An Analysis of Translation Techniques and Quality of Taboo Words in the Gran Torino Movie

The research aims to identify types and functions of taboo words in the Gran Torino movie, to find out the techniques used in translating the taboo words, to examine the shift in types and functions of the taboo words, and to evaluate the accuracy and the acceptability of the translation of the taboo words. This research method belongs to descriptive qualitative method. The data were taken from two sources; document and informants. The document is in the form of a movie entitled “Gran Torino”. The data obtained from the movie consist of all taboo words in the source language (English) and their subtitle (Indonesian), collected by means of content analysis. The informants provided data in the form of information about the translation techniques and quality through Focus Group Discussions (FGD) implementing questionnaire as aiding instrument. The research findings showed that within all 270 studied data there are 10 types of taboo words, comprising body parts (31), sexual acts (74), ethnic insults (34), profanity (41), vulgarity (13), curse (10), scatology (23), animal names (23), ancestral allusion (11), and insulting references to perceived psychological, physical, or social deviations (10). There are four functions of taboo words, which are auxiliary (121), abusive (59), expletive (51) and humorous (39). In addition, 261 data (96%) are type-shifted and 207 data (76%) are function-shifted. There are five translation techniques identified: reduction (43.7%), established equivalent (23.0%), explicitation (20.4%), adaptation (8.1%), implicitation (3.7%), discursive creation (0.7%), and literal translation (0.4%). The average accuracy score is 1.78 while the acceptability is 2.12. As a result, the overall translation quality score is 1.92.


INTRODUCTION
Taboo words are considered by most Indonesian people to be inappropriate words to say or hear.Jay (1992) defines taboo words as something that is prohibited to say in certain cultures.These words may not be respectful to religions.It also means talking about sexual behaviors in public, even including some insulting topics, such as mental disorders and death.Meanwhile, according to Allan and Burridge (2006), words and expressions that are viewed as 'taboo' are those used to describe sex, our bodies and their functions, and those used to insult other people.Therefore, some Indonesian people choose to avoid these words because they are considered dirty or bad things.Because of this embedded ideology, some translators choose to censor and omit taboo words.however, taboo words in fact play a vital role in showing one's emotions.
As Jay states in his study, taboo words are used for their emotional impact on people rather than for their literal or denotative interpretation.In messages, taboo words are more likely to be interpreted connotatively by listeners, rather than denotatively (1992, p.10).Taboo words can show the emotional information of people who say it such as anger, frustration, or depression.In the research conducted by Jay et al. (2008), taboo words are exploited to represent a class of emotionally arousing references.Those facts about taboo words and their use make the researcher intend to know more about the functions of taboo words.As stated by Anderson and Trudgill (1990, p. 61) in Muslihah (2016, p. 33), there are four functions of swearing words namely expletive, abusive, humorous, and auxiliary.Jay (1992, pp. 2-9) classified dirty words into 10 types; cursing, profanity, blasphemy, taboo, obscenity, vulgarity, slang, epithets, insults and slurs, and scatology.In other research, Jay et al. (2008, p. 83) also mentioned some of the types of taboo words, "Taboo words represent a class of emotionally arousing references JBSSA P-ISSN: 1410-5411 | E-ISSN:  with respect to body products, body parts, sexual acts, ethnic or racial insults, profanity, vulgarity, slang, and scatology " (Jay, 1992(Jay, , 2000)).
In translating taboo words, there are some common problems faced by translators.Challenges in dealing with translation of taboo words have been mentioned by Baker (2011, pp. 19-23), asserting general problems of nonequivalence at a word level, two of which are culture-specific concepts and differences in expressive meaning.Culture-specific concepts are when the source text expresses a completely unknown concept (abstract or concrete) in the target culture which may relate to religious beliefs, social customs, or even types of food.This concept is what is termed 'culture-specific'.The absence of equivalence in the target language causes the translation problem related to culture-specific concepts.
In addition, the other problem is differences in expressive meaning which can occur when a target text has the same propositional meaning as the source text but may have a different expressive meaning.Taboo words in the context of movies are used to express the emotion or to show the personality of the characters.Therefore, the expressive meaning in both the source and target text should be equivalent.Hence, the translator should understand the function of taboo words in the context.
According to Andersson and Trudgill in Puruhito (2016, p.47), there are four functions of swear words.The four functions of swear words are expletive, abusive, humorous, and auxiliary.Expletive function means that the taboo words are not used to insult other people.This function serves to express personal emotions.Abusive is a function as an insult to other people.This function involves name-calling and other offensive utterances.Humorous is a function that is addressed to another person, but not in a rude way.This function is usually used when joking with other people.Auxiliary is a function to emphasize the emotions one wants to express through the use of taboo words.This function of taboo words usually takes form of addition in the text as auxiliary used to provide supplementary or additional help and support (Oxford Languages).Therefore, translators must be able to choose the appropriate techniques to translate taboo words.In order to know this, an assessment of the quality of the translation is necessary.
The research conducted by Hjort in Sutrisno and Ibnus (p.38, 2021) contains an idea about how translations in audiovisual materials should contain fewer swear words and should be subtler than the originals.However, according to the researcher, power or expression or feeling that arises because of a swear word is very important to be transferred correctly and accurately into the target language.The preservation of power, expression, and feeling is especially important in audiovisual materials, for example, movies.In a movie, the audience can see the expressions and actions of the characters themselves.Failure to retain the items will greatly reduce the atmosphere of tension or characters of figures that the movie wants to show.
To reveal how translation techniques affect the quality of translation, this research aims to identify the types and functions of taboo words in the Gran Torino movie, to find out the techniques used in translating taboo words, to examine the shift in type and function, and to evaluate the accuracy and the acceptability of the translation of the studied taboo words.

