absolute error divided into 4 kinds - error in translating words, phrases or sentences; error in translating polysemantic or homonym words; error in translating idiomatic expressions; and the last is error in using punctuation. Then pragmatic error is misunderstanding of communication participant in understanding what they mean with what they said.
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of a composite expression is essentially compositional (Hurford, Heasley, & Smith 2007: 327). Hurford et al also said that the meaning of idiom is intended usually depends on the context in which the expression is used. The researcher can take conclusion that lack of knowing English vocabularies can influence in understanding context because when people do translate and they are lack of vocabularies, the cannot understand wholly about the text then they get error in translating idioms. Another reason why most of people do incorrect translating idioms because the target language they are going to translate has a different culture. It means that the culture also influence how the people understand the context.
2.7 Previous Studies
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In translating idioms, the translators pay attention not only on the translation strategies, but also in the culture, equivalent, and context. Howwar (2013) has mentioned in his research that some SL and TL idioms taking into consideration their bound culture, equivalence and context. Howwar also explores the different types of idiom, shed lights on some Arabic and English idioms and focus on the difficulties faced by learners and translators. The overall results showed that idioms can never be translated literally; context, equivalence and semantic relativism should be considered when dealing with idioms. To be communicatively and linguistically competent, translators as well as learners should find the equivalence in the same language first and then in the target language. As a result, it is strongly recommended that translators as well as learners should be fully aware of some translation techniques and the context of the discourse s/he is dealing with.
After people knew about the methodologies within translating idiom, they would translate idioms as knowledge they learned. Suwardi (2013) intended to know about the practice of translating idioms. The data were taken from idioms appeared in the novel Mrs. Mc Gynti Dead written by Agatta Christie and its translation in Indonesia, Mrs. Mc Ginty Sudah Mati by Budiyanto Pramono. Suwardi also described how a translator can discover the closest natural equivalent of English idioms in Indonesian based on the meaning and the message of the source language idioms.
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there were three strategies used by the Indonesian translator. The first strategy is
idiom to idiom, which means transferring idioms in English into idioms in
Indonesian. This method is used when two idioms, in both English and Indonesian, are containing the same form and meaning. Second method is
paraphrase, which means transferring idioms in English directly into its real
meaning in Indonesian. This strategy is the most frequently used considering the fact that it is very difficult to find idioms in Indonesian that has the same meaning and form with the idioms in English. The third method is literal translation. In some cases, idioms in English can be literally translated. This kind of case is specifically occurs when an idiom happens to be part of a dialogue or informal sentence.
In 2013, Maisa & Karunakaran also did the research. In their research, an attempt was made to look at the use of idioms at Under Graduate level and ways of improving the use of idioms. This study also analyzed the acquisition of idioms and teaching/learning of idioms in the context of English as Second Language (ESL). The focus of the study was on the processes of acquiring idioms and strategies to promote idiomaticity at undergraduate level. Though there were many issues discussed pertaining to idioms in this paper, it was mainly involved with teacher beliefs on teaching idiomatic English at undergraduate level.
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correctly and translated to its function. Hence, it has to be chronically to the context. Then, it will be wrong if the readers or translators translate the idioms only word by word translation.
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
This research method discussed about method used by the researcher in this study. The researcher explained the general process in collecting and analyzing the data. It consisted of research design, data and data sources, research instrument, data collection and analysis.
3.1 Research Design
This research was conducted by applying quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative method was based on the measurement of quantity or amount (Khotari, 2004:3) and linguistic variables that could be counted (Wray and Bloomer, 2006:95). Hence, the amounts of errors found in the sample paragraph given to the students were counted by the researcher and the researcher provided the result in percentage form.
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3.2 Data and Data Sources
The main data of this research were the answers of translation task and questionnaire provided by the researcher. The data were the answers of translation task which consisted of some idioms. In addition, the researcher also used the answers of questionnaire as the data. The questionnaire consisted of the difficulties or the problems faced by the students. From the data, the researcher classified the errors found and the problems faced by the students when translating idioms. The translation task and the questionnaire were shown in the appendix.
3.3 Research Instrument
The instrument of this research was human. The researcher put herself become the main instrument, because the researcher was the one who collected and analyzed the data. The second instruments used by the researcher were translation task and questionnaire. The researcher provided a translation task which consisted of some idioms. The researcher provided questionnaire too. The students had to answer the questions provided by the researcher about the difficulties or the problems when they were translating the idioms. And the last instruments used by the researcher were the dictionary in order to find the meaning and the origin of the idioms in the text.
