STUDENTSAo PERCEPTION DIFFICULTIES IN INDONESIANENGLISH TRANSLATION: A SURVEY STUDY TO THE FIFTH
SEMESTER STUDENTS
Siti Muyassaroh Department of English Language and Literature.
Faculty of Language and Arts Universitas Negeri Semarang.
Semarang.
Indonesia Email: smuyassaroh99@students.
Abstract : This study aims to describe studentsAo perceived difficulties in doing IndonesianEnglish translation, factors that caused the perceived difficulties, and strategies to overcome the difficulties.
There were 90 students in the English Education Program at UNNES who completed the online questionnaire.
From the results of the questionnaire, 10 students who had the highest score of translation difficulties were chosen to be interviewed.
The findings revealed that most of the translation difficulties by Nord presented in the questionnaire were perceived by the students.
The most perceived difficulties by the students, respectively, were technical, pragmatic, translator-dependent, and text-specific difficulties.
While based on the interview with 10 respondents who got the highest score on the questionnaire, those difficulties were caused by some factors.
They were lack of knowledge, lack of methodology, lack of motivation, lack of references, and other technical factors.
With the same instrument, interview, there are also other findings, namely studentsAo strategies for overcoming their perceived difficulties.
There were five strategies applied by the students, including finding more references.
maximizing the use of translation tools.
using descriptive equivalent techniques.
using literal techniques.
asking friends.
Keywords : Translation.
Difficulties.
Strategies.
StudentsAo perception INTRODUCTION There are many languages in this world, and it is also possible that we may encounter a situation that requires us to speak with someone or read something in a different language.
Unfortunately, there are many people around us who do not master other languages except their mother tongue.
Hence, translation is an important and useful way to deal with this case.
Translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way the author intended the text (Ducar & Schocket.
In addition, it is stated that translation involves transferring the meaning of the source language into the receptor language (Jones, 2.
To achieve a good translation, such as accuracy, naturalness, and readability, students are required to possess some Translation competence is made up of 5 subcompetences and one component, which includes bilingual, extra-linguistic, transfer, instrumental, and strategic sub-competence, as well as psycho-physiological components (Carrasco Flores, 2.
In fact, not all students possess those translation competences.
Consequently, there are many difficulties faced by the students in the process of translating texts from Indonesian into English and vice versa.
The difficulties may be found because Indonesian and English have different It is claimed that translation difficulties are subjective and depend on the translator's personality and specific working environment (Liu.
Zheng & Zhou, 2.
Since the difficulties are subjective, they lead to different perceptions among the Student perception is a key aspect of student behavior, and it can be used to JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teachin.
Vol.
No.
1 June 2022 ISSN : 2548-7728 E.
ISSN : 2599-0373
build a teaching strategy that maximizes the learning outcomes (Siregar, 2.
There are some previous studies that focus on analyzing difficulties or problems faced by students in the translation process.
Rini .
Basuki .
Ayuningtyas et .
Arono and Nadrah .
Pasaribu et al.
Sallata Suimarlata .
Hasan et al.
Jabak et al.
Bahumaid .
Ali and Al- Rushaidi .
Adiel and Ahmed .
, and Kirana .
tried to describe studentsAo difficulties in the process of Some of them were translation from Indonesian into English or vice versa, while the rest were translation from Arabic into English and Thai into English.
Those studentsAo translated texts, including narrative text, idioms, phrases, and speech text.
Based on those studies, the greatest difficulties faced by the students were related to lexical, grammatical and structural issues.
While, other difficulties were cultural and stylistic in nature.
Pandie et al.
Napu and Hasan .
Faruquzzaman Akan et al.
Banikalef&Naser .
and Hastuti et al.
conducted research about translation problems encountered by college students in the translation process.
Most of the research analyzed the translated texts by the students to find the problems.
Almost all of the research found that lexical and grammatical errors were made by most of the students.
Other problems were syntactical, semantic, pragmatic, stylistic, phonological, and usage While AlAqad & Al-Saggaf .
investigated challenges in translating cultural terms from Malay into English.
