- INTRODUCTION
What
is the relationship between culture and language?
Culture
is built from the similarity of forming factors which are called
cultural component. Language is one of the most important components
of culture. The language is a mediation of thoughts, feelings and
actions. The language translates values and norms, human
cognitive schema, perceptions, attitudes and human’s beliefs about
the world (Liliweri, 2001:120). Bassnett (1998:13 - 14) describes the
relationship between language and culture as two things cannot be
separated and the death one of them is determined by another by
illustrating that language is "the heart within the body of
culture" that the preservation of the two aspects are dependent
on each other.
The
idea that says that cultural content is reflected in the old language
is has been expressed by many experts (e.g. Sapir, Boas and
Bloomfield). Edward Sapir, for example, states that the content of
every culture is not only expressed in the language. Boas showed not
only a reciprocal relationship between thought and language but also
the language and customs, between language and ethnicity, and
language and behavioral changes that occur in culture. Even
Bloomfield emphasized that the relationship of culture and language
is very strong so that the wealth or poverty of a culture is
reflected in language. A reflection of the culture in a language is
not only limited to the level of vocabulary, but also the present in
a wider level, such as the aspect of rhetoric (Wahab, 1995:37-56).
Similarly,
the physical appearance of a person is different with others, as well
as the culture. In a different society, people not only speak by
different language and dialects, but they also use the language in
different way. The different way of talking, according to Wierzbicka
(1994), reflects the values of different cultures or at least a
different level of value. This statement is in accordance with the
definition of culture given by Newmark (1988:94), "the way of
life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that
uses a particular language as its means of expression", which
implies that each guyub language (language group) has its own
specific culturally features
Fishman
(1985) states that the relationship with the culture of the language
can be seen in three perspectives, namely (1) as part of the culture,
(2) as an index of culture, and (3) as a symbolic of culture. As part
of the culture, language is embodiment of human behavior. For
example, ceremonies, rituals, songs, stories, prayers which are the
speech act or speech events. All who want to be involved and
understand the culture must master the language because then they
could participate and experience the culture. As the cultural index,
the language also reveals how to think and organize the speaker’s
experience which in the particular field appears in lexical item and
as a symbolic of culture of language which shows ethnic cultural
identity. Because the language is part of culture, then, on the one
hand, the translation can not only be understood as a transfer of
form and meaning but also the culture and, on the other side, the
translation can also be understood as a process of speaking. In this
sense, the translator uses the language for communication purposes
(Write) that describes the cultural happenings that include what
humans do, what they know, and the objects made and used as a
cultural manifestation. The consequence is that translation is not
only able to experience the barriers linguistically but also
culturally. Therefore, the translation is not solely about the
finding other words or phrases that have the same meaning but to find
a suitable way to express something in another language. As said by
Thriveni (2002) that the contextual meaning of culture is very
complicated in the texture of the language so that the translators
should be aware of the two different cultures and it is necessity to
be able to capture local color and also necessity to be able to
understand by the readers of the translation which are outside of the
culture and language situation. This ultimately has the particular
implications and makes the study of translation cannot be separated
from the linguistic and cultural approaches.
- RESEARCH METHOD
In
this research, the author uses three useful methods:
- Source of data
It’s
done by finding the source that is related with the discourses.
As for the media
are the internet and book references.
- Data collection technique
In
this technique, the researcher doesn’t do sampling technique or
field observation immediately, but just collecting data from the
internet and book references and then combining them to include the
suitable materials into discourses.
- Technique of data analysis
The
author tries to analyze the complicated issues in the translating
Indonesian cultural language into English and vice versa by using the
data that has been collected.
- CONTENTS
“A
translation may be defined as a presentation of a text in a language
other than that in which it was originally written,” (Finley,
1971:1).
