Intralingual Translation and Paratext: a Centennial Chase of Tevfik Fikret's Sermin

Abstract

The limited number of studies on intralingual translations reveals that the act of intralingual translation is named with different wording in the analysis of intralingual translations made from Ottoman into Turkish, and there is no agreement on its definition. The aim of this descriptive study is to shed light on the interventions made on diachronic intralingual translations both on intralingual and paratextual contexts and to follow the adventure of modernization through 30 different versions of Sermin (1914) by Tevfik Fikret, which constitutes one of the first children's poem books in the Turkish children's literature. The scrutiny of the intralingual translation strategies indicates that the apparent language modernization taking into account current linguistic features is not made on lexical and structure bases only, as the publishing house policies, pedagogical and ideological concerns have also a manipulative effect through paratextual elements in this process.