3.4 Data Collection
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translating idioms given to the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya who were randomly chosen by the researcher.
3.5 Data Analysis
After the data from translation task and questionnaire were collected, the researcher did correction and analysis some questions which had been given to the students. Firstly, the researcher was correcting the answers of translating task to know what errors found and how many errors exist in translating idioms. Then, the researcher counted the percentages of errors by the formula, the total of errors
(n) divided by the total of the answers (x) multiplied by a hundred percent ( � � x 100% ).
Besides giving translation task, the researcher also gave questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of the difficulties or the problems faced by the students when translating idioms. After knowing the answers of the questionnaire, the writer classified what were difficulties of problems faced by the students.
CHAPTER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter is divided into two parts, findings and discussion of translating idiom. The first is finding of error translating idioms and percentage calculation of errors did by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University of Surabaya. And the second is discussion about the result of the study.
4.1 Findings
Based on the data analysis, the researcher discovered some errors in translating idioms. Furthermore, the researcher shows what the errors did by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel Islamic University Surabaya. From the data of 57 students, almost all idioms given to the students there are idiomatic errors happened. The researcher used The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins and mobile dictionary such as Merriam Webster and Idiom & Phrases to look for the meaning of the idioms.
Data 1
Idiom The answers of the
students
The meaning from dictionary
1. The Eager Beavers and Old Mr. Oldkool
1. Berang-berang bersemangat 2. Banyak akal 3. Berang-berang 4. Orang yang sangat
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rajin 5. Tanggap
6. Orang yang enerjik 7. Ambisi
8. Elang
Various idiomatic translating errors were found in the first data. Explained in book The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, the origin of „eager beaver‟ referred to the industrious beaver; this near-rhyming expression is a Canadian Army one that is not recorded before 1940. „Eager beaver‟ is usually
applied derisively to someone who is overly industrious, zealous, gung ho in his work, one who tries to impress his superiors by his diligence and becomes obnoxious to his associates as a result (Hendrickson 2008:269).
Other said that „eager beaver‟ means that it refers to person who is
hardworking and very enthusiastic about doing something. In Indonesian the eager beaver means pekerja keras or orang yang sangat antusias.
(1) (3) Berang-berang bersemangat, some students translate the idiom „eager beaver‟ only word by word, which is eager is semangat and beaver is
berang-berang.
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(8) Elang, perhaps the students think that eager is elang in Indonesian or eagle and
forget that elang is eagle. It is caused the pronunciation of eager and eagle is similar.
Data 2
Idiom The answers of the
students
The meaning from dictionary
2. Definitely not couch
potatoes, these boys and girls were, in fact, full of beans
1. Cukup dikenal 2. Tidak usah diajari 3. Mager
4. Tukang kritik
Pemalas
„Couch potato(s)‟ is a phrase from a pun. „Couch potato(s) means a lazy,
inactive person who does little else in leisure time save lie in the couch watching TV. As from the punning derivation of „couch potato(s)‟, first came the slang term
„boob tube‟ for television, recorded in 1963. Someone who watched too much of the „boob tube‟ was shortly after dubbed a „boob-tuber‟. „Boob tuber‟ suggested
the potato, a plant tuber, to Tom Iacino of Pasadena, California, in 1976, and he invented the term „couch potato‟, which he registered as a trademark eight years
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From Merriam Webster, „coach potato(s)‟ means a lazy person. And in
Indonesian means pemalas.
(1) (2) (4) These wrong answers are caused by the limit of knowledge about origin of the idiom hence they give the nonsense answers.
(3) From the meaning of „coach potato(s)‟ it can be seen that it is noun form. But the students translate „couch potato(s) as mager. In Indonesian, mager is abbreviation of males gerak in which it is verb form. Perhaps the student thinks that pemalas and males gerak is same even they are different form.
A few number of errors happened in translating idiom number 2. It caused the idiom is just given by the lecturer.
