The Chinese translation of Benim Adım Kırmızı by Orhan Pamuk through English :|a comparative stylistic analysis of the two translations and the Turkish source text

Abstract

Orhan Pamuk is one of the famous Turkish writers in the world, and his works have been translated into more than forty languages. However, all the Chinese translations of his novels were not rendered from the Turkish original. In order to analyze the style of Pamuk, this thesis examines one of his notable literary works Benim Adım Kırmızı and its English, as well as Chinese translations in the light of Foregrounding Theory through examples and commentary. Pamuk‘s "mixed style" not only reflects his points of view on the issue of the East and the West, but also creates the literary effects a nd imagery he expects. On the other hand, the English (Erdağ Göknar) and Chinese translators (Jia-shan Lee) hold different opinions on translation. They adopt different ways to deal with Pamuk‘s style during the translation process. While Göknar tries to create dissonant translation with the diversity of English vocabulary, Lee adopts idiomatic expressions in her translation. The objective of this thesis, therefore, is to analyze the extent of stylistic discrepancy between the Turkish original and the Chinese translation under the influence of the English trans lation, and to see if the Chinese translation has the potential of creating the same literary effects and imagery when directly translated form Turkish.