REFLECTION+REPORT+1+BY+EZGİ+HAZAL+KÖK

= REFLECTION REPORTS ON PRESENTATIONS: =

==== **1. Meryem Lüleci's presentation:** Topic of her presentation is "//the problems of translation and translators in Turkey"//. Her first article is "Çevirmen Makine mi?" and her second article is "Türkiye'de çevirmen olmak". ==== ====In her first article presentation she discussed about the use of translation in terms of literary meaning because the author of the article did not talk about some techniques or approaches of translation, or problems of translation. The reason was that translators became unimportant when the word "translation" was used a lot. Meryem explained that the word "translation" made translator a machine or a labor serving for the sake of others. In fact, sometimes Turkish society put a limit to the issues that a translator might be engaged to. How a translator evaluates equaled to how the society evaluates him. She said that the author indicated that before Turkish Republic was founded, translator had an active roles. The reason was they did their best to produce well-written translated work and to affect or shape the society's culture in one way or another. But, after that they became a machine-like translator, who produced translations which weren't easy to read. Also they translated the texts mainly the word by word because they were afraid of translating at meaning level. So, the question was raised by the author was whether the translator really deserved respect or prestige.At this point, well-taught traslation theory might be a key role. Important things were, according to her, not only translating work at meaning level, but also reflecting what the text was trying to give at meaning level and affective level. That meant the translator needed to know language, text, linguistics, culture, history and geography. Then, she explained that translation was something that a translator put an effort in it.====

====In her second article presentation, she discussed about the importance of the name of the translator as the name of author of the book. She went on talking that an author could write the text well; however, if the translator did not do well job, readers did not want to read the text. Also, as in the previous article, she explained that translator was someone who knew the target and native language well, the society and the culture well, and terms used in a specific field. The author of the article implicated that a translater had to be someone who was not getting hungry since per month he earned just 600 tl, which was determined by the sale rate of the edition. Meryem also presented that there were some reasons why a translator did not make sufficient money. These were a lot of people knowing foreign language, a few press in the market, a few people reading a book, a lot of pirate book in the market and no legal commitee to protect his rights. Press companies did not want to work with experienced translators but unproffesional ones. She said that being a translator should be perceived as professional job, the companies should not try to make a profit over them ot manipulate their rights, and there should be some legal rights on translators.====

====In this presentation, I have learned how a translator is perceived in our society, which qualities a translator needs to have and what problems a translator confronts with in a very detail way. I agree that a translator should know culture, society, native and target languages, norms and terms in different fields well in order to produce translated work as equivalent as original one. The fact that a translator earns insufficient money is unfortunately true in our society since the companies hire people who are unqualified. The reason is that they give less money to them and at the same time they get the translated work to produce in the market. It is also sad but true that there are no legal rights for them to have a voice and defend theirselves under hard circumstances. So, there are some points that we need to pay attention here. These are to have educated people reading books in our society, to respect qualified translators having necessary skills and to make a law to protect their rights.====

==== Having read two of the articles about which you have written your report on, I can say that since the recent years in which we got the oppurtunity to meet the computational age, it has become very hard for the translators to feel as a "person" when they are doing their jobs. For example, think of google translator... there is no different between the google translator and a random human translator according to many random people out there.. What these two do are the same thing according to them. So why should be paying more to what they can already do themselves? Furthermore, you also mentioned that a translator should know the languages he's working on as his native ones, and he also should know about the norms and the cultures of the languages. I truely agree with these ideas.. I really wonder if Google translator knows the cultures, norms and the traditions of the nations where these languages are spoken a native one =)))). On the other hand, you also talked about the monthly income a translator gets. And as I have already talked about the same thing while writing a refelection report on your presentation, we need to get more people informed about this seriously in order to place these hard-workers into a higher poisitions. If they didn't exist, who was to create the bridge among the countries all around the world is what I'd like to ask people. ====

BY ERAY AKTAŞ
Eray, when I read your comment, I also wondered if Google really knows the culture :D I believe that knowing culture and traditions of any country makes translation better as Meryem and Hazal said in their presentations. Also, the translator is seen as a machine since s/he serves for others not for self. Moreover, in her presentation, she makes us aware that the difference between translators in past and in present. Now, it is claimed that the translators produce unreliable products and make translations just word for word. Therefore, as stated in the presentation, the translated should know the theory of translation.

**2. Tuna Tunalıoğulları's presentation:** Topic of her article presentation is "//What is translation?//"
==== Tuna talked about what translation was in a detail way. She gave us a definition used in her article. So, translation was work involving a transfer of meaning from one language to another. Also, she emphasized that translation had to communicate between languages. However, there was loss which was inevitable, according to the author of her article. Moreover, she told that the notion of meaning transfrence was unsatisfactory. Therefore, to article there were some points, which were emphasized. Furthermore,there were levels of equivalence, which a translator needed to consider before translating any work. These were phonology, morphemes and lexical items, sentences and semantics, which were at a formal level. Besides, the author stated that any actual use of language had to have pragmatic meaning to emphasize an act of communication in context, emotions, intentions, thoughts etc. Then, she focused on the difference between utterance and sentence, and between text and discourse. She explained different equivalences, which are required for well-translated work, in terms of meaning, pragmatics, functions and discourse. Then, she talked about effects of equivalence. So, she said that translation is the best which comes nearest to creating in its audience the same impression as was made by the original in its contemporaries. Also, she drew attention to come sorts of complications created by equivalent effect principle as a doctrine, which were identifying auidence, different effects of a literal translation on readers creating the same impression on the reader. What's more, she told that problem for attempts to deal with translation at different levels whether linguistic, semantic, or pragmatic was that rather than meaning being found at one level or another. Lastly she said that all types of translation equivalence were not equally relevant to all learners. So, learners's encounters with translation should follow a similary trajectory to translation theory. ====

==== I agree with that there can be loss when a translator translates a text since he should consider so many areas at the same time. So, he needs to identify which might come first. Here is the emphasis is semantics, which is meaning. You need to give as much as equivalant meaning to your readers in order to give same messages in the original text. Accordingly, learners should consider translation theory when they translate a text. I think the reason of importance of meaning and knowing translation theory is that we as a reader like reading texts which gives emotions and intentions to use. Otherwise, we are getting bored easily and we don't even want to have a look at the text since it becomes something vapid. ====

=== You wrote very detailed comment on Tuna's presentation. I totally agree with you and the article. A good translator should know both language very well. The structure of the language also important to give good impression for audiences. Text and discourse difference is very important especially for us as English teacher. As you all know we are potential translators for may people. Translation is a professional work, translator need to get professional education on it. Knowing a language in detailed way in terms of meaning, pragmatics, functions and semantics, emotions, context etc such as Tune mentioned before is very important points to be a good translator. To be able to give the same impression as the original one to the audience a translator should know both language and its cultural sides. Briefly, this is a professional work that you need to know its theories then, you can make practice on it. ===