CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of the Study

We use language in many different ways and for many different purposes, such as
expressing our inner thoughts and emotions, learning to communicate with others, and
maintaining the culture which refers to the customs and the ways of life of a group of people .
The variety of languages with different cultures can make translation to be a very effective
factor in communicating and exchanging cultures and knowledge. Therefore, language and
culture are closely related in the process of translation. English and Indonesian languages
have different cultures and translation is a bridge for cross-cultural communication.
Translation as an activity, not only involves the source language and the target language, but
also involves the source culture and target. The cultural exchanges have been widening,
knowledge has been increasingly expanding and international communication has been
intensifying, the phenomenon of translation has become fundamental.
The first linguist who was concerned about translation namely Eugene Nida (19591958:12-23) . He placed the beginning of translation with the production of the Septuagint
which seems to have been the first translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. It
was carried out by seventy-two translators, and it provides us with the basic categories of the
history of this practice. This American scholar states that translation itself was a science, a
theory that was subsequently rejected by others in the second half of century. Following
Douglas Robinsons definition (1997,2002), the history of translation goes back to the ancient
times with the distinction of word for word (literal translation) and sense for sense (free
translation) employed for the first time by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.E) and
translated by H.M.Hubbell. Nida (1969,1982 :12) defines the concept in a more systematic
way : Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural

equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of
style. But this relatively simple statement requires careful evaluation of several seemingly
contradictory elements.
Horby (1988:81) defines that translation is a complex act of communication in which the
SL-author, the reader as translator and translator as TL-author and the TL-reader interact. The
translator starts from a present frame (the text and its linguistic components) ; this was
produced by an author who drew from his own repertoire of partly prototypical scenes. Based
on the frame of the text, the translator-reader builds up his own scenes depending on his own
level of experience and his internalized knowledge of the material concerned.
Zabalbeascoa (1996:175) defines the term translation as a communication act and a
human and social activity; since they are not perfect, translation is also considered imperfect.
And finally, Carbonells (2006:48) defines that translation is a form of communication
and a means of achieving things. However, in translation the original communicative act is
relocated to a different setting, where different actors perform for different purposes : there is
a mediation mechanism which qualifies the whole act at different levels.
From the beginning of the twentieth century onwards, to learn a foreign language in
some countries consisted in doing it through what was called the grammar-translation
method, whose origins can be found in the way Latin and Greek used to be approached. This
way of studying a language was later applied to modern languages which concentrated on
learning the grammatical rules of the target language and then carrying out a literal
translation (Munday,2008:7).
In the second half of the twentieth century, a new generation of scholars, Roman
Jakobson, A.V.Fedorov, J.P Vinay and J. Darbelnet and Georges Mounin worked on the same
target : to establish a more systematic analysis of translation. They favoured a closer
linguistic approach and a new discipline arose : the theory of translation or translation
studies. The term translation refers to two fields : the product- the text that has been
translated, and the process- the act of producing translation.

During the 1980s, Newmark (1988) highlighted the fact that there was not much written
about the theory of translation. The British scholar stresses that Nida was the first linguist to
be concerned about translation itself and he also highlights his rejection of the proposition
that translation was a science and insisted on seeing this proposition as a theory of
communication (Newmark,1988: vii).
Newmark (1988) points out that in order to be able to translate a text, one has to
understand it and analyse it first. For this reason, translation theories should have a criteria to
be followed by the translator. The intention of a text- the translator has to forget about his/her
own views about a subject and translate it following the authors intention and never alter it.

In this study, the researcher is really interested in conducting a study of analysis the
non equivalence translated text in Discovery North Sumatera Guidebook. Besides, she is
really eager to learn more about translation studies for her knowledge in the future.
In this study, the researcher has chosen one of the mediation tool of tourism, namely
Discovery North Sumatera Guidebook. The reason for choosing this guidebook because it
contains of the information about North Sumatera and it is necessary to be promoted in the
proper ways.
North Sumatera has got many well-known tourism places which can invite the
International tourists. Moreover, we are going to face the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA)
next year, 2015 and as the primary goals of AFTA are to increase ASEANs competitive
edge as a production base in the world market through the elimination, within ASEAN and
also to attract more foreign direct investment to ASEAN which has six members, namely
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Therefore, the
government needs to prepare .to attract the investors attention.

