The use of positively valued adjectives and adverbs in Polish and Estonian casual conversations
Abstract In this paper cultural differences between Polish and Estonian conversational strategies are analysed in respect of how the evaluative words are used and what their degree of deliberateness is. The study compares the usage of adjectives and adverbs with positive value in the excerpts from Polish and Estonian corpora of casual conversation. The quantitative and qualitative comparison demonstrates that their overall frequency and the pragmatic functions are very similar. The differences of the conversational styles lay in greater accumulation and intensification of the evaluatives in the Polish conversations and in the tendency to externalize the positive affect in the Estonian ones.…
Kolm tegelast poola naljades
Teesid: Kaesoleva artikli eesmark on kirjeldada poola anekdoote kolmest tegelasest, ning anda ulevaade nende ajaloost ja muutumisest. Keskendutakse kolmese ulesehitusega naljadele, mille sisu on muutunud etnilisest ametitega seonduvaks. Artikkel puuab vastata kesksele kusimusele, kui universaalsed voi kultuurispetsiifilised on sellised naljad. Folkloorne ja globaalselt levinud ettekujutus numbri 3 tahendusest pakub samuti huvitavaid sissevaateid kolme tegelasega anekdootide olemusse. Kirjeldatakse stereotuupseid juhte, kus erinevate rahvuste esindajad kaituvad oodataval moel, ning analuusitakse konealuste anekdootide erinevate aspektide – etniliste, poliitiliste, seksuaalsete, loogiliste ja…
Review of Nilsen & Nilsen (2019): The Language of Humor. An Introduction
Communicating Online in an Ethical Way: Lilia Duskaeva (ed.): The Ethics of Humour in Online Slavic Media Communication. Routledge. London and New York 2022, 166 pages
Humorous Discourse
Poola intertekstuaalsed meemid COVID pandeemia kohta
The aim of the paper is to show the Polish story of the COVID-19 pandemic as seen through a humorous looking glass. Different stages of coronavirus presence in the media and social discourse have been accompanied by the appearance and development of jokes and memes, which illustrate the rapidly changing pandemic situation. The database consists of over three hundred memes, movies, and comments collected between February and May 2020, during the pandemic humour peak, and come mainly from private WhatsApp and Facebook accounts of the researchers. The humorous material is related to introduced restrictions, changing laws, parliamentary elections, news from other affected countries as well as s…
Book review: Marsh, Moira (2015). Practically Joking. Logan: Utah State University Press. 195 pp.
Book review: Marsh, Moira (2015). Practically Joking. Logan: Utah State University Press. 195 pp.
The Chinese as targets in Polish humorous discourse
Abstract The paper discusses contemporary Polish humor which features references to Chinese language and culture. Together with the ideological, political, financial and economic visibility of China, its presence in Polish humorous discourse is on the rise. Jokes, cabaret sketches and visual materials, such as memes, more and more frequently use the Chinese as targets for entertaining the audience. The article will analyze the instances of Polish humorous discourse (largely Internet memes) to show which are the most frequent specific stereotypes about the Chinese and how that relates to Davies’s models of target choice. The results suggest that Polish humor about the Chinese as an untypical…
Sophisticated humor against COVID-19 : the Polish case
Abstract The analysis undertaken in the article focuses on a group of memes selected from the database which drew on culture-specific references. Specifically, they embrace the memories of socialist times and call on references to comic films and easily recognized characters in order to bring out the re-discovered absurdity of the current COVID-19 situation. This material seems ideal to revisit Raskin’s early notion of sophistication, which was broadly argued to derive from intertextuality as well complexity of references that function as sources of humor. In all the examples discussed we can observe the intertextual and metatextual elements, multiple levels and shifts in points of view and…
Benevolent and corrective humor, life satisfaction, and broad humor dimensions : extending the nomological network of the BenCor across 25 countries
Indexación: Scopus. Benevolent and corrective humor are two comic styles that have been related to virtue, morality, and character strengths. A previous study also supported the viability of measuring these two styles with the BenCor in 22 countries. The present study extends the previous one by including further countries (a total of 25 countries in 29 samples with N = 7813), by testing the revised BenCor (BenCor-R), and by adding two criterion measures to assess life satisfaction and four broad humor dimensions (social fun/entertaining humor, mockery, humor ineptness, and cognitive/reflective humor). As expected, the BenCor-R showed mostly promising psychometric properties (internal consi…
