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

the ethics of translation, which have been obeyed for thirty or forty years. He argues
that what the publishers have made is an ideological distortion, and that there is no
mention in the books of the fact that they are actually the abridged versions, which is
contrary to the common practice in the world. He also points out that publishers are
only concerned about their own financial interests and the readers are merely
deceived. Similarly, Nilay Yılmaz, a lecturer at the Department of Linguistics at
İstanbul Bilgi University indicates that the translations involve the publishers’
ideology, and when you purchase those versions, you also get the ideology attached
to them. She adds that this would result in children’s reluctance to read those books.
In brief, Yılmaz argues that those books are actually used as an instrument for the
dissemination of the Islamist ideology (2006;
http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=196195).
In the previously mentioned article “Masumiyetini Tamamen Kaybeden
Seçki: 100 Temel Eser” (“The Selection that Has Lost Its Innocence: “100 Essential
Readings”) Necdet Neydim also argues that the Turkish versions of the Western
Classics printed by most of the publishing houses are not ‘translations’ at all. They
are only texts whose translators are anonymous and they are produced for religious
and/or ideological purposes. Another point is that they are hardly associated with the
source texts as they have been reduced to 96 pages. As for the manipulation of
translations, he says that if children’s literature is in question, they can be
manipulated, because each society is responsible for protecting its own children. In
his view, as a matter of fact, one had better manipulate a text so as to prevent the
hegemony of any different culture and to prevent children from being affected by
religious propaganda and inhibit the denigration of their values. In brief, Neydim
argues that manipulation of literature is at times necessary, but one should think
carefully about how s/he should do it. If one diverges from the aim of protecting the
children and alter the source texts in line with his or her ideology, the question of
ethics arises, which is the topic of the controversy. He points out that the Western
classics naturally contain cultural elements of Christianity since most of them are
works of 18 th and 19 th centuries. A few decades ago, in the translations of those
Western classics, Christian elements were also deleted or made less strong, but those
alterations did not attract much attention. What used to be done, then, corresponded
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