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LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter consists of some reviews of the theories by experts which are
used as theoretical foundation in this study. This section is divided into some
parts. There are description of translation, idioms, related studies, and the
theoretical framework.
2.1 Translation
form of the source language into the form of the receptor (target)
language.
sufficiently do such thing, there are various kinds of meaning that must
be made aware of. It is line with Larson’s statement (1984) that the
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source language does not plainly state all of the meaning which is being
communicated.
structure which are appropiate in the receptore language and its culture
2.1. below:
Meaning
The focus of the issue in translation has always been the method
freely. The argument has been going on since at least the first century.
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“Up to the beginning of nineteenth century, many writers favoured some
kind of free translation: the spirit, not the letter; the sense not the words;
the message rather than the form; the matter not the manner” (Newmark,
1988, p.45).
1. Word-for-word Translation
maintained and the words translated one by one by their most common
reftranslation.
2. Literal Translation
equivalents but the lexical words are still translated one by one, out of
solved.
3. Faithful Translation
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preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical abnormality in the
4. Semantic Translation
that the translator must take more account of the aesthetic value of the
5. Adaptation
Newmark, plays (comedies) and poetry used this method; the themes,
6. Free Translation
manner, or the content without the form of the original. Usually, he/she
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paraphrases the source text into a much longer text of the target
language.
7. Idiomatic Translation
8. Communicative Translation
original in such a way that both content and language are readily
with the source text several times during the translation process. One of
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2. Back-translation into the source language
else who masters both the source and receptor languages. It would be
better if he does this without reading the source text used by the
3. Comprehension checks
understood correctly by speakers of the language who have not seen the
translation being retold by certain people and have those people answer
some questions about it. People who speak the target language fluently
are the ones who do the comprehension testing. It should be noted that
this test is not to test the respondent, but to test the translation itself. It
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is simply a way of finding out if the translation needs some
see if the form of the translation is natural and the style appropriate.
This testing is done by reviewers. Reviewers are people who are willing
people in both the source and target language and willing to review for
any readabilty problems when the translator asks someone to read aloud
his/her work. These problems include the part where the reader
hesitates, stops and re-reads the sentence, or when the reader seems
way, or when the reader actually say something different from what is
written.
5. Consistency checks
checks have to do with the content of the translation, and others have to
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the text. The source text will have had certain key terms which were
identified and for which lexical equivalents were found. For example,
prophet, scribe, apostle, angel, and sabbath. If the meaning is the same
should be used, the translator will want to use the same term in each
occurrence. There may also be key phrases which are used over and
This research will use the comparison with the source text method,
–as well as with the target text which is already written in the translated
are not in the source text just to get across the meaning. This added
may be accurate but can still not reach out to the people who are to use
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it. The translator should use the forms of language that will make the
message of the source text as easy to understand as the source text itself
was to understand.
text, and it may even understandable by the target language readers, and
yet the form may not be in the natural idiomatic forms of the target
target language speaker. The translator doesn’t want his work to sound
strange and foreign, he/she wants his work to sound natural, as if it’s
It means that idioms are fixed expressions that have different meaning
from each word involved. For example, bury the hatchet which means
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to become friendly again after a disagreement or a quarrel. In Indonesia,
words that we cannot deduce from the literal meanings of the words
single unit. We should not analyze an idiom from the words that make
Pratama:
“Idiom dibagi menjadi dua bagian, yaitu berdasarkan pada arti dari unsur
pembentuknya (idiom penuh dan idiom setengah), dan berdasarkan pada kata
pembentuknya (bagian tubuh, kata indra, jenis warna, nama benda alam, nama
binatang).”
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The first type of idioms is based on the meaning of its constituent
element. This type of idioms is also divided into two, which are:
area.
example:
longer negotiable
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Meja hijau which means pengadilan, or court
think calmly
or rumors
Half idioms is based on the words that form them. This type of
1. Idioms that use words related with body parts, for example:
things seriously
is difficult to comply
dry
body
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3. Idioms that use words related with colors
or a written agreement.
homeland
futile work
hearsay/rumor
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• Tenaga badak which means bertenaga kuat, or powerful
1. Changing the word order of an idiom. For example, “the short and
the long of it”, where it should be “the long and the short of it”
from the expressions “spill the beans” would change totally their
words are synonyms. For example, “the long and short of it” means
same meaning.
