Application of semiotics to translation field:analysis and comparison of George Orwell's animal farm in three languages

Similar to life, literature is woven with signs, and perhaps unwittingly, we constantly struggle to read and comprehend these signs. Capturing signs is a psychic process and must be managed well to bring the quest for meaning to a conclusion. If the reader succeeds in neither picking up signs nor endowing them with their legitimate sense, his communication ends in failure. The literary translator must be more competent in reading signs than any other reader, because literary text is full of linguistic and semantic subtleties, surprises and traps. Faced with these dangers, the translator needs guidance, and semiotics, the theory of meaning and signification, can provide assistance. The translator who follows the method of semiotic analysis feels secure in these distant lands where he has launched himself and eliminates the risk of "designificative tendencies" within the limits of his competence. Semiotics of translation, launched by Sündüz Öztürk Kasar who applies the theories of Paris School Semiotics to the act of translation constitutes our theoretical approach. In this thesis, we analyze and compare George Orwell's Animal Farm with its Turkish and French translations within the framework of "systematics of designificative tendencies" proposed by Sündüz Öztürk Kasar, who is inspired by Antoine Berman – a French theorist of translation. This study aims to demonstrate the extent to which the signs that constitute the universe of meaning of the original text are reflected in its translations and thus assisting in creating the translator's awareness for the existence of designificative tendencies of different types and degrees in translation. Finally, the contribution of semiotics of translation in the transmission of these signs from the original text to its translations with least loss in meaning is presented. Key words: sign, reading, semiotics, translation studies, semiotics of translation, George Orwell, Animal Farm, designificative tendencies.