Relevance Theory and political advertising.

Author(s): María Jesús Pinar Sanz / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

This paper aims to apply Sperber & Wilson’s Relevance Theory (1986; 1995; 1987) and the two stage incongruity-resolution theory of humour (Attardo 1994) to explain how humorous interpretations are produced in a corpus of political billboards published by the Labour Party in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 British election campaigns. The intersemiosis (O’Halloran 2008) between the verbal and the visual will be taken into account in order to decode the meanings transmitted. It will be suggested that the viewers’ access to background beliefs and assumptions in order to form a context against which new incoming information can be processed is also essential in order to decode meaning. The extraction of strongly or weakly implicated information is a good source of humorous effects. It will also be suggested that the interpretation depends on the viewer’s ideology, as “relevance is always relevance to an individual” (Sperber & Wilson 1986: 142).

Can ethnic humour appreciation be influenced by political reasons?

Author(s): Carmelo Moreno del Río / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

The aim of this paper is to compare the appreciation of humor that a sample of citizens in Spain has expressed about two different types of ethnic humor produced by two successful television programs from two autonomous communities in Spain: the Basque Country and Catalonia. Both regions are well-known in the Spanish society for their specific cultural and political features, which are seen as different from the rest of the country. To some extent, their particular character is fixed in the Spanish collective imaginary by some particular stereotypes, represented in stupidity and canniness jokes, following the model investigated by Christie Davies. In contrast to these jokes, the present study focuses on the ethnic humor circulated in these two regions, a kind of humor that is based on their specific identity and where it is possible to combine elements of self-deprecating humor and elements of aggressive humor towards Spain. More specifically, this work tries to test if the political background that these two regions represent in Spain –societies that dares the cohesion of the Spanish identity, even fighting for nationalist recognitions of political rights- could influence or not in the appreciation that the Spanish citizens as a whole have of this ethnic humor that Basques and Catalans produce.

The Singapore Mass Rapid Transport:

Author(s): Khin Wee Chen / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

Political cartoons can function as a means of monitoring the level of press freedom, of government’s tolerance of free speech, and their resistance to challenges posed by opposition. It may also be argued that in this digital age the aforesaid barometric utility can extend to other satirical visual forms like memes and videos. Singapore has a long reputation for its strict media control, iron-grip on the mainstream media, and zero-tolerance for any form of spontaneous public protest. However, the arrival of the digital information age effectively eroded the government’s hegemony over the public sphere, resulting in a revitalisation of democracy and the empowerment of a traditionally docile and acquiescent citizenry with regards to politics. As with most socio-political struggles in the past, political humour can be seen playing once again an important role in the expression of dissent and criticism of the establishment in the island-state. However, unlike in the past when such political humour was the domain of a small group of professional artists and writers, the new media with its immense capabilities like powerful search engines, social networks, YouTube, Twitter and various computer applications like Photoshop and Macromedia Flash, has for the first time provided tools for ordinary people who hitherto may have lived in fear of voicing their dissatisfaction all their lives, but are now empowered to create their individual and personalised expressions of protest through the use of Internet memes and other techniques, sometimes within hours of a piece of news breaking. This paper presents a case study that demonstrates how political humour “of the people, by the people” helped fuel a public outcry against the incompetence and negligence of a Singapore public transport provider that had resulted in a series of major breakdown that brought great embarrassment to a country known for its ability to “make things work”. The public’s demand for accountability has led to the unprecedented resignation of the Chief Executive Officer.

Humorous political stunts:

Author(s): Majken Jul Sørensen / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

The article introduces the concept of humorous political stunt and a new model of five types of stunts that in distinct ways challenge the prevailing order and transcend established power relations. The five types, named supportive, corrective, naive, absurd and provocative, each relate to those in power and their rationality in a different way. Supportive stunts are framed as ostensible attempts to help and protect from harm, here exemplified with a search for landmines in a Belgian bank investing in dubious companies. Corrective stunts present an alternative version of the power holders’ truth, illustrated with a Swedish peace organisation’s parody webpage of a government agency established to support arms export. In an example of a naive stunt, Burmese opposition challenges the military junta from behind a pretended innocence. Polish resistance to socialist rule shows how the absurd stunt defies all rationality. In a contemporary Russian provocative stunt directed towards the secret police, the pranksters transcend power by appearing not to care about the consequences of infuriating the powerful. In all instances, humour is the tool of serious dissent and protest attempting to humiliate and undermine the powerful. The model has been applied to more than 40 stunts and illustrates methods of speaking truth to power that exploit humorous techniques such as irony, exaggeration or impersonation. The examples also document that humour is not always carried out at the expense of those at the bottom of society, but can indeed kick upwards in order to aim for change of the status quo.

