The Translation of English Politeness Marker in Giving Invitation

into Indonesian: Does It Influence the Illocution?

Havid Ardi

, Mangatur Rudolf Nababan

, Djatmika

and Riyadi Santosa

English Department of FBS, Universitas Negeri Padang, Jl. Prof. Dr. Hamka, Padang, Indonesia

English Department of FIB, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Jl. Ir. Sutami No. 36, Surakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: Invitation, Politeness Strategies, Translation Technique, Illocution Utterance.

Abstract: The utterance of invitation is sometimes used to show a polite attitude to others. However it is rarely attracted

linguists’ attention compared to other type utterances. Politeness strategies in invitation are not only appear

in real conversation but also in literary works. In the translation of politeness markers, translators are influence

with the cultural situation. Thus it raises a question how translators deal with politeness marker in giving

invitation for intercultural context. This paper aims at investigating the translation of politeness markers in

giving invitation used by the main characters in the novel Deception Point written in English by Dan Brown.

Data were the utterances of invitation made by main characters in the novel Deception Point as source text

and its two Indonesian translation versions as target texts. Data were taken by document analysis and focus

group discussion in classifying the translation techniques. Then, data were analyzed by using speech act theory

and felicity condition. The result show that 1) there are only four main characters who give invitation due to

the felicity conditions of invitation, 2) bald on record, positive, and negative politeness strategies are used by

the characters in mitigating the invitation utterances, 3) there are some changes in the illocution in translation

caused by the implementation of translation technique to the politeness marker. It is suggested to use

established equivalence technique in translating politeness marker to build mutual understanding and avoid

modulation since it may change the illocution of the utterances.

1 INTRODUCTION

The utterance of invitation is sometimes used to show

a polite attitude or hospitality to others since offers

and invitation are speech event that usually use to

show generosity (Leech, 2014, p. 180). Researchers

have different opinion about the speech act category

of invitation, some researchers, such as, Suzuki

categorized invitation as Searle’s EXPRESSIVE

(1975:15) and Leech’s CONVIVIAL (1983:104) in

his work (Suzuki, 2009), invitation can be categorized

as directive act (Searle, 1976, p. 11, 1999, p. 14), and

invitation is also categorized as sub class of offer or

commisive (Leech, 2014, p. 180). However, in this

study, invitation is categorized as directive since its

locution is to have the hearer to do something (Searle,

1999, p. 13) for the benefit if hearer.

As a speech act, although invitation may be used

to show generosity, it also may result face threatening

to the hearer or the speaker. Since invitation is a kind

of utterance that cause the hearer to do something, a

speaker still needs to use politeness marker to

mitigate face threatening act in giving invitation. It is

commonly known that directive acts are the speech

acts which have high face threatening act (FTA)

toward the hearer since the illocutionary force is to

ask other to do something for the speaker (Cutting,

2008, p. 15). However, invitation has the illocution

that give benefit or something nice for the hearer.

Thus, it has specific politeness strategies that might

be different from other directive act.

Some studies have been conducted related to

speech act of invitation and its politeness, such as, the

locution of invitation made by American students

(Suzuki, 2009), politeness in the response to

invitation (Bella, 2009; Suzuki, 2015). These

previous studies mostly conducted in real life

communication. In fact, politeness strategies in

invitation acts do not only appear in real conversation

but also in literary works, such as novel, movie, etc.

Nowadays, such literary works are distributed all over

the world by translation activities. It means the

literary works are translated from one language into

another language. However, each language have

Ardi, H., Nababan, M., Djatmika, . and Santosa, R.

The Translation of English Politeness Marker in Giving Invitation into Indonesian: Does It Inﬂuence the Illocution?.

