The Shift of Politeness Strategies of Javanese Woman Characters in the English Translation of Indonesian Novel' Gadis Pantai'

Abstract

This research study seeks to examine the shift in politeness methods employed by Javanese woman characters in the English translation of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Indonesian novel Gadis Pantai. The original Indonesian version and its English translation were used to collect the data. As the politeness strategies of Javanese woman characters in the Indonesian novel 'Gadis Pantai' carry pragmatic meaning and cultural reflection in that they reveal how they communicate in particular circumstances of various relations of power, distance, and imposition, the shifts of politeness strategies in the English translation undermine their original intention and their intended cultural representation that constructs the character of the Javanese women in the novel. This study aims to elucidate the types of politeness strategy modifications observed in the translation and to explain the effect of these shifts on the novel's Javanese lady characters. In classifying and analyzing the data, the researcher utilized Brown & Levinson's taxonomy of politeness super-strategies and associated sub-strategies. Three individuals were validators for categorizing politeness tactics and their shift mapping in this study. The study indicated that out of 529 total translated utterances that contain politeness methods, 205 utterances undergo a shift. The shifts include the substitution of one super-strategy for another in the translation, substituting one sub-strategy for another of the same super-strategy, and substituting one sub-strategy for another of different super-strategies, and the omission of the politeness strategies in the translation. Negative politeness with the 'giving deference' sub-type becomes the most frequently shifting super-strategy and sub-strategy. This is because the concept of reverence that the Javanese woman characters use in the discourse is foreign to the target language's culture.