A descriptive research on the Turkish translations of Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation

The aim of this thesis is to examine the three Turkish translations of the source text (ST) titled Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation written by Lord Kinross: the first target text (TT1), in serialized form in 1965 the second target text (TT2) in full form in 1966 and the third target text (TT3) in reprint form in 1988. Within a descriptive theoretical framework, selected examples from the three translations related to "dictatorship", "religion" and the "Turkish political scene" have been analyzed with a focus on the dynamics of the equivalence relationships between the source text and the three translations and on the impact of the historical, socio-cultural, and political context on the translations. The results of the analysis of the translations of the examples concerning the use of the term "dictatorship" have shown that the equivalence relationship between ST and TT1 is closer to the acceptability pole while the equivalence relationship between ST and TT2 and TT3 is closer to the adequacy pole. In terms of the second category which is related to the use of the term "religion", an equivalence relationship closer to the acceptability pole exists between ST and TT1 while the equivalence relationship between ST and TT2 is situated in the middle of the adequacy and acceptability poles. The equivalence relationship between ST and TT3, on the other hand, is situated also in the middle of the two poles, but closer to the acceptability pole compared to TT2. The results of the analysis concerning the examples related to the "Turkish political scene" as the third category have shown that an equivalence relationship closer to the acceptability pole exists between ST and TT1 while an equivalence relationship closer to adequacy exists between ST and TT2 and TT3. However, these results do not suggest a binary opposition between the two poles and that they are obtained only for the analysis of selected examples of the three categories. Key Words Translation Norms, Adequacy, Acceptibility, Equivalence, Serialization, Reprint