DOI: 10.5220/0009316500110016

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on English Language Teaching, Linguistics and Literature (ELITE 2019) - Promoting Global Diversity, Partnership and Prosperity through

English Development, pages 11-16

ISBN: 978-989-758-459-6

different politeness strategies depends on the culture

(Kecskes, 2015; Reiter, 2000). Therefore, a politeness

strategy in certain culture may have different

responses to another culture. Thus it raises a question

how translators deal with politeness marker in giving

invitation for intercultural context.

Some researchers have conducted studies on the

translation politeness markers in some other directive

act, such the translation of politeness in the command

in literary work (Ardi, Nababan, Djatmika, &

Santosa, 2018a; Zhao, 2009), command in film

subtitle film (Mubin, 2015; Pratama, 2014),

politeness in the request and the translation of

directive act (Ardi, Nababan, Djatmika, & Santosa,

2016). However, previous research did not explore

the impact of the translation of politeness markers to

the illocution of the speech event. Moreover,

invitation is rarely studied by previous researchers as

this speech act is in between directive and

commissive act (Leech, 2014, p. 180).

Actually, studies on politeness studies started by

Lakoff who introduced politeness as interpersonal

relation system that was designed to enhance

interaction by minimizing conflict and confrontation

potential that might be happened in human interaction

(Lakoff, 1973). Then the theory developed by Brown

& Levinson in 1978 (1987), Leech in 1983 (2014),

and Blum-Kulka. Brown and Levinson proposes the

five politeness strategies to mitigate the impact of

FTA. Although there are many critics on Brown and

Levinson’s theory (Eelen, 2014; Leech, 2014), the

theory proposed by Brown & Levinson can

differentiate politeness strategy clearly.

This study used Brown and Levinson’s theory

(1987) since the theory can explain politeness

strategy clearly. In order to face mitigation, Brown

and Levinson propose that there are 5 super strategies

that can be used by the speaker, they are bald on

record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off

record strategy, or just keep silent (P. Brown &

Levinson, 1987). Bald on-record (BOR) strategies

focus on the effectiveness of the message without any

redress to mitigate FTA. BOR strategy is marked by

the structure of the utterance that is mostly in

imperative form, such as, ‘Come in!’ Then, Positive

Politeness (PP) strategies reduce the FTA to the

hearer by keeping the positive face by showing that

speaker wants what hearer’s wants. There are some

positive politeness markers, i.e., expressing common

ground, in-group identity markers, avoid

disagreement, jokes, be optimistic, involve both

speaker in the utterance. Next, Negative Politeness

(NP) is usually intended to save the hearer’s negative

face by that related to hearer’s territory and self-

determination. NP strategy is marked by expressing

pessimistic, indirectness, decreasing the imposition,

using hedges & questions, apologising, and using the

plural forms of pronouns to minimise the imposition.

Off Record (OR) strategy is indicated by using

connotations instead of direct requests. The speaker

sometimes uses metaphor, rhetorical questions, and

understatement, all kinds of hints to communicate the

speaker’s wants (see Brown and Levinson, 1987 for

details). Moreover, the selection of politeness

strategy is also affected by the context of situation

between the speaker and hearer. Brown & Levinson

(1987) say that the selection strategy is affected by

the position (power), within the proximity of the

speaker and the hearer (distance), and the rank of

imposition (Rx).

Translation technique is defined as a way

implemented in solving translation problems in the

translation text. Many translation scholars used

various and different term for this phenomenon, such

as, translation procedure (Newmark, 1988),

translation strategies (Baker, 2018, Machali, 2008).

In the translation process, translators employ various

strategies to solve the translation problems. Strategies

are the ways to find a suitable solution for a

translation unit. The solution will be materialized by

using a particular technique (Molina & Albir, 2002).

Therefore, translation strategies are part of the

translation process, and translation techniques

employed in the translation text (Molina & Albir,

2002).

This paper aims at investigating the impact of

translation of politeness marker into the illocution of

invitation act used by the main characters in the novel

Deception Point written by Dan Brown (2001). This

novel is chosen since this novel have been translated

twice (2006 and 2015) by different translators.

