Analyzing Translation Techniques Used for Culture Specific Items in the Indonesian Version of R. F. Kuang's The Poppy War

Adinda Ayu Azzahra; Prihantoro Prihantoro

doi:10.24036/humanus.v26i1.135778

Analyzing Translation Techniques Used for Culture Specific Items in the Indonesian Version of R. F. Kuang's The Poppy War

Adinda Ayu Azzahra⁽¹⁾, Prihantoro Prihantoro⁽²⁾,
(1) Universitas Diponegoro

Indonesia
(2) Universitas Diponegoro

Indonesia

Corresponding Author
Copyright (c) 2026 Adinda Ayu Azzahra, Prihantoro Prihantoro

DOI : https://doi.org/10.24036/humanus.v26i1.135778

Full Text:

Language : en

Abstract

Translating literary texts that contain many Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) involves more than simply transferring meaning. It also requires preserving the cultural elements embedded in the text. This becomes particularly challenging because CSIs carry cultural references that often do not have direct equivalents in the target language. For this reason, this study aims to analyze the distribution of CSIs based on Newmark’s (1988) CSIs categories, identify the translation techniques used in translating CSIs using Molina & Albir’s (2002) framework, and examine the patterns of technique used in a novel. The data are retrieved from a historical-fantasy novel The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang and its Indonesian translation. Results show that the most frequent CSIs are the Organizations, Customs, and Institutions (OCI) category related to the literary text’s theme, and the most used technique is Borrowing to preserve the original meaning of the CSIs. Nevertheless, although it was used less frequently, Literal Translation was applied evenly across all categories.

Keywords

Culture Specific Items; Translation Techniques; The Poppy War

References

Akalin, A. (2019). A descriptive study upon the culture specific items within the perspective of Newmark’s translation procedures. Diyalektolog - Ulusal Hakemlin Sosyal Arastirmalar Dergisi, 22(22), 109–139. doi:10.29228/diyalektolog.39632

Baker, M. (2018). In other words: A coursebook on translation (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315619187

Kuswahono, D. (2020). The use of translation techniques in translating cultural words in The Da Vinci Code novel from English into Bahasa Indonesia. Anaphora: Journal of Language, Literary and Cultural Studies, 3(1), 38–46. doi:10.30996/anaphora.v3i1.3642

Maasoum, S. M. H., & Davtalab, H. (2011). An analysis of culture-specific items in the Persian translation of Dubliners based on Newmark’s model. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(12), 1767–1779. doi:10.4304/tpls.1.12.1767-1779

Mamoon, W., Che Lah, S., & Abdou Moindjie, M. (2023). Translation of culture-specific items from Thai to English in tourism promotional videos. International Journal of Language, Literacy and Translation, 6(1), 112–125. doi:10.36777/ijollt2023.6.1.068

Molina, L., & Hurtado Albir, A. (2002). Translation techniques revisited: A dynamic and functionalist approach. Meta, 47(4), 498–512. doi:10.7202/008033ar

Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. London, England: Longman.

Permatahati, M. I., Faridi, A., & Saleh, M. (2021). Translation ideologies of the culture specific items in Indonesian translation of Of Mice and Men novel. ISET: International Conference on Science, Education and Technology, 7(1), 329–333.

Purwaningsih, D. R., Yulianita, N. G., & Prasetyoningsih, T. W. S. (2023). The translation of culture-specific concepts in descriptive text of Museum Wayang dan Artefak Purbalingga. Language Literacy: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching, 7(1), 94–104. doi:10.30743/ll.v7i1.6247

Puspita, D. A., & Hartono, R. (2020). The accuracy of the English-Indonesian of cultural terms in Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns. Rainbow: Journal of Literature, Linguistics and Cultural Studies, 9(2), 205–214. doi:10.15294/rainbow.v9i2.38139

Setiawan, K. A. (2021). The use of translation techniques by Donna Widjajanto in translating CSIs in Dterlizzi’s The Field Guide. Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Pendidikan, 5(4), 1217–1223.

Zahra, F. S. E., & Indhiarti, T. R. (2023). Culture-specific items (CSIs) categories and translation procedures of Wang Sinawang short movie. Culturalistics: Journal of Cultural, Literary, and Linguistic Studies, 7(2), 23–32. doi:10.14710/ca.v7i2.20700

Zuo, Y., Syed Abdullah, S. N., & Ching Toh, F. H. (2023). Strategies for translating culture-specific items from Chinese into English. World Journal of English Language, 13(7), 27-35. doi:10.5430/wjel.v13n7p27