Beyond rhythm and lyrics:

Author(s): Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

Extant studies on Nigerian hip-hop have approached the genre as an act and as an art from psycholinguistic, social, sociolinguistic and pragmatic dimensions. However, the possibility of evoking humour through the careful deployment of language by Nigerian hip-hop artistes is a phenomenon which has largely escaped the attention of scholars within the ambit of applied linguistics. This research, therefore, investigates how Nigerian hip-hop artistes, beyond the rhythm and lyrics of their songs, poke fun at their listeners. The study employs Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory to analyse the humorous utterances in four purposively selected hip hop songs: Jo o, by Jahbless, Eyan Mayweather by Olamide, Penalty by Small Doctor and Lyrically by Lil Kesh. The choice of artistes was based on consideration for the two popular subgenres of Nigerian hip-hop, which are rap and dance hall, while the choice of tracks was based on consideration for their humorous potential. The humorous utterances are either name-induced or object/phenomenon induced. The study finds that simile, metaphor, hyperbole, punning, teasing, putdown and litotes, complemented with linguistic devices such as polysemy and repetition, are the humour techniques that are deployed to amuse listeners. Humour strategies adopted by Nigerian hip-hop artistes are comparing, contrasting and extending corresponding concepts, distorting collective knowledge of people, social events and situations and manipulating shared cultural representations. Nigerian hip-hop songs are spiced with humorous utterances which can only be deciphered by people who share the socio-cultural world of the artistes. The referring expressions used by the artistes can help enlarge the vocabulary of Nigerian English.

Social media-based visual humour use in tourism marketing:

Author(s): Jing Ge / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

Tourism firms using visual social media marketing are struggling with its implementation, specifically in formulating engagement-based visual message strategies. Yet, creating such appealing posts can lead to positive brand and financial outcomes. Humour has been identified as a potent tool for social media communication, given its capability to develop social interactions. Yet, how humour works on social media is not well understood – specifically its visual form. Treating humour as a symbolic resource, this study adopted a compound content analysis-semiotic analysis to identify visual content and its symbolic meaning embedded in destination marketing organization (DMO)’s social media posts. 200 Sina Weibo posts containing humour images initiated by 5 Chinese provincial DMOs were collected. The results show 6 types of humour content and 6 types of symbolic meaning – none of which are product-related. This study advances the tourism literature and humour theory, and offers tourism firms a holistic view of how to fully leverage social media-based visual humour to achieve consumer reach and engagement.

“America First, the Netherlands Second” on YouTube:

Author(s): Maja Turnšek,Petr Janeček / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

This study attempts to provide initial tentative insights into the audience reception of intertwining political satire and destination marketing imagery by analysing the “America First, the Netherlands Second” video and a student sample audience response. In 2017, a series of YouTube videos named “America First” went viral. The video that started the viral phenomenon was “America First, the Netherlands Second”, responding in a satirical manner to the “America First” message of the inaugural speech of U.S. president Donald J. Trump. They achieved extreme popularity both in number of views and number of new memetic videos with similar satirical messages. These videos were a form of political expression and at first sight did not seem to have much in common with communication in tourism. However, the videos included typical destination marketing imagery, intertwined with satirical representations, thus representing a humorous “spoof” on destination marketing. The study analyses participants’ memory recall, eye-tracking movements and focus group responses in order to provide initial conclusions on how audiences respond to the intertwining of satirical political expression and destination marketing imagery.

Where is the humour in tourism promotion?

Author(s): Miriam Porres-Guerrero,Concepción Foronda-Robles / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

This paper discusses humour and tourism, with a focus on “Spain Marks”, an internationalcampaign used to promote Spain as a tourism destination. The importance of this relationshipsuggests that the use of humour in marketing works as an engagement and loyalty strategy, aswell as to portray the uniqueness of a destination. The “Spain Marks” campaign wasinnovative in its use of humour because it offered a fresh and contemporary image of Spain asa tourism destination. This campaign has been specially selected for its exceptional ironiccharacter. The study aims to understand the humour appreciation of this specificadvertisement using an online survey that was completed by 40 participants. The resultsindicate that the use of humour is a difficult task because what is perceived as fun, attractiveand ironic in any tourism campaign is highly subjective.