The
understanding of ‘presentation’ refers to the concept that
translation is a cultural adjustment in speaking from source language
into the speaking cultures of the target language. As stated by
Catford (1965:1) that the language is human behavior which is
patterned. In the culture, the people speak and react in the pattern
of his culture. Nida (1964:147-149) suggests that the recipient or
the message can only react to the messages communicated to him in his
own language and can only express that response in a cultural context
in which they live. Thus, the translation is not just laying the
source culture on the target culture and vise versa, but also to
reconstruct (restructuring). In the process of rearrangement required
the replacement of the culture of language as a consequence of the
fact that in translation (for example Indonesia-English translation)
involves two languages which are not same and have different
typology. The diversion of the product of meanings appear on the
surface (the surface structure) in the form of transcoding, the
replacement of the code with other code (system source language into
the target language system). The different system of linguistic as
the reflection of arbitrary and sui generis nature of the language
which makes the transfer appears as the match and in searching the
equivalence required the changes to the particular limitations that
is mandatory so that the shift of shape and meaning are occurred.
This might give the impression that the translation is same with the
deviation as illustrated by Bambang Kasaswanti Purwo (1995) with an
example: Nafasnya berbau jengkol in which "smelled jengkol"
translated "Garlic smell". It is not definitely found in
any dictionary "jengkol" = garlic. So, it can be more
specific translated as “a kind of bean”, yet it still deviates
because for more accurate and specific meaning is very difficult.
The
process of transfer of the above can be illustrated by reconstructing
example matching the following sentence from English-Indonesian:
He
is a book worm
1.
‘Dia (laki-laki) adalah sebuah/seorang cacing buku’
2.
‘Dia (adalah) orang yang suka membaca buku’
3.
‘Dia kutu buku’
Translating
English phrase “book worm” into the Indonesian language cannot be
taken literally into 'Dia (adalah) (seorang / seekor) cacing buku'.
In translation (a) a thorough redistribution must be done to maintain
the message, legibility and the nature of the target language through
contextual and cultural adjustment. From the point of context is
logically there is no connection between dia and cacing (or both
could be equalized) in the source sentence. The contextual meaning of
the phrase “book worm” is 'people who love to read books' (as in
the translation b). From the perspective of cultural expression
requires adjustment which is parrarel with the linguistic culture to
maintain legibility and the nature of the phrase in the target
language. Cultural equivalent of the English phrase “book worm”
in the example above is 'kutu buku' because in the linguistic culture
of Indonesia expressed 'bookish' and not 'book worm (cacing buku)' as
seen in the translation (c).
- CONCLUSION
From
the description that has been presented, it can be concluded that the
translation is not simply a matter of shifting language (linguistic
transfer), or transferring the meanings but also the transfer of
culture (cultural transfer). Therefore, language and cultural gaps
bring the theoretical implications that the translation studies
cannot be separated from language and cultural approaches. The
implication is practically posed by cultural gaps of source language
cultural gaps of the target language which leads to the translation
strategies that tend to follow the pattern of the continuum (1) the
abstract form of the source language and culture in the foreign
(Indonesia<->English) concepts of the source language to the
target language, so the correspondence will lead to borrow in the
target language, and (2) the concrete meaning / concept in the source
language and known meanings / concepts in source language by the
speakers of the target language, the correspondence tends to the
adaptations and explication.
REFERENCES
Bassnett,
McGuire, S. 1980. Translation Studies. London and New York:
Methuen,
revised
edition 1991,Routledge
Bassnett,
Susan dan André Lefevere (Eds.). 1995. Translation, History and
Culture.
Catford,
J.C. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford
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Lawerence
Venuti (Ed.). The Translation Studies Reader, pp376-396. New
Halliday,
M A K dan Raquaiya Hasan.1986. Language, Context, and Text: Aspects
of
Language
in a Social-semiotic Perspective. Victoria: Deakin University Press.
Hatim,
Basil. 2001. Teaching and Researching Translation. England: Pearson
Education
January
2002. Available from: URL:http://accurapid.com/journal/htm
Newmark,
P. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice-Hall.
Nida,
Eugene (1964). 2000. “Principles of Correspondence” dalam
Lawerence Venuti
(Ed.).
The Translation Studies Reader, pp.126—147. New York:Routledge.
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