Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Bengali poetry, translations into english'

This study investigates indirect translations translated from Bengali source texts to Swedish target texts via English intermediary texts by comparing Pedersen’s (2011) Extralinguistic Cultural References in coupled pairs from all three languages. The purpose of this study is to examine how indirect translations differ from direct translations and to discern whether there are specific translation strategies that translators use when transferring Extralinguistic Cultural References (ECRs) from a third language. The results were analyzed with a perspective based on translation norms, previous research into indirect translation, and the concept of foreignization/domestication in mind. The results show that an indirect translation can be closer to the original source text than the intermediary text it was based on in the first place. This was demonstrated with the Swedish TTs displaying more source-oriented transfer strategies compared to the English ITs, which displayed a higher amount of target-oriented strategies used by the translators. An unexpected finding was noted in the analysis material, namely that misunderstandings or deviations present in the ITs were not necessarily transferred to the TTs, which goes against previous research into indirect translations (cf. Dollerup 2000; Tegelberg 2011; Ringmar 2016). This supports similar results as found in Adler (2016) and Hekkanen (2014). In conclusion, the results suggest that the tendency of high-prestige literature resulting in adequate translations would be stronger than the tendency of indirect translations resulting in acceptable translations in the context of the Swedish target system. The source-oriented strategies in the TTs could also be seen as resistancy to target norms by the translators to create foreignizing translations.

This thesis is a textual and contextual study of English renditions of poetry in Luo Guanzhong’s Sanguo zhi yanyi, in terms of their artistic approach and their bearing on the artistic functions which poetry fulfills in the novel. There are several English renditions of the Sanguo zhi yanyi in full or in part, including two full translations by Charles H. Brewit-Taylor and Moss Roberts. While the two full translations form the focus of the study, Roberts’s abridged version is also included. Published fifteen years before the full rendition by the same translator, the abridged version serves every now and then as a reference point showing how an individual’s interpretive perception may change over time and bear on choices made in a literary translation. Insertion of poetry in a novel is basically unique to Chinese fiction, often contributing to its overall artistic effects as an organic element. A Western reader coming from a different cultural background may employ different standards in evaluating the artistic role and appeal of poetry in a Chinese classical novel. In an attempt to be as flexible and open-minded as possible, this thesis does not adopt any particular theoretical perspective, but makes use of literary concepts to facilitate the analysis as appropriate. To assess the literary translations, concrete analysis of selected original poems in semantic, syntactic, auditory, imagistic, symbolic and stylistic terms is made before the strategies adopted by the translated versions, along with their merits and limitations, are discussed. Detailed discussions of textual features and contextual elements offer an evidence-based appraisal of the renditions. artistic approaches, which are significant in shedding light on the translators’ attempts to re-create and revitalize the artistic appeal of the source text within the multidimensional context of the target language and culture. It is also hoped that the thesis help shed light on some general as well as language- and culture-specific issues in the translation of classical Chinese poetry.

Poetry translation evaluation from ancient Chinese to English has been subjective in China. This is caused by the indefinable and intangible notion of ‘poetic spirit’, which is often used in influential translators’ criteria, and by the lack of a systematic investigation of translation evaluation. The problem of subjective criteria has remained unresolved for nearly a century. In order to improve the subjective criteria of poetry translation evaluation, this thesis is an attempt to make objective evaluations of the English translations of an ancient Chinese poem using stylistic theories. To make an objective criticism, it is necessary to offer evidence which is based on systematic and reliable criteria and replicable evaluation procedures. By applying stylistic theories to both the source text and the target texts, it is possible to make a judgement based on the stylistic features found in the texts themselves. Thus, objective evaluation of poetry translation from ancient Chinese to English can be made. This research is qualitative with the data consisting of one ancient Chinese poem as the source text and six English translations as the target texts. It carries out stylistic analyses on the data with two approaches based on the cognitive stylistic concept of figure and ground and the linguistic stylistic theory of foregrounding. The target texts are judged by the evidence of locative relations and foregrounding features. This research also explores and proposes a practical framework for poetry translation. The research findings suggest how to make objective poetry translation evaluations and improve translation techniques. They also point out the need to integrate stylistics with translation evaluation to make improvements in the field.

