PAPER
THE TRANSLATION FROM SEMANTICS MEANING OF COLOURS SYMBOLS IN “MECARU”
(TRADITIONAL BALINESE OFFERING CEREMONY)
by
PUTU AGUS BRATAYADNYA
(0690161032)
TRANSLATION STUDIES IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS
SCHOOL OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1. 1. Background
1.1.1. The understand of Semantics
Semantics, the study of meaning, stand at the very centre of linguistic quest to understand the natural of language and human abilities. Why? Because expressing meanings is what languages are all about. Every think in a language-words, grammatical construction, intonation pattern-conspires to the realize this goal in the fullest richest, subtlest way. To understand how any particular language works we needs to how its individual design work to fulfill its function as an intricate device for communicating meanings. Equally, semantics is crucial to the Chomskyan goal of describing and accounting for linguistic competence, that is, the knowledge that people must have in order to speak understand a language. Semantic competence is a crucial part of overall linguistic competence.
Another concern of semantics is to shed light on the relationship between language and culture, or more accurately, between languages and cultures. Much of the vocabulary of any language, and ever, part of the grammar, will reflect the culture of the speakers. Indeed, the culture-specific concept and ways of understanding embedded in a language are an important part of what constitutes a culture. Language is one of the main instruments by which children are socialized into the values, belief systems, and practices of their culture.
1.1.2. The understanding of translation
The study of translation has been dominated, and to a degree still is, by the debate about its status as an art or a science, so we shall begin with this issue.
The linguist inevitably approaches translation from a ‘scientific’ point of view, seeking to create some kind of objective description of the phenomenon and this will be the fundamental orientation of this book. It could, however be argued that translation is an ‘art’ or a ‘craft’ and therefore not amenable to objective, ‘scientific’ description and explanation and so, a fortiori, the search for a theory of translation is doomed from the start.
It is easy to see how such a view could have held sway in the last century, when scholars-for the most part, dilettante translators engaging in translation as a past time-were preoccupied with the translation of literary texts and, in particular, Classical authors; Latin and Greek. Not untypical is the description, by a contemporary, of the Scottish peer, Lord Woodhouselee (1747-1814) as:
a delightful host, with whom it was a memorable experience to spend an evening
discussion the Don Quixote of Motteux and of Smollett, or how to capture the
aroma of Virgil in a n English medium, in the era before the Scottish prose Homer
had changed the literary perspective north of the Tweed.
It also understandable that the attitude should have continued into the present century, during which both translation and translation theory have been dominated at less until very recently, by Bible translation (especially Nida)
What is less comprehensible is that the view should still persist in the closing decade of the twentieth century, when the vast proportion of translations are not literary texts but technical, medical, legal, administrative and the vast majority of translations are professionals engaged in making a living rather than whiling away the time in an agreeable manner by translating the odd ode or two on winter evenings.
Nevertheless, the supposed dichotomy between ‘art’ and science’ is still current enough to form the title of a book on translation theory published in 1998: The science of linguistics in the art of translation, where (even though care is taken to distinguish ‘pure’ linguistic from applied linguistic) the main emphasis is still on literary translation since, we are told: ’The quintessence of translation as art is, if anything, even more patent in literary texts.
‘Translation’ has been variously defined and, not infrequently, in dictionaries of linguistics, omitted entirely and the following definitions have been selected (and edited) partly because they are, in some sense typical and partly because they raise issue which we will be pursuing in detail later.
- Traiduire c,est énoncer dans une autre langage (ou langue cible) ce qui a été énoncé dans une autre langue source, en conservant les equivalence sémantiques et stylistiques. Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylish equivalences. [my translation]
There are , in spite of the differences, common features shared by the two
definitions we have given so far, the notion of movement of some sort between language, content of some kind and the obligation to find ‘equivalents’ which ‘preserve’ features of the original. It is this notion of ‘equivalence’ which we are about to take up.
1.2. Scope of problem
- The translation from semantics meaning of colours symbols in “mecaru”
(Tradition Balinese Offering Ceremony)
1.3. Aims of writing
In this paper there are two purposes, there are: General aim and specific aim. The purpose can be explained as follow:
General purpose of this paper is for semantics and translation exercise as the middle test requirement.
Specifically is to fulfill one of the academic requirements of semantics and translation subject to complete my study at Translation studies, Postgraduate program Linguistic department Faculty of Letters, Udayana University.
Chapter II
Theoretical Bases
When writing this exercise used main theories by Prof. Dr. N.L.Sutjiati Beratha, M.A. in her presentation Peran Semantik Dalam Penerjemahan in Pidato Pengenalan Jabatan Guru besar Tetap Dalam Bidang Ilmu Bahasa Inggris Pada Fakultas Sastra Universitas Udayana Denpasar and Ida Ayu Putu Surayin, her book entitle Melangkah ke arah persiapan upakara–upacara yajna. And the supported theory by Cliff Goddard in his book entitle Semantic Analysis a Practical Introduction.
