MEANING SHIFT ANALYSIS OF INDONESIAN TRANSLATED NOUN

PHRASES IN THE GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZS NOVEL

MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES
TRANSLATED BY DIAN VITA ELLYATI

Puguh Dwi Siswoyo

puguhdwis17@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Siswoyo, Puguh Dwi. 2017. Meaning Shift Analysis of Indonesian Translated

Noun Phrases in the Gabriel Garcia Marquezs Memories of My Melancholy
Whores Translated by Dian Vita Ellyati. Final Project, English Education
Department, Faculty of Language and Arts Education, University of PGRI
Semarang. Advisor I: Dyah Nugrahani, S.Pd., M.Hum. Advisor II: Drs. Sutoyo,
M.Ed.
Keywords: meaning shift, noun phrase, translation procedure

The study attempts to find and analyze the meaning shift of Indonesian
translated noun phrase both in pre-modifier and post-modifier construction of
noun phrases found in Gabriel Garcia Marquezs novel Memories of My
Melancholy Whores.
For the purpose of the analysis proposed in this study, a theoretical framework
of meaning shift drawing on translation procedure theory was adopted. Noun
phrase was selected for the purpose as the object of the meaning shift analysis.
Then a theory of meaning shift analysis was chosen and implemented using
structural analytical approach. The meaning shift analysis followed translation
procedures model suggested by Vinay and Dalbernet (2004:149).
This study used a qualitative approach. There are two kinds of data in this
research. The first data are all the noun phrases found in the novel and their
translation, and the second data are the syntactical analysis of the noun phrases.
To collect the data, total sampling technique was applied.
The researcher found there are 11 meaning shifts found in the modifiers of the
noun phrase. Those 11 meaning shifts comprise 5 meaning shifts occur in the pre-
modifier of the noun phrase and 7 meaning shifts occur in the post-modifier of
noun phrase, there are also 9 meaning shifts occur in the head of the noun phrases,
and last but not least, there are 6 meaning shifts occur in the whole constituents of
a phrase. Two factors responsible for the meaning shifts are the translator
competency and the difference of syntactical structure of source language and
target language noun phrase construction.
On the evidence of the findings mentioned above, it would be important and
crucial to understand the syntactical structure of source language and target
language as a way to avoid the meaning shift occurs in the translation. Three
recommendations are proposed following the conclusions drawan from the
findings of the study. Significant among them are the need to consider the
translation procedure involved in the translation process and the need of source
language and target language mastery of syntactical structure of noun phrase.

INTRODUCTION
The subject of this research is the meaning shift in the Indonesian translation of
English noun phrases. This research intends to find out the meaning shifts in the
Indonesian translation of English noun phrases, both pre-modifiers and post-
modifiers noun phrase construction. This is because in the attempt to attain
equivalence, there occurs what Catford defines as shifts' or departures from
formal correspondence in the process of going from the source language (SL) to
the target language (TL) (Venuti and Baker, 2004: 141). In other words, the
changes that the translation undergoes in the attempt to attain equivalence with the
SL text can be called shifts. The core of equivalence itself is in the form and
meaning. In equivalence and shift the meaning is more important than the form.
Besides that, equivalence focuses to cases where languages describe the same
situation by different structure. Whereas, when the form in source language, has a
new form or has a different form from the target language, it is called shifts.
Therefore, the writer would like to compare the translation of English noun
phrases with Indonesian noun phrases in order to find the meaning shifts.
The reason why this topic is interesting to be discussed because in reading a
book, novel or other sources of data, we can find noun phrases, but many
translator are confused on differentiating the word order of the Indonesian and the
English noun phrases. This is because Indonesian and English position of head
word is not the same; meaning that in Indonesian noun phrases, the head word is
head-initial position, while in English the head word is head-final position. As the
matter of fact, the core of the phrase is head word, which is used to determine the
meaning in the word class. If a translator mistranslated the noun phrases, then the
result of translation will be unnatural and the result of translation will be difficult
to understand.
This topic urges the researcher to carry out the research because it is difficult
for Indonesian translator to translate the English noun phrase into Indonesian
since the position of head word in noun phrase construction of both languages are
different. Therefore, they often make mistakes because they translate word by
word or literal translation. In translation, they use English word order if they
translate in Indonesian. By means of that reason, this research may help
translators or anyone interested in translation to understand the noun phrases in a
sentence by identifying word order and its marker in noun phrases.
This study is a descriptive qualitative study. It means that all the data in this
research are in the form of sentences and words, not in the form of numbers. In
collecting data, the following procedures are taken; first, the researcher identifies
the SL data which consists of English noun phrases (SL) related to their markers
then underline them. Second, the researcher identifies the TL data which consists
of Indonesian translated noun phrases from English (SL) related to their markers
then underline them. Third, the data of the source language (SL) and the target
language (TL) put together side by side in a list then give the number of page and
line to each data. Lastly, the researcher analyze the data of each noun phrase
identified the occurrence of meaning shifts using the syntactical structure analysis.

REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE

1. Translation
Translation, according to Nida and Taber (1982: 12), is consisting of
reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of source
language message, first in term of meaning and secondly in terms of style. In a
similar vein Larson (1998: 3) highlights the importance of meaning in
translation, as he said that translation is a process to transfer meaning of source
language (SL) into meaning in a target language (TL). Larson further broads
the definition by saying that translation involves studying lexicon, grammatical
structure, communication situation, and cultural context of a SL text, and it is
including analyzing the meaning of those aspects, and then later reconstructing
the meaning in appropriate form in TL.
 Based on the definition above, it is clear that the duty of a translator is not
only to transfer a message but also to reconstruct the meaning in TL.
Furthermore, the core of translation lies on form and meaning.

According to Vinay and Darbelnet (as cited in Hatim and Munday, 2004,
148), there are two methods of translation procedures which can be used to
investigate translation shifts. The following extract presents a summary of heir
seven procedures, divided into two methods: (1) direct or literal translation and
blique translation. To summarize, a translator can choose from two methods of
translating, namely direct, or literal, translation and oblique translation.

According to Vinay and Dalbernet (as cited in Hatim and Munday, 2004:
149) direct or literal translation itself is divided into three procedures, they are
as follows:

a. Borrowing
Borrowing is usually used in terms of new technical or unknown
concepts, to overcome a gap. Borrowing is mostly applied to introduce the
flavor of the source language color in a matter of style, but at the same time
it may have a significant effects on the message contained.
b. Calque
Calque is a special kind of borrowing whereby a language borrows an
expression from another, but the translator translates literally each of its
elements. The result is neither a lexical calque i.e. one of which respects the
syntactic structure of the target language while introducing a new mode of
expression.
c. Literal translation
Literal translation is a direct transfer of the source text into grammatical
and idiomatically appropriate target text. While for the oblique translation,
Vinay and Dalbernet divided it into four types of procedures, they are as
follows:
 1) Transposition
Transposition is a procedure which involves replacing one word
class with another class without changing the message. There are two
types of transposition, namely obligatory and optional transposition.
Obligatory transposition occurs when the target language has no other
choices because of the language system.
2) Modulation
Modulation is a variation of the form of the message, obtained by a
change in the point of view. This change can be justified when,
although a literal or even transposed. There are two types of
modulation, namely free or optional is generally adopted because of
nonlinguistic reason. It is mostly used to stress the meaning, to affect
coherence or to find out natural form of in the TL.
3) Equivalent
Equivalent is often desirable for the translator to use an entirely
different structure with different meaning from that of the source
language text so long as it is considered appropriate in the
communicative situational equivalent to that of the source language
text.
4) Adaptation
Adaptation is the extreme limit of translation which is used in
cases the translator has to create a new situation that can be considered
equivalent.

The researcher uses these methods or procedure of translation to identify the

procedure employed by the translator in translating noun phrases in the novel.

2. Noun Phrase
According to Leech (2002: 231), a noun phrase is a phrase which can act as
subject, object, or complement of a clause, or as prepositional complement. He
further explains, it is called noun phrase because the word which is its Head (ie
main part) is typically a noun. Leech mentions that the head noun can be
accompanied by determiners, and modifiers. Modifiers itself classify into
two category, the first is modifiers which precede the head or are called
PREMODIFIERS, and those which follow the head or are called
POSTMODIFIERS.

