How Retranslation Affects the Visibility of the Translator: Analysis of Turkish Translations of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild
Retranslation Hypothesis, introduced by Berman (1990), emphasizes that the initial
translation of a source text is closer to the target reader and culture and the retranslations of
a text become closer to the source text in time. On the other hand, Venuti (1995) claims that
domestication makes the translator invisible to the target-text readers, whereas
foreignization moves the readers towards the source text and culture. The relation between
retranslation and the visibility of the translator will be discussed identifying whether
Retranslation Hypothesis is verified in the Turkish translations of Jack London’s The Call of
the Wild and whether the translator’s visibility increases by retranslations. The study
analyses the translators’ visibility through foreignization and domestication strategy use
within the scope of Venuti’s Invisibility Theory. The culture-specific items were selected from
the source text and separated into six categories in accordance with Newmark’s (2010) and
Espindola’s (2006) CSI categories. The foreignization and domestication strategies used in
the CSIs in the three translations were comparatively analyzed. The findings showed that the
first translation’s translator (1997) was the most visible translator, the most recent
translation was the second most visible (2015), and the second translation (2009) was the
least visible translator. The translator’s visibility and use of foreignization strategy do not
escalate and the target text does not get closer to the source text through retranslation.
Anahtar Kelimeler:
Visibility and invisibility, retranslation, domestication, foreignization, culture-specific item
How Retranslation Affects the Visibility of the Translator: Analysis of Turkish Translations of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild
Retranslation Hypothesis, introduced by Berman (1990), emphasizes that the initial
translation of a source text is closer to the target reader and culture and the retranslations of
a text become closer to the source text in time. On the other hand, Venuti (1995) claims that
domestication makes the translator invisible to the target-text readers, whereas
foreignization moves the readers towards the source text and culture. The relation between
retranslation and the visibility of the translator will be discussed identifying whether
Retranslation Hypothesis is verified in the Turkish translations of Jack London’s The Call of
the Wild and whether the translator’s visibility increases by retranslations. The study
analyses the translators’ visibility through foreignization and domestication strategy use
within the scope of Venuti’s Invisibility Theory. The culture-specific items were selected from
the source text and separated into six categories in accordance with Newmark’s (2010) and
Espindola’s (2006) CSI categories. The foreignization and domestication strategies used in
the CSIs in the three translations were comparatively analyzed. The findings showed that the
first translation’s translator (1997) was the most visible translator, the most recent
translation was the second most visible (2015), and the second translation (2009) was the
least visible translator. The translator’s visibility and use of foreignization strategy do not
escalate and the target text does not get closer to the source text through retranslation.
Keywords:
Visibility and invisibility, retranslation, domestication, foreignization, culture-specific item,
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- Ural, B. (2020). Retranslation and visibility of the translator: Analysis of Turkish translations of Jack London’s The Call of The Wild within the framework of Venuti’s invisibility theory (Publication No. 653022) [Master's thesis, Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University].
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- ISSN: 2979-9503
- Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
- Başlangıç: 19.12.2022
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