Academic literature on the topic 'Arabic Humor'

This study is concerned with translating humorous expressions from English into the Arabic Language with reference to Loss, Gain, and Compensation. The idea of the research developed from an observation by the researcher that when the target audience watches a drama of funny episodes, it is hard to interact, laugh or even smile, although the drama may be accompanied by subtitles in Arabic language. The study aims to illustrate the causes of untanslatability and loss, gain, and compensation in humor translation. To achieve the aims of the study, the researcher selected a sample of 10 humorous quotes and jokes from different hilarious resources, including episodes, movies, and sitcoms and other plays. The study was conducted qualitatively and descriptively by meticulously analyzing the translated quotes to probe the causes of loss in humor translation. The study results showed that humorous expressions encounter loss, gain and compensation which require a deep understanding of context and require a sense of humor from the audience and translators besides SL culture involvement. Moreover, the overall findings showed that many humorous expressions have no counterparts in Arabic Language, therefore, loss and gain and compensations are inevitable. Based on the findings, the study concluded that humorous expressions are more frequent and with multi-version and lack the equivalence in Arabic language. It also concluded that the types of humor are an essential element in reducing the sharp difference between the SL quote and its equivalent in the TL and the loss of humor in many cases is inevitable. Finally, the study explicated the main causes and the necessary strategies of loss, gain and compensation to transfer humor into Arabic Language.

The present study examines the use of English lexical insertions to create humor by Jordanian university students. The data of the study are collected from spontaneous tape-recorded conversations from 62 participants of both males and females, representing different age groups (from 18–23 years old) and belonging to different specializations (e.g., engineering, pharmacy, mathematics, business, and English). The recorded conversations are qualitatively analyzed applying Auer’s sequential approach to code-switching to attain a local interpretation of lexical insertions for humor effect from English into Jordanian Arabic (JA). The findings of the study reveal that Jordanian university students exploit their bilingual repertoire to create humor by playfully and innovatively switching to English. This is shown to take place by unexpected switching points, a switching that flouts Arabic syntactic constraints, a violation of code-switching constraints, incongruity and incompatibility of translating Arabic culture-bound expressions to English, and imposing Arabic word formation templates to English insertions. Specifically, five patterns of code-switching of humor are found, namely, switching around the interrogative, playful affixation, phonological playfulness, haphazard calquing, and the imposition of Arabic morphological rules on English lexical insertions. The study argues that humorous insertions are in fact a marker of solidarity and an in-group membership. Humorous insertions are also shown not to contribute to the content of the message or the pragmatic meaning. Bilingual university students (of Arabic and English) purposefully make use of an additional linguistic resource to mock certain propositions.

The Arabic drama "Mismaru Juha" by Ali Ahmad Bakatsir has the character Sheikh Juha that has a role by the humorous and wise. The Arabic drama used script with Arabic language for Sheikh Juha is full of critical of elites allied with other nations. It is according the writer has nationalism. Critical of drama script expressed in stylistic satire, namely an expression of humorous allusion. The aim of this research is to determine the type of satire of drama script Mismaru Juha and its percentage. The method uses a descriptive-qualitative type of library research, with the focus of the study being the overall style of satirical language in drama texts Arabic of drama script Mismaru Juha. There are four stages of data analysis are organizing data, reducing data, presenting data, and drawing conclusions. The result is the Arabic drama used satire style in the form of humor to give criticm based on norms society. The satire is three types are: (1) horatian satire (soft allusion and empathy) with 45%; (2) Juvenalian satire (allusion harsher than horizontal satire, direct criticism) with 25%; and (3) Manippean satire (allusion of narrative with stories or experiences that have occurred) with 30%. The type of satire that is more often used is horation satire that has humor, polite speech andnot rude words.

This paper describes the brief history of Humour in Arabs from (1) the earlier preIslamic period, (2) the Islamic period, (3) the medieval Arabic Literature (Abbasid), and (4) Mamaluke, Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Ottoman periods. This paper will try to show that<br />Arabic literature is rife with the unique taste of Arabs in humour and comedy. Finally, the result of data analysis shows that humour in the earlier pre-Islamic period and the Islamic period is used dominantly at satirical poem which is called hija‟. But in the medieval period until Ottoman period, Arabic humour and comedy has been spreading to the modern prose, shuch as romantic novel, elegant style of fable, public theater – shadow play and some of elegiac short stories.

