Tabuul lingvistic, ca instrument al umorului în stand-up comedy
Linguistic Taboo as a Tool of Humor in Stand-up Comedy

Summary/Abstract: In stand-up comedy, humour results from social jokes which emphasise a community’s values, faults, fears, and taboos. The paper focuses on the analysis of the psychosocial functions of taboo words (especially curse words) in stand-up comedy speech acts and their impact on the audience. The theoretical framework consists of socio-, pragma- and psycholinguistics. Starting from the idea that context plays a decisive role in determining the appropriateness or inappropriateness of a speech act, we identify and analyse five categories of swear words depending on their psychosocial and discursive behaviour: swearing as a form of address, cathartic swearing, aggressive/offensive swearing, emphatic swearing, and auxiliary swearing. These categories are illustrated by means of relevant examples taken from the video recordings of two shows performed by Cosmin Nedelcu.

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