Translating the Sound: A Case Study on Turkish

Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi, Journal of Translation Studies, Sayı / Number 24 (2018 Bahar / Spring), 125–144 Gönderme tarihi / Received: 04.10.2017 Kabul tarihi / Accepted: 25.01.2018

Translating the Sound: A Case Study on Turkish Translations of Just So Stories Sesi Çevirmek: Just So Stories Eserinin Türkçe Çevirileri Üzerine Bir Çalışma

Özge BAYRAKTAR ÖZER Res. Asst., Atilim University, Department of Translation and Interpretation, [email protected], ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9684-570X

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nique characteristics of children’s literature bring along specific challenges to translation process. This field, just as other fields of translation, requires creativity of translator for the solution of such challenges. One of the most remarkable characteristics of children’s books is that they are mostly written to be read aloud. Therefore, a translator needs to focus on sound effects being a part of figurative language in this genre. English poet and author Rudyard Kipling’s renowned work Just So Stories is a good example for this feature of children’s literature. Repercussions of the author’s poetic style on this work, which is the collection of the stories written and read aloud by Kipling himself for his children, make read-aloud characteristics the most outstanding leitmotiv of the book. In addition, Turkish translations of the book offer a good deal of chances to analyze translation challenges. The book was translated into Turkish by Begüm Kovulmaz with title İşte Öyle Hikayeler in 2007 and Rojda Yıldırım with title Kipling’den Çocuklar için Öyküler in 2012. This study aims to analyze and compare these two Turkish translations with a specific focus on the sound effects divided under five categories; being repetition, alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeic words and other sounds. The translation strategies offered by Newmark (1988) in specific to sound effects laid ground for the analysis and comparison of the strategies applied in the translations in question. The strategies were investigated to reveal whether the aesthetic or expressive purpose of the source text was preserved in the translations. According to the analysis conducted on the selected parts of the translations, substitution was found to be the most commonly applied strategy and it was found that Kovulmaz has more focus on the aesthetic function of the source text while the translation of Yıldırım had more focus on the expressive function. This study is believed to bring contribution to the discussions regarding the translation of sound effects in specific and figurative language in general. Keywords: children’s literature, read-aloud, sound effects, figure of speech

126 Özge BAYRAKTAR ÖZER

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ocuk yazının kendine has özellikleri, bu alandaki çeviri sürecinde karşılaşılacak belirli zorlukları da beraberinde getirmektedir. Çevirinin diğer alanlarında olduğu gibi, bu alandaki sorunların çözümü için de çevirmenin yaratıcılığına gerek duyulmaktadır. Çocuk kitaplarının en önde gelen özelliklerinden biri de pek çoğunun sesli okunmak üzere kaleme alınmış olmasıdır. Bu bağlamda, söz konusu edebi türde çevirmenin değişmeceli dilin bir parçası olan ses etkilerine yoğunlaşması beklenmektedir. İngiliz şair ve yazar Rudyard Kipling’in ünlü eseri Just So Stories, çocuk yazının bu özelliği için başarılı bir örnek oluşturmakta olup, eserin Türkçe çevirileri de, çeviride karşılaşılan zorlukların analiz edilmesi bakımından pek çok imkan sunmaktadır. Yazarın şairane edebi tarzının, Kipling’in bizzat kendi çocukları için yazdığı ve onlara okuduğu hikayelerin derlemesinden oluşan bu eser üzerindeki yansımaları, “sesli-okuma” özelliklerini, söz konusu eserin ana motifi haline getirmektedir. Eser, Türkçe’ye Begüm Kovulmaz tarafından 2007 yılında İşte Öyle Hikayeler ve Rojda Yıldırım tarafından 2012 yılında Kipling’den Çocuklar için Öyküler isimleriyle kazandırılmıştır. Bu çalışma, söz konusu iki farklı Türkçe çevirinin ses etkileri bakımının analiz edilmesini ve karşılaştırılmasını hedeflemektedir. Ses etkileri tekrarlama, aliterasyon, kafiye, yankı-sözcükler ve diğer seslerden oluşan beş farklı başlık altında incelenmiştir. Newmark (1988) tarafından ses etkilerinin çevirisine özel olarak önerilen çeviri stratejileri, mevcut çalışmadaki çevirmenler tarafından uygulanan stratejilerin incelenmesi ve karşılaştırılmasında temel oluşturmuştur. Çevirilerde kullanılan söz konusu stratejiler, kaynak metnin estetik mi yoksa anlatımsal amacının mı korunduğunu belirlemek amacıyla incelenmiştir. Seçilen çeviri bölümleri üzerinde gerçekleştirilen incelemeye göre, yerine koyma stratejisinin en çok uygulanan çeviri yöntemi olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Buna göre, Kovulmaz’ın çevirisi kaynak metnin estetik işlevi üzerinde dururken, Yıldırım’ın çevirisi daha çok kaynak metnin anlatımsal işlevi odaklıdır. Bu çalışmanın, özelde ses etkilerinin çevirisi, genelde ise değişmeceli dil özelikleri gösteren eserlerin çevirisine ilişkin tartışmalara katkı sunacağına inanılmaktadır.

