TRANSLATION ERRORS ON PUBLIC PLACE

SIGNBOARDS:AN ERROR ANALYSIS AND TRANSLATION

STRATEGIES APPLIED

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters

by
JULIUS CANDRA
Student Number: 154214080

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS
UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA
YOGYAKARTA
2018
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the information on the research background,

problem formulation, objective of the study, and definition of terms.

A. Background of the Study

Language has important role in human society. Language is used by

people to express their feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Based on Sapir

(1921:6) Language is a purely human and noninstinctive method of

communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily

produced symbols. As a social being, human need each other to fulfill all their life

necessity. Nowadays, people not only learn about their mother tongue, a language

which used between family or certain society, but also another language for

international use which is English. English has been growing rapidly in Indonesia

along with the development of various sectors, such as, technology, business,

economy, education and tourism that attract foreign people come to visit

Indonesia.

As a country that visited a lot by foreign people, there are many places

provide some facilities that help those foreign people to get the information

indirectly and easily. One of the most useable and often found in almost every

public places is signboard. Signboard is a sign which provides information or

instruction by a combination of shape, color, and a symbol or pictogram which is

rendered visible by lighting of sufficient intensity (Safety signs and signals; The

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Health and Safety (Safety signs and signals) Regulations 1996, 2015). The

information is written on the signboard in two languages, Bahasa and English.

Translation is changing a meaning from one language to another language.

According to Newmark (1981) translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to

replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message

and/or statement in another language.

The topic of this research is the translation error on public places

signboards in Indonesia. Some public places in Indonesia provides signboard to

help people to get the information easily such as a name of a place, room,

instruction, descriptions or any forbidden sign. Some of the informations are

translated into English to help the foreign people, especially for foreign people

who do not understand Indonesian, to easier to get the point of the information.

Unfortunately, the errors are often found in translation. The researcher is

interested to analyze the translation errors written on public place signboards. The

researcher choose this topic because this translation errors often occur in so many

public place signboards. The purpose of this research are to minimalize the error

translation or even make it perfect, to help the foreign tourist get the information

correctly and to apply the correct term to translate.The researcher took this

example in one of the public place which the information translated incorrectly.

Table 1.0 Example of translation error

Source Text (ST) Target Text (TT)

Hati-hati kepala Becareful your head

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The translation is incorrect even we understand the message of the

information. The word “Becareful” refers to the attention to do something

carefully. The translation should be “Mind your head” or “Watch your head” to

give such a warn to pay attention to our head because something will happen if we

avoid it.

This research uses observation as the way to collect the data. This research

analysis uses the theory of meaning based translation by Larson (1998). After the

data of errors translation are collected, then the data will be analyzed more to

minimalize the translation errors uses the procedure of translation by Newmark

(1988). Hopefully this research will give us clear example of translation errors

and clear analysis about translation error using the theory applied in this research.
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B. Problem Formulation

The research questions are formulated as follows:

1. What translation errors are found on public places signboards?

2. What translation strategies are applied on public places signboards?

C. Objectives of the Study

The objectives of this study are to identify the translation error on public

places signboards, to analyzeerror made by the translator when translate the text

or information and to analyze the strategies applied in translating the text or

information.

D. Definition of Terms

Translationerror is a grammatical or spelling mistake or an incorrect

word choice given the original words’ meaning or the document’s target audience.

Signboard is a board bearing a notice or sign.The design or form use of

sign, symbol, or wordswhich is made to communicate a message to the reader.

(Merriam Webster Dictionary)

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Review of Related Studies

Some related studies are used to complete this research. This chapter

focuses on the study of translation error and the strategies applied. There are three

sources used in this study, one undergraduate thesis and two journal article. The

first is from Krisetyawati (2010) in her undergraduate thesis “An Error Analysis

on the Translation of English Noun Phrases into Indonesian of the Fifth Semester

Students of the English Department of Teacher and Education Faculty,

SebelasMaret University in the Academic Year 2009/2010” discuss about the

cause of the students’ error in translating English noun phrases into Indonesian,

the kinds of errors made by the students and the frequency distribution of errors

made by the students. She applied some theories in his undergraduate thesis; the

theory of error analysis by Brown (1994:206) and Ellis (1985: 296). The purpose

of her undergraduate thesis are to find out the students’ errors in translating

English noun phrases into Indonesian, to find out the kinds of errors made by the

students in translating English noun phrases into Indonesian, and to describe the

frequency distribution of errors made by the students.

The second related studies is from International Journal of English

Linguistics written by PhạmThị Kim Cúcfrom Vietnam titled An Analysis of

Translation Errors: A Case Study of Vietnamese EFL Students. The study aimed
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to analyze the translation errors committed by Vietnamese EFL students, and

identify the source of errors, then inform some implications of pedagogy to

improve the translation ability of the students. The researcher focus on the

analysis of the translation error in this study.

