TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES AND ACCEPTABILITY LEVEL OF METAPHORS IN NOVEL LAUT BERCERITA BY LEILA S. CHUDORI FROM INDONESIAN TO ENGLISH VERSION

Abstract

This study investigated the translation techniques and acceptability of metaphor translation in Leila S. Chudori's Laut Bercerita and its English translation, The Sea Speaks His Name. The novel was selected because it contains rich metaphorical The study aimed to identify the types of metaphors, examine the translation techniques employed, and analyze the acceptability of the translated metaphors. A qualitative descriptive research design was employed using document analysis of the source and target texts. The data consisted of 77 metaphorical expressions and their English translations, whose acceptability was evaluated through expert judgment by a university lecturer specializing in Translation Studies using Nababan et al.'s (2012) acceptability assessment model. The data were analyzed using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014), consisting of data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings reveal that stock metaphors constitute the predominant metaphor type, while established equivalent is the most frequently employed translation technique. Furthermore, 59 of the 77 translated metaphors were categorized as acceptable, indicating that most translations conform to the linguistic and cultural conventions of the target language. The findings also demonstrate that translation techniques based on culturally established conceptual equivalence contribute significantly to producing natural and acceptable metaphor translations while preserving literary style and figurative meaning. Overall, the findings demonstrate that successful literary metaphor translation depends on preserving conceptual and cultural equivalence alongside linguistic meaning, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of metaphor translation quality in literary translation.