AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS
(A Study at Third Year Students of Academic Year 2016/2017 in English Department ofSTKIP PGRI West Sumatra)
Doli Insarila, Yelfiza, Armilia Riza
Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat insarila@gmail.com
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini tentang tipe – tipe ekspresi idiom yang terdapat dalam teks narative diterjemahkan dalam kelas menerjemah. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif dengan desain deskriptif. Peneliti memperoleh data dengan memberikan penugasan menerjemah kepada mahasiswa pada 13 Januari 2018.
Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menentukan tipe dan makna dari ekspresi idiomatic yang sulit bagi mahasiswa dalam menerjemah teks narative. Partisipan dalam penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa tahun ke III tahun ajaran 2016/2017 terdiri dari 105 mahasiswa. Untuk mendapatkan sampel, peneliti menggunakan tekhnik cluster sampling dengan mengambil satu kelas sebagai kelas penelitian, dimana kelas yang didapatkan ialah kelas A. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa peneliti menemukan 3 tipe ekspresi idiomatik, khususnya tipe klausa yang terdapat dalam teks narative The Cabinet (What was Wrong with My Mom?)¸
dimana ketiga tipe tersebut ialah V + Compliment, V + Direct object, dan V + Compliment + Adjunct. Masing – masing dari ketiga tipe tersebut terbagi menjadi 10 data dalam teks terjemahan mahasiswa, dimana 6 ekspresi idiomatik tipe V + Compliment, 2 ekspresi idiomatik tipe V + Direct object, dan2 ekspresi idiomatik tipe V + Compliment + Adjunct. Berdasarkan hasil dari terjemahan mahasiswa, dari 10 data ekspresi idiomatik yang ditemukan, dimana 4 data dikatakan sulit bagi mahasiswa dalam menerjemah, 2 data dikatakan sedang bagi mahasiswa dalam menerjemah, dan 2 data dikatakan mudah bagi mahasiswa dalam menerjemah. Kesimpulan akhir dalam penelitian ini peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa mahasiswa sulit dalam menerjemah ekspresi idiomatik tipe V + Compliment dan V + Direct object. Hal ini disebabkan karena besarnya jumlah kesulitan dari terjemahan mahasiswa dalam menerjemahkan ekspresi idiomatik pada tipe tersebut.
Katakunci: Kesulitan Mahasiswa, Ekspresi Idiomatik, Teks Narative
INTRODUCTION
Translating is not an easy activity because English and Indonesian are two different languages. English is a foreign language and different from
Indonesian as native language. In learning English as a foreign language, Indonesian learners are often difficult because English has different rules from Indonesian.
In translating, they tend to transfer the forms and the meanings from their native language to constuct the foreign language. They often translate the sentence into word by word translation. When it comes to complete sentence, the meaning is not appropriate to the target language.
Moreover, when the researcher found the documents of students exercises translated a text in translating phrases form that researcher got from one of English lectures at STKIP PGRI West Sumatra by one of higher, or leveling students (B/14040065) as follow:
“one day, when a terrible war broke out, the people of the city ran away leaving many things behind,” in her translated; “suatu hari, ketika perperangan yang mengerikan pecah, orang - orang dikota berlari jauh meninggalkan berbagai macam benda- benda disana.”
From the example above, the student can guess the meaning well in translating word by word but lack informations in translating the words if follow by another words or phrase form like broke out and ran away.
Broke out means “dimulai” and ran
away it means “melarikan diri” in target language (TL).
Based on students translated
“ran away” be run “berlari” and away “jauh”. It can be seen that students translated those expressions into word by word translation. If these phrases translated word by word, the meaning is not appropriate to the target language. Because in target language (TL) “berlari jauh”
have different meaning with source language (ST).
It means that they should have including in a skill to convey ideas the original material of one language to another one. They can produce new meaning. This is one of difficulties and problems arising translation by the students based on the phenomenon above, if the students translate those expressions word by word while translation, they can produce new meaning far from natural equivalent of source language message terms. It is very important for them who majored in translation to translate well. This is the reason why the researcher interested in analysing the research about students’ difficulties in translating.
Based on the phenomenon above, there weretwo problems
which made the English learners’
difficulties in translating are in Clause and Phrase form. First, English language learners less understanding to guess the meaning well while translating. The students got confused in appropriate the meaning a group of words correctly into their language, so made the messages can not available in the target language (TL).
