Translation of Idioms and Metaphors in Hasan Erkek’s Play Eşik: Difficulties and Solutions

Abstract

This paper presents a discussion of the strategies adopted to translate the idioms and metaphorsfrom Turkish into English in Hasan Erkek’s play Eşik. The translation of Eşik – translated into Englishas Threshold – provides a great many examples of linguistic devices, which led translators to adoptvarious translation decisions on the line between closeness to the original and closeness to thetarget culture. This study focuses on the idiomatic and metaphorical expressions that constituteddifficulties in the translation. For the purpose of this study, Baker’s (2017) typology of strategiesprovided a framework for explaining the translation decisions as this typology was specificallydeveloped for the translation of idioms and fixed expressions. In translating a play there arecertain factors such as making it performable for actors and making it immediatelyunderstandable for the audience. While moving back and forth between target- and sourceorientedness, the translation solutions were also required to set the balance betweenperformability and understandability. Thus, rather than opting for a general approach applicableto the whole text, the translators dealt with each specific case in its own right and in its specificcontext. In this paper, the various strategies used in the translation of the idiomatic andmetaphorical expressions in Eşik into English were analysed in consideration of Nord’sfunctionality and loyalty principles.