CHAPTER 2
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter discusses theories about translation, its system, and the subtitles.
Along with these theories, this chapter also includes some linguistic theories such as:
ambiguity and collocation, and also some grammar theories that will support the
analysis of this research.
2.1. Translation
According to Larson (1998), translation is a transfer of meaning from the
source language into the receptor language (p.3). Larson added that in this transfer
process, the form from the first language is changed into the second language by way
of semantic structure. This means “the meaning is being transferred and must be held
constant.” Larson stated that only the form of the language changes, and not the
meaning.
Furthermore, Larson explained (1998, p.4) source language is the previous
form, from which the translation is made. Receptor language, on the other hand, is
the result form after the change. In addition, Nida & Taber (2003) stated that
translating has to reproduce the closest natural equivalent of the source language
message in the receptor language in terms of meaning and also style. (p.12)
Larson and Nida have the similar definition of translation and its process. To
conclude, translation is a process of transfering the meaning from one language to
another language with the closest natural equivalent. It is reproducing the message
into another language by making good grammatical and lexical adjustments (Nida &
Taber, 2003, p.12)
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Munday (2012) classified translation’s definition into three meanings: “1. the
general subject field or phenomenon; 2. the product- that is, the text that has been
translated; and 3. the process of producing the translation, otherwise known as
translating.” (p.8)
The best translation should not be sound like a translation. It should be
natural, like what Nida & Taber proposed (2003, p.12). Newmark (1988, p.47) also
stated on his book, A Textbook of Translation that a communicative translation,
which connects both meaning and
language from source language and target
(receptor) language in an acceptable form, is the best translation from others kind of
translation.
2.2. Translating System
Nida and Taber have pointed out that in good translation, three stages are
needed (2003, p.33). The three stages are:
1. Analysis
The message given in one language is analyzed in terms of grammatical
relationships and the words meanings and combination.
2. Transfer
The analyzed message is transferred from the source language into the
target language.
3. Restructuring
The transferred mesage is restructured. This phase is needed to make the
final message acceptable and natural in the receptor language.
The three steps can be illustrated in the following diagram.
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Figure 2.1. Three steps of a good translation
(Analysis)
X
(Restructuring)
(Transfer)
Y
(Source: Nida & Taber, 2003, p.33)
2.3. Larson’s theories of a good translation criteria
According to Larson (1998), accuracy, clarity and naturalness are well-known
criteria for an objective evaluation of a translation. It is important for a text to be
accurate, which means, a translation should convey every information from the
source language. Clarity in translation means the translated message should be
understandable, without causing ambiguity. A translation also should be natural in
the target language. Thus, it has to be adjusted with the target language’s
grammatical structure and idiomatic form. (p. 485)
Larson added, “in order to interpret a text correctly, it is necessary for the
translator to know certain things about communication situation” (p.459). Some
aspects of communication situation are: author, audience, social context, location,
time, occasion, and culture. (p. 460)
The communication situation is affected by author because the translator “must
have the author’s intent” (p.460). It can be said that the translator has to understand
what is the meaning that the author tried to deliver.
The translator has to be aware of for whom the text will be delivered as well.
This is the way in which audience affect a translation (p.465).
The social context is a relationship between the original author and his
audience. It affects the content and form of the text. (p.467)
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The location, time and occasion also determine how a text will be translated
and delivered in another language. (p.p. 468-469) These factors should be observed
by the translator before the translation process in order to produce a better
translation.
“Translation from one language to another cannot be done adequately without
knowledge of the two cultures as well as the two language structures” (Larson, 1989,
p.470) Larson defined how important a knowledge of the source language and
receptor language in translating a meaning. He furthermore explained that the
translator must translate a text with both cultures in mind to help the receptor
audience understand the content of the source text.
2.4. Subtitles
As the time being, with the development of movies and TV since 1920’s.
From text-translation, another branch which is called Audiovisual translation, is
developed. According to Munday (2012, p.268), Audiovisual translation is divided
into different types of activities. One of them is subtitling.