METHOD
This research focuses on analyzing of taboo words using descriptive qualitative method because in this study, the data investigated are in the form of words from a movie as the data source.In addition, this study also uses sociolinguistic approach to understand the taboo words in relation to the system of use of the utterances in society.This study is product-oriented study because according to Holmes (1988) in Fereydouni dan Karimnia (2016, p. 102), product-oriented DTS is a study that examines existing translations.This research is designed as a single case study because the main single focus here is the translation of taboo words in the movie "Gran Torino".This research employed total sampling technique because all the taboo words from the movie are taken as the data.In this research, there are two types of data, namely, linguistic data and translation data.The linguistic data are the taboo words found in the movie "Gran Torino".Meanwhile, the translation data are the translation of taboo words in the Gran Torino movie and data in the form of information from the informants or raters.The two types of data were collected from two sources data, namely documents and informants.The documents used are the English script and its subtitle (Indonesian) of a movie entitled "Gran Torino".The informants consist of three raters who are qualified in order to gain information about the translation techniques and quality.The data were collected using document analysis, questionnaire, and Focus Group Discussion (FGD).The questionnaire in this study was used to facilitate the process of identification of translation techniques based on the theory proposed by Molina and Albir (2002) and the translation quality assessment based on Nababan et al. model (2012).

Type and function of taboo words
The result of this research showed that there are 270 data of taboo words in the movie.These data are categorized into 10 types, consisting of sexual acts (74 data), profanity (41 data), ethnic insults (34 data), body parts (31 data), scatology (23 data), animal names (23 data), vulgarity (13 data), ancestral allusion (11 data), insulting references to perceived psychological, physical, or social deviations (10 data), and curse (10 data).There are also 4 functions of the taboo words, namely auxiliary (122 data), abusive (59 data), expletive (51 data) and humorous (38 data).

