Footnotes in an Indonesian Source Text and in an English Target Text

Abstract

This research is about the use of footnotes in an Indonesian source text and in an English target text. It involves a translation of literary work called a novel from Indonesian into English. The novel deals with some cultures; Arabic/Islamic culture applied in Islamic boarding school, Minangkabau culture, and Indonesian culture. That is why the author needs to strengthen information using footnotes regarding some terms or words in his novel. When or which words need to be put as footnotes depend on the author’s preference, and this is also what occurs in the target text; the translator has her own preference whether to keep the footnotes as footnotes in her target text or insert them as additional information in the text. The footnotes in the source text are almost four times outnumbered the footnotes in the target text. Using the descriptive qualitative method, this research is to give a description of the translation of footnotes into footnotes and about the information provided in the footnotes either in the source text or in the target text. And using Translation Studies in analyzing the data, this research is to find out the procedures of translation involved in the translation from footnotes into footnotes. The results show that translating footnotes into footnotes cannot use only one single procedure; it needs at least a combination of two procedures, namely couplets, or of three procedures, namely triplets, and quadruplets, a combination of four procedures; and the footnoted words or terms or sentences provide information mostly about Arabic daily conversation between a teacher and his students at school and about address terms used in Minangkabau language.