On a «Retranslation» trial: Jules Verne and Journey to the Center of the Earth

The purpose of this study is to attract readers and to make them enjoy reading original text by giving it another century's vision. It is not possible to say that each literary book finds its reader in the target system to which the writer aims in his mind before starting his work. Sometimes a book whose target audience is adults might become a part of children's litterature because of its literary genre is belongs to. The books of Jules Verne, the pioneer of the 19th century science fiction litterature have also been accepted by many sort of readers throughout the history. In the thesis, Jules Verne's novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth is rewritten for readers in primary school students system within the framework of the German researcher Hans J. Vermeer's Skopos Theory. In the introduction part, in order to pave the way into research, the place of the novel in target culture, the reasons why the translator aimed to rewrite the novel, the skopos of the research and the methods used in the light of this skopos were mentioned. In the first chapter, theoretical framework for the research was indicated in order to form the basis and the methodology of the study. Hans J. Vermeer's Skopos Theory was analyzed. Modern writing methods such as, retranslation, rewriting, intertextuality and oulipo were also explained and the relation between each method was clarified. In the second chapter, a new version of Journey to the Center of the Earth prepared for primary school students within the target Turkish culture and the necessity of rewriting was aimed to be understood and clarified. In the thirth chapter where the corpus of the translated texts are studied within framework of the methods mentioned above and theory based on. Additionally, the reflections of the translator's decisions on the translated text were touched upon. In the forth chapter, to support the necessity of the research, a practical test was given. According to the obtained data, it is found out that the purpose of the translator affects the translator's decision considerably during the translation process and the final translation is accepted more in the target culture. Target reader seems to prefer reading the new translation rather than the pretranslations. It is also seen that, if these methods are used in a correct way, they will make a major contribution to the field of translation studies. It can also be assumed that with the help of her decisions in the translation process, the translator reaches her skopos that makes the writer understand and enjoy the new text and move the writer of the book beyond the current century as Jules Verne's own ideology. Key words: Skopos, science-fiction, intertextuality, retranslation, oulipo