The Translation Department of the Presidency's Directorate of Communications hosted a "Workshop on Communication and Translation" with the theme "Building a Unified Discourse and Common Language" on December 15 in Ankara.
The workshop held by the Directorate of Communications to raise awareness in the fields of communication, media, and translation drew great attention. At the Workshop, which drew 328 participants from 38 universities and 65 public institutions and organizations, 18 speakers gave presentations in four sessions titled "Unity of Discourse and Terminology Studies," "Translation and Terminology Studies in Public Institutions," "Media and Press Translation," and "Political Language and Translation of Diplomatic Texts."
The Workshop's opening remarks were delivered by the Director of Communications Prof. Fahrettin Altun, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Faruk Kaymakçı, and Anadolu Agency Chairman of the Board and Director General Serdar Karagöz.
In the first session titled "Unity of Discourse and Terminology Studies" following the opening speeches, Prof. Mine Yazıcı from Istanbul University and Prof. Füsun Ataseven from Bilkent University provided great insight into the role of translation in studies aimed at generating terms, emphasizing the importance of standardization efforts and cooperation with the globalizing world as wells as gaining expertise.
The second session of the Workshop focused on "Translation and Terminology Studies in Public Institutions". Faculty Member with PhD Şaban Çobanoğlu from Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University was the first speaker in the session, which was moderated by Prof. Füsun Ataseven from Bilkent University. Çobanoğlu argued that discourse should be evaluated together with meaning, context and perception by drawing a framework for discourse analysis. Furthermore, he underlined that the source and recipient's backgrounds, perceptual capability, cultural and ideological framework should all be considered. In the second presentation, Oğuz Güner, Head of the Translation Department of the Directorate of Communications addressed the Term Bank for Public Institutions, which was introduced to build a unified discourse and common language in translation among public institutions, as well as to ensure standardization. Bahar Uysal, Head of the Department of EU Law and Translation of the Directorate for EU Affairs, delivered the session’s third presentation, discussing translation and revision procedures carried out as part of harmonisation with EU legislation, and shared essential information about the Guide for the Translation of the EU Acts as well as the Directorate for EU Affairs Terminology Database, TermAB, both of which are EU acquis translation projects. In the same session, Assoc. Prof. Oktay Eser gave a presentation titled "Employment of Translators in Public Institutions and Sustainability: The Australian Case" about a case study on the employment of translators, and shared the country’s the pre-employment procedures, as well as its regulations and standards. Deniz Kurmel, Research Assistant with PhD from Yıldız Technical University, shared information on performing term studies, transferring terminological data to digital environment as well as term databases, and term banks in the context of terminology methods. Kurmel also emphasised the importance of establishing a terminology centre that would organise term studies conducted by public institutions, universities and the private sector through collaboration, underlining the importance of disseminating terminology studies performed at the institutional level.
