Browsing by Author "Bozkurt, Seyhan."

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    The canonization and popularization of realism in Turkish literary discourse through translation: a conceptual–historical approach
    (Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2014., 2014.) Bozkurt, Seyhan.; Tahir Gürçağlar, Şehnaz.
    This dissertation argues that approaching realism as a concept rather than a literary school or movement yields better results in terms of evaluating its impact on Turkish literature and the shaping of translation activities in the Republican Period. Linking Conceptual History, Polysystem Theory, and Critical Discourse Analysis, this study delves into the transfer of realism, its discursive relations, and its links with the systems with which it was associated, such as literature, both indigenous and translated, and politics. Tracing the journey of realism from the Tanzimat Period to the Republican Period, this study dwells specifically on the discourse seen in Varlık, one of the most important literary journals of the Republican Period, between the years 1933-1946. It demonstrates how, having been re-contextualized with reference to the significant components of the official ideology, a process which begins with its transfer into Turkish literature as a literary school in the Tanzimat Period, realism becomes a bridge concept linking the official ideology to literature and from there, the official ideology to the reading public. It reveals that the process of creating a national literature in the early Republican Period resulted not only in the canonization of realism in fiction but also in the popularization of the same. The latter was achieved by means of the re-contextualization of certain works of Western literature, which are called bestsellers in this study, whereby certain aspects of such works, which agreed with the conceptualization of realism at the time, were purposefully highlighted. It argues that the popularization of realism was both a trigger and a result of the process which turned realism into a pivotal concept in the literary field, furthermore expanding its realm beyond that of a mere literary school, as it had been in the Tanzimat Period.
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    Tracing discourse in prefaces to Turkish translations of fiction by Remzi publishing huose in the 1930s and 1940s
    (Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2007., 2007.) Bozkurt, Seyhan.; Tahir Gürçağlar, Şehnaz.
    Regarding translation not only as a linguistic transfer but as part of a complex sociocultural context this study focuses on the discourse in translators' prefaces to find out what facts their analysis can reveal about the translation in a wider context. I argue in this study that translators assume a mediating role between the socio-cultural context and the translated text in their prefaces. This thesis brings together thee significant components, the paratext, the translator and the publisher which can be considered to occupy the same space metaphorically. The corpus of the study consists of prefaces written by translators to their translations published in "Dünya Muharrirlerinden Tercümeler Serisi" (Translations fiom World Authors) published by Remzi publishing house which can be considered as the biggest and the first significant attempt to translate Western classics into Turkish before the state-sponsored Translation Bureau. The study offers a picture of the period when the series was published and reveals that '"Dünya Muhmirlerinden Tercümeler Serisi" with its supporting journal, Kalem set an example for The Translation Bureau and its journal Tercüme, which lent it a distinctive status in the period under study. When the discourse in the prefaces is analyzed in the light of critical discourse analysis and described within the framework of polysystem theory it became obvious that translators sf Remzi played an active role not only in the translation system but also the other systems of culture. This confirmed that translators using spaces allotted to them in prefaces can bring together the translated text and the socio-cultural context. The study also revealed that the publisher Rernzi Bengi, the advisory boards of the publishing house and its translators can be considered as idea-makers, culture-entrepreneurs and 'carriers of life-images' because of the significant roles they played in the period under study, The analysis of translators' prefaces also suggests that paratexts widen the scope of translation research by incorporating translation into a wider network.