Translation Quality of Pragmatic Function of Swearing in Heather Graham’s Novel Based on Gender

Abstract

Translating swearing is a challenge when it comes to a conservative target language, as it is considered taboo and inappropriate. However, certain swearing might carry certain pragmatic function from the speaker. Gender of the speaker may contribute to the reason swearing, male and female speaker might carry different function as well as the diction of the swearing itself. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate the shifting of pragmatic function of swearing translation as well as its impact to the translation quality based on gender. This research is qualitative research which employed pragmatic and sociolinguistic as the approach. The results showed that the swearing found is dominated by male speaker, and the most carried function is cathartic. There are shifting found as a result from the implementation of deletion and reduction technique. It draws down the translation quality scores especially the accuracy aspect.