The structure of the English noun phrase can be written as follows:

Noun Phrase

Determiner(s) {Pre-modifier(s)} Head Noun {Post-modifier(s)}}

Leech (2002: 231)

From the table above we can see that the determiner has it is own place and
does not belong to modifier. Leech argues that the determiner and modifier can
be left out, but he argues that the determiner is more essential rather than the
modifier. Leech (gives the further explanation of each part of noun phrase
including determiners, pre-modifiers, and post-modifiers as follows:
a. Determiner
Leech (2002: 205) defines determiner as a word which specify the
range of reference of a noun in various ways, eg by making it definite (the
boy), indefinite (a boy), or by indicating quantity (many boys). According
to Leech (2002: 206) determiners always precede the noun they determine,
but they have different position relative to one another. Leech believes the
most important category is that of Central Determiners. These may be
 preceded by PREDETERMINERS and/or followed by
POSTDETERMINERS. In order to give the plain classification, Leech
(2002: 206) gives a determiner table classification as follows (see Table
1):
Table 1 Determiner
PREDETERMINERS CENTRAL POSTDETERMINERS
DETERMINERS
a all, both, half a Article: the, a(n) a Cardinal numerals: one,
two, etc
b double, twice, etc b Demonstratives: b Ordinal numerals: first,
this, these, that, those second, etc
c one-third, etc d Quantifiers: some, c General ordinals:next, last,
any, no, every, each, other, etc
either, neither,
enough, much
d what, such, etc e Wh-determiners: d Quantifiers: many, few,
what(ever), little, several, more, less, etc
which(ever), whoever,
whose

b. Pre-modifiers
Based on Leech (2002: 251), pre-modifiers in a noun phrase are placed
after determiners but before the noun which is head of the phrase. There are
the following types of pre-modifiers, all of which can be related to
complements in sentences with a linking verb:
1) Adjectives
Hes rented a delightful cottage.
A pre-modifying adjective can itself be pre-modified by degree
adverbs:
his really quite unbelievably delightful cottage
2) Participles
 Hes rented a crumbling cottage.
3) Nouns
Hes rented a country cottage.
In addition, Leech also mentions compound pre-modifiers (2002: 252).
Leech believes compound pre-modifiers are quite common. He defines
compound pre-modifiers as combinations of words which function as a
single adjective or noun. The examples are as follows:
icy-cold water brand-new dinner plates
c. Post-modifiers
Post-modifiers occur after the head in a noun phrase. There are eight
possible ranges of modifier
1) Relative Clauses
Did you see the girl who was sitting in the corner?
2) Prepositional Phrases
Did you see the girl in the corner?
3) Non-finite Clauses Equivalent to Relative Clauses
Did you see the girl sitting in the corner?
4) Appositive Clauses
The fact that shes good-looking is not the only reason why Id like to
meet her.
5) Clauses of Time, Place, Manner and Reason
We visited the house where Mozari stayed in 1789.
6) Adverb
The way out is over there.
7) Adjectives
Theres something odd about her.
Based on the classification above, the prepositional phrase is by far the
most common type of post-modifier in English. Prepositional phrases can be
often be related to relative clauses (Leech, 2002: 249). Take a look at these
examples:
Is this the road to Paris?
 (=Is this the road that lead to Paris?)
In addition to the previous mentioned post modifier above, Leech adds
several possible post-modifiers construction. They are:
a) Non-finite clauses equivalent to relative clauses as post-modifiers
All three types of non-finite clause (-ing participle clauses, -ed
participle clauses, and to-infinitive clauses) can function as post-
modifiers similar to relative clauses.
Example:
-ing participle clauses
The people working in the factory asked for a pay increase last
month. (=who are/were working in the factory)
As the participle clause does not have tenses, it can be interpreted,
according to context, as past or present. However, the ing participle
clause need not carry the meaning of the progressive aspect.
Example:
-ed participle clauses
The question debated in Parliament yesterday was about abortion
laws. (=that was debated in Parliament)
The participle clause corresponds in meaning to a passive relative
clause, but the participle clause contains none of the distinctions that
can be made by tense and aspect.
Example:
to- infinitive clauses
The question to be debated tomorrow is whether income tax should be
increased. (= the question which {is to/will} be debated)
b) Appositive clauses as post-modifiers
Appositive clauses are nominal clauses which have a relation to the
head similar to that between two noun phrases in apposition. They can
be that clauses or to-infinite clauses:
Examples:
 The news that he was resigning his job proved to be
incorrect.
The police have been investigating a plot to kidnap a prominent
diplomat.
c) Adverbs as post-modifiers
The use of adverbs as post-modifiers is more restricted than the
use of other post-modifiers
Examples:
The road back was dense with traffic.
The people outside started to shout.
d) Adjectives and Adjectival constructions as post-modifiers
Adjective phrases normally pre-modify the noun, but in some
constructions, they followed the noun:
There was something odd about his behavior.
While according to Soemarno (2001:05), noun phrase is a word or the
combination of two words or more, and in that word-combination there is
a noun which becomes the center of it.
Soemarno explains kinds of noun phrases, both in pre-modifiers and post-
modifiers construction (2001:11). For the pre-modifiers noun phrase
construction there are five kinds of possible construction. Those
constructions are as follows:
a. Noun phrase which consists of Noun and Noun (N1 + N1):
Example: Stone building
b. Noun phrases which consists of Adjective and Noun (Adjective +
Noun)
Example: Different ideas
c. Noun phrases which consists of Verb+ing and Noun (V+ing + N).
Example: Running water
d. Noun phrases which consists of Verb +ed and Noun (V ed2+ N).
Example: Fried chicken
e. Noun phrases which consists of Noun and Preposition (N + Prep).
 Example: The girl in yellow
For the post-modifiers noun phrases construction Soemarno (2001:39)
divides the classification as follows:
a. Modifier of Noun phrases which consists of noun and Preposition
Example: The house next to mine
b. Modifier of Noun phrases which consists of Noun and verb+ing
Example: The growing flowers over there
c. Modifier of Noun phrases which consists of Noun and verb+ed2\
Example: The man invited to come here
d. Modifier of Noun phrases which consists of Noun and WH
1) Noun + WH + Verb + ...
Example: the girl who will come here tommorow
2) Noun + WH + Noun + Verb + ....
Example: the flower which he has planned there
3) Whose + Noun
Example: whose girl is she?
4) Of which + Noun or The noun + of which
Example: The building of which the roof is brown

