The Function of Military Registers in Constructing Narrative Realism in the Indonesian Translation of Ghost Fleet

Abstract

This study investigates the discursive roles performed by military registers in shaping narrative realism within the Indonesian translation of Ghost Fleet, a techno-military novel by P. W. Singer and August Cole. Building upon a preceding inquiry that employed the same corpus of 242 register items, this research reorients its analytical lens from translation quality evaluation toward the examination of how specialized language functions within the target-text narrative. A qualitative methodology anchored in Halliday’s register theory provides the analytical scaffolding, with data subjected to descriptive and interpretative scrutiny across three functional dimensions: referential, interpersonal, and textual. Analytical stages encompass register categorization, scene-embedded function identification, and interpretive mapping of each register’s contribution to the narrative’s authority, tension, and world-credibility. Results demonstrate that military registers in the translation extend well beyond terminological preservation; they operate as meaning-laden semiotic instruments that actively reinforce fictional authenticity and sustain reader immersion. Translation decisions reveal a deliberate effort to reconcile technical fidelity with accessibility for lay readers, all while sustaining the dramatic register of the text. The study ultimately affirms that rendering specialized registers in literary translation is a generative act of narrative meaning-making, not a mechanical substitution of terminology.