The translation challenges based on the research was related to sound, lexicon, grammar and To overcome them, they used a strategy namely paraphrasing the terms by using related words.
Furthermore, there were also some previous studies that analyzed errors in the studentsAo translated text, such as Yuliasri .
Utami .
Wongranu .
Silalahi et al.
Retnowati .
, and Koman et al.
Based on the studies, most errors made by the students in translating texts into or from English were grammatical, lexical, or semantic errors.
Other previous studies also analyzed translation errors or mistakes, but not in the studentsAo translated texts.
They analyzed translation errors and mistakes in the translation machineAos results, such as Google Translate, literary works, and product labels.
Ismail and Hartono .
and Ambawani .
tried to define the mistakes made by Google Translate in the Indonesian-English translation.
While.
Hartono and Priyatmojo .
, who investigated translation errors of soft drink product labels from Indonesian into English, found that there were some errors such as mistranslation, addition, word choice, grammar, punctuation, and so on.
In addition, there was other research conducted by researchers in translation.
Hasan et al.
conducted a study that aimed to investigate the factors that affect studentsAo translation quality, especially in translating academic essay.
Farkhan .
examined the strategies used in translating Islamic terms in the research papers from Indonesian into English.
In 2020, the similar researcher (Farkhan , 2.
also conducted research that aimed to determine the syntactical deviation in the IndonesianEnglish translation of college students.
There was also other research that studentsAo translation classes.
Siregar .
carried out a study that aimed to explore the studentsAo perceptions of the current EFL learning in the classroom, as well as how they see translation as a beneficial tool in language acquisition.
Based on the studentsAo perception, the most important skills for EFL students in translation learning were speaking, writing, and grammar knowledge.
Yanti & Meka .
tried to describe studentsAo perspective on using Google Translate as a medium in a translation class.
JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teachin.
Vol.
No.
1 June 2022 ISSN : 2548-7728 E.
ISSN : 2599-0373
The finding showed that 96% of students frequently used Google Translate as a fast In conclusion, from the previous studies above, the study that discusses difficulties based on studentsAo perception has never been done before.
Thus, this study aims to reveal what perceived difficulties are encountered by English Department students in translating Indonesian text into English, what perceived factors influence the difficulties, and the strategies they use to overcome the difficulties.
Therefore, this translation study is considered as a processoriented study.
The process-oriented study intend to psycho-physiologically investigate what happens in the translatorAos mind in the process of comprehending messages in one language and reconstructing them in another language (Zhang.
Han & Gatzke-Kopp.
RESEARCH METHOD In conducting the research, the researcher used a qualitative method.
The method was chosen because this research aimed to describe the studentsAo insights about their translation difficulties.
This research was conducted at the English Department of Universitas Negeri Semarang, located in Sekaran.
GunungPati.
Semarang.
Central Java.
Since the learning activities were conducted online due to COVID-19, the research was also conducted online.
The population of this research was the 5th semester students of the English Education Program at UniversitasNegeri Semarang in the academic year of 2021/2022 .
who took the Indo-English Translation subject and voluntarily took part in this There were two techniques used to collect data in this research, namely the questionnaire and the interview.
The participants were required to fill out an online form provided by the researcher.
The survey of studentsAo perceptions was administered by Google Form and distributed by WhatsApp personal chat.
The questionnaire consisted of 46 close-ended questions about studentsAo experiences in translating texts from Indonesian into English based on their perception.
The questions were created based on theory that divided difficulties into four types (Van Deursen & Van Dijk, 2.
The form was produced by using the studentsAo native language, which is Indonesian, so that there was no misunderstanding between the researcher and the students.
In filling out the questionnaire, the students or respondents were required to choose one of the four scales based on their perception or experience of translating Indonesian texts into English.
After a month of data collection, there were 90 students who completed the online From the results of the questionnaire, 10 students who had the highest score of translation difficulties were chosen to be the sample.
Ten sample students were interviewed by the researcher related to the factors that caused difficulties and how they overcame them.
They were interviewed to gain more information about their difficulties, the factors that caused the difficulties, and strategies to overcome the difficulties in translating Indonesian texts into English.
