The effect of self-related humour on convergent and divergent thinking

Author(s): Shahinoor Rahman,Zhijin Zhou / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2023

Humour enhances creativity, but the question is whether different types of humour have a similar effect on improving individual creativity. It is evident that negative humour style is negatively related to creativity, while positive humour style is positively related to it. However, no evidence has been found that self-related humour (self-enhancing and self-defeating humour) directly affects creative thinking in the experimental setting. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of self-related humour on convergent and divergent creative thinking. We included 60 (38 male,22 female) participants and randomly assigned 20 in each condition to conduct this experiment. To evoke humour, we used 12 stimuli (12 self-enhancing jokes, 12 self-defeating jokes, and 12 non-humorous statements) in each condition. Remote Association Task (RAT)was used to measure convergent thinking, and Alternative Uses Task (AUT)was used to measure divergent thinking. We expected that i) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at convergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group and ii) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at divergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group. Our results supported our hypotheses and suggested that self-enhancing humour induced individual creativity both in convergent or divergent thinking (originality, fluency, flexibility).In contrast, self-defeating humour failed to affect either convergent or divergent thinking

Humorous advertisement categories

Author(s): Emese Babinszki,Katalin Balázs / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2023

Humour is a prevalent strategy in advertising, but research findings are contradictory regarding its effectiveness. A potential resolution of the contradictory findings could be to create a category system distinguishing between the basic types of humorous advertisements, which could systematically be used in future research. Several classifications have been reported and some typologies have been suggested, but none is based on the audience’s representations. Our aim was to identify the basic types of humorous advertisements with an approach that considers both the previous typologies and the non-experts’ representations.In the present study, 18 humorous advertisements were assessed based on a questionnaire study with 13 questions and 246 adult participants. Based on the cluster analyses of the empirical data, three basic types of humorous advertisements were identified: taboo-breaking, exaggeration, and cute or sentimental humour. Eight items were differentiated most clearly among the humorous advertisement types. Both the humorous advertisement categories and the applied items are worth consideration in further studies. Conscious use of the identified categories in future research could help to develop a more comprehensive model of humorous advertising effects.

The humorous body:

Author(s): Neha Khurana / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2023

This paper is a commentary upon the mingling of the affective and discursive varieties of humour in the eighteenth century based on the observation that the body and bodily processes are at the core of humour in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. The author notes in this novel a curious coming together of the various conceptions of the functioning of the human body prevalent at that time and linguistic slippages. Linguistic quips aid in a slippery transition between the various conceptions of the body and discursive linguistic aspects, thus creating humour. Linguistic slips of this kind seem to be inspired by John Locke’s philosophy popular at the time, while an analysis using Henri Bergson’s essay on the comic is carried out to look at the mechanism in which humour is produced through the body in the novel as the iatromechanistic and humoral models of the body lend themselves to be seen as comic in the Bergsonian sense.

Nová monografie ostravských badatelů o dětské poezii nového milénia

Author(s): Radomil Novák / Language(s): Slovak,Czech Issue: 1/2024

Review of: Novák, Radomil et al. Česká autorská poezie pro děti a mládež v novém miléniu (2000-2022). First edition. Brno: Books & Pipes, 2023. 194 pp. ISBN 978-80-7485-285-5.

Book review

Author(s): Villy Tsakona / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2023

Stand-up in the age of outrage:

Author(s): Jonas Nicolaï,Pieter Maeseele / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

In the context of an expanding societal awareness of social injustice and inequality, stand-up comedy is frequently caught in the crosshairs of discourses on free speech and political correctness. This study examines the evolving relationship between comedic critique and contemporary discourses on the boundaries of humour. Drawing on the thesis of there politicisation of humour, we analyse stand-up comedy’s reflexivity towards “wokeness” and“cancel culture” through the case of Flemish stand-up comedian Michael Van Peel. Our findings suggest that the complexity of the current political climate leaves Van Peel and his contemporaries disoriented in their attempts to surpass the boundaries of comedic critique. Asa result, we argue for a reimagining of comedy's political potential beyond traditional interpretations as subversive critique, towards a view of stand-up comedy as a site of democratic resistance. Expanding views on the public role of comedians in response to contemporary socio-political issues can enhance the understanding of complex sociocultural dynamics and enable critical engagement with discourses on social justice and comedic free speech.

