Author(s): Arsun URAS YILMAZ, Serpil YAVUZ ÃZKAYA
The identities of the translators and the social context in which they live and work have an important place in translation history. The aim of this study is to reveal the translators’ identity by making use of their translational choices and biographical information and to contribute to translation history. The corpus of this study includes American writer Louisa May Alcott’s Good Wives and its two Turkish translations by Belk?s Sami (Boyar) (1930) and Necmettin Ar?kan (1966). Sami’s translation is the first translation of the work into Turkish. Ar?kan’s is the second translation. Anthony Pym’s translation historiography constitutes the theoretical framework of the study. The questions “who translated what, how, where, when, for whom and with what effect” in line with “translation archeology”, the effects of the translators in line with “historical criticism” and the reasons “why archeological artefacts occurred when and where they did” in line with “explanation” are discussed according to Pym’s model which treats translators as effective social actors. In the analysis, it has been observed that Sami, who went to American College for Girls, reflected American culture, transferred and explained the religious terms in her translation while Ar?kan, as an educator, borrowed and explained foreign terms in his translation. It can be said that the translators made some choices reflecting their aims which include social responsibility and missionary. In conclusion, the translators appeared as effective social actors.
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