THE TRANSLATION OF INDONESIA MYTH CHARACTERS
ON THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA
Marisa Puteri Sekar Ayu Santosa Universitas Airlangga.
Surabaya.
Indonesia marisa05@gmail.
ABSTRACT
The English language Wikipedia is in both terms of the number of articles and amount of content, the largest encyclopedia ever written.
Since it has an enormous amount of information and ease of access through the internet.
Wikipedia is often used as the first destination for the general public when they wish to find specific information or learn about particular One of the biggest issues in Wikipedia is making information available in almost all languages.
English Wikipedia is often using another language as the source language for translation activities aimed to enhance the quality of the multilingual Wikipedia, one of the examples is Indonesian.
In this research, the researcher was interested in observing Indonesian myth characters on the English Wikipedia by investigating the kind of translation techniques that English-Wikipedia used and the way of Wikipedia translated the cultural terms.
This research used comparative descriptive method which compares the source text (Indonesia Wikipedi.
and the target text (English Wikipedi.
The Indonesian myths characters that the researcher wanted to analyze were: Sundel Bolong.
Pocong.
Jenglot.
Wewe Gombel.
Kuntilanak.
Tuyul.
Nyai Roro Kidul, and Babi Ngepet by using translation techniques from Molina and Albir .
The result of the study, it could be shown that there were 9 types of translation techniques which are used, they were: amplification .
, borrowing, compensation, discursive creation, established equivalence, literal translation, modulation, reduction .
, and transposition.
Moreover, the translated text was more informative than the source text, since it was impossible to literally translating the cultural terms.
Keyword: Cultural Terms.
Myth Characters.
Translation.
Wikipedia.
Introduction The English language Wikipedia is in both terms of the number of articles and amount of content, the largest encyclopedia ever written.
Since it has an enormous amount of information and ease of access through the internet, 27 | P a g e Wikipedia is often used as the first destination for the general public when they wish to find specific information or learn about particular topic.
One of the biggest issues in Wikipedia is making information available in all languages.
The English Wikipedia is often used another language as the source language for translation activities aimed to enhance the quality of the multilingual Wikipedia, one of the example is Indonesian.
There are found many interesting phenomena about the Indonesian culture which is described Indonesian Wikipedia into English Wikipedia.
Here, the researcher was interested in observing Indonesian myth characters on the English Wikipedia.
In this globalization era, there is still such a believing in the supernatural things.
Indonesia, it is developing the belief in such supernatural thing like myth According to Dictionary of English Folklore, myth is a folklore genre which is consisting of narratives or stories that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths.
The main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans.
According to Bascom .
, myths are Auoften endorsed by rulers and priests or priestesses, and are closely linked to religion or spirituality.
However, many societies group their myths, legends and history together, considering myths and legends to be true accounts of their remote past.
Eliade .
explained that myths tell how a societyAos customs, institutions and taboos were established and sanctified.
From the explanation above, the term myth is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true.
Based on Von Franz .
, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be highly political, influenced by particular religions.
The belief of Indonesian to the myths, specifically in the supernatural things or ghosts is quite interesting to be Since the myth characters are only known in Indonesia, it must be interesting to find out how the English Wikipedia translate the terms of the Since, the different nations share the different cultures.
According to Newmark .
, the translationAo problems which relate to the culture background, themes such as characterAos names, placeAos names, words or particular terms that relate to the culture which cannot be found in the target That is why, the translator needs to have a background knowledge about the culture of the source text to produce a good translation and can be understood by the target readers.
The difficulty in translation process is in finding the equivalence words which are equal to the source text and the target text.
Pym .
stated that the goal of translator is to keep the meaning of the translation to be constant.
Equivalency usually uses in the translation process, especially in the structural used and the meaning which is totally different from the source language, but the context remains the 28 | P a g e same.
Thus, the translator does not just transfer each words in source language into target language, but a good translator must skillful in translating the source language into target language without changing the purpose and message in target language.
Therefore, the translator can transmit the source language to the target language text by using some translation technique in making the readers can understand about the translation in the target Translation techniques can be defined as a way to transfer the meaning from the source language to target language is based on micro unit .
ord, phrase or clause or in sentenc.
, which influence the result of translation.
Molina and Albir .
defined that translation technique allow the people to describe the actual steps which taken by the translators in each textual micro-unit and obtain clear data about the general Translation technique is the procedure to analyze and classify the way of equivalence can happens.
Translation technique is called as the realization of the decision, making process, where the product of translation can be identified on the translation result.
There are 18 translation techniques which were stated by Molina and Albir .
, such as:
adaptation, amplification .
, established equivalence, generalization, modulation, particularization, reduction, substitution, transposition and variation.