A meme is a caption image that consists of an image and a witty message which reflects worldwide current incidents. Since the outbreak, Covid19 has received its own share of memes by fueling a pile – on excuses to promote racism on Asian's and particularly the Chinese community as being the major cause of the pandemic. The present study aims to investigate racial memes of (24) English memes and (10) Arabic memes. To achieve this, a pragmatic multimodal approach has been adopted to find answers to the following questions:1- To what category does the speech act “racialize” belong to?2- Are racial intentions expressed equally in English and Arabic memes?3- Is there any difference in the frequency of racial humor in English and Arabic memes?4- Which category of text – image combination is more frequently used in English and Arabic memes?The findings of the study, show that the speech act of racialize belongs to expressive illocutionary acts since it expresses a negative psychological state of mind and has down face since it is not accepted by everyone. Although, Covid19 memes in English and Arabic sometimes share the same caption and image but the racial intention in English memes are reflected through dark humor unlike Arabic memes which are mostly humorous.

This article aims to explore the structure and meaning of unique Indonesian names, their origins, and the humor they encompass. The topic was selected due to its recent viral status on social media. Utilizing qualitative methods and library research, data were gathered from internet news articles and analyzed through theories of names and nicknames, humor, and Arabic and Islamic religion. These theoretical frameworks were particularly pertinent as the study revealed that many unique names are intricately linked to Islamic and Arabic elements. The findings suggest that the uniqueness of these names often arises from spontaneous selection, with minimal deliberation or understanding of the religious terms incorporated. Predominantly found among the lower-middle class, these names stand out due to their distinctiveness, which often elicits humor. The humorous aspects of these names can be categorized under incongruity theory and, in some cases, superiority theory. This research highlights the cultural and social dimensions of naming practices in Indonesia and their unintended comedic impact.

A riddle is a discourse type of an associative dual textual structure. It is a form of humor which is found as a word game in any culture. The resolution of incongruous meaning and surprise on the semantic, cultural or grammatical level are its most important aspects that cause humor. This paper aims to discuss how to translate riddles from English into Arabic in order to see whether the equivalent riddle acts in Arabic as the same in English. The paper also tries to show how riddles under discussion are realized in Arabic under the above mentioned theory and whether their realization are effective as those of the SL texts. In addition, it is an attempt to give some remedies to the problems that may arise from translating these riddles into Arabic due to the differences that exist between Arabic and English on different levels. It is hypothesized that riddles are translatable in spite of any linguistic or cultural divergences between the SL and TL. It is also assumed under this new theory (VTT) that using communicative translation is more effective than using semantic translation in rendering riddles. It has been found that semantic translation succeeds in reproducing the humorous effect in the case where there is an accidental culture or linguistic systematic correspondence between the two languages.

Abstract In this article, I summarize the state of Arabic (as a medium and a message) in Israeli state media and compare attitudes towards the Arabic language with content from the popular bilingual (Arabic-Hebrew) sitcom written and created by a Palestinian-Israeli writer, Sayed Kashua. I argue that Kashua’s work in his show, Arab Labor, reiterates poor attitudes towards Arabic and foreshadows the ethnolinguistic erasure of Israel’s Nation-State Law of 2018. Using humor and satire within its content, context and dialogue, the show draws attention to growing disparities and impossibilities in Palestinian life throughout Israel and emerges as an intertextual resource for commentary and recreating conditions of Palestinian existence.

This paper explores how Jordanians violated and flouted Grice's Cooperative Principle maxims and the purposes behind their non-observance in creating Arabic humor related to the COVID-19 pandemic on AlMamlaka and Roya Jordanians' Facebook accounts. The study conducted qualitative content analysis on 12 Facebook comments from March to September 2020 and found that Jordanians violated and flouted all the maxims to convey their hidden messages. The analysis revealed that the purposes of the non-observance were to generate implicatures and highlight various issues faced by Jordanians during the pandemic. These issues included government announcements, non-compliance with health guidelines, conspiracy theories about the virus's origin, impacts on family relationships, discomfort from wearing masks, the boredom of lockdown and some geographical areas targeted for their early source of spreading the virus. The findings indicate that humor can serve as an effective tool for highlighting social and political issues. The study recommends exploring the non-observance of cooperative maxims in different contexts and how it affects the interpretation and reception of humor. Overall, the study suggests that humor played a significant role in addressing and discussing the situation in Jordan during the pandemic.

