An Investigation into the Horizon of “Preliminary Norms in Translation”: Denominations of Works in Italian to Ottoman Turkish in M. Rauf’s “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı” (History of Italian Literature)
Eshabil Bozkurt, Deniz Dilşad Karail NazlıcanThis article aims to examine the translations into Ottoman Turkish of Italian literary work titles found in a book titled “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı”, the first work on the history of Italian literature in the Turkish cultural literary system. In this study, M. Rauf divided Italian literature into four periods. Additionally, he provides information about some poets and writers he deems important, translating brief excerpts from their works into Ottoman Turkish, and sometimes only providing the names of the authors, poets, and their works. In this article, the Italian work titles mentioned in M. Rauf’s book and their translations/adaptations to Ottoman Turkish are examined. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Gideon Toury’s “preliminary norms.” Toury, who categorises translation norms into two groups as “preliminary norms” and “operational norms,” also discusses “initial norms.” The decisions made by the translator prior to the translation process, such as the reasons for selecting a particular author and work for translation, whether the translation is conducted directly from the original source language or through an intermediary language, and if an intermediary language is used, which language it is, constitute the “preliminary norms.” With the use of this methodological approach in this contribution, it is intended to analyse exhaustively and accurately the translations and/or adaptations into Ottoman Turkish of the titles of Italian literary works present in M. Rauf’s book “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı,” thus providing a significant perspective on the reception and understanding of Italian literature in the Ottoman Turkish cultural universe of the period.
Un’indagine nell’orizzonte delle “Norme preliminari nella traduzione”: Denominazioni delle opere letterarie italiane in turco ottomano nell’opera intitolata “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı” (Storia della letteratura italiana) di M. Rauf
Eshabil Bozkurt, Deniz Dilşad Karail NazlıcanL’articolo si propone di prendere in esame le traduzioni in turco ottomano dei titoli delle opere letterarie italiane presenti nel libro intitolato “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı” (Storia della letteratura italiana), la prima opera sulla storia della letteratura italiana nell’universo culturale letterario turco. In quest’opera, M. Rauf esamina la letteratura italiana mediante la suddivisione in quattro distinti periodi storici. In aggiunta, attraverso la trasmissione di informazioni su autori e poeti di rilevanza, M. Rauf ha compiuto la traduzione in turco ottomano di brevi estratti dalle opere degli autori, talvolta limitandosi a presentare unicamente i nomi dei autori/poeti e delle loro opere. In questo contributo verranno analizzati i nomi delle opere italiane presenti nel libro di M. Rauf e le loro traduzioni in turco ottomano. L’Approccio metodologico dello studio è delineato dalle “norme preliminari nella traduzione” di Gideon Toury. Toury, che categorizza le norme di traduzione in due gruppi come “norme preliminari” e “norme procedurali”, discute anche delle “norme iniziali”. Le decisioni intraprese dal traduttore precedentemente al processo di traduzione –quali la selezione di uno specifico autore e opera per la traduzione, la determinazione se la traduzione sia effettuata dalla lingua originale o attraverso un linguaggio intermedio, e nel caso dell’utilizzo di una lingua intermedia, l’identificazione di tale lingua– costituiscono invece le “norme preliminari”. Con l’utilizzo dell’approccio metodologico sopradetto in questo contributo si intende analizzare in modo esaustivo e accurato le traduzioni e/o gli adattamenti in turco ottomano dei titoli delle opere letterarie italiane presenti nell’opera “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı” di M. Rauf, fornendo così una prospettiva significativa sulla ricezione e la comprensione della letteratura italiana nell’universo culturale turco ottomano del periodo.