Prof. Alev Bulut from Istanbul University moderated the third session of the workshop under the theme Media Translation. In this session, Assoc. Prof. Zeynep Oral and Assoc. Prof. Hilal Erkazancı Durmuş from Hacettepe University's Department of Translation and Interpreting addressed media translation, media translation skills, and the content of media translation training in various countries and cultures. They covered media translation from an educational perspective, discussing the scope of media translation training in Hacettepe University’s Department of Translation and Interpreting, as well as in various other countries and cultures. They pointed out that process-oriented media translation focused on the expectations of the target audience and employers as well as sociocultural and ideological dimensions of media translation while product-oriented media translation focused on the text written once again during the translation and examined the way it was received from the media and target audience. Nevzat Memet from TRT External Services Department provided information on www.trtvotworld.com during his presentation titled "Following the Recent Developments from a Foreign Source in Your Mother-Tongue" and indicated that media translation is essential for radio and web broadcasts, which are made in 37 languages. He pointed out that one of the major risks in translating news is the delicate line between translation and how the translator interprets it, and the most fundamental difference between news translation and traditional translation elements is that there is no single source material, which may pose a risk due to news sources holding varied ideologies; therefore, sources should be carefully selected. During the same session, Umur Koçak Semiz from Anadolu Agency addressed the translation issue within Anadolu Agency. In her presentation, Semiz highlighted the practical details of news translation and challenges she had in her professional life, demonstrating how critical word choices and context were in the news jargon. In her presentation, Research Assistant with PhD Zeynep Görgüler from Yıldız Technical University emphasised how new media-based communication networks and network society re-established translation practice and translator identity. According to Görgüler, the transfer of translation practices to the digital world resulted in the formation of new translation practices, which necessitated an integrated and dialectic approach for translation and translator. During the presentation titled "International Media Monitoring and Press Translation in the Context of the State Information System," Büşra Karaduman Aktuna, Head of the Department of Press and Publications of the Presidency's Directorate of Communications and the session's final speaker, discussed the history of the Directorate of Communications, which took over the tasks of the Prime Ministry's Directorate General of Press and Information, which had a history dating back to 1920. Aktuna also talked about the Directorate of Communications' State Information System (DES), a digital archive with nearly one million and 250 thousand news translations, and said that a section of DES had recently been opened to public access.
The fourth session, titled Political Language and Translation of Diplomatic Texts, was moderated by Ambassador Osman Yavuzalp, Head of the Directorate of Translation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. First of all, Gevher Ebru Çevikoğlu, from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, discussed the competencies and qualifications that translators in the public sector should possess during her presentation on the roles and responsibilities of translators in public institutions engaged in diplomacy. She emphasised how the use and translation of diplomatic language require particular sensitivity and knowledge, which translators in the public sector must adapt to. Then, Assoc. Prof. Ayşe Şirin Okyayuz and Dr. Sinem Sancaktaroğlu Bozkurt from Hacettepe University touched upon the responsibilities of translators in translating diplomatic texts in their presentation titled "Training on Translation of Political and Diplomatic Texts". They emphasised the importance of the knowledge, formation, skills, and teamwork skills of those working in the field and, in short, the link between diplomacy and language. They shared their personal experiences and provided examples about the duties of universities in the training of translators, who will be raised to specialise in this field, and noted the responsibilities that educators, institutions, and translators should bear.
In the closing session, Deputy Head of Turkish Language Association Prof. Feyzi Ersoy, in his presentation titled "The Place of Turkish among the World Languages", said that there were approximately 6 thousand languages in the world, referring to the place of Turkish, which is an Altaic language according to the criteria of origin, among the world languages in terms of its area of spread, and noted that Turkish was in the top ten among world languages in terms of the number of people speaking it. Additionally, Ersoy noted that the first traces of the Turkish language, which is spoken throughout a vast geographic area today, were discovered in Sumerian sources, that these traces, which constitute the first data on Turkish, date back to 3000-2000 BC, and that the earliest translated literature in Turkish came from Uighur texts, which is important in terms of the theme of our workshop.
Speaking at the workshop's closing session, Head of the Translation Department of the Directorate of Communications, Dr. Oğuz Güner emphasised the importance of strengthening the unity of discourse in translation, particularly for public institutions. Referring to work carried out through the contributions of relevant public institutions and organisations, as well as universities, under the coordination of the Directorate of Communications, Güner stated that the Term Bank for Public Institutions in Türkiye and Public Institutions Dictionary were prepared and published under the coordination of the Directorate of Communications to help eliminate the problems about the unity of discourse in the translation processes as well as ensure standardisation. In addition, Güner stated that another output of the works carried out in cooperation was the Translator's Reference Guide, which was prepared with academicians' contributions to be a reference for translators who carry out translation activities particularly in the field of communication and media. He also stated that the book Barrier-Free Access and Communication, prepared with valuable academicians from Hacettepe University, was published. Stating that they hoped the workshop would be an inspiration for many future efforts, Güner thanked all the guests who moderated the sessions, presented papers, and offered contributions on behalf of the Directorate of Communications.