A Change of Viewpoint in Translating Indonesian Novel Upacara into English

Abstract

This research focuses on the translation of the Indonesian novel entitled Upacara into English. It deals with a change of viewpoint, including a change of perspective and a change of category of thought, which is categorized as a semantic shift under one of the translation procedures, namely modulation. The change occurs due to some factors, and one of them is the different cultural backgrounds between the author and the translator. Upacara is taken as the data source together with its translation Ceremony in English due to the fact that the novel involves the use of specific terms or expressions or words used in the preparation and the process of proceeding a ceremony in the life of Dayak tribes and these lead to the semantic shifts in the English target text. The cases of modulation found in the target text are significant. Using the descriptive qualitative method, the objectives of this research are to identify the types of modulation identified in the target text and the kinds of words which are being semantically shifted or modulated. The results show that the modulation found is not all of the types of free modulation, and the words which are modulated do not necessarily deal with the cultural words. There are some words or expressions which are semantically shifted out of all types of modulation. In the translation of the Indonesian novel Upacara into English Ceremony, the semantic shift under the modulation translation procedure covers both cultural and non-cultural words.