Type and function shift
The type shift was identified in 96% of the data, while the function shift in 76% of the data.Here are the examples of the type and function shift cases that were discovered.
Example 1 ST: "Fucking slopes, man, everywhere you look, man."(017/00:13:43/SA/AU/EE)TT: "Orang Asia keparat, ada di mana-mana." Example 1 shows the type shift of taboo words from a sexual act into profanity."Fucking", according to Oxford Languages, means having sex with someone, and thus, this word belongs to sexual acts.Meanwhile, "keparat" means tidak bertuhan (KBBI), or someone who has no God, so this word belongs to profanity.This example shows the function shift from an expletive function to neutral.The word "shit" is a taboo word functioning to express the anger and impatience of the speaker.Meanwhile, in the TT, there is no taboo word, which means that the translator omits the word and decided to only translate "get in the truck now."It makes the translation sound more polite and the expletive function of the taboo word is not present.

Translation techniques to translate the taboo words
By applying the theory of translation techniques by Molina and Albir (2002), there are seven techniques found.The most frequently used technique is reduction.There are 118 data that are translated using reduction.The other techniques are as follows: established equivalent (62 data), explicitation (54 data), adaptation (22 data), implicitation (10 data), discursive creation (2 data), literal translation (1 datum).The result of the analysis showed that reduction is used to translate 43.7% swear words, established equivalent is 23%, explicitation is 20.5%, adaptation is 8.1%, implicitation is 3.7%, discursive creation is 0.7%, and literal translation is 0.4%.The most frequently used translation technique is reduction which is used in the translation of 44% of all data.Reduction technique is applied when the translator decides to omit the taboo terms in the target text while they in fact exist in the source language text.Example 1: ST: "You go fucking back to your country."(025/00:14:29/SA/AB/R) TT: "Pulanglah ke negaramu." It can be seen from the example 1 that the translation of the taboo word "fucking" in the source text is not present in the target text.The translator decides to remove the word "fucking" and only translates "You go back to your country."into "Pulanglah ke negaramu." in Indonesian.
The second most frequently used technique is established equivalent.this translation technique is a technique applied by using terms or expressions recognized by the dictionary or the language used as equivalents.Here are some of the data examples; Example 1 ST: "Fuck, man, get in the car, man."(029/00:14:57/SA/AB/EE) TT: "Sial, masuk ke mobil." Example 2 ST: "Son of a bitch.Kicking us out on his birthday."(139/00:41:58/AA/EX/EB) TT: "Brengsek.Mengusir kita di hari ulang tahunnya."From example 1 and example 2, two taboo terms can be identified, "fuck" and "son of a bitch".The translator decides to use the established equivalent by finding the equivalents.Example 1, which is "fuck" is translated into "sial".Meanwhile, the second example which is "son of a bitch" is expressed in the target language using the expression "Brengsek".
The next most used technique in translating the data is explicitation.the technique labelled "explicitation" is one of the classes within the technique called Amplification.Explicitation is used to make the message in the target text more explicit than that in the source text.Something is called explicit if it is stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt (Oxford Languages).Explicitation is a decision taken in which the translator explains the interpersonal, ideational, or optional textual meanings in the target text.(Saldanha in Murtisari 2016, p.76).There are 55 data that are translated using explicitation.Below is the example of the use of explicitation technique.The taboo word "pussy" here has implicit meaning.Implicit according to Oxford Languages means implied thought not plainly expressed.The word "pussy" has several meanings, which can be a "cat" or "female genital/vagina".Meanwhile, in Oxford Languages the word "pussy" is categorized into a derogatory term which has the meaning of "a weak, cowardly, or effeminate man." Based on the context of the movie, the word "pussy" is used to mock a male friend for being a coward.Therefore, the translator translates the word "pussy" according to the message that the speaker wants to express, namely "coward" or "pengecut".Therefore, the taboo word in target text is more explicit than the source text taboo word.
The next translation technique used is adaptation.the technique termed "adaptation" is a technique to replace elements of source language culture with elements from the language because there is suitable term specific to the target language culture available to be used as equivalent.Adaptation technique is used in a total of 22 data.Here are some of the examples: Example 1 ST: "What the hell?" (117/00:34:58/P/EX/A) TT: "Apa-apaan?" Example 2 ST: "Jesus Christ."