ABSTRACT
Scholarly studies on retranslation have so far disregarded readers’ perceptions. This chapter aims at filling this gap and explores the ways in which the readers’ perceptions on retranslation have changed over time in Turkey. To this end, selected reader’s letters published in the magazines Yedigün and Varlık between the 1930s and 1960s and readers’ comments that have appeared on online forums and blogs between 2011 and 2017 have been critically analyzed. The survey of letters readers sent to editors has disclosed that readers’ “habituses” toward retranslation shifted from indifference in the 1930s to intense interest in the 1950s. The transformation in this readerly habitus has continued in the 2010s on online forums and blogs, where readers announce their expectations and preferences about retranslation in a more elaborate way and discuss their options openly with other readers. Readers’ attitude toward retranslation has extended and diversified over this 80-year period. Having taken social, cultural, and literary conditions of the respective periods in Turkey into consideration, this chapter argues that readers’ attitudes toward retranslation have been transformed and restructured over time not only thanks to the technological developments providing more democratic online platforms but also to the expansion of the literary “field” the readers dwell in. This transformation in their habitus seems to consolidate the position of readers as indispensable agents in the retranslation process, and it underlines that their reactions, preferences, and expectations govern the publishers’ decisions in the literary field.
