The Periodical as a Site of Translational Inquiry into Hollywood-Driven Vernacular Modernism: The Turkish Film Magazine Yıldız (1938–1954)

Abstract

Contemporary research in translation studies is marked by a focus on textual production in book form at the expense of other publishing genres (Santoyo 2006, p.15). The present study challenges this focus and centers on a ‘marginal’ genre: the periodical. Rather than considering the periodical as container of discrete elements, and construing translation and translators within it as detached from the surrounding context, the study sets out to introduce a broader perspective on the connections of translation and the periodical. It takes a Turkish film magazine, Yıldız, as its case study. In order to explore the links between the magazine and processes and products of translation, the study begins by presenting the methodological and conceptual tools that suggest themselves in a critical reading of the literature in translation studies and periodical studies.

It becomes clear that translation studies and periodical studies, as young and developing disciplines, have much to offer each other: while a Bakhtinian viewpoint proves a useful way of uncovering the heteroglossic, fragmentary, dialogic and derivative structure of the periodical, Philpotts’ (2013) periodical codes provides an invaluable analytical toolbox for exploring the position and function of translation in the periodical; the concepts suggested by Toury (1995), Lefevere (1992) and Tymoczko (2007) appear to be highly useful in explaining cross-cultural text productions in the magazine; while Even-Zohar’s (2010) and Bourdieu’s (1990) theorizations of culture serve to place the magazine and the translations in it in a larger historical and cultural context. The present study combines an empirical approach, based on archival research, with a deductive one that orders archival findings into a narrative. The periodical in question is approached both from diachronic and synchronic perspectives. While the diachronic approach reveals the patterns, echoes and cross-references in the internal web of the periodical, the synchronic approach allows us to delve into the periodical and to situate a single issue or genre within the context of the whole run of the periodical.

The findings of the study suggest that without a comprehensive perspective on the translational features of the magazine, it is impossible to arrive at a thorough understanding of it. It becomes apparent that translation was linked to Yıldız in a number of different ways and that translation, both as product and process, played a key role in the making and maintenance of the magazine. The examination of Yıldız further leads to an appreciation of the diverse translation practices carried out in the early cinematic repertoire in Turkey, provides insight into the “vernacular modernism” (Hansen 1999) constructed through these translations, and shows that the magazine as a translational product supported both American ‘transcultural’ planning and the “culture planning” (Even-Zohar 2010) that was taking place at that time in Turkey. One of the key general findings of the research is that the periodical as a genre may be linked to translation in a number of ways; another is that, due to the advantages the periodical possesses over the book genre, it is an invaluable source for tracing the role that translation and translators have played in culture over the course of history.