(148/00:48:19/P/EX/A) TT: "Astaga." Based on the two examples, there are two taboo terms, "the hell" and "Jesus Christ".Those two terms are categorized as offensive terms in the source language based on a religious distinction (profanity).Meanwhile, in the target language, those two terms are not commonly used to voice something offensive.The translator chooses to replace the elements in the source text to make the translation of the two more relevant to the target language culture.Another translation technique is identified, namely implicitation.According to Oxford Languages, implicit refers to something suggested, not plainly expressed.Implicit is the opposite of explicit.As stated by Vinay and Darbelnet in their glossary of terms in a research by Klaudy and Kalory (2005, p.14), implicitation is "A stylistic translation technique which consists of making what is explicit in the source language implicit in the target language, relying on the context or the situation for conveying the meaning."There are 10 data of taboo words translated using implicitation.Here is the example of the use of implicitation technique from the data: ST: "I replaced the tranny in my Tahoe, and the sons of bitches fucked me hard."(216/01:18:00/AA/AU/I) TT: "Aku mengganti katup mesinku, dan mereka menguras uangku." The expression "the sons of bitches" here is used to emphasize the emotion of the speaker to the people who have scammed him.Therefore, the speaker uses the offensive taboo phrase to give an explicit meaning that the speaker hates the people.Meanwhile, in the TT, the translator translates the taboo expression into "mereka" or "they" which contains taboo not explicitly expressed.
The other translation techniques used are discursive creation and literal translation.Two data are translated by using discursive creation and one datum using literal translation.The data are as follows: Example 1 ST: "Yo, it's cool, dog." (080/00:32:10/AN/AB/DC) TT: "Yo, tak apa, Kawan." Example 2 ST: "Get me another beer, dragon lady.This one's empty."(176/01:10:34/EI/HU/L) TT: "Ambilkan aku, bir, Nona naga.Yang ini sudah habis." The taboo "dog" is translated using discursive creation technique, while the expression "dragon lady" is translated using literal translation technique.Discursive creation technique means a technique that establishes JBSSA P-ISSN: 1410-5411 | E-ISSN: 2685-4503 temporary equivalence that is completely unexpected out of context.Meanwhile, literal translation technique is a technique which is used where the translator translates the source text literally word for word.As seen from the example 1, the translator translates the word "dog" into "kawan" or "friends".The word "dog" here is a taboo word that is included in the type of animal names, which is used as an abusive word addressed to someone.Even though the speaker voices it in a joking tone, the addressee feels insulted by the word.The translator changes the meaning of the word out of context in which it seems that the two people are friends.Meanwhile, in example 2, the taboo word in the source language utterance is "dragon lady", which actually has an offensive meaning.According to the Farlex Dictionary of Idioms, "dragon lady" is a derogatory term for a woman who is or is seen ruthlessly powerful, domineering, or manipulative.This term was originally the name of a villainous Asian woman in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates (1934Pirates ( -1973)).Here the translator decides to use literal translation technique to translate "dragon lady" into "nona naga".The word "dragon" in the target language means "naga" and "lady' means "nona/nyonya".
Furthermore, after analyzing the scores obtained from the FGD using the translation quality assessment model proposed by Nababan et al., summary can be made, revealing that the average score of accuracy is 1.78 and that of acceptability is 2.12.Hence, the overall score for quality of the translation of taboo expressions is 1.92.Table 1 provides details about of the translation techniques applied to translate the taboo expressions and the resulting translation quality they produce: Accuracy is a term used in evaluating translation quality that refers to whether the ST and TT are equivalent or not, and whether the message is conveyed accurately or not.There are 3 categories of quality in terms of accuracy, namely; accurate, less accurate, and inaccurate, with a score in the range of 3 to 1 a.Accurate Translations Based on the model, accurate translation is a translation in which the message in the source text is transferred accurately into the target language and there is no distortion of meaning.Accurate translations get the score of 3 or the highest.The two data are translated using the established equivalent technique, in which the translator looks for recognized equivalents in the target language.The taboo word "motherfuckers" here is used to greet someone and at the same time aim to insult them.The translator decides to translate it into "keparat" which according to KBBI means: kafir/ tidak bertuhan; terkutuk.In target culture kafir means someone who is an infidel or who does not believe in religion.According to Friedman (2011), infidel is an unbeliever with respect to a particular religion, especially Christianity or Islam and is labeled offensive by the American Heritage Dictionary and the OED.Both the taboo words in the ST and TT have meaning to offend someone, so the translation is accurate.
Next, "fuck you" is translated into "persetan denganmu".the word "persetan" according to KBBI means "Jahannam" or a hell, also has the function as an interjection to express sense of ignorance; negligence about something.For the context of the source text, the speaker does not care about what others say and their existence.So, the message contained in the original taboo expression has been delivered accurately into the target language.

