RECONSTRUCTING DIRECTIVE FORCE: TRANSLATION SHIFTS AND PRAGMATIC MODIFICATION IN INDONESIAN SUBTITLES OF MURDER MYSTERY

Abstract

This study investigates how translation shifts reconstruct the pragmatic force of directive speech acts in Indonesian movie subtitles. Focusing on the film Murder Mystery, this research aims to examine (1) how translation shifts affect the pragmatic force of directives, (2) which types of shifts are most frequently associated with pragmatic change, and (3) why such pragmatic modifications tend to occur in subtitling. Using a descriptive qualitative research, 59 directive utterances were identified and analyzed based on speech act theory and Catford's translation shift framework. The findings reveal that translation shifts systematically reshape directive force, resulting in three major pragmatic patterns: pragmatic weakening, pragmatic strengthening, and pragmatic reorientation. Pragmatic weakening emerges as the most frequent effect, indicating a tendency of Indonesian subtitles to reduce impositive force and urgency. Structure shifts are found to be the most dominant and most pragmatically consequential type, followed by unit and class shifts. The study further shows that pragmatic modification is motivated by the technical constraints of subtitling, cross-linguistic differences, socio-pragmatic adaptation, and the multimodal nature of audiovisual texts. This study contributes to pragmatic-oriented translation research by demonstrating that subtitling operates as a pragmatically transformative process rather than a purely linguistic transfer.