From mocking pastors to roasting politicians:

Author(s): Ivo Nieuwenhuis / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

In this article, I argue that humour scandals are less a product of the changing media landscape of the last thirty years than recent studies seem to suggest. Instead, I point to the structural continuities that can be observed in Dutch humour scandals over the past seventy years.Although stemming from various sociocultural and media contexts, these scandals roughly follow the same ‘script’. I also show that humour scandals are not just mediated events, but markers of cultural conflict as well. Behind every scandal, a substantial moral, cultural, and often also social divide can be recognised, and the study of humour scandals can be used to better understand such divides. I substantiate both of these claims through a qualitative,contextual analysis of two Dutch humour scandals: the mocking of Catholic pastors by comedian Wim Sonneveld in a TV performance from 1963, and the roast of far-right politician Thierry Baudet by comedian Martijn Koning in a popular late night talk show from Spring 2021.

Comic innocence

Author(s): Dick Zijp / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

In recent years, humour has re-entered the public sphere as a serious and potentially explosive topic of debate, giving rise to social conflicts and controversies. Paradoxically,however, humour has at the same time been passionately (and often aggressively) defended as innocent and harmless. I propose the notion of ‘comic innocence’ to make sense of this paradox. I take Dutch and American studies of racism, white innocence and racial ignorance as a starting point to construct a theory of comic innocence, which is tested through the analysis of responses in both legacy and social media to a serious opinion article on humour(written by the author of this paper), which sparked a scandal in the summer of 2021. Ianalyse 265 tweets and a small number of related newspaper articles and blog posts to demonstrate the respondents’ “humour ideologies”. I argue that, in the context of the “re-politicisation of humour”, those who defend humour as innocent mobilise and re-articulate three older ideas on humour. First, they emphasise the overall positive psychological, social and political functions and effects of humour. Second, they believe that humour should be protected against a ‘woke’ culture of high sensitivity and censorship. Third, they argue that humour research is a joke, and humour scholars lack a sense of humour. The humour scholar appears in this debate as the most important source of danger: a humourless, left-wing scientist keen on curtailing and censoring humorous expression.

Liquid racism in Greek online satirical news

Author(s): Villy Tsakona / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

The present study explores the infiltration of racism in humorous texts which at first sight appear to have antiracist intentions, in particular in satirical news coming from popular Greek websites and targeting majority people for their racist practices towards migrants. The analysis reveals that distinguishing between antiracist and racist interpretations is not an easy or straightforward matter: humour seems to blur the boundary between racism and antiracism. In this context, the concept of liquid racism (Weaver, 2016) is exploited to account for the ambiguities of humorous discourse when it involves racist and antiracist meanings.Furthermore, given that this paper is part of a special issue on “Humour and the public sphere”,the latter understood in Habermas’s (1989/1962) sense, I will venture some observations concerning the (in)compatibility between Habermas’s conceptualisation of the public sphere and humour/satire. Perhaps a broader and more inclusive definition of the public sphere than the one initially proposed by Habermas is called for, which will allow for the ambiguities of satirical humour.

From London Bridge to Finsbury Park Mosque:

Author(s): Nikita LOBANOV / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

The former Twitter (now called ‘X’) is a social media platform characterized by an intense exchange of posts by users on political themes. These posts can indicate the evolution of a social phenomenon around a pivotal event. The overarching theme of this paper is to observe and examine the posts of Twitter users following the London Bridge terror attack on June 3rd, 2017,and following another attack against the Finsbury Park Mosque on June 19th of the same year.By means of a content analysis of a robust database of posts collected from the Twitter platform I was able to observe the reactions of radical right users during the attacks and reflect upon how hate was played out in terms of language and emotions. Despite the inevitable violence of these attacks, I detected the presence of humour in tweets as well as remarks that were predictably characterized by both physical and moral disgust. All tweets examined displayed at least one of Haidt’s Moral Foundations. My hypothesis is that humour is a moral phenomenon which can lead to exaggerated human behaviours as well.

Possibilities and limits of political humour in a hybrid regime:

Author(s): Anniina Hyttinen / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

This article focuses on the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP), which can be defined asa joke party. MKKP uses humour to criticise the corruption flourishing around the governingparty Fidesz as well as its simplified and racist form of political communication. However,MKKP’s critical stance extends to Hungarian politicians and the political system in general.This visual ethnographic research focuses on the activities that MKKP organised during national days in Hungary between 2017 and 2022, which included a space launch, a peace march and an alternative national day celebration on 20 August. The events can be defined as parody performances. The field material is complemented by a semi-structured interview with the party activists. MKKP’s humour is critical and revealing in nature, aiming to expose the powerholders’ agenda. However, instead of ridiculing, MKKP’s humour is primarily corrective and supportive. As such, it has the potential to alleviate polarisation. In MKKP’s activism,creativity and cynicism exist in close proximity to one another. Humour also functions as a powerful antidote against simplified populist truths that rely on fearmongering and enemy images. In a hybrid regime, absurd humour can be used to reveal the inherent absurdities of the political reality. MKKP has occasionally succeeded in entering the state-controlled public sphere. During recent years, the party has started to address societal matters more seriously,without abandoning its roots as a humour party