Süreç Öncesi Çeviri Normları Bağlamında Bir Inceleme: Mehmet Rauf’un İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı’ndaki İtalyanca Eser İsimlerinin Osmanlı Türkçesine Çevirisi
Eshabil Bozkurt, Deniz Dilşad Karail NazlıcanBu makalede Türk kültür edebiyat dizgesinde İtalyan edebiyatı tarihine dair ilk eser olan İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı adlı kitapta geçen İtalyanca eser isimlerinin Osmanlı Türkçesine çevirilerini incelemek amaçlanmaktadır. M. Rauf bu eserinde, İtalyan edebiyatını dört döneme ayırarak ele almıştır. Ayrıca önemli gördüğü bazı şair ve yazarlar hakkında bilgiler aktararak bu yazar ve şairlerin eserlerinden kısa kısa parçaları Osmanlı Türkçesine çevirmiş bazen de sadece yazar / şair ve eser isimlerini vermiştir. Bu çalışmada M. Rauf’un kitabında geçen İtalyanca eser isimleri ve bunların Osmanlı Türkçesine çevirileri irdelenecektir. Çalışmanın kuramsal çerçevesini Gideon Toury’nin “süreç öncesi çeviri normları” oluşturmaktadır. Çeviri normlarını “süreç öncesi çeviri normları” ve “çeviri süreci normları” olmak üzere iki gruba ayıran Toury bir de “öncül normlar”dan bahseder. Çevirmenin çeviri öncesi aldığı kararlar, çeviri için neden o yazar ve eserin seçildiği, çevirinin asıl kaynak dilden mi yoksa ara dilden mi yapıldığı, çeviri ara dilden yapılmış ise hangi dilden yapıldığı gibi konular “süreç öncesi çeviri normları”nı oluşturur. Bu metodolojik yaklaşım aracılığıyla, M. Rauf’un İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı adlı eserinde yer alan İtalyan edebi eserlerinin başlıklarının Osmanlı Türkçesine çevirilerini ve/veya uyarlamalarını kapsamlı ve doğru bir şekilde analiz etmek ve böylece dönemin Osmanlı Türk kültür evreninde İtalyan edebiyatının alımlanması ve anlaşılmasına dair önemli bir perspektif sunmak amaçlanmaktadır.
The objective of this study is to examine the translations of Italian literary work titles into Ottoman Turkish as presented in the book entitled “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı” (History of Italian Literature), which stands as the first documenting the history of Italian literature within Turkish cultural and literary discourse. Karakartal and Arslan translated the Ottoman Turkish text originally penned in Arabic script into Latin script, culminating in its publication in 2012. Within this literary inquiry, M. Rauf divideded Italian literature into four distinct periods. Additionally, he provides insights into select poets and authors whom he deems significant, often presenting translated excerpts of their compositions in Ottoman Turkish, occasionally merely referencing authors’ names and their respective works.
The theoretical framework for this article is outlined by the “preliminary norms” of Gideon Toury, who argued that translation, of any type, is a norm-driven activity and states that the determining factor for the equivalence relationship between the target text and the source text is translation norms. He argued that these norms apply to every stage of the translation process. By categorising norms into two groups -“preliminary norms” and “operational norms”- the translation scholar also discusses the concept of “initial norms” as an “explanatory tool.” Through this concept, Toury asserts the possibility of explaining the dichotomy between adequacy and acceptability and highlights the fact that it is possible to establish a general preference concerning the path followed in translation and that “implemented translation decisions” are established by a mixture of the extremes of adequacy and acceptability indicated by the preliminary norms, or decisions that reach a compromise between these extremes as a result of the current situation. According to Toury, the translation policy involves the selection of types of texts to be imported into a specific culture or language at a given time, including the selection of individual texts. “Preliminary norms” comprise two interconnected groups: those related to the nature and existence of a translation policy, and those related to the directness of translation. Directness refers to the choice to translate into the target language through an intermediate language or directly from the original source language. Another normative complex consists of the “norms of the translation process”, which Toury defined as the rules that guide decisions made during the act of translation. These norms guide the dynamics of change and invariability between the source text and the target text. This concept is further divided into the two categories called “matricial norms” and “textual-linguistic norms”. According to Toury, matrix norms influence the presence, position in the text, and segmentation of material in the target language, which replaces material in the source language.
With the use of this methodological approach in this contribution, we intend to comprehensively and accurately analyse the translations and/or adaptations into Ottoman Turkish of the titles of Italian literary works found in the book “İtalyan Tarih-i Edebiyatı” by M. Rauf, thus providing a significant perspective on the reception and understanding of Italian literature in the Ottoman Turkish cultural universe of the period.
In this article, M. Rauf’s Arabic script text was considered as the target text, and when necessary, Karakartal’s other works were also consulted. In this article, it was decided to use the original text in Arabic characters, and not Karakartal and Arslan’s transliteration, as the main source because it represents the true reference text for the analysis of the translation of the titles of the works and the anthologized texts. Names written in Arabic characters in the original text are highlighted in bold, those in Latin characters are in italics, and titles of works for which only the Turkish translation is provided without indicating the Italian version are presented in square brackets ([...]). The authors’ names of the studies that were not mentioned have not been included. The names of the works given in the target text are given in the order in which they appear in M. Rauf’s work. At the end of his work, M. Rauf indicated his sources in the “me’hazlarımız” (bibliography) and listed the reference materials used in the preparation of his work. Among the sources used, some were in English, some in French, and some in Italian. Accordingly, regarding the question of directness, taking into consideration the languages of the sources that the author/translator listed and turned to in the preparation of his work, it can be seen that both French and English were used as intermediate languages, in addition to Italian as the main language. The use of the intermediate language is evident not only in the reference documents the author/translator referred to but also in the examples detailed and examined in the analysis section of this paper.
