Translating The Prison Culture: A Descriptive Study Upon The Culture Specific Items in The Translations Of Orhan Kemal’s 72. Koğuş

Abstract

It is a general fact that translation plays a fundamental role in the interaction and communication of different nations, languages and cultures. Many words and phrases have been translated because of the fact that humankind needed to communicate among themselves within the variety of languages and cultures on earth throughout history. As literature stands for one of the components constituting the language and culture, it spreads all over the world and may get into connection with a lot of foreign languages. For this reason, a translation of a work of art bears high importance in terms of its being understood by the target reader completely and its transference to the target language without any loss from its essence. In this study, two translations of ‘72. Koğuş’ by Orhan Kemal will be studied in terms of analyzing the translation of prison culture into English as the target language. The main purpose of the study is to examine the translation methods and strategies that were utilized during the process of translating the culture specific items (CSIs) related with prison and its culture in the novella, ‘72. Koğuş’ by Orhan Kemal, within the framework of Newmark’s translation procedures. As a result of this study, 14 culture-specific items about prison life that were used by the author of source text were determined and examined in their translations into English in order to detect the decisions that were taken by the translators while applying the procedures and strategies during the process of translation. After the CSIs related with prison culture are determined and analyzed via Newmark’s translation procedures, the general overview of translations will be evaluated according to Venuti’s ‘foreignization and domestication’ strategies.