Conceptions of Translation in the Republican Era Evrim GÖRDOĞLU TEFL 496 TRANSLATION

Movements of the Translation The movements of the first and the most wide- ranging translation started in 1940 when the translation agencies are built. Agency was under the Nurullah Ataç and Sabahattin Eyuboğlu’s conduct. They were two man who were remembered as the most intelligent translators of Turkish. They don’t translate line or sentence to Turkish as it is. They are trying to work on how the best sentence or line is said or uttered in Turkish. They translate their compositions by passing their emotion.

 Can Yücel is also frontier of them (Ataç and Eyuboğlu). He sustains that the translation shouldn’t be read like a translation (tercüme kokmak). Instead of ‘to translate’, he brings the concept of ‘to say in Turkish’ or ‘to pronounce in Turkish’. He is using ‘the person who is saying in Turkish’ on the cover of his books instead of ‘translator’. With these words, he is always found something strange.  Do you share a view of Can Yücel? What is his concept?

 What does it mean ‘sorunsal’ in English?  According to Can Yücel, every poem has something problematical which produce an effect in the poem. Every poem is written for revealing the relation of ommission between people and object, object and object and abstract and concrete.  There was a question that how does the translation becomes both good and loyal?  He thinks that when the translator translate the poem into his own language, if translator gives that poem’s problematical, not giving words and lines, by his own national language, the emergent translation will become good and loyal.

 ‘Çevirideki en büyük güçlük yabancı dilde beğenilen şiirlerin Türkiye’nin bugünkü konumu içinde ‘objective correlative’ leri (nesnel bağlılaşık) olmayışındandır.’

 If there is no objective correlative, it is far from the culture of native language.

 According to T. S. Eliot, objective correlative is the only way to put into emotion in art. It is necessary to objectify the compositionin reader’s mind.  If the translator chose the accurate composition; in other words, ıf the translator chose composition which is close to the culture of his native language or chose composition which has objective correlative, he would translate that composition successfully into his language.

 In the 119th letter of Nazım Hikmet who wrote it to Kemal Tahir says that the composition shouldn’t be made Turkish definitely.  He says: ‘When you read the translation novel, you won’t think that it is written by Turk author. On the contrary, when you read the novel, you will understand and feel that you read not Turk author, you read that society’s author (tercüme romanı hangi milletin, hangi devirdeki muharriri yazmışsa, o milletin muharririni okuduğunu anlamak).

 Nazım Hikmet objected to the concept of ‘Çevirmenin Türkçesi’.  He explains his expectation about translation in the letter of 120th with one example: ‘ Mesela Ruslar sevgi sözü olarak ‘güvercinim’ tabirini kullanırlar, biz ‘gözümün nuru’, ‘gözbebeğim’ filan deriz. Bence bunları tercüme ederken ille de bizde ‘güvercinim’ denmez diye ‘yavrucuğum’ filan dememeli, Ruslar da bizden tercüme ederken ‘gözümün nuru’ Rusça ’da denmez diye ‘güvercinim ’diye tercüme etmemeli, biz bizim dile ‘güvercinim ’tabirini, onlar da kendi dillerine ‘gözümün nuru’ tabirini sokmalı.

 You won’t make any change on their culture. You will translate exactly how they use it in their own language.

 Also, Suut Kemal Yetkin who conducted translation agency objected to the concept of ‘Çevirmenin Türkçesi’. ‘Diline çevirdiği esere kendi üslubunu veren, türlü iklimli eserleri aynı üslupla çeviren mütercim ya anlayışsızlığın yahut da kendini beğenmişliğin kurbanıdır.’

 Translators of the Republican Era adopted either Ataç and Eyuboğlu’s attitude or Nazım Hikmet’s attitude.  Bir dizeyi, bir tümceyi Türkçe’de en iyi söylemek yerine (Ataç, Eyuboğlu), onu olduğu gibi Türkçeye aktarmak (Nazım Hikmet).