Assessing humour use in accommodation establishments:

Author(s): Marit Piirman,Stephen Pratt,Melanie Smith,Heli Tooman / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

This paper contributes to a relatively under-researched area of humour studies in hospitality by analysing the use of different forms of humour in accommodation establishments. The main purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of how humour is used in marketing communication and service processes, and the ways in which it contributes to the guest experience. A range of research methods were used including desktop research on how humour is currently used in accommodation settings, a focus group consisting of international participants, and two online surveys with both accommodation providers and accommodation guests. The latter was undertaken in Estonia. The results indicate that multiple forms of humour are used in accommodation establishments to provide information and enhance the guest experience, however, it was also clear that many humorous events happen spontaneously rather than being planned for or ‘staged’. This study also proposes a decision support model to guide accommodation establishments in how humour could be applied more effectively in their marketing communication and service processes.

Book review

Author(s): Béatrice Priego-Valverde / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

The function of face gestures and head movements in spontaneous humorous communication

Author(s): Marta Buján / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This paper assesses the results of a multimodal analysis of humorous instances found in a collection of 14 interviews from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The interviews have been imported and annotated in ELAN for head movements and face gestures. Only the interviewees’ remarks are studied in order to ensure the analysis of spontaneous speech, avoiding mostly pre-scripted host’s comments and questions. The results demonstrate that there are no gestures consistently and recurrently paired with humour. Therefore, none of the multimodal cues found in the sample can be considered markers of humour. Furthermore, the functions of gestures identified are consistent with the uses reported in previous multimodal studies of humorous and non-humorous communication found in the literature.

Gender stereotypes depicted in online sexist jokes

Author(s): Anastasia Nelladia Cendra,Teresia Dian Triutami,Barli Bram / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This research aimed to explore gender stereotypes depicted in online sexist jokes collectedfrom laughfactory.com. Linguistically speaking, jokes as a subtype of humour have become acommon phenomenon in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, not all jokes can bring positivevibes for everyone. Yet, these forms of jokes are still commonly found, especially on theInternet. Some online sources, including websites of jokes, present a lot of collections of jokesfor fun, but a number of the jokes are categorized as sexist jokes, which might also beregarded as offensive in a certain context. Data were collected from the laughfactory.comwebsite and then were analysed by using the three-dimensional model of Critical DiscourseAnalysis (CDA) and the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH). Results showed that themajority of the jokes observed were targeted at women (90%) and a small number wastargeted at men (10%). Women were stereotyped as sexual objects, emotionally expressivebeings, homemakers, being talkative, being stupid or brainless, and belonging to a lower classthan men. Men, on the other hand, were stereotyped as worse than women.

Performing gender through stand-up comedy in Spanish

Author(s): Leonor Ruiz-Gurillo / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

The aim of this paper is to examine Eva Hache’s humorous gender-related monologues,broadcast in the show El Club de la Comedia [The Comedy Club] in Spain between 2012 and2013. The corpus comprises 24 stand-up monologues, which have been analysed bothquantitatively and qualitatively. The present paper offers a case study in three different ways.First, an analysis of different humorous sequences makes it possible to distinguish arepresentation of both feminine and masculine identities, as well as a confrontation betweenthe two genders. In fact, Eva Hache’s style supports the feminine identity and facilitates theteasing and mockery of men. Second, a polyphonic study of men as speakers (locutors) andutterers (Ducrot 1996) will serve to differentiate certain features of their identity from adiscursive perspective. Finally, a detailed examination of humorous sequences shows howthese performative sequences can prove useful to maintain hierarchy, to reinforce an in-group,i.e. a women’s group, to solidify men’s group boundaries, and even to subvert gendernormativity (Bing 2004). As it will be demonstrated in our analysis, humorous markers andindicators play an important role in the construction of jab lines and the final punch line ofthese sequences. Furthermore, the results show that there are few strategies aimed atchallenging the status quo in this corpus, although they illustrate an ongoing movementtowards a feminist humour that has been almost non-existent in Spain so far.