This is the first discursive study to examine the Arabic translations of a number of major modern poems in the English language in particular T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' and Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself'. These translations were done by the Arab translators who were themselves modernist poets, including Badr Shakir al- Sayyab, to whom a separate chapter is dedicated as a case study. The thesis begins by underlining the relationship between translation and modernity by reviewing some critical studies and translational strategies. The framework allows me to approach the given poems comprehensively, since this study argues that poetry is not only a linguistic composition but also a socio-cultural construct. Thus, this study treats each of these translations as a discursive process comprising three contexts: situational, verbal and cognitive. The situational context highlights the background of these poems and each one's importance in its own system. It also reveals the reasons why Arab modernists were drawn to these poems. The verbal context studies the Arabic translations of the selected poems. It provides a comparative analysis, although its aim is to emphasize specific stylistic issues which function more than others in the target system. The cognitive context underlines the impact of these English poems on Arabic modernity on formal, stylistic and thematic levels. Finally, the thesis covers the main trends in the translation of English poetry into Arabic, and in so doing it presents a new approach. It also paves the way for more studies to explore further aspects of these works of translation.

In un contesto di lingue minoritarie, come nel caso del gaelico scozzese, la traduzione letteraria verso lingue maggioritarie può avere una natura ambivalente: se da un lato garantisce la diffusione di una letteratura altrimenti isolata, dall’altro potrebbe perpetuare degli squilibri di potere che spesso caratterizzano i rapporti tra la cultura dominante e la cultura minoritaria. Se questo è specialmente vero nella traduzione dal gaelico all’inglese, lingua la cui espansione è avvenuta a scapito della cultura gaelica, è possibile che anche nelle traduzioni italiane, prodotte generalmente tramite la versione inglese, tali squilibri vengano riconfermati. Nella presente tesi verranno analizzate le circostanze che hanno portato alla minoritizzazione del gaelico, individuando certe dinamiche riconducibili al postcolonialismo. Si commenterà il dibattito prettamente scozzese sulle più comuni pratiche di traduzione e pubblicazione utilizzate nell’editoria gaelica, adottando una prospettiva che mutua dai Minority Translation Studies, secondo cui la traduzione, se usata correttamente, può essere uno strumento capace di invertire il declino di una lingua minoritaria. Infine, si analizzeranno le risposte dei poeti gaelici e dei traduttori che ne hanno reso le opere fruibili in Italia. La ricerca svelerà che le attuali pratiche editoriali riguardanti la poesia gaelica, spesso a favore di un pubblico anglofono, non rispecchiano la diversità di posizioni degli autori intervistati, e dunque si raccomanderà l’adozione di pratiche per un panorama editoriale più rappresentativo. Lo studio mostrerà anche come, nonostante i traduttori italiani abbiano generalmente adottato strategie per compensare la scarsa conoscenza del gaelico, maggiore consapevolezza e ulteriori strategie siano necessarie affinché le pratiche traduttive e editoriali in Italia possano essere il più possibile vantaggiose alla promozione e alla rivitalizzazione della lingua, della letteratura e della cultura gaeliche.

This thesis presents an edition of Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God, a late Middle English devotional prose text for which no critical edition is currently available. I have transcribed and collated the text from all sixteen extant manuscripts and the 1506 printed edition. An investigation of the errors and variants according to the classical method of textual criticism has yielded little in the way of conclusive results, and it has therefore not proved possible to construct a stemma of manuscripts from the corpus of evidence as it now exists. My edition therefore uses one manuscript (Maidstone MS Museum 6) as a base; I emend the text of Maidstone where necessary, and cite variants from all the other witnesses to show all differences of substance. A full critical apparatus is provided, comprising: the text with variants, textual notes and glossary. The introduction includes a full description of all the manuscripts and the two early printed editions, an outline of the methods of textual criticism applied and their results, and an explanation of the choice of base manuscript; information about the language of the Maidstone manuscript and the date of the text are also provided, as is an outline of my editorial principles. The thesis also contains two appendices. The first of these deals briefly with the twenty-two instances where individual chapters of Contemplations appear in other manuscript compilations; the second discusses the English and Latin prayers which follow the full text in some manuscripts.

