the ideology of lexical choices in the turkish translations of oliver twist

(2001; 2), which is similar to being ‘taken for granted.’ Therefore, in his view,
ideology is embedded in those ‘commonsense assumptions.’
A similar definition of the notion is provided by van Dijk, who states that
ideology is a kind of framework which is “assumed to specifically organize and
monitor one form of socially shared mental representation, in other words, the
organized evaluative beliefs-traditionally called ‘attitudes’-shared by social groups”
(1996; 7).
As indicated in the above definitions, ideology can be regarded as a system in
which there are consciously or unconsciously adopted set of ideas, values and
beliefs. Therefore, it occupies a place in the cognitive as well as the social domain.
In the present study, ideology is regarded as a discursive practice and refers to
a set of beliefs and values which constitute the world-views of certain institutions’ −
in this case, the publishers’ − and, therefore, which influence their interpretation of
events, facts, etc. This study shall analyze the ways in which, ideology manifests
itself in the lexical choices in five different translations of Oliver Twist. The
dominant ideology to be detected in the lexical elements is what could be termed the
religious-conservative ideology.
1.2. Language, Discourse and Ideology
One point that is worth mentioning is that language has a crucial role in the
expression of ideology. As far as language is concerned, the concept of discourse
should not be overlooked. Language and discourse cannot be thought as separate,
and it is through language, thus discourse that ideology finds expression. Discourse
is a term that is widely used in the contemporary human sciences, where it is “used to
describe any organized body or corpus of statements and utterances governed by
rules and conventions of which the user is largely unconscious” (The Penguin
Dictionary of Critical Theory 2000; 100). Here, it is also stated that the term “easily
becomes a near-synonym for ‘ideology’” (ibid.). As seen in these definitions,
discourse embodies what is ‘social.’ This social aspect is underscored by Norman
Fairclough, a foremost theorist and practitioner of Critical Discourse Analysis
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