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1 

 

 
ELT FORUM 7 (2) (2018) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 
 

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TRANSPOSITION 

TRANSLATION PROCEDURES IN ENGLISH-INDONESIAN 

TRANSLATION OF EPIC MOVIE SUBTITLE 

 

Putri Anggraeni, Januarius Mujiyanto, Ahmad Sofwan  
 

English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia

 

Article Info 
________________  
Article History: 

Received in October 

2018  
Approved in November 

2018  

Published in January 

2019 

________________  
Keywords: Transposition, 
Movie, Subtitle, 
Translation, Newmark.  
____________________ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract  
___________________________________________________________________ 
The topic of this research is The Implementation of Transposition Translation 

Procedures in English-Indonesian Translation of Epic Movie Subtitle. Movie or film 

can be considered as the most popular literary work yet brings out language aspects 

into broaden. As we know, a lot of popular movies are written in English which led 

translator produce a qualified translation of the movie in order to make the movie 

easier to understand by the audiences. There are many translation procedures 

implemented in a movie translation, one of them is transposition translation 

procedure. The goals of this final project are to reveal how many types and how the 

transposition translation procedure is implemented in translating the subtitle of Epic 

movie. This study used qualitative approach in describing the results of the analysis 

of transposition translation procedure implemented. In gathering data, the writer 

used two steps, they are watching and transcription. In analyzing data, the writer 

used several steps, they are identifying, classifying, reducing, and reporting. After 

analyzing the data, the results of this research were presented by using the 

qualitative-descriptive method. There are 108 out of 1551 parts of subtitles 

implemented four types of transposition translation procedure. The results of the 

analysis are described as follows: transposition translation procedure involving 

literary translation is 63.9%, transposition translation procedure involving change of 

words’ position 27.7%, transposition translation procedure involving change of word 

class 4.6%, and transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and 

replacement of words 4.6%. It can be seen that the most frequently implemented 

procedure is transposition translation procedure involving literary translation. The 

translator implemented all types of transposition translation procedure in order to 

produce a good translation which high in naturalness and equivalency of meaning 

between SL and TL. 

 
 
 © 2018 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

  


 Correspondent Address: ISSN 2252-6706 
B3 Building FBS Unnes  

Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229  

E-mail: putrianggra8@gmail.com  



P. Anggraeni, J. Mujiyanto, A. Sofwan / Journal of English Language Teaching 7 (2) (2018) 

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INTRODUCTION 

Film as a form of literature can be a very entertaining media. It can be proved by the fact that 

almost every family in the world has at least one television set at home. The reason that film become 

the most popular literature product is that it offers moral values, produced in a many genres, 

interesting with many colorful animation and special effects, easy and cheap to get, and often 

include language and culture content. Kusumarasdyati and Luo (Nuriswara, 2014, p. 1) state that 

“…films provide exposures to the real language, used in authentic settings and the culture in which 

the foreign language is spoken.” As means of communication, the language on the film is one of the 

important aspects. The audience can automatically learn the language from the film they are 

watching, in this case is English. For the Indonesian audience, who speak Indonesian, this condition 

may be problem. They need the source language (SL) to be translated into target language (TL).  

It is not a simple matter to translate a language into another. Every subtitle translator needs 

strategies and procedures to translate the subtitle so that they can translate it properly and produce a 

good subtitle. Since transposition translation procedure is the commonest translation procedure 

used, it should be taken to the consideration. As written in the Language Circle: Journal of Language 

and Literature XI/2, that in the process of translation, the translator uses class shift (transposition) as 

a translation strategy to achieve a communicative translation, it is important to every translator to 

understand how this procedure is implemented in translation in order to produce high qualified 

subtitle translation in the future. 

 According to Newmark (1988:5) translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another 

language in the way that the author intended the text. Newmark gave more explanation from his 

statement above that translation was not only translating the language but also the translator should 

transfer the meaning of the text, so the reader knew about the author intention. Another definition 

by Catford (1965:20), explained that translation was the replacement of textual material in one 

language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language. This definition concerned in two 

keywords in understanding translation. These are textual material (where text might have been 

expected) and equivalent. The use of these terms concerned in idea that translation transposed the 

Source language grammar (clauses and groups) into target language equivalents and translated the 

lexical units into proper and right sense in the context of the sentence. 

