THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND STYLISTICS SYMPOSIUM TOOK PLACE AT IUE

There was a warm interest in the symposium organized by Izmir University of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Translation and Interpretation. Along with the universities in Turkey, linguists from the USA, Germany, Albania, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Estonia, Croatia, Yemen, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Israel, Russia and Thailand attended the symposium and presented papers. IUE Head of Department of Translation and Interpretation Asst. Prof. Neslihan Yetkiner stated that the symposium was very useful for providing international cooperation and scientific researches and encouraging young researches for making interdisciplinary studies.

There were also famous guests in the symposium. Buket Uzuner, the author whose books are translated into many languages made a presentation entitled “Literature Translation: As the Nightmare or the Survival of the Author”. Uzuner stated that each literary work was the book of both the author and the translator and said, “However, in each author there is a suspicion about the translator for being a betrayer. It is a little bit like the anxiety of a mother taking her child to nursery school. If they exploit the baby, s/he will not be able to tell it, but s/he will live with its bad effects throughout his/her life. The translator is not a betrayer; however, the only tool that the author uses to express him/her is the word. That’s why s/he fears.”

Poet Ataol Behramoğlu talked about the difficulties in translating a poem in his presentation entitled “Translating a Poem”. Behramoğlu stated that the translator had to make translation by hearing the inner voice of the poet and said “Translation determines the literature of a country. The most difficult one is poem, because, not all translators can reflect this meaning. We read horrible poem translations today. I think they should be a supervised.”