68
b. “Ia kini duduk bersila” Mohamad’s Potret Taman untuk Allen Ginsberg, p. 116 and “Kini bercerita lagi sambil bersila” Budianta’s Instrumentalia, p.
174 Bersila is another local term related to a local sitting position in
Indonesia. Bersila is an act to sit by folding crossing-legs “duduk dengan
melipat kaki yang bersilangan,” Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, p. 939. The word sila itself is defined in several ways in Steven and Schmidgall-Tellings’ A
Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary; if it stands by itself, sila means “cross-legged” p. 936. In other hand, the term duduk bersila is defined as an act
to “sit neatly cross-legged” or “sit with one leg placed across the other” p. 936, which is in line with the posture pictured in both poems. The act of bersila is
often practiced in traditional Javanese ceremonies. Therefore, it belongs to the category of gestures and habits.
Culture-specific terms that belong to this the category of gestures and habits are illustrated in Table 4.5.
Table 4.5. The Gestures and Habits Category of Culture-Specific Terms
Culture-specific Terms
Poems Examples
Ongkang-ongkang Hari Tua Mister Gilbert
Surachman R.M. ongkang-ongkang dan goyang kaki
Bersila Potret Taman untuk Allen
Ginsberg Goenawan Mohamad
Ia kini duduk bersila
Instrumentalia Eka Budianta
Kini bercerita lagi sambil bersila
69 The distribution of the 23 culture-specific terms found in On Foreign
Shores based on the categorisation proposed by Newmark 1988: 95-102 is illustrated in Table 4.6.
Table 4.6. The Distribution of Culture-Specific Terms in On Foreign Shores
Categories Examples
Numbers of occurence
Ecology Daun ketapang, belibis, kijang, garuda, bengawan,
gayam, kangkung 7
Material Culture Kerupuk, getek, kopiah
3 Social Culture
Pantun, megatruh, bapak pocung, dandanggula, nina bobo, ninabobo, sabung ayam, gender,
kendang 9
Organisations, Ideas, and
Cultures Sekolah Rakyat
1 Gestures and
Habits Ongkang-ongkang, bersila
3
Total numbers of occurrence 23
Those 23 terms were all culture-specific terms in Indonesia found in On Foreign Shores based on the categorization proposed by Newmark 1988. In this
anthology, the category which contributes the largest amount of culture-specific terms is the category of social culture with nine terms, which are contributed
mostly by music terms e.g., megatruh, bapak pocung, dandanggula, nina bobo, kendang, and gender as the most frequently terms to occur. The poem which
contributes the most culture-specific terms is Darmanto Yatman’s Melintasi Atlantik with 6 terms. Furthermore, the poet who uses the most culture-specific
terms is Darmanto Yatman with seven terms through his two poems, namely Melintasi Atlantik and Impresi Honolulu.
70
B. The Discussion of Procedures to Translate Culture-Specific Terms in On
Foreign Shores
In On Foreign Shores, there are twenty-three 23 Indonesian culture- specific terms found. Those culture-specific terms are abstract and concrete
concepts in the ST which are totally unknown in target culture Baker, 1992: 21. Furthermore, they are particular-language-associated and cannot be literally
translated; yet, many cultural customs are described in ordinary language where literal translation would distort the meaning and a translation may include an
appropriate descriptive-functional equivalence Newmark, 1988: 95. Due to their characteristic of
being untranslatable, literal translation
cannot provide appropriate equivalence in the TL. Dealing with untranslatability and small units
of language, translation procedures are used to translate not only the form, but also the meaning of the terms into the TL.
In this section, the researcher analyzed and discussed the procedures applied by McGlynn to translate those 23 culture-specific terms in On Foreign
Shores from the SL into the TL. In analyzing those procedures, the researcher deviced procedures proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet 1958 and Newmark
1988. However, not all translation procedures proposed by experts are used by McGlynn.
The researcher found out that there are five translation prociedures used to translate culture-specific terms in On Foreign Shores. Those procedures are
functional equivalence Newmark, 1988: 83 or equivalence Vinay Darbelnet, 1958, in Venuti, 2000: 90, cultural equivalence Newmark, 1988: 82-83 or