Data 3
Idiom The answers of the
students
The meaning from dictionary
3. Definitely not couch
potatoes, these boys and girls were, in fact, full of beans
1. Penuh kacang 2. Keingintahuan 3. Berpotensi 4. Sangat pintar 5. Bodoh
6. Penuh manfaat 7. Punya banyak
pengetahuan 8. Pintar/terbuka
pemikirannya
Sangat aktif / sangat sehat
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(sometimes in a foolish or silly way). Some say it is a horsey expression, like „full of oat‟, going back to the days when horses were fed “horse beans” rose for
fodder. The saying, however, is a British one from about 1870 and may derive from an earlier phrase, „full of bread‟. Beans, a high-protein food, certainly should
make one lively; in fact, they have long been regarded as an aphrodisiac (Hendrickson 2008:325).
Briefly, „full of beans‟ is refers to person who is lively, active and healthy.
In Indonesian, it means sangat sehat or sangat aktif.
(1) It is so clear that the students translate the idiom word by word which full is
penuh then beans is kacang.
(2) (5) The answers are totally wrong. They do not have any correlation with the context. Perhaps it caused the students are lacks of the vocabularies thus they cannot understand the context of the text.
(3) The students assume that beans is like potential, thus they give meaning that „full of beans‟ is full of potential or berpotensi in Indonesian.
(4) (7) (8) Here the students think that beans are like knowledge, when person have full of knowledge, he will be smart hence the students translate the idiom as
sangat pintar and punya banyak pengetahuan.
(6) The students make similarity of beans and benefits. Thus they translate the idiom as penuh manfaat.
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Data 4
Idiom The answers of the
students
The meaning from dictionary
4. When Mr. Oldkool told them about a new and fascinating
subject, like the apple snail, they were all ears
1. menunggu penjelasan 2. pusat perhatian 3. semuanya
mengetahui hal itu 4. mengerjakan
dengan teliti 5. merekah dengan
seksama
Siap mendengarkan (penuh perhatian)
„All ears‟ means listening attentively. It is hardly modern slang, being at
least three centuries old. Its first recorded use in this precise from is by Anthony Trollope in 1865. But over two centuries before this Milton wrote in Comus (1634): “I was all ear,/ And took in strains that might create a soul/ Under the ribs
of death (Hendrickson 2008:18).
(1) The idiom is adverb form, thus the translation must be adverb form too. The answer of number 1 is verb form, menunggu penjelasan and the correct answer is
siap mendengarkan (penuh perhatian). Although they have closest meaning,
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(2) The idiom is aimed to listener. If the students translate the idiom as main attention or pusat perhatian, it will be wrong because who becomes the main attention is speaker not listener.
(3) The students translate the idiom word by word which all is translated as semua then ears is translated as listen or knowing that means mengetahui.
(4) (5) These are nonsense answers because there is no correlation between the idiom and mengerjakan dengan teliti or merekah dengan sempurna.
Data 5
Idiom The answers of the
students
The meaning from dictionary
5. When he gave them assignments to do, they took them home eagerly and were as busy as bees
1. cerewet/ banyak omong 2. berkelompok 3. langsung mengerjakan tugas 4. mendengarkan 5. mengerjakan dengan giat/cepat
6. fokus pada
soal/pekerjaan 7. mengerjakan
dengan
serius/sungguh-sunnguh/rajin 8. pekerja keras/rajin 9. sangat bersemangat 10. dikerjakan sesegera
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mungkin
“For aye as busy as bees been they”, Chaucer wrote in Canterbury Tales
(1387), the first recorded mention of the phrase. But bees must have been noticed busily collecting nectar since prehistoric days and no doubt the expression was used long before Chaucer‟s time. Bee, in fact, is a word found in all languages
with Indo-European origins. That bees are busy there is no doubt, one pound of honey results from the visiting of some 10 million flowers where bees collect nectar, which they change to honey in their bodies (Hendrickson 2008:137).
The researcher concludes that „busy as bees‟ means very busy and in
Indonesian means sangat sibuk. From the data collected, there are some answers which are almost closest with the characteristics of bees, therefore misunderstanding can be a caused in error translation.
(1) (2) (5) (8) The students assume and know some characteristics of bees as they always produce sound, they always be with their friends or group, they always move fast and hard working in collecting and processing nectar in their nest hence the students translate the idiom as cerewet,berkelompok, mengerjakan dengan giat
atau cepat, and pekerja keras.
