The European Journal of Humour Research

Contemporary political satirists

Jacob De Bruyn — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The conventional understanding of the church’s prophetic witness is that it is founded on the prophets portrayed in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. They communicated God’s message in relation to various issues such as religious practices and loyalty to God, but also, importantly, criticism and denunciation of political and social injustice. Satirical shows, in this study, refer to the satirical news components of TV late-night talk shows, as well as internet based satirical socio-political shows, where satirical commentary forms the common thread with prophetic witness, namely the indictment of political and social wrongdoing. Specific shows referred to in this study are The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Honest Government Ad, and Jonathan Pie. The angle of this paper differs from other studies in that it does not look at Christian/religious themes specifically, rather any issue warranting a prophetic voice, but which is often absent. The challenge addressed in this article is to see if a link between contemporary political satire and prophetic witness can be justified theologically. A cursory overview on satire in the book of Jonah as the most comprehensive representation of the genre within the prophets is done, as well as a discussion on possible prophetic themes and examples in a selection of political satire programmes. The study concludes that, while political satirists are not prophets, when interpreted in the context of God’s kingdom, they do at times speak prophetically.

Flirting with the Israeli Prime Minister, humorously

Galia Hirsch, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines a specific type of supportive, make-believe, playful humour called here flirting humour, which serves to create a positioning of symmetry and intimacy, while posing a mitigated threat to the face of the addresser and addressee. We focus on two sub-categories of this humour prevalent in online readers’ comments to Facebook posts published by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the March 2020 electoral campaign: (1) humorous confessions of lust and love by women, even marriage proposals; (2) humorous gestures of camaraderie, mostly by men, including informal social invitations and friendly requests for favours – all directed to Netanyahu. We suggest that this humour reflects characteristics identified with the Israeli Sabra individuals (e.g., directness, openness, easy-goingness, mischievousness) and the Israeli society (camaraderie, informality). Furthermore, we argue that flirting humour, which is particularly dominant among Netanyahu’s supporters, is associated with his dual self-positioning: while the symmetrical and intimate scenarios his supporters humorously create reflect Netanyahu’s positioning as “one of the guys”, the humorous framing reflects awareness of his hierarchical superiority, and acceptance of his self-positioning as a great leader. Thus, flirting humour contributes both to the solidification of Netanyahu’s supporters, and the reinforcing of his position among them.

Laughing at political opponents

Orest Semotiuk — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the discursive dimension of the standoff between supporters of 6th Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and those of his predecessor Petro Poroshenko. This dimension is implemented in Internet memes as one of the forms of political satire. Memes can be defined by their goals, frame of reference and means. The discursive practices used in memes aiming at the symbolic defamation of a political opponent and his electoral base are considered, taking into account the target, the focus, and the presentation of political satire about the protagonists Zelensky and Poroshenko. The corresponding parameters (goal-target, frame of reference-focus, means-presentation) constitute the analytical framework for the examination of the interrelations between political participation, political humour, political satire, and political discourse in this paper.

“The General Said”

Desislava Cheshmedzhieva-Stoycheva — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Times of trial require resorting to new methods for venting up the tension. Internet memes during the first outbreak of the pandemic proved to be the necessary outlet, while, at the same time, provided a platform for the public to share their opinion, albeit in a humorous way, on the measures imposed, the people involved in the fight against the virus, and basically on everything that determined their everyday lives. The latter has been fostered greatly by the fact that humour is a generally relatable phenomenon. At the same time though, it can also be culture specific and some peculiarities of the embedded message can remain hidden for the general public. In order to trace these opposing aspects in the creation of internet memes, the paper analyses a corpus of 84 memes circulated on Facebook and Instagram in the period of 13 March 2020 – 30 May 2020. The subject in all these memes is General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, who was in charge of the struggle with COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria, and the main methods of analysis are Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis.

The focus is on intertextuality and the paper argues that some of the intertextual links used in the creation of the memes might be left misunderstood by the general public due to the specificity of the message carried or the images that have been selected by the authors of these pieces of digital humour. Thus, mediation, i.e. the time needed to decode the message, would be longer for people who are not familiar with the images or ideas used, while smaller for those aware of them. Additionally, the paper argues that the age of the recipients as well as their personal preferences are also of significance for the proper understanding of the message a meme carries. Furthermore, the analysis also proves the fact that although some images might be used simply as a background and do not carry substantial information, without them one cannot understand the full array of ideas the author/ poster of a particular meme is trying to convey.

Identity investment in stand-up comedy and online sketches

Mihaela Viorica Constantinescu — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The article focuses on identity investment in stand-up comedy and online sketches performed by Romanian (or of Romanian descent) comedians acting abroad (France and United Kingdom). It aims at highlighting various humorous strategies that could be construed around a shared feature: the importance of the performer’s stage identity (persona). The analysis is based on a theoretical framework which combines stance(taking) studies and discourse approaches to humour. Immigrant’s (as marginal performers) humour reveals subversive humour: a means of coping with reality, aimed to expose and challenge power structures. The comedians explore stereotypes regarding Romanian or Eastern European immigrants in France and the UK. The differences in staging the stereotypes depend on the comedian’s identity investment in the persona he creates during the humorous performance, as well as on the degree of marginality he assumes for that persona.