From some statements and definition from the experts above it can be concluded that 

translation is an process of activity of change, produce and convey the meaning from the writer 

(source language) into the target language to get the closest meaning that will be easily understood 

and acceptable for the reader by considering naturalness and equivalency between SL and TL. 

According to The Macquire Dictionary in Machali (2000:62), “a procedure is the act or 

manner of proceeding in any action or process”. At first the different methods or procedures seem to 

be countless, Newmark (1988) mentions the difference between translation methods and translation 

procedures. He writes that, “While translation methods relate to whole texts, translation procedures 

are used for sentences and the smaller units of language”. So it is clear about the difference between 

translation methods and translation procedures. There are the most common translation procedures 

used in translation, as depicted by Newmark (1988): transference, naturalization, cultural 

equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, componential analysis, synonymy, through 

translation, shifts or transpositions, modulation, recognized translation, translation label, 

compensation, reduction and expansion, paraphrase. Other procedures, Vinay and Darbelnet also 

gave: equivalence, adaptation, couplets, and notes. 

According to Newmark (1988), as quoted by Sayogie, transposition consists of four types of 

grammatical changes, those are: 



P. Anggraeni, J. Mujiyanto, A. Sofwan / Journal of English Language Teaching 7 (2) (2018) 

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Transposition translation procedure involving literal translation (automatic transposition), is 

caused by the difference of grammatical structure of a language and offers the translator no choice. 

Transposition translation procedure involving the change of words’ position is required when 

a SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL. The change is also possible to occur when SL 

passive voice is not common to be translated in TL passive voice, so the words’ position are changed 

and transform it into TL active voice with equal meaning, and also caused by unnatural meaning of 

literal translation. 

Transposition translation procedure involving change of word class is grammatically possible 

when SL literal translation is not in a TL natural usage. For instance, SL noun phrase can be shifted 

into a TL verb phrase. 

Transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words can be 

considered as a semi or full change of a full-set SL sentence into a new composition of TL with 

equal meaning, required adjustment and replacement of some words in order to complete lexical gap 

in the translation. 

A definition of movie stated by Hornby (1995: 434) defined film is a story, etc. recorded as a 

set of moving pictures to be shown on television or at the cinema. As stated in Microsoft Encarta 

2008, movie or film is a series of images that are projected onto screen to create the illusion of 

motion. Motion pictures also called movies, films, or the cinema are one of the most popular forms 

of entertainment, enabling people to bring themselves in an imaginary world (Microsoft Encarta: 

2008). While Coulson (1978: 622) states that film or movie is story, incident, etc. recorded on film 

on moving pictures. Furthermore, Lorimer (1995: 506) states that films can record culture, and they 

can treat social or political issues and other aspects of societies to capture relationship difficult to be 

communicated by other means. 

Based on the definitions above, it can be concluded that movie is one of literature forms 

which contain story, play, history, culture, incidents, science, etc. that is recorded as video and 

shown in cinema, television, theaters, or other broadcast media which is as entertainment as the 

main purpose. 

From the research conducted by Dries (1995) it is known that there are two major types of 

film translation: dubbing and subtitling; each of them interferes with the original text to a different 

extent. 

Subtitling, as cited from Matviska (2014) can be explained as supplying a translation of the 

spoken source language dialogue into the target language in the form of synchronized captions, 

usually at the bottom of the screen, is the form that alters the source text to the least possible extent 

and enables the target audience to experience the foreign and be aware of its 'foreignness' at all 

times. Therefore, the language of a subtitle should be a short, dense, and precise objectives and 

standards of good language use. Subtitle usually appear on the lower part of the screen and consist of 

the translated source language into target language. 

 

Dubbing is oriented at the target audience that makes the translator adapt the source text 

which in the end has to meet the standards existing in the target language or country, as cited from 

Cintaz (2009). Labially synchronized dubbing which is also known as lip sync is the most widely-

spread type of revoicing of feature films which are in mass distribution and mostly it is performed by 

professional actors. During selection of dubbing actors original voice, temperament of the character 

and voice age are taken into consideration. 



