The work under the title of "Introduction to Translation Studies" mainly consists of two parts. The first part is a theoretical study divided into three phases, which are respectively history of translation, linguistic studies on translation, and contemporary theories on translation studies. The second part is a descriptive study made in light of the theoretical study handled in the first part. Both parts are evaluated from the point of contemporary theories to arouse translation competence in parallel with modem theories. As a result, contemporary theoretical approaches are adopted in setting up the correlation between the two parts.
The first part represents an overlook of translation through the ages. However, historical, linguistic, and modem translational theories are not isolated from each other, as they are considered to be the continuation of each other. In other words, they are referred to by the reader as phases of Translation of Studies to point out the relationship between the phases, and the dynamic process they have gone through from one phase to another. The first part ranges from the Antic Age to modem translational theories. Historic personages in Antic Age such as Andronicus, St. Jerome, and Cicero are introduced and evaluated by the modem translational standards. Next, the rise of translational activities in the Islamic world in the Medieval ages, the causes, goals, and their approach to translation are studied. After the decline of the above-mentioned activities held in translation schools in the East, the transfer of translation activities to the West, the translation policy different from the East, and the rise of national languages as a result of intensive translation activities have been taken under microscopic observation. After that, translatory activities held during the reign of the Ottoman Empire and The Tanzimat period are evaluated within the context of contemporary Polisystem theory. At last, Translation activities in the first years of the foundation of the Turkish Republic, the role of translational bureaus, and the effect of translations in the formation of a newly founded nation are touched on. In addition, such concepts as mimesis, translatability, or untranslatability are defined and explained in the course of the context of the work. During the linguistic phase, which came foreground after the Second World War, linguists dealing with the subject of translation are identified and studied in a brief comparative way. Structural, transformational-generative, and cognitive linguistics are defined and described from the point of modem Translational theories. In the last phase, leading contemporary translational theorists such as Vermeer, and Toury are introduced and their target-oriented theories as opposed to the source-oriented trends in the past are studied. Whereas in the second part, a descriptive study is made on books of translator training in such a way as to justify the target-oriented theories. Relevant leading sources from several languages such as German, English including Turkish are evaluated according to the modern standards determined by the above-mentioned theorists of modem times. A multilingual study is aimed at assessing their proximity to modem target-oriented theories. As seen from the abstract, an inductive method and the circular way of reasoning are adopted to make the addressee acquire a holistic point of view in his further academic studies.
As a newly flourishing field of study in our country, considering the gap in the theoretical field in contrast with the huge number of translations in the market, the work focuses on the preliminary knowledge about translation, and the basic concepts related to translation studies before going into a detailed study in the theoretical field. It is especially addressed to freshmen enrolled in the departments of translation studies, and to translators who want to keep up with the changes in the practice of translation. Turkish is the medium of the work to bring together several languages under the same roof and agree on the terminology of this field taking into account the general chaos experienced in scientific language. To avoid such scientific and linguistic chaos, It would be much better to make students familiar with theoretical issues in their field of interest in the first years of their training along with the applied studies. The theoretical foreknowledge gained at the beginning will undoubtedly affect the student s performance in translation and will contribute to his success in the last years of his training where schedules are heavily concentrated on theoretical subjects. When considered the main goal of universities, Theoretical studies are of course the main target of universities. However, from the point of translation studies after several ages of experience in the field of application, the negligence of theoretical studies can not be ignored, and drawing student's attention to this side of the translation studies will lead these departments to come up to the universal standards of higher education. It is for this reason that the publication of such theoretical works will broaden students' horizons both in practice and theory. |
