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JOKE TRANSLATION STRATEGY AND

READER’S RESPONSE IN BAHASA INDONESIA

TRANSLATION OF DAVE’S TOP 15 FUNNIEST JOKES OF

THE FRINGE FESTIVAL 2017

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

RANGGA GILANG KUMARA

Student Number: 144214022

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA

YOGYAKARTA

2019

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

JOKE TRANSLATION STRATEGY AND

READER’S RESPONSE IN BAHASA INDONESIA

TRANSLATION OF DAVE’S TOP 15 FUNNIEST JOKES OF

THE FRINGE FESTIVAL 2017

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

By

RANGGA GILANG KUMARA

Student Number: 144214022

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA

YOGYAKARTA

2019


vii

Work like you’ll live forever,

live like you’ll die tomorrow


viii

For my family, who always pull me up and push me forward


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, all praise to Allah the Almighty for blessing me with

chance, power and patience to write and finish this undergraduate thesis. Second,

there is not enough word to express my gratitude to my family, who always

support and push me. My mother and father, who support me with their unlimited

patience and trust. My brother, who encourage me with his attitude. My aunt, who

keep me focused with her constant reminder, and all members of my big family.

Third, I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis advisor, Harris

Hermansyah Setiajid, M. Hum, for all of his guidance and advice from the

beginning of the process of writing this undergraduate thesis. Fourth, I would like

to thank my co-advisor, Anna Fitriati, S.Pd., M. Hum., for her correction and

input to ensure that my thesis is understandable and presentable. Last, I want to

thank all of my friends who helped me pass through this stage of my life.

Rangga Gilang Kumara


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE............................................................................................... ii

APPROVAL PAGE..................................................................................... iii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE............................................................................... iv

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH................................................................. v

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY........................................................... vi

MOTTO PAGE............................................................................................ vii

DEDICATION PAGE……………………………………………………. viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................ ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................ x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS …………………………………………… xiii

LIST OF CHARTS...................................................................................... xiv

LIST OF TABLES….………...................................................................... xv

ABSTRACT.................................................................................................. xvi

ABSTRAK.................................................................................................... xvii

CHAPTER I: Introduction......................................................................... 1

A. Background of Study.................................................................... 1

B. Problem of Formulation................................................................ 3

C. Objectives of the Study................................................................. 4

D. Definitions of Terms..................................................................... 4

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE........................................... 5

A. Review of Related Studies............................................................ 5

1. Aguado-Gimenez’s “Translation-Strategies Use: A Classroom

-Based Examination of Baker’s Taxonomy” (2005)................. 5

2. Xu’s “Translation Equivalence and Reader’s Response”

(2016)…………………………………………………...….… 6

3. Alexandrova’s “Linguistic Jokes Translation Strategies

and Methods” (2013)................................................................. 7

B. Review of Related Theories.......................................................... 8

1. Theories of Humor.................................................................... 8

2. Theories of Jokes Categorization.............................................. 8

3. Theories on Translation Strategies............................................ 12

4. Theories on Readers’ Response……………………………… 15

C. Theoretical Framework................................................................. 16

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY........................................................... 17

A. Areas of Research......................................................................... 17

B. Object of the Study........................................................................ 17

C. Method of the Study...................................................................... 18

D. Research Procedure....................................................................... 18

1. Types of Data............................................................................ 18

2. Data Collection.......................................................................... 19

3. Population and Sample.............................................................. 20


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4. Data analysis..............................................................................20

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS RESULT AND DISCUSSION.................... 22

A. The Comparison of Translation Strategy Applied for Each Joke in Translating “Dave’s Jokes of the Fringe 2017”

into Bahasa Indonesia………………………….......................... 22

1. First Jokes.................................................................................. 25

2. Second Jokes…………………………………………………. 25

3. Third Jokes…………………………………………………… 26

4. Fourth Jokes………………………………………………….. 27

5. Fifth Jokes……………………………………………………. 27

6. Sixth Jokes……………………………………………………. 28

7. Seventh Jokes………………………………………………… 28

8. Eight Jokes…………………………………………………… 29

9. Ninth Jokes…………………………………………………… 30

10. Tenth Jokes………………………………………………….. 30

11. Eleventh Jokes………………………………………………. 31

12. Twelfth Jokes……………………………………………….. 32

13. Thirteenth Jokes…………………………………………….. 32

14. Fourteenth Jokes…………………………………………….. 33

15. Fifteenth Jokes………………………………………………. 34

B. The Joke Analysis and Reader’s Response of The Translated

Version of “Dave’s Jokes of The Fringe 2017”............................ 34

1. First Jokes.................................................................................. 35

2. Second Jokes…………………………………………………. 36

3. Third Jokes…………………………………………………… 36

4. Fourth Jokes………………………………………………….. 37

5. Fifth Jokes……………………………………………………. 38

6. Sixth Jokes……………………………………………………. 38

7. Seventh Jokes………………………………………………… 40

8. Eight Jokes…………………………………………………… 40

9. Ninth Jokes…………………………………………………… 41

10. Tenth Jokes………………………………………………….. 42

11. Eleventh Jokes………………………………………………. 43

12. Twelfth Jokes……………………………………………….. 44

13. Thirteenth Jokes…………………………………………….. 45

14. Fourteenth Jokes…………………………………………….. 45

15. Fifteenth Jokes………………………………………………. 46

C. The Connection between The Strategies Applied and The

Reader’s Response in “Dave’s Jokes of The Fringe 2017”……...47

1. Translation by More Neutral Words......................................... 47

2. Translation by Loan Words…..………………………………. 48

3. Translation by Cultural Substitutions………………………… 48

4. Translation by Paraphrasing with Unrelated Words…...…….. 48

5. Translation by Paraphrasing with Related Words……………. 48

6. Translation by Omission……..………………………………. 49


xii

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION................................................................... 50

REFERENCES…......................................................................................... 52

APPENDICES.............................................................................................. 54

Appendix 1. ST and TT data.............................................................. 54

Appendix 2. Questionnaire Results ...................................................57


xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SL :Source Language

ST :Source Text

TL :Target Language

TT :Target Text


xiv

LIST OF CHARTS

No. Chart Page

1. Chart 1. TT1 Translation Strategies Distribution 23 2. Chart 2 . TT2 Translation Strategies Distribution 24 3. Chart 3 . Category Distribution 34 4. Chart 4. Reader’s Response Distribution by Strategy 47


xv

LIST OF TABLES

No. Table Page

1. Table 1. Summary of One-liner Typology 9 2. Table 2. Baker’s (1992) Taxonomy of Translation

Strategies 13

3. Table 3. Example Data Coding 19 4. Table 4. Example of Questionnaire Question 20 5. Table 5. Example of Translation Strategies 21


xvi

ABSTRACT

KUMARA, RANGGA GILANG. Joke Translation Strategy and Reader’s

Response in Bahasa Indonesia Translation of Dave’s Top 15 Funniest Jokes

Of The Fringe Festival 2017. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters,

Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2019.

Humor, especially in the form of jokes is influenced by geographical

location, cultural background, age, personal experience and many more. This

unique sense of humor makes any form of humor, such as a joke, is limited to a

certain audience. This limitation creates a problem in translating humor from

English into Bahasa Indonesia. This situation intrigued the researcher to analyze

the strategies that the translator used and its effect on the readers. In this thesis,

the researcher used "Dave's Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017" as the source

material. "Dave's Joke of the Fringe" is an annual award held by Dave, an award-

winning UK entertainment channel, for the best one-liner in the Edinburgh

Festival Fringe.

There are two objectives in this research. The first objective is to analyze

the strategies used by translators in translating one-liner jokes from "Dave's

Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017". The second objective is to determine the

effect of the applied strategy to the response of the reader.

This undergraduate thesis is a qualitative research that applied library and

survey methods. The library method is applied in researching the theories for the

analysis of the data. The survey method is used to acquire data for analysis.

