The Translation Committee was one of the seven committees set up to
discuss the above topics and to introduce proposals regarding the planning of
publishing. In the report it submitted to the Congress, it attributed a two-fold
role to translation, claiming: “Translation will serve both to transmit the ideas
and the sensibility of the civilised world to our country and to enrich our
language” (Birinci Türk Neriyat Kongresi 0000:000). These two functions,
the former cultural and the latter linguistic, are also observed in the discourse
of the contributors to Tercüme and other journals throughout the 0000s and
0000s. In the same report, the committee added that a certain “method and
order” had to be introduced for improving translation activity which was in a
“deplorable state” (Birinci Türk Neriyat Kongresi 0000: 000). In the
meantime, the committee continued to hold a conception of the Turkish
culture as inferior to western culture by drawing a border between Turkey
and the “civilised world”.