Data 6
Idiom The answers from the students
The meaning from dictionary
6. He handed out the test papers
1. menetapkan 2. mengeluarkan
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and girls to put their thinking caps on
kemampuan 3. mendengarkan
tanpa nyontek 4. menyerah
5. kerjakan sesuai kemapuanmu 6. mengerjakan
dengan logika 7. fokus
8. menjawab dengan yakin 9. kerjakan dengan
cermat 10. untuk
menjawabnya 11. bukalah
pemikiranmu 12. mulai fokus
untuk bekerja 13. menulis jawaban 14. merilekskan diri 15. mengambil
pikiran mereka
The origin of idiom is that a „thinking cap‟ was previously known by the appealing name a „considering cap‟. That term has gone entirely out of use now
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tendency is a very good thing as the safeguard of our independence from the control of foreign power, and it obliges every man to keep hid thinking cap on”.
The citation uses the term figuratively – there is no suggestion that it refers to a real cap. Nevertheless, such caps possibly did exist. The „considering cap‟ is
explained at great length, in The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, 1765.
(2) (6) (8) (10) (11) (15) From these answers, the researcher is sure that the students open the dictionary to look for the meaning. But because they do not quite understand about the context of the text, they are wrong in choosing the correct words.
(3) (5) (7) (9) (12) (13) This is the citation of the idiom in the text,
“He handed out the test papers and told the boys and girls to put
their thinking caps on”
From the sentence above, it can be seen that there is “test papers”, it caused the
students think that there is exam. But because of their minim understanding they are wrong in translating the idioms.
(4) The students focused on word “handed out” then they think that “handed out” is same as “hands up” which the meaning is give up, therefore they translate the
idiom as menyerah.
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Data 7
Idiom The answers of the students
The meaning from dictionary
7.“Break a leg” he said to the students as he walked back to his desk
1. kuat
2. duduk sopan 3. pantang lelah 4. santai
5. istirahat 6. mengubah
suasana
Semoga sukses
„Break a leg‟ means “good luck” in theatrical circles, probably not because
the great Sarah Bernhardt “had but one leg and it would be good luck to be like
her”. No one is sure, but theory has the expression deriving, possibly through
Yiddish, from a German expression meaning “May you break your neck and your leg”, for which I can find no satisfactory explanation. It may also have something
to do with wishing someone a “big break”, that is, good luck leading to success. Or bad luck like breaking a leg may simply be wished because actors, a superstitious lot, have long believed that wishing them good luck guarantees something terrible will happen (Hendrickson 2008:118).
For second language learners, there are some idioms or perhaps a lot of idioms are rarely heard or even never heard before, such as „break a leg‟. There
are some errors in translating this idiom. The meaning of idiom „break a leg‟ to be “good luck” is there is no correlation. After knowing the origin of idiom „break a
35
sukses in Indonesian. But for those who do not know about the origin of that
idiom even they know the context, they cannot answer correctly the meaning is „break a leg‟ is. Such as the students of English Department Sunan Ampel Islamic University Surabaya, they do not suppose that the meaning of „break a leg‟ is
semoga sukses.
(1) (3) “„Break a leg’, he said to the students as he walked back………” The students were trying to see the sentence followed, hence they translate the idiom as strong or kuat and pantang lelah even the leg is broken. They are misunderstood with word “walked”. “Walked” in the sentence is verb for the
speaker not the listener, whereas the idiom for the listener.
(2) The students translate the idiom as duduk sopan because in the culture and habit in Indonesia, person who sit while crossing his leg is well mannered or
sopan in Indonesian. The students assume that break a leg is changing the leg‟s
position from straight to bend up.
(4) (5) (6) The last wrong answers are santai, istirahat and mengubah suasana. The students think that break a leg is changing position which in the beginning is stand up then sit. Or another opinion that after thinking a hard thought, it is time to be relax.
Data 8
Idiom The answers of the
students
The meaning from dictionary
8. Remaining cool as a cucumber, they
1. sedingin mentimun
36
pencils and went to work
3. tanpa kesulitan 4. percaya diri 5. bersemangat 6. tanpa ekspresi/
berwajah dingin 7. menikmati
hidup
The idiom „cool as cucumber‟ took scientists with thermometers until
1970 to find out what has been folk knowledge for centuries that cucumbers are indeed cool, so much so that the inside of a field cucumber on a warm day registers about 20 degrees cooler than the outside air. The belief is ancient, but was first put on paper by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in their play
Cupid’s Revenge (1610), when they referred to certain women “as cold as
cucumber”. The metaphor describes anyone self-possessed and unemotional.
