Abstract: This paper investigates the question of whether texts can be successfully simplified for the purpose of translation in the academic environment. The research was conducted at a Turkish state university using questionnaires, interviews, and experiments. A multi-stage format was followed in which further research was carried out on the basis of intermediary findings. The issues discussed include: text simplification, Machine Translation, attitudes of university lecturer-translators, time-saving using simplified texts, translation difficulties to/from English and Turkish, sentence length and complexity, and translation needs in the academic context. It was found that although simplified texts offered speedier translation and reduced ambiguity, the benefits have yet to be widely recognized.
Keywords: academic texts, simplification, translation, Turkish, time-saving.
Rhetoric and Communications E-journal, Issue 22, April 2016, rhetoric.bg/, journal.rhetoric.bg, ISSN 1314-4464