Adaptation as a Strategy for Pragmatic Equivalence in the Subtitling of Colloquial Humorous Expressions in Selected Turkish Films

This article is primarily concerned with an analysis of humorous spoken expressions embedded in colloquial language in the Turkish films Aile Arasında, Tatlım Tatlım, and Eltilerin Savaşı, and their subtitled English versions. The study is built around the principles of Functional Translation Theories, with a special focus on the concept of pragmatic equivalence, which emphasizes the importance of maintaining the desired communicative effects, tone, and overall message of the original expressions. Furthermore, the research addresses Delia Chiaro’s theoretical insights into the subtitling of humour, stressing that, in humour translation, function-oriented rendering of the original expression tends to be more effective than the search for literal equivalence. These insights highlight the significance of pragmatic equivalence in subtitle translation, particularly when dealing with colloquial language containing a variety of linguistic and cultural elements. Within this theoretical framework, the study employs a qualitative method to analyse the selected excerpts from the films, with a view to evaluating the extent to which pragmatic equivalence has been achieved in the subtitling of humorous expressions conveyed through colloquial language. It has been found that, in the subtitling of the colloquial expressions in the films under discussion, the principle of pragmatic equivalence has been adopted – an approach widely employed in audiovisual translation to effectively convey to the target audience the sense of humour and the communicative intent of the original expression. In particular, adaptation stands out as the primary translation strategy for reproducing in the target language the pragmatic effect created by the original colloquial expressions, suggesting that function-oriented tendencies play a crucial role in humour translation.