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.

Реч и речезнание – предмет и опит за описание на науката

Author(s): Dimitar Popov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

Speech as a gift of nature acquired by homo sapiens (‘wise man’ in Latin) in the process of communicative interaction is an indisputable phenomenon of paramount importance, which in turn justifies the interest of scientists in this type of homo loquens’ (speaking man) activity as a behavioral manifestation of personality. Oral speech offers a vast amount of information for describing communication since it signals discrete sequences of ‘digital’ information on the one hand, while providing additional ‘analogue’ information about the speaking person, on the other. This means that everyday speech in its real use contains speech features related to various speakers who take part in the process of communication. Speech is the material substance which explicates the concrete representation of discourse as it happens in real time, and exists as discourse special dimension in relation to human mind. Human speech can be characterised as a complex set of elements of prosody, which could be divided into the following main groups related to the sound and its time, pitch, force and timbre. The acoustic and per-ceptualauditory continuity of speech has become a cornerstone for describing the process of speech in time when solving many practical tasks, since the sounding oral message represents a continuous flow of air waves separated by pauses. The wave-like nature of speech makes it possible to recognise in the structure of the spoken message simultaneous components, just like in a musical cord one can recognise the simultaneous tones of which it is composed. Therefore, the task of developing a special separate research area, called speech science, becomes logical and necessary.

Данни за промените на широките гласни в позиция вън от ударение в българските териториални диалекти

Author(s): Luchia Antonova-Vasileva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The paper examines data from the main types of Bulgarian dialects on the reduction of wide vowels into narrow ones. Information from written sources and from own field research on speech within and beyond modern state borders is used. Attention is paid to the reduction о > у (u), а > ъ (ə) of vowels in Eastern and Western dialects as well as of the differences in the reduction of the vowel e. The cases of so-called akavism (о > а), the manifestations of which are also associated with the presence of an accent and with his influence of the opposition broad ~ narrow vowels are considered. The relationship between stressed quantity, which is recorded in some dialects, and reduction is discussed.

Перцепцията на аористни форми с тематична гласна -а- вм. -о- (ново изследване)

Author(s): Krasimira Aleksova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

This paper presents and analyses the results of a non-representative survey on the perception of aorist forms with an unstressed thematic vowel -a- instead of a thematic vowel -o-. My primary objective is to validate the hypothesis that the ability to identify errors of this nature in spoken language depends on the individual's perceptual style. The study encompasses diverse texts that vary in the level of concentration and attention exhibited by the listener. Four perceptual styles are employed: listening to a brief, coherent text; a simple sentence; a three-word list; and a single word. The analysis also evaluates the accuracy of the hypothesis concerning the relationship between respondents' sociodemographic characteristics and their success in identifying the error in aorist forms with an unstressed thematic vowel -a- instead of -o-.

Перцептивно разпознаване на трайността на африкатите и фрикативите в сръбския език

Author(s): Silvana Punišić,Slavica Maksimović,Ivana Stanković / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The acoustic features are the phonetic system’s inherent features of the language. The characteristics of each speech sound have their variation field within which its realizations are perceived as typical. Sound is perceived as atypical pronunciation outside the acoustic feature typical boundaries. The objectives of this study were to determine the boundaries on the typical/atypical basis of the identification functions of the probability of perceptual recognition of the duration and their comparison between voicing and voiceless speech sounds in the group of affricate and fricatives. Based on the analysis of the selected speech sounds: / c /, / č /, / dž /, / š /, / ž /, the boundaries of typical and atypical were defined, and they served for the synthesis of stimuli used in perceptive experiments. According to the given procedure, 6300 stimuli were formed. Then they presented to the listeners, who were asked to identify and mark the stimulus based on typical and atypical (extended/shortened) duration. The data analysis found the identification functions of the probability of perceptual recognition of the typical/atypical duration for the examined speech sounds at the initial position in words, by which the limits of the typical/atypical duration of the stated speech sounds were determined. The results have shown the existence of categorical perception through the emergence of a higher sensitivity of the perceptive mechanism to a reduction in duration (a greater inclination of the identification function of the probability of perceptual recognition of typical/atypical duration) than of prolonging the duration of the voice, which demonstrated that the label of duration could be a good indicator of deviation in articulation. In addition, it has been shown that there have been differences in the function of the probability of perceptual recognition of the duration of voicing and voiceless speech sounds, which explanation requires further research.

Активни деривационни процеси при съществителните в руската реч, насочена към децата

Author(s): Maria D. Voeikova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

Colloquial Russian has a rich set of productive derivation patterns used in informal registers directed to children, other relatives, friends or pets. This paper considers the most frequent patterns in child directed speech (CDS), such as diminutives (knižka - book-Dim, pesenka - song-Dim) and hypocorostics (Saša -Alexander, Nataša - Natalia). The paper is based on the analysis of the speech of parents from two longitudinal speech corpora of one girl and one boy from 2 to 3 years old. Their mothers demonstrated some differences in their use of derivatives concerning their preferences (mostly diminutives or hypocoristics – types или в tokens) and frequency. Most derivatives used by both mothers served as models for the important derivational processes: suffix rivalry with the same stem (hypocoristics) and adding one and the same suffixes to different stems (diminutive formation). Since the differences between literary Bulgarian and Russian in this sphere have been already described by several authors it would be interesting to compare the frequency of diminutives and hypocoristics in CDS for both languages.

