Abstract
The paper explores the forms and means of creating a comedic edge based on the speech resources in the Russian and English stand-up comedies. The idea is put forward that this genre of television humorous discourse has turned into an efficient instrument of promoting the public interest in the political events and into a tool of speech influence on the target audience. The authors confirm that political stand-up comedies represent an axiological communication genre in the mass-media. Both Russian and English stand-up comedies carry out two major functions: 1) realizing the democratic values and political liberty; 2) ridiculing the modern political situation. The difference is in the fact that Russian stand-up comedies are aimed at desacralisation of the past, diminishing the state’s image by means of humorous interpretation of some ideologemes. The English (American) stand-up comedies put forward interracial discourse. The subject-matter of the analysed stand-up comedies is characterised by two topics: 1) politics itself; 2) social events of political nature (getting citizenship, holidays) in the framework of which the cultural and ethnic stereotypes are used to the best effect. At the same time the spectrum of topics addressed to by the English stand-up comics is widened by means of discussing racial stereotypes which is not inherent to the Russian standup-comedies. The results of the analysis of the means of creating a comedic edge suggest that the main form of comic effect in the political stand-up comedies is irony which very often becomes a cruel joke, ridiculing without result-oriented aim.
Keywords: Humourironyscoffcomedic edgeRussian languageEnglish language
Introduction
The texts of stand-up comedies are often analysed as a peculiar speech genre in the framework of either comic (Liliental’, 2014) or humorous discourse (Reshetarova & Gerasimenko, 2019), the main features of which were revealed and characterised by Karasik (2004): the intention of the communicators to escape a serious conversation, “the attempt to reduce the distance and critically reconsider the urgent concepts in a mild form”, the demonstration of certain models of funny behaviour (Karasik, 2004, p. 304). From the point of view of interaction register (its tonality, style, sense interpretation specifics, etc.) the discourse of stand-up comedies can be characterised as pragmatic (Karasik, 2004, p. 240). The speech behaviour of stand-up comedians is more active than of representatives of some professional groups (Manzhelevskaya, 2017, p. 110). From the point of view of socio-linguistic approach the discourse of stand-up comedies belongs to the institutional type as it is realised in the professional sphere of one of the communication participants – professional comedian (Lobova, 2013).
The institutional character of political humour is a logic result of the functional nature of the political communication and humour as one of the constituents parts of politics (Chudinov & Nikiphorova, 2019). Zhadanova and Shirobokov (Zhadanova & Shirobokov, 2019) point out that “the comic effect as regards the power indicates if not the political tenseness but the need of the society to discuss the political issues” (p. 110);
Problem Statement
The texts of Russian and English stand-up comedies which are the object of our research reflect “non-serous” interlocution of a professional comedian with the audience which is eager to get entertainment on political or politically charged topics. It should be noted that from all stand-up comedies which we have watched the political topics (the definition is symbolic) quantitatively trail gender, family, household themes. Two major issue-related directions can be singled out in the “political sector” of stand-up comedies: 1) politics itself (political events, politicians, ideologemes); 2) social events of political nature (getting citizenship, holidays, migration and others).
Research Questions
The scope of questions of the authors is determined by the functional approach to the study of different types of discourse: political, humorous, etc.
The functions of stand-up comedies should be singled out and the difference between Russian and English stand-up comedies in the functional aspect is to be revealed.
Speech means characteristic of Russian and English stand-up comedies should be identified.
Purpose of the Study
Our intention is to conduct the comparative analysis of Russian and English stand-up comedies which function in the framework of two types of institutional discourse: political and humorous. The authors aim to indicate the national peculiarities of Russian and English stand-up comedies since they exist in two different socio-linguistic circumstances. The overall purpose may be defined as presenting the genre of Russian and English stand-up comedies as the entity which comprises the political and humorous elements being a reflection of the topical issues which this or that society confronts.
Research Methods
The choice of the material determines the range of methods used for the analysis of the empirical data. With the aim of revealing the means of creating the comedic edge in the Russian and English stand-up comedies the method of discursive analysis was used. It was accompanied by the contextual study of the communicative situations.