The result of this research shows that based on Baker’s taxonomy of

translation strategies, the translators most often apply the strategies of translation

by paraphrasing with related and unrelated words. The other strategies applied by

translators are translation by omission, translation by more neutral/less expressive

word, translation by loan word, and translation by cultural substitution. For the

reader, as long as the translated text has a clear, easy to follow set up and a twisty,

unpredictable, and/or contradictive punchline, the general readers can identify and

accept those sentences as joke sentences.

Keywords: Joke, Translation Strategy, Reader’s Response


xvii

ABSTRAK

KUMARA, RANGGA GILANG. Joke Translation Strategy and Reader’s

Response in Bahasa Indonesia Translation of Dave’s Top 15 Funniest Jokes

Of The Fringe Festival 2017. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas

Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2019.

Humor, terutama dalam bentuk lelucon, dipengaruhi oleh lokasi geografis,

latar belakang budaya, umur, pengalaman pribadi dan lain lain. Selera humor yang

unik ini membuat segala bentuk humor, seperti lelucon, memiliki audiensi yang

terbatas. Batasan ini menimbulkan masalah dalam menerjemahkan humor dari

Bahasa Inggris ke Bahasa Indonesia. Situasi ini membuat peneliti tertarik untuk

menganalisis strategi yang digunakan oleh penerjemah dan efeknya terhadap

pembaca hasil terjemahan. Dalam skripsi ini, peneliti menggunakan "Dave's

Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017" sebagai sumber. "Dave's Joke of the Fringe"

adalah penghargaan tahunan yang diselegarakan oleh Dave, kanal hiburan peraih

penghargaan di Britania Raya, untuk one-liner (lelucon pendek yang terdiri dari 1,

2 kalimat) di Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Terdapat dua objektif dalam skripsi ini. Pertama, untuk menganalisis

strategi yang digunakan oleh penerjemah dalam menerjemahkan lelucon one-liner

dari "Dave's Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017". Kedua, untuk melihat efek dari

strategi yang digunakan terhadap tanggapan pembaca.

Skripsi ini ada penelitian kualitatif yang menggunakan metode studi

pustaka dan survei. Metode studi pustaka digunakan dalam menemukan teori

untuk menganalisa data. Metode survei digunakan untuk mendapatkan data yang

diperlukan untuk analisis.

Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa berdasarkan taksonomi strategi

penelitian dari Baker, para penerjemah paling sering menggunakan translation by

paraphrase with related and unrelated words. Strategi lain yang digunakan oleh

para penerjemah adalah translation by omission, translation by more neutral/less

expressive word, translation by loan word, dan translation by cultural

substitution. Bagi pembaca, selama teks terjemahan memiliki set up yang jelas

dan mudah diikuti, serta punchline yang tak terduga dan/atau bertolak belakang,

maka pembaca pada umumnya akan dapat mengidentifikasi dan menerima

kalimat-kalimat tersebut sebagai kalimat lelucon.

Kata Kunci: Lelucon, Strategi Penerjemahan, Tanggapan Pembaca


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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Humor is an integral part of human social interaction. According to

Koestler (2016), humor can be defined as a type of stimulation that tends to elicit

laughter (para. 1). By eliciting laughter, humor creates a more amiable

environment for interactions. The type of stimulation that can create laughter is

different from one person to another. The ability to understand the stimulation and

then being stimulated by it is called a sense of humor. This sense of humor is

unique because it is influenced by geographical location, cultural background,

age, personal experience and many more.

Humor can exist in a lot of forms and one of those forms is joke. A joke is

a short piece of humorous story in which the humor culminates in the final part of

the story, called the punchline (Hetzron, 1991, pp. 65-66). The unique sense of

humor makes any form of humor, such as joke is limited to a certain audience. A

certain joke can only be understood by an audience with the same basic

understanding as the speaker of the joke. For example, this is a technology jokes

about binary codes, "there are 10 types of people in the world: those who

understand binary and those who don't". To understand this joke, someone needs

to have the same basic technical knowledge that 10 in binary code is 2 in decimal

number.


2

This limitation creates a problem in translating humor from English into

Bahasa Indonesia. It can be seen from the lack of bestseller comedy novel series

that have been translated into Bahasa Indonesia, such as Douglas Adams's The

Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy and Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Another

example is a short joke, "I used to work in a shoe recycling company, it was sole-

destroying" (Alex Horne, 2013, The Fringe). The humor in this joke is based on

the homophone of the word "sole" with "soul" that can give the sentence double

meaning. When translated into Bahasa Indonesia, it is impossible to use the same

connection between "sole" and "soul" because in Indonesia, "sole" is sol and

"soul" is jiwa. This situation intrigued the researcher to find out in what way can

humor, especially in the form of jokes be translated from one language to another.

In this thesis, the researcher used "Dave's Funniest Jokes of the Fringe

2017" as the source material. "Dave's Joke of the Fringe" is an annual award held

by Dave, an award-winning UK entertainment channel. This is an award for the

best one-liner, a joke that completed in one sentence, in the Edinburgh Festival

Fringe. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest art festival in the world held

annually in August in Edinburgh, Scotland.

"Dave's Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017" is chosen as the source

material because the researcher tries to find a credible source of short jokes.

"Dave's Jokes of the Fringe" has been held annually for ten years. Every year, a

panel of foremost UK comedy critics chooses 15 best one-liners from every

comedy performance at The Edinburgh Festival Fringe that year. This 15 one-

liner will be voted by 2000 people anonymously without the voters knowing the


3

comedian who performs the jokes. The performer with the highest voted joke

received "Dave's Funniest Joke of the Fringe" award.

For the translated version, because there is no official translation available,

the researcher used several professional translators to translate the jokes into

Bahasa Indonesia. This translated version then will be analyzed to see what

strategies the translators choose to apply to translate each joke. The translation is

shown to several readers to get their opinion whether the translator managed to

translate the jokes into Bahasa Indonesia or not.

Through this undergraduate thesis, the researcher aims to understand the

strategies applied by translators to overcome the language and cultural barrier in

translating jokes from one language to another. This research is expected to be

able to help the reader, especially students of Universitas Sanata Dharma,

understand the difficulty in translating jokes and the solution to overcome it. The

researcher hopes that this thesis can help to further the discussion in the field of

joke translation and humor translation in general.

B. Problem Formulation

There are two problems that this undergraduate thesis tries to analyze. The

two problems are:

1. What strategies are applied to translate “Dave’s Funniest Jokes of the Fringe

2017” into Indonesian?

2. What is the effect of the applied strategies to the reader’s response of the

Indonesian translation of “Dave’s Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017”?


4

C. Objectives of the study

In accordance to the problem above, there are two objectives of this

research. The first objective is to analyze the strategies that the translator applied

in translating “Dave’s Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017” into Bahasa Indonesia

based on Baker’s Taxonomy of Translation Strategies. The second objective is to

determine the effect of the applied strategy to the response of the reader.

D. Definitions of terms

A Joke is a short piece of humorous story in which the humor culminates

in the final part of the story, called the punchline (Hetzron, 1991, pp. 65-66).

Translation Strategies in this study refer to strategies that the translator

used to overcome any problems in transferring messages from SL to TL.

According to Baker (1992), those strategies are translation by more general word,

translation by more neutral/less expressive word, translation by cultural

substitution, translation by loan word, translation by paraphrase using related

word, translation by paraphrase using unrelated word, translation by omission,

and translation by illustration (p.26-42).

Reader’s Response is the response that the readers have from reading

literary works that can be used as a data for this study based on reader-response

criticism, an approach which believed that the meaning of a text is derived from

the reader through the reading process (Cahill, 1996, pp. 89-97)


5

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In this chapter, the researcher reviews and discusses several studies and

research done by other researchers in similar or closely related topic. The

researcher also reviews the theories used as the basis of this research. The related

studies are Aguado-Gimenez’s “Translation-Strategies Use: A Classroom-Based

Examination of Baker’s Taxonomy”, Xu’s “Translation Equivalence and Reader’s

Response”, and Alexandrova’s “Linguistic Jokes Translation Strategies and

Methods”. The researcher discusses each study to see its focus, highlight the

similarities, and elaborate on the distinction from this present study. The

researcher uses and synthesizes the theories reviewed in this chapter as the

theoretical framework to answer the problem of this research.