Canned jokes in Russian public political discourse

Author(s): KSENIA M. SHILIKHINA / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

The paper addresses a well-documented genre of Russian canned jokes from a socio-pragmatic perspective. The goal of the paper is twofold: firstly, it aims at examining a relatively new phenomenon of telling jokes in public political discourse. Secondly, it argues that jokes – a typical example of a non-bona fide genre – can nevertheless be used to convey bona fide messages. As a specific sphere of communication public political discourse incorporates official interaction of professional politicians as well as publicly expressed attitudes of ordinary people. Because jokes capture our experience and reflect ongoing social processes, modern Russian political discourse in many of its forms eagerly employs the genre. But, whenever a joke is used in the official political communication, we face the discrepancy between the premise of the bona fide mode of political discourse and non-seriousness of jokes. On the surface telling jokes in political discourse might seem to be a temporal switch from the bona fide to the non-bona fide mode of communication. However, the content of canned jokes told by politicians reveals deep social implications: for instance, Vladimir Putin’s frequent references to Soviet realia are signs of superiority and control over the situation. Jokes told by Putin’s opponents, on the one hand, reveal disappointment; on the other, they are part of the struggle for power. Telling jokes in public political discourse shows that the borderline between two modes of communication – bona fide and non-bona fide – is fuzzy since jokes transmit serious messages for the participants of political communication.

Parliamentary punning:

Author(s): Villy Tsakona / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2013

The present study focuses on the sociopragmatic functions of punning which appears to be the most frequent form of humour Greek politicians produce in parliament. The analysis takes into consideration the institutional particularities of this setting: in parliamentary systems such as the Greek one, competition and disagreement among political parties are more intense than in presidential systems, where party coalitions and collaboration are more frequent. More specifically, I will try to answer the following questions: Are puns the only kind of humour appearing in this setting? Why do Greek parliamentarians resort to punning? How does the use of punning relate to the institutional roles Greek parliamentarians are expected to fulfill, as well as to the institutional particularities of the Greek parliament? The data examined comes from the official parliamentary proceedings, in particular from a no-confidence debate which took place in 2007. The analysis suggests that puns are used as a means of showing off verbal skills: parliamentarians try to project themselves as eloquent orators who are capable of outscoring their adversaries in a highly competitive environment. What is more, via puns parliamentarians criticise and attempt to ideologically delegitimise political decisions and practices. Puns are less often used to bring together parliamentarians and highlight their shared experiences and roles. It therefore seems that punning helps parliamentarians to accomplish their institutional tasks, criticism being (one of) the most significant of them all.

East-West.

Author(s): Arkadiusz Jabłoński,Hiroki Nukui / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

Expansion of contemporary trade and information exchange relations does not seem to alter significantly the multi-layered requirements of inter-cultural communication. In a very important sense of this term, many individual decisions related to communication in a multi-cultural environment are inevitably narrowed to a single-context world. Only to some extent, this unavoidable limitation of communication on the verge of heterogeneous cultures may be overridden by omnipresent stereotypes and ad hoc generalizations. On a more advanced level of communication, it is the stereotypes that may foster the instances of miscommunication and lead to serious misunderstandings. In the paper, a short account on stereotypes in inter-cultural communication is going to be presented, with some examples of actual instances of miscommunication in the Japanese-Polish corporate environment. A proposal of a systematized approach towards the issues and intricacies of Japanese-Polish communication will follow.

Przekład pod patronatem.

