AN ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSLATION OF TABOO WORDS IN CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE MOVIE

Abstract

This study is about an analysis of the translation of taboo words in
“Central Intelligence” movie. It is to shed the type of taboo words and the
procedures applied to translate the taboo words. The theories used in this study
are from Timothy Jay (1992) to classify the types of taboo words and a theory
from Peter Newmark (1987) to analyze the translation procedures. The data are
taken from the movie entitled Central Intelligence by choosing 20 data out of 65
data of taboo words. The result of the analysis shows that are seven translation
procedures employed in the translation of taboo word. They are cultural
equivalent (seven data), reduction (four data), functional equivalent (three data),
paraphrase (three data), naturalization, through translation and literal translation
(one data each). For the types of the taboo words, the result shows that there are
eight types of taboo words of the 20 selected data. They are insult and slurs (four
data), profanity (one data), taboo (two data), epithets (three data), slang (four
data), scatology (one data), vulgarity (three data) and cursing (two data) of ten
types proposed by Timothy Jay. From this study, it is concluded that the taboo
words from the SL cannot always be translated into the taboo words in the TL
because of the cultural differences.