Cette thèse vise à procéder à une analyse minutieuse de la transformation de la forme et du sens dans la traduction des Robâïât de Omar Khayyám, dans quatre importantes traductions – deux en anglais et deux en français, des XIXe et XXe siècles. Les traducteurs des traductions sélectionnées sont Edward FitzGerald, Arthur John Arberry, Jean-Baptiste Nicolas et Gilbert Lazard. Les traductions réalisées par ces traducteurs ont offert des possibilités d’investigation dans un cadre linguistique donné. En effet, on peut se demander si les traducteurs ont transformé la signification et la forme des quatrains perses. Si oui, quelles procédures ont-ils utilisées ? Plus précisément, comment les réseaux signifiants sous-jacents ont-ils été rendus par les plus importants traducteurs anglais et français des XIXe et XXe siècles ? Par ailleurs, il s’agira d’essayer d’évaluer la qualité de l’écriture dans la langue cible de chaque traduction. En somme, cette thèse cherche à comprendre si les traducteurs sont parvenus à saisir l’importance de la signification du sous-texte et l’élégance de la forme poétique des Robâïât. Cette thèse propose une application scientifique des concepts théoriques de différents chercheurs en traductologie, linguistique et littérature. Les théories dominantes utilisées dans la présente étude sont celles d’Antoine Berman, de Henri Meschonnic, Peter Newmark, Eugene Albert Nida, Susan Bassnett, Mona Baker, Geoffrey N. Leech, I.A. Richards, Roger T. Bell, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Michael Hanne, et Max Black. En outre, il doit être indiqué que cette thèse vise à créer un équilibre entre deux pôles de la traductologie, à savoir celui qui s’intéresse aux traductions orientées vers la langue cible et celui qui s’intéresse aux traductions orientées vers la langue source.La traduction des Robâïât dans les langues germaniques et romanes est un sujet digne d’intérêt et propice à la discussion. Cette recherche vise à montrer que l’étude des traductions des Robâïât pourrait contribuer à mettre en évidence les difficultés et même l’impossibilité qu’il y a à rendre certaines caractéristiques de l’original persan en anglais et en français
This thesis aims to carry out a meticulous analysis of the transformation of form and meaning in the rendition of the Rubáiyát in four significant 19th and 20th-century translations—two in English and two in French. The translators of the selected translations are Edward FitzGerald, Arthur John Arberry, Jean-Baptiste Nicolas, and Gilbert Lazard. The translations produced by these translators have offered opportunities of investigation within linguistic boundaries. In fact, one may wonder if the translators have transformed the meaning and the form of the Persian quatrains. If so, which procedures have they employed? More precisely, how are the underlying networks of signification rendered by the most significant English and French translators of the 19th and 20th centuries? Furthermore, what is the quality of the writing in the target language in each translation? On the whole, this thesis seeks to appreciate whether the translators have been successful in understanding the significance of the subtext and the elegance of the poetic form of the Rubáiyát.This dissertation provides its readers with a scientific application of the theoretical concepts of different theorists in translation studies, linguistics, and literature. The most salient theories employed in the present research are those of Antoine Berman, Henri Meschonnic, Peter Newmark, Eugene Albert Nida, Susan Bassnett, Mona Baker, Geoffrey N. Leech, I.A. Richards, Roger T. Bell, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Michael Hanne, and Max Black. In addition, it must be indicated that this thesis sets out to create a balance between two poles in translation studies, i.e. target-oriented and source-oriented translations.The translation of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát into Germanic and Romance languages is an interesting and controversial subject to discuss. This research seeks to prove that the study of the translations of the Rubáiyát can contribute to highlighting the difficulties and the impossibilities of the rendition of certain issues from Persian into English or French