In this research, the researcher used the flow chart analysis technique by Miles and Huberman .
s cited in Samsu.
The technique consists of three stages namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion and verification.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
In this part, the writers will present and discuss perceived difficulties in IndonesianEnglish translation encountered by the students of the English Education Program of UNNES, as well as their competence in translation, perceived factors that caused the difficulties, and their strategies to overcome the difficulties.
Students Difficulties in Translation This analysis of translation difficulties is based on Van Deursen and Van Dijk .
theory that divides difficulties into four types, namely translator-dependent, textspecific.
JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teachin.
Vol.
No.
1 June 2022 ISSN : 2548-7728 E.
ISSN : 2599-0373
difficulties (See appendix .
The students were considered to experience difficulty when they chose the "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" scale in the questionnaire.
Translator-dependent Difficulties These difficulties are related to the degree of the learnerAos competence and knowledge in translation.
There are 22 questions of this type of difficulty.
From the results of the questionnaire, the researcher concludes that the students have experienced difficulties due to their competence and knowledge.
The researcher will arrange the difficulties by the students, from the most experienced to the least The students agree that they have difficulty in finding equivalent words .
7%), difficulty in translating due to the lack of grammar knowledge .
2%),
difficulty in translating due to vocabulary knowledge .
0%), difficulty in translating into English because English is not their mother tongue .
0%), difficulty in determining which tenses to use in translating into English .
9%), difficulty in translating due to the lack of knowledge of translation techniques and methods .
0%), difficulty in translating a text into English .
4%), and difficulty in translating a text into English .
,4%).
difficulty in translating due to their emotions: anger .
2%) and worry .
9%).
Related translator-dependent difficulties, most of the students admitted that they perceived translation difficulties due to a lack of grammar and vocabulary This lack of knowledge also led them to difficulty in finding equivalent words and using appropriate tenses.
Moreover, some of the students who were interviewed by the researcher also stated that they have difficulties in doing Indonesian-English translation, especially difficulties related to translator-dependent.
Text-Specific Difficulties This kind of difficulty is related to the level of comprehensibility of the source text.
It contains the least number of questions among other difficulties, namely 3 questions.
From those three difficulties in this type, there is only one difficulty experienced by most students.
it is difficult to understand the text that is not appropriate for their educational background .
%).
For example, all the respondents were students in the English department, so when they were required to translate a text about computer science, most of them perceived difficulty since they didnAot understand what the text was about.
Pragmatic Difficulties Pragmatic difficulties are related to the nature of the translation task.
This type of difficulty includes 14 questions.
From the result, the writer can conclude that most of the students agree that they have this type of There were 11 questions out of 14 questions that got the highest percentages on the AoAgreeAo scale.
Here are the pragmatic difficulties experienced by the students: 63,3%.
difficulty translating cultural terms .
,3%).
difficulty translating idioms .
,2%).
difficulty translating specialized terms, such as medical terms .
,3%), economic terms .
,2%), legal terms .
,2%), and psychological terms .
,0%).
difficulty adjusting Indonesian culture to English culture in translating certain phrases .
,1%).
,7%).
,7%).
and words .
,3%).
finally, difficulty translating a long sentence .
,1%).
Pragmatic difficulties are related to the nature of the translation task, namely The majority of the students frequently struggled to adjust from Indonesian culture to English culture, particularly when translating phrases, idioms, cultural terms, and specialized This mostly happened because of the difference between Indonesian and English Technical Difficulties These difficulties are evaluated as they affect the working conditions of the students and contain 7 question items.
Almost all questions get the highest percentages on the JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teachin.
Vol.
No.
1 June 2022 ISSN : 2548-7728 E.
ISSN : 2599-0373
"Agree" scale.
It means that most students have these types of difficulties.
The technical difficulties that affect students in Ding Indo-English translation are: difficulty due to the lack of references, namely comparative text .
,6%), model text .
,0%), and parallel text .
,4%).
difficulty because the device has a bad signal .
,4%) and has a breakdown .