Anahtar sözcükler: Çocuk yazını, sesli okuma, ses etkileri, söz sanatları

1. Introduction Characteristics of children’s literature determine translation problems as well as the strategies to be applied to cope with these problems in the field. An elaborate apperception of specific features of this genre is believed to help analyze various stages of translation process more precisely. One of the main characteristics of children’s literature is its non-canonized status, which puts it into a peripheral position in literary systems of various cultures. The peripheral status can be attributed to minority status of children in a given literary system. The consideration of children as inferior compared to adult readers is explained by Queiroga & Fernandes (2016) as follows: “The cognitive abilities of these readers are considered to be limited for complex texts and the aesthetic rigor of children’s books are believed to be lower in comparison with adult literature” (p. 65). However, challenging features of children’s literature demonstrate that by no means, children’s literature is less convoluted than adult literature. One of the significant characteristics of children’s literature is its educational purposes. The pedagogical role of the literature is not limited to be a solely didactic tool of giving advices. Developing children’s linguistic and audio-visual skills is among the

Translating the Sound: A Case Study on Turkish Translations of Just So Stories

educational purposes of the genre. One of the most efficient ways to improve audiovisual skills of children through the literature is illustrations and read-aloud feature of children’s books. Oittinen (2002, p. 109) summarizes the audio-visual contribution of children’s books with illustrations as follows; “An illustrated text, like a picture book, is not just a combination of words and illustrations; it has both sound and rhythm, which can also be heard, as picture books are often read aloud to children. Yet, even if they are not read aloud, texts have an inner rhythm that the reader can feel.” This sort of education also sets a dynamic dialogue between the child and the author or the child and the adult who reads the book aloud as well as the translator who is the crucial mediator of this communication. Oittinen (2002) posits that this kind of sharing can be experienced by children through performance and considers reading aloud to be the characteristic of children’s books and their translations (p. 32). In this sense, sound effects are commonly used in children’s literature as a part of figure of speech to create a more vivid image by ensuring read-aloud characteristics. Newmark (1988) exemplifies sound effects as onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, meter, intonation and stress (p. 42). The use of sound effects, along with more common types of figure of speech such as metaphor, simile and hyperboles, brings an additional challenge to translator. As Nolan (2005) suggests a figure of speech mostly needs to be rendered into target language through a different figure of speech (p.67). Translating sound effects between two linguistically-diverse languages requires the use of certain strategies as well as creativity as Lathey (2010, p. 8) puts forth; “The rendering of these features into the target language of sound—in lullabies, nursery, and nonsense rhymes, in children’s poetry generally and in the onomatopoeia of animal noises which resonate in the pages of children’s stories—is a task that demands great creativity of the translator.” Academic studies on translations of children’s literature are limited in number, albeit great opportunities offered by the complexity of children books to analyze and discuss translation problems and certain strategies to cope with these problems. Very few number of academic research in the field, in comparison with the translations of children’s literature, was reported by scholars such as Klinberg (1986) and Oittinen (2002). Although the interest towards children’s literature has increased in parallel with the increasing number of original and translated children’s books in our day, there is still need for more academic studies to break the vicious circle which leads to the peripheral and non-canonized status of children’s literature. More academic studies are needed to analyze the translations of this genre with the purpose of improving future translations by offering solutions to certain translation problems and ultimately contributing to the shift of children’s literature in a more central status in any given literary system.

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This study aims to investigate the translation of sound effects through a case study on an acclaimed children’s book in the world literature. In this paper, Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories and its two Turkish translations are selected as corpus to analyze translation problems regarding the sound effects and to compare particular translation strategies adopted by the translators in terms of read-aloud feature of the book. Just So Stories is among the most acclaimed works of Kipling and remarkable examples of children’s literature. In parallel with the limited number of academic studies on the translations of children’s literature, this particular children’s book has not attracted much academic attention although the book was translated into a good number of languages worldwide. One of the few translation studies on Just So Stories is a PhD thesis conducted on translation problems resulting from culture-specific differences and structures of two languages on the Portuguese translation of the book by De Brito (1999). Another PhD thesis was conducted on the Arabic translation of the book by Abdelhaq (2006) within the scope of ideology in translation of children literature. Another study was conducted by Hovhannisyan (2012) on the Armenian translation in specific to language play in the book such as neologism, nonce-words, alliteration and so on. To the knowledge of the researcher, no academic research has been conducted on Turkish translations of the book so far. In the literature review, it was found that the studies conducted on the translation of figure of sound in children’s literature are mostly confined only to one particular figure of sound, such as translation of rhyme (Ham, 2007), translation of onomatopoeia (Zolfagharian & Ameri, 2015), translation of repetition (Buitkuviene, 2012) and so on. One of these studies in the literature was conducted by Dinçkan (2005) who examined the Turkish translations of three different children’s books in terms of the translation of onomatopoeic words within the scope of the functionalist approach. In this study, the researcher reported that the translation strategy applied by translators for the translation of onomatopoeic words depends on functional aspects such as presence of equivalence in the target language, cultural distance, text type convention and receiver expectations. In parallel with the subject of the present study, which examines multiple examples of figure of sound, a study has been recently conducted by Dinçkan (2017) on Turkish translations of children’s literature in specific to sound effects. In this study, Dinçkan (2017) analyzed and compared two different translations of some pre-school children’s books of an author in terms of the use of meter, rhyme, repetitions, interjections, nonsense words. The challenges of translating sound effects and the translators’ choices were examined within the scope of the target language and culture. The present study also analyzes two different translations in terms of the sound effects, yet differs from the other related studies since it focuses on the translators’ use of certain strategies, that were put forth by Newmark (1988) specifically for the translation of sound effects. In addition, this study is believed to contribute to the discussions on the translation of sound effects through a children’s book which has not been examined in Turkish context before.


