METHODS & TECHNIQUES IN THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF BALINESE CULTURE IN THE NOVEL SUKRENI GADIS BALI

Abstract

Translating cultures and other specific, context-based terminologies are never easy to perform as language structures, circumstances, readerships, and translators’ perspectives come to play. The text is set in the context of a specific society that is closely related to its origin culture. In the text, culture can take the form of norms, values, habits, materials, or natural conditions. Although stated differently, source and target text are conceptually and logically comparable. The concepts or meanings of the source and target text are not always the same. The process requires the translators’ adaptability skills to select necessary translation methods and techniques considered appropriate to the target readership. Therefore, the present study would like to examine translation methods and techniques employed in the treatment of cultural terms in the novel. The English translation of ‘Sukreni’ and the original Indonesian novel are the foci of this current study. This is a qualitative study that makes use of the content analysis approach. The data analysis technique categorizes the translation results based on cultural concepts, techniques, and methods. The fourteen translation techniques of Molina & Albir and the six translation methods of Hervey & Higgins are the frameworks of analysis in this study. Espindola & Vasconcellos’s concept of cultural elements distinguishes the types of cultural concepts portrayed in the original novel. The results show that the translation methods adopted to accommodate the cultural terms are adaptation and communicative methods. At the same time, the commonly used translation techniques are modulation, transposition, and adaptation. It can be concluded that the translator’s ideology also came to play alongside the choice of the translation methods and techniques when it comes to the readership of the target language. Methods and techniques of translations that are more inclined to the target language positively impact the translation results. Anthroponymy is the dominant cultural term in the original novel in the cultural category.