Author(s): Mira Czarnecka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2021

Tematem artykułu jest zbadanie wpływu jaki może wywierać wydawca na sposób i zakres odzwierciedlenia w tekście przekładu elementów trzeciej kultury. Omówione zostaną kolejno: kwestia obcości w przekładzie, zjawisko elementów trzeciej kultury oraz zagadnienie funkcjonowania patronatu w systemie literackim. Badanie będzie miało formę analizy translatologicznej. Za materiał badawczy posłuży opowiadanie „The Room in Le Dragon Volant” ze zbioru In a Glass Darkly, autorstwa XIX-wiecznego, irlandzkiego pisarza Sheridana Le Fanu oraz przekład utworu na język polski, „Pokój w gospodzie Le Dragon Volant”, autorki artykułu, pochodzący z tomu W ciemnym zwierciadle. Omówiony zostanie sposób przekładu wybranych wtrętów francuskojęzycznych, zwrotu adresatywnego i dwóch realogizmów oraz zalecenia redaktora dotyczące sposobu ich transpozycji w języku polskim, jak również wynik uzgodnień pomiędzy redaktorem i tłumaczką oraz wpływ ostatecznego rozwiązania na poziom obcości tekstu docelowego. Artykuł zakończy prezentacja wniosków odnośnie wpływu wydawnictwa na przekład elementów trzeciej kultury i roli jaką tłumacz odgrywa w procesie ich adekwatnego odzwierciedlenia w języku docelowym. // The subject of the article is a research into the influence exerted by the publisher on the way and scope of rendering third culture elements in the translated text. The concept of the foreign in translation, idea of third culture elements and the issue of patronage in the literary system will be discussed in turn. The research material is a story in English titled “The Room in Le Dragon Volant” from a collection In a Glass Darkly, written by the 19th century Irish writer, Sheridan Le Fanu and its translation into Polish by the author of the article, published under the title “Pokój w gospodzie Le Dragon Volant”, in a collection W ciemnym zwierciadle. The research will involve an analysis of translation of selected examples of third culture elements, a term of address and two proper nouns in French and the discussion of recommendations from the editor regarding their transposition in the Polish language. The result of negotiations between the editor and the translator and the consequences of the adopted solution for the achieved level of foreignness in the target text will be presented. Finally, conclusions regarding the influence exerted by the publisher on the way of translation of third culture elements and the role of translator in the process of their rendering in the target language will be formulated.

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЈA ХРАНЕ У "ЗБОРНИЦИМА ЗАКОНА И УРЕДАБА ЗА КНЕЖЕВИНУ СРБИЈУ" ИЗ ПЕТЕ ДЕЦЕНИЈЕ 19. ВЕКА

Author(s): Jelena M. Pavlović Jovanović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 73/2020

In this paper, we have analyzed specific linguistic and cultural representations of food within the codes of law, regulations and legal acts of the Principality of Serbia from the years 1840, 1845 and 1847. We employed historical discourse analysis, historical sociolinguistics, and general cultural studies of food as a base framework for our research. We have established that food has a marginalized status within the observed documents. We can differentiate between basic food consisting of bread and side dishes (food served for specific categories of citizens, such as soldiers, prisoners, and the ill) and luxurious food. The status of luxurious food is manifested by the presence of lexemes of foreign origin within the list of groceries. We can highlight three types of food discourse: (a) economic discourse; (b) discourse of the state act- ing as a protector of its people; (c) medical discourse. The main motivational factor to engage in talk about food is the economic interest and in those situations one can encounter food in a public place (such as customs, quarantine, farmer’s market). A discourse which governs other types of discourses is the discourse of the state acting as a protector. The state protects its food sources, especially focusing on the protection of the poor. Famine is not addressed directly, but implications of hunger can be discerned from some legal acts. The medical discourse is most prominent in the regulations concerning quarantine and border meetings, where the Fishler’s omnivore’s paradox and incorporation principle dominates the quarantine organization. The state is metaphorically perceived as a body, and the quarantine is a customs official whose job is to check whether a certain food item carries contagious diseases.