Polarised but similar:

Author(s): Liisi Laineste,Anastasiya Fiadotava / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

Conflict divides society by bringing out opposing opinions and social, political and cultural difference. Humour becomes a way to disseminate and comment on opinions as well as to mark divisions in the public sphere. Even though humour is ambiguous in nature, its stance (Shifman2014) is made evident through content and/or context. In cases where the content of pro- and anti-democratic humour is similar, meta-discourse decides the stance.In this article we look at the (mainly online) humour that has emerged as a reaction to politically polarising conflicts. We use as examples the 2020 protests in Belarus and the Russian war in Ukraine. We analyse common and unusual motifs in pro- and anti-democratic humour born from these conflicts and discuss the sources used to create this humour. The results show that anti-democratic humour has fewer layers of reference and is less subtle than pro-democratic humour as the latter needs to circumvent censorship. Pro-democratic humour makes ample use of self-irony in contrast to the more rigid and offensive position taken in anti-democratic humour. Pro-democratic humour also needs to be more inclusive as it often spreads within a wider, more global audience catering for wider tastes in humour.

Denumiri ale cărților Bibliei în Hronograf den începutul lumii (ms. 3517)

Author(s): Mioara Dragomir / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2023

The names of the biblical books presented are in Romanian, Slavonic, and Hebrew. The translator of the Chronicle from the beginning of the world also used a Slavonic Bible to translate biblical fragments, as indicated by the names in Slavonic. Many of the biblical insertions presented are in Slavonic, which indicates a high level of knowledge of this language, but also of knowledge of the Greek language, at least through the translation of the Chronicle. As we have previously demonstrated, the use of Hebrew titles indicates an increased interest in encyclopedic matters and a strong connection to the text of the Bible. In accordance with its Romanian title, Manuscript 4389 presents the Hebrew titles of the biblical books, which are likely assimilated from the Slavonic original of this translation. The dates provided lead us again to believe that the translator of the Chronicle held a close relationship with the act of translating the Bible. Not only was he a polyglot, but he also possessed an extensive knowledge of the contents of the Holy Scriptures. This is evident from the fact that he frequently supplemented the dates in the Greek text with references to biblical elements. We maintain that the complex personality being referred to here is that of Nicolae Milescu Spătarul, who was the first person to translate the Bible into Romanian. He had extensive knowledge of dogma, which he acquired during his studies at the School of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as through reading and translating books and manuscripts, also reproduced in Enchiridion sive stella Orientalis Occidentali splendens, which was written in Latin.

Le Buisson ardent et l’Acathiste qui lui est consacré en langue française

Author(s): Felicia DUMAS / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2023

We propose a discursive analysis of the biblical motif of the burning bush, as exploited stylistically and interpreted spiritually and symbolically in the Akathist Hymn dedicated to it in Romanian culture by the monk Daniel (Daniil Sandu Tudor), the initiator of the Hesychast spiritual prayer movement “the Burning Bush” from the Antim monastery in Bucharest. We’ll be working on the French version of this Akathist, produced by archimandrite Father Placide Deseille with the help of one of the leading members of the “Burning Bush”, Father André Scrima. The Akathist Hymn associates the Mother of God with the burning bush, which burned without being consumed, evoked in the Book of Exodus, a “concrete” form of theophany witnessed by the prophet Moses on Mount Horeb (Exodus 3:2-5). According to patristic exegesis, Moses saw the Mother of God in the burning bush. This analogy with the burning bush underlines the fact that the Mother of God represents the symbol of uninterrupted prayer, “the Queen of prayer and her incarnation”, who intercedes unceasingly for the faithful before her Son.

