INTRA as a tool for comprehensibility

Abstract

This article aims to discuss intralingual translation based on the concept of comprehensibility. The framework of the study will be drawn by three articles: “Optimising comprehensibility in interlingual translation: The need for intralingual translation” by Matilde Nisbeth Jensen (2015), “Retranslation (re)visited” by Isabelle Desmidt (2009) and “Intralingual translation: An attempt at description” by Karen Korning Zethsen (2009) which will serve as the reference point. The idea of intralingual translation as a tool that optimizes comprehensibility in interlingual translation put forward by Matilde Nisbeth Jensen will be used as the starting point, whereas Isabelle Desmidt’s study, which questions the retranslation hypothesis developed by Antoine Berman (1990), will serve as the point of departure for the discussion in this paper. This article which argues that each intralingual translation following the very first translation is a retranslation, just like in the case of interlingual translation, is based on the view that comprehensibility, which is considered mainly within the framework of functional texts, can be said to be also one of the main factors driving intralingual translation of old Turkish classics. The paper that selects Gulyabani by Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar (1912) as its object of study discusses the intralingual translation in Turkey from the perspective of retranslation hypothesis, taking comprehensibility as the benchmark to evaluate the ‘distance’ between a literary source text and its retranslations.