Translation Methods in Political Speeches: A Case Study of English Translation of President Joko Widodo’s Inaugural Address

Authors

Muhammad Ersan Pamungkas, Sekretariat Kabinet RIFollow

Abstract

Translating political speeches poses its own challenges and difficulties, with one of the reasons being the fact that political speeches have their own unique features. Translation of political speech is also arguably still underresearched in translation studies. It is for this reason that this paper seeks to investigate translation method(s) that can be used to translate political speeches. The data source of this paper is the English translation of an inaugural address of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo produced by a professional Australian translator. The speech was translated from Indonesian as the source language (SL) to English as the target language (TL). Appropriate translation methods are obviously needed to produce a higher quality political speech translation. This research applies the concept of translation methods proposed by Newmark (1988). This is a qualitative research with a comparative conceptual method. Results show that the translation methods adopted when translating the inaugural address are semantic and communicative translation methods. Semantic translation method is the most dominant one, followed by communicative translation method. Semantic translation method was used to translate the body part of the speech, while communicative translation method was used to translate the opening part and the closing part of the speech. These two methods are considered appropriate for translating this political speech.

Bahasa Abstract

Menerjemahkan pidato politik menghadirkan masalah dan tantangannya tersendiri. Salah satu penyebabnya adalah pidato politik dianggap sebagai sebuah teks unik dengan fitur yang tidak dimiliki oleh jenis teks lain. Selain itu, penerjemahan pidato politik dianggap belum banyak diteliti di dalam kajian penerjemahan. Dengan alasan itu, penelitian ini mencoba mengungkap metode penerjemahan yang digunakan untuk menerjemahkan pidato politik. Sumber data penelitian ini adalah terjemahan pidato pelantikan Presiden Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ke dalam bahasa Inggris yang dihasilkan oleh seorang penerjemah profesional berkebangsaan Australia. Metode penerjemahan yang tepat diperlukan untuk menghasilkan terjemahan pidato politik yang berkualitas. Penelitian kualitatif model komparatif ini menggunakan konsep metode penerjemahan yang digagas oleh Newmark (1988). Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa metode penerjemahan yang paling sering digunakan oleh penerjemah adalah metode penerjemahan semantis dan metode penerjemahan komunikatif. Metode penerjemahan semantis digunakan untuk menerjemahkan bagian tubuh pidato, sedangkan metode penerjemahan komunikatif untuk menerjemahkan bagian pembukaan dan penutupan. Kedua metode itu dianggap cocok untuk menerjemahkan pidato politik.

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Recommended Citation

Pamungkas, Muhammad E. 2020. Translation Methods in Political Speeches: A Case Study of English Translation of President Joko Widodo’s Inaugural Address. Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya 10, no. 2 (August). 10.17510/paradigma.v10i2.289.