The reception of the Huguenot poet Guillaume de Saluste Du Bartas' Semaines (1578, 1584 et seq.) is an important episode in early modern literary history for understanding relations between Scottish, English and French literature, interactions between contemporary reading and writing practices, and developments in divine poetry. This thesis surveys translations (Part I), allusions and quotations in prose (Part II) and verse imitations (Part III) from the period when English translations of the Semaines were being printed in order to identify historical trends in how readers absorbed and adapted the poems. Early translations show that the Semaines quickly acquired political and diplomatic affiliations, particularly at the Jacobean Scottish Court, which persisted in subsequent decades (Chapter 1). William Scott's treatise The Model of Poesy (c. 1599) and translations indicate how attractive the Semaines' combination of humanist learning and sacred rhetoric was, but the poems' potential appeal was only realized once Josuah Sylvester's Devine Weeks (1605 et seq.) finally made the complete work available in English (Chapter 2). Different communities of readers developed in early modern England and Scotland once this edition became available (Chapter 3), and we can observe how individuals marked, copied out, quoted and appropriated passages from their copies of the poems in ways dependent on textual and authorial circumstances (Chapter 4). The Semaines, both in French and in Sylvester's translation, were used as a stylistic model in late-Elizabethan playtexts and Zachary Boyd's Zions Flowers (Chapter 5), and inspired Jacobean poems that help us to assess Du Bartas' influence on early modern poetry (Chapter 6). The great variety of responses to the Semaines demonstrates new ways that intertextuality was a constituent feature of vernacular religious literature that was being read and written in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain.

This thesis explores changes in approaches to the interpretation of the genre of classical Chinese poetry re-created as English poetry during the twentieth century. This genre, produced by two literary cultures - Chinese and English - is subjected to critical scrutiny in both its original and re-created forms and this study discusses the extent to which critical theories resulted in shifts in the interpretive approaches of twentieth century translations of the genre. Interpretive changes are exposed by comparative analysis of publications of the genre by Ezra Pound and Arthur Waley, Burton Watson and Gary Snyder, James J. Y. Liu and Stephen Owen and Pauline Yu and Haun Saussy. This involves a discussion of how their formative years, environmental factors and critical pressures influenced their approaches to interpretation of the genre. The study found that changes to interpretative approaches for the genre rested on two key experiences of translators and readers. Primary influences - family, education and personal pursuits - did affect interpreters of the genre but secondary influences - critical theories, literary trends, political, religious and social movements - had greater impact on interpretive change. Isogesis, an unavoidable factor of cultural interpretation, insidiously influenced how the genre was interpreted and that the increased use of montage and anthology late in the twentieth century attempted to reduce the effect of isogesis and, even more importantly, returned the genre to its cultural roots, the Shijing, the earliest Chinese classical anthology of poetry. This study illustrates three areas of importance. Firstly, it shows that biographical and environmental factors affecting translators caused shifts in approach to interpretation of classical Chinese poetry re-created as English poetry. Secondly, choices of what to re-create and print - made by translators, editors and publishers - affect reader response to the genre. Thirdly and finally, it suggests the possibility that the interpretive approaches of these eight translators can be employed as poetic montage in the third millennium to reduce the effect of misinterpreting of the genre.
Thesis (M.A.)--School of Social Sciences, 2006.

碩士
長榮大學
翻譯學系碩士在職專班
100
Poems spread across languages and cultural barriers through translation. However, in the process the forms of the source poems are altered, and the styles changed. The purpose of this thesis is to study the variation of linguistic and literary styles in poetry translation, including the prosody, forms, literal meanings and connotations, imageries and poetry implications, from the original Li Bai’s poems to their corresponding English translated versions. Based on a review of literature focused on methodology of stylistic analysis for classical Chinese poems and theories of literary translation, a multi-level stylistic framework was constructed for the purpose of this study. Examples of various English translations of Li Bai’s poems were given as illustrations for discussion on the following issues: (1) the transformation of textural forms in the English translation of Chinese classical poems; (2) misalignment of stylistic elements (words, meaning, imageries and poetic implications) in poetry translation (from Chinese into English, in this study) and across cultural borders; (3) the relative translatability and cross-culture adaptability of stylistic elements in regard to their adherence to linguistic characteristics; (4) comparison of various translation strategies and their effects on the translation in terms of “representing the source text” and “adaptation for the target-language readers,” with a diagram designed for integrating the dual criteria of translation loyalty and readability and its implications on translation criticisms.