Colonel Muhmmad Khan is one of the greatest humor writer of the Pakistan Millitary humorists. Along the military he has also a valuable place among the other literary movements. He wrote different books on humor, and from them “BaslamatRawi”, is consisting of 335 pages. Basically this book is a “Travelogue” because of Colonel Muhammad Khan travelled across the country many times. He has a very close and keen abservations of the people of the other countries, he also knows their traditions, customs, and systems. So, he urges all this in his books in a very beautifly style of humor. His humor is full of joy, pleasure and sweetness. He uses short, simple and easy sentences in his writing. He is very different kind of humor writings. He is a master-piece of humorists writer. He has also a fun of writing according to the situation. He avoides the artificial writings, focuses on the originality and purity. In his humor, he uses other languages along with Urdu, like as English, Parsian, Arabic etc. So, he fulfilled a strong tradition of humor writings in the field ofUrdu humor.

A partir de algumas considerações sobre o humor e as narrativas jocosas na comunicação e na linguagem, esta pesquisa se concentra no estudo de um personagem folclórico misto de sábio e bobo largamente conhecido entre os falantes da língua árabe pelo nome Juha e de algumas anedotas por ele protagonizadas, pondo em foco as suas principais características e os temas relacionados: sociedade, política, miséria, entre outros; além de apontar a presença de algumas anedotas em diferentes livros, do século X ao XXI, inclusive numa coletânea editada por Mussa Kuraiem em São Paulo na década de 60 do século passado, o livro Giha, Hoja e Nasredin, que constitui o corpus desta dissertação.
Starting from some considerations about humor and playful narratives in communication and language, this research focuses on the study of a mix of wise and foolish folkloric character - widely known among the speakers of the Arabic language by the name Juha - and on some anecdotes played by him, bringing into focus their main characteristics and issues: society, politics, poverty, among others, while pointing out the presence of some anecdotes in different books, from X to XXI century, including a collection edited by Mussa Kuraiem in São Paulo in the 60s of the last century. This book, Giha, Hoja and Nasredin, forms the corpus of this dissertation.

The present study investigates issues in the subtitling of humour in the American sitcom, Seinfeld. The study also identifies the subtitling strategies used by Arab translators to solve the technical, linguistic and cultural problems of translating humour in Seinfeld, and it uncovers the factors that might have affected the subtitlers’ decisions. The study draws on the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH; Attardo & Raskin 1991, Attardo 1994, Attardo 2001, Attardo 2002) and Pedersen’s (2005) model of subtitling cultural references. Applying the GTVH and Pedersen’s (2005) model to the subtitling of humour between English and Arabic will test their reliability (i.e., the analysis of the data using these theories will reveal their strengths and weaknesses). The findings show that different types of humour were used in the selected data (eight types). These types were rendered into Arabic using a variety of strategies which were governed by a number of parameters, including cultural and linguistc differences between the source and target languages and cultures, intersemiotic redundancy, intertextuality, media-specific constraints, viewers’ knowledge of the show, and the simplicity of the humour in the source text. The Arab subtitlers managed, in many instances, to translate humour successfully into Arabic. However, some instances of humour that contained cultural references, wordplay, and catchphrases proved to be more challenging. The study also discusses the subtitling of a wide range of types of humour, some of which have not been explored before in the Arabic context (e.g., retorts, register clash, spoonerisms, and catchphrases). This study should contribute to filling the gap in research into the subtitling of humour in the Arab world, as this field is relatively new and there is a huge shortage of research in the field of subtitling comedies. In addition, a new model of analysing and subtitling humour in sitcoms is proposed, based on the GTVH and Pedersen’s (2005) model and the findings of the current study. This new model consists of the external and internal parameters of the joke. The new proposed model of analysing and subtitling humour presented in this study contributes to the overall knowledge of the treatment of humour in AV productions.

