Abstract
This article aims to examine Ayşe Kulin's novel Nefes Nefese (Last Train to Istanbul) and the gastronomic signs in the English translations of the novel within the context of semiotics of translation. One of the most widely read novelists of Turkish literature, especially in recent times, Kulin has penned dozens of novels, and some of them have been translated into English. Nefes Nefese is one such work of Kulin's that has been translated into English. This novel, and its English translations, contain a large number of cultural signs, among which gastronomic ones are particularly prominent. Works of literature lead the kind of texts which challenge and resist translation. Semiotics of translation, through the methods it suggests, leads the way for translators so that they can overcome such challenges. "Systematics of Designification in Translation", which Sündüz Öztürk Kasar has contributed to the field of semiotics of translation, guides both scholars and translators. There are nine designificative tendencies in this systematics. These tendencies range from "over-interpretation of the meaning" to "destruction of the meaning." The source text for Kulin's Nefes Nefese is the thirty-fourth edition of the novel published by Everest Yayınları in 2018. The 5th edition of the novel, translated into English by John W. Baker as Last Train to Istanbul and published, again, by Everest Yayınları, as well as the Amazon Crossing edition, dated 2013 and revised by the same translator, constitute the target texts. In this study, the source text, Nefes Nefese, will be referred to as "KM," the English translation by Everest Yayınları, Last Train to Istanbul, will be referred to as "EM-1," and the Amazon Crossing edition will be referred to as "EM-2." The signs related to gastronomy, identified in the source text and target texts, will be scrutinized in the context of the "Systematics of Designification in Translation" introduced by Öztürk Kasar within the framework of semiotics of translation.