2.1. Semantic and translation.
Translation is a process of transfer of meaning. According to August Gutt (In Venuti, 2000) translation is the target language text interpretatively resembled the original. Therefore a translation is the target text interpretatively resembled the original. Therefore a translator should understand types of meanings that exist in the text, because it is known that there are many types of meanings. Meanings are signalled either by linguistic features or features outside linguistics. True meanings of words are found by resolving what people do with them, not what they say about them, and the context will determine them.
Translation is the process or the result of converting information from one language or variety into another. The aim of translation is to produce as accurately as possible the grammatical as well as semantic features of the source language text and its equivalent in the target language.
Ogden and Richards (1972) formulate concepts of meanings as follows:
- An intrinsic property.
- The other words annexed to a word in a dictionary.
- The connotation of a word.
- The place of anything in a system.
- The practical consequences of a thing in our future experience.
- That to which the user of a symbol actually refers.
- That to which the user of a symbol believes himself to be referring.
- That to which the user of a symbol believes himself to be reffering.
- That to which the interpreter of a symbol:
- refers,
- believes himself to be referring
- believes the user to be referring
Anyone who combines commercial translation activities with working as an academic, involved in both translation studies (TS) research and training students to become professional translators, will be acutely aware of how problematic it is to formulate translation strategies for the benefit of translators. If you are in such a position, you are used to feeling equally uncomfortable about what you hear at times on the subject of strategies at academic conferences and professional translators’ conferences. You are familiar with dismissive remarks from practitioners who reject wholesale the notion of any possible contribution of TS to the concrete resolution of problems at the ‘wordface,’ to borrow Wagner’s term (Chesterman and Wagner 2002). Cross, for instance, deems Baker’s Encyclopedia of Translation Studies to be “interesting, but irrelevant” (1998:27, quoted by Wagner in Chesterman and Wagner 2002:1). The contention is usually that every problem/text/translation situation is different, which means that generalizations, and therefore reusable strategies, are out of the question. It is also argued that the concepts TS relies upon are so complex, esoteric and remote from translation practice that translators could not even begin to apply them to their tasks (for further arguments, see Robinson 2001:162-163). As Wagner points out: “There can be few professions with such a yawning gap between theory and practice” (Chesterman and Wagner 2002:1), a worrying situation for a group of professionals who have a status and credibility problem, since they can still practice without any formal qualification.
2.2. Development of theories of color vision
Although Aristotle and other ancient scientists had already written on the nature of light and color vision, it was not until Newton that light was identified as the source of the color sensation. In 1810, Goethe published his comprehensive Theory of Colors. In 1801 Thomas Young proposed his trichromatic theory, based on the observation that any color could be matched with a combination of three lights. This theory was later refined by James Clerk Maxwell and Hermann von Helmholtz. As Helmholtz puts it, “the principles of Newton’s law of mixture were experimentally confirmed by Maxwell in 1856. Young’s theory of color sensations, like so much else that this marvellous investigator achieved in advance of his time, remained unnoticed until Maxwell directed attention to it.
At the same time as Helmholtz, Ewald Hering developed the opponent process theory of color, noting that color blindness and afterimages typically come in opponent pairs (red-green, blue-yellow, and black-white). Ultimately these two theories were synthesized in 1957 by Hurvich and Jameson, who showed that retinal processing corresponds to the trichromatic theory, while processing at the level of the lateral geniculate nucleus corresponds to the opponent theory.
In 1931, an international group of experts known as the Commission Internationale d’Eclairage (CIE) developed a mathematical color model, which mapped out the space of observable colors and assigned a set of three numbers to each.
Chapter III
The translation from semantics meaning
of colours symbols in “mecaru”
3.1. Data presentation.
First when the lecturer gives this exercise for me, I have no idea for the topic that
I choose for this exercise. But when I attend “mecaru” (tradition Balinese offering ceremony) in my brother home and there is a couple tourist who very interest with this ceremony and both of them little bit understand Indonesian ask me why the people write “siap putih” and they though this is good chicken and for “siap selem” it means bad chicken. Than they ask me what does it means? And I explain about Balinese semantic symbol of colour used in Balinese offering. After that they understand about the meaning of siap putih. Finally this short conversation make me idea to write the translation from semantics meaning of colours symbols in “mecaru” as my exercise topic.
3.2. Data analysis.
Color (or colour, see spelling differences) is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, yellow, white, etc. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light energy versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects, materials, light sources, etc., based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra.