Breaking the Norms of Bulgarian Language Online: Language Adaptation or Language Illiteracy

Author(s): Milen Filipov,Dinka Zlateva / Language(s): English Issue: 5/2021

The purpose of the research was to explore the experiences of Bulgarian university students, representatives of generations Y and Z, with breaking the rules of the Standard of Bulgarian language when communicating with textual posts on the Facebook social network site (SNS) and social networking applications (apps). Breaking language norms is due to the perception of the SNS and social apps communication as speaking rather than writing. Therefore, many of the language rules applicable to the writing are broken. The research employed a phenomenological inductive research strategy. It used a narrative literature review from 2011 to 2021 and an in-depth interview of 15 university students as research instruments. The theoretical framework was built on the theory of communication accommodation and audience design. Two main themes crystallized in the in-depth interviews: 1) communication in SNS and social apps – visual, verbal, and informal and 2) context and communicator determine the level of the Bulgarian language rules observance. In these themes, perceiving SNS communication as speaking, not as writing, hurrying up to join the communication, and the perception of the online environment as informal, explained the breaking the language rules. The research is the first to study the issue in the context of the experiences of the language users, and it opens the scientific field to further research.

Кафе и кафенета в градските пространства на Европа, Ориента и България

Author(s): Tzveta Todorova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2021

The text tells about the urban phenomenon and the traditions of coffee and cafe in Europe and Bulgaria - one of the many borrowings of Europe from the Orient. The cafe is one of the characteristic components of the city and European civilization. In the second half of the 18th century, the real rise of these establishments began, which is explained by its multifaceted functions.

Egyptian Facebook satire:

Author(s): Yomna Elsayed / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

The Arab Spring offered Egyptians a brief opportunity for political freedom of expression; it also offered many creative youths a chance to experiment with their newfound digital talents. However, this was soon followed by a state crackdown on public forms of dissent; subsequently, creative expression had to find other platforms and modalities to continue its practices of playful dissent. Through Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1984) theory of Carnivalesque, this paper examines how Egyptian youths managed to create alternate spaces, other than the highly scrutinised political square, to challenge officialdom and generate their own folk culture through laughter and creative digital arts. This research is based on interviews conducted with administrators and fans of Facebook pages that offer satirical content in the form of memes and remix videos. Fans of these pages mostly belong to the 1980s and 1990s generations, but they also include younger adults whose formative years were those of the Arab Spring. This study argues that, like Bakhtin’s carnival, laughter and everyday comedy was a means by which creative artists could continue to express their opinions and indirect dissent amid intensifying state surveillance. These spaces, therefore, constituted third spaces away from polarised politics, where fans could playfully discuss the comedy away from the heat of events. They were spaces where youths could exercise control over the objects of laughter and challenge established institutions. Like the carnival, youths exercised Carnival practices of both reversal and renewal to craft a new folk culture of their own that did not have to abide by the rules of patronising politics.

Spontaneous humour and Malaysia’s democratic breakthrough in 2018

Author(s): Shanon Shah / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

The 2018 Malaysian general election was the first democratic change of government in the nation’s modern history. The victory of the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope – PH) coalition surprised several observers within and outside the country, especially considering the intensified repression employed by the outgoing Barisan Nasional (National Front – BN) ruling coalition leading up to the polls, including media censorship, the silencing of political opponents, and the manipulation of Islamism and ethnic Malay nationalism. This article examines the role of spontaneous, conversational humour in constructing a viable political identity for the PH. It does this by considering humorous moments during press conferences and similar media events held by the PH coalition, led by its designated choice for prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad. This article aims to contribute to the scholarship on the role of humour in identity construction and political campaigning.

Book review

Author(s): Andreea Nicoleta Soare / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

Book review

Author(s): Vasia Tsami,Vasiliki Saloustrou / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

Challenges in Promoting an Inclusive Educational Environment for British Children: Issues of Race, Ethnicity and Social Class

Author(s): Tú Anh Hà,Andrea Roxana Bellot / Language(s): English Issue: 26/2021

This paper reviews different factors affecting an inclusive educational environment for British children, including race, ethnicity, and social class. Research has shown that different ethnicities and races affect children’s national identification – to be British is perceived as less relevant than being English, Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish. In addition, children’s association of positive attributes, such as food, school clothes, or extra classes, with people from high-ranking social class also divides classroom environments in the UK. In this context, children coming from lower ranking social status can be vulnerable. This reality requires educational solutions to promote intercultural competence that would foster respect, embrace differences and cultural diversity, and create an inclusive educational environment for British school children.

