Translation of the metaphors in the crime novels by Agatha Christie should be clear and natural, so it can be accepted and and the tone of the crime genre should be delivered in the target language context either with the description or using the metaphors of the target language, because the crime genre is the readers’ first choice, and Agatha Christie is the most translated author up to now.
Crime novels are the most translated genre and it is proved by the statistics that depict Agatha Christie as the world’s most translated author, especially crime novels. In relation to that, the crime novels are in the top list of the translation work. Nevertheless, there are lack of studies on the translation of crime genre. On the other hand, the majority of the translation studies that have been conducted tend to focus on the translation of metaphors, either metaphors found in literary texts like novels or non-literary texts. There are few researchers who have been investigated translation of metaphors in crime novels, but the novels are studied as the corpus to discuss the general translation issue, like the difficulties and the strategies. Therefore, the current study attempt to investigate the metaphors in the crime novels, particulary the crime novels written by Agatha Christie. The aim of the study is to answers the research questions: 1). ‘How acceptable the English to Indonesian translation of the crime-related metaphors in the crime novels written by Agatha Christie?’ 2). ‘To what extent does the Indonesian translation of the crime-related metaphors contribute to the overall meaning of the genre of the novels?’
The crime novels by Christie is of specific genre, so the metaphors that were investigated are those that reflect the crime-related contexts like ‘investigation’, ‘suspicion’, ‘hoimcide’, ‘threat’, and ‘villain’. Then, the metaphors and the translations were listed in the questionnaire and handed to the nine raters who were able to participate in the study, to judge whether the translations are ‘acceptable’ or ‘unacceptable’. Then, the questionnaire result revealed that a single data can receive both ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable options. This result was classified again, in which any translation that received more than six ‘acceptable’ options is categorized into clear and natural translation (Larson, 1984) because the majority of the raters can understand it easily. On the other hand, the translation that received less than six ‘acceptable’ options is categorized as unclear and unnatural translation (Larson, 1984). Nevertheless, the majority of translation is acceptable because based on the statistics, the ‘acceptable’ translation achieved 75% of the total questionnaire answers. In addition, the findings showed that the clear and natural translation achieved 77% of the total data. In brief, the majority of translations of the crime-related metaphors in the three crime novels by Agatha Christie are acceptable because most translations are clear and natural.
The translation of the three crime novels by Agatha Christie can reflect the crime genre itself in the Indonesian translation, because the in most translations, the context of ‘investigation’, ‘suspicion’, ‘homicide’, ‘threat’, and ‘villain’ are well delivered in the target text. It means the intention of the translation to deliver specific message (crime story) is successful (Hatim, 2001). Furthermore, the translation with non-metaphorical translation or the direct description of the meaning of the metaphors received biggest ‘accceptable’ options, because the translations with this approach are easier to be understood. Nevertheless, in few cases, the translations with the non-metaphorical approaches are not preferable if the metaphors of the source language can be replaced with the equivalent metaphors of the target language. |