Ce travail examine les aspects particuliers de la traduction journalistique, plus précisément, la traduction de l’éditorial, en fonction de la nature propre de celui-ci ainsi que de l’écriture journalistique et s’efforce d’en déduire quelques observations éclairant la traduction des textes journalistiques d’opinion du français vers l’arabe. L’analyse des stratégies de traduction appliquées dans un corpus d’éditoriaux du magazine français Le Point fait apparaître l’impact important de la composante culturelle dans la traduction de ce type de textes. On a ainsi observé que les titres des éditoriaux étaient très marqués par le genre discursif et par la tradition journalistique dans lesquels ils s’inscrivent. Ces segments courts exigent une construction de sens complexe et rétroactive de la part du traducteur. L’éditorialiste français a tendance à mettre en œuvre différentes stratégies et techniques de persuasion dans son intitulation dont l’humour. L’étude du corpus montre que le traducteur doit tenir compte tout aussi bien des conventions d’écriture (en fonction du genre) que des stratégies de communications utilisées ( jeux de mots et intertextualité) pour rendre une traduction adaptée au contexte culturel du public cible. Notre recherche souligne également le poids de la culture de départ pour orienter la démarche globale des traducteurs face aux éditoriaux à traduire
This study deals with particular problems arising when translating a journalistic text,particularly an editorial, depending on its specific features as well as journalistic prose;its purpose is to bring out a few remarks clarifying the French-Arabic translation of opinion journalistic text. The aim of this research is to study the translation strategies applied in a corpus made up of editorials taken from the French magazine Le Point.The study shows the important impact of culture in translating editorials. Thus, we firstnoticed that editorial headlines are influenced by the discourse genre and the journalistic tradition in which they are produced. The interpretation of these short textual segments requires a complex construction of meaning on the part of the translator. There is atendency of the French editorialist to use various strategies and techniques employed for persuasion in his editorials and headlines including humour. The study shows that the translator should be sensitive not only to conventions applying across genres in Arabicjournalistic culture, but also to humour effects and cultural citations in order for theintended effect to be achieved. Our research highlights as well the important role of thesource culture to determine the global translational behaviour