2. Method The comparative analysis of the source text and two Turkish translations is confined solely to the investigation on the translation of sound effects in Just So Stories. According to Newmark (1988), it may not always be possible to translate sound effects unless either expressive or aesthetic function of the source text is compromised, yet some specific methods such as compensation, substitution, replacement and modification can be used (p.42). This study aims to analyze whether the translators prioritized expressive or aesthetic function of the source text while translating sound effects based on the strategies they applied compared to the strategies offered by Newmark (1988). To this end, sound effects that are mostly applied in Just So Stories, namely, alliteration, repetition, rhyme and onomatopoeia were selected for the corpus analysis in addition to the category of “other sounds” presenting a few more extra examples. Translation criticism plan offered by Newmark (1988) was also applied to analyze and compare two Turkish translations. In the first part of the analysis, source text’s intention and functional aspects are examined. In the second part, translators’ interpretation of this intention and translations are investigated. Representative parts of the source text setting possibly problematic examples for translation regarding sound effects are determined, the translations are compared, and the strategies applied for the translation of sound effects are analyzed in the third part of the study.

2.1. Source Text Rudyard Kipling started to arrange and publish one of his most famous works, Just So Stories in 1902. The book included twelve tales in fable forms and twelve poems with full-page illustrations and drawings. He read most stories in the book initially for his daughter Josephine, also known as Effie (Kipling, 1996, p. 47). Although after the death of his ‘Best Beloved’, he kept writing stories for his other children, Kipling dedicated the book for her daughter Effie who insisted that stories must be told ‘just so’ (De Brito, 1999, p.14). Considering the book as a solely printed text would be unfair to not only the request of Effie, but also the poetic style of Kipling as an author. He brought unique examples of read-aloud qualities to this work; detailed illustrations, repetitions, addresses to reader, phrases to ask for approval all make this book a loud work of art. Kipling’s younger daughter Elsie also reports; “the Just So Stories were first told to my brother and myself during those Cape Winters, and when written, were read aloud to us for such suggestions as could be expected from small children” (Carrington, 1955, p. 511). This statement distinctly indicates that target audience of the book is a particular children audience. Nevertheless, target audience of a children’s book may differ in time along with the fact that adults may always be implicit readers of the genre. Some stories such as The Butterfly that Stamped, How the Whale Got his Throat include Biblical references and some others, How the Leopard Got his Spots, The Crab that Played with the Sea display Kipling’s very explicit imperialist and orientalist ideology. Although the stories were written in fable forms and include a simple content for offering fictional explanations to how the whale got his throat or how the camel got his hump, such references

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make adults implied readers of the book. In this sense, dual readership feature is significant in a good number of stories in the book. As for the explicit target audience; little children, the book is expected to be read aloud and therefore, stylistic features such as intonation, stress, wordplay and sound effects are carefully treated. This book is deductive, playful and poetic at the same time. Just So Stories offers a pleasant world full of wordplays, rhymes, poems and skillful stylistic benchmarks of the author. The challenges of playful stylistic elements could be transmitted only by skillful translators who are aware of the unique poetic style of Kipling.

2.2. Translations The first Turkish translation of Just So Stories was published in 2001 by Türkiye İş Bankası Publishing with the translation of Begüm Kovulmaz under title Öylesine Hikayeler. The publishing house published the book with a different name and the same translator in 2007. The latter publication was included under the series of Youth Classics of the publishing house. The involvement of this work under Youth Classics indicates that target audience of the translation is adolescents and young adults. The lack of original illustrations in this publication is another indicator that young adults are the target audience of this publishing rather than young children. The second translation found in the market was published by Yarım Elma Publishing in 2008 and translated by Özgür Sinan. This version includes only four of the stories in a shortened and simplified form. In this study, this translation was excluded from the analysis since it is a shortened version and cannot be compared with the other translations. In 2012, another publishing house Elips Kitap published the book with the translation of Rojda Yıldırım with new illustrations replacing the original drawings. This book includes two additional stories apart from twelve original stories. These are Tabu Tale which is missing in most editions of the original work and Ham and the Porcupine which is not actually in the collection of Just So Stories. These two stories were excluded from the analysis of the present study. The translation of Yıldırım does not specify any target audience, yet colorful design and special illustrations and enriched pictures of the book published on glossy paper indicate that target audience is young children.

3. Analysis The book offers a wide range opportunities for a literary analysis in terms of cultural elements, hypertextuality, ideology, allegoric language use and so on. This paper, on the other hand, places a special focus on read-aloud features of the book and translations with a specific emphasis on sound effects under five different categories, being repetition, rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeic words and other sounds. The original book consists of twelve stories. In this study, thirteen examples of sound effects were taken from the stories titled The Elephant’s Child (3 examples), The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo (3 examples) , How the Whale Got His Throat (3


examples) , How the Alphabet Was Made (1 example), How the Leopard Got His Spots (1 example), How the Camel Got His Hump (1 example), How the First Letter was Written (1 example) and analyzed within the scope of the theoretical framework.

