Abstract
The disaster experiences of the past resulted in the need for a new international policy. The paper examines the transfer of the international policy for disaster risk reduction (DRR) into a local context, Turkey and Turkish, where new and old perspectives meet. Analyzed is a corpus consisting of two texts, with the purpose of examining the concepts’ actual use and contexts shaped by different attitudes, based on the three-dimensional framework of critical discourse analysis, translation studies and conceptual history. The concept transfer from international to the local level inevitably involves translation. The texts included “new” DRR terms as a result of the concealed translation attempts to adjust the old and contemporary terminologies. Thus, non-functional terms with blurred meanings arose. The awareness that such processes of transfer are complex would help to overcome this kind of simplistic top-down approaches and to give priority to “communicative labor.” The framework is not presented due to space limitations. It was also observed that the Turkish terminology lacks clear definitions. To affirm this, an in-depth analysis is needed. Terms transferred across contexts may end lacking conceptualizations due to non-functional translation choices. When adopting new social policies, this can be overcome through making effort for communication. This research looks at conceptual struggles related to social issues from a different aspect. The vague terms and inefficiencies in social implementations can be avoided by authorities being aware that discourse, translation and their production are parts of social action.
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Notes
For an insight into CDA, it is significant to sum up Fairclough’s expansion of the method. “Critical” describes the method’s aim to clarify the concepts’ meanings, as well as to shift the existing approaches to the matter. “Discourse” stands for the texts being links of a chain. The background information of the texts forms a whole and constitutes the discourse. This “wholeness,” that is, the discourse, is both historical and ideological. It is produced by power relations and also produces these. Therefore, it has the effect of inequality.
Having described the two components of the method, it is obvious that the analysis presented in this paper is an interference at the same time and makes an interconnection. It may be described as a multilayered interpretation superposed on the research questions. The texts are analyzed with absolute and standardized systematics.
The research framework will not be presented in detail due to the limits of space. However, key aspects will be briefly explained while discussing the data. .
Details like headings, page numbers, etc., will be omitted unless considered necessary.
Where the textual analysis of the Kobe_Report will comprise the whole text, the textual analysis of the Urbanization_Report will cover certain parts.
According to UNISDR’s Preparatory Process for National Reports on the official Web site, last visited on March 4, 2011.
According to UNISDR’s Preparatory Process for National Reports on the official Web site, last visited on March 4, 2012.
The council started to work with a preparatory meeting on May 28, 2008, and finalized its activity with the general assembly on May 4–7, 2009.
A sketchy comparison with other national reports revealed that many countries have followed the same course of action. Out of 114 national reports submitted for the conference, 49 reports comprised the questions.
The first attachment is related to a Turkish–Japanese joint project for earthquake disaster prevention (TJJP). The second attachment presents the training program of the Turkish Red Crescent Society (TRCS).
In fact, a quick analysis of some of the terms in the terminology enclosed to the Urbanization_Report showed that many definitions lack sound conceptualizations and remain often vague. However, an in-depth analysis is needed to affirm this observation.
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E. Daldeniz—deceased
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Daldeniz, E., Ekin Erkan, N. Transferring the international DRR policy into the local context. Nat Hazards 66, 1273–1285 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0494-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0494-9