A Translation of Cultural Words in Julian Millie’s People’s Religion Book: An Ideological Perspective
Keywords:
cultural words, translation ideologies, translation strategies, religious discourseAbstract
This study focuses on translation ideology in rendering cultural words from Sundanese into English in a
translated book by Julian Millie entitled People’s Religion, focusing on Sundanese sermons by the
Indonesian preacher AF Ghazali. We investigate how cultural terms are translated and what ideological
stances are reflected through the strategies used. The analysis employs a qualitative descriptive method
with data drawn from 70 culturally specific words. The study uses Newmark’s (1988) taxonomy of
cultural categories and integrates translation strategies from multiple theorists to identify patterns.
Venuti’s (1995) concept of foreignization and domestication is used as the primary ideological
framework, supported by Hatim and Mason’s (1997) critical discourse approach to interpret the
translator’s decisions. Importantly, this study introduces a third category, which is a hybrid ideology, to
accommodate cases where mixed strategies are used, reflecting the translator’s flexible negotiation
between source and target culture. The findings from 70 data samples reveal that domestication (30 data) is the most dominant ideology, followed by foreignization (25 data), and hybrid ideology (15 data).
These results demonstrate that the translator tends to prioritize readability and accessibility for the
target readers yet also retains some cultural authenticity when deemed necessary. The findings suggest
that translation of cultural words is a deeply ideological process that requires critical strategy selection
to balance cultural authenticity with reader accessibility.
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