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Part of
Tradition, Tension and Translation in Turkey
Edited by Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar, Saliha Paker and John Milton
[Benjamins Translation Library 118] 2015
► pp. 233–252

Ideological encounters

Islamist retranslations of western classics

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a case in which translation becomes the battleground of two conflicting ideologies within the same society. The case presented here concerns repercussions of “Islamist” retranslations of the Western classics. These translations were criticized for being “ideologically manipulated” and “unethical”. Reactions to the Islamist translations found extensive coverage in the press, thereby making translation and the role of ideology in translation highly visible in Turkish society. The findings presented in this paper are supported by (1) reactions to Islamist translations as covered by the press, for an understanding of the public discourse on translation, (2) the comparison of the “Islamist” translations with their source texts, and for a wider picture, (3) an overview of the current political and social environment in Turkey characterized by the secularist-Islamist struggle.

Keywords: ideology in translation, Islamist retranslations, manipulation, visibility of translation
Published online: 10 July 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.118.12bay
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