Body Part Terms in the Turkish Translations of English Bestsellers and Implications for TEFL

Similarities and differences across languages can be observed in the uses of body part terms (BPTs) to express meanings; therefore, BPTs are one of the best tools to compare and contrast languages. This study compared ve best-selling English books with their Turkish translations and identied the d...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cemal ÇAKIR
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ankara University 2017-12-01
Series:Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dtcfdergisi.ankara.edu.tr/index.php/dtcf/article/view/2023
Description
Summary:Similarities and differences across languages can be observed in the uses of body part terms (BPTs) to express meanings; therefore, BPTs are one of the best tools to compare and contrast languages. This study compared ve best-selling English books with their Turkish translations and identied the distribution of BPTs, and the similarities and differences in the non-literal uses of BPTs in both corpora. It particularly focussed on the English expressions containing no BPTs and their Turkish translations containing BPTs. For this purpose, rstly, a three-option multiple-choice translation test (Task A) was given to 100 English Language Teaching (ELT) program junior and senior students to crosscheck the BPT-containing Turkish translations of ten non-BPT-containing English sentences. Secondly, a different group of 100 native Turkish-speaking teachers of English translated the same ten non-BPT-containing English sentences into Turkish (Task B). Task B was given for a further crosscheck to see whether the use of BPTs in the Turkish translations reects a predilection of the translators or a general tendency of native speakers of Turkish. The results reveal that Turkish translations include more non-literally used BPTs than the original English books do. Task A and Task B results also present variation in the use of BPTS in translations. Turkish speakers' tendency to use more BPTs indicates that BPTs can be a criterion in the selection and design of materials to teach English to Turkishspeaking learners. Conceptual metaphor theory can provide TEFL with the framework for teaching the non-literal uses of BPTs and other linguistic metaphors.
ISSN:2459-0150