A. Review of Related Studies

1. Aguado-Gimenez’s “Translation-Strategies Use: A Classroom-Based

Examination of Baker’s Taxonomy” (2005).

This paper by Aguado-Gimenez is a study of the importance of teaching

translation strategies to students. The study analyzes the way students used

Baker’s taxonomy of translation strategy to help them overcome the translation

problem. In this study, Aguado-Gimenez creates an experiment by asking

undergraduate students to translate some selected Noun Phrase from English to

Spanish. He then examined and analyzed the result of the translation.


6

This study shows that undergraduate students did use the strategies from

Baker’s taxonomy to overcome any problem in translation. The results of this

study emphasize the importance of teaching practical theories to the students and

then to apply the theories in the classroom.

Aguado-Gimenez’s analysis and examination of translation strategies used

by the student can be used by the researcher as the basis and idea to analyze the

translation strategies that the translators use to translate jokes in this present

research.

2. Xu’s “Translation Equivalence and Reader’s Response” (2016).

Xu’s paper is a detailed analysis of determining the equivalence of a

translation through the reader’s response theory. In the study, Xu compares some

lines from “Ulysses” and two of its Chinese translation.

In this comparison, Xu shows how readers respond to different kinds of

translation. Xu then proposes an approach to equivalence where the translator

should consider the knowledge and context of the reader as a basis to find an

equivalent term, so that the message received by the reader is the same whether in

Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL).

Xu’s analysis on the connection of equivalence and reader’s response can

be used by the researcher to analyze the reader’s response to a more specific area.

Which is the effect of the translated jokes to the reader, to see whether it can

preserve the form and purpose of the jokes.


7

3. Alexandrova’s “Linguistic Jokes Translation Strategies and Methods”

(2013).

In Alexandrova’s paper, it focuses on the translation strategies used in

translating linguistic jokes from English to Russian. In this paper, linguistic jokes

are divided into 3 main mechanisms, semantic, stylistic, and pragmatic

mechanism.

By compiling a corpus consisting of one thousand English and Russian

traditional linguistic jokes, Alexandrova comes to this certain conclusion: First,

jokes with a semantic mechanism are very difficult to translate, the translator

needs to use either literal translation with commentary, renditions, foreign

inclusion, adaptation, generalization or equivalence to at least explain the jokes to

the target audience. Second, jokes with a syntactic mechanism are easy to

translate and sometimes only need transpositions and grammatical agreements to

follow the norms of the target language. Third, the easiest linguistic jokes to

translate are the jokes based on pragmatic mechanism.

This study can be used by the researcher to help analyze the strategies that

the translator used to translate jokes. This study creates its own interpretation on

the strategy used by the translator, but the researcher study only focuses on the

Baker’s taxonomy of translation strategy. This study only researches linguistic

jokes while the researcher studies are not limited to linguistic jokes, but also other

mechanisms of jokes.


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B. Review of Related Theories

1. Theories of Humor

Raskin (1985) “Script-based Semantic Theory of Humor” is a variant of

the Incongruity theory of humor. It focuses on verbal humor, which is a written

and spoken word used in narrative or riddle jokes concluding with a punch line.

According to Raskin (1985), there are two conditions to produce a verbal

joke:

a. The text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different scripts (p. 99).

b. The two scripts with which the text is compatible are opposite (p. 99).

The humor is created when the trigger or the punchline caused the reader to

change the understanding of the obvious script into the opposing script.

An example given by Raskin (1985) is as follow: "Is the doctor at home?"

The patient asked in his bronchial whisper. "No," the doctor's young and pretty

wife whispered in reply. "Come right in" (p. 100). For this example, the two

scripts contained in the joke are “a patient seeing a doctor” and “a lover seeing

their partner”. The obvious script created by the set-up is a patient with a possible

bronchial problem wants to see a doctor but the doctor is not available. The

punchline “come right in” created a shift of the understanding into the opposing

script of a patient having an affair with his doctor wife.

2. Theories of Jokes Categorization

Chauvin (2015) compiles list of the typology of one-liners based on

logical mechanisms (para. 39). The list is shown in the table as follows:


9

Table 1. Summary of One-liner Typology

Pun-based (words) (a) Puns, polysemy

(b) Puns, homonymy

(c) Puns, paronymy

(d) Puns, visual and formal

Set phrases (e) Set phrases: meaning of set phrases

(f) Indirect allusions to phrases / incomplete

phrases

Ambiguous syntax (g) Ambiguous syntax

Pragmatics / discourse-based (h) Implicatures, diverse cases

(i) Implicatures, indirect speech acts

(j) Discursive / conversational clichés

(k) Lexical, but reference

(l) Cultural references

Logical fallacies; observational

humor

(m) Internal contradictions (with example of

diseases)

(n) Observational humor: gnomic statements

(o) Absurdist humor: absurd, silly statements

To better understand each typology, one example and explanation for the

typology is given by Chauvin (2015) as follows:

a. Puns, polysemy: “I entered a swimming contest at the weekend. I won the

100m butterfly. What am I going to do with an insect that big?” (para. 10).

The word butterfly can mean a type of insect or one of the styles in

swimming.

b. Puns, homonymy:”I just saw a beautiful girl with a massive gut. What a

waist” (para. 12). What a waste is a set phrase to say something regretful, and

waist sound similar to waste.

c. Puns, paronymy: “11:59:59 a.m. is my favourite time of the day. It’s second

to noon” (para. 14). Noon sounds close to none and second to none mean that

there is nothing better than it.


10

d. Puns, visual and formal: “Why oh why don’t people poof read stuff before

they post it?” (para. 15). While the statement is complaining about the fact

that people often did not proof read their stuff, the statement itself contains

typo on the word “poof”.

e. Set phrases, different meaning: “The easiest way to add insult to injury is

when you’re signing somebody’s plaster cast” (para. 18). “Add insult to

injury” is a set phrase that means adding more misfortune upon a misfortune,

but in this sentence, it is interpreted literally by adding an insult to someone

who is injured.

f. Indirect allusions to phrases / incomplete phrases: “I eat an apple every day.

The wife’s a doctor” (para. 19). The proverb that said “an apple a day keeps

the doctor away” is broken in this statement because even though he eat an

apple every day, his wife is a doctor.

g. Ambiguous syntax: “Throwing acid is wrong, in some people’s eyes” (para.

20). The sentence can both mean “throwing acid is wrong for some people”,

or “throwing acid in peoples' eyes is wrong”.

h. Implicatures, diverse cases: “You know that look you get from women when

they want you? Nah, me neither” (para. 23). The phrase “you know that”

implied that the performer know and experienced that “look”. But in this

sentence, the performer didn’t know that “look”.


11

i. Implicatures, indirect speech act: “I saw a sign in a car park saying: “Thieves

want your satnav.” I thought, “Well, they can get lost!” (para. 26). The phrase

“they can get lost” can mean that the thieves will never get the satnav, or the

satnav is so useless that the thieves can get lost even if they use it.

j. Discursive / conversational clichés: “My girlfriend bought a cookbook the

other day called “Cheap and easy vegetarian cooking.” Which is perfect for

her, because not only is she a vegetarian…” (para. 27). Cheap and easy can

mean someone who is easy to please especially in a sexual context.

k. Lexical, but a reference: “A Chinese couple are in bed. The husband says “I

want a sixty-nine.” His wife says, “You want beef and broccoli now?” (para.

28). In Chinese restaurants, especially for delivery order, the customer only

needs to mention the number on the menu to order the food because they

have a lot of items on the menu.

l. Cultural references: “Maybe it’s Maybelline… and maybe it’s Photoshop.”

(para. 30). Maybe it’s Maybelline is a tagline for cosmetic brand Maybelline

that said when someone is looking good using their products or maybe they

just looks good because of Photoshop.

m. Internal contradictions: “I was thinking of writing a book, A Guide to Better

Shoplifting—but who the hell is going to buy it?” (para. 33). Only a

shoplifter who need a guide to better shoplifting and no shoplifter will buy

anything in the shop.


