an annotated translation of the president's
TRANSCRIPT
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AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION OF
THE PRESIDENT’S MISTRESS
Laurina Suling, S.S, M.Min
Komp Billy & Moon Blok H2 No.1
Pondok Kelapa
Jakarta Timur 13450
ABSTRACT
This research is an annotated translation. The object of the study is an English
novel The President’s Mistress, written by Patrick Anderson. The purpose of this
research are (1) To attain factual information concerning the problems faced by the
researcher in translating the source text; (2) To give plausible solutions to the
difficulties. In conducting this annotated translation research, the researcher involved
the introspective and retrospective study. The result and analysis revealed that there
were 7 words, 6 phrases, 7 idioms and 5 sentences from the 25 aspects of language
analyzed that were difficult for the translator/researcher, those difficulties were at the
same time problems for the translator/researcher. The solutions of the problems were
attained by the annotation or analysis done relevant to the translation strategies and
translation theories.
Key words: annotation, introspective, retrospective, translation
INTRODUCTION
In this sub chapter, the researcher is describing the justification of the research,
relevant researches done, position of the research, and significance of the research.
In this research the researcher found out difficulties during the process of
translation from English into Indonesian faced by the researcher by annotating several
aspects, grammatical, lexical, cultural, as well as stylistic features that posed problems
for the researcher. By annotating the difficulties encountered during the translation
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means that the translator who was at the same time also the researcher conducted a
research called an annotated translation.
This area, namely annotated translation from one language into another, is
chosen by the researcher in order to widen her experience in translation which is in line
with her study. The translation from English into Indonesian was selected due to the
familiarity of the language, Indonesian, mostly known by the researcher as her native
language. The book The President’s Mistress was taken to be translated as its theme
shows one of the evidences how freedom of speech is truly applied in daily life in the
US, while in other countries freedom of speech is still questionable.
It was important to carry out this research because annotated translation applies
in practical sense the theories the researcher had studied in class, for example :
Theories of Translation, Linguistics, Bahasa Indonesia, Cross Culture Understanding
etc.
Previous researches related to this research are :
1. Venny Eka Meidasari (2008). Annotated Translation of the Speed of Trust.
2. Sudarya Permana (2007). Penerjemahan Beranotasi Buku Science in Medieval
Islam Karya Howard R. Turner.
3. James Mallinson (2007). The Khecarividya of Adhinatha: A Critical Edition and
Annotated Translation of an Early Text of Hathayoga.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Theories of Translation
Principles of Translation
According to Duff (1989) there are some general principles which are relevant to
all translation:
1. Meaning. The translation should reflect accurately the meaning of the original
text.Nothing should be arbitrarily added or removed, though occasionally part of the
meaning can be “transposed”. Ask yourself:
- is the meaning of the original text clear? If not, where does the uncertainty lie?
- are any words “loaded”, that is, are there any underlying implications? (“Correct
me if I’m wrong ... suggests “I know I’m right”! ).
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- is the dictionary meaning of a particular word the most suitable one?
- does anything in the translation sound unnatural or forced?
2. Form. The ordering of words and ideas in the translation should match the original as
closely as possible ... But differences in language structure often require changes in
the form and order of words. When in doubt, underline the original text the words on
which the main stress falls.
3. Register. Languages differ greatly in their levels of formality in a given context. To
resolve these differences, the translator must distinguish between formal or fixed
expressions and personal expressions, in which the writer or speaker sets the tone.
4. Source language influence. One of the most frequent criticism of translation is that ‘it
doesn’t sound natural.’ This is because the translator’s thoughts and choice of words
are too strongly moulded by the original text. A good way of shaking off the source
language (SL) influence is to set the text aside and translate a few sentences aloud,
from memory. This will suggest natural patterns of thought in the first language (L1),
which may not come to mind when the eye is fixed on the SL text.
5. Style and clarity. The translator should not change the style of the original. But if the
text is sloppily written, or full of tedious repetitions, the translator may, for the
reader’s sake, correct the defects.
