THE USE OF MODULATION AS A RESULT OF TRANSLATING ENGLISH

IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS INTO INDONESIAN IN MOBILE LEGEND: BANG-

BANG

a final project proposal

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement
for the degree of SarjanaPendidikan
in English
by:

Wahyu Junianto
2201415146

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY
2019
A. Background of the Study
Translation is a process of transferring meaning from source language to target language
(Newmark, 1984). A challenging effort for the translators is not only transferring the meaning or
message from the source language into target language, they also must be able to produce
readable text from source language into target language. The translator should also understand
some aspects which are related to the translation process, because the process of translation is
more than translating sentence after sentence, but the meaning must be accurate. Therefore, the
translator plays an important role in transferring the information.

Nowdays, there are a lot of translation products that are translated into various languages.
One of them is game. Translating a game is different from translating any written form such us
article, novel, magazine, considering the timing of the text itself appeared on the screen and
some problematic factors that will be faced by the translator while translating an English text
such as style, meaning, proverbs and idioms. Seidl and McMordie (1980) say that idioms are
used in formal and informal situations. Idiomatic expressions in formal situation can be found in
lectures, academic essays, and business report. Informal idiomatic expressions can be found in
literatures, movies, and music. Idiomatic expressions are often found in every translation,
because idiomatic expressions are used in a wide variety of contexts and situations. The
translators have to be careful in translating idiomatic expressions, because they need to use some
different strategies to translate those expressions.

Idioms, one of those problematic factors stated above are also found in Mobile Legend:
Bang-Bang game. A good translated game should be able to transfer the idiomatic expressions
equivalently to maintain the style and naturalness of the original text. Therefore, a translator
should determine what kind of translation strategy should be used to translate the idiomatic
expressions.
B. Reason for Choosing the Topic

From the elaboration above I have several reasons why I would like to analyze the idiomatic

translation of Mobile Legends: Bang-Bang. The reasons are:

(1) Translation is an important tool to understand other language.

(2) The game application of Mobile Legend: Bang-Bang is available and easy to get on the

Google Play store.

(3) Modulation in translation of Mobile Legend: Bang-Bang can be a beneficial reference for the

translator to make sure that it is conducted well.

(4) Mobile Legend: Bang-Bang as has been known to everyone is one of the top best sellers-

game. The game has been published in many countries which have been translated in many

languages, including Indonesian.

(5) I simply like the game.

C. Research Problems

Through this study, I wanted to find out the answer of the questions :

How do the modulations occur in translating the English idiomatic expression into Indonesian in
Mobile Legend: Bang-Bang?

The question then elaborated into several sub questions namely:

(1) How does abstract for concrete in meaning happen?

(2) How does cause-effect in meaning happen?
(3) How does part-whole in meaning happen?
(4) How does part-another part in meaning happen?
(5) How does change of symbol in meaning happen?
D. Objectives of the Study
Based on the problem stated, the purposes of the study are:

To find out the modulations occur in translating the English idiomatic expression into Indonesian
in Mobile Legend: Bang-Bang

E. Reviewed Literature

In this section, the researcher provided related theories for further discussion on the problem.
The theories are about idiomatic expressions and translation.

1. Idiomatic Expressions

Idiomatic expressions are daily expressions that are used by English speakers. As Cooper
(1999: 233) says, “An idiom is an expression whose meaning cannot always be readily derived
from the usual meaning of its constituent elements.” Idiomatic expressions are phrases which
have a different meaning with the words’ individual meaning (Poole, 1999). Lewis (2002) as
cited in Burger (2008) also adds then an idiom is a relatively fixed expression where the meaning
of the whole is not transparent from the meanings of the constituent words. Although there are
various definitions of idiomatic expressions, all of them share common features. The researcher
could say that idiomatic expressions are different from the actual literal meaning.

There are some examples of idiomatic expressions. The first one is the idiom ‘feeling
blue’ in a sentence ‘he is feeling blue’. ‘He is feeling blue’ does not have a meaning that the
person feels his color is blue. The literal meaning is the person feels sick. Another example was
taken from the game Mobile Legend “we’re on the bill”. The meaning is not literally ‘we are on
the bill’, the meaning is ‘we passed the audition; and our name is going to be displayed on the
list of performers’. The term “idiomatic” refers to “expressions which have different meaning
from the literal meaning of the words that making up the respective expressions (Lombardo,
Haaman, & Morley, 1999). According to Poole (1999) idiomatic expressions are phrases, which
have a different meaning with the words’ individual meaning. Jackson (1996) proposes three
characteristics of idioms, which are; the meaning of idiomatic expressions is its constituent word,
the meaning is idiomatic, and idioms are fix expressions. The words’ positions in idiomatic
expressions are also odd, illogical, and even grammatically incorrect (Seidl & McMordie, 1980).
In conclusion, the lines of the words in idiomatic expressions form meanings which have no
relation with the words themselves.

