SELF-HELP LITERATURE IN TURKEY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TRANSLATION STUDIES

There has been a great upsurge in the number of self-help materials, particularly the books, at the global and local scale. Translation is of particular importance in this market since self-help trends enter the local markets through translated works. Books of particularly American or European origin that have entered the Turkish publishing market through translation have resulted in an increase in the number of same genre books produced in the Turkish language. These translations create a large self-help market every year together with the ones written originally in Turkish. This study sets out to provide an overview of self-help publishing in Turkey with respect to objects (i.e. translated and indigenous self-help books). In order to achieve this aim, the study borrows concepts from Even-Zohar’s systemic approach to translation. With an overview of the self-help literature and with the analysis of the corpus of self-help books published in Turkey, this study aims to contribute to the research in the field of self-help literature from the perspective of Translation Studies. The present study has shown that translations from the West have contributed to the development of a ‘young’ literature, inspiring the production of similar works in the Turkish culture.