12

n. Observational humor: “If you’re trying to improve your memory, lend

someone money.” (para. 34). It is an unusual but true way to improve

memory, because people will always remember if they lend someone some

money.

o. Absurdist humor: “Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world is Chinese. And

there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It’s either my

mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-

Chan-Chu. But I think it’s Colin.” (para. 35). It is absurd that the statement 1

in 5 people is Chinese means that one of the performer family members must

be Chinese. It's even more absurd that actually the name of one of his family

members is Chinese and he did not realize it.

3. Theories on Translation Strategies

In this study, to analyze the translation of the jokes and the strategies used

by the translator, the researcher uses Mona Baker’s taxonomy on translation

strategies. The strategies are:


13

Table 2. Baker’s (1992) Taxonomy of Translation Strategies

A Translation by more general

word

Related to propositional meaning. It works

in most languages (p. 26)

B Translation by more neutral

word

It has to do with differences in expressive

meaning (p. 28)

C Translation by cultural

substitution

Replacing a culture specific item with target

language that does not have the same

meaning but have the same impact (p. 31)

D Translation using loan word Related with culture specific item, modern

loan words etc. (p. 34)

E Translation by paraphrases

using related words

This is used when the concept expressed by

the source item is lexicalized in the target

language, but in a different form, and when

the frequency of use in the source language

is higher than in the target language (p. 37)

F Translation by paraphrases

using unrelated words

This is used when the concept in the source

language is not lexicalized in the target

language (p. 38)

G Translation by omission Omission of words which are not vital to

development of text (p. 40)

H Translation by illustration Use of illustration when source words lack

equivalent (p. 42)

To better understand the translation strategies proposed by Baker, an

example for each type of strategy is given as follows:

a. Translation by more general word: “He sit on that stool” into Dia duduk di

kursi itu. In this translation, the word “stool”, which is a specific type of seat

furniture without back and armrest, is translated into a more general word

kursi.


14

b. Translation by more neutral/less expressive word: “She lives in that

humongous house” into Dia tinggal di rumah yang sangat besar itu. In this

translation, “she” contains a female gender expression while dia is a neutral

word without gender expression.

c. Translation by cultural substitution: “My favorite breakfast is bacon and

egg” into Sarapan pagi kesukaanku adalah bubur ayam. “Bacon and egg” is

a very common breakfast menu in the US, but it is largely unheard of in

Indonesia while bubur ayam is a common Indonesian breakfast menu.

d. Translation by loan word: “Mom’s spaghetti is the food I miss the most” into

Spaghetti ibuku adalah makanan yang paling aku rindukan. Rather than

translating or paraphrasing, the word “spaghetti” is kept and used as is.

e. Translation by paraphrase using related words: “I fixed my flat tire at the

roadside tire shop” into Aku memperbaiki ban kempes ku di tukang tambal

ban pinggir jalan. Rather than a tire shop, it is more common in Indonesia to

fix a flat tire at mechanic specialized in a flat tire.

f. Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words: “She usually comes home

for thanksgiving” into Dia biasanya pulang saat hari libur untuk

mensyukuri hasil panen di Amerika Serikat. In this translation, the

Indonesian translation explains the meaning of thanksgiving.

g. Translation by omission: “This is my old grandma favorite song” into Ini

adalah lagu favorit nenekku. The word “old” is omitted in the translation

because it is unnecessary as “grandma” is naturally old.


15

h. Translation by illustration: “I just ate a bowl of gumbo” into a picture of

gumbo. As gumbo is a unique food from the US, it is easier to use a picture

rather than explaining what gumbo is.

Baker’s taxonomy is very detailed and makes it easier to differentiate and

categorized the type of strategy that the translator used in overcoming problems of

translating words without equivalence.

4. Theories on Reader’s Response

Reader’s response theory is “based on reader-response criticism, an

approach which believed that the meaning of a text is derived from the reader

through the reading process (Cahill, 1996, pp. 89-97). According to Iser (1978),

“a literary text can only produce a response when it is read” (p. 1). This view puts

an emphasis on the reader as the source of validation of literary works. Based on

the theories above, the interpretation and meaning of literary works can be solely

based on the perspective of the reader rather than the intention of the author.

Nida (1964) mentioned the principle of equivalent effect, in which "the

relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as

that which existed between the original receptor and the message." (p. 159). In

this theory, Nida emphasizes that the important point of the translation is to

preserve the connection between the text and the reader. For example, a

melancholic and dramatic text in ST should have the same melancholic and

dramatic effect in TT even if the translation itself is not formally accurate.


16

C. Theoretical Framework

The script-based semantic theory of humor by Raskin is used to define the

jokes and identify its humor. The one-liner typology by Chauvin is then used as

the basis to analyze and categorize the jokes and its translation. Baker’s

Taxonomy of Translation Strategies is used to identify and analyze the strategies

that the translators used in translating the jokes from ST to TT. Cahill and Iser

view on reader response are used as the basis to question the connection between

the strategies used by the translator and the response from the reader. The analysis

itself is based on Nida’s view on the principle of equivalent effect, to see whether

the relation between reader and the target text is substantially the same with the

source text.


17

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Areas of Research

The focus of this research is on the strategies that the translators used in

translating one-liner jokes from English into Bahasa Indonesia and whether those

strategies could preserve the form and the function of the jokes. Based on the

categories made by William’s The Map: A Beginner's Guide to Doing Research in

Translation Studies (2002), the area of research of this undergraduate thesis is text

analysis and translation, especially in the comparison of translation and their

source text. According to William (2002), the analysis of translated texts involves

the comparison of a translation with its original and it is not possible to deal with

every aspect, so there is a need to choose one particular aspect, for example, the

strategy that the translator used to solve a problem in translating (p. 6).

B. Object of the study

The objects of this research are 2 different Indonesian translations of

Dave's Top 15 Funniest Jokes of the Fringe Festival 2017. Dave's Top 15 Funniest

Jokes of the Fringe Festival 2017 is a collection of 15 best one-liner jokes from

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2017 according to Dave, a British TV show. The

researcher used two Indonesian translations from two different professional

translators.


18

C. Method of the Study

This undergraduate thesis is a qualitative research using library and survey

method. According to George (2008) "library method involves identifying and

locating sources that provide factual information or personal/ expert opinion on a

research question; necessary component of every other research method at some

point" (p. 6) and the researcher used this method as the basis for theory

formulation, data analysis, and discussion. In addition, the survey method is used

to collect the data necessary for answering the problem discussed in this research.

D. Research Procedure

1. Types of Data

There are two types of data used in this research, objective and affective

data. The objective data used in this research are an English ST and two different

Bahasa Indonesia TT. The ST is taken from a web page entitled “Dave's Top 15

Funniest Jokes of the Fringe Festival 2017”. The ST taken for this research is the

15 one-liners listed on the page. The TT is its Indonesian translation from two

different groups of professional translators in Yogyakarta, Pemad and Quantum.

The affective data used in this research are the questionnaire results from

10 respondents answering 30 questions about the TT. The question asked is

“Menurut anda, apakah kalimat di bawah ini merupakan sebuah lelucon?” for

each joke in TT. For the respondents, the researcher asks 10 Indonesian university

students aged 18+ from the Literature Department of Universitas Sanata Dharma.

As adult university students, especially from the literature department, the


19

respondents have a general ability to understand and differentiate joke sentences

from other forms of sentences.

2. Data Collection

The researcher went through several processes to collect the data used in

this research. First, the researcher copied the data from the website into a

document file. Second, the researcher asked two professional to translate the data

into Indonesian. Third, the collected data were then coded and put into the table as

follows:

Table 3. Example Data Coding

No. Text

6/ST Combine Harvesters. And you'll have a really big restaurant.

6/TT

1

Gabungkan semua Rumah Makan Sederhana. Dan kita akan

mendapatkan Rumah Makan Sangat Sederhana.