周閩.
"2011年9月".
"2011 nian 9 yue".
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-158).
Abstract in Chinese and English.
Zhou Min.
Chapter 第一章 --- 緒論 --- p.1
Chapter 1.1 --- 硏究對象和主要內容 --- p.1
Chapter 1.2 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的漢譯本 --- p.3
Chapter 1.3 --- 文獻回顧 --- p.9
Chapter 1.4 --- 硏究方法和理論 --- p.12
Chapter 第二章 --- 十四行詩的起源與發展 --- p.15
Chapter 2.1 --- 十四行詩的起源與彼得拉克體十四行詩 --- p.17
Chapter 2.1.1 --- 十四行詩的起源 --- p.17
Chapter 2.1.2 --- 彼得拉克與意體十四行 詩 --- p.19
Chapter 2.2 --- 英國的十四行詩風潮與斯賓塞體十四行詩 --- p.23
Chapter 2.2.1 --- 伊麗莎白時代的十四行詩風潮 --- p.23
Chapter 2.2.2 --- 斯賓塞體十四行詩 --- p.26
Chapter 2.3 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩：繼承與創新 --- p.29
Chapter 2.4 --- 十四行詩在中國的早期譯介 --- p.34
Chapter 第三章 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的形、音、意及其漢譯 --- p.42
Chapter 3.1 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的形式及其漢譯 --- p.45
Chapter 3.1.1 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的韻式 --- p.47
Chapter 3.1.2 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的節 奏 --- p.59
Chapter 3.2 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的音樂效果及其漢譯 --- p.68
Chapter 3.2.1 --- 聲音音色與音樂效果 --- p.70
Chapter 3.2.2 --- 聲音模式與音樂效果 --- p.76
Chapter 3.2.3 --- 聲音運動與音樂效果 --- p.82
Chapter 3.3 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的意象及其漢譯 --- p.84
Chapter 3.3.1 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩的“意´ح與“象´ح --- p.86
Chapter 3.3. 2 --- 莎士比亞十四行詩意象漢譯的特殊問題 --- p.101
Chapter 第四章 --- 個別譯本評析 --- p.109
Chapter 4.1 --- 梁宗岱與《莎士比亞十四行詩》 --- p.109
Chapter 4.2 --- 屠岸與《莎士比亞十四行詩集》 --- p.118
Chapter 4.3 --- 辜正坤與《莎士比亞十四行詩集》 --- p.125
Chapter 4.4 --- 梁實秋與《十四行詩》 --- p.133
Chapter 第五章 --- 結語 --- p.141
參考書目 --- p.149

