ABRI faction opposed to dubbing English programs

JAKARTA (JP): The powerful Armed Forces (ABRI) faction in the House of Representatives is opposed to the idea of dubbing English language programs on television into Indonesian.

Brig. Gen. Paula Bataona Renyaan, the faction's secretary, said the Indonesian public still needs the programs to polish the English language they learn mostly at school.

"We'd like to see programs in English subtitled as TV stations presently do," she told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The debate on whether English programs should or not be dubbed into Indonesian was sparked last week by the government's insistence of dubbing all foreign language programs and making it compulsory by law.

The government and the House of Representatives began to deliberate last week the bill on radio and television broadcasting.

The future law aims at setting clear regulations for radio and TV stations in the wake of technological developments and the free global flow of information.

Critics say that dubbing does not guarantee that people will speak and love the Indonesian language better as the government hopes.

Paula argued that if English programs are dubbed into Indonesian, English speaking viewers would not be able to check if the translation is accurate.

The dubbing of programs in other languages would be all right because only a small audience would depend on the original language, she added.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Samin Siregar, a linguist from North Sumatra University proposed Thursday that TV stations involve linguists in dubbing their foreign language programs.

"Language consultants are needed to make sure that the foreign language is properly translated into standard Indonesian," he was quoted by Antara as saying.

Siregar said the translation of foreign languages into Indonesian often meets difficulties because Indonesian is not rich in vocabulary and therefore has to adopt or create new words. (pan)

Editorial -- Page 4