Subtitles or captions are transcriptions of the dialogues that are shown on the
screen. It usually consists of 2 lines with maximum 35 to 40 characters.Subtitles can
be distinguished into two big categories: intralingual and interlingual subtitles. And
based on technical process: open subtitle (being a part of the movie – hard sub) and
closed subtitle (optional, can be aired in different version – soft sub). (Munday, 2012,
p.269)
Cintas and Anderman (2009) concluded that there are some linguistics
elements that would be omitted by the subtitlers if there are some boundaries. These
elements are:
“repetitions, names in appellative constructions (such as title), false
start and ungrammatical constructions, internationally known words
(Yes, No, Ok), expression followed by gestures, exclamations (ah, oh,
wow), and padding words, such as: you know, well, of course, and so
on.” (p.p.27-28)
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Therefore, in Audiovisual Translation, Cintas and Anderman stated one
important point, which is, “they should convey the relevant information and
linguistic nuances contained in the original dialogue to satisfy second language
audience needs.” (p.241)
2.5. Ambiguity
Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2003, p.545) defined ambiguity as “the
property of having more than one linguistic meaning”. On the other words,
ambiguity can be stated as having multiple meaning. (p.121)
There are two types of ambiguity: lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity.
(Fromkin, et al., 2003)
Lexical ambiguity, according to Fromkin, et al., (2003, p. 554) is the situation
when a word has more than one linguistic meaning. Multiple meaning of a sentence
can also happened due to words that have multiple meanings.
Structural ambiguity, is the situation when “a sentence has two or more
different linguistic meaning even though none of the individual words is
ambiguous”. (Fromkin, et al., 2003, p.561)
Thus, it can be concluded that lexical ambiguity deals with the meanings of a
word. On the other hand, a structural ambiguity deals with the meanings of a
sentence when the individual words are not having more than one meaning.
2.6. Collocation
Oxford Collocation Dictionary (2002), defined collocation as a combination of
words in a language to produce speech and writing naturally. Usually the pair
consists of specific word pair. Some examples of collocation, as pointed by Oxford
Collocation Dictionary are: strong wind and heavy rain. These pairs are normal to be
used in English, but it is not normal to use strong rain and heavy wind.
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Furthermore, Fromkin, et al. (2003, p.577) defined that in a collocation, “the
presence of one word influences the occurrence of nearby words. On the other
words, the word heavy on the example heavy rain has different meaning with the
word heavy on heavy books. This is caused by the occurrences of different nearby
words: rain and book.
2.7. Grammar Theories
There are some grammar units that are covered in this sub-chapter. They are
noun, noun phrase, pronoun, determiner, and the usage of as if & as though.
2.7.1. Noun
Strumph and Douglas (2004, p.3) defined nouns as “names of people, places,
things and ideas”. These words give titles to so many things including people, places
or even ideas.
In Collins Cobuild English Grammar (Sinclair, 2006a, p.2) noun defines
“which people or things are being talked about”. Furthermore, it is explained in the
book that a nounis used to identify a person or a thing. (p.5)
Sinclair (2006, p.5) furthermore divided noun into six types. Those types could
be seen from the table below.
Table 2.1. Types of Noun
Classification
Count nouns
Uncount nouns
example
comments
A bird
Have plural
Bird
Need determiner
Happiness
No plural
Equipment
Usually no determiner
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Singular nouns
Plural nouns
The moon
No plural
A day
Need determiner
Clothes
No singular
Scissors
Collective nouns
Proper nouns
The public
Either singular or
The staff
Plural verb
Mary, London
Start with capital letter
The United Nations
(source: Collins Cobuild English Grammar, 2006, p.5)
2.7.2. Noun Phrase
Strumph and Douglas (2004) defined noun phrase as “words that is composed
of a noun and a number of optional modifiers and that lacks subject or predicate”.
(p.33)
Strumph and Douglas also gave some examples in their book, Golden’s
Concise English Grammar: Anything & Everything about Grammar . The examples
are:
1. My shopping cart hit that expensive Mercedes.
2. My poor kitty has a cold.
In both examples, that expensive Mercedes and My poor kitty are noun phrases.
The nouns are modified by some adjectives. The word Mercedes is modified by the
word expensive. The word kitty is modified by the adjective poor.
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2.7.3. Pronoun
Strumph and Douglas (2004) defined pronoun as a word that “takes the place
of noun in sentence”. (p.181) They stated that pronoun usually “has no identity in
and of itself”. The meaning of a pronoun comes from the context it is found. The
meaning of a pronoun comes from an antecedent. Antecedent, according to Strumph
and Douglas, is “the word for which the pronoun stands” (p.182).
There are several types of pronoun, according to Strumph and Douglas: (2004,
p.p.182 – 203)
1.
Personal Pronoun
This pronoun indicate a person or people or a thing specifically. The
example of this pronoun type are: I, you, she, he, it for singular or we,
you, and they for plural form.
