Intertextuality in Translation: Analysis of Intertextual Signs and Evaluation of Translation of a Short Story

Year 2018, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 317 - 330, 30.09.2018

Mesut Kuleli

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the intertextual references in the short story Tarquin of Cheapside by F. Scott Fitzgerald and evaluate Turkish translations of the contexts with intertextual references. To this end, the original short story was analyzed based on the intertextuality theory by Riffaterre (1978; 1983; 1990). With the “hypogram” of the short story established as coined by Riffaterre (1978), “ungrammaticalities”, another term coined by Riffaterre (1978), were determined in the short story and these ungrammaticalities were classified as ordinary intertextuality and obligatory intertextuality, the major concepts in Riffaterre’s intertextuality theory according to Aktulum (2011). The results of the interxtuality analysis revealed that the short story “Tarquin of Cheapside” is intervowen with cultural and literal intertextual references, and ordinary intertextual references were far surpassed by obligatory intertextual references. For translation analysis, the contexts with intertextuality in the original short story were compared to a Turkish translation of the short story based on Öztürk Kasar’s (Öztürk Kasar and Tuna, 2015; 2017) “Systematics of Designificative Tendencies in Translation”. The results of the translation evaluation showed that translators might resort to certain designificative tendencies in rendering a literary work into another language. Since intertextual references might be culture-specific at times, the translators of literary works might deliberately or indeliberately resort to certain designificative tendencies. Here lies the contribution of semiotics of translation to literary translation in that if the translators indeliberately use designificative tendencies, they could explain their preferences with a thorough awareness of designificative tendencies, on the other hand, if translators deliberately use designificative tendencies in their literary translations, they know when and how to apply those designificative tendencies. Therefore, semiotics of translation serves as a guide to professional or prospective literary translators in making sound decisions in translation process.

Keywords

Intertextuality, translation, literary translation, semiotics of translation, designificative tendencies in translation

Intertextuality in Translation: Analysis of Intertextual Signs and Evaluation of Translation of a Short Story

Abstract

Keywords

Intertextuality, translation, literary translation, semiotics of translation, designificative tendencies in translation

References

• Aktulum, K. (2011). Metinlerarasılık / Göstergelerarasılık. Ankara: Kanguru.
• Alpers, P. J. (2015). Poetry of the Faerie Queene. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• Andrews, K. R. (1964). Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering During the Spanish War, 1585-1603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bakhtin, M. (1973). Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (C. Emerson, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. (C. Emerson and M. Holquist, Trans.). Texas: University of Texas Press.
• Calderwood, W. (1977). The Elizabethan Protestant Press: A Study of the Printing and Publishing of Protestant Religious Literature in English, Excluding Bibles and Liturgies, 1558-1603. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of London, London.
• Chao-wei, Z. H. U. (2004). Intertextuality and Translation Studies. Journal of Pla University of Foreign Languages, 4, 1-13.
• Chernaik, W. (2011). The Myth of Rome in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.