Die Textvorlagen der protestantischen burgenländischkroatischen Kantionale von Grgur Mekini

Author(s): Peter Drews / Language(s): German Issue: 2/2023

The study traces the sources of the orst Croatian Protestant hymnal edited by the Lutheran priest Grgur Mekini in 1609 and 1611 and intended for parishes in the Austro- Hungarian border region. It depends for more than 90% on hymnaries compiled in Nuremberg around 1600, but to a small amount also on the Hungarian book of hymns published by Imre Újfalvi in 1602, and avoids any theologically controversial issue between Lutherans and the Reformed Churches. The authors of the texts are mainly Protestants from Saxony, Brandenburg and Bohemia, namely Martin luther, Michael Weisse, Nikolaus herman and Johann habermann. The translations aim orst of all at rendering the originals in the most exact and understandable form, while aesthetics play only a minor role.

Border Crossing and Exile in Vesna Goldsworthy’s 𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛 (2022)

Author(s): Sava Stamenković / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The novel 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛: A Love Story by the British and Serbian writer Vesna Goldsworthy is set in London and in the capital of an unnamed state-socialist country behind the Iron Curtain. It follows the fate of young Milena Urbanska, a privileged “red princess” but also a victim of the communist regime, both in exile and on her return to her homeland. The protagonist leaves her homeland in pursuit of freedom and love, but her return becomes an act of vengeance, casting her in the role of a latter-day Medea. This article focuses on the themes of border crossing and exile, which are central to this exophonic novel.

The Development of Intercultural Mediation Skills in English Language Teaching

Author(s): Irena Dimova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

This article focuses on the rise of English as an international language and explores its function as a global lingua franca used for enabling communication among speakers of different linguistic and cultural origins. It discusses research concerned with investigating the pedagogical implications of the use of English as a lingua franca and presents calls on the part of scholars for encouraging students to become intercultural mediators and acquire pragmatic competence for negotiating differences in language use/sociocultural standpoint and achieving intelligibility in intercultural communication. It also reviews research engaged in offering practical advice on devising pedagogical activities for developing intercultural mediation skills necessary for functioning well in lingua franca interactions. Drawing upon this body of literature, the present study argues for the need to incorporate the teaching of intercultural mediation skills into traditional English pedagogy. It proposes two categories of pedagogical activities, awareness-raising and analytic, which can make space for the development of intercultural mediation competence in the English language classroom. The current study also gives an example of how these activities can be incorporated into tertiary education English classes by presenting pedagogical tasks from a course offered in the Department of English and American Studies at Sofia University.

Étude des insertions bibliques dans l’ouvrage du Métropolite Varlaam, Răspuns împotriva Catihismusului calvinesc [Réponse au Catéchisme calviniste]

Author(s): Mariana Nastasia / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2023

Răspuns împotriva Catihismusului calvinesc is a polemic text by Metropolitan Varlaam, printed in the 17th century. In this text, Varlaam combats the ideas of a Calvinist text that appeared at that time, so he builds his argumentative discourse on the basis of biblical quotations, the truth of which cannot be questioned. Moreover, through the examples he offers, Varlaam guides the receivers to interpret the sacred text in accordance with the norms of the Orthodox faith and the Eastern patristic tradition.

Biblical and patristic references in the Lives of muscovite saints (14-15th century)

Author(s): Iulia Nițescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

This study addresses the usage of biblical and patristic references in the 14-15th century Lives of local Muscovite saints. It aims to provide an overview of Muscovite hagiography, from the earliest anonymous texts to the works of Pachomius the Serb. The Lives were transformed over time, in numerous redactions intended for different use. They were introduced into liturgical practice, private devotion, or chronicle writing. I will focus on three cases, the first anonymous redaction of the Life of the Holy Metropolitan Peter, the second redaction of the Life of Peter, written by the metropolitan Cyprian, and the Life of Saint Sergii of Radonezh written by Epiphanius the Wise in order to discuss the cultural milieu which influenced each author’s choice of references.

Liturgical tradition in the Romanian Tetraevangelion issued in 1561 in Braşov and its relation to the Cyrillic early printed Gospel editions from the 16th century

Author(s): Jerzy Ostapczuk / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Cyrillic early printed Tetraevangelion issued in 1561 in Braşov by Deacon Coresi was the first edition containing the Good News solely in Romanian language. It was widely studied from different perspectives, while its liturgical tradition, fully written in Church Slavonic language, did not draw scholars’ attention. The study examines the commemorations of saints and feasts as well as various events present in the Menologion of 1561 Romanian edition with special attention paid to eight Romanian-Bulgarian Tetraevangelia issued in the 16th century. The study proved that 1561 Coresi’s Romanian Tetraevangelion closely follows the liturgical tradition reflected in the 1562 Romanian-Bulgarian Gospel edition, and varies in this regard from two Tetraevangelia printed in 1546 and 1551-1553 in Sibiu by Filip Pictor Moldoveanu.