TRANSLATION IDEOLOGY OF PROPER NAMES

IN ENGLISH-INDONESIAN TRANSLATION
OF J.R.R TOLKIENS THE HOBBIT

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Translation Final

Examination

by
Weni Ratnasari
0203514094

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

GRADUATE PROGRAM
SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY
2015
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Ideology has become increasingly central to work in translation studies.
The core reason is that ideology is often coded in the linguistic expression, so
translation that engages in a transfer from one language into another language is
selected as an effective tool of ideological operation. Ideology has functioned as
an invisible hand in translation practice. That is to say, ideology dictates
translation selection and translation strategies to some extent.
Novel is one of common media assessed by a researcher of translation.
Through a novel, the reader not only pleased by various storylines and themes, but
also the worth value and knowledge which make it attracts to read. Novel also
represents the condition where the story takes place including cultural, economic,
sosial and political situations. That is why sometimes the readers find strange and
uncommon names of personal, places, names of things and etc.
Translators may find difficulty in translating proper name which always
appear in a novel. As Jaleniauskiene & Cicelyte (2009:31) point out that the
translation of proper names is one of the most challanging activities every
translator faces. They also add that the translation of proper names is one of the
most difficult areas any translator usually faces while working on adult or
childrens literature (2009:31). Regarding the difficulties, the ideology of proper
names translation is interesting to discuss further.
Ideology of proper names translation and techniques applied by the
translator will have an impact on the product of translation in term of quality.
This study tries to reveal the kinds of proper names and technique applied by the
tranlsator as well as identify the ideology of proper names translation applied in
English-Indonesian translation of J.R.R Tolkiens The Hobbit. The Hobbit is one
of the best known and best loved fantasy books. First published by George Allen
&Unwin in 1937, The Hobbit has been translated into over 50 different languages
and sold well over 100 million copies. In addition, this study also examines the

quality of proper names translation by assessing its accuracy, readability and

acceptability.
1.2

Statement of the Problems

The problems of this study are formulated as follows:
1. What kinds of proper names are found in English English-Indonesian
translation of J.R.R Tolkiens The Hobbit?
2. What translation techniques are used by translator in translating proper names
of J.R.R Tolkiens The Hobbit into Indonesian?
3. What the translation ideology is applied in translating proper names of J.R.R
Tolkiens The Hobbit into Indonesian?
4. How is the quality of proper names translation of J.R.R Tolkiens The Hobbit ?
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Ideology in Translation
Ideology in translation is ideas, viewpoints, myth, truth and principles
believed by community groups. Ideology can also be interpreted as a cultural
value that is agreed and owned by the community and serves as the foundation of
thinking and acting. In the field of translation, ideology is defined as a principle or
belief of "right or wrong" (Hoed, 2003) for a translation. This translation ideology
has two poles: foregnisation and domestication.
According to Venuti (1998: 240) foreignisation and domestication as
overall translation strategies take place at two levels: the macro-level with the
selection of foreign texts to be translated and the micro-level, i.e. the actual
methods used to translate them. For Venuti (1998), domestication is a natural
tendency of translation and consists in translating in a fluent, idiomatic, and
transparent way which tends to erase the foreignness of the source text and to
conform to the needs and values of the domestic/target culture. Foreignisation, on
the other hand, takes the target reader towards the source text with a
defamiliarising effect, and consists in preserving linguistic and cultural
differences by deviating from prevailing domestic values (Venuti, 1998: 240).
Thus, it can be concluded that ideology in translation refers to a
perspective, belief and/or principle to which a source language text is oriented,

whether it is oriented to source language or target language culture. In this study,