6. Idiom. Idiomatic expressions are notoriously untranslatable. These include similes,
metaphors, proverbs and sayings (as good as gold), jargon, slang, colloquialisms,
(user friendly, yuppie, the Big Apple), and (in English) phrasal verbs. If the
expressions cannot be directly translated, try any of the following:
- retain the original word, in inverted commas.
- retain the original expression, with a literal explanation in brackets.
- use a close equivalent.
- use a non-idiomatic or plain prose.
Theories of Idiomatic Translation
1. Larson (1984) said, “Meaning – based translations make every effort to communicate
the meaning of the SL text in the natural forms of th RL. Such translations are called
idiomatic translation.”
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2. Larson also said.
A good translator will try to translate idiomatically. This is his goal. However,
translations are often a mixture of a literal transfer of the grammatical units along
with some idiomatic translation of the meaning of the text. It is not easy to
consistently translate idiomatically.
3. Again from Larson.
Idiomatic translations use the natural form of the receptor language, both in the
grammatical constructions and in the choice of lexical items. A truly idiomatic
translation does not sound like a translation. I sounds like it was written originally in
the receptor language .
The Theories of Overtranslation / Padding.
1. Newmark (1981) said.
A semantic translation tends to be more complex, more awkward, more detailed,
more concentrated, and pursues the thought-processes rather than the intention of the
transmitter. It tends to overtranslate, to be more specific than the original, to include
more meanings in its search for one nuance of meaning”.
2. Newmark (1988): “It is sometimes advisable to retreat from literal translation when
faced with SL general words for which there are no “satisfactory” one-to-one TL
equivalents even though one is over-translating”.
3. Duff’s (1981) Padding or overtranslation: “In good translation, length is determined
by the structure of the target language and not by the number of words in the source
language. Padding occurres when words are merely transfered without regard for the
potential of the target language”.
Theories of Shifts
Munday citing Catford (2000). Catford considers two kinds of shifts: (1) shift of
level and (2) shift of category:
1. A Level Shift (2000: 141-3) would be something which is expressed by grammar in
one language and lexis in another.
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2. Category shifts. These are subdivided into 4 kinds:
a. Structural shifts – these are the most common form of shift and involve mostly a
shift in grammatical structure.
b. Class shifts – these comprise shifts from one part of speech to another.
c. Unit shifts or rank shifts – these are shifts where the translation equivalent in the
TL is at a different rank to the SL. “Rank” here refers to the hierarchical linguistic
units of sentence, clause, group, word and morpheme.
d. Intra-system shifts- these are shifts that take place when the SL and TL possess
approximately corresponding system but where “the translation involves selection
of a non – corresponding term in the TL system”.
Theories of Naturalness
1. Nida and Taber (1982):” Translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language
the closest natural equivalent of the source languange message, first in terms of
meaning and secondly in terms of style”.
2. Munday (2000): “The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs
and cultural expectation and aims at complete naturalness of expression”.
3. Larson (1998): “To do effective translation one must discover the meaning of the
source language and use receptor language forms which express this meaning in a
natural way.”
4. Newmark (1981)
Normally, the translator should write within his own idiolect or his conception of the
SL text author’s, always provided the text appears to be written naturally. The
translator must not use a word or phrase that sounds intuitively unnatural or artificial
to him.
Theories of English and Indonesian
Cohesion and Kohesi
1. Jan Renkema (1993): “Cohesion is the connection which results when the
interpretation of a textual element is dependent on another element in the text.”
2. Howard Jackson (1990):
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Cohesion refers to the ways which the sentences of a text are grammaticlly and
lexically linked. A bond is formed between one sentence and another because the
interpretation of a sentence either depends on or is informed by some item in a
previous---usually the previous---sentence .