Колекция с българска детска реч в термините на корпусната лингвистика

Author(s): Velka Popova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The proposed article focuses on the application possibilities of corpus linguistics to the research of the child-adult speech interaction, and more specifically – the CHILDES automated computerized system for language data exchange, freely accessible online at https://childes.talkbank.org. The main aim of the report is to present the first Bulgarian corpus, Bulgarian LabLing Corpus (https://childes.talkbank.org/access/Slavic/ Bulgarian/ LabLing.html), where the linguistic resources are transcribed and annotated according to the terms of the platform, as well as to point out the advantages of the latter. Those include the conditions provided by CHILDES for improved precision in the collecting, transcribing and coding of the data, along with the automation of the analysis of large quantities of spoken material, which considerably enlarges the empirical basis on which new theories are built.

За характерните черти на българския разговорен синтаксис

Author(s): Radoslav Tsonev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The article briefly presents some of the most specific features of the syntax of the Bulgarian colloquial speech: the special syntactic constructions that occur in informal communication (reduplicative constructions, elliptical constructions, reconstructions, hyperbats, anacoluthons, etc.), the different word order, the specific usage of the coordinating and subordinating connectives (defined in syntactical literature as colloquial), the frequent presence of asyndetism (conjunctionless connection of individual elements in the utterance and of different utterances), the rivalry between parataxis and hypo-taxis emerging in the conversation, etc. All these characteristic features clearly distinguish the colloquial syntax from the syntax of the Bulgarian literary (normative) language.

За някои трайно очертаващи се тенденции в българската разговорна реч и в речта на медиите през последните десет години

Author(s): Marieta Tsvetkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The article describes three continuous trends in Bulgarian colloquial speech. The first one is related to changes in the use of verbs, consisting of: a) swarming of verbs derived from nouns, incl. from foreign words, and b) condensing of the expression by omission of: the verb to drive/cause, the reflexive particle se and some prepositions. A survey was conducted on the use of verbs registered as having undergone a process of dereflexivity and/or transitivisation. The answers of respondents point to an overwhelming disapproval of the described verb use strategies. Thus, a more appropriate and accurate way to define this process is as an effort to condense the expression by omitting certain elements, which is in accordance with the principle of economy in colloquial speech. The second trend presented is the progressive reduction of the use of forms expressing politeness and their increasingly frequent replacement with forms for informal addressing. There is a relatively high degree of tolerance towards this speech practice from both researchers and native speakers. The third trend concerns the use of two types of short fixed expressions/clichés, representing constructions with one or two fixed components and one or two variables. They condense the maximum content into a short form and “leave” freedom for interpretation by the interlocutor/listener, being additionally marked either by strong expressiveness or originality (usually purposefully sought), which adds another element for “interpreting and decoding” by the interlocutor/listener.

Интонационните паузи в речта на телевизионните водещи. Прагматични аспекти

Author(s): Silvia Koeva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The functions of intonation depend on the simultaneous action of its components (along with their overlay on the segmental language system). The desired effect in speech is achieved by following rules that are, in most cases, unconscious to native speakers. If communicators do not manage to follow the rules in terms of intonation, the optimal result of their communication cannot be reached. The present study marks and analyses violations of the regularities in the use of pauses, as a component of intonation, in the Bulgarian media discourse, and more specifically – in the speech of television presenters. The object of the study are video materials broadcasted on bTV and NOVA. The conclusions highlight the specific features of media discourse that are typical for interviews and news broadcasts.

Диагностиращите лексикални маркери на българските говори в Украйна

Author(s): Svitlana Georgiieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

The aim of this article is to draw attention to the problems related to lexical marking of dialects. Contemporary dialectology is characterized by reflecting on what has been done and setting new tasks, searching for new methods and approaches. The notion of 'diagnostic dialect markers' is the main one in the modern field of dialect studies. It is related to the typical and original features of a dialect that are obvious to speakers of other dialects or literary languages, on the basis of which the speech can be relatively accurately identified and localized for dialectology and subsequently for the history of the language Most often diagnostic features belong to the category of localisms (features typical of a territorially limited region or a village), but it is also possible to typify a large formation (a group of dialects) through them. In the article the lexical markers of Ukrainian Bulgarian dialect types are presented.

