AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS' ABILITY IN TRANSLATING IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS FOUND IN POETRY

Translation is a process of transferring a meaning from source language to target language. Translation ability is the ability in rendering the message from the source language into the good, right and acceptable target language. A person's ability to translate, very much requires knowledge of good methods and techniques. Students who are studying with a major in translation, of course, also need to know the basic methods and techniques of good translation procedures. Not only translate simple daily conversation, but they are also required to be able to translate many kinds of media and learning resources in Indonesia, such as books, novels, poetry, etc. The most difficult problem people often face is understanding the meaning of connotation, such as an idiom. Idioms exist in almost a variety of products that people often encounter in life such as poetry, films, songs, books, novels, magazines, and newspapers. Translating idioms has been a puzzling problem for many people because idiom has its own certain terms in translating and it expresses an idea through an image. Based on the idiom notions above, the researcher considers the issue of the idiom translation to be very important.The objectives of this study are (1) to know the students’ ability in translating some idioms in Poetry, (2) to know the translation strategies that are used by Translation Students in translating Idioms, and (3) to know what causes misinterpretations that happen among the Translation Students in translating.This study used descriptive qualitative research with purposeful random sampling. The data source is the students taking translation course in the sixth semester at IAIN Tulungagung. There were 15 students as the sample from two classes which consist of class A (26) and class B (25). The primary data of this study are the Indonesian translation of English idiomatic expressions found in Poetry and the students’ answers in interview. The key instrument of this study is the researcher herself and the secondary instrument of this study is the interview guide which is used to record and collect the data. To gain the trustworthiness of the research, this research applies construct validity test and triangulation.The finding of this study shows that the translation strategy mostly used in translating the idiomatic expressions is translation by using an idiom of similar meaning and form (15 out of 15 or 100%). In terms of the degrees of meaning equivalence, the type of equivalence translation that used by the students is formal correspondence. Therefore, it can be concluded that most of the idiomatic expressions are translated to the target language as close as possible only based on their lexical items which cause less communicative. There are 3 factors which are considered to be the causes of the misinterpretation of students in translating. Those causes are identified as follows, (1) Students lack of knowledge in the translation methods and techniques; (2) Students directly translate the text by dictionary and using Google Translate; (3) Lack of learning facilities and infrastructure in Translation Course.