Abstract

The Book of Dede Korkut is a Turkish epic significant in Turkish history, literature, and culture. It comprises a prologue and twelve epic stories that tell the lifestyles, customs, and traditions of Oghuz Turks. Up to the present, The Book of Dede Korkut has been translated into English three times, firstly by Sumer, Uysal, and Walker (1972), secondly by Lewis (1974), and lastly by Mirable (1990). It is a work rich in gender roles such as heroism, bravery, manhood, womanhood, fertility, and maternal instincts. For this reason, the present study utilizes Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model to highlight the deviations in translating the selected extracts involving gender discourse. The corpus consists of Dede Korkut Hikâyeleri by Orhan Şaik Gökyay (1938) and its English translation by Geoffrey Lewis in 1974. Additionally, the research findings have been evaluated within the scope of Gideon Toury’s (1995) translation norms. As a result, it has been observed that the translator tries to balance the two cultures, but in some cases, subjects himself to the norms that are active in the target culture. In this regard, the findings reveal that the translator is closer to the acceptability pole, besides proving that the target text cannot be merely adequate/acceptable.

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