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METHODS 

This study is a descriptive-qualitative research. It means that this study presents the data in a 

form of description. Based on to Pope and Mays (in Bram, 2013: 25), qualitative researchers study 

things in their natural settings in an effort to discover the meanings seen by those who are being 

researched (or subjects) rather than that of the researcher. In this research, the writer only collect, 

classify and analyze the data, and in the end, draw conclusion based on the data gathered in a form 

of description.  

The data used in this research are the subtitles taken from Epic movie. They are served in a 

form of subtitle, there are subtitles used, they are English and Indonesian subtitle compared and 

analyzed sentence by sentence. There are 1551 parts of English and Indonesian subtitles divided by 

the time they occur on the screen, but not all of them are used. The subtitles used are the subtitles 

implemented transposition translation procedure, there are 108 parts. Due to the same type of data, 

108 subtitles is reduced into simpler data which represent each kind of transposition translation 

procedure, so the result of this study is easier to understand. The data of this study is in a form of 

table contains English and Indonesian subtitles and the time they occur on the screen when the 

movie is played. The writer decided to divide them based on the time they occur because it is 

considered to be more valid rather than divided them sentence by sentence. It is also because the 

translator translate them based on the time they occur too. 

The techniques of collecting the data in this research can be summarized into two steps. They 

are: 

1. Watching; since the data of this study was taken from a film, the first step the writer took 

was watch the film. This step is considered as the primary step because by watching a movie, an 

audience is able to get deeper understanding about the story of the movie. The writer not only 

watched the movie one but repeatedly also to get more understanding about the English (SL) and 

Indonesian (TL) subtitles of the movie.  

2. Transcription; after watching and get enough understanding about the story and the subtitle 

of the movie, the writer then gathered the subtitles as the data by transferring the source language 

(SL) and the target language (TL) of the subtitle into a table. The writer listed all the subtitles into a 

table and put them based on the time they occur on the screen when the movie is played, so there 

would be no incorrect pair between SL and TL in the table. Here, the writer put both the source 

language (SL) and the target language (TL) of the subtitle side by side. 

 

The techniques of collecting the data in this research can be summarized into four steps. They 

are: 

1. Identifying; after the writer gathered all the subtitles of SL and TL data from the movie, the 

writer identified them based on the transposition translation procedure used. The writer then made 

another table contain only subtitles implemented transposition translation procedure. 

2. Classifying; after reading all the script and related sources from books, journals, articles, etc. 

the writer will classify the data into a table based on the types of transposition translation procedure 

implemented in translating the parts of the subtitles. There were four types of transposition 

translation procedure used as references in classifying the data. 

3. Reducing; due to the same type of transposition translation procedure implemented by 

some parts of subtitles, some similar data occurred. To avoid misunderstanding and make the results 

of the analysis easier to understanding, the writer reduce the data into the simpler one. Some parts of 

subtitles implement same transposition translation were left and the others were analyzed as the 

representation of the reduced data. 



P. Anggraeni, J. Mujiyanto, A. Sofwan / Journal of English Language Teaching 7 (2) (2018) 

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4. Reporting; the result of this study was reported or served in the next chapter in a form of a 

table completed by the description as an explanation of the implementation of transposition 

translation procedure in translating the English into Indonesian subtitles of Epic movie, and more 

detailed data were put on the appendices. The data on the appendices are hoped able to help the 

readers understand how this study is done.  

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 

There are 4 kinds of transposition translation procedures used by the translator in translating 

subtitle, they are (1) transposition translation procedure involving literary translation, (2) 

transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position, (3) transposition translation 

procedure involving change of word class, and (4) transposition translation procedure involving 

adjustment and replacement of words. In addition, the writer only gave attention in the transposition 

translation procedures used in translating the subtitle of Epic movie. In order to get efficient and 

exact results, I took some representative data by using sampling method for each kind of 

transposition translation procedure. It is done because there are many similar data occur in this 

research, so they must be reduced to get the valid result. The table below shows the data statistic of 

the number of each transposition translation procedure used: 

