Remaking Sex-Related Humor: A case study on the Turkish remake Dadı of the American sitcom The Nanny

Abstract

Technological developments and communication through media have brought a new dimension to translation studies and emerged Audio-Visual Translation. Expanding usage of media in our daily lives has caused AVT to gain even more importance and led attention to be drawn to AVT. Although research on this field has increased recently, remake as an unconventional form of AVT, has been incorporated into translation studies in the last decade and needs to be problematized and studied. This thesis aims to investigate the transfer of sexrelated humor (SRH) in remakes. Delabastita’s strategies are adapted for the translation of sex-related humor in order to reveal the overall orientation in transferring SRH. This thesis also illustrates an in-depth analysis of the translation methods commonly used to successfully deal with difficulties encountered in humor translation and to convey the humorous effects to the Turkish audience. The American sitcom series The Nanny’s Turkish remake Dadı, pioneering the sitcom remakes in Turkish television history and being one of the longest-running sitcom remakes between 2000 and 2010 has been chosen as the subject of the thesis. Results clearly reveals that the SRH elements were mostly conveyed and transferred in the remake. However, the methods used during the transfer of SRH were mainly target-oriented. It was also concluded that SRH was recreated taking into account socio-cultural and institutional norms. In addition, there is a tendency to convey SRH in an implicit way. Removing and omitting SRH mostly occurred in examples where children took part in the SRH. On the contrary, explicitation took place mainly for compensation purposes.