Translating Ambivalent Sexist Attitudes toward Women in Pulau Buru Quartet: An Appraisal Theory Approach

Abstract

Indonesian classic literary works culturally represent ambivalent sexist attitudes toward women. Instead of campaign againts sexism in most of countries, the novelist directly or indirectly plays role in the case of spreading out sexism. The track record of Indonesian literary works in wide world literature exposes that Pulau Buru quartet written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer has obtained special attention by readers over the globe. It has been translated into more than 40 foreign languages. Due to the phenomena, the research is conducted to examine how the translator translates the utterances which contain ambivalent sexist attitutes toward women in English version. The research is focused on analyzing the application of translation techniques and the impact to its translation quality. The results reveals that translator shows a contradictive attitudinal positioning. It means that the translator both takes it for granted and retains ambivalent sexist attitudes in the target text. Simultaneously, the translator attempts to make censorship for the issues. It is evidently reflected by the application of translation techniques. Both of translator’s decisions dealing with the choice of applying translation techniques impacts its translation quality. Therefore, it is product oriented translation research. Consequently, it needs futher research to dig up the translator’s reasons dealing with the absence and existence of ambivalent sexist attitudes in the target text.