Other characteristics of idioms are from Fernando and Flavell as cited on Cedar (2008).
The first characteristic is that the meaning of idiom is not the compositional function of its
constituent. The second is idiom has literal counterparts but the expression should not be
interpreted literally. The third is idiom is institutionalized.

There are two categories based on the closeness in structuring the meaning. The first is
pure idioms and the second is semi idioms (Chaer, 1986). Another categorization came from
Fernando (1996); he categorizes idioms into three categories. The first and the second
categories are similar to Chaer’s categorization. However, for the third category, Fernando
proposes literal idioms. Pure idioms are idioms, in which the elements to construct idioms have
lost the lexical meaning, and become non-literal (Chaer, 1986). Fernando’s statement that “pure
idioms are non-literal” was agreed by Chaer’s definition of pure idioms. Semi idioms are idioms
in which the elements to construct idiom still have literal meaning in a part of the elements
constructing the idioms (Chaer, 1986). Fernando (1996) adds that it can be said to have one or
more literal constituents and one with non-literal sub sense. The third one is literal idioms.
Literal idioms allow little variation, thus it can be considered to be transparent (Fernando, 1996).

2. Translation

Translation is the process of transferring a message from one language to the target language
(Newmark, 1988). Newmark also states, that translation is transferring the essential meaning into
target language in the way of the translator intended (1984). Another theory is from Munday
(2006), he states that translation is “a process of changing the original written and verbal forms
from source language into the written and verbal forms in the target language.”
 Newmark (1988) proposes six methods of translation as shown in this diagram V of
Newmark:

SL emphasis TL emphasis

Literal translation Free translation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation Figure 2.1. The

Diagram V of
Semantic translation Communicative translation Newmark (1988)

Literal translation is converting the source language grammatical construction to the

nearest equivalent in the target language. For example, “where are you come from?” which is
translated into kamu berasal dari mana?.

Faithful translation reproduces the precise contextual meaning in the source language with
some limits in the grammatical structure in the target language. For example, “he got a back pain
and asked for a back rub” is translated into punggungnya pegal dan dia meminta untuk dipijat.

Semantic translation used for translating religious texts, legal texts, and literature texts. For
example, “no smoking” is translated into dilarang merokok. The free translation reproduces the
source language without the manner nor the form of the original source language. The free
translation is done freely. Idiomatic translation reproduces the original message from the source
language into the target language. For example, “there is no use for crying over the spilled milk”
is translated into nasi sudah menjadi bubur.

Communicative translation renders the original contextual meaning from the source
language into the acceptable form in the target language. For example, “keep off the grass” is
translated into dilarang menginjak rumput.
 Not all translators follow the methods Newmark (1988) proposed. The translators often
translate with their instincts, according to the correct meaning in the target language. Baker
(1992) gives four strategies to translate idiomatic expressions.

The first one is using an idiom of similar meaning and form. This strategy conveys roughly the

same meaning as the source language idiom. For example, “flesh and blood” is translated into

darah dan daging.

The second one is using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form. For example, “my old

man” is translated into ayahku.

The third one is translation by paraphrase. For example, “home sweet home” is translated into

rumahku istanaku.

The last one is translation by omission. An omission, sometimes, is required because there
is not any equivalent of the idiomatic expressions in target language, its meaning cannot be
easily paraphrased or for stylistic reasons.

F. Research Methodology
The researcher used document analysis method for the study. Document analysis method
is being used when someone wanted to analyze physical documents in form of written or
visual material in order to identify the specific data (Ary, Jacobs, Razavieh, and Sorensen,
2010). The documents in this study were in form of visual material, namely English text and
Indonesian text of Mobile Legend: Bang-Bang.

The researcher followed three steps of analyzing a document in this study. Creswell

(2007) presents these three steps as follows:

1. Preparing and Organizing

In the first step, the researcher downloaded the application of the Mobile Legend: Bang-
Bang game in Google Play Store. After that, the researcher analyze both english and
indonesian version of the game to list both the idiomatic expressions in English and
Indonesian.

2. Coding

The second step was to list the idiomatic expressions from the game. The researcher made

a list of idiomatic expressions in the game both in English and Indonesian version. The

researcher only chose those which consist of idiomatic expressions. The purpose of listing

was to choose the idiomatic expressions to be analyzed.

3. Representing the Data

In the final step, the researcher made a table from the list of idiomatic expressions in the

game. The table was used to help the researcher to analyze the translated idiomatic

expressions.
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