Translating Istanbul: Divergent Voices in Travel Writing

Halise Gülmüş Sırkıntı

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.15.13

Authors

Halise Gülmüş Sırkıntı Marmara University, Istanbul https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6585-5961

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.15.13

Keywords:

translating cities, Istanbul, city as discourse, traduction en filigrane, the translator’s voice

Abstract

Intersemiotic research on urban discourse provides a dynamic perspective for interdisciplinary analysis, particularly within the context of Translation Studies. Drawing on Roland Barthes’s claim that the city is a “discourse” and Kevin Lynch’s notion that the image of the city is dynamic and influenced by the observer’s standpoint, in this study I examine three representations of Istanbul. Constantinople by Francis Marion Crawford, Letters from Constantinople by Georgina Adelaide Müller, and Constantinople: Old and New by H. G. Dwight are all treated here as examples of what Sündüz Öztürk Kasar terms traduction en filigrane (watermark translation). I also draw on Theo Hermans’s concept of “the translator’s voice” and adopt Bento’s categorization of tourist, traveler, and migrant travel writers to demonstrate how three distinct voices shape evolving interpretations of Istanbul through their authors’ unique experiences and backgrounds. Four recurring themes are identified across the travelogues: Galata as a site of cultural and social exchange, everyday life in Istanbul, the city’s mosques, and its cemeteries. Each translator leaves concrete “watermark” traces in their attempts to convey culturally embedded concepts to their audience; however, the extent and form of these traces vary depending on the translators’ level of cultural familiarity. This is particularly evident in Müller’s narrative, where the traces of traduction en filigrane are noticeably fewer; as a tourist translator with limited knowledge of the city and its traditions, she has fewer cultural elements to process and integrate into her text, which results in a more surface-level representation of Istanbul.

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Author Biography

Halise Gülmüş Sırkıntı, Marmara University, Istanbul

Halise Gülmüş Sırkıntı is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey. She holds a PhD (Yıldız Technical University), an MA (Istanbul University) and a BA (Marmara University), all in Translation Studies; in her doctorate she specialized in the semiotics of literary translation, on which many of her published articles and book chapters have centered; she has also written on translation criticism and feminist translation. Since 2019, she has taught undergraduate courses, including Literary Translation, Translation-Oriented Text Analysis, and Information Technologies for Translation. Her current project examines the representation of Turkish cuisine in British travelogues from a Translation Studies perspective.

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