This thesis aims to examine particular problems that the Indonesian language poses for translators, whether translating from Indonesian to English or English to Indonesian. The notation Indonesian~English translation substitutes the swung dash ~ substitutes for the hyphen -. This notation is used in this thesis to indicate translation either from Indonesian to English or from English to Indonesian. It is a convenient way to make it clear when translation is in both directions. A multifaceted approach to translation will enable translation to be viewed in much the same way as the kinds of demands it places on the translator, who needs constantly to be aware of author~reader, source~target culture, syntax, semantics, semiotics, even geography and even politics. The use of metaphor and illustrations to describe the theoretical processes of translation is justified in the same way that imagery is justified in literature. To go a step further, it is important to see through the artificial distinction often made between interpretation and translation, so that translation acquires flexibility and a deeper ethical structure. A symbolic approach may be used by the translator., involving the perception of modules within text, identified with symbols, that can facilitate the process of translation. With Indonesian, the influx of foreign words occurred in three identifiable stages, Sanskrit, Arabic and Dutch/English. In relation to Indonesian~ English translation, the levels of Javanese and the co-existing presence of the Jakarta dialect may be compared to English vocabulary levels, for example Anglo- Saxon versus Latinate forms. This means an awareness of the existence of layers on the part of the translator. It does not imply a match between the layers in each language, philological layers between English and Indonesian, or strict equivalence between one set of borrowings in English and one in Indonesian. The hypothesis put forward is that there are advantages for the translator in being aware of waves of foreign and regional input that are part of the history of Indonesian as well as English, and that there is potential for creative utilisation of the resources of the two languages. Although a match between the layers in each language or strict equivalence between one set of borrowings in English and one in Indonesianis not implied, it is useful to recognise word origins where this may impact on the appropriate translation. Examination of the corpus presented in this thesis has shown that the history of Indonesian words can readily affect their meaning, while the history of English words may affect the choice of terms/. Nevertheless it has proved difficult to demonstrate any particular effect of the history or layer of meaning on the choice of terminology in translation. It seems that once the Indonesian term has been understood, the translation that will emerge will not particularly be bound by reference to the history of English terminology. The hypothesis then may be reduced to an observation that the derivation of Indonesian terms, like that of English terms, is important in fully understanding the scope of meaning of the terms. The other hypothesis in this thesis is that texts or terms can be viewed as a root system containing various nodes content that the translator can respond to and wrap into the translated version, with the form of the target text possibly differing from that of the source text. The process of translation can be compared to a process of unpackaging various semantic and other elements in a unit to be translated and repackaging them for the target version. The undbundling~rebundling hypothesis is in the end a very practical matter. It aims to enlarge the discretion of the translator to carry over content with judicious changes in form. It is fair to summarise examination of the corpus by concluding that evidence of the need for unbundling~rebundling has not been convincingly presented in this thesis. It is also fair to say that in general the English translation has followed the order of the Indonesian original quite closely, and this means that a process of unbundling~rebundling is often unlikely to be necessary. Nevertheless the validity of the unbundling~rebundling approach remains, and if a text requires this kind of analysis there is ample justification for its use.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/241502 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Johnson, Richard K., School of Modern Language Studies, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Modern Language Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Richard K. Johnson, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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