3. Hasan Alwi dalam Tata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia (2003) :” Kohesi merupakan
hubungan perkaitan antaraproposisi yang dinyatakan secara eksplisit oleh unsur-
unsur gramatikal dan semantik dalam kalimat-kalimat yang membentuk wacana.
Interjection and Interjeksi
1. Leech and Svartvik in: A communicative Grammar of English (1975). “Interjections
are words whose only function is to express emotion. Common English interjections
are: Oh (surprise), Ah (Satisfaction), Wow (Great Surprise), Ouch, Ow (pain).”
2. Hasan Alwi et al dalam Tata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia (2003).
Interjeksi atau kata seru adalah kata tugas yang mengungkapkan rasa hati pembicara.
Untuk memperkuat rasa hati seperti kagum, sedih, heran, dan jijik orang memakai
kata tertentu di samping kalimat yang mangandung makna pokok yang dimaksud.
Comparison and Tingkat komparatif
a. Frank, (Marcella, 1972): Modern English:
Descriptive adjective have special forms only for comparison”.
Comparative degree
Superlative degree
b. Jackson Howard, 1990, Grammar and Meaning:
Another important characteristic of most adjectives is that they are “gradable”. There
are grades or degrees of the quality or description referred to by the adjective, and we
can express this gradability grammatically. Adjectives can be inflected for
comparative and superlative degree.
c. Hasan Alwi dalam Tata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia (2003) menyatakan bahwa
tingkat komparatif mengacu ke kadar kualitas atau intensitas yang lebih atau yang
kurang. Pewatas yang dipakai ialah lebih ... dari (pada) ..., kurang ... dari (pada),
dan kalah ... dengan/dari (pada). Dewasa ini dalam struktur komparatif pemakaian
kata daripada bersaing dengan kata dari.
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Tingkat superlatif mengacu ke tingkat kualitas atau intensitas yang paling tinggi di
antara semua acuan adjective yang dibandingkan. Tingkat itu di dalam kalimat
dinyatakan dengan pemakaian afiks ter atau pewatas paling di muka adjective yang
bersangkutan.
Strategies of Translation
According to Williams and Chesterman (2002) in their book The Map: a Beginner’s
Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies, there are three strategies of translation.
1. Syntactic strategies, such as shifting the word-class, changing the phrase, clause or
sentence structure, adding or changing cohesion.
2. Semantic Strategic, such as using hyponyms or super-ordinates, altering the level of
abstraction, redistributing the information over more or fewer elements.
3. Pragmatic strategies, such as naturalizing or exoticizing, altering the level of
explicitness, adding or omitting information.
4. Emphasis on stylistic appropriateness. Emphasized are features such as:
a. The choice of oral mode.
b. The selection of appropriate genre and type of discourse.
c. Appropriate language varieties or styles.
DESIGN AND PROCEDURES OF THE RESEARCH
Design of the Research
This research belongs to the area of analysis of the original and source text
which covers a study on annotated translation. Introspective and retrospective research
are included in this annotated translation study. Introspective method is carried out
when “... the process of observing and reflecting on one’s thoughts, feelings, motives,
reasoning processes, and mental states with a view to determinig the ways in which
these processes and states determine our behaviour.” (Nunan, 1992, p. 115).
Introspective method is included in this annotated translation research, in which the
researcher herself translates the text and, at the same time, writes annotations on her
own translation process.
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Furthermore, Nunan (1992) stated that the retrospective research is conducted
when “... retrospective data are collected some time after the event under investigation
has taken place.” (p. 124). Retrospective research is a study investigating the mental
processes through the researcher’s original memory immediately after he/she has
translated.
Procedures of the Research
In conducting this research, the researcher uses the following procedures:
1. The source text is read thoroughly to give a full understanding of the content.
2. Independently the researcher translates the source text into Indonesian.
3. During the course of translating the text, the researcher regularly consults her advisors
to discuss problems she encounters referring to the task undertaken.
4. At the same time, she marks down the words, phrases, idioms, clauses, and sentences
that have become a problem in the process of translating the texts.
