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Part of
A World Atlas of Translation
Edited by Yves Gambier and Ubaldo Stecconi
[Benjamins Translation Library 145] 2019
► pp. 215–242

Chapter 10
Altaic tradition

Turkey

This report offers a brief historical and cultural lexicon of the Turkish terms/concepts for translation by means of available primary and archival materials and proposes a small-scale genealogy of Altaic tradition in two main parts. In the first part, a special focus is on Uighur Turkish in Central Asia (Old Turkic period, 9th century), followed by Anatolian Turkish developed in Asia Minor since the 11th century (West Turkic). Due to insufficient historical research and data on translation within the paradigm of Translation Studies, the report will not scan translational terms/concepts in Qarakhanid, Qharezm and Chagatai Turkish, which are members of East Turkic tradition. In the second part, the report reviews translation as concept and practice, focusing especially on the Turkish literary discourse of the late 19th century since this era is a period of the Turks’ encounter with Europe, hence, a period of shifting civilization from the East to the West, which led to a change in translation conception (see Paker 2006; Demircioğlu 2005).

Keywords: Altaic tradition of translation, Turkish terms/concepts for translation, translation as concept and practice in Ottoman society
Article outline
  • 1.Identifying translation in East Turkic
  • 2.Identifying translation in West Turkic
  • 3.Identifying translation in Ottoman lexicons
    • 3.1Terceme in dictionaries translated from Arabic
    • 3.2Terceme in Ottoman Turkish dictionaries
  • 4.Translation in Ottoman literary discourse in the late nineteenth century
    • 4.1Metaphors about translation
    • 4.2Translation as “imitation” and “emulation”
    • 4.3Functions attributed to translation
    • 4.4Translation and progress
    • 4.5Translation and Ottoman moral values
  • 5.Translation strategies in discourse
    • 5.1Bipartite strategy: As the “same” versus “free”
    • 5.2Tripartite strategy: “As the same”, “sense-for-sense” and “expanded”
    • 5.3Quadripartite strategy: “Sense-for-sense”, “imitation” and fidelity to “figures of speech” and “thoughts”
    • 5.4A mode of converting between genres: “Tying” and “loosing”
    • 5.5Translation as “summary”, “commentary” and “explanation”
  • 6.Problem of translatability, terminological correspondence and translator’s quality
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 5 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.145.10dem
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