CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The intent of this introductory is to provide brief and comprehensible

background of the research, this chapter covers the description of the background

of the study, the research question, the purpose of the study and the significances

of study.

1.1 Background of Study

Language has many important functions for human life, especially as a

communication tool. People in the world use language for interacting and

communicating with others. According to Kirkpatrick (2007), “Language has

three major functions. The first is communication. People use language to

communicate with one another. The second is identity. People use languange to

signal to other people who they are and what group(s) they belong to. The third,

with is closely related to identity, is culture. People use language to express their

culture”. Meanwhile, Brown (2000) states that “Language is a systematic means

of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sound,

gestures, or marks having understood meaning”.

One of the languages used widely in the world is English. English is very

important for students in all level of education. English in Indonesia is the most

important as a foreign language. Mukti (2006) argues that “English as a foreign

language, English is still difficult to be learn by most of the students because

English does not have the same grammatical or structural system as Indonesia”.

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Writing is one of English skills that can be defined as a process to express

feelings, opinion and ideas. Chitravelu dan Sithamparam (2005) Explaned,

“Writing is a system for interpersonal communication using visible sign or

graphic symbols on a flat surface such as paper, cloth or even stone slabs”.

Grammar is one of language components which has an important role in writing

and send the message correctly. Errors in the area of grammar can lead to the

misunderstanding in both spoken and written. According to Hornby (2000),

“Grammar is the rules in language for changing the form of word and joining

them into sentense”. In addition, Harmer (2001) states that “Grammar is as the

description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be

combined into sentences in that language”. It can be concluded that grammar is

one of language components which important role in send the message correctly.

To communicate with others in different places, people need the ability to

communicate with more than one language, through translation they can

understand what other people said. Translation is important because it is a type of

communication. According to Simatupang (2000), “Translation is transferring the

meaning of source language into the target language and expressing it in the target

language with the form which is proper based on valid rules in the target

language”. Meanwhile, Hatim and Munday (2004) define translation as “The

process of transferring a written text from source language (SL) to target language

(TL)” (as cited in Nugroho, p.2). From the definition above, translation is

transferring from the source language to target language.

As we know, many people use Google Translation to translate languages

they do not know the meaning, also many students use Google Translation to

complete their homework. Meanwhile, there are also many errors in translation

results by Google Translation. From this problem, the writer wants to know errors

that common appear by Google Translation. A previous researcher found some

errors that were made in translating the language. In Rahmawati’s research

(2013), she found omission and misordering were the most dominant error that

Google Translation produced in translating narrative text. For example: The area

Limboto. There is an omission item in this sentence. The correct is The area of

Limboto.

Machine translation is commonly used nowadays. This program provides a

fast translation from one language into another language. There are many kinds of

trans tools, but the most commonly used is Google Translation, an online feature

provided by google to translate a section of text, document or webpage, into

another language. According to Lopez (2008), “As the Statistical Machine

Translation, google translator tends to produce less accurate of meaning because it

only translating based on the word for word than the actual meaning of the text,

and it can impact the accurateness of translation that we got from google

translator” (as cited in Rahmawati, 2013, p.102). In conclusion, Google

Translation is a trans tool commonly used to translate of word, sentence and text

from source language into target language.

This study specifically aim to describe the errors that found on Google

Translation in translating narrative text from Indonesian-to-English and English-

to-Indonesian. The writer focuses on narrative text, because it is tell about

legends, so readers can get information about the legends of other cities. The

writer focused on Folklore or Legend (Riau Folklore) with the title “Tujuh Putri,

legenda asal mula kota Dumai". This story tell about the origin name of Dumai

city. The Dumai society believed that name "dumai" is from to a word "d'umai"

that was once said repeatedly by prince Empang Kuala when seeing the beauty of

princess Mayang Sari or Mayang mengurai (Legenda Putri Tujuh: Asal Mula

Kota Dumai. Yogyakarta: Balai Kajian dan Pengembangan Budaya Melayu with

Adicita Karya Nusa, 2005).

According to Muttaqin (2012), “Error analysis is the proses of determinate

the incidence, nature, cause, and consequences of unsuccessfull language”.

Brannan & Weiss (2007) writes that “Analysis of written errors focuses on the

surface strategy taxonomy, error, surface strategy taxonomy errors includes

addition, omission, miselection, and misordering”. In conclusion, there are some

errors in translating Indonesian-to-English and English-to-Indonesian, they are

addition, omission, misinformation, and misordering. In this case, the writer wants

to analyze the errors of Google Translation in translating Indonesian-to-English

and English-to-Indonesian.

Based on the explanation, the writer is interested in analyzing errors of Google

Translation in translating narrative text.

1.2 Research Problems

After explaining the background, the writer tried to generate the research

problem:
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1. What are the Google Translation errors in translating Indonesian-to

English text?

2. What are the Google Translation errors in translating English-to-

Indonesian text?

1.3 Purposes of Study

Based on statement of the problem, the purpose of this study are:

1. To find out the Google Translation errors in translating Indonesian-to

English text?

2. To find out the Google Translation errors in translating English-to-

Indonesian text?

1.4 Significances of Study

There are significances of study that can be gotten from this research:

1. For readers

This research is used to share the readers about common errors of Google

Translation in translating text from English-to-Indonesian and Indonesian-to-

English.

2. For researchers

It can be a useful reference in translating by Google Translation. Also the

researcher may know more an error in translating by Google Translation. Besides,

for the next researcher, it may take as a reference for future research.

This study might be a reference for the next researchers who conduct the

similar study. They might get that data about an error of Google Translation.