Related to this special event, the qualified translators are needed to provide the right
information about the history, culture, rules and the potential resources of North Sumatera
by doing understandable and communicative language to avoid misunderstanding or
misinterpretation.
The analysis of the translated texts will apply the theory of Mona Baker who seems
to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be
defined. Baker (1992) states that errors in translation mostly are resulted from non
equivalence between the source language (SL) and the target language (TL).
She acknowledges the importance of individual words during the translation process,
since the translator looks firstly at the words as single units in order to find their equivalent
in the target language. The comparison of the two languages will become the data of this
study to be analyzed based on the theory of Mona Baker. The examples of the translated
texts which are non equivalence as in the following :
In Bahasa Indonesia, it is written :
1. Propinsi Sumatera Utara berada di bagian Barat Indonesia, terletak pada 1 - 4 LU dan
98 - 100 BT, sangat strategis dan berada pada jalur pelayaran Internasional Selat
Malaka yang dekat dengan Singapura, Malaysia dan Thailand.
It is translated into English as the target language as in the following :
North Sumatera is located at 1 - 4 North Latitude and 98 - 100 East Longitude,
strategically stretched along the International Shipping Line of the
Malacca Strait which is close to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
The translator has omitted some words such as propinsi and
bagian Barat Indonesia in target language and the phrase of

sangat

strategis is translated into English strategically. There is a non

equivalence from the source language into target

language that can

make a misinterpretation about the content from non native readers.

Another example of the non equivalent meaning is written as in the
following :
2. Propinsi Sumatera Utara terdiri dari 25 kabupaten dan 8 kota yang terdiri dari 419
kecamatan dan secara keseluruhan Provinsi Sumatera Utara mempunyai 5.779
desa/kelurahan. Luas Provinsi Sumatera Utara adalah 71.680 km2 atau 3.7% dari luas
wilayah Indonesia, merupakan provinsi ke 9 terluas di Indonesia
It is translated into English as target language :
Administratively, North Sumatera is composed of 25 regencies and 8 municipalities ; 419
sub districts ; 5779 villages and wards. As a whole, the province covers some area of 71,680
km2 or 3.7% of the total area of Indonesia and as the 9th largest province in the country
The translator has given an additional word administratively in the target text
whereas in the source language the word cant be found. The words of as a whole is
misplaced as it is written in the source language secara keseluruhan provinsi Sumatera
Utara mempunyai 5.779 desa/kelurahan but he placed as a whole for the next sentence
luas provinsi Sumatera Utara.
Baker (1992) says, Non equivalence at word level means that the target language
has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text.
1.2 Study Problems
This study aims at stressing the significance of equivalence in translation process. The
problems of the study are formulated as in the following :
1.What types of non equivalence at word level are found in the Discovery of North
Sumatera Guidebook ?

2. What types of non equivalence at word level is dominantly used in the Discovery of
North Sumatera Guidebook ?
3. In what context does the dominant non- equivalence at word level occur in the Discovery
of North Sumatera Guidebook?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
Related to the study problems above, the objectives of the study are:
1.To find out the types of non equivalence at word level in the Discovery of North Sumatera
Guidebook.
2. To find out the types of non equivalence at word level are dominant in the Discovery of
North Sumatera Guidebook.
3.To explain the types of non equivalence at word level which occur dominantly in the
Discovery of North Sumatera Guidebook.
1.4 The Scope of the Study
Baker (1992) classifies the types of equivalence in five types namely equivalence at
word level, equivalence above word level, grammatical equivalence, textual equivalence and
pragmatic equivalence. In this study, the studyer will confine the discussion only to the types
of non equivalence at word level based on Bakers theory and the data will be taken from
the Discovery of North Sumatera Guidebook.
1.5 The Significance of the Study
The findings of this study are expected to be useful and relevant for theoretical and
practical aspects.
Theoretically, the findings are expected to enrich the theories that relate to translation
and as a guideline to overcome the non equivalence problems in translation.
Practically, the study findings can be helpful as a reference for those who are
interested in conducting a further study especially for those who want to be professional
translators.
It is finally expected that the findings of this study will be beneficial for the tourism
department to pay attention in providing the right information through the mediation tools

such as brochures, leaflets, guidebooks, etc especially for tourists so that the
misunderstanding or misinterpretation will not occur.