Author(s): Bekir SAVAÅ
Reading is one of the most influential means of language development and literary works are the best examples of a language which can be used as means of language development both in pre-school period and after. Beside native works, there are translated literary works written both for children and adults. Child literature books are recommended by teachers to support language development of the students. However, translation of such books in Turkey are made regardless of the needs and reading competence levels of the readers and the textuality features of the original text such as cohesive ties. This causes ambiguity. Therefore, it becomes difficult for such literary works to function as means of language development. PISA test results of 4th grade Turkish students who have been taking last places among other countries in reading comprehension prove this. In our research, to describe the problem and make suggestions for solution, we made use of theories from related fields such as Toury’s “Target-oriented translation theory” and Halliday and Hasan’s “Cohesion theory”. We applied a reading-comprehension test to evaluate the influence of problematic parts of translated readers on students. We also made use of a short questionnaire to learn students’ opinions about such problematic uses of language in children’s literary works. This survey revealed that learners often encountered expressions that causes ambiguity in the translated stories they read, but there was not much reduction in their desire to read such books. As a result of the research, we concluded that carelessly translated readers cause ambiguity due to loss of textual ties and this decreases the amount of contribution they are expected to make to language development of the target group of readers.
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