CREATIVITY IN TRANSLATION: TRANSLATION OF BOOK TITLES THROUGH MICRO STRATEGIES

Abstract

The first element that brings literary works together with the reader is the title of the work. In this
context, various translation strategies are used by translators, even for the translation of titles, in
order to attract the readers’ attention and to arouse curiosity about the text.
Accordingly, in this study, the titles of the books translated into English written by Ayşe Kulin,
Ahmet Ümit, Elif Şafak and Orhan Pamuk, the authors who are among the most widely read authors
of Turkey and has become well known abroad, have been examined in terms of Anne Schjoldager’s
micro strategies, which are listed as direct transfer, calque, direct translation, oblique translation, explicitation, paraphrase, condensation, adaptation, addition, substitution, deletion and permutation.
Schjoldager’s strategies were classified as creative and non-creative strategies by Holst (2010),
accordingly, all strategies except for direct transfer, calque, direct translation and oblique translation
were included in the scope of creative strategies. In this regard, it has been found out that in the
translation of the book titles, which is the subject of this study, the most utilized strategy is direct
translation and secondly paraphrase. In this context, it has been found out that the non-creative
translation strategy was used mainly in the translation of the book titles in terms of frequency of
use.