Have you ever realize that a text or an article in every language has their own characteristic. And this made a text can’t be translated directly into other languages. This is one of problem when we write text in English language, because we are Indonesian. So we have to change a lot of things to become an English writer whom write truly English text, not just a text in English language which been translated from Indonesian language.
In practice progress I often see a lot of text which written by Indonesian, and when I compare it with a text from English people, I can see some difference among both. And when I read some books about English text writing, I found it clearly. And I knew this is often happened in Indonesian English text.
Every language has their own grammatical rules and syntax, which is different to the other languages. Even some languages has some specific vocabularies which doesn’t present in the other language to divine. Indonesian and English languages had been so different, so when the making of English text, someone cannot use Indonesian grammatical and syntax, and also at the making of Indonesian text in otherwise.
In my sight English grammatical is more appreciate in time form, but in Indonesian some sentence had been relative, so a sentence could have a lot of meaning. Because some word in Indonesia had a same form between noun and verb.
In English writing Ivanic said “writing is not just about conveying “content” but also about the representation of self. Who we are affects how we write, whatever we are writing.” When someone write their subjectivity are often belonged to the text, because in some of writing activities the writer are often inserting their opinion. So when we write in English language we have to think like an English writer completely. It is related to Rahmah statement in her book “learning and teaching English is like entering a new world.” Yes the English people world with their cultures, languages, and also their thinking way. And the other side we have to leave the Indonesian literacy which is could shape and influence the writing process.
When write English text peoples have to take a different point of view. Because a text sometimes came from a simple idea which is creatively wrote. As Kroll state that writing is an intellectual activity in which learning to create written products is that demonstrates mastery over contextually appropriate formats for the rhetorical presentation of ideas as well as mastery in all areas of language. And according to Rohmah opinion that writing is not only linguistic and technical matter, but writing also involves an interplay between writing and identity. So a good writing is not only about grammatical rules and sentences arrangement but also the social context. Where the writer and reader positions present. So the text is can be understood, because writing is a social connection.
When some one writes actually they are communicating with the readers in indirect form. But readers are often doesn’t realize if they are communicating with the writers. So for making of good text is needed orientation, reader or writer orientation. And when explain something have to see who is the reader beside above rules.
The difference among English and Indonesian writers is also at the way of writing and describing the topic. Robert B. Kaplan said “oriental cultures (Asian) write in a circular way and western culture write in a linear fashion, and that rhetorical repertoires are culture specific.” We have to pay a lot of attention about this, because English have their own way to describe something, especially on the text.