Abstract:

The adaptation method used from the Latin poets is a translation method referenced to ensure the equivalence between source and target text, using in the translation process when encountered incompatibilities with the language and culture. This method which was used by Western world while building the national languages and literatures in age of enlightenment, has seen demand in our national literary canon from the Tanzimat period. Translation activity of Tanzimat period which accelerated with the westernization movements the adaptation method has often been referred by installing many functions especially in the theater adaptation. In this period by using adaptation method, both the entrance and settlement of the Western theater which is missing literary genre in the native literary system became easier and our writers, who are strangers to the Western theater technique benefit from the adaptation as a pen experience. In this period theatre adaptations writing by the playwrights like as Ahmet Vefik Pasha, Ali Bey and Teodor Kasap, language was localized and simplified by using words, proverbs and idioms of local dialect. Thus the theatre adaptations of Tanzimat period has played an important role not only in theater literature but also in simplifying language of prose. This study examines language of Tanzimat period theater adaptations in light of the relationship between adapting method and language localization and reveals the importance of these adaptations in terms of language simplification movement. 

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