In-Equivalent English–Indonesian Translation of Commissive Utterances in Some American Popular Films

Abstract

            This research attempts to investigate the in-equivalent English into Indonesian translation of commissive utterances in eight American Popular Films. The data used in this research are 34 English commissive utterances and its Indonesian in-equivalent subtitle collected from Easy A, Frozen, Iron Man 2, Black Swan, The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises, Crazy Stupid Love, and Pitch Perfect. In particular, it aims to analyze the in-equivalent English-Indonesian translation of commissive utterances found in the films and to propose the equivalent Indonesian translation.

The 12 data representatives chosen are classified into four types of speech acts: direct, indirect, literal, and non-literal. Each of the data is analyzed qualitatively based on the context, Grice’s maxims of cooperative principle: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner, and Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies: positive and negative. Then, the equivalent translation is proposed with concerning the style of the conversation too.

Based on the findings, the main problem that causes in-equivalent translation is because the cultural differences between country of source language and target language that affect the translation product that can produce pragmatically in-equivalent translation product.