Bachelor Honours - Bachelor of Arts (Honours)
A finely-dressed man stands at the balcony of a Paris apartment, gazing at the city. Gustave Caillebotte’s 1875 painting Jeune homme à la fenêtre captures the man from behind and the viewer cannot see his face. He invites the viewer to observe him but he defiantly hides his identity. There is another figure in the scene, framed in the window and whom the dandy’s steady line of sight appears to meet. An unidentified woman stands on the empty boulevard, wearing a fashionable draped bustle skirt in a dark colour in contrast with the pale architecture. She is unaware of her audience, but through this framing and the eye sight of the man at the window, the viewer is drawn to her. Other artworks of the era show the streets of Paris writhing with activity but here all distractions are removed; the lone man gazing at the lone woman on the street is the only interaction, the only sign of life in the work. Whereas the man is safe in his anonymity, a willing and active observer, the woman becomes an exposed art object, unwillingly gazed at and evaluated not only by the man at the window, but the artist himself and the multitude of art gallery visitors who continue to gaze upon her. The painting is an urban landscape and a portrait of two strangers, a man looking and a woman being seen. One is placed on the streets and the other above them, tucked away in his own, contained piece of the city. The piece is also an artwork about the nature of selecting, containing and framing of objects essential to the artistic process, and the inherent hierarchy of the artistic gaze which searches and judges. Several of the concepts in Caillebotte’s painting can be found in Charles Baudelaire’s collection of prose poetry, Le Spleen de Paris: Petits Poèmes en prose, published posthumously in 1869. Both are defined by the act of searching and looking for art’s sake, relying on this hierarchy of the dominating voyeur and dominated object. The following thesis discussion is concerned with the visual processes and the narrator’s gaze in the work. It is of great significance that Baudelaire engaged in both poetry and art criticism; the two are intertwined and at times interchangeable. Given the focus on the visual register, as well as Baudelaire’s active role in the art world, the discussion of the visual processes and themes of the prose poetry alongside nineteenth-century fine artworks serves to establish new inter-disciplinary connections. The collection’s themes and innovations frequently overlap with those being made in fine art during the same time, and although a historical reading of the texts is not the focus, together they serve to contextualise the role of the artist and his gaze, the nature of the modern city and artistic poetic priorities at the time. Baudelaire’s own influential art criticism can be seen as a theoretical outline for his own creative pursuits. In Baudelaire’s prose poetry, the visual register, fine art and concepts of modernity intersect with the written word, and the collection can be seen as a literary incarnation of a visual act.

In this article I examine as mediations of urban experience poems written by Koos du Plessis. a contemporary Afrikaans poet. together with their musical rendition by Johannes Kerkorrel. a singer and musician from the Afrikaans altemative music scene and former member of Die Gereformeerde Blues Band. The poetry was initially published with musical arrangements in the volume Kinders van die Wind : En Ander Lirieke (1981) . In order to use this material in an article produced as part of an English study . I have translated the poetry into English . The translation (in linguistic and performative terms) of these poems has the dual effect of rendering them more appropriately for this study, and making them accessible to a wider audience. I am concemed with the way poems written by a poet from an earlier decade (the 1980s) interpret and mediate an urban identity and. further. with the fact that performance not only gives them a new lease of life. but also transforms them into works which have meaning and appeal for a more contemporary, broader audience. The fundamental issues addressed in this poetry , namely a response to and a negotiation of urban (South African) experience. continue to speak compellingly today.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Roy Campbell (1901-1957), who ranks among South Africa's leading poets, was also a gifted and skilled translator. Shortly after the Second World War he was commissioned by the Spanish scholar Rafael Martinez Nadal to supply the English translations for a planned edition of the complete works of the Spanish poet and dramatist, Federico Garcia Lorca, to be published by Faber and Faber, London. However, most of these translations remained unpublished until 1985, when the poetry translations (but not the translations of the plays) were included in Volume II of a four-volume edition entitled Campbell: Collected Works, edited by Alexander, Chapman and Leveson, and published in South Africa. In 198617, Eisenberg published a collection of letters from the archives of the Spanish poet and publisher Guillermo de Torre in a Spanish journal, Ana/es de Literatura Espanola, Alicante, which revealed that the politically-motivated intervention in 1946 of Arturo and Ilsa Barea, Republican supporters who were living in exile in London, prevented the publication of Campbell's Lorca translations. These poetry translations are studied here and compared with the work of other translators of Lorca, ranging from Lloyd (1937) to Havard (1990), and including some Afrikaans versions by Uys Krige (1987). For the analysis an eclectic framework is used that incorporates ideas from work on the relevance theory of communication (Sperber and Wilson 1986) as applied to translation theory by Gutt (1990, 1991) and Bell (1991), among others, together with Eco's (1979, 1990) semiotic-interpretive approach. The analysis shows that although Campbell's translating is constrained by its purpose of forming part of a Lorca edition, his versions of Lorca' s poetry are nevertheless predominantly oriented towards the target-language reader. In striving to communicate Lorca's poetry to an English audience, Campbell demonstrates his skill and creativity at all levels of language. Campbell's translations that were published during his lifetime earned him a place among the best poetry translators of this century. The Lorca translations, posthumously added to the corpus of his published work, enhance an already established reputation as a fine translator of poetry.
Classics & Modern European Languages
D. Lit. et Phil. (Spanish)