3.1. Repetition One of the most common stylistic devices applied in children’s literature is repetition which aims to attract the attention of readers to the key points of the text. The repeated unit can be words and phrase on various points of a clause or paragraph. Oittinen (2002) reports repetition as a source for pleasurable reading or listening activity for children (p.38). Repetition can also be preferred to specify duration and/or intensity of certain activities when it is used on verbs as exemplified in Table 1 below. The story titled The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo explains how the Kangaroo, who used to have four little legs and asked Little God Nqa to be different from all other animals, got his present-day long legs. Accordingly, he was chased by Dog-Dingo for such a long period of time that his legs eventually got much longer. In this example, the constant repetition of the verb run creates a duration effect, which is important for the course of the story, and represents the long time during which the Kangaroo was chased. Table 1. Repetition: Example 1

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

He ran through the desert; he ran through the mountains; he ran through the salt-pans; he ran through the reedbeds; he ran through the blue gums; he ran through the spinifex; he ran till his front legs ached. (p. 60)

Kanguru koşarak çöllerden geçmiş; dağları aşmış; tuzlalardan geçmiş; sazlıklar arasında koşmuş; okaliptüs ağaçlarının arasında koşmuş, çayırlarda koşmuş; ön bacakları ağrımaya başlayana dek koşmuş, koşmuş, koşmuş. (p. 42)

Kanguru koşarak çölleri geçmiş; dağları aşmış; tuzlaları geçmiş; sazlıkların, okaliptüs ağaçlarının arasında koşarak geçmiş; ta ki ön bacakları ağrımaya başlayana kadar koşmuş, koşmuş, koşmuş... (pg. 78)

In Turkish translations, both of the translators avoid the repetition of the same word, yet prefer Turkish synonyms for the verb “run”. Albeit the variety in their verb choices unlike the source text, both translators reflect the duration effect of the repetition by using the Turkish translation of the verb “run” for three times consecutively at the end of the sentence. The strategy applied by both of the translators for the translation of repetition is substitution. The use of this strategy, substitution of the repeated verb in the source text with various verbs in the target text, is not recommended by Newmark (2001) who suggests that; “a lexical item repeated in the same or the following sentence of the source language text must be correspondingly repeated

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in the target language text, unless the original is poorly or loosely written. It should not be rendered the second time by a synonym” (p. 147). The same verb could have been used in Turkish translations in the same way to create the same duration effect as in the source language. The ignorance of repetition is mentioned by Hewson (2011, p. 76) as follows: “Translation theorists have long been aware that repetition is a stylistic device that translators shy away from reproducing in the target language”. In line with Hewson’s generalized statement, it can be seen that both Turkish translators hesitate to preserve the structural and stylistic form of the repetition in the target text in the present case as well. Tablo 2. Repetition: Example 2

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

Nqong called Dingo— Yellow-Dog Dingo— (p.60)

Dingo’yu, -Sarı Köpek Dingoyanına çağırmış (p.41)

..Sarı Köpek Dingo’yu yanına çağırmış… (p.76)

Up jumped Dingo—Yellow Dog Dingo…(p.60)

Ayağa fırlamış Dingo–Sarı Köpek Dingo-… (p. 41)

Sarı köpek Dingo ayağa fırlamış.. (p. 76)

Still ran Dingo—Tired-Dog Dingo—(p.60)

Dingo, -Yorgun Köpek Dingo- Yorgun Köpek Dingo da da onun peşinden koşuyor… onun peşinden koşmaya (p. 43) devam ediyor… (p. 80)

Down sat Dingo—Poor Dog Durup oturuvermiş Dingo, Dingo—(p.61) -Zavallı Köpek Dingo-… (p.43)

Zavallı Köpek Dingo durmuş… (p . 80)

In the second example of repetition taken from the story The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, the Dog named Dingo chasing after the Kangaroo is first defined as “DingoYellow Dog Dingo”, then as “Dingo- Tired Dog Dingo” and finally as “Dingo-Poor Dog Dingo”. The function of repeating the name, Dingo with different adjectives should be well-understood to have the same stylistic effect in translation. This repetition shows the change in mood of the running dog. In addition, the repetition of the name of the dog at the beginning and the end of the adjective also creates a rhyme and brings a poetic sound to the prose. In parallel with the example discussed in Table 1, the hesitation of one of the translators to reproduce the repetition in target text can be found in this example as well. Yıldırım prefers to omit the repetition of Dingo at the beginning. In this sense, the omission of Dingo in the translation leads to the loss of read-aloud effect by impairing the stylistic use of repetition. On the other hand, the same repetition pattern of the source text is preserved in Kovulmaz’s translation through literal translation unlike the first example.


Table 3. Repetition: Example 3

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

Then the Whale opened his mouth back and back and back... (p.7)

Balina ağzını neredeyse kuyruğuna değecek kadar açmış, açmış, açmış… (p. 2)

Tabii Balina hemen açmış ağzını; açmış, açmış, açmış… (p. 17)

The story How the Whale Got His Throat is about a greedy Whale who is always hungry and wants to eat anything in the sea. In this particular example, the purpose of the repetition is not limited to attracting the attention of the reader. The repetition of “back” in this example indicates the intensity of the opening action as well as its gradual process. The hesitation of the translators to render the repetition cannot be found in this example. It may result from the repetitive use of verbs at the end of sentences in Turkish language, which might have sound natural to the translators unlike the unusual repetition used in two other examples. In this particular example, the repetition of adverb in the source text is substituted by the repetition of verb in Turkish. This shift in translators’ choice brings focus to the verb “open” which in fact creates the same equivalence of the source text. The sense of curiosity and excitement achieved through gradation is reflected by the substitution strategy in the first translation. Yıldırım, on the other hand, completely reverses the gradation effect by adding the adjective “immediately” to her translation. Accordingly, it can be asserted that repetition effect is preserved in the translations through the substitution strategy while gradation effect is reversed by the second translation.