Previous researcher have exposed about refusal set in

the novel and its 2006 translation (Rusjansyah, 2015),

however there is no comparison with the new version

of translation. Meanwhile, other researchers found

that there is a change in the politeness marker of

command (Ardi et al., 2018a). Therefore, it is

necessary to conduct a research whether the

translation causes the changes on the illocutionary act

in the two translation versions?

The paper has three research question, they are: 1)

what main characters used invitation act in the novel

Deception Point. 2) What politeness strategies are

used in the source text? 3) What is the effect of the

translation of politeness marker to the illocution in the

target language?

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2 METHODS

This was qualitative research with content analysis

research design that is aimed at describing the impact

of the translation of politeness marker in the target

text. Sources of data were the novel Deception Point

written by Dan Brown (2001) as a source text (ST),

and the two Indonesian translation version issued in

(2006) translated by Isma B. Koesalamwardi and

Hendry M. Tanaja published by PT Serambi Ilmu

Semesta (Jakarta) as target text 1 (TT1) and the

second version issued in (2015) translated by Dwijani

Nimpoena published by PT Bentang Pustaka

(Yogyakarta) as target texts 2 (TT2). Data were the

utterances of invitation made by main characters in

the novel Deception Point in the source text and the

translation of the utterances in the two Indonesian

translation version in the target texts. There are seven

main characters, they are Gabriele Ashe (GA),

Marjorie Tench (MjT), Rachel Sexton (RS),

Sedgewick Sexton (SS), Michael Tolland (MT),

William Pickering (WP), and Zachary Herney (ZH).

Data were categorized by using codification based on

the speaker and hearer, and its politeness strategy.

Data were taken by document analysis, and tally the

frequency of invitation made by the main characters

and the politeness strategy used. Translation

technique were identified by focus group discussion

by involving informants. Then, data were analyzed by

domain, taxonomy, and componential analysis

(Spradley, 1980). The politeness strategy were

categorized based on Brown & Levinson (1987), the

illocution was analyzed based on speech act theory

(Yule, 1996).

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

This articles focuses on the main characters in using

invitation act, politeness strategies in the source text,

and the effect of the translation of politeness marker

to the illocution in the target language.

3.1 Main Character using Invitation

This part focuses on the utterances expressed by the

seven main characters in the novel Deception Point.

After conducting document analysis, it was found

there are only four characters who produced

invitation acts to others. The number of invitation

found in the ST performed by the main characters are

shown in table 1. For details, table 1 shows the

occurrence of invitation speech act in the ST.

Table 1: Frequency of invitation made by main characters.

Invitation

Strategy in the Source Text

Speaker

Freq.

BOR

Total

Percentage

18.8

43.8

37.5

Explanation:

BOR: Bald on Record strategy

PP: Positive Politeness strategy

NP: Negative Politeness strategy

OR: Off Records strategy

Table 1 shows that there are only four main

characters who made invitation acts. They are SS,

MT, WP, and ZH. SS as the senator as the antagonist

character uses the most invitation act show his

generosity and polite attitude by using invitation to

give good impression his hearer. M. Tolland (MT) as

the partner Rachel only uses 3 invitation acts

(protagonist). Then, other characters, WP as the

director of NRO (antagonist) and ZH as the character

of president use only once invitation (protagonist).

In this novel, the antagonist uses invitation act to

show that he is a good person. Actually, it is used to

camouflage his bad behavior. The invitation acts are

used to show that the characters show his polite

attitude to the hearer. Therefore, the use of invitation

acts is to show polite attitude of the characters.

3.2 Politeness Strategies used in Source

Text

This part focuses on the utterances expressed by the

seven main characters in the novel Deception Point.

After conducting document analysis, it was found

there are only four characters who produced

invitation acts to others. The number of invitation

found in the ST performed by the main characters are

shown in table I. For details, table I shows the

occurrence of invitation speech act in the ST.

