Dinamika Metode Terjemahan Idiomatik dalam Penerjemahan Arab-Indonesia dan Indonesia-Arab: Antara Kesetiaan Pesan dan Kewajaran Bahasa Sasaran

This article examines the dynamics of the idiomatic translation method in Arabic–Indonesian and Indonesian–Arabic translation, focusing on the balance between fidelity to the source message and naturalness in the target language. The study starts from the problem that idiomatic expressions in both languages cannot always be rendered literally because their meanings are contextual, cultural, figurative, and non-lexical. It employs a qualitative library research design. The data consist of scholarly publications (journal articles, translation theory books, and earlier studies), mostly published between 2016 and 2026, which were identified through a documented search, screened against explicit inclusion criteria, and analyzed through content analysis comprising identification, classification, interpretation, and synthesis. The findings show that idiomatic translation in both directions is not merely lexical substitution but the reconstruction of meaning, communicative effect, and cultural nuance in the target language, and that fidelity means fidelity to the message, intention, context, and communicative force rather than to formal structure. The key synthesis finding is that the choice of strategy follows the type of idiom mismatch: idiomatic equivalents are chosen when form and function both correspond, paraphrase when the idiom’s image is unfamiliar in the target culture, and contextual explanation when the idiom carries religious, historical, or other culturally significant references. A systematic comparison shows that earlier studies mostly report strategy frequencies in a single direction, whereas this study explains when and why a strategy is chosen in both directions. Translators therefore need flexible, context-sensitive strategies and a readability check, because the idiomatic method bridges semantic accuracy, cultural sensitivity, and naturalness in cross-linguistic communication