6/TT

2

Kumpulkan mesin-mesin pemetik hasil panen. Dan kamu bisa punya

sebuah restoran yang sangat besar.

The code can be read as follows:

6: The number of the data

ST: Source text

TT1: Target text 1 (Pemad)

TT2: Target text 2 (Quantum)

Fourth, the researcher created a questionnaire in Indonesian to see the

effect of the translation with the example as follows:


20

Table 4. Example of Questionnaire Question

No Text Jawaban

Menurut anda, apakah kalimat di bawah ini merupakan

sebuah lelucon?

Ya Tidak

1 Saya tidak suka koin pound yang baru, saya tidak suka

kembalian saya diubah.

2 Saya bukan penggemar uang koin pound yang baru,

karena saya memang tidak suka semua uang receh yang

berbentuk koin.

Fifth, the researcher asked 10 adults aged 18+ from the Literature

Department of Universitas Sanata Dharma to answer the questionnaire. Finally,

the result of the questionnaire was compiled into statistical data.

3. Population and Sample

For the objective data, there are 15 one-liners as the population of the

source text. There is no sample because the researcher used all the data in the

population. From those data, there are two different translations for each one-

liner. There are 30 one-liners in the translated text as the population.

For the affective data, the questionnaire asked one question for each one-

liner in the TT. So there are 30 answers for each questionnaire. As there are 10

people filled the questionnaire, there are 300 answers as the population of the

affective data. The researcher used all the data in the population for this research.

4. Data analysis

There were three steps that the researcher did to answer the problem in this

research. The first step was to analyze the strategies used by the translator for each

one-liner. The researcher used Baker’s classification of translation strategy.

The table below shows how the first step was done in order to classify the

translation strategy.


21

Table 5. Example of Translation Strategies

No. Text Strategy

1/ST I'm not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I

hate all change.

1/TT1 Saya tidak suka koin pound yang baru, saya tidak

suka kembalian saya diubah.

Paraphrasing

unrelated

1/TT2 Saya bukan penggemar uang koin pound yang baru,

karena saya memang tidak suka semua uang receh

yang berbentuk koin.

Omission

It could be seen from the table above that each datum was categorized into

the strategy that the translator used. In the example above, TT1 paraphrased the

word “change” into kembalian saya diubah which contained both meanings of the

word, “coins of low denomination” and “different state of being”. In TT2, the

translator took a different approach by omitting the meaning of “change” as

“different state of being” and translate “change” into uang receh yang berbentuk

koin.

The second step was to determine the effect of the translation to the

reader's perception by using the questionnaire results. From the results, the

researcher analyzed whether the reader can identify the translation as one-liner

jokes. To further the analysis, the researcher categorized the one-liner based on

Chauvin’s typology of one-liners.

The third and last step was to combine the analysis of the objective and

affective data to see the connection between the strategies that the translator used

in translating one-liner to the perseverance of the function as perceived by the

reader.


22

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

There are three parts to discuss in this chapter. Those parts are the

translation strategy and the reader’s responses of the Indonesian translation of

“Dave Jokes of the Fringe 2017” and the connection between those two. The first

part analyze the translation strategy that will answer the first problem formulation.

The second parts discuss the reader’s response of the translated text to see the

effect of the translation to the Indonesian readers. The third part analyze the

connection between the two previous parts to answer the second problem

formulation.

A. The Comparison of Translation Strategy Applied for Each Joke in

Translating “Dave’s Jokes of the Fringe 2017” into Bahasa Indonesia

In this part, the researcher aims to see what strategies applied in translating

the jokes from “Dave’s Funniest Jokes of the Fringe 2017”. There are 15 data

from the English version and also 30 data from the Indonesian version.

The analysis shows what types of strategies are used based on Baker’s

theory. Baker proposes eight strategies namely translation by more general word

(superordinate), translation by neutral/less expressive word, translation by cultural

substitution, translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation,

translation by paraphrase using a related word, translation by paraphrase using


23

unrelated words, translation by omission, and translation by illustration (1992, P.

26-42).

From the data, the first translator from Pemad applied translation by

neutral word, cultural substitution, loan word, paraphrasing using related word,

paraphrasing using unrelated word and omission. The percentage distribution can

be seen in this following chart:

Chart 1. TT1 Translation Strategies Distribution

It can be seen from the chart above that the translator does not favor certain

strategy, but almost equally using several strategies. The strategies used is still

dependent on the ST.

In TT2, the translator applied the same strategies mentioned above except

cultural substitution. The distribution can be seen as follows:

Neutral, 1, 6%

Loan, 3, 20%

Cultural Substitution, 1, 7%

Paraphrasing Unrelated, 3, 20%

Paraphrasing Related, 4, 27%

Omission, 3, 20%

T T 1 T R A N S L AT I O N S T R AT EG I E S D I S T R I B U T I O N


24

Chart 2. TT2 Translation Strategies Distribution

From the chart above, the translator favors the strategies of translation by

paraphrasing with related words. The difference between applied strategies and

the translator’s choices are analyzed and discussed in each point below in this

section.

There are fifteen points discussed in this section, one for each joke in the

source material. Because the researcher used two different sources for the

Indonesian translation, the main point of this discussion is to analyze the

translation strategy used by those two sources and compare the similarity and

difference based on Baker’s strategy.

Neutral, 3, 19%

Loan, 1, 6%

Paraphrasing Unrelated, 3, 19%Paraphrasing

Related, 6, 37%

Omission, 3, 19%

T T 2 T R A N S L AT I O N S T R AT EG I E S D I S T R I B U T I O N


25

1. First Joke

No Text Strategy


hate all change.



Paraphrasing

Unrelated




Omission

In the ST, the word “change” can mean either “the substitution of one

thing to another” or “coins of low denomination”. These two meanings are crucial

as it is the punchline of the jokes. The two translators have a different approach to

translating this word.

The first translator chooses to paraphrase the word “change” into a phrase

that contains both meanings of the word. In TT1, the word “change” is translated

into kembalian saya diubah. In TT2, the translator takes a different approach by

directly omitting one meaning of the word. The translator only translates “change”

into uang receh yang berbentuk koin.

2. Second Joke

No Text Strategy

2/ST Trump's nothing like Hitler. There's no way he could

write a book.

2/TT1 Trump sama sekali tidak seperti Hitler. Tidak mungkin

dia bisa menulis buku.

Neutral

2/TT2 Trump tidak sama seperti Hitler. Tidak mungkin dia bisa

menulis buku.

Neutral

In the ST, the phrase “nothing like” is an informal expression which

means really unlike, and generally implies that one person is better than the


26

others. In the TT, both translators choose the same approach by using a more

neutral and less expressive phrase. Both paraphrase “nothing like” into sama

sekali tidak seperti and tidak sama seperti respectively. Although paraphrase

differently, there is no implied meaning that one person is better than others, only

emphasizing that they are very different.

3. Third Joke

No Text Strategy

3/ST I've given up asking rhetorical questions. What's the

point?

3/TT1 Saya sudah menyerah memberikan pertanyaan

retorika. Apa gunanya?

Paraphrasing

Unrelated

3/TT2 Saya tidak akan pernah lagi membuat pertanyaan

retoris. Apa gunanya?

Paraphrasing

Unrelated

In this sentence, both translators used paraphrasing to avoid using the

same basic word in the same sentence because “asking” and “question” can be

translated into menanyakan and pertanyaan that comes from the word tanya. In

TT1, the translator chooses to paraphrase the word “asking” into memberikan

which have a closer meaning “to give”. In TT2, the translator paraphrases the

phrase “given up” into tidak akan pernah lagi which have a closer meaning of

“never again”. The translator also paraphrases “asking” into membuat which has a

closer meaning to “making”.


27

4. Fourth Joke

No Text Strategy

4/ST I'm looking for the girl next door type. I'm just gonna

keep moving house till I find her.

4/TT1 Saya sedang mencari tipe gadis manis anak tetangga

sebelah. Saya akan terus pindah rumah sampai saya

menemukannya.