Лексикален израз на антонимни отношения в българските диалекти

Author(s): Vladislav Milanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2021

The article is devoted to the enormous topic of dialect variety on lexical level. The object of the analysis is the lexical expression of antonymous relations in the word pairs sick – healthy. The presentation of semantic and word forming models in the two words shows different motivational signs which are the basis for their formation in the Bulgarian speech. Different realizations of the two adjectives in the Bulgarian dialects are reviewed on the basis of rich illustrative material. The vocabulary article is enclosed in the end of the study. It certifies the realization of the meanings in the different Bulgarian dialects.

Overcoming awkwardness:

Author(s): Jocelyn Chey / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

As Chinese people engaged with the Australian cultural scene in recent years, two posts about its humour attracted considerable attention from netizens in the People’s Republic of China. The post authors believed that their firsthand accounts of events demonstrated how Australians used humour to overcome awkward situations and regarded this as an essential national characteristic. In each case, other interpretations were possible if cultural factors had been taken into account, including the contemporary culture of China, Putonghua language usage and the Anglo-centrism that is common to cross-cultural studies. This exploratory generalist textual study concludes that the authors’ interpretations were largely determined by their cultural bias and by traditional regard for ‘face’ and politeness, and reflect the fact that, ultimately, the extent of cross-cultural communication is governed by international politics.

Dame Edna and ‘the help’:

Author(s): Adrian Hale / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

‘Dame Edna Everage’, a persona originally created by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries in 1955, is a character designed to simultaneously shock and amuse. Dame Edna voices (and satirizes) the discourse of ‘average’, older, politically conservative Anglo- Australians who feel compelled to ‘tell it like it is’ – no matter how offensive their opinions might be. In the Anglosphere, Edna’s humour is well understood and sustained international success has followed Edna for more than 60 years in Britain, Canada, the US and Australia. However, Edna occasionally misfires. In 2003, for instance, Edna’s satire outraged Latinos across the USA, in fulfilment of Poe’s Law (Aikin, 2009). Simply put, Latinos assumed that Edna’s comments satirising negative mainstream attitudes towards them were expressive of Edna’s authentic racism. This paper investigates the Edna joke in the overall context of failed humour and then specifically for the offensiveness it generated amongst the Latino minority in the United States. It then tests whether this reaction was the result of a discursive frame specific to the US context, by conducting an exploratory study amongst a small sample of highly educated Australian bilingual Latin American immigrants and their adult children, to see whether they thought Edna’s joke was funny. These Australian individuals of Latin American heritage responded via an online questionnaire, and an analysis of their responses is presented here. The study’s main finding is that while these individuals generally demonstrated a high comedic literacy across both English and Spanish, including a prior awareness of Edna’s and Australian humour, they overall rejected the intention and humour of Edna’s joke. This paper asserts that, when it comes to humour, some transnational migrant speech community loyalties transcend other notions of identity and language competence.

Origins of Bosnian humour and its role during the siege of Sarajevo

Author(s): David Orlov / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

This article presents an ethnographic study of Bosnian humour during the siege of Sarajevo. The siege of Sarajevo, which followed the collapse of Yugoslavia, lasted four years. Despite the atrocities and war crimes committed against the residents of Sarajevo during this period, they are known for the spirit they demonstrated, and humour was a crucial element of this spirit. On the basis of two-month fieldwork in Sarajevo, I demonstrate how Bosnians employed humour to comment on this traumatic event, made sense of it, and coped with the experience. Although humour under extreme conditions is mainly viewed as a coping mechanism, by exploring the origins of Bosnian humour and stereotypes about Bosnians, I demonstrate that a notable humorous response to the traumatic events of the 1990s was more than a coping mechanism or just a response to this particular war. As I argue, a humorous attitude toward life in Bosnia belongs to people’s identity; it has developed historically as a response to the sufferings of a peripheral group in the region and, as a result, has become a cultural artifact belonging to Bosnians’ ethnic consciousness. In their attempt to preserve a sense of normalcy and restore dignity during the siege, Sarajevans continued to engage in their traditional humour, as doing otherwise would mean they had lost control over who they were.