Invitation act is usually used to show polite

attitude, however the speakers still need to use the

politeness strategies to mitigate FTA. Table I shows

that positive politeness (PP), negative politeness

(NP), and bald on record (BOR) politeness strategies

are used by the main characters to mitigate FTA in

producing invitation utterance consecutively. These

findings also indicates that most of the characters

used positive politeness as the strategies to anticipate

FTA, such by showing in groupness to show close

relation. Related to their power, mostly the characters

who have higher position who use invitation to show

The Translation of English Politeness Marker in Giving Invitation into Indonesian: Does It Inﬂuence the Illocution?

politeness and their generosity to the hearer.

Interestingly, SS as the antagonist character use the

most invitation to impress the other characters or as

the way to camouflage his bad figure.

The utterances of invitation performed by SS are

mostly given to impress his hearer. For instance,

example 1 shows the invitation made by SS to his

daughter RS showed that he is a good father.

Example 1/SS-RS

ST: “…. Stop by the office one of these days and say

hello. (p. 24)

Example 1 shows that SS used bald on record strategy

to show their closeness in inviting Rachel to come to

his office. He express this invitation in public area to

show that that he has good relation to his daughter.

SS mostly use bald on record strategy whenever the

invitation show his generosity. He used positive

politeness to offers a drink for his staff, Gabrielle as

show in example 2 and 3.

Example 2/SS-GA

ST: “Have a seat. Enjoy a soda. (p. 497)

Example 3/SS-GA

ST: “Drink, Gabrielle? (p. 497)

Example 2 shows that SS again use bald on record

since he wanted to show his generosity and good

attention to reduce FTA since he just have negative

thinking about GA. Since, GA just kept silent, he used

positive politeness strategy in example 3. WP also use

invitation to camouflage his attitude to others.

On the other hand, ZH as president, he does not

frequently use invitation. Meanwhile, MT as RS

partner use invitation to show his friendliness. For

instance, in example 4 and 5, an invitation made by

MT to his friend RS:

Example 4/MT-RS

ST: “Okay, let’s see if anyone has ever seen an

oceanic fossil similar to our little space bug.” (p.

442)

Example 5/MT-RS

ST: “Sorry to hear that. When this is over, you’ll have

to come out and visit me on the Goya. I’ll change

your mind about water. Promise.” (p. 198-199)

In example 4, MT invited RS to check the fossil in the

internet. In this invitation he used negative politeness

marker in form of hedges (okay). He also used

positive politeness marker by involving hearer (let’s).

Then, in example, it can be seen that MT used positive

politeness by showing optimism and promise since

they are in a trouble. He convince RS that the problem

will be over and she should come to his boat.

3.3 The Effect of Translation Politeness

Marker to the Illocution in the

Target Language

Then, the last point, the effect of translation technique

to the illocution in target text. Firstly, the politeness

markers in the Target Texts (TT) are compared to

show how the translators translated the politeness

markers from ST into TTs. It is shown in the

following tables, Table 2 and Table 3 that there are

some illocutions that changed from invitation into

another speech acts. The changes of the illocution in

translation caused by the implementation of

translation technique to the politeness markers. The

distribution of politeness strategies between Source

Text (ST) and Target Texts (TT) can be seen in Table

Table 2: Comparison of politeness strategies in invitation

strategies.

Text

Politeness Strategies

Tot

BOR

Tot

18.75

43.75

37.50

100

TT1

6.67

40.00

53.33

100

TT2

7.14

42.86

50.00

100

Table 2 shows that the use of bald on record and

positive politeness strategies are reduced in target text

(TT), meanwhile negative politeness strategies are

increased. Off record strategies are not used both in

the ST and TTs. Moreover, the impact of these

changes also influence the illocution in the target text

as shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Comparison of invitation speech act in the texts.