the term ideology refers to a body of ideas that shows the beliefs of a translator in
tranlsating a source language into target language.
2.2 Proper Names
Kiefer (2000: 140) affirms that Semantically, proper names are labels,
which are used to identify entities. The meaning of the proper name is the entity
which the name refers to (as cited in rtekezs, 2001). It means that proper name
represents what it looks like of person, place or thing whose belong to, for
instance, the name of person which represents gender. Nord states In fictional
texts, like novels or childrens books, proper names do not refer to real, existing
people in a factual way (2003: 3). Additionally, Bertills also states all names (of
characters) appearing in fiction can be labeled fictive names (2003: 10). For
example the personal name in the novel The Hobbit: There and Back Again, Bilbo
is related to real person indirectly. However, Bilbo is a fiction character inside the
this novel. A fiction character means that the people only exist in the book and the
character drawn by the author.
There are many experts who have classified proper names into several.
Newmark (1988) classifies proper names into three categories, they are personal
names, names of objects, and geographical terms. rtekezs (2001) classifies
proper names into several groups, they are names of persons, geographical names,
names of organizations and institutions, names of titles, brand names, names of
nationalities, names of events, names of temporal unit and festival, names of
abstract ideas, names of animals, names of species and other names.

2.3 Technique for Translating Proper Names

Proper name brings the cultural value on which the setting is set. However,
Puurtinen (in Fernandez 2006, p. 44-48) argues that names have to be transferred
in equivalence word in target language, because some of names represent the

description of the characters in the story, especially in fiction story. If there are
many strange names in the story, it can be barriers for the young readers.
In translating proper names, the translator is demanded to make the
translated text natural for the readers. The reason is that proper names have
singular references. They refer to particular person, place, or thing. They can serve
as culture marker indicating from which culture the names come. If the
translator just leave the names as they are without any necessary adjustment of the
TL culture, it is possible that the translation will sound strange and unacceptable.
On the other hand, when the translator changes the names, he or she does not
transfer the message of SL because of omitting the culture brought by the writer.
Hervey, et al (1995b:21-24) gives several alternatives in translating names
that can be used by the translator, they are exoticism, cultural borrowing, calque,
communicative translation, and cultural transplantation. Fernandes (2006)
proposed ten procedures in translating proper names. They are rendition, copy,
transcription,

substitution,

recreation,

deletion,

addition,

transposition,

phonological replacement, and conventionality.

2.4 Translation Quality Assessment
Translation quality assessment focuss on three factors; they are accuracy,
acceptability, and readability. It will be further discussed as follows:
1. Accuracy
The term accuracy relates to the equivalent message of both SL and TL. A
text will be recognized as a qualified one if there is equivalence of the content or
message between SL and TL. In addition, Baker points out (1992: 57) that
accuracy is an important aim of translation, but it is also important to bear in mind
that the target reader plays an important role in keeping the communication
channels open. By reading accurate translation, target readers will fully
understand the message of SL and can maintain a good communication between
SL and TL.
2. Acceptability

Acceptability deals with the culture of TL. In term of culture, acceptability

is determined by the norms, conventions, and expectations prevailing in the
language and style of the TL (Puurtinen in Hornby et al, 1994: 85). A translation
will be acceptable in TL if the translator can express the meaning in a natural way
as if it is an original text and no grammatical mistakes in the TL.
3. Readability
A good translation must be readable and understandable by the target
readers. Richards et al states that readability concerns on how easily written
materials can be read and understood (in Nababan, 1999: .62). It means, readable
translation will not make the target reader get confused and there are no
ambiguous words.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study is descriptive qualitative research. In this study, the researcher
only collects, classifies, and analyses the data and then draws conclusion, without
making a generalization to solve the problem of the research. The object of study
is the translation ideology of proper names in English-Indonesian of J.R.R
Tolkiens The Hobbit. Translation unit which will be assessed in this study is
limited to the proper names found in in English-Indonesian J.R.R Tolkiens The
Hobbit. In collecting data, the researcher will apply content analysis,
questionnaire, and in-depth interviews. In this study, the data collected are
analyzed in the following steps:
1. Identify the kinds of proper names, translation techniques applied in translating

proper names in J.R.R Tolkiens The Hobbit.

2. After translation techniques have been classified, the next step is to see the
tendency of the implementation of the translation techniques in order to
establish the ideology held by the translator.
3. Dealing with translation quality, the researcher will classify accuracy,
acceptability and readability after the questionnaire has been distributed and indepth interview has been done.

4. Then, the researcher will count the percentage of each classification by

calculatingthe total number of it.

5. The last step is to draw a conclusion from the results of the analysis.
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Kualitas

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