ABSTRACT

Turkish literature’s great author Orhan Kemal narrates a variety of human conditions with a realistic and plain style through prison atmosphere and relations between prisoners in his work 72. Ward that was written in the form of long narrative in 1954. Author’s language is a language of lives struggling with poverty and lack of education and a narrative of adventure for survival. It is a discourse of convicts coming together as a result of various crimes such as robbery and murder and also a description of people fighting hopelessly for living and losing human values. The work in question is embellished with formulaic language units such as slang, idiom and proverb and cultural expressions intensively. In this way, it takes the characteristics of a realistic narrative. When it comes to translate such an affluent narrative, several difficulties are likely to come out in translation process. In this study, idioms in the source text and the target text called The Prisoners are embraced comparatively. In the theoretical framework, strategies in relation to idiom translation proposed by researcher Mona Baker (1992/2006) are addressed. In this part, while the difficulties in idiom translation are emphasized, the strategies that might be used in idiom translation are included as well. Afterwards, traces of translator’s presence with her/his own discourse or narration are focused hearkening to “translator’s voice” (Theo Hermans, 1996). As a result of analysis, evaluations are made concerning translator decisions about using idiom translation strategies and the translation practice is tried to be described. Additionally, besides the voice of writer, the translator’s voice in the translated text is drawn attention in the light of translator decisions and thus, whether the translator can be a re-narrator of text or not is discussed.