Evaluation of translation of signs regarding power relations in literary translations: The case of things fall apart by Chinua Achebe

The aim of this study is to categorize contexts of power relations in postcolonial literature as well as identify the possible meaning transformations in the translated texts with a view to the analysis of the consequences of these transformations. In this respect, the novel Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe, one of the most significant works of postcolonial literature is analyzed to find the contexts involving power relations, later to be compared with the two Turkish translations: Ruhum Yeniden Doğacak (1983) by Anjel Selveroğlu and Parçalanma (2022) by Nazan Arıbaş Erbil. The comparison aims to reveal the extent to which the signs of power relations identified in the source text are preserved or transformed in the target texts. In the source text, postcolonial analysis is conducted based on the concepts of postcolonial theorists Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi Bhabha. Following this postcolonial analysis, the contexts of power relations in the source text are classified into three main categories as "construction of the East as the other", "epistemological violence from the West to the East" and "signs of dominance". The evaluation of the target texts was carried out within the framework of Öztürk Kasar's (2021) "Systematics of Designation", revealing the extent to which the signs of power relations in the source text are preserved or transformed to identify the dominant "designificative tendency". As a result of the translation evaluation of the contexts of power relations classified under these three categories, it was determined that the most common "designificative tendency" was "over-interpretation of the meaning". Despite the various "designificative tendencies" in the target texts, the signs of power relations predominantly fall to the scope of "meaning" in field of signification. As a consequence, it was concluded that in translations of postcolonial literature for Turkish readers, who do not have a colonial past, it is possible to approach the meaning transformations in target texts with greater mindfulness through the "Systematics of Designation", thereby minimizing meaning transformations. Ultimately, in order to translate the postcolonial contexts with power relations with minimum meaning transformation, literary translators are recommended to conduct a postcolonial analysis as part of the pre-translation process and draw upon the "Systematics of Designation" when making translation decisions.