,2%).
difficulty due to the limited time .
,2%).
In this study, technical difficulties became the most perceived difficulties since 6 out of 7 question items got high percentages on the "agree" scale.
Most previous studies didnAot consider this kind of difficulty in translation.
they just highlighted difficulties related to linguistics.
In fact, technical difficulties are perceived by most of the students, such as a lack of references, bad signal, device breakdown, and limited time giving by the lecturers.
StudentsAo Competence in Translation This part analyses the questionnaire competences of the students which consists of five sub-competences with a series of psycho-physiological components.
In the previous part, the students were considered to experience difficulty when they chose the "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" scale in the While in this part, the students were considered competent when they chose the AoDisagreeAo or AoStrongly DisagreeAo scale in the questionnaire.
Below are the result.
Bilingual Sub-competence It is the main procedural knowledge needed to communicate in two languages that covers pragmatic, socio-linguistic, textual, grammatical, and lexical knowledge.
There are 16 questions in this subcompetence.
Based on the questionnaire, here are the competences students have:
able to translate phrases .
2%), clauses .
3%), and sentences .
4%).
the sentence structure of the SL .
3%).
understand the writerAos intention of the SL .
7%).
master writing rules in English .
6%).
adjust the structure of Indonesian into English .
2%).
be able to translate a word with several meanings .
4%).
be able to write certain terms or spellings .
8%).
Extra-linguistic Competence This competence covers bicultural knowledge .
bout source and target encyclopaedic knowledge .
bout the world in genera.
and subject knowledge .
bout the world in special There are 12 questions in this subcompetence.
In extra-linguistic competence, the students have many difficulties.
From the 12 items, only 1 item got the highest percentage in the AoDisagreeAo column, namely translating slang terms .
6%).
Moreover, the total percentages of the "Strongly Disagree" and "Disagree" columns are equal to the "Agree" and "Strongly Agree" columns.
Therefore, we can conclude that most of the students lack competence in extra-linguistic knowledge.
Knowledge about Translation Subcompetence It includes knowledge about translation function and knowledge related to professional translation practice.
This subcompetence consists of 2 question items, namely about knowledge in translation technique and method and frequency of practicing translation.
From the result of the questionnaire, the writer concludes that most of the students often do translation practice, even though their translation knowledge is still low.
Instrumental Sub-competence It is a sub-competence related to the use of documentation sources and technologies applied to translation, such as dictionaries, grammars, searchers, etc.
This subcompetence comprises of 6 questions.
From the result of the questionnaire, there are 3 item questions that got the highest percentage on the AoDisagreeAo column: the lack of dictionary .
9%).
translating the word that are not listed in the dictionary .
6%).
and the lack knowledge of how to use translation technologies .
6%).
JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teachin.
Vol.
No.
1 June 2022 ISSN : 2548-7728 E.
ISSN : 2599-0373
means that most of the students have competences on this field.
They are able to find many dictionaries, able to translate the word that are not listed in the dictionary, and able to understand how to use translation technologies.
Strategic Sub-competence This procedural knowledge controls the translation process and solves the problems This sub-competence consists of only three question items.
In fact, all the difficulties the researcher discussed in the previous part could be classified under this sub-competence.
However, the researcher decided to classify those three question items above because they are related to the technical process of translation.
From the result, the researcher can deduce that most of the students do not have the competence to solve technical difficulties in the process of translation.
Psycho-physiological Component It consists of: cognitive components such as memory, perception, attention, and attitudinal components such as intellectual curiosity, perseverance, critical spirit, confidence, motivation, etc.
psycho-motor abilities such as creativity, logical reasoning, analysis, synthesis, etc.
Therefore, this component is related to all five sub-competences above.
Observing these results, the researcher can draw the conclusion that most of the students have this psycho-physiological component.
There are 4 out of 7 questions that got the highest percentage on the "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" scale.
Most of the students are motivated to do translation .
0%).
most of the students think that they are able to do translation .
1%).
they are interested in translation studies .
6%).
and they are able to translate despite feeling sad .
6%).