The third related studies is from a journal titled “The Effectiveness of

Error Analysis in Translation Classes. A Pilot Study” written by Presada and

Badea (2014). The aim of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of

erroranalysis within the translation classes attended by students in Philology at

Petroleum – Gas University of Ploiesti.

B. Review of related theories

1. Theory of Translation

Newmark (1981:7) says that translation is a craft consisting of the attempt

to replace a written message and /or statement in one language by the same

message and/or statement in another language. We can conclude that translation is

the process of substituting one language to another language.

2. Theory of Translation Strategies

The theory of Translation Strategies by Vinay and Darbelnet is used in this

study to help the researcher to classify the strategies applied in every signboards.

These are the strategies provide by Vinay and Darbelnet; Borrowing, Claque,

Literal Translation, Transpositions, Modulation, Equivalence, and Adaptation.

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3. Error Analysis

Analyzed the error on the signboard’s translation involved in the research,

applying the error manual of Dagneaux et al. (1996), which was altered in

accordance with the purpose of this study.

C. Theoretical Framework

The definitions of translation from Newmark, the theory of Translation

Strategies from Vinay and Darbelnet and the theory of error analysis from

Dagneaux et al are applied in this research as the main sources. The purposes of

this research to define what the theory of error analysis and the theory of strategies

are. The theory of error analysis by Dagneaux et al (1996) is applied to answer the

first problem formulation about kinds of translation error on signboards while the

theory of translation strategy from Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) is applied to

answer the second problem formulation about some translation strategies used on

the signboards.
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the researcher explains the methodology or how the

researchers collect the data and also how the data are analyzed using the theories

mentioned in the previous chapter. This chapter contains of the area of research,

object of the study, method of the study, and research procedure.

A. Area of Research

The area of this research is from text analysis and the translation especially

in the target text analysis. It focuses on the analysis of the target text itself and

examines the various aspects which might be the cause of translation error. The

analysis of translated texts involves the textual comparison of a translation with its

original (Williams and Chesterman, 2002:6). It deals with several translation into

the same language of different language, or even the same language. This area of

research also focuses on the aspects to do this research. This research used this

area of research to analyze the text translations applied in the public places’

signboards.

B. Object of the Study

The main object of this study was words, phrases and sentences in

translation error on public signboards. Public places provides signboards to give

information to the readers. Some words on the signboards are translated especially

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for foreign people but still we often find the error on the translation itself that

make no sense or hard to understand the meaning.

C. Method of the Study

The method used in this study was qualitative research method.

Qualitative research method is designated any research whose results are captured

in words, images, or nonnumeric symbol; for instance, research on dreams. This

research method is used because the researcher collect the data by capturing or

taking the images of the signboards to be analyzed.

The other method which was done in this research was library research. It

needed to obtain any information and theories to support the analysis in this study.

Library research was used to find out the analysis, theories and strategies of the

translation applied on this case of translation.

D. Research Procedure

1. Types of Data

The objective data used in this research were all kinds of signboards from

various public places which has its translation. The data that already collected

were 3 signboards. Each signboards has a bilingual text both English and

Indonesian.

2. Data Collection

The data were collected by taking a picture of the error translation from

any signboards and then analyzed the error on the signboard’s translation involved
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in the research by applying the error manual of Dagneaux et al. (1996), which was

altered in accordance with the purpose of this study. The types of errors that we

identified, together with their codes, are indicated in thetable below:

Table 2.0 Error code (adapted from Dagneaux et al, 1996)

Error code Type of error

GSO Grammar –subject omission
GCA Grammar – continuous aspect
GVT Grammar – verb tense
GST Grammar – sequence of tense
GIF Grammar – conditional clauses
WO Word order
GUN Grammar – uncountable nouns
GP Grammar – propositions
GNEG Grammar – double negation
GIA Grammar – indefinite articles
GDA Grammar – definite articles
WOM Word omissions
VLC Vocabulary – lexical confusion

After the type of error of the data are identified, the data are arranged in the table

below

Table 2.1Example of data that are identified the error

Code ST Code TT
Becareful
1/ST/VLC1 Hati-hatikepala 1/TT/VLC1
your head
Please, do not
2/ST/GST2 Dilarangmemberimakanhewan 2/TT/GST2 feeding the
animals

In which,

1 : Number of Data
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ST : Source Text
TT : Target Text
VLC/GST : Type of error

3. Population and Sample

The population for this study were 4 (will be added more later) data which

taken from bilingual signboards in various public area.

