Translation Accuracy Review of Related Theories

13 some terms are deliberately not translated into Bahasa Indonesia, such as ‘sandwich’, ‘ham’, ‘bacon’ ‘uncle’, ‘aunt’, and some others. Those terms are not translated into roti isi, daging babi, babi asap, paman, bibi. While the reason for leaving the terms ‘sandwich’, ‘uncle’, ‘aunt’ untranslated is to “send the Indonesian children abroad” to familiarize them with English common terms, the reason for not translating the terms ‘ham’ and ‘bacon’, in my opinion, is somewhat political and economic. Political reason, in the sense that if translated into daging babi and babi asap, it will offend a certain religion community; economic, to reach wider audience, which means greater profit. Different from the previous discussion on foreignization, the domestication method “entails translating in a transparent, fluent, ‘invisible’ style in order to minimize the foreignness of the TT.” Venuti, 1995: 20. A domesticated translation means that the translation is fluent by using target language at work. There is no term that remains the same as the SL. Schlemeicher in Venuti states that “Translation can never be completely adequate to the foreign text, the translator is allowed to choose between a domesticataing method, an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target language cultural values, bringing the author back home.” 1995: 20. Domesticating method emphasizes on the equivalence of some culturally- loaded terms. In the translation continuum, the extreme domestication is placed on farthest right, meaning that the translators are permitted to some extent replace even the material cultural non-existent in the target culture. Although some scholars say that the action of replacing source culture material with target culture 14 material is no longer called ‘translation’ but ‘adaptation’, some others argue that even an extreme domestication can still be categorized as a translation. I will not, however, further discuss the all-century debate about the fine line between translation and adaptation. What I emphasize here is what Schlemercher says that domestication method “send the author back home”. It means that the translator is no longer visible in the translation. The target readers assume that the translation is an original piece of work, not a product of translation, since all foreign elements are transferred into home culture. The target readers are unaware that what they are reading is a product of translation. A good domesticated method does not leave a trace of being a translation product. The examples of successful domesticated translation is the English translation of Ibsen’s works which are originally Norwegian and of Dostoevsky’s works which are Russian. In my personal experience, when reading Ibsen’s The Pillars of the Community, I was unaware that I was reading a translation product. I realized it some time later. Dostoevsky’s War and Peace is the same. I never realized that it is a translation from Russian. In Indonesian context, we all know that there is an argument whether Chairil Anwar is a translator or a poet. Some of his works are heavily similar with other works previously created by foreign poets. His Karawang dan Bekasi is similar with a poem written by Archibald MacLeish, The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak.