A Contrastive Analysis of English Swear Words in the Adventure Tintin in the Land of Black Gold

Abstract : This research is a contrastive analysis between English swear words and their Indonesian equivalents in the Tintin comic book entitled Tintin in the Land of Black Gold. The purpose of this Contrastive Analysis was to find out the similiarities, differences, and to predict the possible learning problems made by Indonesian learners based on the differences. The author employed a descriptive qualitative technique with the case study method to accomplish the research objectives. Based on the results of the data analysis, there were 34 swear words between the English swear words and their Indonesian equivalents. From the data, there were 3 similarities and 31 differences between the English swear words and and their Indonesian equivalents. It was found that most English swear words were idiomatic, while their Indonesian equivalents were non-idiomatic. As the contrastive suggests, based on the differences, the Indonesian learners may face learning problems, in this case, the translating problems of the english swear words into their Indonesian equivalents. Indonesian learners may make mistakes when translating the English swear words into Indonesian for example Bluebeard into *Janggut biru , instead of the correct one *Bandot tua. Indonesian learners may make mistakes by translating the English swear words literally or through word-by-word translations. Indonesian learners should be aware of these differences and should be careful when translating English swear words into Indonesian.