Foregrounded: A comparative stylistic analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God and its Turkish translation

Abstract

Style can be, shortly, defined as the way language used in a given context. Literary style, on the other side, usually refers to the style in a given literary work and it is the essential element that makes a literary work unique. Literary style can be defined as the linguistic patterns chosen by a particular author intentionally or unintentionally among all of the other options that are not chosen by her/him. These selected patterns by author are individual linguistic habits which are inseparable part of author’ identity and style. Direct style, which is a type of style, is chosen to be studied and it is to dictate someone's words without any change, in other words, verbatim. The concept of translation of style is relatively new field of study. The studies that combine two disciplines – translation studies and stylistics – are paved the way of new approaches about translation of style. Meanwhile, some stylistic analysis approaches are started to be applied into translation of style. The focal point of this present study is to evaluate the stylistic features of the source text and target text and to reveal the differences between them. As a case study, the novel by Zora Neale Hurston entitled “Their Eyes Were Watching God” which was written in direct style and its Turkish translation “Tanrıya Bakıyorlardı” are selected. As for theoretical framework, a comparative stylistic analysis will be carried out between two texts according to the stylistic concept of foregrounding. Foregrounding is a stylistic feature that has the effect of defamiliarizing the reader by breaking the familiar patterns. Finally, the two texts will be compared and analyzed on their foregrounding levels through the usage of dialect.