b. Less Accurate Translations
Less accurate translation means that the message in the ST is not completely conveyed to the target language, i.e. most is well translated, but the translation has some distortion of meaning.This translation gets a score of 2. There are 88 data of less accurate translations among all data.Here is one of the examples: ST: They fucking with you? (023/00:14:23/SA/AB/E) TT: Mereka mengganggumu?
Here, the word "fucking" is translated into "mengganggu" which means "bothering/irritating'.Based on the context from the movie, the speaker wants to ask if the other character is being irritated by the gangsters by using the taboo word "fucking".That means, the key message by the speaker is well-delivered.What makes it less accurate is that the use taboo words in the source text is conveyed into an expression containing the referential meaning but is more subtle and polite.Therefore, the expressions and emotions that the speaker wants to express are not seen present in the target language.

c. Inaccurate Translations
Inaccurate translation is a translation whose original message in ST is transferred inaccurately.In this study, cases of inaccurate translation are discovered because taboo words in the sentences containing them are omitted.There are 119 data that are considered inaccurate.In terms of translation accuracy, this category is the dominant data.This is in line with the most frequently used translation technique, which is reduction, where the translator leaves out taboo words in the translation.The following are the examples of inaccurate translations among the data: The three examples show the use of reduction technique where the translator eliminates the taboo words.The taboo words "shit", "fucking", and "fuck" are present in the ST.However, in the target language, the translator decides not to include the equivalents of the taboo words in the translation.The taboo words are omitted and as a result, the three translations are inaccurate.

2) Acceptability
Acceptability is a term used in evaluating translation quality that refers to whether a translation has been expressed in agreement with the rules, norms, and culture in the target language or not.There are three categorizations of quality in terms of acceptability, namely, acceptable, less acceptable, and unacceptable, with a score in the range from 3 to 1. a. Acceptable Translations Acceptable translation is a translation that feels natural and uses technical terms that are familiar to the target readers.The phrases, clauses, and sentences are in accordance with the rules, norms, and cultures in the target language.This translation gets the score of 3 or the highest score.There are 151 data that are categorized into acceptable translation.This category of taboo word translation is the dominant among the three categories.Below are the data examples of data belonging to this category: Example 1 (185/01:13:52/SC/AB/E) ST: What, you got shit in your ears?TT: Apa, kau tuli?Example 2 (086/00:32:44/SA/AB/E) ST: Fuck out of here, man.TT: Enyahlah dari sini.
In example 1, based on the context in the movie, Walt says to Thao, "You see, kid?Now, that's how guys talk to another.",then, he replies "They do?".After that, the barber asks sarcastically, "You got shit in your ears?" which in other words means "Are you deaf?".The way the speaker states the utterance is rude, therefore, he uses the taboo word "shit".The translation of the sentence is "Apa, kau tuli?" which means "Are you deaf?" in English.The translation sounds acceptable in the target language because the translation is commonly used and is inappropriate especially uttered as a question to someone.It is also a familiar expression in the target language.
The same case happens in the example 2. The sentence "Fuck out of here, man." is spoken by a gangster to a man.This expression is used to tell the man to go and mind his own business.In the TT, it is translated into "Enyahlah dari sini.".The word "Enyah" in KBBI means "go/get out.",then, "…dari sini." is equivalent to "… from/of here.".As a result, the target text contains the message of "Get out of here."which has delivered the message from the source text correctly and the expression used is common and acceptable.