Creative uses of language to invoke sex-related taboos in Churchill Raw comedy shows

Simon Wanjala Nganga — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Churchill Raw event facilitates creative self-expression of young comedians through the incorporation of a variety of sex-related taboo topics. Yet, the multicultural nature of the participants in the Nairobi-based event makes the communication of such topics particularly problematic, as they can also be deemed offensive. Drawing on theoretical and methodological principles from Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 2003), this article investigates how sex-related taboos are drawn into performances using euphemistic linguistic resources, such as puns, metaphors, metonymy, codeswitching and so on. As data we use 10 video recordings of comedians and 2 two-hour interviews with the key comedians. By focusing on situated uses of euphemistic language in the context of comedy in the African city of Nairobi, this article demonstrates that contrary to the general perception, young people observe sex-related taboos by using euphemistic language resources.

What did the Portuguese laugh at 200 years ago?

João Pedro Rosa Ferreira — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article aims to identify the existence of a laughter community in Portugal in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Based on research into the beginnings of humour in periodicals published in Portugal, a corpus consisting of newspapers published between 1797 and 1835 was analysed, from the first in which humour was used systematically as a resource (Almocreve de Petas) until the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy. With the concept of laughter community in mind, evidence was sought that it was present in the period that covers the political, social and economic transition from the Ancien Régime to modern society, having as main players writers, editors, printers, readers and listeners, in a process of production, reception, circulation and appropriation of ideas and meanings. This process, which developed in the public sphere, also played a part in forming incipient public opinion. To detect evidence of this community, clichés, jocular expressions and comic stories conveyed by the periodicals were identified. Very often they were found to have kept the same meaning they had at the time, while some expressions have survived with slight changes, and others simply no longer make people laugh.

Humor and allusions on screen

Kateryna Pilyarchuk — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Contemporary texts often require a reader or viewer with vast background knowledge. One of the reasons behind this is intertextuality: every text is reliant, to a certain extent, on previous written, filmed, or painted artifacts. Conveying intertextuality by means of another language implies that a translator recognizes allusions and their function, analyses their recognizability in the target culture, and offers a solution that maintains their pragmatic effect. In the case of a multimodal product like an animated cartoon, the translator is also tasked with bringing the verbal channel to conformity with the non-verbal one. This article focuses on translation strategies of allusions to examine whether the distance between the original and target language plays a crucial role in conveying allusive humour. The research corpus is complete Season 5 of The Simpsons animated sitcom and its three translations: German, Ukrainian, and Russian. Selected scenes are discussed in light of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (Attardo, et al. 2002) and strategies for translating allusions (Leppihalme, 1992). The findings suggest that the distance between languages is not a key factor when searching for effective translation solutions, and that it is a translator’s competence that plays a major role in humour translation.

Translating humour in children’s theatre for (unintended) diasporic audiences

Catalina Iliescu-Gheorghiu — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article delves into children’s literature, more specifically, children’s theatre containing humour, and its double process of translation and/or adaptation, both “page to stage” and “stage to stage”, when a different language is involved, and the play is to be performed for an audience belonging to the target culture and an unintended diasporic one. The research perspective is descriptive (of the translational process) and comparative (of the source and target products). On the one hand, it analyses the cognitive and social mechanisms which create humour of different types (literary-stylistic, visual-auditive, and situational/of expectations) and those which allow the existence of ethnic humour. On the other hand, it tackles the translators’ decision-making process and the translation/adaptation strategies reflected by the final product. The material used for this research comprises the literary work in original, the script in the source language, the script in the target language, the recordings of the Romanian performance and the performance in Spanish by the Theatre “Anton Pann” (Romania). The author of this article coordinated the team of translators whose hybridity lies in their condition of first and second generation of Romanian residents in Spain. The results of this insight bring into light the debate on ethnic humour legitimacy and, at the same time, draw scholarly attention to the role played by translators in constructing and perpetuating images of cultures/literatures.

Subtitling Arabic humour into English

Hanan Al-Jabri, Ghadeer Alhasan, Sukayna Ali — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines how humour in Arabic stand-up comedies is translated into English in an audio-visual context. The study uses a case study of Arabic stand-up comedies streamed on Netflix, including Live from Beirut by Adel Karam and Comedians of the World/ Middle East. The shows which are subtitled into English involve a variety of Arab comedians speaking different dialects, including the Levant dialect (Lebanese, Jordanian, and Palestinian) and Gulf dialects, particularly the Saudi dialect. While several studies were conducted to examine the translation of English humour into Arabic, very few explore the translation of Arabic humour into English, especially in the realm of audio-visual translation. Arabic and English are two different languages reflecting different norms and cultures and, therefore, many linguistic and cultural challenges are expected to arise in the process of translation between them. The study draws on Pederson’s (2005) strategies for translating cultural references and Díaz-Pérez’s (2013) strategies for translating wordplay and puns. The study identifies two types of humour used in the Arabic stand-up comedies, namely language-restricted jokes (wordplay, puns, language variation, and taboo language) and culture-restricted jokes which require knowledge about the concept or character being referred to. Several translation strategies were used by Netflix subtitlers to render these types of jokes into English, including paraphrasing, generalizing, specification, substitution, and omission.

Book review

Jessica Milner Davis — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Kristina Stankevičiūtė — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Iveta Žákovská — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Loukia Kostopoulou — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Theodora Saltidou — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Salomi Boukala — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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Natàlia Server Benetó — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

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