Hysteresis of translatorial habitus

a case study of Aziz Üstel's turkish translation of A clockwork orange

Hilal Erkazanci Durmuş

pp. 167-185

in: Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher, Hiroko Furukawa (eds), The Palgrave handbook of literary translation, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

This study seeks to reveal that the Turkish translation of A Clockwork Orange is indicative of the hysteresis of habitus experienced by Aziz Üstel, who translated Anthony Burgess' (1962) work in the aftermath of the 1971 military memorandum in Turkey. Üstel's discourse and stylistic choices reveal a mismatch between his habitus and the Turkish socio-political field that was reshaped after the memorandum. Erkazanci Durmuş" study also shows that Üstel's omission of Nadsat, a fictional anti-language, was an outcome of his secondary habitus rather than his abstention from recreating the brainwashing effect of Russian, once denounced as the language of communism in Turkey. Ultimately, the study underlines that Pierre Bourdieu's sociological concept of hysteresis helps the researcher examine translators' response to the changes in various fields.

Cited authors

Bourdieu Pierre