Vol. 2 (2) Dec. 2020

Article ID. JHSSR-1073-2020[2]

The Native’s Independence Rhetoric in Translation: Shahnon Ahmad and Noorjaya

Halimah Mohamed Ali

Abstract:

Nations are narrated into being; bearing this concept in mind, this research analyses the works of two native Malay writers that have been translated into English and how their writings show the rhetoric of independence that was used in order to gain independence by the Malays in the Malay Peninsula. It will also look at the cultural and emotional effect of the translated independence rhetoric that has been lost through translation. This essay will be read using a postcolonial lens made famous by Edward Said, Franz Fanon, and Homi K. Bhabha. Via this lens, it will analyze how the Malay postcolonial culture has been translated into English. Todd Jones’s essay “Translation and Belief Ascription: Fundamental Barriers” (2003) will be used to analyze the text. It will be argued that how epistemology is used to ascribe belief and how cultural epistemology has been translated into the English language via Shahnon Ahmad’s “A Merdeka Tale” and Noorjaya’s “The Quest for Langkasuka”. The translation of cultural epistemology is successful in both the texts because the translation of the text can be easily understood. This understanding permeates especially in the cultural and historical effects.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37534/bp.jhssr.2020.v2.n2.id1073.p85