3. Translation Shifts
The small linguistic changes that occur between SL and TL are known as
translation shift. Catford (as cited in Hatim and Munday, 2004: 26) stated that
shift is departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from
the SL to the TL. According, to Hatim and Munday (2004: 29), even if
Catford was the first to use the term shift, but the most comprehensive
taxonomy of translation shifts, based on their translation procedures, was set
out by Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet in their A comparative Stylistics of
French and English (1958/1995). Hatim and Munday explain that Vinay and
Delbernet approach the subject from the point of view of comparative or
contrastive stylistics. They describe a detailed and systematic model for the
analysis and comparison of a SL and TL. The first step involves identification
 and numbering of the SL and TL. This is followed by a matching of the two.
This study used the same comparison approach which has taken by Vinay and
Delbernet.

The shifts itself have three divisions, they are level shifts, category shifts,
and meaning shifts. This study is only focusing on meaning shifts and the
explanations are as follows:

4. Meaning shifts
Meaning shifts occur when the TL element has different meaning
components from the SL element. The occurrence of meaning shift can be
analyzed using the two methods whichcovering seven procedures in
translation. These procedures, as has been discussed in the earlier chapter of
this chapter, can be applied on three levels of language (2004: 31). The three
levels of language that can be analyzed using Vinay and Darbelnets method of
translation procedure are:

i. the lexicon
ii. the grammatical structure
iii. the message, which is used to refer to the situational utterance and
some of the higher text elements such as sentence and paragraphs.
(Hatim and Munday 2004: 31)

Later on, in attempts at objectifying the comparison analysis of meaning

shift concepts the use of dictionary meaning of the source language and target
language was taken as a comparator and used independently to evaluate the
closeness of the source text and target text term (Van Leuvem-Zwart, as cited
in Munday, 2004: 32).

METHOD OF THE RESEARCH

In a research, a method is a particular way which has to be passed in doing the

research. By explaining the method, the research design will be clear. It clarifies
what the writer does in the research. Therefore, a method and explaining the
method are very important in conducting a research. This part covers all about the
method of research which generally covers the type of research, data sources, data
collection technique, and data analysis technique.

