Translating Time : Past and Present in Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood

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  • Yuli restiani
    Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University

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Description

As it is widely known, Japanese language has two tenses: past and present. Indonesian, on the other hand, is regarded as a tenseless language as the verbs in Indonesian don't poses any linguistics features （unlike in Japanese） to express changes in time. This study looks into the translation of Historical Present （HP） featured in Japanese literature translated into the tenseless language Indonesian at two levels: the narration level and the conversation level. Firstly, this study shows how the Historical Present is widely used in Japanese literature, particularly in narrative retellings of distant memory recollection ‒ a prominent feature of Haruki Muraki's "Norwegian Wood" （in Japanese『ノルウェイの森』）, the Source Text （ST） for this study. In the ST, HP gives the animate effect, as if the memories from the past are happening right in front of the eyes of the storyteller and the reader. However, in the Indonesian translation, and Target Text （TT） for this study, entitled "Norwegian Wood" by Jonjon Johana, it is evident that the use of Historical Present is difficult to transfer and as a result is partially or even entirely lost during the translation process. At the narration level, the presence of consciousness maintains visible in the Indonesian translation. At the conversational level, the animate effect is not so evident while shift of focalization of narrator is transferable. Conclusively, it is fair to say that further studies on the Japanese use of Historical Present and on how the tenseless language, Indonesian, is translated into Japanese need to be carried out.

Journal

  • 比較社会文化研究

    比較社会文化研究 32 29-38, 2012-09-20

    Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University

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