Ethical Dilemmas in Literary Translation: The Memoirs of Andrew Ryan, One of the Chief Translators of Bab-ı Ali
Halise Gülmüş SırkıntıLiterary translators face ethical dilemmas on how to present a text and solve the translation problems alongside the other agents involved in the translation process. Situations involving complex translations increase the encountered dilemmas even more. Cecilia Alvstad (2020, p. 181) stated that rewritten source texts, retranslations, and indirect translations raise new issues regarding the ethics of literary translations. This study proposes the phenomenon of retro-translation [Fr. rétro-traduction]1 (Öztürk Kasar, 2012, 2020), namely the back translation of a watermark translation [Fr. traduction en filigrane] (Öztürk Kasar, 2012, 2020), as the fourth complex translation situation with different dimensions in terms of translation ethics. The hypothesis is questioned through Andrew Ryan’s (1951) The Last of the Dragomans (1951) and its Turkish retro-translations. The analysis has revealed that one of the analyzed translations is a concealed translation (Toury, 1995), and this translation had been in use between 1957-2015 with the omissions that had taken place. The findings show that the Turkish agents involved in the translation process had changed the negative claims against their culture in the concealed translation. These findings raise the question of whether other concealed translations exist among the retrotranslations in the Turkish literary system and show that different dimensions regarding translation ethics occur in terms of the phenomenon of retro-translation.
Yazınsal Çeviride Etik İkilemler: Türkçede Bab-ı Ali’nin Baş Tercümanlarından Andrew Ryan’ın Hatıraları
Halise Gülmüş SırkıntıYazın çevirmeni çeviri sürecine dahil olan diğer eyleyenlerle birlikte, eserin erek okura nasıl sunulacağına, karşılaştığı çeviri problemlerini nasıl çözeceğine karar verirken etik ikilemlerle karşılaşır. Çeviri eyleminin doğrusal düzlemde gerçekleşmediği durumlar, karşılaşılan ikilemleri artırmaktadır. Cecilia Alvstad (2020, s. 181) yeniden yazılan kaynak metinler, yeniden çeviriler ve ara dilden çevirileri yazınsal çeviri etiğine yeni boyutlar kazandıran üç karmaşık çeviri durumu olarak nitelendirmektedir. Bu çalışmada, “aslına çeviri”ler (Öztürk Kasar, 2012) Alvstad’ın çeviri durumlarına ek olarak, çeviri etiği açısından farklı boyutları olan dördüncü özel çeviri durumu olarak önerilmektedir. Özgün eser olarak üretilmesine rağmen özünde zihinsel çeviri işlemi barındıran “özde çeviri”lerin (Öztürk Kasar, 2012) çıkış diline çevrilmesiyle “aslına çeviri”ler ortaya çıkmaktadır. Hipotez, Bab-ı Ali’nin son tercümanı Andrew Ryan’ın eseri, The Last of the Dragomans (1951) ve eserin Türk yazın dizgesindeki aslına çevirileri üzerinden sorgulanmaktadır. Gerçekleştirilen inceleme, eserin aslına çevirileri arasında “gizli çeviri” (Toury, 1995) olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. 1957’den 2015’e dek iki farklı eserde kullanılan gizli çeviride, Türk tarihini ve kültürünü yabancının gözünden yabancılara aktaran eser Türkçeye dönerken çeviri sürecine dahil olan Türk eyleyicilerin kendi kültürlerine yönelik olumsuz iddiaları değiştirdikleri gözlemlenmiştir. Bulgular, Türk yazın dizgesindeki aslına çeviriler arasında başka gizli çeviriler var mıdır sorusunu akla getirmekte, aslına çeviri olgusu üzerinden çeviri etiğinin farklı boyutlarına dikkat çekmektedir.
Literary translators must decide what role the translation will play in the target language, what translation strategies to follow, and what solutions to apply to encountered problems together with the other agents involved in the translation process and go through challenging stages during this process. While making a literary text accessible to a different audience, literary translators face many ethical dilemmas. However, one must admit that no simple answer exists to these ethical issues. In situations involving complex translations where the relationship between the source text and the translated text becomes tangled and the translation process is not carried out in the usual linear order, the encountered dilemmas increase even more. Cecilia Alvstad (2020, p. 187) defined complex translation situations as “a translation process that differs from a prototypical, linear translation of a single, well-defined source text” and proposed three complex translation situations in which different dimensions of translation ethics arise. Unstable originals, retranslations, and indirect translations are the examples she drew attention to in terms of translation ethics. In this context, the current study proposes in addition to the three examples Alvstad presented the phenomenon of retro-translation (Öztürk Kasar, 2012) as a fourth complex translation situation that reveals different dimensions of translation ethics. The corpus of the study consists of The Last of the Dragomans by the British diplomat Sir Andrew Ryan, the last translator of Bab-ı Ali, and its Turkish retro-translations. Ryan’s memoir is an example of a watermark translation (Öztürk Kasar, 2012), as the book was originally written in English and includes details about the cultural and historical aspects of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Türkiye through the eyes of a foreigner. This memoir has three retro-translations (Öztürk Kasar, 2012) in the Turkish literary system. The analysis has revealed that the first translation of the work was published as a serial in Dünya Gazetesi as if it had originally been written in Turkish by Ryan. Therefore, one can say that the first retro-translation was a concealed translation (Toury, 1995), which raises new issues in terms of ethics. The second retro-translation was published by Salkımsöğüt Publishing House, also used concealed translation, and makes no mention of any translator’s name, though two names are presented as editors on the cover page. The third retro-translation has Dilek Berilgen Cenkçiler as the translator and was published by Turkish Historical Society Publications. The concealed translations were observed to have shortened the work to a great extent and to have completely changed the focus of the work by removing any details of Ryan’s life and memoirs, as well as toning down all the negative discourses directed against Abdul Hamid II, the sultan of the period and removing the negative discourses directed against the Young Turks from the translation. At the same time, the negative discourses on the relations between the Ottoman Empire and Greece are noted to have been completely removed from these concealed translations. All these interventions detected in the concealed translation show that the translator and other agents involved in the translation process tended to change what was represented in this work. As the work returned to its original language and culture in the retro-translations, the agents involved in the translation process didn’t hesitate to change the negative discourses about their own culture and historical figures. These concealed translations had undergone omissions and manipulations and were in use between 1957-2015 until the third retro-translation was published by the Turkish Historical Society Publications. These findings raise the question of whether other concealed translations can be found among retro-translations in the Turkish literary system and show that different dimensions regarding translation ethics exist in terms of the phenomenon of retro-translation.
