Insights into a new paradigm in translation

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the reflection and recreation of the physical landscape in literary texts and in their translations; to explore in what ways nature is represented and, secondly, to discuss aspects of this process in the light of the translational norms proposed by Toury. The focus is the idea that language and culture, the core of literature, are to be transferred to other linguistic and cultural mediums during translation, and constitute the ecological environment of the text. This undertaking assigns to the translator the task of selecting, adapting and recreating this material in the foreign environment. An ecocritical approach will be adopted to explore how and how far this task is materialized by studying a Turkish author Yaşar Kemal’s novel Ortadirek translated as The Wind from the Plain. Yaşar Kemal is regarded as the most ecologically-minded author of Turkish literature and his novels portray nature as the mental landscapes of man, a force under which the constituents of the text are recreated at every linguistic and culture-bound effort of the author. Hence, the main endeavour of this study will be to bring to the surface, with an eco-critical approach, the translational preferences of the translator of Ortadirek and their significance in the recreation of Kemal’s ecological vision in the translation.