Paraphrasing

Related

4/TT2 Saya mencari gadis biasa. Saya akan terus pindah

rumah sampai saya berhasil menemukannya.

Paraphrasing

Related

In this translation, both TT1 and TT2 used paraphrase for the phrase “the

girl next door type”. In English, “the girl next door” is a “nice, ordinary and

familiar girl, usually a neighbor or childhood friend”. In TT1, the phrase is

translated into a more elaborate phrase tipe gadis manis anak tetangga sebelah

which means “the neighbor’s sweet daughter”. In TT2, the phrase is translated

into a simpler phrase gadis biasa, which mean “ordinary girl”.

5. Fifth Joke

No Text Strategy

5/ST I like to imagine the guy who invented the umbrella was

going to call it the 'brella'. But he hesitated.

5/TT1 Saya suka membayangkan bahwa sosok yang

menciptakan payung atau umbrella sebetulnya hendak

menyebutnya ‘brella’, tapi lalu dia ragu-ragu.

Loan

5/TT2 Saya membayangkan orang yang menciptakan

“umbrella” atau yang bahasa Indonesianya payung

sebenarnya akan menamainya “brella”. Tapi orang itu

ragu-ragu.

Loan

In TT1 and TT2, both translators choose to keep both “umbrella” and

“Brella” as a loan word then gives an explanation. Although there is an

Indonesian term for “umbrella”, which is payung, both translators choose to keep


28

the English word to preserve the connection between “umbrella” the second

loanword, “brella”.

6. Sixth Joke

No Text Strategy

6/ST Combine Harvesters. And you'll have a really big

restaurant.

6/TT1 Gabungkan semua Rumah Makan Sederhana. Dan kita

akan mendapatkan Rumah Makan Sangat Sederhana.

Cultural

substitution

6/TT2 Kumpulkan mesin-mesin pemetik hasil panen. Dan

kamu bisa punya sebuah restoran yang sangat besar.

Omission

In the ST, the phrase “combine harvester” could have two meanings. The

first is literally “combining several restaurants named Harvester, a restaurant

chain in Britain”, and the second is “a machine to harvest crops in the field”. In

TT1, the translator chooses to take the meaning of Harvester as a chain restaurant

and substitute it with another chain restaurant in Indonesia, which is Rumah

Makan Sederhana. In TT2, the translator chooses to omit the meaning of

Harvester as a chain restaurant, and chooses to translate it only as “a corps

harvesting machine”.

7. Seventh Joke

No Text Strategy

7/ST I'm rubbish with names. It's not my fault, it's a

condition. There's a name for it...

7/TT1 Saya tidak bisa mengingat nama. Ini bukan keinginan

saya, tapi memang ini suatu kelainan. Nama kelainan

itu adalah…

Paraphrasing

Unrelated

7/TT2 Saya sampah yang punya nama. Bukan salah saya,

tapi keadaan. Sampah itu punya nama….

Omission


29

In ST, rubbish is an expression that means “bad or not good at something”.

In TT1, this word is paraphrased into tidak bisa mengingat which mean “unable to

remember”. In TT2, the translator omits the meaning of the word rubbish as an

expression and choose to translate it literally into sampah which mean “garbage”.

8. Eighth Joke

No Text Strategy

8/ST I have two boys, 5 and 6. We're no good at naming

things in our house.

8/TT1 Saya punya 2 anak laki-laki, umur 5 dan 6. Kami

kesulitan mengingat nama benda-benda di rumah.

Paraphrasing

Related,

Omission

8/TT2 Saya punya dua anak laki-laki, 5 dan 6. Kami tidak

pandai menamai barang-barang di rumah kami.

Neutral

In TT1, the translator paraphrases “no good at naming” into kesulitan

mengingat nama that means “difficulty in remembering names”. In ST, “5 and 6”

can be the age of the boys, but also can mean the name of the boys according to

the next sentence. In TT1, by paraphrasing “5 and 6” into umur 5 dan 6, the

translator omits the second meaning of “5 and 6”. In TT2 the translator uses a less

expressive words to translate “no good” into tidak pandai. “No good” is an

informal phrase of “not good” while tidak pandai is a formal form of informal

phrases such as gak pinter or gak jago.


30

9. Ninth Joke

No Text Strategy

9/ST I wasn't particularly close to my dad before he died...

which was lucky, because he trod on a land mine.

9/TT1 Saya tidak terlalu dekat dengan bapak saat beliau

masih hidup… ya, untung saja, soalnya dia

menginjak bom ranjau.

Paraphrasing

Related

9/TT2 Saya tidak begitu dekat dengan ayah saya sebelum

beliau meninggal… untunglah, karena beliau

menginjak ranjau darat.

Paraphrasing

Related

In ST, according to the next sentence, the phrase “before he died” actually

means “the moment’s right before he died”. In TT1, it is translated into saat

beliau masih hidup which mean “when he still alive”. In TT2 the translator

chooses to translate it into sebelum beliau meninggal. It has a closer and more

literal meaning with ST but unable to convey the meaning of “the moments right

before he died”.

10. Tenth Joke

No Text Strategy

10/ST Whenever someone says, 'I don't believe in

coincidences.' I say, 'Oh my God, me neither!'.

10/TT1 Ketika seseorang berkata, ‘Saya tidak percaya pada

kebetulan.’ Saya berkata, ‘Ya Tuhan, saya juga

tidak!’.

Omission

10/TT2 Setiap kali ada yang bilang, ‘Saya tidak percaya

dengan yang namanya kebetulan.’ Saya berkata, ‘Ya

ampun, sama ya kita. Saya juga enggak tuh!’

Paraphrasing

Related,

Neutral

In TT1, the translator translates the word “whenever” which mean “at

whatever time” into ketika which mean simply “at what time”. In TT2. The

translator paraphrases “in coincidence” into dengan yang namanya kebetulan. The

translator used a lengthier sentence to elaborate the phrase. It can also be seen in


31

how the translator translates the phrase “me neither”. It translated into sama ya

kita, saya juga enggak tuh! which gives more elaboration to the word, neither and

its contradiction to the previous sentence. The translator also used a more neutral

phrase to translate “oh my God” by translating it into ya ampun and omitting the

word “God”.

11. Eleventh Joke

No Text Strategy

11/ST A friend tricked me into going to Wimbledon by

telling me it was a men's singles event.

11/TT1 Seorang teman berbohong agar saya mau ikut ke

Wimbledon, dia bilang di sana ada men single’s,

acara pria single

Loan

11/TT2 Seorang teman mengerjai saya dan membuat saya

datang ke acara Wimbledon. Katanya sih itu adalah

acara permainan yang pemainnya para lelaki yang

tidak berpasangan.

Paraphrasing

Unrelated

In the phrase “men’s singles event” from ST, both translator of TT1 and

TT2 have a very different approach to translating those phrases. In TT1, the

translator chooses to keep the phrase “men single’s” and gives an explanation as

acara pria single. In TT2, the translator chooses to elaborate the meaning of

“men’s singles event” as acara permainan yang pemainnya para lelaki yang tidak

berpasangan.


32

12. Twelfth Joke

No Text Strategy

12/ST As a vegan, I think people who sell meat are

disgusting; but apparently people who sell fruit and

veg are grocer.

12/TT1 Sebagai seorang vegan, saya menganggap penjual

daging itu menjijikkan; tapi sepertinya para penjual

buah dan sayuran adalah penjual grosir [lebih

menjijikkan] (“grocer” yang berarti penjual grosir

jika dibaca dalam Bahasa Inggris akan serupa

dengan kata “grosser” yang artinya lebih

menjijikkan).

Loan

12/TT2 Sebagai seorang vegetarian, saya menganggap

orang-orang yang berjualan daging itu menjijikan,

tapi sepertinya mereka yang menjual buah dan

sayur adalah pemilik atau pegawai di toko

kelontong.

Paraphrasing

Related

In TT1, although the translator translates the word “grocer” into penjual

grosir, the translator also gives an elaborate explanation to try to encompass all

the use and meaning of the word “grocer”. In TT2, the translator chooses to

translate “grocer” into pemilik atau pegawai di toko kelontong which is a more

literal translation but forego the connection between the word “grocer” and

“grosser”.

