Cultural Aspects in the Translation of Herge's Comic Series : The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure

Abstract

To translate means to change speech or writing to another language, or to change something from one language to another. Translation is not merely a matter of changing words, phrases, or sentences from one language to another. It is much deeper than that. It deals with not only transferring form, but also content or meaning as well. For some people, translation is therefore considered an art. In translation, there is primary meaning, when a form is used in its function, and there is also secondary or figurative meaning, which is very culture-bound, for each language uses different forms to express secondary meanings. This kind of meaning may be very complicated. This paper writing started from a question in my mind about why swear words in Tintin comic series, spoken by the emotional, temperamental, as well as sensational figure of Captain Haddock, are translated into Indonesian with some adjustment, a little bit (or sometimes, much) different from the Source Language (SL), in this case, English. The analysis results show that the translator has to make some changes or adjustment in the Target Language (TL) due to some culture-bound problems found in both languages. Data are taken from well-known series, Herge's The Adventures Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure and the Indonesian translation, Kisah Petualangan Tintin: Harta Karun Rackham Merah, to see deeply how the translator solves problems related to cultural aspects in the text.