Omission in the Translation of Indonesian Novels into English

Abstract

This research article discusses one of the translation strategies called omission as identified in the translation of Indonesian novels into English. Novels in any language are the reflection of the daily life of a certain culture so the use of cultural words or terms in cultural activities cannot be avoided, and it may reach a certain extent that needs to be fully taken care of. To get the appropriate equivalents for the cultural words/terms, the translation mainly requires more detailed information through addition, expansion, or amplification in the target text and certainly not by omitting information. When it is allowed to omit a piece of information from the source text, it needs some requirements to be fulfilled. It is challenging and needs the skill to delete information of the source text without losing the unity of the message. Scholars give some classifications regarding the act of omitting, deleting, subtracting, and reducing information as guidance to start with. This research uses descriptive qualitative method to identify what information is omitted and what function of the omission performed in the English target text. The results show that the information omitted is more than what has been categorized in theory. They are not only repetition, specification of reference, adverbs and conjunction, vocatives, but also others such as elaborate information, whereas the functions of the omission, among others are to present only essential information by simplifying elaborate information, to shift from explicit information into implicit information, to shift from specific information into more general information, to avoid redundancy and to make the information concise.