3.2. Rhyme Most famously known for his poem If, Kipling reflects his poetry skills in this book not only in poems added at the end of each story but also between the lines of the stories. The use of rhyming in children’s books is very common since it makes reading and/or listening activity much more enjoyable. Rhyming also has an educational purpose as Billiani (2009) suggests; “The aural texture of a story, or indeed of lullabies, nursery rhymes and jingles, is of paramount importance to a child still engaged in discovering the power and delights of the phonology of her or his native language” (p. 32). Rhyming is known to improve the sense of rhythm for children. This poetical style of the author is expected to be achieved in target language as well. As Lathey (2010) suggests, rhythm facilitates reading aloud and therefore it is significant to keep this feature which actually requires a specialization in translation of children’s literature (p. 197).

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Table 4. Rhyme: Example 1

Kipling/1994 He ate the starfish and the garnish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackareel and the pickereel, and the really trully twirly-whirly eel. (p.5)

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

Kalkan ve sazanları, Kalkanları, sazanları, istavrit ve izmaritleri, denizyıldızlarını ve kolyoz ve orkinosları, zarganaları, yengeçleri ve kılıçbalığını ve çekiçbalığını, pisi balıklarını, tırpanaları dilbalığını ve dülgerbalığını, ve onların eşlerini, mürekkepbalığını ve onun orkinosları ve turna karısını, kıvrım kıvrım balıklarını ve hatta kıvrım yılanbalığını bile yermiş. kıvrım yılan balıklarını bile (p.1) yermiş. (p.16)

In this example taken from the story How the Whale Got His Throat, the focus is on the amount and variety of the fish that the hungry and greedy Whale eats. Therefore, a good variety of fish species is listed. There is a rhyme between every two nouns divided by “and”. In the first translation, the same rhyming effect is preserved by using different fish names and changing the ordering of fish types through the strategy of substitution. The use of substitution strategy indicates that the translator is aware of the rhyming effect which is particularly used for this sentence by the author. For example, “crab” is not used in the first translation since it disrupts the rhyming. The second translation, on the other hand, is more source-oriented since it relatively preserves the literal translation and ordering in the source text which consequently omits the rhyming effect. Therefore, rhyming effect is clearly less obvious in Yıldırım’s translation while Kovulmaz’s translation preserves the aesthetic function of the source text. Table 5. Rhyme: Example 2

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

Still ran Dingo—YellowDog Dingo—hungrier and hungrier, grinning like a horse-collar, never getting nearer, never getting farther; and they came to the Wollgong River. (p.60)

Karnı her zamankinden daha aç olan ve giderek daha da acıkan Dingo- Sarı Köpek Dingo- kocaman dişleri parlayarak, ne yaklaşıp ne geride kalarak onun peşinden koşmuş; en sonunda Wollgong Nehri’ne varmışlar. (p. 42)

Karnı her zaman aç olan ve giderek daha da acıkan Sarı Köpek Dingo, sivri dişleri atların boynuna geçirilen çember gibi parlayarak çok yaklaşmadan ama uzaklaşmasına da izin vermeden peşinden koşmuş, koşmuş ve sonunda Wollgong Nehri’ne varmışlar. (p.79)

The rhyming effect is damaged in both translations taken from the story The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo. This example of rhyme does not seem to be challenging to be reflected in translations either in syntactical nor semantic terms. Therefore, it can be


presumed that the rhyming feature of this sentence is disregarded or underestimated by the translators. In this sense, omission is the main strategy applied by both translators. Longer sentences in both of the translations show that the translators focus more on transferring the meaning rather than paying attention to stylistic features of the original sentence. The use of the phrase “grinning like a horse-collar” is believed to cause an additional challenge to the translators in terms of rendering the intended meaning. Although the translators prioritize the expressive purpose, the use of wrong equivalence can be detected in both of the translations. The phrase “grinning like a horse-collar” is translated as “…shining teeth (of Dingo)”. However, this phrase refers to a rustic game in England called gurning1. In this game, people put their faces through a horse-collar, which is basically a competition to choose the most hilarious and the ugliest face. Unlike the literal translations, this phrase does not describe Dingo’s teeth but rather expresses how tired and exhausted he looks at the end of chasing in the source text. Since this phrase, which has a culture-specific background for the source culture, is not domesticated for Turkish readers and is literally translated, it brings a whole different meaning than its reference. In this sense, it can be seen that both of the translators adopt a literal translation approach which could reflect neither the stylistic features nor the cultural/historical reference of the sentence. Table 6. Rhyme: Example 3

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

...he stumped and jumped and the thumbed and he bumped, and he pranced and he danced, and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit, and he leaped and he creeped, and he prowled and he howled, and he hopped and he dropped, and he cried and he sighed, and he crawled and he bawled, and he stepped and he lepped and he danced hornpipes... (p.7)

...hoplamış ve zıplamış, sıçramış ve atlamış, tepinmış ve eşinmış, sürünmüş ve yürümüş, şakırdamış ve takırdamış, bağırmış ve çağırmış, sekmiş ve emeklemiş, yaylanmış ve havalanmış, çırpınmış ve kıvranmış, en sonunda öyle bir horon tepmiş ki...(p.3)

...hoplamış, zıplamış, ordan oraya atlamış, ağlamış, zırlamış ve en sonunda da denizci horonu tepmiş...(p.18)

The use of rhyming and repetition of various verbs in this example taken from the story How the Whale Got His Throat are used to emphasize the movements and actions of the man who is trying to get out of the Whale’s stomach. The long sentence including various verbs, which indicate different movements of the man, also shows that it takes 1

For more information, see https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18820902.2.25

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a long time for the man to get out as well as contributing to the vocabulary knowledge of children. In the first translation, the rhyming effect and the variety in the use of verbs are well preserved through substitution strategy by ensuring equivalences for various action verbs in the source text with commonly used action verbs in Turkish language. On the other hand, some actions verbs are omitted to shorten the sentence. This choice of the translator can be attributed to the hesitation in translating repetitive use of various verbs which have close meanings. However, the deliberate use of the words with close meanings could contribute to enrich the vocabulary of little readers. In the second translation, the sentence is much shorter than the original. Considering the target audience of the second translation, it can be assumed that the translator might have shortened the sentence not to bother little children. However, this sentence is of high importance in the whole story since it explains how the man achieved to be saved. Retention of this long sentence would bring the same rhyming effect to Turkish translation as well as improving the vocabulary knowledge of the target audience regarding action verbs.