Styl osobniczy uczonego a uniwersalność kategorii stylu
Interventions of speakers of Polish and British parliaments in the light of politeness theory
Abstract The present study attempts to analyze the interventions of Speakers of Polish and British Parliaments in the selected exchanges from 2018 to 2019 in terms of discourse-sensitive politeness theory advanced by Jonathan Culpeper. He proposes to use three types of impoliteness that affect three types of interlocutors’ faces via a range of impoliteness strategies. In the analyses we consider the linguistic, personal, and cultural as well as political context of the exchanges against the background of the unique, historically rooted institutional circumstances, with a special emphasis on the role of different physical contexts of respective Parliamentary chambers. We emphasize the discur…
Discourse about the end of the world
Abstract The increased prevalence of discourse concerning the expected end of the world was observed in various countries and manifested in various genres especially in the years 2000 and 2012. Some of the discourse was conducted in a serious manner, whereas other instances included humorous motifs and were used for commercial purposes. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at the typical motifs prevailing in the discourse concerning the end of the world, with special emphasis on the humorous aspect - both universal and culture-specific. Texts found on Polish, German, English and Russian websites were analyzed. In the studied material, the end of the world was understood literally …
Psychometric Comparisons of Benevolent and Corrective Humor across 22 Countries: The Virtue Gap in Humor Goes International
Recently, two instances of virtue-related humor: benevolent and corrective, have been introduced. Benevolent humor treats human weaknesses and wrongdoings benevolently, while corrective humor aims at correcting and bettering them. Twelve marker items for benevolent and corrective humor (BenCor) were developed, and it was demonstrated that they fill the gap between humor as temperament and virtue. The present study investigates responses to the BenCor from 25 samples in 22 countries (overall N = 7, 226). The psychometric properties of the BenCor were found to be sufficient in most of the samples, including internal consistency, unidimensionality, and factorial validity. Importantly, benevole…
Polish highlander jokes and their targets
The aim of the paper is to identify the characteristic features of jokes about Polish highlanders and analyse them to isolate the comic script of a highlander. This group of jokes is treated as a good illustration of Christie Davies’s ethnic jokes theory concerning canny versus stupid and centre versus periphery oppositions, as well as mind over matter. A particular type of reasoning and the use of regional dialect are distinctive features of the joke targets that make it possible to perceive these jokes as a culturally specific phenomenon. The head shepherd (called baca) is the key character of the cycle. He is a very down-to-earth person, who is proud of his practical wisdom and has a ver…
April Fools’ day news — still funny?
The long tradition of joking connected with the first day of April seems to be dying out in the era of fake news and scary headlines published every day. The aim of the article is to show the status of April Fools’ Day jokes in the Polish and English language context on the example of the material published on a single topic — swallowing inedible objects. In order to develop the methodology of analysis of humour in the news, it is useful to take into account the notion of incongruity, whether it is appropriate incongruity, background and foreground incongruities or various levels of meta-scripts. In order to discuss the collected material, it seems necessary to specify what kind of incongru…
Polish Jokes about Americans
The objective of the present paper is to analyze the character of Polish jokes about Americans and to find out what these jokes say about Poles. The latter question results from the assumption that stereotypes reveal more about those who propagate them than about those who allegedly represent particular traits. The popularity of Americans is a certain novelty in contemporary Polish jokes and this fact could be interpreted as another element in the processes of so-called McDonaldization. The texts are presented by the chronology of events they refer to. Americans are perceived by Poles as the enemies of the Russians, and so as a positive protagonist, a symbol of the high standard of living a…