I will try to present a critical analysis of Nil Alt's translation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adam, published in 2017 by the Alfa publishing houseDi' no al plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First, I would like to mention the book. As the name suggests, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a guide on how to hitchhike across the galaxy. The book was actually a 1978 radio show, and after the acclaim the show got, Adams wrote a book about it in 1979. It's actually "a five-volume trilogy" as Adams says (but I'll only analyze the first five chapters of the first book). The book, or radio series, has also become a play, a TV series, a computer game and a film. Furthermore, in Turkey, the book has been published several times, including the translation by Saluki Budak for Edesos Publishing in 1991, the translation by Serhat Dalkır for Sarmal Publishing in 1996 – which was translated as Her Otostopçunun Galaksi Rehberi – and the translation by Nil Alt for Kabalcı Publishing in 2003 – which was republished in 2017 by Alfa Publishing. The protagonist of the book is Arthur Dent, a "typical" English man who is not a hero, rather a boring person. The story begins on an ordinary Thursday lunchtime, with several council officials coming to Arthur's house to say that his house would be demolished because a new road was to pass through it. However, what really matters is that the Vogons, an alien race, come to demolish the Earth for the exact same reason, because an intergalactic ring road must be built. Then, Earth is destroyed, and luckily, Arthur's friend turns out to be an alien, they hitch a ride together on a spaceship, and then Arthur becomes the last living Earthling. The rest are just crazy adventures. When it was published, the book was a huge success, many people read it and it influenced many things. For example, Altavista's first translation service was called Babel Fish because in the book there is a real fish that you can put in your ear to translate all known languages. The band Radiohead named one of their songs after Marvin, a depressed robot in the book, as Paranoid Android. Also, an asteroid is named after Arthur Dent. Finally, according to Google, the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42, just like in the book. Before I begin my analysis, I would like to say a few words about the author Douglas Adams and the translator Nil Alt. In reality there would be many things to say about Douglas Adams, but let's briefly say that he is essentially a genius who died very young. He was a writer and editor of the Doctor Who series. He has a very specific writing style and sense of humor, and what he does is manage to combine things that you would never imagine together in a very natural and funny way. He is also the author of Dirk Gently's Wholistic Detective Agency. On the other hand, translator Nil Alt graduated from Robert College and then Istanbul University. He received his Master's degree from Bogazici University, in translation and interpretation studies. He has translated many novels, essays and children's books. In carrying out my analysis, I will try to adopt the path suggested by Van der Broeck, even if I mistakenly read the translated version first. I will therefore start by analyzing the stylistic characteristics of the source text, and then carry out a comparative analysis to understand why the translator made certain choices. Douglas Adams is an author who uses repetition a lot, sometimes he changes a sentence a little and then reiterates or repeats it. Onomatopoeias also have a great place in the book. Furthermore, the book contains a lotsatire, especially on human nature; the satire in the book is sometimes too obvious, sometimes not. Adams also combines casual language and scientific language, and is really good at constructing simple and monotonous sentences, but adds a surprise effect with shocking twists. Additionally, it creates successful dialogues between characters. Finally, the book also includes Vogon poetry, which according to The Guide is the third terrible thing in the entire galaxy. After having identified the stylistic features of the text, we can now proceed to the comparative analysis. First, I will examine how the translator handled repetitions in the text:ST: “There was a terrible, horrible silence. TT: “Koruna bir sézlik oldu. There was a terrible, horrible noise. Korkunç bir gürültü oldu.There was a terrible, horrible silence. Korkunç bir sézlik oldu.”In this part, Adams repeats almost the same phrase three times. Nil Alt doesn't make many changes in the translation and even uses the same repetition. However, I don't think “gürültü olmak” sounds natural in Turkish.ST: “…a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred and the idea was lost forever.”TT: “…aptal bir felaket meydana geldi ve fikir sonsuza dek yitip gitti. ”ST: “But it's the story of that terrible stupid catastrophe…”TT: “Ama o korkunç, aptal felaketin…”ST: “…and until the terrible catastrophe occurred…”TT: “…ve o korkunç felaket meydana gelene dek …ST: “But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday…” TT: “Ama o korkunç, aptal perşembenin…” In these sentences, Nil Alt once again chooses to protect the repetition effect; however, it does so in an inconsistent manner. For “terrible stupid catastrophe” use “aptal”, “korkunç” and “korkunç, aptal”. Maybe it would be better if he translated everything the same way.ST: “…and he was also deaf and dumb.”TT: “…üstelik sağır ve dilsiz birini seçmiştim.”ST: “…who also turned out to be deaf and dumb” stupid.”TT : “…ama o da sağır ve dilsiz çıkınca…”ST: “…the third man I spoke to turned out to be deaf and dumb and also blind…”TT: “…üçüncü adam da sağır ve dilsiz, üstelik de kör çıkınca …”In this example, Nil Alt conveys the repetition effect again, but somewhat euphemizes the sentences. It may be due to the fact that if someone calls a deaf person “stupid,” they may experience a severe reaction. I think this is why instead of saying “sağır ve aptal”, he preferred to say “sağır ve dilsiz”. Now I will focus on how the translator conveyed the general style of the original text and why he made certain word choices.ST: "He had simply got the dominant form of life wrong."TT: "Ama üzerinde araştırma yaptığı egemen canlı türünün seçimi hakkında hata yapmıştı."Although the translation contains a misinterpretation, I do not intend to hunt for errors. Here I want to draw attention to the fact that the translator chose to explain the sentence instead of leaving it short like the original, and added the part "üzerinde araştırma yaptığı", even though it was clear that the text was talking about a "search" in the previous sentence.ST: "The ships were suspended in the sky in much the same way as bricks."TT: "Gemiler, tuğlaların asla duramayacağı gibi gökyüzünde asılı duruyorlardı."I especially wanted to add this sentence in my article because I believe that this is one of the sentences that clearly shows Douglas Adams' style and how unpredictable it is. Even if this sentence seems impossible to translate – or impossible to create the same effect, let's say – I think Nil Alt managed to translate it well. The phrase has actually lost its effect slightly, but I can say that it is a successful translation which transfers the correct meaning and much of the effect.ST: “'Six pints of bitters', said Ford Prefect…”TT “'Altı tane sert Arjantin bira,' dedi Ford Prefect…”In this sentence, Nil Alt chose to domesticate the beer part because only in Turkey do people call a70 cl beer glass “Arjantin”. Now I will look at the translation of “people” as “halk”.ST: “…most of the people in it were unhappy most of the time.”TT: “Üzerinde, most of the people were unhappy most of the time.” time."ST: "...many people were bad and most of them were unhappy, even those with digital watches."TT: "...most people were poor and most of them were unhappy , even those with wristwatches are digital." ST: "...for saying how nice it would be to be kind to people, for a change..." TT: "...for saying how nice it would be to treat people well people from now on…”Nil Alt chose to translate “people” as “public”. However, when I checked TDK's definition of “public,” all definitions included one common word: country – country. Therefore, we can say that being a “people” is somehow linked to living in the same country or belonging to a nation. However, in the original text, the intended meaning includes all people living on Earth, namely humans. Even though e (2) looks nice and natural, it sounds somewhat unnatural. Instead of saying “people”, “those who live” or “living creatures” might be a better option. I will now proceed to analyze the translation of the invented names. Celestial Home Care Omnibus - Fifty More Things to Do in Zero Gravity – Fifty-three more things to do in Zero Gravity Where did God go wrong? – Where did God go wrong? More of God's Greatest Mistakes – Who Is This Person of God Anyway? – Who is this God? Encyclopedia Galactica – Main Galactica Encyclopedia Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster – Pan Galactic Gargle Bomb The President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council – President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Honor BoardFrom these examples, it is seen that Nil Alt preferred taming most of the time For example, it translates “Encyclopedia Galactica” – a reference to the Encyclopedia Britannica – as “Ana Galactica Encyclopedia”, since the popular version of the real encyclopedia in Turkey was Ana Britannica. On the other hand, the original text itself has a somewhat "alienating" effect, since the elements mentioned are already foreign to all the peoples of the Earth. Nil Alt successfully manages to convey this “foreign” effect in Turkey while preserving its alliterations, assonances and wordplay – as in the example of “Pan galactic gargle blaster – Pan galactic gargle bomb”. Finally, I'll take a look at the translation of Vogon poetry in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the book, Vogon poetry creates a humorous effect. It has correct grammar, you can identify verbs and nouns; however, the words are mostly made up and the "real" words used are usually words we are not used to seeing used together urinations are for me... Or spotted insect grunting, like so many chatter spots on a sick bee ." "Don't do it!" "Though it is difficult, find it, please, and cast a ring of crumpled and shining sefart on me. Otherwise I'll make you fall to pieces with my crackling that makes you sick. Let's see if I give up." In the original text, the humorous effect is created by the use of unfamiliar,. or rather not real words. In both examples, Adams constantly uses those strange words to create Vogon poetry. When examining the translation, we see once again that Nil Alt uses words that do not usually go together. However, while in the first example he only uses real words that are actually familiar to us, in the second example he begins to use made-up words on consecutive pages. Therefore, this situation creates an inconsistency. Please note: this is just an example. Get a personalized article from our writers now.