Second, the students difficulties in translating a word if follow by another word or word combinations into their language causes lack in formations of them. For examples
“go out”. Go is a verb with follow by particle is out. This is two combinations of word between verb combine with particle and sometimes also verb combine with a preposition or in an adverbs. This combinations cannot be translated separately of each group of words while translating. The common name for such combination is namely idiomatic expressions.
However, idiomatic expressions divided into two type are Phrase and Clause idiom. Phrase and Clause idiomatic expressions have sub indicator types of each other. The group of words of these expressions
whose their meanings are different from the meaning of the individual words.If the people or students translate the idiomatic expressions into word by word translation, they will not find the suitable meaning.
Because of that, the researcher interested to identify the problem of students’ difficulties in translating idiomatic expressions which found in a message or text.
In this research, the researcher limited a text narrative to distributed and translated for the third year students of academic year 2016/2017 in English Department at STKIP PGRI West Sumatra. The researcher choose the third year students because they learned Understanding Ideas in Phrase and Clause in Translation subject while the researcher doing this research. The researcher focused to analysed students’ translation in Clauses form because there are several Clause idiom found in narrative text that the researcher got.
A. Difficulties in Translating Idiomatic Expressions
Difficulties in translating happened when someone who translates two texts, but does not know how to use words,
phrases, sentences with cover verb, determiner, preposition, adverb, adjective, pronoun, conjunction, etc as well as to interpret a text in an exercises form into target language (TL).
Baker’s (2001: 65) practical point of view, the main problems found in translating idioms and fixed expressions are: (1) the ability to recognize and interpret idioms correctly, and (2) the difficulties involved in rendering the aspect of meaning that an idiom or fixed expressions convey into the target language.
B. Translation
1. Basic Concept of Translation
Translation itself is transferring the information that is expressed in one language or source language, to another different language or target language. Catford in Hatim (2001: 14) who sees translation as an operation performed on language: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another.
It means that in translating, a translator should transferring the meaning of one language to the another one without change the meaning in a text.
2. Types of Translation Newmark in Munday (2001: 44-45) determines that there are two types of translation are Semantic and Communicative translation.
He indicates that Semantic translation differs from literal translation in that its respect context, interprets and even explains. Literal translation, on the other hand, means word by word in its extreme version and, even in its weaker form stick very closely to ST lexis and syintax..
3. Translation Process
Translation is a process. In transferring the meaning, a translator should follow some process in translating. Nida (2002:
485) state that three proccess or steps in translation. First is the
process of analysis in identification of difficulties.
Second, describing the difficulties. The last, analysis the explanation of that which can be regarded as a linguistic problem.
The first step in the process of analysis in identification of difficulties, it crucially depends on correct interpretation of the learner’s intentions, it can be solved by authoritative or plausible interpretation.
Second is describing the difficulties. It begins only when an identification stage as taken place. The description of learner is difficult involves a comparison of the learner’s idiosyncratic utterances with a reconstruction of those utterances in the target language. It requires, therefore, an attention to the surface of properties of the learner’s utterance.
The last step in the process of analysis is the explanation of that which can be regarded as a
linguistic problem. These step attempts to account for how and why the learner’s difficulty happens.
C. Idiomatic Expressions 1. Basic Concept of Idiom
Idiom is a sequence of words which has a different meaning as a group of each words separately. Richard
& Schmidt (2002: 246) defines “an idiom is an expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from it separate parts. It means that the meaning of idiomatic expressions can be translated of each word separately.
2. Types of Idiomatic Expressions
Ioana (2012: 3) there were two types of idiom form are Phrase idioms and Clause idioms. In this research, the researcher focused on second types of an idiom is Clause idioms.
The most commonly occurring clause patterns spanned by idiom are represented by five types.
First, Verb + Complement (the complement being expressed by an adjective phrases, e.g. go berserk, come clean, get even, (with somebody). According to Larson (2010: 128) verb is signifying an activity or process performed or undergone. Second, Verb + Direct Object (e. g. make the grade, take pains, blow the gaff, foot the bill, catch somebody’s imagination);
Third, Verb + Direct Object + Complement (e. g. paint the town red, bleed somebody white, drive somebody mad, catch somebody napping); Fourth, Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object (e.g. do somebody credit, pay somebody a compliment, sell somebody a pup);and the last, Verb + Direct Object + Adjunct ( the Adjunct being expressed by an adjective or an adverb, e.g. take something amiss, play one’s cards well, play it straight, take something hard/lightly.
