İnsan Dışı Hayvanların Ticari Ürünlere Çevirisi: Süt Reklamlarının Postkolonyal Eleştirisi

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore how milk is translated into a product for human consumption. In this study, translation works as a metaphor that is used for carving up an alternative reality. The metaphor of translation is informed by postcolonial translation studies, in particular the view in which translation is seen as “a channel of colonization”. For this purpose, three diary commercials are selected and a form of multimodal thematic analysis with a critical framework has been employed in order to discover the themes used in milk commercials. These themes are interpreted taking into account how translation is conceptualized by postcolonial approaches. The analysis demonstrates that colonial subjects and animals have many commonalities. Translation functioned for the colonizer as a force to assist in the silencing of the Other, to remove agency, to distort representations, to fabricate volunteer victims, to create familiar subjects, and to impose Western reason-based thought. Similarly, dairy commercials ‘translate’ cows so that they are silenced, their agencies are either removed or used in favor of the industry, the real lives of cows are obscured and their experiences are distorted, they are portrayed as being happily exploited, and they are reduced to subordinate creatures in relation to Western white, male subjects. Translation, in this study, demonstrates the power it yields in dominating others. Yet, translation can also bridge gaps, and foster nonexploitative relationships between humans and nonhuman animals.