Türkçede Kişisel Gelişim Çevirilerine Tarihsel Açıdan Bir Bakış: Kültürel Bir Alanın Doğuşu

Abstract

This study offers a succinct account of the translation history of self-help books in Turkish, starting from the early decades of the Republic until the 2000s, by touching upon the translations of bestsellers. Employing the concept of field theorized by Pierre Bourdieu in his sociology of culture, the study illustrates that self-help as a field of production arose in the cultural atmosphere of Turkey in the 1930s and 1940s mainly through translations. This newly emerging genre gradually developed towards the 1990s and went through a remarkable expansion in the following decades, mostly due to the translated works as well as works written in Turkish. The number of translations continues to exceed the amount of works written in Turkish in the first decade of 2000s, and it seems this tendency will continue in a similar fashion. The underlying factors behind the expansion of this field, regarding the social, economic and political changes in Turkey are also described in the study, to shed light on the popularity of self-help and its growth in the target culture. The study also challenges some scholarly analyses that associate the beginning of self-help in Turkish with the works of some Turkish authors, totally ignoring the translation history.