SLANG EXPRESSIONS IN THE ENGLISH CLUELESS MOVIE TEXT AND THEIR SUBTITLING STRATEGIES IN THE BAHASA INDONESIA SUBTITLING TEXT

This research aims to describe the types of slang expressions found in the movie, the subtitling strategies employed by the subtitler, and the degree of meaning equivalence of the slang expressions in the English Clueless movie text and their Bahasa Indonesia subtitling text. This research was a descriptive qualitative approach. The data were all slang expressions in the form of words or phrases taken from the movie’s dialogues in the original DVD of Clueless. The main instrument was the researcher herself, while the data sheet was employed as the secondary instrument. There were three theories applied to answer the problems questioned; the types of slang language by Willis, the subtitling strategies proposed by Gottlieb, and the degree of meaning equivalence by Bell. The trustworthiness of this study was gained by using credibility and dependability criteria through which detail observation was performed and some theories from the experts were applied related to this research. The research findings showed the following: 1) Slang expressions occurring in the English Clueless movie text fall into the New Invention type as the dominant type, followed by Standard Expression type. The movie employed relatively balanced types of slang, which New Invention slang was slightly higher than the Standard Expression slang. The higher percentage of New Invention slang might be due to the nature of slang itself that tends to be ever-changing according to time or era. 2) There were eight subtitling strategies employed in translating the slang expressions wherein Transfer was the most dominant strategy followed by Paraphrase, Condensation, Expansion, Deletion, Decimation, Resignation and Imitation. 3) In terms of meaning equivalence, Fully Equivalent is the most dominant followed by Partly Equivalent, Different Meaning, and No Meaning. The translation of slang expressions in this movie have high degree of equivalence indicated by frequency of equivalent meaning compared to non-equivalent one. The implication was that the slang expressions used in the movie were successfully transferred in terms of meaning to the TL, thus made them readable by the audiences