The shifting value of retranslations and the devaluing effect of plagiarism: The complex history of Dostoevsky (re)translations in Turkish
Sabri Gürses & Mehmet Şahin
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Title
The shifting value of retranslations and the devaluing effect of plagiarism: The complex history of Dostoevsky (re)translations in Turkish
Abstract
In this study, we use the history of translation and retranslation of Western literature into Turkish as the backdrop for a discussion of how the value of retranslations varies over time and in different contexts. We consider how the changing importance of key players influences the valorization of retranslations. Tracing the story of direct and indirect translations of Dostoevsky’s works, we show how these variables change in the shifting target landscape. Our study also addresses the relationships, in the Turkish context, between copyright, commercial interests, and plagiarism in retranslations. We further the discussion, touching on the value and impact of retranslations in the age of artificial intelligence on the translation ecosystem. We also examine motivations for retranslations and how these change in the evolving cultural space. Our analysis of various periods of the (re)translational history of Dostoevsky in Turkish reveals shifts in the weight of different factors on the value of retranslations. State interventions, involvement of author-editors in the campaigns launched by publishing houses, plagiarism and digital technology have already had an impact on retranslations’ value in the target context. The growing role of machine translation in the translation market is also expected to have substantial effects on value of retranslations.
Keywords
value of retranslation, direct and indirect translation, plagiarism in translation, machine translation, Dostoevsky
35(1) - 2023