MİZAHIN ÇEVİRİSİ: NASREDDİN HOCA FIKRALARININ ALMANCAYA ÇEVİRİSİNİN GENEL SÖZLÜ MİZAH KURAMINA GÖRE İNCELENMESİ
HUMOR TRANSLATION: AN ANALYSIS OF THE GERMAN TRANSLATION OF NASREDDİN HODJA ANECDOTES WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF VERBAL HUMOR

Summary/Abstract: This study examines three anecdotes of Nasreddin Hodja -The Cauldron That Gave Birth, Eat, My Fur Coat, Eat! and He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune- which constitute significant examples of the Turkish humorous narrative tradition, within the framework of Salvatore Attardo’s General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) and its application-oriented model for humor translation. The primary aim of the study is to analyze the German translations of these anecdotes, executed by Müjdat Kayayerli, through the hierarchy of six Knowledge Resources posited by the theory, namely Language, Narrative Strategy, Situation, Target, Logical Mechanism, and Script Opposition, thereby evaluting the semantic and pragmatic equivalences that emerge during intercultural humor transfer. Adopting a descriptive research design, the analysis proceeds from the lowest and most concrete level of the hierarchy, Language, to the highest and most abstract level, Script Opposition, in strict accordance with the hieararchical organization of the GTVH framework. The findings indicate that at the lower levels of the hierarchy, particularly Language and Situation, the translator implements micro-level adaptations in line with the rhetorical conventions of the target language and German cultural context. At the levels of Narrative Strategy and Target, it is observed that the structural organization of the anecdotes and the underlying critique of universal human behaviors are largely preserved. At the higher levels of abstraction, namely Logical Mechanism and Script Opposition, key conceptual structures such as false analogy, figure-ground reversal, and pseudo-logic are maintained in the target texts, ensuring the continuity of the humorous effect. In conclusion, the study suggests that while higher-level Knowledge Resources are generally preserved in accordance with Attardo’s hierarchical constraints, lower-level modifications are employed by the translator to achieve pragmatic and culturally appropriate equivalence in the target language.

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