Typically, only features of the composition of light that are detectable by humans (wavelength spectrum from 400 nm to 700 nm, roughly) are included, thereby objectively relating the psychological phenomenon of color to its physical specification. Because perception of color stems from the varying sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance.
The science of color is sometimes called chromatics. It includes the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what we commonly refer to simply as light).
In Hindu etymology, the colour used in mecaru (tradition Balinese offering
ceremony) is depend to compass because in Hindu etymology all direction are protect by God. In Hindu religion that every direction have their god such as North is protect by Wisnu, east is protect by Iswara, south is protect by Brahma, West is protect by Mahadewa and center is protect by Siwa.
- In the top is north and has black as the symbolize colour , and than 6 as the holy
number (in Balinese called urip). Urip use when offering meal in Balinese called sate so if the urip is 6 in that place take 6 sate and Wisnu is the name of the God who protect north side. Wisnu has weapon called cakra and Wisnu is “Protect God” in Trimurti (The three biggest God in Hindu Etymology).
- Right is east and has white as the symbolize colour, and than 4 as the holy number
(in Balinese called urip). Urip use when offering meal in Balinese called sate so if east has 4 urip, it means in that place take 4 sate and Iswara is the name of God who protect east side. Iswara has cleneng as his weapon. Cleneng is used by Hindu Holy man such as Priest when lead the ceremony.
- Below is south and has red as the symbolize colour, and than 9 as the holy
number ( in Balinese called urip). Urip use when offering meal or in Balinese
called sate, because south has 9 as the holy number so in south must 9 sate
there. And Brahma is the name of God who protects south side. Brahma has Gada
as his weapon and Brahma is “Made God” in Trimurti. In Hindu etymology
everything is creation by Brahma.
- Left is west and has yellow as the symbolize colour, and than 7 as the holy
number ( in Balinese called urip). Urip use when offering meal in Balinese called
sate so if west has 7 as the holy number, it means in that place take 7 sate. And
Mahadewa is the name of God who protects west side. Mahadewa has weapon
called nagapasa. Nagapasa is an arrow wrap with a dragon.
- Center is called tengah in Balinese and has all colours as the symbolize colour
All colour mix is one colour is look like black in Balinese called brunbun. And
than 8 as the holy number (in Balinese called urip). Urip use when offering meal
in Balinese called sate and because in center has 8 as holy number so 8 sate must
take in center. And Siwa is the name of God who protects center side. Siwa has
weapon called padma and Siwa is “cremation” God in Trimurti.
In Hindu usually connection with religion if discuss about colour. Beside above colour diagram, Hindu has another colour diagram that more compliable rather than this diagram. It called Betara Nawa Sanga. Betara Nawa Sanga means nine God who protect all of direction and it diagram has nine colours. But because it not use at “mecaru” so we are not discuss about Betara Nawa Sanga diagram.
Chapter IV
Conclusion
Based on the foregoing analysis and discussion, the following points can be drawn as conclusion:
A Colour has a lot of meaning. A colour has several meaning depend on what condition is the colour used. Dell Hymes says in his acronym “SPEKING” the component of context depend from: setting and scene (S), participant (P), ends (E), act sequence (A), key (K), instrumentally (I), norms (N) and genres (G) or Ogden and Richards (1972) formulate concepts of meanings as follows:An intrinsic property,the other words annexed to a word in a dictionary, the connotation of a word, the place of anything in a system, the practical consequences of a thing in our future experience, that to which the user of a symbol actually refer, that to which the user of a symbol believes himself to be referring, that to which the user of a symbol believes himself to be reffering, that to which the interpreter of a symbol (refers,believes himself to be referring, and believes the user to be referring).
For example red has many meaning, if we talking about red at traffic lamp, it have meaning “stop”, but if talking about red in our national flag, it has meaning “courage”. It same like translation from semantics meaning of colours symbols in “mecaru”. In mecaru red is identity symbol of Hindu God called Brahma and because Brahma place at south so red take in south side.
BILBIOGRAPH
Cliff Goddard, 1997, Australia, Semantic Analysis a Practical Introduction: The
University of New England Armidale.
Ida Ayu Putu Surayin.Surabaya. Melangkah ke arah persiapan upakara–upacara yajna.
Paramitha.
Prof. Dr. N.L.Sutjiati Beratha, M.A. 2003, Peran Semantik Dalam Penerjemahan, Pidato
Pengenalan Jabatan Guru besar Tetap Dalam Bidang Ilmu Bahasa Inggris Pada Fakultas Sastra Universitas Udayana Denpasar: Udayana University.
Roger T. Bell, 1991, Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice: Longman
London and New York.
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/colour#Development_of_theory_of_colour_vision.