Hybrid humour as cultural translation:

Author(s): Merouan Bendi / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Humour is a phenomenon that is pervasive in the human heritage in all its different ethnic andcultural diversity; however, humorous effects might exceed the mere pleasure or laughter toserve as a strategy of survival. Hybrid humour has an important societal role in breakingpsychological barriers between people as well as in denouncing dominant discourses,criticising realities, and promoting resistance. This paper investigates hybrid humour ascultural translation, particularly Beur verbal humour in France. The first section of this paperexplores the notion of cultural translation. The second part is devoted to investigating thehybridisation of cultures from a postcolonial perspective, and subsequently interpreting thenotion of hybrid humour as a translational act. Finally, I analyse a set of hybrid jokes made bythe Franco-Algerian humourist Fellag.

Incongruous liaisons:

Author(s): Izuu Nwankwọ / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Nigerian humourists have always told risible jokes within myriad pre-colonial satirical acts.Following on their heels in recent times, stand-up comedy has emerged as one of the mostprevalent art forms in the country, providing entertainment through laughter-eliciting jokes.Accompanying this development also, is an increasing attitude of offence-taking which hasseen post-mortem criticisms and castigation of comedians. Not much scholarly attention hasbeen paid to this menacing backlash against ostensible “inappropriate jokes” and the fact thatstand-up humour is primarily derived from causing offence. What happens is that jokeperformances take place within liminal moments, which allows for audience’s suspension ofoffence and the performer’s unwritten consent to stay within socially accepted bounds of goodhumour. Through performance analysis, this paper sets out to study how four randomlyselected Nigerian comics—I Go Dye, Basket Mouth, Klint da Drunk and AY—deploy selfcensorshipin averting offence within their joke routines. The essay finds that despite thespecificities of stand-up arts, which place peculiar demands on artists’ joking capabilitiesespecially in its dependence on courting audiences’ participation and familiarity, thesecomedians have devised specific means through which they circumvent the stringency ofeliciting mirth through insult. Hence, their jokes and those of others who have learned theirtrade well, often elicits hilarity rather than offence.

Virality in the environment of political cartoons:

Author(s): Vinod Balakrishnan,Vishaka Venkat,Muthukumar Manickam / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

The context for the paper is the inclusion of a 64-year old cartoon in the Political Sciencetextbook that caused an uproar in the Indian parliament in 2012. The controversy drawsattention to the two-facedness of any political cartoon which is an artistic representation of ahistorical event. It is, hence, ambivalent by being an expression of artistic freedom as well asa humorous comment on history where the axis of representation intersects the axis of history.The representation of the Dalit icon, Ambedkar, was objectionable to the political partyespousing the Dalit cause which, through its leader, Tirumavalavan, raised the issue inparliament. The paper posits that the reaction was an event that was hitherto dormant andthat it erupted on account of elements that fed its potential for virality in the environment,thereby, turning it into a fact. To this end, the paper revives interest in the imitation theory ofthe French sociologist, Gabriel Tarde, who, incidentally, was an intellectual influence onAmbedkar. Moreover, it employs Zeno Vendler’s distinction between an “event” and a “fact”,the Deleuzian idea of “assemblage,” and the idea of “conceptual metaphor” as laid out byLakoff and Johnson. The paper reads the vicissitudes of the cartoon in order to theorize theelements that cause virality in a communicative environment.

