Analysis of the Turkish Equivalence Levels of Adverbial Verbs in Daniel Kehlmann's Novel The Measurement of the World in the Context of Translation Criticism from German to Turkish
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: : The main aim of this study is to determine the equivalence levels of the participles that function as adverbial verbs in Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Die Vermessung der Welt (2005) in the translations into Turkish, to suggest different options for existing translations when necessary and to make theoretical evaluations of the suggested translation examples. Participle is the non-inflected form of the verb that can be used as an adjective or an adverb. Within the framework of these objectives, the study particularly focuses on how the significant linguistic differences between the inflected structure of German and the agglutinative structure of Turkish are responded to in the target language during the translation process. The research was carried out within the framework of Toury’s descriptive translation approach, using the descriptive analysis design, which is one of the qualitative research approaches. For this purpose, a comparative analysis was conducted between the source text (Die Vermessung der Welt) and the target text (The Measurement of the World) using a mixed method. Twenty examples of German participles selected from different sections of the novel using a purposive sampling method were examined using both numerical and qualitative criteria. Of the 20 examples examined, full equivalence (70%) was achieved in 14, partial equivalence (25%) in 5, and zero equivalence (5%) in 1. These results demonstrate that the translator generally performed well in translating difficult participle structures into the target language. The findings revealed that Participle I, which expresses simultaneity (71% full success rate), was conveyed with a higher level of equivalence than Participle II, which indicates the result of a completed action (66% full success rate). It was determined that direct translation was frequently and successfully used to overcome translation difficulties, with the most problematic situation occurring with the omission technique. This study will serve as a concrete example of translation criticism for those working on adverbial verb translations specific to the German-Turkish language pair.
DOI: 10.34099/jrtl.724
Authors: Engin Kavak, İlyas Üstünyer
Institution: International Burch University
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4413508565