Hybridity and (re)contextuality as a conceptual tool in Selma Ekrem's unveiled and its Turkish translation

Abstract

This study aims to identify and compare the signs of hybridity in immigration literature produced by a Turkish woman writer and its Turkish translation by delving into both texts as translation products. To this end, a comparative and critical approach is adopted to discover how textual and agential hybridity affects the translational aspects of both texts, which are (re)contextualized in the relevant culture. The main discussion revolves around whether the difference and/or hybridity is retained or neutralized in the texts and the mechanisms behind their (trans)formations. The corpus of this study is composed of two autobiographies: Unveiled (1930), written by Selma Ekrem in English, and its Turkish translation Peçeye Isyan: Namik Kemal'in Torununun Anilari [Rebellion against the Veil: Memoirs of Namik Kemal's Granddaughter] (1998), translated by Gül Çağali Güven. The study consists of four sections. The first section provides a literature review on the concepts of hybridity and (re)contextuality from a translational point of view. The second section elaborates critically on the concept of hybridity and proposes the stratification of hybridity into agential and textual levels. Agential hybridity lays the groundwork for an explanatory framework, which contributes to rationalizing the translation behaviors in both texts. The third section dwells on (re)contextualization as a conceptual tool for shaping the (trans)formation and reception of English writing in translation and Turkish translation. The fourth and last section concludes by providing some insights on interrelationship(s) between hybridity, (re)contextuality, and their repercussions for the concept of translation by focusing on Selma Ekrem, a Turkish woman and migrant in the 20th century, and her autobiographical works in English and Turkish as a case study through the lens of translation studies. It is revealed that writing in translation might be used as both an escape from one's "former home" and a gateway to resistance against Orientalist thinking, as well as a means of meeting the expectations of the same Orientalist thinking, which makes writing in translation a locus of tension. Drawing on (re)contextualizing practices, it is unraveled that the "same" work might be presented as different narratives in different cultural contexts. Therefore, the notion of hybridity as a textual property oscillates between the different contextual environments, and translating the writing in translation opens up another dimension to be explored, with its special implications for the (trans)formation of the hybrid text in a given culture. Future research may focus on other women writer/translators writing in translation. © Peter Lang GmbH. Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. Berlin 2021. All rights reserved.