Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
New Publication: Translating and Adapting Romance Fiction
Schell argues that
a translation could be considered a type of invisible adaptation. In fact, global economic enterprises may actually prefer to downplay the "new readings" wrought by translation [...]. It falls to us to question the supposed transparency of translation and appreciate instead the ways in which a translation adapts the source-text. (160)Schell notes that cultural differences make
the social meaning of a novel's content inherently unstable. For example, because of differing cultural norms about adult children's relationship with their parents, the scene in which Cade defies his father for the sake of his wife might seem noteworthy to a Turkish reader but unremarkable to an American reader. In contrast, popular attitudes towards abortion are probably more conservative and conflicted in the United States than in the Republic of Turkey. (164)What is certain is that "Arda Gedik, the force behind HQN's Turkish publications for nearly two decades [until his death in 2011], saw these books as providing progressive role models" (169).
The "source-text" Schell chooses to analyse is Shirley Jump's Back to Mr. and Mrs. (2007) which was published in Turkey in "2010 as a 112-page novella" (162). The novel, like others chosen for translation and publication in Turkey, was selected "based on Amazon.com customer star ratings" (164) and the translation makes minor changes which, cumulatively, make the characters seem "less foreign" (166) to Turkish readers.
It also makes "small changes [which] consistently make the women more stereotypically feminine and less intelligent" (167) and ensures that the ageing heroine "conforms to beauty ideals" (168). Such changes are not, however, unique to Turkish translations: in France, for example, translated novels "often made the heroine less confident and experienced that in the source-text" (168).
The essay is relatively short and, in my opinion, well worth a read.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Recipients of RWA's 2011 Academic Research Grants
The Romance Writers of America have announced the recipients of the 2011 RWA Academic Research Grants, and I'd like to congratulate them. They are:
Dr. Heather Schell, George Washington UniversityIt's quite possible that Schell is going to focus exclusively on the reception of Harlequin romance "novels written by and for North American women" but that description doesn't apply to all Harlequin Mills & Boon romances.
Harlequins in Translation: the Turkish Experience of the American Romance Novel
Dr. Schell's project will examine the popularity of Harlequin romances in Turkey which, while a country with a secular government, is predominantly an Islamic culture. Schell will survey and interview Turkish women who read the romances in translation to learn how they receive and perceive these novels written by and for North American women. She intends to study this data and seek the answers to questions such as: “What accounts for the appeal of these books? Do relationship-dominated books challenge or reinforce international readers’ expectations of gender norms? Do they shape the readers’ beliefs about U.S. culture? Are these books seen as supporting or challenging Turkish cultural values?”
Harlequin's partner in Turkey is Ekip A.Ş and having taken a look at the website advertising Turkish Harlequins, it seems safe to say that not all of the authors whose works they are publishing are from the US. I can see titles by, among others, Kelly Hunter, Miranda Lee, and Nicola Marsh, all of whom are Australian. In the light of Juliet Flesch's From Australia with Love, which claims that Australian romance authors "speak with a voice that is distinctively Australian" (296), I'd be intrigued to discover whether Turkish women, reading the romances in translation, distinguish between or show a preference for, particular settings, or for authors of a particular nationality.
Drs. Joanna Gregson, Pacific Lutheran University, and Jennifer Lois, Western Washington University Craft and Career: the Gendered Culture of Romance Writers----
Employing an ethnographic methodology that involves field work, observation and interviews, Gregson and Lois are amassing data that they will then study to uncover the ways “writers construct romance, gender, and sexuality through their writing as well as how they experience their careers as women in ‘the most popular, least respected literary genre’ (Regis 2003: xi). This topic is one facet of their larger study, which Drs. Gregson and Lois position as the first social-scientific study of romance writers. “The primary objective of our research will be filling this gap in the scholarly literature by giving writers’ experiences the systematic, social-scientific attention they warrant.”
- Flesch, Juliet. From Australia with Love: A History of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels. Fremantle, Western Australia: Curtin U Books, 2004.
- Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2003.
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