26 Atlantik, as found in the word gayam, a local edible fruit found mostly in Java;
and daun ketapang, leaves from almond trees which grow near the seashore in most area in Indonesia, as found in Subagio Sastrowardoyo’s Dan Kematian
Makin Akrab.
b. Material culture
Newmark 1988: 97-98 makes four sub-categories of material culture category, namely, food, clothes, houses, and transports. Food is considered the
most sensitive and important expression of national culture; food terms cause the widest
variety of
translation procedures,
e.g., ‘zabaglione’,
‘sake’, ‘kaiserschmarren.’ Traditionally, national costumes when distinctive are not
translated, 2.g., sari, kimono, yukata, sarong. Clothes as cultural terms can be explained in TL if the generic noun of classifier is added to indicate the part of
body that is covered. Furthermore, in many language communities, there are typical houses which remain untranslated, e.g., ‘palazzo’, ‘hotel’, ‘bungalow’,
‘hacienda’, or ‘joglo.’ In addition, names of various carriages and transportation are often used to provide local colours for prestige. However, an accurate
description is needed to precede or follow the transferred word. The examples of ‘transport’ sub-category are rickshaw, Mouton, Chalice, etc. In Linus Suryadi
AG’s Central Park and Darmanto Yatman’s Melintasi Atlantik, culture-specific terms which are categorized into material culture are found, i.e., kopiah, a
ceremonial hat worn by Indonesian Muslim men, which belongs to terms for clothes sub-category, and getek, a traditional raft made from bamboos, which
belongs to terms for transportations sub-category.
27
c. Social culture
Newmark 1988: 98-99 also proposes that social culture category refers to words that indicate particular work and leisure activity or product of cultures,
e.g., ‘ajaki amah’, ‘condotttere’, ‘biwa’, ‘sithar’, ‘raga’, ‘reggae’, ‘rock.’ Examples given by Newmark 1988: 95 show that local music terms, music
instruments, and music genre e.g., sithar and biwa—Indian traditional string instrument, raga—Indian melodic mode, reggae—Jamaican music genre also
belong to this category. In Darmanto Yatman’s Melintasi Atlantik, there are some examples of culture-specific term which belong to social culture category; i.e.,
megatruh, bapak pocung, and dandanggula, which are Javanese traditional songs.
d. Organisations, ideas, and customs
Based on Newmark 1988: 99-102, organisations, ideas, and customs terms come from political, social, legal, historical, religious, and artistic terms.
Names of several parliaments are not readily translatable, e.g., Storting Norway, Sejm Poland, Riksdag Sweden, Eduskunta Finland. Organisations’ names
also need a study to translate, whether they need appropriate functional or descriptive terms to explain. Those also include historical institute terms and
international terms, e.g., FAO, UNESCO, and UNICEF. Religious terms, mostly Christianity, provide words which needs translation, e.g., Pharisees. Name of
buildings, museums, theatres, opera houses, are likely to be translated, since they form part of street plans and addresses. Words like Sekolah Rakyat as a historical
institute term in Indonesia is an example of it, which is found in Taufiq Ismail’s Trem Berklenengan di Kota San Fransisco.