3.3. Alliteration In his introduction to the book, Neil Philip suggests to look at the sentence “banks of the great-grey-green, greasy Limpopo river…” to truly understand the unique narration style of Kipling (Kipling, 1994/2012, p.15). The figure of speech applied in this sentence is a common literary technique called alliteration which is defined as “the repetition of a speech sound in a sequence of nearby words” (Abrams & Harpham, 2012, pg.10). As exemplified below, alliteration is usually applied to consonants at the beginning of words. This rhetorical device is used to emphasize certain words, create a rhyme and slow down or accelerate reading speed. The story The Elephant’s Child narrates the adventures of a very curious Elephant that caused him to have a long trunk in the end. In this example taken from the story, the Elephant’s Child is curious about what the Crocodile has for dinner and the Kolokolo Bird advises him to go the banks of the Limpopo river. The adjectives preferred to define the Limpopo river are chosen to create an alliteration to bring a reading-aloud effect which attracts the attention of children during the reading aloud process while precisely defining the banks of the Limpopo river. Table 7. Alliteration: Example 1

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

‘Go to the banks of the great-grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees. (p.45)

Limpopo Nehri’nin sıtma ağaçlarıyla kaplı, kıraç, kurşuni, kayalık ve kaygan kıyısına gidersen... (p.29)

“Limpopo Nehri’nin, sıtma ağaçlarıyla kaplı, kıraç, kurşuni renkte, kayalıklı kıyısına gidersen... (p. 57)


The alliteration of “gr-” is replaced by the repeated use of “-k” sound in both of the Turkish translations which corresponds to the substitution strategy. To ensure the repetitive use of “-k” sound, formal equivalences of the words “great” and “grey-green” are not used, but replaced with semantically different adjectives to preserve the repetition of “-k” sound in the translations. For instance, Turkish equivalences of “barren” and “craggy” words are used in the translation although there is no implication that the area of Limpopo River is barren or craggy. Apparently, the translators prefer the addition of these two adjectives to preserve the alliteration along the sentence. In this sense, the focus of the translators, who adopted a target-oriented approach, is placed upon the aesthetic function of the sentence rather than the expressive purpose. Table 8. Alliteration: Example 2

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

‘Horrid old drying-poles!’ said Taffy. ‘I hate helping to hang heavy, hot, hairy hides on them. (p.99)

OMITTED

“Berbat sırıklar!” demiş Taffy. “Ağır, sıcak ve kıllı kıyafetleri bu sırıklara asmaktan nefret ediyorum.” (p.135)

In the story How the Alphabet Was Made, Taffy, a little girl, creates the early version of the alphabet based on a game that she plays with her father. In this part of the story, Taffy’s father reminds her of the fact that some letters that she created refer to dryingpoles although she used to think that they would refer to dinner. In this example, she is disappointed and angry about her confusion of some letters and their meanings. The alliteration of “-h” sound is used in the source text. Unlike the alliteration example presented in Table 7, this particular use of alliteration is not preserved in stylistic terms. Kovulmaz omits the whole sentence in her translation. It is believed that the translator prefers to omit the sentence rather than offering a literal translation considering the fact that this particular sentence does not have any conceptual importance for the course of the story. In this sense, it can be assumed that the translator is aware of the specific figure of speech used in this example, yet could not overcome the challenge of translating this stylistic feature to achieve the aesthetic function. The second translation, on the other hand, is the literal translation of the source text and semantically correct without any omissions. However, alliteration is not reflected as a figure of sound; yet the expressive purpose of the source text is preserved rather than the aesthetic function.

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Table 9. Alliteration: Example 3

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

....gölgelerle dalga ...they saw a great, high, tall ...gölgelerle lekelenmiş, dalga, benekli, forest full of tree trunks beneklenmiş, alacalanmış, alacalı bulacalı, all “sclusively speckled and bulacalanmış, noktalanmış, çizikli mizikli, dallarla sprottled and sprottled and çizgilenmiş, çiziklenmiş, yapraklarla, yüksek dotted and splashed and taralanmış ve karalanmış slashed and hatched and cross- yapraklar, büyük ve yüksek ve büyük ağaçlarla dolu bir ormana hatched with shadows. (p.53) ağaçlarla dolu bir orman varmışlar (p.43) görmüşler. (p.20) In the story How the Leopard Got His Spots, all other animals decide to hide in a forest in shadows to escape from the Leopard. In this part of the story, the Leopard searches for these animals to hunt and this sentence in the example expresses the features of the forest hiding the animals with a special emphasis on the shadows. The alliteration of “-s”, “-sh” and “-ch” sounds at the beginning of the words brings crackling and rustling sounds as well as shadow images of a forest. In Turkish, the retention of “-sh” sound could bring the same effect. To preserve this sound effect requires a free translation approach as Newmark suggests (1988), “in many cases, it is not possible to ‘translate’ sound-effects unless one transfers the relevant language units” (p.42). The translators are expected to choose between either comprising the meaning or the sound effect in their strategy preference. In the first translation, compensation strategy is applied since the sound effect is reflected elsewhere in translation. In the second translation, on the other hand, a source-oriented approach is adopted by prioritizing the expressive purpose of the source text which indicates that the sound effect is compromised. The repetitive use of “-li”, “-lı” suffixes applied by Yıldırım seems to be a solution for the rhyming effect, yet does not preserve the alliteration effect.

