Paraphrase Strategy in Translating Indonesian Novel into English

Erlina Zulkifli Mahmud

doi:10.47191/ijsshr/v4-i1-17

Abstract

This research article discusses one of the translation strategies namely paraphrase. The method used is a mixed method of descriptive-comparative method with both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The data source is the translation of a novel, Tarian Bumi written in Indonesian language as the source language text and ‘Earth Dance’ in English as the target language text. The data used for this research are taken from the first part of the novel. The background of this research is the phenomenon showing that from all the sentences in the first part of the novel, more than 50% are being paraphrased. To identify what linguistic units are paraphrased, what kinds of paraphrase involved and which paraphrase is used more than others are the objectives of this research. The results show that the paraphrases involve all linguistic units ranging from word, phrase, clause, to sentence. The paraphrase can be used individually or in a combination consisting of two paraphrases and among the four kinds of paraphrase, the explicative paraphrase is used more than others either it is used individually or in combination.

Highlights

Due to the fact that the story in a novel mostly about the reflection of the real life which will reveal the cultural background of the people in the novel, there are various strategies or techniques of translation can be the options in translating a novel
When dealing with the details of the uniqueness of one culture, one style, and one kind of formality of a language, for instance, the work of a translation becomes more challenging than any other texts like journal articles, text books, and others. This means that a translator deals with the languages of both texts; the source language text and the target language text in translating a novel, and with other knowledge like culture, anthropology, translation studies, literature studies, motivation, appreciation, and others [1]
This includes all steps as follow: (1) Reading the source language text, Tarian Bumi, a novel; (2) Reading the target language text, Earth Dance, its translation in English; (3) Comparing the two texts to find out the similarities and the difference between the two texts regarding the occurrence of paraphrase; (4) identifying the kinds of paraphrases found; (5) identifying the linguistic units which are paraphrased; (6) Counting the quantity of paraphrase found; (7) Counting the quantity of the occurrence of certain paraphrase compared to others; the last step is to describe everything into a research article

Summary

Introduction

Due to the fact that the story in a novel mostly about the reflection of the real life which will reveal the cultural background of the people in the novel, there are various strategies or techniques of translation can be the options in translating a novel This will involve the genre, the writing style of an author, the formality of a language and other detail things. When dealing with the details of the uniqueness of one culture, one style, and one kind of formality of a language, for instance, the work of a translation becomes more challenging than any other texts like journal articles, text books, and others. It is from this first part the information shared in the following parts are based on

Methods

Results

Conclusion