Factors Caused StudentsAo Translation Difficulties The data for this research problem obtained from an interview in which ten people took part.
The findings from the interview reveal that the translation difficulties of the students were caused by some of the factors proposed by Gile (Gile.
The first factor was a lack of knowledge, especially grammatical and vocabulary mastery.
The second factor was a lack of methodology.
Most of the students perceived difficulties when it came to translating specific texts, such as economic or medical texts.
The last factor proposed by Gile is a lack of motivation.
Furthermore, the researcher discovered additional factors, including a lack of references .
hey only knew a few translation tool.
and a technical process factor .
sually a bad signa.
Strategies to Overcome the Translation Difficulties Students also have various strategies for overcoming their perceived difficulties.
"Strategies in this case mean some ways or procedures used by the translator to overcome the difficulties in the process of Based on the interview, the strategies used by students in overcoming their perceived difficulties were: finding more references.
maximizing the use of and asking friends.
DISCUSSION
The findings of the questionnaire revealed that all the categories of difficulties presented by Van Deursen and Van Dijk .
were perceived by most of the The greatest difficulties perceived by the students, respectively, are technical translator-dependent difficulties, and textspecific difficulties.
Previous studies mostly examined studentsAo errors to analyze the difficulties, so the result only identified linguistic Basuki .
conducted research to investigate students' difficulties in translating Indonesian text into English text by analyzing and correcting their The research found that the students still make many errors, especially lexical .
and grammatical errors.
In the end, he only focused on the studentsAo errors, not the difficulties.
JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teachin.
Vol.
No.
1 June 2022 ISSN : 2548-7728 E.
ISSN : 2599-0373
On the other hand, this research analyzes the translation difficulties based on studentsAo perceptions.
As Nord (Nord, 1.
subjective and depend on the translator's Therefore, difficulties are different among the students.
Those are also perceived by the students themselves, respectively, and cannot be identified only by the studentsAo errors.
Moreover, this research only identifies the perception of the students, not their translation work.
Nevertheless, one of the criteria respondents must meet is that they Indonesian-English Translation subject in the current semester.
Hence, the researcher considers that they must practice translation a lot currently and be able to answer the questionnaire Furthermore, perception is a key aspect of student behavior, and these research findings can be used to build a teaching strategy that maximizes the learning outcomes.
While related to the factors causing the difficulties perceived by the students, the findings from the interview reveal that the translation difficulties of the students were caused by some of the factors proposed by Gile .
The factors were lack of knowledge, lack of methodology, and lack of motivation.
Furthermore, the researcher discovered additional factors, including a lack of references and a technical process As the writer argued before, most of the previous studies only focused on the linguistic factor of translation difficulties as well as the translator-competence factor.
fact, there were also technical factors influencing studentsAo difficulties during the translation process.
The students' strategies for overcoming their difficulties were different from the previous research conducted by Farhan .
The respondents of his research use 4 out of 6 translation strategies.
The translation strategies were preservation, addition, globalization, and localization.
Among those strategies, there is only one strategy used by the respondents of the current research, namely addition.
Addition has a similar meaning with a descriptive equivalent, namely keeping the original word of SL and adding a brief explanation of the word in the TL.
Again, this difference in research findings was due to the difference in research instruments.
The analysis of FarkhanAos study was based on studentsAo translation work, while the analysis of the writerAos study was based on studentsAo perception.
Therefore, the current analysis by the writer covered a wider area than FarkhanAos.
CONCLUSION
From the findings and discussion above, it can be concluded that most of the translation difficulties presented in the questionnaire are perceived by the students.
The most perceived difficulties by the students, respectively, were technical translator-dependent difficulties, and textspecific difficulties.
Based on the interview with 10 respondents, those difficulties were caused by some factors.
They were lack of knowledge, lack of methodology, lack of motivation, lack of references, and other technical factors.
With the same instrument, interview, there are also other findings, namely studentsAo strategies for overcoming their perceived difficulties.
There were five strategies applied by the students, including finding more references, maximizing the use of translation tools, using descriptive techniques, and asking friends.
REFERENCES