3.4. Onomatopoeic words The use of onomatopoeic words brings contribution to the read-aloud feature of children’s books. Onomatopoeia, also known as echoism, “designates a word, or a combination of words, whose sound seems to duplicate the sound it denotes: “hiss,” “buzz,” “rattle,” “bang”” (Abrams & Harpham, 2012, p. 264). Onomatopoeia, like other uses of sound, can also bring sensory experience to young readers. Translation of such vivid sounds is thus important to maintain this experience for children of the target culture as well. Table 10. Onomatopoeic words: Example 1

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

..he was so proud of, puffing up, puffing up into a great big lolloping humph. (p.22)

...gurur duyduğu o dümdüz sırtı puf! diye balon gibi şişmiş şişmiş ve kocaman içi boş bir hörgüce dönüşüvermiş. (p.9)

..o çok gurur duyduğu dümdüz sırtı şişmiş şişmiş ve koca bir hörgüce dönüşüvermiş. (p.29)


The story How the Camel Got His Hump is about a lazy Camel that never wants to work for anything and replies any request with “Humph!”, and is eventually punished with a hump to carry on his back. This example is taken from the part of the story that explains the moment when the hump appears on the back of the Camel. The phrase, “puffing up” was repeated and used in “-ing” form to imply the gradual raising of the Camel’s hump. The onomatopoeic word, puffing up, can be literally translated into Turkish with the same sound “puf”. This exact equivalence is used in the first translation ensuring both sound effect and semantic accuracy. On the other hand, as can be understood from the proclamation mark used right after the word gives the meaning that the hump appeared all of a sudden. However, the emphasis is on the gradation of its appearance. The same gradation effect could have been reflected by multiple use of “puf”. In the second translation, onomatopoeic word is omitted from the sentence. In this sense, the first translation seems to prioritize the aesthetic function of the source text while the second translation focuses on the expressive purpose. Table 11. Onomatopoeic words: Example 2

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

.. the Crocodile let go of Elephant’s Child ‘s nose with a plop that you can hear…(p.48)

…Timsah, Çocuk Fil’in burnunu … yankılanan bir ‘cup’ sesiyle bırakıvermiş. (p. 34)

Timsah, Çocuk Fil’in burnunu öyle bir bırakmış ki, .... ‘şlop’ diye bir ses yankılanmış. (p.64)

In this example taken from the story The Elephant’s Child, short nose of the curious Elephant’s Child is held and pulled by the Crocodile that wants to have the Elephant’s Child for dinner. The sound “plop” is used as an onomatopoeic word which refers to the sound when a stretching nose is dropped. Accordingly, both translators preserve the onomatopoeic word, “plop” in the source text. Turkish equivalents of “plop”, are found as “cup” and “şlop” in translations. In the first translation, the strategy can be defined as the replacement of the lexical item used in the source text with a more common version in the target culture (Newmark, 1988, p. 202). The second translation, on the other hand, sets an example for the modification of the lexical item which corresponds to the exact sound in the target language. Although the translation strategies applied by the translators differ, the focus of both of the translation is on the preservation of the aesthetic function of the source text.

3.5. Other Sounds One of the examples for language play contributing to the read-aloud characteristics of the source text can be found in the story titled Elephant’s Child in the book. The

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sentence presented in the table below is what the Elephant’s Child says when he is in pain with his nose being held and pulled. To give this sound effect, the translators are expected to alter some letters in Turkish as well. Table 12. Other Sounds: Example 1

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

“This is too butch for be!” “Mu menim için çok fazla…” (p.48) (p.34)

Yıldırım/2012 “Yeter artık dayanamıyorum…” (p.63)

In the first translation, the translator applies the substitution strategy by replacing the proper “b” sound with “-m” sound to give the same effect of speaking through nose. The sound effect was reflected on the word “this” instead of “much” in translation which indicates the use of compensation strategy as well. Accordingly, Kovulmaz seems to preserve the aesthetic function of the source text by creating the same sound-effect in Turkish translation. On the other hand, this particular figure of sound is completely lost in the second translation since the deliberately wrong spelling of “much” and “me” is corrected and no change can be found in any proper letters. Newmark (1998) suggests: “In principle, the translator’s duty is to correct any mistakes of fact in the original and to comment separately on any improbability, particularly on matters of consequence, such as statistics, experimental work, etc., and prejudice” (p. 209). However, the deliberate mispronunciation creates a reading-aloud effect which should be maintained in translation as well. In this sense, the semantically accurate translation of Yıldırım erases this particular characteristic of the given sentence. The motivation behind the translation choice of Yıldırım may be related to the target audience of the publishing. The second translator is believed to fix the deliberate mistake in this sentence not to set a wrong example for younger readers of the book by sacrificing the sound effect which can help younger readers understand the particular concept better while listening to the book being read-aloud. Table 13. Other Sounds: Example 2

Kipling/1994

Kovulmaz/2007

Yıldırım/2012

so you mustn’t be ‘fended. Are you ‘fended?’ (p.83)

O yüzden darılma. Darılmadın değil mi? (p.65)

O yüzden sakın küsme. Küsmedin değil mi? (p.113)

Another example for the figure of sound applied in the book is related to the use of faulty language. In the story titled How the First Letter was Written, little girl Taffy speaks a faulty language full of errors. In reading of the story, these errors seem funny, yet


reading-aloud these sentences creates a natural sound. In this example, contrary to the translation strategy applied in the previous deliberate mispronunciation, the deliberate error in the source text may not be suitable to be transferred as an error. Since Turkish language has the same spelling as the written form, the recreation of this natural sound can be regarded unnecessary. The translators do not seem to make an effort to keep this style regarding the fact that there is no difference between the reading and writing form of the Turkish meaning of the faulty word used in the source text. Consequently, both of the translators achieve the accurate equivalence with a target-oriented approach considering this main lexical feature of Turkish language.

