The representation of Turkey in British trade publishing after 15 July 2016. An analysis conducted on the translations from Turkish to English published in the UK

After the 2016 failed coup, the Turkish government implemented a series of measures that strongly restricted democratic freedoms in the country. This caused the UK media to propose a representation of the country in which the coup and the government reaction, together with the concepts of authoritarianism and censorship, played a central part. The present article aims to understand which role British trade publishing played in this new representation, analysing all the translations of trade titles from Turkish to English, published by British publishers in the UK, comparing the periods before (from 1 January 2012 to 15 July 2016) and after the coup (from 16 July 2016 to 31 December 2019). It tries to understand if some central socio-political events of contemporary Turkey, as the coup and its aftermath, the Kurdish issue, and Turkish intervention in the Syrian war, have had more space in the translations published in the UK after the coup. It also investigates if, after the coup, the choice of titles and authors to translate has been influenced, and if given paratextual elements (specifically, books’ descriptions on the British publishers’ websites) have shown a tendency of being linked to Turkey’s contemporary socio-political situation. It then presents an evaluation of the behaviour of British trade publishers toward the coup and their new focus on the state of Turkish democracy.

An investigation into consumer attitudes in relation to the publishing industry and the environment.

Written amid a climate emergency,this paper investigates how the publishing industry is operating to convert itsoperations to reduce its carbon footprint as it works towards achieving climateneutral status. One of the main obstacles comes from the risk of making changesto the products they produce and whether consumers would be open to suchchanges. In order to assess this, aquestionnaire with 114 recipients was used to collect data relating to consumerattitudes towards books and the environment. Questions were used to determinewhether consumers are open to change and whether changes in the production ofbooks are viable from a commercial perspective. The results show a generalenthusiasm for books to be produced in environmentally sustainable methods,with respondents showing a willingness to support such behaviour. While theimpact these changes might have on the consumer is generally undesirable, increasedtransparency seems the most effective way in spreading understanding for anychanges that might take place to books and their price. 

Prestige and Gatekeeping in Postgraduate Journals: The Case of Postgraduate English

Relatively little has beensaid about the opportunities and challenges of digital, open access publishing asit pertains to postgraduate-led journals catering to postgraduate researchers.This paper draws on the authors’ experiences with Postgraduate English,one of the longest-running, born-digital journals for postgraduate researchersin English studies. It makes the case for the benefit of such publicationswithin the prestige economy and describes the ways in which quality can beassured, challenging those who might see postgraduate publications as furtherdiluting the pool of high-quality research. At the same time, the paper raisescritical questions about who really wins in postgraduate publishing. While thosewho publish and edit can benefit from the prestige indication of theseactivities, ultimately host institutions may gain more from the relationship viathe hidden labour costs behind such activity.