Deculturalization of Culturally Bound Meaning: Indonesian-English Translation Evidence

Abstract

The study is aimed at examining the phenomenon of deculturalization in the strategy of translating cultural terms in Indonesian literary texts into English, and its implications for the form and meaning of the target text. It is a descriptive translation study focusing on the objective aspect of translation, its form, and its meaning. The results show that the representation of the culturally bound meaning of cultural terms appears as words, phrases, terms, or expressions under the categories of (1) material culture, (2) social culture, (3) organization, customs, activities, and concepts, and (4) gesture and habits. In the process of translation, pure and blended deculturalization strategies were applied resulting in three equivalent typologies including (1) equivalent in meaning but the form is not correspondent, (2) equivalent but the meaning does not correspond due to different scope of meaning, and (3) zero or nil equivalent.