3. Meaning of Idiomatic Expressions
Different scholars of linguistics have categorized types of meaning in their own ways. Some of them have spoken in general terms while some others have used more specific classification. Langlotz (2006: 4) distinguish two levels of idiomatic expressions are Literal meaning and Idiomatic meaning. Firts, Literal meaning is sum of the meaning of the constituents.
In literal meaning, people would find the meaning of sentence by translating word by word. For example: she goes to work on foot. The meaning is she goes to work without any vehicle. Second, Idiomatic meaning is does not come from each word, but the meaning come from the lexicalized extended
meaning of the
construction.
D. Narrative Text
Narrative text is a story that tells an chronological in the past event to amuse or to entertain the reader. Davies et al (2005:
17), narrative text tell a story.
The purposes are to present a particular picture of view of the word that entertain, teach a lesson or moral and informs the reader or listener.
Moreover, in narrative text, there are some language features that should be learned by the students. The language features of narrative text are using past tense.
RESEARCH METHOD
The design of this research was qualitative research with descriptive method. According to Gay and Airasian (2000: 211), descriptive research is a research that reports phenomena as it appears in the process of the process and collects the data. In order to answer the research question, the researcher determined the students in Translation class of English Department at STKIP PGRI West Sumatra and then analysis the idiomatic expressions in their translation inTranslation class. So,
the appropriate design for this research is descriptive research and it also based on the phenomena that commonly appear in translation.
Population in this research were Third Year Students of Academic Year 2016/2017 in English Department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatra. It consisted of three classes from A to C. In this research, the researcher used cluster sampling for selecting the sample. As stated by Gay and Airasian (2000: 135) cluster sampling is the process of selecting a sample which we find an intact group of population members with similar characteristics. The researcher in selecting sample just take one class to do the test. In conclusion, the researcher took A session as class that done for the real test. The researcher gave a paper to the students and asked them to translated the idiomatic expressions in narrative text. Then, the researcher analysed the result of the students answer sheet, and checks the idiomatic expressions in the text and their meaning. To answer the research questions, the researcher used technique analysis by Nana Sudjana (2002: 136-137) in determining the difficulty level of the description test.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION In this research, the researcher found several findings of appropriate translation in students translated text narrative The Cabinet (What Was Wrong With My Mom?) at Translation class done by the third year students of Academic Year 2016/2017of STKIP PGRI West Sumatra. The researcher found 10 data of Clause idiomatic expressions which exists in the text. Furthermore, from types belong to Clause idiom, the students feels difficult in translating and catching the appropriate meaning of an idiom examples; V + Compliment (6), V + Direct Object (2), and V + Direct Object + Adjunct (2) which exist in the text so totally 10 data.
From 10 data of Clause idiomatic expressions type, it can be concluded that 4 datum of an idiomatic expression which are Difficult interpretation by the students, 3 datum of an idiomatic expressions which are Moderate interpretation by the students, and 2 datum of idiomatic expressions which are Easy interpretation by the students in translating the narrative text.
This case because an idiomatic expressions are not discussed specific topic in Understanding an idiom as well as Understanding ideas in phrase and clause at Translation class. The students learned an idiomatic expressions are generally in students exercises, so the students feels difficult in translating and catching the meaning of an idiom well into target language while translating process correctly.
CONCLUSION
This research is qualitative approach which using text translated of students as source of data. The researcher used a narrative text The Cabinet (What Was Wrong With My Mom?) as an instrument. The researcher collected the data by giving the translation task to the students in Translation class. The researcher gave task translation to the third year students of academic year 2016/2017 at STKIP PGRI West Sumatra.
The result in this research, the students difficulties when translating idiomatic expressions into their language well. The students can not translate an idiomatic expressions correctly cause lack understanding of them in catching the meaning while
translation process. This case because an idiomatic expressions are not discussed as well as specific topic in Translation class. They learn these expressions are generally in understanding ideas in Phrase and Clause in students exercises form, so the students feels difficult in translating the appropriate meaning of an idiom well into target language correctly. Most of students translated that clause into word by word translation, when it come to the complete sentence the meaning is not appropriate to the target language (TL).
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