In this research, the writer will combine between qualitative and quantitative.
The qualitative approach is analyzing the data of translation technique that found
in the book and the quantitative to accumulate the data in the table with simple
percentages. So, the data can easier to be understood. The descriptive method was
used to collect the data, analyze, classify and conclusion.

According to Subroto, a qualitative method is a method used to analyze the

problems which are not designed or arranged using the statistical procedure (1992:
10). This study uses a qualitative method. In other words, the data are taken from
the form of sentences and words not from the form of numbers.

The following are the steps which are done in analyzing data:

1. Classifying the meaning shifts in the translation of the noun phrases by

identifying each of the SL and the TL elements;
2. Describing the occurrence of the meaning shifts;
3. Identifying the translation procedures that are used in the meaning shifts;
and
4. Drawing conclusion.

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In dealing with the first statement problem of the research, the researcher
identified the noun phrases in the novel. After found 275 noun phrases in the
novel, the researcher determined the translation procedur which the translator use
in translating the noun phrases. The researcher used Vinay and Dalbernet
translation procedures in determining the translation procedure used in translating
noun phrases. In this attempt, the researcher found 27 cases of transposition, 1
case of modulation, 1 case of borrowing, 4 cases of adaptation, and 242 cases of
equivalent. Based on Vinay and Dalbernets procedure of the translation theory,
there are 27 cases of noun phrase classified in transposition translation procedure.
It means that the meaning shift occurs in these 27 noun phrases. Therefore, the
researcher only focused on the 27 noun phrases.
After getting the data of noun phrases indicated meaning shifts, the researcher
did the analysis each of the noun phrases dealt with meaning shifts. On the
analysis of the data, the researcher found another finding that answered the
problem statement of the research. The second statement of the research
questioned what types of the meaning shifts in the Indonesian translation of
English Noun Phrases that occur in Gabriel Garcia Marquezs novel Memories of
My Melancholy Whores. As stated earlier in chapter II, there are three
constituents of a noun phrase: determiner, modifier, and the head.
The meaning shift can occur in one of these constituents or all of these
constituents. In answering the second research problem, the researcher did the
analysis of each 27 noun phrases indicated a meaning shift. After the analysis was
done, the researcher found there are: 11 meaning shifts found in the modifiers of
the noun phrase comprise with 5 meaning shifts occur in the pre-modifier of noun
phrases and 7 meaning shifts occur in the post-modifiers of noun phrase, there are
9 meaning shifts occur in the head of the noun phrases, and last but not least, there
are 6 meaning shift occur in the whole constituents of a phrase.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Based on the analysis in the previous chapter, the researcher concluded that
meaning shifts occur in the Indonesian translation of the noun phrases in Gabriel
Garcia Marquez Memories of My Melancholy Whores. There are four conclusions
that answered the problems of the research.

First, the comparison between the translations of English noun phrases into
Indonesian from Gabriel Garcia Marquezs novel Memories of My Melancholy
Whores translated by Dian Vita Ellyati shows there are 275 data of noun phrases
are found. The distribution according to Vinay and Dalbernets translation
procedure there are 27 cases of transposition, 1 case of modulation, 1 case of
borrowing, 4 cases of adaptation, and 242 cases of equivalent.

Second, the reasearcher found 27 cases of transposition translation procedure in

the translation of noun phrases. It means that there are 27 cases of meaning shifts.
In detail, there are 11 meaning shifts found in the modifiers of the noun phrases
comprise with 5 meaning shifts occur in the pre-modifier of noun phrases and 7
meaning shifts occur in the post-modifiers of noun phrase, there are 9 meaning
shifts occur in the head of the noun phrases, and last but not least, there are 6
meaning shift occur in the whole constituents of a phrase.

Third, there are two reasons on why the meaning shifts occur in the translation of
English noun phrase of Gabriel Garcia Marquezs novel Memories of My
Melancholy Whores. The first reason is the different between the syntactical
structure of the source language and the target language. The second is the
translation procedure taken by the translator where the translator tend to choose
the out of context word-choice and tend to omit word(s).

Last but not least, the researcher concluded that there are two factors responsible
for the meaning shifts happened. The first factor is the translator competencies in
translating the text. The translator showed the misconception regarding the
syntactical structure of the source language and target language noun phrase
construction. The second factor is the difference syntactical structure of both
source language and target language.
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