Book review

Author(s): Jeanne Mathieu-Lessard / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

An Austrian in Hollywood:

Author(s): Delia Chiaro,Giuseppe De Bonis / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

This paper examines the work of Billy Wilder whose rich cinematic production frequentlyinvolves the collision of different languages as well as the clash of dissimilar cultures. As anAustrian living in the USA, the director had the privilege of gaining insight into his adoptedculture from the point of view of an outsider – a bilingual “other” who made 25 films inalmost 40 years of working in Hollywood. His films recurrently depict foreign characters atwhich Wilder pokes fun whether they are English, French, German, Italian, Russian or eventhe Americans of his adopted country. More precisely, the paper offers an overview of themulti-modal portrayals of diverse “foreigners,” with examples taken from a small butsignificant sample of Wilder’s films. The subtitling of dialogue in the secondary language forthe target English-speaking audience and the specific translation solutions are not within thescope of this discussion, instead we focus on the comic collision of two languages and moreimportantly, on the way Wilder implements humour to highlight the absurdity of culturaldifference. In other words, our main goal is to explore two or more languages in contrastwhen they become a humorous trope.

One text, two varieties of German:

Author(s): Mary Catherine Frank / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

A heterolingual text is characterised by the presence of two or more different languages, or two or more varieties of the same language (Corrius & Zabalbeascoa 2011: 115). This article discusses possible methods of translating into English of a text containing two varieties of German: Ottokar Domma’s Der brave Schüler Ottokar [The Good Schoolboy Ottokar]. In these stories, about a schoolboy growing up in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1960s, Domma creates a zone of friction between child narrator Ottokar’s everyday German and the language of GDR officialdom (“official discourse”). This article first shows that following a conventional method of translating a literary text into English does not allow this satire to be conveyed to the reader. It then presents two alternative translational methods — “thick” and creative — that demonstrate how it is helpful, indeed in some cases necessary, for the translator to adopt a broad understanding of “translation” in respect of texts that exploit multilingualism for humorous purposes. It is argued that methods of translating in which effect is privileged over form — which here included introducing multimodality — can serve well to open up heterolingual humour for speakers of other languages.

Book review

Author(s): Konrad MAGDZIARZ / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

Book review

Author(s): Heather Vincent / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

Book review

Author(s): Mariza Georgalou / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The áwàda phenomenon:

Author(s): Elijah Adeoluwa Olusegun / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

This article explores the deployment of humour in Wole Soyinka’s new and full-length play Alápatà Apátà. The emergence of Moses Olaiya (otherwise known as Baba Sala) on the Nigerian theatre scene at a time it was dominated by such colossuses as Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo, and Kola Ogunmola, as a popular jester and comic actor has elevated the phenomenon called 􀁩Z􀁪d􀁪 to a popular form of art. The idea of serious theatre involving mostly tragedy had dominated the Nigerian theatrical scene to an extent that little attention is devoted to the less popular form of comedy until it was given impetus by the dexterity of Moses Olaiya. In the dramatic literary circle, Wole Soyinka bestrides the Nigerian space with his biting and humorous satire in such plays as The Lion and the JeZel, The Jero Plays, Childe International amongst others. With a great mastery of satire and humour, in his most recent play Al􀁩pat􀁪 Ap􀁩t􀁪, we witnessed a reincarnation of Moses Olaiya. However, Soyinka does not focus only on the character of Moses Olaiya (whom he dedicates the play to), he explores the misapplication of Yoruba language’s accent resulting in semantic oddity. The incongruity that can arise from the misunderstanding of language and its nuances is brought to the fore in our understanding of the theoretical exploration of the phenomenon called 􀁩Z􀁪d􀁪. This article thus situates Wole Soyinka’s Al􀁩pat􀁪 Ap􀁩t􀁪 within the literary and theatrical explication of humour in the Nigerian context showing that ‘that which is comic’ resonates as a universal human phenomenon irrespective of language.

Book review

Author(s): Rania Karachaliou / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018