The translators can use some variations of translation technique in any product of translation such as in translating cultural terms, especially translating Indonesian ghost characters in English Wikipedia.
There are several researches which conduct in Wikipedia translation and cultural translation.
First research was conducted by Woodrich .
, he Indonesia on the English Wikipedia by using discourse analysis.
This research and the researcherAos research remain the same in using Wikipedia as an object.
However, there is a different approach between them.
Woodrich used discourse analysis approach, while the researcher uses translation approach.
The next related study was conducted by Aditya and Basari .
, they analyzed the Ahmad TahariAos novel AuRonggeng Dukuh ParukAy and the English version entitled AuThe DancerAy to find the ideology of the translator by identifying the dominance translation technique by using Molina and Albir theory.
This research and the researcherAos research are both using the same theory in order to find the translation techniques used in English Wikipedia.
The third related study was written by Sudana et all .
, their purpose was to find how to translate the cultural terms and the procedure of the translation by using Newmark theory.
The similarity of this research to the researcherAos research is both wanting to find how to translate the cultural terms.
The last related study was written by 29 | P a g e Nasrum and Sari .
, their purposes of the research were to know the kinds of translation used in slang language and knowing the equivalence meaning between translated text and the original text in the movie by using three theories, they are NewmarkAos.
PartidgeAos, and PalmerAos theories.
The similarity of this research to the researcherAos research is both of them want to know what kinds of translation used in the text.
From the previous studies, there are none of the research which is interested in observing the translation technique in EnglishWikipedia in translating cultural terms in Indonesian myth characters.
Literature Review The researcher analyzed the type of translation techniques which was used by English Wikipedia according to Molina and Albir .
, they were:
Adaptation: a technique that replaces the SL cultural elements with one which has the same condition and situation in the TL The translator has to create or make a new situation that can be considered as being equivalent both in SL and TL.
Amplification (Additio.
technique that conveyed details that are not formulated or stated in SL, it can be either information or paraphrasing explicitly.
Borrowing: a technique that takes a word or expression straight from another language, and with no change.
Calque: a technique that translate the word or phrase from the SL into TL which can be lexical or structural system, and also can be translated word-for-word in a SL to TL.
Compensation: a technique that introduces SL element of information or stylistic effect in another place in the TL because it cannot reflected in the same place as in the SL.
Description: translation technique to replace a term or expression with a description of its form or/and function.
Discursive Creation: a technique that replaces a term or expression with a description of its form or/and function.
Established Equivalence:
technique that use term or expression which is recognized .
n dictionary or language in use and everyday us.
as an equivalent in the TL.
Generalization: a translation technique to use a more general or neutral term.
Linguistic Amplification:
translation technique to add linguistic elements, it is often used in consecutive interpreting and dubbing.
Linguistic Compression:
synthesize linguistic elements in the TT, it is often used in simultaneous interpreting and in sub-titling.
30 | P a g e Literal Translation: a technique that translates a word or an expression in word for word without any addition or reduction into TL.
Modulation: a technique that changes the point of view in the TL in order to focus or cognitive category in relation to SL.
Particularization: a translation technique that uses a more precise or concrete term.
Reduction (Omissio.
technique that reduces certain elements of the SL.
It is also called subtraction which suppressing a SL information in the TL.
Transposition (Shif.
: a technique that changes a grammatical category in relation to the source Variation: a translation technique that changes linguistic or .
ntonation, gesture.
that affect aspects of linguistic variation:
changes of textual tone, style.
Sundel Bolong.
Pocong.
Jenglot.
Wewe Gombel.
Kuntilanak.
Tuyul.
Nyai Roro Kidul, and Babi Ngepet.
There are only 8 myth characters which are chosen, because they were the most popular myth characters in Indonesia.
In this research, the researcher wanted to answer the research questions: .
What kind of translation techniques that English-Wikipedia use?, .
How to translate the cultural terms?.
Following the research questions, the researcher needed to find the translation techniques in English-Wikipedia by comparing the source text.
IndonesianWikipedia.
Then, the researcher needed to find the way in translating the cultural terms by interpreting from the kind of the translation techniques found.
Result and Discussion Research Methods 1 Translation Technique The researcher analyzed the type of the translation technique according to Molina and Albir .
In analyzing the type of translation technique, the researcher used 8 data from EnglishWikipedia .
arget tex.
and 8 data from Indonesian-Wikipedia .
ource tex.
, such as: Sundel Bolong.
Pocong.
Jenglot.
Wewe Gombel.
Kuntilanak.
Tuyul.
Nyai Roro Kidul and Babi Ngepet.
This research used comparative descriptive method which compared the source text and the target text.