2.
Possessive Pronoun
Possessive pronouns are pronouns that show possession. This pronoun
can act as an adjective. This pronoun type have some examples, such
as: my, mine, our, ours, your and yours.
3.
Reciprocal Pronoun
The action of each member, that the pronoun phrase stands for, affects
all the other members. The examples of this pronoun are: each other
and one another.
4.
Reflexive Pronoun
This pronoun is formed by adding –self and –selves. The pronoun refers
to a noun, adjective, adverb or pronoun in the same clause. Some
examples of reflexive pronoun are: myself, yourself, herself.
5.
Demonstrative Pronoun
Demonstrative pronouns point to the nouns that they are replacing.
Demonstrative pronoun examples are: this and that.
6.
Interrogative Pronoun
The interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions, they represent the
thing that the speaker does not know about. This pronoun consists of
some question words, such as who, which, what.
7.
Relative Pronoun
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Relative pronouns perform two functions. They take places of nouns as
normal pronoun would but they also connect those replaced nouns to
subordinate clauses. In other words, a relative pronoun connects the
main clause and relative clause. The examples of this are what, which,
and that.
8.
Indefinite Pronoun
Indefinite pronouns are pronouns which have no spesific antecedents.
An indefinite pronoun refers to one or more unspecified people or
things. Some examples of this pronoun are: all, another, each, any, and
both.
2.7.4. Determiner
Determiners, according to Sinclair (2006b, p.46) are used in front of noun
groups. Specific determiners are used when “people know exactly which things or
people they are talking about.”
Sinclair (2006a) also stated that the, as a determiner and a definite article, is
used when “you are referring to a specific person or thing, or to a specific group of
people or things, and you know that the person you are talking or writing to will
understand which person, thing, or group you are referring to”. (p. 43)
2.7.5. Tenses
In English there are three basic tenses, according to Azar (1989, p.2): present,
past, and future. Each has a simple form, a perfect form, a progressive form, and
each has a perfect progressive form. This subchapter covers only three tenses: simple
present tense, present progressive tense and present perfect.
Simple present tense, according to Azar (1989) expresses events or situations
that exist now. These events might “have existed in the past, and probably will exist
in the future.” (p.3)
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Azar stated present progressive tense as “an action which is in progress during
a particular time” (p.4). It is called progressive because it is happening at the
moment.
Present perfect tense, on the other hand, is a tense that “gives the idea that one
thing happens before another time or event” (p.5). Mostly, the event have been done
or finished before the time the sentence is spoken.
2.8. Previous Studies
There are some previous studies that also being references and sources of
theories in the making of this research. Most of them are in forms of journal article.
The first previous study, as explained in chapter one is the research done by
Berlin Rahayu (2004) entitled The Indonesian subtitles of the English utterances
spoken by the characters in American Beauty. Rahayu’s research separated the
mistakes in the movie into two different groups by using Newmark’s theories (1998):
misleading mistake and nuanced mistake. From those two categories, misleading
mistake mostly occurred in the movie. Though, the quality of the movie subtitles was
good.
The same thing happened with another previous study. “The Misleading
Translation Mistakes of Indonesian Subtitles in the Movie Love Actually” by Astri
Herawati Samsidi (2009) also used Newmark’s theories. The result of this research
was that there were two types of misleading mistakes occur, which were referential
and linguistics mistakes. The referential mistake is the one which mostly occurred
with 77.78% from the total data, while linguistic mistake is found only 22.22% from
the whole.
The next study is a journal written by Ying-Ting Chuang (2006), entitled
“Studying subtitle translation from a multi-modal approach”. It analyzed the subtitle
based on the semiotic approach by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2001), or to be exact, a
multi-modal approach. In this research, Chuang defined that the materiality could
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affect the way a spoken utterance was translated. Chuang also stated that in making
subtitles, a translator also integrated the meanings of a certain section of dialogues,
moving images and music.
Another study about subtitle came from a journal article, “The Quality of
Translation in Subtitling” (Bittner, 2011). The article suggests a more objective
criteria on translating a good subtitle. “The quality of a translation depends on an
intricate network of interrelations between the target text, the source text, their
respective text forms, the agents in the translation process (i.e. the client, the
translator, and the institutions or organisations behind them), and the cultures and
politics involved.” While focusing on the target text he will produce, a translator
should be aware of these things: source text, text form, client, culture, politics, and
the translator.