Shifts in the Translation of Speech Scripts: Case Study on Historical Speeches

Abstract

Public speaking has always been an important means of communication. People have expressed their ideas, tried to persuade other people, gave information on a specific topic via public speaking throughout the history. Events that have a historical importance lead to public speaking occasions. In fact, in some cases, such speeches lead to historically important events. Therefore, the contents of these speeches are important, not only for the people who speak the same language with the speaker but also for all people in the world. Hence, the translations of such speeches are also important. In the translation process, linguistic shifts may occur because of the differences between the languages. The concern of this study is to analyse the scripts of historical speeches and their translations and to find what sort of shifts take place during the translation process according to the theory proposed by John Catford in 1965. To do so, the scripts of speeches delivered by important people in the history, which are published in a book written by Ali Çimen and published by Timaş Yayınları (Timaş Publishing House) entitled “Tarihi Değiştiren Konuşmalar” (Speeches That Changed the History), and their original English texts from the website of www.americanrhetoric.com are used as the data collection materials. A comparative analysis is carried out between the ST-TT pairs, where various shifts are identified. After the shifts are identified, they are classified as ‘obligatory’ or ‘optional’ within the scope of the relevant literature. Finally, the translations are evaluated as ‘adequate’ or ‘acceptable’ as put by Gideon Toury in 1995. It is found that optional shifts by the translators make the TTs target-oriented and thus, ‘acceptable’. It is believed that this study will make a contribution to the literature regarding shifts in translation in historical speeches having given direction to a large scale of communities.