Explicitation Strategy in Translating Indonesian Novel into English

Abstract

This research article is about the use of translation strategy namely explicitation in the translation of a novel from Indonesian into English. The data source is an Indonesian novel entitled Lelaki Harimau written by Eka Kurniawan and its English translation, Man Tiger as the data source. The translation of a novel from Indonesian into English may not as many as the translation work from English into Indonesian. The novel creates commands and critics regarding its content as well as its language use. It is interesting to see how Indonesian culture reflected in the novel is presented in English through translation. The translator tries to do his best to provide equal information in the target language text as given in the source language text. The uniqueness in the source language text needs a hard work to do in delivering the closest natural equivalent in the target language text. Untranslatability is no longer issue as there are strategies of translation that can be applied, one of them is explicitation. The explicitation strategy used is the one proposed by Klaudy. Using descriptive qualitative method, this research is aimed at revealing the kind of information being explicitated, the forms of explicitation used, and the semantic information of the words explicitated. The results show that the kind of information is both cultural and non-cultural, and the forms of explicitation identified are all five of them and semantically all the words being explicitated become clearer, specific, and more informative