13. Thirteenth Joke

No Text Strategy

13/ST For me dying is a lot like going camping. I don't

want to do it.

13/TT1 Bagi saya sekarat itu sama seperti pergi berkemah.

Saya sama sekali tidak mau.

Omission

13/TT2 Bagi saya, sekarat itu terdengar sangat mirip seperti

pergi berkemah. Saya tidak mau melakukan itu.

Paraphrasing

Related


33

In TT1, the translator omitted the phrase “to do it” by translating the

sentence “I don’t want to do it” into saya sama sekali tidak mau which only mean

“I really don’t want to”. In TT2, the translator chooses to paraphrase the phrase “a

lot like” into terdengar sangat mirip which have closer meaning to “sounds like”.

14. Fourteenth Joke

No Text Strategy

14/ST I wonder how many chameleons snuck onto the Ark.

14/TT1 Saya penasaran berapa banyak bunglon yang

menyelinap ke dalam Bahtera.

Paraphrasing

Related

14/TT2 Saya penasaran ada berapa banyak bunglon yang

menyelinap naik ke Bahtera Nuh.

Paraphrasing

Related

In TT1, the translator paraphrases the word “onto” into ke dalam which

have closer meaning to “into” but both can generally mean going inside

something. In TT2, the translator paraphrases the word “Ark” into Bahtera Nuh to

give more context and a specification of what the Ark is.

15. Fifteenth Joke

No Text Strategy

15/ST I went to a Pretenders gig. It was a tribute act.

15/TT1 Saya datang ke konsernya Pretenders. Yang naik

pentas adalah band cover.

Paraphrasing

Related

15/TT2 Saya pergi menonton konsernya the Pretenders

kemarin. Seperti namanya, grup musik tersebut

membawakan lagu-lagu milik band populer dan

tampil meniru band tersebut.

Paraphrasing

Unrelated

In TT1, the translator translates “a tribute act” into band cover which

usually what a tribute act is, a band covering another famous band as a tribute act.

In TT2, the translator paraphrases the entire sentence “It was a tribute act” into an


34

explanation of the connection between a tribute act and the meaning of the name

the Pretenders.

B. The Joke Analysis and Reader’s Response of The Translated Version of

“Dave’s Jokes of The Fringe 2017”.

In this part, the researcher tries to see the connection between how the

point of the jokes is translated and the reader’s reaction to that translation. To

better understand the jokes, and create a more accurate analysis, the researcher

categorized each joke into several categories from Chauvin’s topology of one-

liners. Those categories are puns, set phrases, ambiguous syntax, implicatures,

conversational clichés, lexical reference, cultural reference, internal contradiction,

observational and absurdist humor.

Based on the theory above, the categories of jokes in the ST are as follows:

puns, set phrases, implicatures, cultural reference, and internal contradiction. The

distribution of the categories can be seen in the chart below:

Chart 3. Category Distribution

Puns, 3, 20%

Set Phrases, 2, 13%

Implicatures, 2, 13%

Cultural References, 5,

34%

Internal Contradiction, 3,

20%

CATEGORY DISTRIBUTION


35

This section also applied the affective data gathered via a questionnaire to

see the readers’ response for each translated jokes. By dividing this section into 15

points, one for each joke, the researcher analyzed and discussed the correlation

between the ways the jokes are translated to the reaction of the reader.

1. First Joke

No Text Result


hate all change.

Puns

Menurut anda, apakah kalimat di bawah ini

merupakan sebuah lelucon?

Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)



30 70




30 70

The ST is a pun joke that comes from the connection between the phrases

“the new pound coin” in the setup and the double meaning in the word “change”

in the punchline. The word “change” means either “the substitution of one thing to

another” which mean something new or “coins”. In TT1, the translator tries to

encompass both meanings of the word “change” by paraphrasing it into kembalian

saya dirubah which results in 70% of readers do not consider it as a joke. In TT2,

the translator omits the meaning of the word “change” as creating something new.

The difference in the translator’s choice does not change the response of the

readers as 70% still do not consider it as a joke.


36

2. Second Joke

No Text Result

2/ST Trump's nothing like Hitler. There's no way he could

write a book.

Cultural

References



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

2/TT1 Trump sama sekali tidak seperti Hitler. Tidak

mungkin dia bisa menulis buku.

40 60

2/TT2 Trump tidak sama seperti Hitler. Tidak mungkin dia

bisa menulis buku.

40 60

This joke is based on the cultural knowledge that Donald Trump, the 45th

president of the United States, and Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany in

WW2, are considered as a very bad person. In ST, the set up “Trump’s nothing

like Hitler” gives an implicit expectation that Trump is better than or not as bad as

Hitler. But, the punchline shows that Hitler is better than Trump because he can

write a book. This set up is not translated fully into Bahasa Indonesia by both of

the translators, because they are unable to imply that Trump is better than Hitler.

This is results in only 40% of the readers consider both translations as jokes.

3. Third Joke

No Text Result

3/ST I've given up asking rhetorical questions. What's the

point?

Internal

Contradiction



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

3/TT1 Saya sudah menyerah memberikan pertanyaan

retorika. Apa gunanya?

70 30

3/TT2 Saya tidak akan pernah lagi membuat pertanyaan

retoris. Apa gunanya?

60 40

In this joke, humor is created by internal contradiction between the setup

and the punchline. The setup state that the writer will no longer ask a rhetorical


37

question, but then immediately followed by asking a rhetorical question in the

punchline. In TT, although the two translators used different phrases, the core

form of no longer asking a rhetorical question and immediately followed by a

rhetorical question is preserved. It can be seen from the data that the majority of

the readers still consider those sentences as jokes, 70% for TT1 and 60% for TT2.

4. Fourth Joke

No Text Result

4/ST I'm looking for the girl next door type. I'm just gonna

keep moving house till I find her.

Set Phrases



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

4/TT1 Saya sedang mencari tipe gadis manis anak tetangga

sebelah. Saya akan terus pindah rumah sampai saya

menemukannya.

70 30

4/TT2 Saya mencari gadis biasa. Saya akan terus pindah

rumah sampai saya berhasil menemukannya.

30 70

The core of this joke is the connection between the set phrase “girl next

door” and “moving house”. Rather than use the figurative meaning of “the girl

next door” which is “a nice, ordinary girl”, the performer chooses to use the literal

meaning “a girl who lived next door” as a set up for the punchline. In TT1, the

translator chooses to keep the connection by translating “girl next door” into gadis

manis anak tetangga sebelah. The phrase tetangga sebelah works with the

punchline that he needs to pindah rumah to find one. In TT2, the translator

chooses to translate “girl next door” into gadis biasa and thus abandoning the

connection because gadis biasa cannot mean “a girl who lived next door”. This

results in only 30% of the readers consider TT2 as a joke while 70% of the readers

consider TT1 as a joke.


38

5. Fifth Joke

No Text Result

5/ST I like to imagine the guy who invented the umbrella

was going to call it the 'brella'. But he hesitated.

Puns



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

5/TT1 Saya suka membayangkan bahwa sosok yang

menciptakan payung atau umbrella sebetulnya hendak

menyebutnya ‘brella’, tapi lalu dia ragu-ragu.

90 10

5/TT2 Saya membayangkan orang yang menciptakan

“umbrella” atau yang bahasa Indonesianya payung

sebenarnya akan menamainya “brella”. Tapi orang itu

ragu-ragu.

60 40

In this joke, the writer suggests that the word “umbrella” is a pun that

comes from the combination of the word “brella” and “um”, onomatopoeia that

uttered when someone is hesitating. To preserve the wordplay, both translators

keep the word “umbrella” and “brella”. The only difference is that in TT1, the

translator directly explains umbrella as payung while in TT2 the translator used

longer phrase yang bahasa Indonesianya payung. This small difference in

phrasing creates a difference in the reader's perception as 90% of the readers

consider TT1 as jokes while only 60% of the readers consider TT2 as jokes.