Тройна показателна местоименна система в диалекта на с. Речане, Призренско

Author(s): Iliyana Garavalova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

In the article, from the point of view of the theory of grammatical oppositions, the organization and composition of the triple demonstrative pronoun system in the Rechanе dialect, which marks the western border of the Bulgarian linguistic land, is presented. It is emphasized on the signs on the basis of which it is built, and the existence of a logical relationship between them, which predetermines the number of its constituent members. The reasons that led to the limitation of the area of distribution of the triple paradigm of demonstrative pronouns and to the development towards its reduction to two-part, which characterize today the predominant part of the speech on our linguistic territory, and which has imposed itself as a norm from the point of view of the contemporary Bulgarian literary language, are also indicated. A parallel is drawn with the development of the fourmember morphological category definiteness / definiteness (which arises on the basis of the phenomenon analyzed in the article) and its development, emphasizing the existing similarity in the two developmental processes. The presented analysis of the triple demonstrative pronoun system of the speech of the village of Rechane, Prizrensko is based on material personally collected by the author during the course of candidate student courses in Bulgarian language, literature, history and culture for the Bulgarian minority there in the period 2015-2019.

Изразяване на учтивост/неучтивост при поздрав чрез паралингвистични средства

Author(s): Stefka Aleksandrova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

Verbal means used to express politeness/impoliteness are sometimes accompanied by non-verbal means of communication, which in certain cases and speech situations partially replace the verbal expression, or even drastically change the meaning of what was said. This study deals with the greetings which are commonly used in the beginning and at the end of verbal communication. Our attention is focused on the typical kinemes used in parallel to the speech act of greeting, such as gestures, facial expressions, postures, etc. The aim is to establish what etiquette kinetic signs (body language) were (was) used to express politeness/impoliteness while giving a verbal greeting in the beginning and at the end of everyday speech communication. For that purpose, we used a small portion of a survey conducted via web-based electronic form among 245 participants aged 18 to over 60. The results of the survey are presented in charts demonstrating the percentage of responses. The analysis summarizes the preferable kinemes used by the participants while verbally expressing politeness and impoliteness in greetings.

Употребата на възвратните притежателни местоимения свой, си в устната форма на българския книжовен език

Author(s): Tatyana Aleksandrova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: Special/2024

Current normative problems related to the use of the reflexive possessive pronouns svoy, si in the oral form of the Bulgarian literary language are considered. Attention is drawn to non-trivial cases of the use of reflexive possessives instead of possessive pro-nouns. Attention is paid to the competition between the two types of pronouns in certain types of syntactic constructions and the reasons for errors and hesitations are analyzed. Cases that present more complex semantic relations, encoded in the sentence as a linguistic unit, at the level of which the rule for the use of the reflexive possessive pronoun is manifested: sentences with an extended noun phrase, with nominalization by means of a verbal noun, impersonal sentences are examined and typologized.

Book review

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

‘Laughing at us’:

Author(s): Sammy Basu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2024

That Donald J. Trump won the US Presidential Election of 2016 defied the expectations ofalmost all seasoned observers of the US political system. Scholarly explanations stressstructural factors that produced a substantial cohort of identity-vulnerable voters in tandemwith Trump’s personal populist appeal. Trump benefitted from his political outsider status,celebrity familiarity, heteronormative masculinity, and unconventional rhetorical styleincluding humour, all of which were amplified (and also mocked) by extensive mainstream newsmedia coverage. Trump’s distinctive political use of the social media micro-blogging platformTwitter (now known as X) in engaging those cohorts has also been emphasized. The researchpresented here sits at the confluence of prior scholarly work on structural causes of identityvulnerability, on contestation involving humour, and on the enhanced political usage of Twitter.It examines the historical record of Trump’s tweets and re-tweets to see if and how thedemarcation of his ‘humour brand’ affectively engaged his substantial Twitter followers andmay thereby have contributed to his electoral success in 2016.

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.

Challenges of Learning in Second Language among South African School Learners with Developmental Language Disorder

Author(s): Nettie N. Ndou,Segun Emmanuel Adewoye / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2024

Language in education plays a critical role in effective teaching and learning worldwide. This study aimed to explore the challenges of learning in a second language among secondary school learners with developmental language disorder (DLD). The study also unveils strategies used by professionals to support learners and learners’ attitudes towards support. The study participants were learners (n = 1 2), t eachers ( n = 5), a speech Language therapist, and an educational psychologist. A qualitative research approach was utilised employing a case study as the research design. Data generation sources included non-participatory observations, interviews, and focus group discussions. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicated that learning in a second language as the medium of instruction posed challenges for learners with DLD. They struggled with comprehension, reading, and word recognition of learning content. Teachers indicated that they used strategies such as remedia lessons and giving learners more reading material to enhance their vocabulary and narrative skills. They also referred learners to other professionals for further assistance. Parental involvement is also encouraged in support of learners. However, one of the factors limiting learners’ support is learners’ attitudes. Learners’ attitudes towards support may be attributed to limited awareness of DLD. Hence, there is a need to raise awareness of DLD among the learners. An in-depth course on special education in secondary teacher training programmes is necessary to further equip teachers with strategies to enhance inclusive classrooms. The promotion of local languages as a medium of instruction must be highly prioritised, even at a secondary level of education.