5. The researcher takes only the most significant ones due to the limited time allotted.
6. These problematic items are analyzed and the researcher then gives plausible reasons
as to the solving of these problems.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The source text amounted to 15.000 words and was translated into Indonesian as
the target text. During the process of translating the researcher collected the data which
amounted to eighty-nine (89) items.
The data to be annotated are categorized based on the grammatical items. There
are four categories namely words, phrases, idioms, and sentences. From the 89 items of
the data, the researcher has annotated 25 items which are the most difficult problems
that the researcher has encountered.
Based on the result of analysis, the data collected will be synthesised into
aspects of grammatical and stylistic features that posed problems to the translator /
researcher. This synthesis forms a brief summary of all the difficulties encountered by
the translator / researcher during the process of translation.
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Annotation and Analysis
Words
There are 7 words to be annotated, namely: … do-gooders …, Jesus, …
demanded. … pacing …, She …, Something!” and … moving …
As example we take the word … do-gooders …
Source Text Target Text
Plus the usual fringe of
do-gooders and weirdos.
Ditambah golongan pinggir yang terdiri dari orang-
orang yang selalu ingin membereskan sesuatu dan
orang-orang yang aneh.
In this sentence, the word ...do-gooders... was translated into .... orang-orang
yang selalu ingin membereskan sesuatu ... There is no equivalent for the word do-
gooders in Indonesian. The translator/researcher finds it difficult to translate it. Thus
she has to explain descriptively the actual meaning of do-gooders in the translated text.
That’s why to convey the message, one word ... do-gooders ... was translated into
several words, namely a clause, ... orang-orang yang selalu ingin membereskan
sesuatu ... So, there are too many words or over translation.
Translation Strategy :
1. Pragmatic strategy, adding information, namely yang selalu ingin membereskan
sesuatu.
2. Syntactic strategy :
Shift of rank, namely do-gooders, a word was translated into orang-orang yang
selalu ingin membereskan sesuatu, a clause.
Translation Theory :
1. Duff’s Principle of Translation :
“The translation should reflect accurately the meaning of the original text.” (1989)
e.g. …do-gooders … was translated into … orang-orang yang selalu ingin
membereskan sesuatu ….
2. Newmark’s Communicative and Semantic Translation
A semantic translation tends to be more complex, more awkward, more detailed,
more concentrated, and pursues the thought-processes rather than the intention of
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the transmitter. It tends to overtranslate, to be more specific than the original, to
include more meanings in its search for one nuance of meaning .(1986)
e.g. … do gooders … was translated into … orang-orang yang selalu ingin
membereskan sesuatu…
3. Catford as cited by Munday (2001):
“Unit shifts or rank shifts: These are shifts where the translation equivalent in the
TL is at a different rank to the SL. ‘Rank’ here refers to the hierarchical linguistic
units of sentence, clause, group, word and morpheme.”
e.g. … do-gooders … (a word) … was translated into … orang-orang yang selalu
ingin membereskan sesuatu … ( a clause)
Phrases
There are 6 phrases to be annotated, namely, … a combination of bartending and
dope dealing …, … curled up on the seat …, … said those words?, “It’s hard to say …, …
throwing my route, “If you say so”.
As example we take the phrase … was throwing my route …
Source Text Target Text
Once or twice when I was throwing
my route around dawn, there’d be
parties still going on here.
Sekali atau dua kali ketika saya sedang
bertugas melempar koran pagi-pagi
sekali, pesta masih berlangsung di sini.
In this sentence the phrase … was throwing my route … was translated into …
sedang bertugas melempar koran … The literal meaning of … was throwing my
route … in Indonesian is sedang melempar jalan saya … but if it was translated in that
way it would not make sense. So it was translated … ketika saya sedang bertugas
melempar koran … to make it sound more natural.
Translation Strategy :
Pragmatic strategy, naturalizing, namely from … was throwing my route …
into … sedang bertugas melempar koran.