Cucumber, which derives from the Latin cucumir, was considered “bookish” and
commonly pronounced cowcumber in England in the 19th century, the way Sara Gamp said it in Dickens‟s Martin Chuzzlewit. Roman emperor Tiberius is said to have enjoyed the “fruits” so much that he ordered them served to him every day,
even though they had to be grown in greenhouses out of season (Hendrickson 2008:203).
From other dictionary says that „cool as cucumber‟ means that a person
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(1) (2) Cucumber is one of fruit which is cool and fresh. Thus it is the reason the students translate the idiom as sedingin mentimun and segar. The students translate the idiom only word by word.
(3) (4) (5) (7) The students have misunderstood about the idiom. This is part of the idiom in the text,
“Remaining cool as cucumber, they picked up their pencils and
went to work”.
Perhaps the students focus on word “work”, therefore the students assumed that
the idiom is duty or something trouble hence they translate the idiom as tanpa
kesulitan, percaya diri, bersemangat, and menikmati hidup.
(6) It is commonly known that cool guy is not really showing his expression on his face much. Hence the students assumed that cool in „cool as cucumber‟ is
same with cool in „cool guy‟. Therefore, they translate the idiom as tanpa ekspresi
or berwajah dingin.
Data 9
Idiom The answers of the students
The meaning from dictionary
9. It turned out that all of the eager beavers passed the test and, for some, it was even a piece of cake
1. sedikit 2. sepotong kue 3. tinggal sedikit 4. pesta/
merayakan 5. sesuatu yang
biasa/ lumrah
38
banyak kegiatan 7. remeh
The earliest citation of the idiom is found from the American poet and humorist Ogden Nash‟s Primrose Path, 1936: “Her picture‟s in the papers now, And life‟s a piece of cake”.
The choice of cake as a symbol of ease and pleasantry is well represented in the language.
The meaning of the idiom is something which is very easy.
(1) (2) (3) The students translate the idiom as its true meaning, „a piece of cake‟. They focused on word “a” which is mean sebuah in Indonesian. Therefore they
have opinion that from whole cake but only one piece left. (4) Part of the idiom cited from the text,
“It turn out that all of the eager beavers passed the test and, for some, it
was even a piece of cale. To celebrate,……”
The students focused on “passed the test” and word “celebrate”, therefore they
translate the idiom as pesta or merayakan. Because they assumed that a success after reaching something must get celebration.
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(6) The students give a non-logical meaning, although in fact some idioms have non-logical meaning, but there is an origin of idiom that makes the meaning of idiom understands. It caused by background knowledge of the students. They do not really know about idioms. It can be seen that there is no correlation meaning from source text to target text.
Data 10
Idiom The answers of the students
The meaning from dictionary
10. Who would have thought that their hard work would pay off so well
1. tanggung jawab 2. berguna
3. digaji/ dibayar 4. berhasil 5. diganjar 6. lunas 7. diabaikan 8. hasil 9. membuahkan hasil 10. terbalaskan 11. membayar 12. melunasi Terbayar
The meaning of „payoff‟ is a payment made to someone, especially as
bribe or reward, or on leaving a job. From Merriam Webster dictionary shows the meaning of „pay off‟ is a good result: the advantage of benefit that is gained from
40
“Who would have thought that their hard work would pay off”.
The students have opinion that if persons have been work, they have to have responsibility in their work. Thus the students translate the idiom as tanggung jawab.
(2) The students focus on “hard work” in the sentence, therefore they assume that every hard working must be useful thus they translate the idiom as berguna. (3) (4) (8) (9) The students look for meaning of the idiom from the dictionary. But they directly copy and use it without considering that these words are correct or not when they use it in the text.
(5) (10) The meaning of diganjar and membalaskan is quite similar with terbayar in Indonesian. But they have different function. For diganjar, the students can use that word to translate „pay off‟, but it is not quite correct because after word
diganjar must be followed by more explanation. And for membalaskan, the
function of the idiom as adverb but membalaskan is verb.
