Examining readers’ perceptions of translations: The case of Stephen King’s works in Turkish

Abstract

Known as the master of horror with more than sixty novels, Stephen King’s works have been translated into Turkish since 1970’s and published mainly by Altın Kitaplar Publishing House. His works, frequently being among the best-sellers, have been retranslated into Turkish and reprinted countlessly with updated covers and labels such as “uncensored complete book” or “complete book” in the last years. Such instances mostly cause Turkish readers to question various publishing practices of the publisher from diverse perspectives and discuss particularly the concepts of “retranslation”, “reprint”, “revision”, “censorship” and “cutting”. This study aims to examine readers’ reception and perceptions of above-referred concepts made itself evident lately regarding Turkish translations of King’s works. In this sense, it benefits from online data such as readers’ blogs and discussion forums in which they share a plethora of comments and make detailed discussions by tracing the links among King’s translations. The study concludes that readers largely face with a confusion as a result of diverse publishing practices of the publisher such as “reducing” the books, publishing “un/complete” translations or labelling translations divergently. Moreover, it reveals that the decisions taken in the publishing processes are usually market-driven. The notion of market convenience provides an explanation for the translation or labeling practices such re/translation, re/print, censorship and cutting in readers’ views and that being the case, readers try to urge publishers to take decisions particularly on the grounds of not reducing or censoring texts and high quality in translation practices.

Keywords

• Retranslation
• reprint
• revision; censorship; cutting; complete text; market convenience

References

1. Arslan, D. U. (2016). Translation, obscenity and censorship in Turkey: Avni İnsel as a translator and patron of popular erotic literature. Unpublished Ma thesis. İzmir: Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi.
2. Berk Albachten, Ö. & Tahir Gürçağlar, Ş. (Eds.). (2019a). Introduction: Mutability in retranslation. In Studies from a retranslation culture. The Turkish context (pp.1-10). London: Springer.
3. Berk Albachten, Ö. & Tahir Gürçağlar, Ş. (2019b). The making and reading of a bibliography of retranslations. In Perspectives on retranslation: Ideology, paratexts, methods (pp.212-230). London/New York: Routledge.
4. Berman, A. (1990). La retraduction comme espace de traduction. Palimpsestes, 13(4), 1-7.
5. Billiani, F. (2007). Assessing boundaries: Censorship and translation. An introduction. In Modes of censorship and translation: national contexts and diverse media (pp.1-25). Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing.
6. Birkan Baydan, E. (2008). Visibility of translation through conflicting ideologies: The Islamic retranslations of 100 essential readings. Unpublished Ma thesis. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi.
7. Boy, H. (2019). Yeniden yazım ve yeniden çeviri bağlamında Dorian Gray’in Portresi. In S. Taş (Ed.), Çeviri Üzerine Gözlemler (pp.151-173). İstanbul: Hiperlink Yayınları.
8. Çınar, S. (2019). Bir gelenek Altın Kitaplar. https://www.gazeteciler.com/haber/bir-gelenek-altin-kitaplar/244253.

9. Eker Roditakis, A. (2017). Reviewers as readers with power: What a case of retranslation says about author, translator and reader dynamics. Mémoires du livre Studies in Book Culture, 9(1), 1-30.
10. Işıklar Koçak, M. (2017). Readers of retranslation on online platforms. Journal of Turkish Studies, 12(15), 413-430.
11. Işıklar Koçak, M. & Erkul Yağcı, S. (2019). Transformation in readers’ habituses in Turkey from the 1930s to the 2010s. In Berk Albachten, Ö. & Tahir Gürçağlar, Ş. (Eds.), Perspectives on Retranslation: Ideology, Paratexts, Methods (pp.129-147). London/New York Routledge.
12. Jansen, S. C. (2010). Ambiguities and imperatives of market censorship: The brief history of a critical concept. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 7(2), 12-30.
13. King, S. (1978). The stand. USA: Doubleday.
14. King, S. (1978/1987/1999). Mahşer. (G. Suveren, Trans.).İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
15. King, S. (1982). Different seasons. USA: Viking Press.
16. King, S. (1983). Kuşku mevsimi. (G. Suveren, Trans.). İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
17. King, S. (1986). It. USA: Viking Publishing House.
18. King, S. (1986). O. (G. Suveren, Trans.). İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
19. King, S. (1988). Ceset. (B. Çorakçı, Trans.). İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
20. King, S. (1990). The stand. The complete and uncut edition. USA: Doubleday.
21. King, S. (2012). Mahşer. Sansürsüz tam metin. (C. Kim, Trans.). İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
22. King, S. (2012/2016/2018). O. (Tam metin). (O. Alpar, Trans.). İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
23. King, S. (2019). Kuşku mevsimi ve esaretin bedeli. (G, Suveren, Trans.). İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar.
24. Koskinen, K. & Paloposki, O. (2003). Retranslation in the age of digital reproduction. Cadernos, 1, 19-38.
25. Licciardi, B. (2014). Stephen King: Biography, books & short stories. https://study.com/academy/lesson/stephen-king-biography-books-short-stories.html.
26. Paloposki, O. & Koskinen, K. (2004). Thousand and one translations: retranslation revisited. In G. Hansen et al. (Eds.), Claims, Changes, and Challenges (pp. 27-38). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
27. Paloposki, O. & Koskinen, K. (2010). Reprocessing texts. The fine line between retranslating and revising. Across Languages and Cultures, 11(1), 29-49.
28. Somló, Á. (2014). From silence to reading between the lines: On self-censorship in literary translation. B.A.S. British and American Studies, 20, 189-201.
29. Stephen King okurları ciltli kitap için imza topladı. https://www.artfulliving.com.tr/gundem/stephen-king-okurlari-ciltli-kitap-icin-imza-topladi-i-7351 04 August 2016. Retrieved on May 2, 2020.
30. Stephen King Türkiye. http://www.stephenkingturkiye.com/. Retrieved on April 14, 2020.
31. Stephen King Kitaplığı. https://forum.kayiprihtim.com/t/stephen-king-kitapligi/3962/514. Retrieved on April 14, 2020.
32. Susam-Sarajeva, Ş. (2003). Multiple-entry visa to travelling theory: Re-translations of literary and cultural theories. Target, 15 (1), 1-36.
33. Tahir Gürçağlar, Ş. (2009). Retranslation. In M. Baker & G. Saldanha (Eds.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (2nd ed.). (pp. 233-236). London/New York: Routledge.
34. Taş, S. (2018a). August Bebel’in Kadın ve sosyalizm’i bağlamında yeniden çeviri ve çeviri eleştirisi: Bir üst-eleştiri çalışması. RumeliDe Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 4, 292-306.
35. Taş, S. (2018b). Çeviride sansür bağlamında kavramsal bir tartışma: “Çeviri yokluğu”, “yok-çeviri” ve “kurumsal sansür. In. S. Taş (Ed.). Çeviribilimde güncel tartışmalardan kavramsal sorgulamalara (pp. 147-191). İstanbul: Hiperlink Yayınları.
36. Üstünsöz, İ. (2010). The legal satus and the self-images of translators in Turkey: Translators at the crossroads: Experts or messengers?. Unpublished Ma thesis. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi.