TRANSLATING A MOTHER TONGUE

Abstract

Most Indonesians of my generation are multilingual; we can at least speak two or three languages, namely Indonesian, English, and a local language. This paper reflects my personal effort in discovering how the languages are positioned in my mind. I assume that Javanese was the first language I acquired, followed by Indonesian, and then English. As I grew up, Javanese became the language I use mainly at home or to certain people only. Indonesian and English, on the other hand, seem to be taking the more dominant place in terms of level of proficiency and amount of usage. Needless to say, I only use my mother tongue in informal conversational level. By translating Javanese literary work into English, relying on translation theories and language of thought, this project helps me assess my real mastery of a language I call mother tongue. The reflection on the translation process shows that my oral proficiency in the mother tongue is perceived to be higher than reading and writing proficiencies. The reading comprehension skills in the register of literary texts are lower than expected because of my intensive exposure to other languages.