4. Data Analysis
There were two steps used in order to answer and analyze the problem

formulations showed in the first chapter. Frist, to find out the error translation of

words, phrases, or sentence in signboards on public places from source text into

target text. And then the data were sorted and arranged in the table according to

the error found in the signboards.

Second, to find out the strategies applied in the translating process, the

translation strategies proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet(1988) were used in this

study.

Table 2.2 Example of translation strategy applied

Type of Translation
No Code Data
Error Strategy
Vocabulary
Becareful
1 1/TT/VLC1 Lexical Equivalence
your head
Confusion
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In the column of type of error is filled with vocabulary lexical confusion as the

error found in the text. The translation strategy is addition related to the theory of

translation strategy by Vinay and Darbelnet (1988).

 TENTATIVE

ANALYSIS RESEARCH AND DISCUSSION

The researcher has analyzed 4 data of the error translation on the

signboards. Based on the analysis, the researcher found that Vocabulary-Lexical

Confusion is the most error occur in the public places signboards and followed by

Grammar-Sequence of tense. The result of quantitative analysis are shown in the

table below:

Table 3.0 Inventory of errors in public places signboards

Error Number of
No Type of Error Percentage
Code Error
1 Vocabulary – lexical confusion VLC 3 75%
2 Grammar – sequence of tense GST 1 25%
Total number of error 4 100%

Jullian (2000) observes that a second language lexicon could manifest varied

features related to reception and production which means that learners fail to

understand any word which falls even slightly outside ordinary language, and on

the production side, they produce very plain utterances which are unable to

convey different emotional loads, or to express shades of intensity or connotation.

Vocabulary-Lexical Confusion is such as an ambiguous or sometimes can not be

understood the meaning. The one of the causes of this error is due to the lack of

knowledge or vocabulary inventory of people of an English item. For example

from the data that the researcher collected below,

1. Becareful your head

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The word becarefulis not totally wrong but it is actually implied something

different. The reader may understand the meaning of becarefulwhich means to

aware or to pay attentions to the actions that someone do. Instead of that words,

the words Mind or Watch can be used in this sentence and it is more suitable with

the condition showed in the text. Sometimes people are limited with the

knowledge or the vocabulary of English item that has quite similar meaning but

actually used in different condition.These are the data arranged in the table based

on their error categorization:

Table 3.1 Data with error code

Code TT Error Type

1/TT/VLC1 Becareful your head Vocabulary Lexical Confusion
Walk slowly Vocabulary Lexical Confusion
2/TT/VLC2
Please foot is not hit
Not the area of lowering Vocabulary Lexical Confusion
3/TT/VLC3
customers
Please, do not feeding the Grammar Sequence Tense
1/TT/GST1
animals

The categorization aims to categorize each type or error and give them a

code based on the error code to help the researcher or the reader to find the data

easily. The data can not be identified its strategy due to the translation still in an

error translation. Therefore, the data need to be reduced the error to find the

translation strategy applied in the target text. These are the data that the error

already reduced and the strategies:

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Table 3.2Data with translation strategy applied

Type of Translation
No Code Data
Error Strategy
Vocabulary
1 1/TT/VLC1 Mind your head Lexical Equivalence
Confusion
Vocabulary
Walk slowly
2 2/TT/VLC2 Lexical Equivalence
Please no stamping
Confusion
Vocabulary
3 3/TT/VLC3 Do not stop here Lexical Equivalence
Confusion
Grammar-
Please, do not feed the Literal
4 1/TT/GVT1 sequence
animals Translation
tense

The data that already reduced the error show that most of the data were

used Literal Translation strategy. Vinay and Darbelnet (1996) said that literal

translation is the authors’ prescription for good translation: ‘literalness should

only be sacrificed because of structural and metalinguistic requirements and only

after checking that the meaning is fully preserved’. This is a kind of word-for-

word translation that being most common between languages of the same family

and culture. For example in the sentence “Walk slowly please foot is not hit”, it is

the word by word translation that does not have a corresponding expression with

the source text and it also gives a different meaning. Meanwhile transposition, this

is a change of one part of speech for another without changing the sense. This

translation strategy more focus on the message that the audience able to

understand but the message is the same between the source text and target text.
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In the last paragraph of this chapter, the researcher conclude the research

that the error of the translation is now become a common phenomenon. The cause

of the error could be the lack of knowledge of English item. There are lots of

types of error based on the theory of Dagneaux et al (1996) but just some of the

data are included as the error, such as vocabulary lexical confusion and grammar

sequence tense. There are two kinds of translation strategies identified from the

data, namely literal translation and equivalence strategy. Both of the strategies are

from the theory ofVinay and Darbelnet (1995).