Translation of culture-specific items in menus

Abstract

Translation is a difficult phenomenon because it is concerned not only with a pair of languages but also with the cultural aspects that languages are related to. One of these aspects consists of culture-specific items (CSIs)—material or spiritual concepts that are present in one culture and are absent in another. In the 21st century, because of globalization, people encounter CSIs on a daily basis. Therefore, it is very important to understand the concept of CSIs and the impact they have, along with the misunderstandings and problems they may cause. Thus, the object of this paper is CSIs and their translation in Lithuanian menus. The aim of the paper is to analyze translation of CSIs in the menus of Lithuanian restaurants. The analysis of CSIs is performed according to the translation strategies introduced by Davies (Trans 9(1):65–100, 2003). The results of the analysis demonstrate that strategies which tend to keep the content of the original CSI or neutralize/explain cultural references are often used to translate Lithuanian CSIs, whereas translation strategies that preserve the original form of CSIs or tend to replace one cultural reference with another are more often used to translate foreign CSIs. Since CSIs may not have equivalents in other languages, cases when few strategies are employed to translate the same CSI appeared as well as some mistakes in translation.