6. Sixth Joke

No Text Result

6/ST Combine Harvesters. And you'll have a really big

restaurant.

Cultural

References



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

6/TT1 Gabungkan semua Rumah Makan Sederhana. Dan

kita akan mendapatkan Rumah Makan Sangat

Sederhana.

60 40

6/TT2 Kumpulkan mesin-mesin pemetik hasil panen. Dan

kamu bisa punya sebuah restoran yang sangat besar.

40 60


39

The phrase “combine harvesters” generally mean “a machine to harvest

crops in the field”. But when “Harvesters” is interpreted as the name of a chain

restaurant in Britain, combining Harvesters create a really big restaurant. In TT1,

the translator chooses to substitute Harvester to a local chain restaurant Rumah

Makan Sederhana. Although losing the double meaning of the phrase “Combine

Harvester”, the translator can create another wordplay using the phrase Rumah

Makan Sangat Sederhana. In English, Rumah Makan Sederhana can be translated

into “Simple Restaurant” while Rumah Makan Sangat Sederhana can mean “Very

Simple Restaurant”. This creates an incongruity in a way that if you combine

something, you should be creating something, bigger, or grander, not something

simple. In this way, the translator changes the point of the jokes, but still manage

to create a joke with the same basic principle of wordplay based on the restaurant

names as a cultural reference.

The majority of readers, 60%, consider TT1 as a joke. In TT2, the

translator chooses to omit the meaning of Harvester as a chain restaurant by

translating it into mesin-mesin pemetik hasil panen. This translation removes the

connection between “Harvesters” and “restaurant” thus creating two sentences

without any connection. It can be seen from the data that only 40% of the readers

that consider this sentence as a joke.


40

7. Seventh Joke

No Text Result

7/ST I'm rubbish with names. It's not my fault, it's a

condition. There's a name for it...

Internal

Contradiction



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

7/TT1 Saya tidak bisa mengingat nama. Ini bukan

keinginan saya, tapi memang ini suatu kelainan.

Nama kelainan itu adalah…

20 80

7/TT2 Saya sampah yang punya nama. Bukan salah saya,

tapi keadaan. Sampah itu punya nama….

40 60

In ST, the internal contradiction of the writer's inability to recall the name

of his condition shortly after saying that he is bad with names creates the point of

the jokes. In TT1, the translator keeps the point of the jokes, but paraphrase it with

longer, more formal and more elaborate sentences. This results in 80% of reader

cannot consider TT1 as a joke. The translator of TT2 chooses to forego the

definition of “rubbish” as an expression and literally translate it into sampah. This

creates an absurd sentence Saya sampah yang punya nama. Surprisingly, 40% of

the readers consider this sentence as a joke.

8. Eighth Joke

No Text Result

8/ST I have two boys, 5 and 6. We're no good at naming

things in our house.

Implicature



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

8/TT1 Saya punya 2 anak laki-laki, umur 5 dan 6. Kami

kesulitan mengingat nama benda-benda di rumah.

30 70

8/TT2 Saya punya dua anak laki-laki, 5 dan 6. Kami tidak

pandai menamai barang-barang di rumah kami.

30 70


41

In this joke, the connection between the phrase “5 and 6” and “no good at

naming things” create an implied meaning that either the writer did not name his

children, or he named his boys “five” and “six” respectively. In both TT, this

implied meaning is lost because of the way the translator paraphrased the

sentences. In TT1, by adding the word umur, it constricts the definition of 5 dan

6. The translator also paraphrases “no good” into kesulitan mengingat thus further

the disconnection between phrases. Furthermore, both in TT1 and TT2, the

translation of “things” is not working in Bahasa Indonesia because benda-benda

and barang-barang cannot refer to children. This results in 70% of the readers do

not consider both TT1 and TT2 as a joke sentence.

9. Ninth Joke

No Text Result

9/ST I wasn't particularly close to my dad before he died...

which was lucky, because he trod on a land mine.

Implicature



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

9/TT1 Saya tidak terlalu dekat dengan bapak saat beliau

masih hidup… ya, untung saja, soalnya dia

menginjak bom ranjau.

80 20

9/TT2 Saya tidak begitu dekat dengan ayah saya sebelum

beliau meninggal… untunglah, karena beliau

menginjak ranjau darat.

90 10

Generally, not being close to someone's own father before he died is an

unfortunate thing, because they are unable to spend important time and memories

with their deceased father. The setup of this joke implied that unfortunate

condition, but the punchline broke that implication by saying that it was lucky.

The phrase “before he died” usually means in the father everyday life, but in this

joke, it means the moment when the father is dying because he trod on a land


42

mine and died. Both translators in the TT keep the form of the jokes with a slight

difference in paraphrasing a certain phrase. This results in the majority of the

readers consider both TT1 and TT2 as joke sentences, 80% for TT1 and 90% for

TT2.

10. Tenth Joke

No Text Result

10/ST Whenever someone says, 'I don't believe in

coincidences.' I say, 'Oh my God, me neither!'.

Internal

Contradiction



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

10/TT1 Ketika seseorang berkata, ‘Saya tidak percaya pada

kebetulan.’ Saya berkata, ‘Ya Tuhan, saya juga

tidak!’.

40 60

10/TT2 Setiap kali ada yang bilang, ‘Saya tidak percaya

dengan yang namanya kebetulan.’ Saya berkata,

‘Ya ampun, sama ya kita. Saya juga enggak tuh!’

60 40

In this joke, the writer contradict the statement of disbelieving in

coincidences by immediately stating a coincidence. Both TT1 and TT2 paraphrase

the sentence heavily. The only major difference between TT1 and TT2 is in TT2,

the translator elaborates more by using the phrase sama ya kita. This phrase

emphasizes the coincidence factor and thus results in 60% of the readers consider

TT2 as a joke sentence while only 40% of the readers consider TT1 as a joke

sentence.


43

11. Eleventh Joke

No Text Result

11/ST A friend tricked me into going to Wimbledon by

telling me it was a men's singles event.

Cultural

References



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

11/TT1 Seorang teman berbohong agar saya mau ikut ke

Wimbledon, dia bilang di sana ada men single’s,

acara pria single

30 70

11/TT2 Seorang teman mengerjai saya dan membuat saya

datang ke acara Wimbledon. Katanya sih itu adalah

acara permainan yang pemainnya para lelaki yang

tidak berpasangan.

40 60

In this joke, the connection between “Wimbledon”, a world-famous tennis

event and double meaning of the phrase “men’s singles event”, which can mean

one of the events in tennis or an event for single men to find their date, create

wordplay that results in humor. In both TT1 and TT2, the translators unable to

translate this connection. In TT1, the translator chooses to keep the phrase “men’s

single” and give an explanation in Bahasa Indonesia while in TT2, the translator

paraphrase “men’s singles event” by elaborately explain it in Bahasa Indonesia.

Both approaches results in only 30% of the readers consider TT1 as a jokes

sentence and 40% consider TT2 as a joke sentence.


44

12. Twelfth Joke

No Text Result

12/ST As a vegan, I think people who sell meat are

disgusting; but apparently people who sell fruit and

veg are grocer.

Puns



Ya

(%)

Tidak

(%)

12/TT1 Sebagai seorang vegan, saya menganggap penjual

daging itu menjijikkan; tapi sepertinya para penjual

buah dan sayuran adalah penjual grosir [lebih

menjijikkan] (“grocer” yang berarti penjual grosir

jika dibaca dalam Bahasa Inggris akan serupa

dengan kata “grosser” yang artinya lebih

menjijikkan).

80 20

12/TT2 Sebagai seorang vegetarian, saya menganggap

orang-orang yang berjualan daging itu menjijikan,

tapi sepertinya mereka yang menjual buah dan sayur

adalah pemilik atau pegawai di toko kelontong.

30 70

In ST, the word “grocer” is a homophone to the word “grosser”. This

creates a pun that mean, although the meat seller is disgusting, fruit and vegetable

seller is

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