(6) (12) The students look at the dictionary that the meaning of the idiom is
pembayaran or in English is payment or paid. Thus the students translate the
idiom as lunas or melunasi.
(7) The students do not really know about the meaning of the sentence, therefore the students give the nonsense answer which do not have correlation with the sentence and the text.
41
From the description of what the idiomatic translation errors done by the students, the researcher calculated how many percentages of idiomatic translation errors.
These are calculation of the students‟ answers:
1. The error answers: �
� × 100% = 156
570 × 100% = 27,37% x= amount of error answers
n= amount of whole answers 2. The empty answers:
� × 100% = 67
570 × 100% = 11,76%
y= amount of empty answers n= amount of whole answers 3. The correct answers:
� × 100% = 347
570 × 100% = 60,88%
z= amount of correct answers n= amount of whole answers
From the calculations above, the researcher defined that the percentage of errors did by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel Islamic University of Surabaya is 27,37%.
4.2 Discussion
42
students in translating the idioms. From the questionnaire which is filled by the students, the researcher found their opinion about idiom, how they translate the idiom and what the troubles or problems in translating idiom are.
The first, the researcher wants to discuss about how they translate idiom. Some of the students answer that they use dictionary to find the meaning of the idiom. But the students still make mistake in translating idiom. In the dictionary, the meaning of idiom is not directly given in Indonesian, it is still in English. The students are not quite correct in choosing words hence they make mistakes in translating idiom. Such in idiom number 2, „couch potato‟, in Indonesian means
pemalas. But there is the student answer with mager or males gerak. It is quite
similar but different word classes. If males gerak combined in the sentence, the meaning will be strange.
The second, the researcher wants to discuss the troubles or the problems. In the questionnaire, almost all the students answer that context, different culture, and lacks of vocabularies are the troubles or problems in translating idiom. The first trouble is context. Idiom is one of non-literal meaning which the meanings of words and sentences are essentially dependent of the context or occasion of use (Hurford et al 2007:327). For example is „a piece of cake‟. In a different context, „a piece of cake‟ will have different meaning. In such as this sentence, “my
mother gives you a piece of cake”, and for other sentence is “It turned out that all
43
Indonesian and the second sentence „a piece of cake‟ means very easy or sangat
mudah in Indonesian.
The second problem is different culture. Language is belonging to culture, and idiom is the part of language. The use and the meaning of idiom is agreed by the people. It can be seen above that each idiom has the origin. For example is, idiom „break a leg‟ is used by the English to give spirit to others or to wish good luck, but the Korean, they uses „hwaiting‟ to support others,
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
In this chapter, the researcher makes conclusion from the analysis of error in translating idioms made by the students of English Department in 3rd year Sunan Ampel State Islamic University Surabaya. The purpose of this research is to know what the errors are made by the students in translating idioms.
Based on the finding, there are many errors in translating idioms. But the correct answer in translating idioms is not little too. The errors made by the students caused by the minim of understanding about idioms are. Most of the students answer the questionnaire that they know about the idiom, but in the fact, they still cannot translate the idioms correctly.
One question in questionnaire asked about how the students translate the idioms. Some of them answer by looking at the context of the text, but the fact that they are blindly in translating idioms. And the rest answer that they used dictionary to look for the meaning of the idioms, but there are still many errors found from their answers.
45
classes, means that all the words cannot stand in the same position. For example is when the idiom is noun form, the students must translate it as noun form too. When the students translate it with verb from, it will be an error and the error can make ambiguity in the text.
From the analysis, the researcher also finds the percentage of errors in translating idiom made by the students. It is mentioned that the percentage of errors are 27,37%. The percentage of error answers is smaller than the correct answers. In fact, some of the students know about idioms are, but some of them still do mistakes in translating idioms. From the questionnaire collected that, the students also answered that do not understand about the context is one of troubles or problems faced by the students in translating idioms.
Another problems influenced are different of culture and lacks of vocabularies. Lacks of vocabularies is certain problem to persons in do translation, it is not only in translating idiom, but also in everything that require them do translation text or something from one language to other language.
B. Suggestion
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this research, although the quality of translation is to be better or to be worst, especially in translating idioms. Besides that, for further researchers who are interested in semantic study, especially in translation, you can also focus on translating short stories, essays, poems and etc.
The researcher hopes this research will be useful for the readers and the researcher to get better understanding about translation especially in translating idioms.
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