The Mechanisms of Intentional Adaptation in the Creation of Anti-Proverbs

Abstract

This article deals with the mechanism of intentional adaptation, which is a modern way of creating Turkish anti-proverbs. Anti-proverbs are created through with the influence of social media, popular lines/cues from TV series or popular life situations, and they are not casually selected. Moreover, there exist some semantic or phonetic connections between the chosen words and the traditional proverbs including the creators' perception of life, either way, anti-proverbs are created in a stylistic way, which does not meet any stylistic device in Turkish literature. This present work describes these types of applications through the term of 'Intentional Adaptation.' It is 'Intentional' because there is an intent on the part of the users to deliberately select fashionable, well-known lines or words related to popular culture. Plus, 'adaptation' derived from the users' adapting the terminology or English words into Turkish sentences or structures with Turkish suffixes. As a result, traditional well-known Turkish proverbs result in the modern anti-proverb following the adaptation. Therefore, this study shows that the English language and popular life conditions are factors that have a tremendous effect on the manner of thinking and communicating of individuals.