Questo studio esamina le strategie, i personaggi e i temi dell’umorismo in alcuni romanzi comici egiziani pubblicati a partire dagli anni Ottanta. Proverbiale qualità degli egiziani, la comicità è una valvola di sfogo nella vita quotidiana e una forma espressiva in diverse produzioni culturali. Finora questo fenomeno è stato parzialmente analizzato dalla critica letteraria, che si è concentrata sulla letteratura pre-moderna, aneddoti letterari-folklorici, teatro popolare e stampa satirica. In ambito moderno, la prosa satirica (adab sākhir) è relegata ai margini del canone, mentre la comicità viene riconosciuta, tutt’al più, come tratto stilistico in singoli autori. Alla luce della rivalutazione dei pionieri della prosa satirica moderna e di recenti pubblicazioni dallo stile comico, questa ricerca indaga i rapporti tra comicità, satira e letteratura nel romanzo egiziano contemporaneo. In particolare, individua un sottogenere di romanzi che combinano lo stile comico con qualità estetiche riconducibili alle coeve tendenze letterarie. Gli autori così identificati vanno ad affiancare i maestri della satira e dell’ironia riconosciuti dalla critica: da un lato, i pionieri a cavallo tra Ottocento e Novecento; dall’altro, alcuni scrittori attivi a partire dagli anni Settanta. A questo scopo, vengono esaminate le strategie comiche in quattro romanzi di Muḥammad Mustajāb (1938-2005), Khayrī Shalabī (1938-2011) e Ḥamdī Abū Julayyil (1968). Questi autori, che contribuiscono al rinnovamento delle forme narrative, hanno recentemente incrementato il loro riconoscimento critico, ma sono ancora poco studiati. Le opere selezionate, che sviluppano l’umorismo a livello tematico, stilistico e meta-narrativo, sono accumunate dall’attenzione per personaggi eccentrici in comunità marginali e offrono una rappresentazione critica della società contemporanea. Avvalendosi dell’apporto teorico degli humour studies e della narratologia, l’analisi testuale di questi romanzi indaga le strategie narrative, la costruzione dei personaggi comici, l’intertestualità e il linguaggio. Inoltre, esamina le affinità tematiche e stilistiche, nonché le funzioni della comicità all’interno di questo filone narrativo. L’attenzione è posta sulla rielaborazione di modelli compositivi tradizionali (turāth) e dell’umorismo popolare all’interno dei romanzi. Il primo capitolo passa in rassegna le principali teorie del comico applicate all’analisi letteraria e alcuni recenti studi sull’umorismo nella letteratura araba. Il secondo capitolo motiva la selezione del corpus, nel contesto del romanzo e della satira egiziana, e illustra le modalità di analisi. I capitoli dal terzo al sesto sono dedicati ciascuno allo studio di un romanzo: Min al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-Nuʿmān ʿAbd al-Ḥāfiẓ (1982) di Mustajāb, Riḥlāt al-ṭurshajī al-ḥalwajī (1981/83) e Ṣāliḥ Hēṣa (2000) di Shalabī, e al-Fāʿil (2008) di Abū Julayyil. L’ultimo capitolo confronta le strategie comiche e le peculiarità stilistico-tematiche. Da questa analisi emergono alcune strategie comuni, come la struttura aneddotica, l’attualizzazione di personaggi comici proverbiali e l’accostamento di registri, compreso il dialetto egiziano e il linguaggio gergale. A livello stilistico, ricorrono l’immagine del doppio, ripetizioni e descrizioni fisiche grottesche. A livello tematico, gli autori si concentrano sulla relazione fra città e campagna, l’ingiustizia sociale e la rilettura ironica della storiografia ufficiale. La molteplicità di forme e personaggi in questo filone comico si inserisce nel rinnovamento del romanzo egiziano, rappresentando in modo giocoso o tragicomico il rapporto fra singolo e collettività.
Our study looks at characters, themes, and strategies in some Egyptian humorous novels published since the 1980s. Known for their proverbial sense of humour, Egyptians resort to comedy as a safety valve in everyday life and as a creative tool in many cultural productions. So far, the study of literary humour has focused on pre-modern literature, literary and folkloric anecdotes, popular drama, and satirical press. Modern satirical writing (adab sākhir) is placed at the margins of the canon, whereas humour is analysed as one of the stylistic features of some novelists. Having considered the re-evaluation of the pioneers of early-modern satire and the recent publication of humorous writings, our study examines the interplay of humour, satire, and literature in contemporary Egyptian novels with a comparative approach. In particular, it identifies a sub-genre which combines sense of humour and aesthetic qualities, which are intertwined with the contemporary literary trends. The novelists of our corpus, thus, join other masters of humour and irony already recognized by criticism: the pioneers of the late 1800s-early 1900s on the one hand, and some writers of the Generation of the Sixties on the other. To identify this sub-genre, we illustrate the humour-generating strategies in four novels by Muḥammad Mustajāb (1938-2005), Khayrī Shalabī (1938-2011), and Ḥamdī Abū Julayyil (1968). These writers have recently increased their critical recognition, but are still understudied. The novels of our corpus employ humour on a thematic, stylistic, and meta-narrative level. They depict eccentric characters in marginal communities and portray contemporary society with satirical criticism. Having adopted humour studies and narratology as a theoretical background, our textual analysis looks at the narrative strategies, the construction of characters, intertextuality, and literary language. In addition, it outlines the thematic and stylistic similarities, as well as the functions of humour in this literary trend. Our analysis focuses on the appropriation of the Arab cultural heritage (turāth) and of popular humour in these comic writings. The first chapter overviews the main humour theories applied to literary criticism and recent scholarship on humour in Arabic literature. The second chapter illustrates the selection criteria for our corpus, within the context of modern Egyptian fiction and satire, and our analytical framework. Each of the chapters 3-6 is devoted to a case study: Min al-tārīkh al-sirrī li-Nuʿmān ʿAbd al-Ḥāfiẓ (1982) by Mustajāb, Riḥlāt al-ṭurshajī al-ḥalwajī (1981/83) and Ṣāliḥ Hēṣa (2000) by Shalabī, and al-Fāʿil (2008) by Abū Julayyil. Finally, chapter 7 compares the humour-generating strategies and the thematic and stylistic peculiarities of these novels. We have identified some common strategies, such as the anecdotic structure, the use of stock characters in a contemporary context, and the juxtaposition of different registers, including Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and jargon. Recurrent stylistic features are the image of the double, repetitions, and grotesque physical descriptions. On a thematic level, these novels focus on the rural-urban relation, social injustice, and a re-reading of official historiography. With its variety of forms and characters, this humorous sub-genre fits into the innovation of contemporary Egyptian fiction, by portraying the relation between the self and the community in a playful or tragicomic way.