b. Less Acceptable Translations
Less acceptable translation is a translation which sounds natural and familiar to the TL readers, but there may be a few mistakes in translating the terms or errors related to grammar.This category of translation has the score of 2. Of all data studied in the research, there is only 1 taboo word translation that is less acceptable.
In the movie, the speaker says the line to a total stranger who is one of the gangsters in order to get on the good side of them.According to Urban Dictionary, "dog" can be used as a term for bro, dude, or man.Even though the speaker says it in a humorous tone, it does not get a good response from the gangster.In the TT, "dog" is translated into "Kawan" which means friend.The reason that the translation is less acceptable translation is that in the target language, the term "Kawan" which is used to refer to someone is not commonly used by adults.It sounds a little bit peculiar.
JBSSA P-ISSN: 1410-5411 | E-ISSN: 2685-4503 c.Unacceptable Translations Unacceptable translation is a translation which sounds completely unnatural in the target language, the terms used are not familiar to the target language readers, or, the translation is not grammatically correct.Translation of this category gets only 1 as the score for acceptability.From the examples, it is noticeable that the translator decides to omit the taboo words, and thus in target language, the expression and emotion of the speakers changed drastically.In the example 1, there is an animal name taboo word which is "rooster".According to dictionary.com, rooster is someone who is cocky and the word "rooster" itself is a synonym of cock, which is a slang term for penis.Within the plot of the movie, one of the elders in the Hmong people says "Why don't you strut away, you dumb rooster?".The taboo word is used to express distaste for the hearer who is a racist American citizen.Meanwhile, in the target language culture, there is no equivalent term which can be used.This makes the translation inaccurate, which makes it unacceptable as well.
Another unacceptable translation can be seen in the example 2 where the translator also omits the taboo word "fish heads".The term "fish heads" is a racial slur to Asian, especially Chinese and Japanese.The line "Hey, what are all you fish heads looking at anyway?" is spoken by Walt to the Hmong family whom he visits.He said this after the Hmong look at him strangely because he does inappropriate act in their house, which is touching a kid's head.This act is considered taboo in their culture because they believe that the soul resides in the head.Regarding the meaning of the taboo word in the source text, it is surely the word that needs to be properly translated.However, the translator decides to omit it.This is the main reason why this translation is not accurate and unacceptable.
In consonance with the examples of data from each aspect, we can prove the statement in theory by Nababan et al., that in some cases, acceptability affects accuracy.In other words, an unacceptable translation can also be inaccurate.This is because an inaccurate translation means that the message in the source text is not conveyed properly to the target language which can affect the acceptability.In addition, based on the data, all unacceptable translations use reduction technique which is one of the triggers that make the translation inaccurate.The average score of translation quality is 1.92 out of 3.00.The score for less accurate and less acceptable translation is 2. The average score 1.92 is less than 2.00 which means that the overall level of translation accuracy and acceptability is lower than less accurate and less acceptable.Therefore, the quality of the translation of taboo words in the Gran Torino film is low.

Overall translation quality
Table 1 shows that all data translated using reduction technique get the lowest score of 1 in both accuracy and acceptability.This means that the taboo words translated using reduction technique are all inaccurate and unacceptable.This proves the translation technique causing taboo words not to be present in the target language negatively affect its translation quality.Although, if viewed solely the translation appears to be in accordance with the culture of the target language, due to the absence of taboo words.If the case is viewed closely by JBSSA P-ISSN: 1410-5411 | E-ISSN: 2685-4503 on, get in the truck now.Shit." (122/00:35:21/SC/EX/R) TT: "Masuk ke mobil."

Table 1 .
Translation Techniques and Translation Quality There are 62 data from the movie that are classified into accurate translations.Below are some examples of the translation: JBSSA P-ISSN: 1410-5411 | E-ISSN: 2685-4503 The total data of this translation category is 117 data.Here are some examples of the data:

Table 2 .
Translation Quality Score