Text

Total

TT1

TT2

Table 3 shows that the distribution of invitation

acts in the source text (ST) and in the target texts

(TTs). In the ST there are ten utterances of invitation

but they are reduced into eight invitation in the both

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TTs. It is caused by the changes of politeness markers

also change the illocutionary of the utterances. It is

shown in the examples below for details.

The example 6 below shows the translation of

invitation made by William Pickering (WP) to his

staff, Rachel Sexton (RS).

Example 6/ST: 30/TT1:29/TT2:31/WP-RS

ST : “Agent Sexton, have a seat.” (30)

TT1: “Agen Sexton, duduklah." (29)

BT : “Agent Sexton, sit down.”

TT2: “Agen Sexton, silakan duduk." (31)

BT : “Agent Sexton, have a seat.”

In the example WP, the head of NRO, invited his

staff Rachel Sexton (RS) to sit in front of him to show

his generosity. As a staff, RS has no power, and WP

has close social distance, and the invitation has low

rank of imposition (P=0, D=0, R=1). WP’s utterance

has the illocution of invitation to show WP’s

generosity to his staff by offering the staff to have a

seat on the chair in his office. However, in TT1, the

utterance become a command to sit down. Although

the reaction are the same, the illocution in TT1

indicates that WP gave command to sit down rather

than gave an offer to sit. It is caused by reduction

technique. Although there is an addition technique for

“lah” particle that function as negative politeness to

minimize imposition. The changes of invitation act

into command is possible since WP has Power and

authority to give command to his staff in normal

condition. Meanwhile, in this context the utterance is

given to show generosity and for the benefit of the

hearer. In TT2, the translator used established

equivalence of “have a seat” into “silakan duduk”.

Thus, a translator need to consider an appropriate

translation of politeness marker in the target language

as it may give different impact in the target language.

As mentioned by Leech invitation is a directive

act which provides benefit for the hearer (Leech,

2014, p. 180). This finding supports Leech’s theory

that invitation shows the generosity of the speaker

(Leech, 2014). Therefore, the translators need to

reproduce the equal effect to the reader in the target

language. The translator should also be careful in the

translation process to anticipate that the same

politeness markers may have different effect in

another culture (Kecskes, 2015).

Based on the findings above, it can be seen that

the translation of politeness marker in the target texts

can cause the changes of the illocutionary act. These

findings support Keckes findings that politeness

marker in each culture has different function

(Kecskes, 2015; Kecskes & Horn, 2007). The

translators need to find equivalence translation by

using established equivalence technique to maintain

the illocution and politeness.

It also support previous research conducted by

Ardi, et al that politeness in giving advice and

command should be translated well by considering

the function and the effect of that politeness marker

in the TT (Ardi, Nababan, Djatmika, & Santosa,

2018a, 2018b). It also indicates that the position or

power of the speaker may influence the illocution in

the translation of politeness marker since it may be

changed into another speech act.

Moreover, in the previous research different

politeness strategies are different from different

culture as found by (Suzuki, 2009; Bella, 2009;

Suzuki, 2015) related to invitation in real life. In this

fiction works, politeness strategies are also used to

show the characterization of the people in the novel

(Ardi, Nababan, Djatmika, Santosa, 2018a). Thus, the

translators should keep them in the translation result.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Based on this research, it can be concluded that 1)

power, distance influence the characters who create

invitation due to the felicity conditions of invitation;

2) the positive and negative politeness strategies are

employed by the main characters in mitigating face

threatening act in giving invitation; 3) the

implementation of translation technique to the

politeness marker cause the changes in the translation

texts. It is suggested the translators to use established

equivalence in translating politeness marker to build

mutual understanding and avoid modulation since it

may change the illocution of the utterances.

Moreover, it is suggested for further research to

check the translation quality of politeness strategies

in the Indonesian novels. The translation quality

shows how good a translator finds the equivalence

translation that keep the politeness and illocution of

the speech act.

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