No Transposition Translation Procedure Frequency Percentage 

1 Transposition Translation Procedure Involving Literary 

Translation 

68 63.96% 

2 Transposition Translation Procedure Involving Change of 

Words’ Position 

30 27.77% 

3 Transposition Translation Procedure Involving Change Of Word 

Class 

5 4.62% 

4 Transposition Translation Procedure Involving Adjustment And 

Replacement Of Words 

5 4.62% 

Sum 108 100%  

 

From 1551 English into Indonesian subtitle translated, there were 108 of them implemented 

transposition translation procedure. If the sum of overall data and the data implemented 

transposition translation procedure is compared, it can be considered that the data implemented 

transposition translation procedure is very small in amount. This problem occurred because in many 

scenes of the film the subtitles only express some noises such as grunt, roar, gasps, growls, and so 

on. Translation of these kind of expression are very simple, thus appear in almost every scene of the 

movie because it contains some fighting scene. Even though there are only few parts implemented 

transposition translation procedure, the implementation of that translation procedure in translating 

English into Indonesian subtitle of Epic movie is considered very well.Transposition translation 

procedure involving literal translation is divided into 2 kinds, the first one is the change of noun into 

adjective, and the second is the change of plural noun into singular noun. This procedure was 

implemented in 68 parts of the subtitle, and considered as the most frequently used procedure 

because in literal translation the change of SL into TL is automatic and offers the translator no 

alternative choice (Newmark, 1998). 

Transposition translation procedure involving change of words’ position is then can be 

divided into 3 kinds based on the factors influencing the changes of the words’ position. They were 

the change of passive voice into active voice, the change because unnatural meaning, and the change 

because SL grammatical structure does not exist in TL. This procedure was implemented in 30 parts 



P. Anggraeni, J. Mujiyanto, A. Sofwan / Journal of English Language Teaching 7 (2) (2018) 

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of the subtitle. Transposition translation procedure involving change of word class is implemented in 

5 parts of the subtitle. This procedure was implemented because literal translation is grammatically 

possible but may not accord with natural usage in the TL, and thus makes SL verb phrase changed 

into TL noun phrase. 

Transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and replacement of words is also 

implemented in 5 parts of the subtitle. The cause leads this procedure to occur is that there is lexical 

gap in direct translation of English into Indonesian translation, so that the adjustment and 

replacement were needed to complete the gap. 

 
CONCLUSIONS 

We live in the society influenced greatly by the media. With the appearance of advanced 

technologies there appeared also new forms of modern literature as media of communication which 

led to new forms of translation. Movie as a form of modern literature, has become one of the most 

influential part of language.  The translation of movie or movie translation is called audiovisual 

translation starts to become a new, best, and easy way to learn language. With the social 

phenomenon of globalization, translators face the urgent need to translate films in short periods of 

time but in a high-quality way. Thus, they have to understand the strategies to produce a good 

translation, one of them is by implementing the proper translation procedure in translating 

languages. 

The goals of this study are to reveal how many and how the transposition of translation 

procedure is implemented in translating English into Indonesian subtitle of Epic movie. As the 

results of analysis and discussion conducted by the writer, there are several conclusion found. The 

writer used 108 out of 1551 parts of English into Indonesian subtitle as the data to achieve the goals 

of this study. As written in the Chapter II, the writer described four types of transposition translation 

procedure proposed by Newmark’s classification. Those type of transposition translation procedure 

are; (1) transposition translation procedure involving literary translation, (2) transposition translation 

procedure involving change of words’ position, (3) transposition translation procedure involving 

change of word class, and (4) transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and 

replacement of words. By analyzing the subtitle, it is known that all types of transposition translation 

procedure were implemented in translating subtitle.  

The implementation frequency of types of transposition translation procedure is different, this 

is because every type of transposition translation procedure required different grammatical structures 

of SL and TL. The details of implementation frequency in form of percentage are follows: 

transposition translation procedure involving literary translation is 63.9%, transposition translation 

procedure involving change of words’ position 27.7%, transposition translation procedure involving 

change of word class 4.6%, and transposition translation procedure involving adjustment and 

replacement of words 4.6%. 

Based on the results of this study, it is known that the importance to understand translation 

procedure, especially transposition translation procedure is undeniable. Even so, we still have to 

complete this procedure with other procedure because not all subtitles can be translated by 

implementing this translation so the translation of the subtitles become highly-qualified. 

 

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