From/Towards a Multiple Sign System: Autism Novelized and Retold in Interlingual and Intersemiotic Contexts

Abstract

The focus of this study is to analyse selected signs of neurodiversity in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and its interlingual and intersemiotic translations to examine readers' as well as translators' (as readers) role in the formation of the meaning, along with literature's contribution to neuro-inclusiveness. Taking the prevalent assumptions that the main character has autism as a reference point, despite the author's statement that he did not base his work on a specific syndrome, some brief information about autism spectrum disorder is provided, and the protagonist Christopher's autistic-like characteristics are reviewed with reference to the common features of the disorder. The target texts in Turkish, Azerbaijani, and French are defined as interlingual translations, and the stage performance in Turkiye is defined as intersemiotic translation. The target texts are compared to the source text using Öztürk Kasar's "Systematics of Designification in Translation" to discuss the extent to which signs featuring autism are transferred in the target texts and to highlight the contribution of the source and target texts to the acknowledgement and appreciation of differences.