Readers' Perception and Comprehension on the English Translation of Radya Pustaka Museum

Brochure as one form of promotional media can be an effective instrument in boosting the rate of visit of a tourism destination. One of the tourism destinations in Surakarta, Radya Pustaka museum, makes use of brochure to attract visitors, both domestic and foreign. The museum therefore makes brochure available in bahasa Indonesia and in the translated version in English. This article attempts to explore the perception of foreign visitors coming to the museum concerning the naturalness of the expressions in the English version of the brochure. The data in this research consist of text in the English version of the museum’s brochure. The other form of the data takes form of the result of questionnaire and in-depth interview with ten foreign visitors. The analysis is conducted by applying Miles and Huberman’s data analysis. The result of the study can reveal how natural the expressions in the English version of Radya Pustaka museum brochure are, viewed from the target readers’ perspectives. Further, the result can be a noteworthy reference for the museum management to improve the quality of the brochure as one of the attempts to attract more foreign visitors and to disseminate information and knowledge about the collection of the museum and the culture of Java.