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which means “they reveal a surprise” into “some beans were
since they influence the degree of lexical items’ idiomaticity, and their
difficulty that he/she face. Once it has been recognized, the next step is
to translate it into the target language. According to Baker, these are the
expressions:
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and Yours sincerely in English as there are no equivalents in Arabic
b. The target language may have a similar counterpart with the idiom or
thin ice ('to act unwisely or court danger voluntarily') with a similar
someone onto the thin ice. The difference between these two idioms
The contexts in which the two idioms can be used are obviously
c. When the source language idiom is used in both its literal and
says “cut off my right arm” in a book called Arab Political Humour
emerged after the defeat of the Arab forces in 1967, which resulted
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in the annexation of Arab territory by Israel. The context of the
phrase is as follow:
President Nasser ordering a tattoo artist to print on his right arm the names of all
the territories seized by Israel like Sinai, Gaza. Sharm al-Shaykh, Jerusalem, the
Golan Heights.”
Baker (1992) concludes that to cut off one's arm, or cut off
similar meaning that can be used to replace 'Ill cut off my right arm'
d. Baker (1992) states that in the source and target languages, the very
which they can be used, and their frequency of use may be different.
from one of Austin Rover's car sale that illustrates the heavy use of
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idioms in this type of English written discourse. The whole passage
is highly idiomatic and very informal in style. The main idioms are
highlighted in bold:
METRO
Your own sense of style is all your own. Brilliant. Colourful. Original. With
There's a car after your own heart. The new 1989 Metro. Sporty new models
which look great - and don't hang around. A new range. With vivid new
colours and trim. Full of fresh ideas. Luxurious. And wickedly stylish.
Get going in the new Metro GIa. Where else would you find 73PS performance.
Or show what you're made of at the wheel of the new Metro Sport. It's got
style. And a performance engine that says it's a lot more than just a pretty
face.
Fancy something really special in the sports luxury department? With a sunroof,
central locking, tinted glass and a lot more, the new Metro I.3GS is just the
like to point out the error in translation the students may face according
text gets turned around. The intention between the target language and
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b) Added meaning. The intentions or ideas which are not
the target language. In the other words, the source language’s intention
Sager (1983, as cited in Amalya, et.al, 2018) also stated that the
sources of errors which lead to these errors the students may face in
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a) Morphology (word forms and morphological process). For
example: The word “kind” can be translated into macam in noun class,
construction). Each language has its own word order. Every language
has different word order such as the phrase bola biru, bola in English is
ball and biru is blue. So, in translating that phrase by using Indonesian
word order, it will be ball blue but in English word order, it is blue ball
which roughly has the same meaning with the source-language idiom
his command. The rain fell on the just and on the unjust.
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Target text, back-translated from French, p.21 (as cited in Baker,
1992:
order on his part. The rain was falling on the just as well as
on the unjust.
or fixed expression that has a similar meaning between the source and
example, the English expression one good turn deserves another and
items to basically express the same idea (Fernando and Flavell, 1981,
3. Translation by paraphrase
The suspension system has been fully uprated to take rough terrain in
its stride
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Back-translation from Arabic:
4. Translation by omission
single words. This may be because there is no close match in the target
reasons. Here is an example from A Hero from Zero (p. Vi, as cited in
Baker, 1992):
“It was bitter, but funny, to sec that Professor Smith had doubled his
own salary before recommending the offer from Fayed, and added a
“It was regrettable, even funny, that Professor Smith had been able
accept Faycd's offer, and that he added to this a bonus, the date of
Many previous studies which are related with this research have been
(2012). Shojae suggested in his study that there is no direct way to deal
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with idioms, because the strategy used to translate idioms depend on the
identical the two culture and language are, the easier it is to translate
are able to interpret the meaning of idioms and fixed expressions and to
generated idioms.
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students in translating idiom because of the unfamiliarity of the
It has been outlined in the previous section that students may encounter
regarding the difficulties and and strategies in translating idioms will be used
as the theoritical framework of this research. Sager’s (1983) error analysis also
will be used to help this study in identifying the students’ translation error.
as follow:
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Source Text: Target Text:
Translation quality
Students’
Laskar Pelangi assessment
translation
works
Transcript
Analysis Interview Translation linguistic
error analysis
the existing translated work as the measuring tool. In this case, the English
translation works. The test result will imply the students’ translation quality,
difficulties, and the strategies used by the students, which will be followed by
an interview for a validity check in relation to the theory used in this research.
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