Lost in translation: strategies for preserving cultural elements in the translation of Sundanese short stories to English

Abstract

This study was conducted in response to the declining use of ethnic languages, aiming to assess the effectiveness of a translator in introducing Indonesian ethnic languages to foreign language speakers and motivating ethnic language speakers to preserve their languages by evaluating translation quality. A qualitative case study approach was employed to examine the translation techniques proposed by Molina and Albir (2002) in rendering Sundanese stories, with a focus on cultural terminologies outlined by Newmark (1987). Data collection included: (1) content analysis of four translated texts from Neng Maya (2018) and their English translation by C.W. Watson (2018), (2) expert interviews with professional raters fluent in both English and Sundanese, (3) analysis steps proposed by Spradley (2016) to extract meaningful insights, and (4) translation quality assessment using Nababan et al.'s (2012) method, which classifies quality scores from 1 (lowest) to 3 (highest). The findings showed that the translation attempted to render cultural elements such as ecology, material culture, social customs, habits, and gestures. However, the techniques used were not fully successful in conveying cultural nuances, reflected in an average translation quality score of no more than 2.3. This suggests that the Sundanese-to-English translation failed to fully preserve the cultural nuances, risking the loss of cultural identity. Careful consideration of translation techniques is essential to avoid such failures.