The source of the research was from Wikipedia-English as the target text and Wikipedia-Indonesia as the source text which were describing about the Indonesian myths characters, such as:
Amplification (Additio.
Amplification (Additio.
technique that conveyed details that are not formulated or stated in source It can be either information or paraphrasing explicitly.
It is same with addition or gain.
It also can be called 31 | P a g e grammatical expansion for clarity of This translation technique is a common technique in translating cultural things, it is really helpful for the target readers to understand the meaning of the particular term by giving the addition of the information.
It is found in the English Wikipedia translation of PocongAos There is an addition of information about the reason of the appearing of Pocong, while there is no explanation about it in the source target.
Also, there is an addition of the explanation of the existence of the Pocong character in the popular culture like films.
Another example of addition technique is found in the JenglotAos article, in target text there is an explanation of how to feeding Jenglot, the information about how Indonesia is often held an exhibition by showcasing Jenglot, and also about the history of Jenglot.
It is also found in TuyulAos article, there are found several addition in explaining the names of Tuyul in another country, the appearance of Tuyul and also the characterization of Tuyul.
The addition technique is also found in Babi NgepetAos article, there is found an explanation about how a man transforms into boar demon (Babi Ngepe.
, the practice of Babi Ngepet, and also how the interpretation of Babi Ngepet in Javanese culture.
Borrowing Borrowing is a technique that takes a word or expression straight from another It can be copied, reproduced, translated/changed language exactly as in source language.
When an expression or a word is taken over purely in translation language .
ithout chang.
, it is called pure In naturalized borrowing, it can be naturalized to fit the spelling rules in the target language .
ith changin.
English Wikipedia, in translating the myth characters name uses borrowing It is obviously shown that the word is purely borrowed from the original into target language.
For the example: Sundel Bolong is translated into Sundel Bolong.
Pocong is translated into Pocong, and also another myth character names are translated into their own names, except Kuntilanak and Tuyul.
However.
Kuntilanak and Tuyul in English Wikipedia are translated into many names based on the countryAos origin.
Another example is also found in the PocongAos article.
Aukain kafanAy is also translated into Aukain kafan.
Ay .
Compensation Compensation is a technique that introduces source language element of information or stylistic effect in another place in the target language because it cannot be reflected in the same place as in the source language.
This technique is found in Wewe GombelAos article in describing the information about Wewe GombelAos AuWewe Gombel biasanya menakutnakuti orang tua si anak atas sikap dan perlakuannya kepada anaknya sampai mereka sadar.
Ay While in the English Wikipedia it is translated into AuThis myth 32 | P a g e is taught to encourage children to be cautious and to stay at home at night.
Ay Here, the translator changes the element information and gives stylistic effect in target language because the source language cannot be reflected in the same place in source language.
Discursive Creation Discursive Creation is a technique that replaces a term or expression with a description of its form or/and function.
The purpose of this technique is to indicate the equivalency.
This technique is also found in English Wikipedia in translating the myth character name.
Mostly, the myth character names are translated by using borrowing technique.
However.
Kuntilanak in English Wikipedia is translated into Pontianak and Tuyul is translated into Toyol.
There is an explanation in Indonesian Wikipedia that Pontianak is a name of Kuntilanak in Malay language, but in English Wikipedia there is an explanation that Indonesian also called Kuntilanak as Pontianak as the Malay do.
The translation of Kuntilanak into Pontianak actually different with the intended meaning, but the translation of Pontianak is enough for representing about Kuntilanak.
In the English Wikipedia there is an explanation about Tuyul can be called as Toyol in Malay, but there is no explanation about it in Indonesian Wikipedia.
Actually the translation of Tuyul into Toyol is different from the meaning, but it is quite enough for represent Tuyul.
Established Equivalence It is a technique that use term or expression which is recognized .
n dictionary or language in use and everyday us.
as an equivalent in the target language.
It is used to refer to case where language describe the same situation by different stylistic or Established technique is found in Nyai Roro KidulAos article in describing Nyai Roro Kidul as AuRatu Laut SelatanAy into AuQueen of the Southern SeaAy.
Here, the translator uses the same expression which has the same meaning between source language and target language.
However it has different structure because Indonesia has a rule DM .
iterangkan-menerangka.
which is noun will be placed in front of the adjective, while English has a rule M-D .
enerangkan-diterangka.
which is adjective will be placed in front of the Another example of the established equivalence is found in Nyai Roro KidulAos article also.
In Indonesian Wikipedia.
Nyai Roro Kidul has another form beside her actual form.
AuDalam wujud sejenis putri Ay sebagai Nyai Blorong.
It is translated into AuIn mermaid form she is referred to as Nyai BlorongAy Ay.
