Through Readers' Eyes: Reception of George Orwell's Retranslations in Turkish Context

Abstract

This study focuses on the readers’ reception of the boom in retranslations of George Orwel’s works in Turkey after his copyright expired on January, 2021. In the current state of translation literature, retranslations are determined by the supply and demand of the market and the reception and criticism of readers, rather than by gradual development and the attempt to achieve a “great translation” (Berman, 1990). According to this study, the trigger for retranslation in recent years has been socio-cultural. Therefore, it is suggested that retranslations are intended to meet the demands of different reader groups or in other words the "interpretive communities" (Fish, 1998) within the target culture, rather than to respond to a need or an erroneous first translation. To this end, in order to understand where George Orwell and his famous novel 1984 are positioned in the Turkish context, news, blogs, columns and academic studies referring to 1984 have been examined. Then, a bibliographic study of all translations of the novel published in Turkey before and after 2021 has been carried out. This study provided us with insights into the readers' "horizon of expectations" (Jauss, 1982) regarding Orwell and his novels. Then, in the main analysis part, readers' comments collected from two websites (Ekşi Sözlük and Kayıp Rıhtım) have been graphically shown. These comments are categorised by the researcher according to the themes to evaluate the act of retranslation, their criticism and expectations. As a result, the researcher has drawn attention to the fact that the concept of retranslation has expanded in the 21st century. Also insight into Turkish readers' expectations of translation is provided, and a reception process that would be useful for future academic studies and retranslation act is suggested.