Ideological Refraction in Translation: Textual Construction of Kartini in English and Malay

Abstract

Background: This study investigates the ideological refraction of Kartini’s epistolary identity across two seminal translations: Symmers’ English Letters of a Javanese Princess and Balai Pustaka’s Malay Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang. Methodology: Employing Martin and White’s Appraisal Framework, comparative analysis of textual divergences across three narrative phases between the two translations reveals contrasting characterological constructions. The Dutch source is acknowledged as context but not used as a fidelity benchmark, making this a comparison of target-text constructions rather than a source-target shift analysis. Findings: Symmers’ translation textually constructs a figure legible as a tragic victim to be pitied, privileging Appreciation over Affect and encoding Kartini as patient. Balai Pustaka’s translation textually constructs a legible figure as a foundational martyr to be emulated, migrating from Appreciation to Affect and reconfiguring suffering as active labor. These constructions invite divergent readings that align with colonial and nationalist interpretive traditions respectively, though Balai Pustaka’s status as a colonial-government publishing institution complicates any simple attribution of nationalist intention to the translators themselves.  Conclusion: Translation thus constitutes not secondary representation but a site of discursive production: the English and Malay translations offer divergent textual resources for remembering Kartini, shaping how she is positioned within competing cultural imaginaries. Originality: By deliberately bracketing the question of fidelity to the Dutch original, this research pivots towards refraction as its governing optic thus advancing the claim that translation is the primary mechanism through which Kartini’s historical identity has been fissured and canonized into two discrete figures conscripted to serve opposing cultural and political imaginaries.