Here, the translator uses the same expression which has the same meaning between source language and target language.
However it has different structure because Indonesia has a rule D-M .
iterangkan-menerangka.
which is noun will be placed in front of the adjective, while English has a rule MD .
enerangkan-diterangka.
which is 33 | P a g e adjective will be placed in front of the .
Literal Translation It is a technique that translates a word or an expression in word for word.
The source language is translated literally, and focuses on the form and structure, without any addition or reduction into TL.
Literal translation technique is found in Nyai Roro KidulAos article in explaining that Nyai Roro Kidul has many names based on the origins, in Indonesian Wikipedia AuNyai Roro Kidul juga dikenal dengan berbagai nama yang mencerminkan berbagai kisah berbeda dari asal-usulnya, legenda, mitologi, dan kisah turun-temurun.
Ay And it is translated literally with no addition or omission into AuNyai Roro Kidul spirit has many different names, which reflect the diverse stories of her origin in different traditional folklore.
Ay Another example is found in JenglotAos article in describing Jenglot.
AuJenglot adalah figure hominoidAy is translated literally into AuJenglot is a deformed humanoid.
Ay Here, the translator focuses on source language has same form and structure to the target language.
Modulation Modulation is a technique that changes the point of view in the translation language in order to focus or cognitive category in relation to source It is a variation of the form of the message, obtained by a change the point of view.
It allows in expressing the same phenomenon in a different way.
This translation technique is also used by English Wikipedia in translating the Indonesian myth character names.
It is found in Sundel BolongAos article, in Indonesia Wikipedia that is found an explanation about the history of Sundel Bolong which is stated that AuSundel Bolong adalah arwah penasaran dari wanita yang mati karena diperkosay While in the English Wikipedia, it is translated into AuA Sundel Bolong is the soul of a woman who died when she was pregnant outside of marriageAAy Here, the translator changes the point of view from AudiperkosaAy .
into Aupregnant outside of the marriageAy.
However, it still has the same message to explain the history of Sundel Bolong.
Reduction (Omissio.
Reduction is a technique that reduces certain elements of the source language.
It is also called elimination, omission or subtraction which suppressing a source language information in the target In translating the definition of the myth character, the translator uses the reduction technique.
Since there are some elements which is not really important to be translated, so it needs to reduce some of the information.
Sundel BolongAos Indonesian Wikipedia article, there is an explanation about Sundel Bolong looks that similar to Kuntilanak.
However, it is not found in the English Wikipedia article.
34 | P a g e .
Transposition Transposition is a technique that changes a grammatical category in relation to the source language.
This technique is the same to shift .
n category, structure and unit shift, such as changing singular to plural, position of adjective, changing the word class or part of speec.
The transposition technique is also used in translating the Indonesian myth characters in KuntilanakAos article, in Indonesian Wikipedia.
Kuntilanak is described as Auhantu yang dipercaya dari perempuan hamil yang meninggal dunia.
Ay While in English Wikipedia, it is translated into Authe spirits of women who died while pregnant.
Ay Here, the translator translate AuhantuAy into AuspiritsAy, there is a transposition or Actually AuhantuAy can be translated into AughostAy, but the translator prefers in changing the shift by using AuspiritAy, and also the translator changing the singular into plural by adding -s in the word AuspiritAy.
Based on the findings above, there are only 9 techniques which are used in Indonesian character names in English Wikipedia.
Mostly, the translators can give the information clearly for the target readers by using the original terms, then giving the addition, and also adapt the grammatical and structural pattern in the target language.
It seems like that the English Wikipedia gives more information than the original one (Indonesian Wikipedi.
2 Translating Cultural Terms There are found 9 translation techniques which are used by the translators in translating Indonesian myth character names.
In translating the cultural terms, the translators use the cultural terms without translated into However, translators use addition technique in explaining the cultural terms.
It can be said that the translated texts are more informative and give the good knowledge to the target readers by adding particular information to supporting the definition of the Indonesian myth characters.
Conclusion It could be concluded that there were 9 types of translation techniques which were used by the translators in translating the cultural articles, they .
, borrowing, compensation, discursive creation, established equivalence, literal .
, and transposition.
Here, in translating the cultural texts it could not be consistence by using literally translation technique.
Since, there were many cultural terms that have no same meanings in the target text.
English Wikipedia could give clear information to the target readers by adding information in the appearance of the myth characters, the origins of the characters, and the other names of the characters if they are also existing in the other countriesAo mythology.
Therefore, the translated texts are more informative than the original texts.
It also can be 35 | P a g e
concluded that the quality of the English
Wikipedia translation is accurate, acceptable in structural and grammatical, understandable by the readers because it contains added information, and References