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Translation Theory :
1. Munday’s Equivalence and equivalent effect.
“The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs and cultural
expectation and aims at complete naturalness of expression. (Munday 2000)
1. Larson Idiomatic Translation
A good translator will try to translate idiomatically. This is his goal. However,
translations are often a mixture of a literal transfer of the grammatical units along
with some idiomatic translation of the meaning of the text. It is not easy to
consistently translate idiomatically. (Larson, 1998)
Idioms
There are 7 idioms to be annotated, namely … a basket case …, “And cows might
fly”, … “I’ll take …, “Business as usual, … to make one final stab, … blew his stack…,
… to work it out”.
As example we take the idiom … “And cows might fly”.
Source Text Target Text
“And cows might fly.” Ed Murphy said. ”Tidak mungkin,” kata Ed Murphy.
In the sentence above “And cows might fly,” is an idiom and was translated
into “Tidak mungkin”…. There is no equivalent in Indonesian for And cows might fly.
Literally And cows might fly means Dan sapi dapat terbang, and that is an
impossibility that’s why it was translated into “Tidak mungkin” which means It’s
impossible. In Indonesian we don’t have such idiom with the word cows and the same
meaning.
Translation Strategy :
Emphasis on stylistic appropriateness: the selection of appropriate genre and type of
discourse.
Translation Theory :
1. Duff’s Principles of Translation:
“Idiomatic expressions are notoriously untranslatable. If the expressions cannot be
directly translated, use a non–idiomatic or plain prose translation”. (1989)
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e.g. The idiom “And cows might fly” … was translated into “Tidak mungkin.” , a
plain prose.
2. Larson’s Kinds of Translations:
“Meaning-based translations make every effort to communicate the meaning of the
source language text in the natural forms of the receptor language. Such translations
are called idiomatic translation. (Larson, 1998)
e.g. The idiom “And cows might fly” was translated ito “Tidak mungkin”.
Sentences
There are 5 sentences to be annotated, namely: “The hell I did, … he knew better,
On top of everything else, “Suppose they raped her?”, The boy was a suspect. As example
we take the sentence: The boy was a suspect.
Source Text Target Text
The boy was a suspect. Anak itu patut dicurigai.
This sentence, The boy was a suspect, was translated into Anak itu patut
dicurigai. The boy was a suspect, is an active sentence, translated into Anak itu patut
dicurigai, a passive sentence.
Translation Strategy :
Syntactic strategy, changing the sentence structure, namely translation of an active
sentence: The boy was a suspect into a passive sentence : Anak itu patut dicurigai.
Translation Theory :
1. Duff’s Principles of Translation:
“The ordering of words and ideas in the translation should match the original as
closely as possible. But differences in language structure often require changes in
the form and order of words.” (1989)
2. Catford’s as cited by Munday:
“Structural shifts are the most common form of shifts and involve mostly a shift in
grammatical structure.” (Munday, 2001)
e.g. The boy was a suspect, an active sentence, translated into Anak itu patut
dicurigai, a passive sentence.
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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
This research solves the problems that are detected when the researcher is
translating the English source text into Indonesian.
Based on this research the findings are: (1) All the collected data or the
difficulties of the research amount to 89 items. (2) Of these 89 items, 25 of them were
very difficult for the translator/researcher.
The theories that are used in solving the problems by the researcher besides
theories of translation, are also compared with the theories of the English language and
those of the Indonesian. The difficulty in the course of translating the text that has to be
overcome by using the relevant theories, forms the application of what the researcher
has studied in class.
Recommendation
Due to the weakness of this research, the researcher highly advises that other
researchers who are going to conduct annotated translation research render the entire
book so that more annotations may be produced. If more annotations are made it will be
clearer for the understanding of the readers who are of different field of study. The
researcher uses English as the source text and has translated it into Indonesian. For the
next prospective researcher, it is recommended that they also make a research of
annotated translation from Indonesian into English.
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