The lyric songs of Turkish oral tradition broadly understood by the term deyiş provide one of the richest perspectives on the historical construction, communal perceptions and creative impetus of Turkish Alevi culture. One of the most evident defining characteristics of the deyiş is the convention in which the poetic persona to which the lyric is attributed, known as the mahlas, is incorporated in the final verse. While this convention is ubiquitous in this lyric form it has received little scholarly attention particularly in regards to is role in expressive culture. This study approaches Alevi expressive culture by means of focusing on the interpretive force of the mahlas. The theoretical basis for this study is the tripartite model proposed for ethnomusicological study by Timothy Rice in 1987, by which musical experience may be understood as being historically constructed, socially maintained and individually applied. In applying this model my study pursues an interpretive approach both in terms of identifying interpretive practice and in suggesting interpretive perspectives. This approach follows Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical perspective as an encounter that seeks not to understand the inner experience of people of another culture, but rather to understand the world that is suggested by music sounds, performance and contexts. The structure of this study follows this hermeneutical epistemology in terms of pre-understanding (encounters in text), explications (the analysis of the form and structure of the text and music) and experiences (interpretive encounters with expressive culture that suggest new understandings). Methods employed for this study include a broad reading and familiarity with Alevi related and initiated publications and scholarship (in Turkish and English); observation of Alevi (and more broadly Turkish) public expressive culture through audio and visual recordings and attending festivals and other events; and participation in Alevi expressive culture and critical reflection through learning the bağlama (Turkish lute) and performing Alevi deyiş informally and in public. This study begins by considering ‗pre-understandings‘ through the way the persona of the most influential of the Alevi poets, Pir Sultan Abdal, is presented in the pursuit of a historical identity as the lyrics or oral tradition attributed to him have become the basis of canonical textual collections. This chapter suggests the limitation of this approach to understanding while revealing the centrality of the mahlas as the object of study. The second part of the study focuses on explicating the deyiş lyric form and the mahlas as a defining characteristic of that form. These explications suggests the mahlas is more than merely a convention used to identify the author of the lyric but is, rather, a subtle and adaptable traditional textual integer that, while inherently meaningful, is not fixed in its meaning or purpose; and with its immanent associations provides interpretive and creative potential. The third part of the study considers the interpretive and creative potential of the Alevi deyiş and the immanent qualities of the mahlas in performance. Firstly, a context to Alevi public expressive culture is provided by examining a series of commercial recordings produced in the 1980s by Arif Sağ, a formative period when Alevis began to be more open and assertive in the articulation of Alevi culture. This is followed by an examination of the interpretive potential of performance through the description and analysis of a performance by Tolga Sağ at the 2002 Pir Sultan Abdal festival in the village of Banaz in central Turkey. The study further considers the application of the interpretive potential provided by the immanent and associative qualities of the mahlas through a critical reflective analysis of my performances of Alevi deyiş. Finally, this study includes the largest collection of lyrics by the major Alevi poet Pir Sultan Abdal yet to appear in English translations. These translations are included to demonstrate and reveal the hermeneutical challenge presented by this material as well as providing broader scholarly access to a substantial representative sample of the lyrics associated with this major Alevi figure. This study concludes that the mahlas is a richly meaningful textual integer that conveys, with communicative economy, immanent aspects of authority, lineage, communal identity and inclusion. As such, rather than being a simple convention to identify authorship, it is an adaptive yet critical element in the creative and interpretive expression of Alevi culture. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of a rich oral lyric tradition and creative expressive culture that has received relatively little scholarly attention, especially in the English language scholarship, and to reveal the mahlas in the context of oral and expressive culture as a subject deserving of further scholarly study.