4. Discussion As presented in the examples above, the translators adopt a variety of strategies to cope with the problems concerning translation of sound effects in target language. In the examples of repetition, the translators seem to hesitate to preserve the repetition in their translations (see Table 1) unless the repeated phrase/structure sounds natural in target language (Table 3). As for the strategy use, substitution is applied by both of the translators for reproducing the repetition in target texts. In the translation of rhyme, Kovulmaz prioritizes the aesthetic function of the source text by preserving the rhyming effect (see Table 4 and 6) through the use of substitution strategy while Yıldırım prefers a more literal translation approach (see Table 4) or to omit the rhyme (see Table 6). In the example presented in Table 5, on the other hand, the expressive purpose of the source text seems to be more important for the translators since they prioritize rendering the message rather than preserving the rhyming effect. In the examples of alliteration, Kovulmaz preserves the aesthetic function of the source text through the use of the strategies of the substitution (see Table 7) and compensation (see Table 9), respectively. On the other hand, she prefers to omit the sentence having the alliteration effect in the next example (Table 8). The translator’s choice to omit the sentence rather than the literal translation indicates that the translator is aware of this specific use of sound effect, yet she was unable to bring a solution. In this sense, Kovulmaz seems to prioritize the aesthetic function of the source text in terms of the translation of alliteration, and her decisions are consistent in this regard. On the other hand, Yıldırım’s decisions seem to be inconsistent since she preserves the alliteration effect in the first example (see Table 7), yet remains insensitive to the same sound effect in two other examples (see Table 8 and Table 9). Kovulmaz’s translation decisions are more consistent in terms of the translation of onomatopoeic words as well since she preserves the aesthetic function in both examples (see Table 10 and Table 11) while Yıldırım’s translation strategies are inconsistent since she reflects the use of onomatopoeic word in her translation (see Table 11) through modification strategy while she omits the sound effect in another example (see Table 10).

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As presented in Table 12, Yıldırım does not preserve the sound effect as she prefers literal translation while Kovulmaz prioritizes the aesthetic function of the source text through the use of substitution and compensation strategies. In the example presented in Table 13, both of the translators prefer literal translation considering the lexical features of the target language in their translations. Within the light of the critical analysis of the translators’ decisions and the strategies they apply for the translation of sound effects, it can be seen that Kovulmaz has more focus on the aesthetic function of the source text, preserves most of the sound effects in her translation by applying the strategies of substitution, compensation, replacement and omission and has more consistent translation decisions regarding her overall translation approach. On the other hand, Yıldırım’s main focus is found to preserve the expressive purpose of the source text since she mostly prefers literal translation rather than reproducing the sound effects in the target language. However, there are also some examples where she applies certain strategies such as modification and substitution to reflect the sound effects. In this sense, her translation decisions are relatively more inconsistent compared to Kovulmaz’s.

5. Conclusion One of the most outstanding stylistic means applied in children’s literature is the use of sound effects such as repetition, rhyme and onomatopoeia. To offer a more enjoyable reading activity for young children by activating the read-aloud feature, to attract the attention of readers, to raise a linguistic awareness as well as to improve the vocabulary knowledge of children are a few examples for the functions of sound effects in children’s books. The use of these stylistic units makes products of children’s books more challenging for translators. The translation of sound effects, as Billiani puts forth (2012, p.32); “requires a considerable degree of linguistic creativity on the part of the translator”. Just So Stories, which is one of the successful examples of the children’s literature with its read-aloud, dual readership features and many other stylistic characteristics, embodies the sound effects as signatures of the author and retention of these effects in translation is important to reflect the author’s style as well as to ensure the various functions of the figurative language in use. This study was conducted with a specific focus on sound effects being among the most important stylistic features of a literary text in children’s literature. Selected examples for six different categories of sound effects including repetition, rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeic words and other sounds were analyzed in two Turkish translations of Just So Stories taking stand from the strategies suggested by Newmark (1988) particularly for the translation of sound effects. In conclusion, the most commonly applied strategy for the translation of sound effects was found to be substitution which was followed by omission, literal translation, compensation, replacement and modification. According to the analyses conducted on the problematic examples as presented in the tables, the first translation was found to be more sensitive to figure of sound while the


retranslation was found to disregard most sound effects through omission and produced a naturally reading Turkish text which lacks literary style of the author. In this sense, it can be concluded that the first translation achieved to preserve the aesthetic function of the source text and the second translation was more focused on the expressive function of the text. This paper aims to contribute to the stylistic discussions in the translation of children’s literature with a praised example of the genre. Just So Stories having been the subject of a few academic and literary studies all around the world remains untouched in Turkish literary and translation studies as well. It is believed that this paper will lead to more translation analyses on the book in terms of cultural elements, dualreadership, intertextuality and so on as well as contributing to the discussions on the translations of sound effects in literary works.

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