Findings
Both in Russian and English stand-up comedies the above-mentioned functions are supplied with the foregrounding of the personal experience of a professional comedian and ridiculing at that background the national features of this or that linguo-culture. For instance, Russell Dominic Peters – a Canadian comedian and actor – often in his performances turns to his personal experience of being brought up in the Indian family, mocks the accents of different ethnic groups (the Russian, the Arabs, the Indians), making barbed jokes of them, portraying the representatives of various nationalities in the absurd and foolish aspect:
- enabling the foreign leaders with the Russian mentality:
- antilogism which consists in conjunction of two pragmatically incompatible parts:
- paradox and game based on the background knowledge:
- antithesis with the following contamination of the opposed events:
- hyperbola:
In the English stand-up comedy the means set up on the axiological or value-based anomalies which are connected with sample ideals, norms and values of a certain linguo-culture are realised (Radbil’, 2017). Ironic conceptualization in case of using value-based anomalies is determined by the leading opposition of the political discourse “friend-foe” which represents an axiogenic situation (the term was used by Karasik (2015) ) and is verbalized in a certain set of genres one of which is stand-up comedy. The value-based instruments of comic edge are:
- apellativation and artificial conjunction of heterogeneous phenomena:
- comic exaggeration of individual features of this or that nation:
- “intrusion” into the text structure of the joke the discussion of the urgent geopolitical events on the broad historical background:
- ridiculing the negative features of politicians, their manner of speech which reflects negative attitude of common citizens to the state’s leader:
- paronomasia:
- the usage of occasional nominations:
- the change of the connotative meaning which is accompanied by the meta-linguistic comment of the author:
In the English stand-up comedies text reminiscences are connected not with common cultural and historical background knowledge of a comedian and a target audience (due to different national and cultural origin) but with objects and realities which are familiar to the majority of the spectators:
For instance, the ideologeme “USSR” is built-in into the context of playing on the children’s playground. The comedian starts from the antithesis “democratic Russia vs authoritarian USSR”:
In the comedy by N. Saburov the ideologeme “USSR” gets comedic interpretation due to the absurd character of some features of the Soviet household, such as a small size of the house (
The ideologeme “totalitarian state” is represented in Kim’s comedy “On North Korea and Russia” where such notional components are used with great effect as “absence of liberty”, “deficit of essential goods”. “army as an axiological category”. Kim’s miniature presents certain interest from the prespective of employing more subtle means of creating irony: the manipulation by interaction implicatures and by semantic presuppositions, the effect of failed expectations. For instance, in the very beginning the comedian tells that Korea is his Motherland, but he can’t prepare sushi, can’t advise his girl-friend which sneakers to buy, but he is well aware how
With the purpose of ridiculing the ideologemes the Russian stand-up comedians use the gender factor: the masculine image is made fun of with the help of attributing feminine character traits, appearance and behavior. For instance, the ideologeme “Lenin” is often ironically represented through the monument’s image and the Mausoleum. But in the performance by I. Tarletskiy the notion “beauty” is quite unexpectedly put forward which is considered a feminine quality in the Russian culture :
Attributing female features to male characters is used when discussing the ideologeme “deputy” and creating a comedic edge. This ideologeme from the very beginning is associated in the minds of Russian people with negative notions and connotations. Comparing V. Solovyev’s political talk-show with social talk show (during which the issues of assault in connection with female is often discussed) T. Karginov creates a dirty and unpleasant image:
In the English stand-up comedies (primarily American) not separate ideologemes are discussed but the interracial discourse since the self-identification problem is on the agenda in the USA in spite of all the attempts to improve the intercultural situation, use politically correct words to denote the representative of different nationalities, to get rid of the racially-prejudiced discrimination:
Conclusion
The conducted analysis of the empirical material let demonstrate general and individual peculiarities of stand-up comedies in Russian and English. Both variants of the analysed genre have common pragmatic goals: 1) demonstration of democratic values and political liberty; 2) ridiculing the modern political situation; 3) the stirring of the audience’s interest to the political issues. At the same time the Russian stand-up comedies are aimed at desacralisation of the ideologemes of the historical (Soviet) past of the country, diminishing the state’s image and its attributes such as the army, the flag, the anthem. For this purpose the means of notional and stylistic contrast, the pejorative lexical units and the nomination of the something dishonorable, the exaggeration of negative characteristics, the reversion of the masculine image to the feminine type are used. The above-mentioned means function when the absurd situation is modelled which caused the laughter of the audience.
The research showed the similarity of the political topics discussed by the Russian and English stand-up comedians. The cultural and ethnic stereotypes are used with good effect in both types of discursive practices to create a comedic edge. The range of topics discussed by the English stand-up comedians is widened due to the addressing the racial stereotypes. The ideological controversy of Russia and the USA may be singled out which in the discourse of English stand-up comedies is revealed through aggressive image of Russia as an anti-value.
The genre of stand-up comedy is usually discussed in the framework of the humorous discourse although the main tonality of the political miniatures consists in irony – a scoff which borders on emotionally burdened negative evaluation, and irony can become a sarcasm and a cruel joke.
Acknowledgments
The research done for this work has been funded by RFBR (project № 19-012-00192).
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03 August 2020
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Cite this article as:
Nikolayevna, K. N., Evgenyevna, P. N., & Nikolayevna, S. E. (2020). Means Of Comedic Edge In Russian And English Political Stand-Up Comedies. In N. L. Amiryanovna (Ed.), Word, Utterance, Text: Cognitive, Pragmatic and Cultural Aspects, vol 86. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 766-775). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.08.90