1st Edition

The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age Viral Humour

By Delia Chiaro Copyright 2018
    178 Pages
    by Routledge

    178 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this accessible book, Delia Chiaro provides a fresh overview of the language of jokes in a globalized and digitalized world. The book shows how, while on the one hand the lingua-cultural nuts and bolts of jokes have remained unchanged over time, on the other, the time-space compression brought about by modern technology has generated new settings and new ways of joking and playing with language. The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age covers a wide range of settings from social networks, e-mails and memes, to more traditional fields of film and TV (especially sitcoms and game shows) and advertising. Chiaro’s consideration of the increasingly virtual context of jokes delights with both up-to-date examples and frequent reference to the most central theories of comedy.

    This lively book will be essential reading for any student or researcher working in the area of language and humour and will be of interest to those in language and media and sociolinguistics.

    Introduction

    Chapter 1 The Language of jokes several years on

    Jokes and humorous discourse

    Humour

    The Joke Form

    The General Theory of Verbal Humor

    Form and content

    Verbal ambiguity

    Joke Structure

    Joke Targets

    The stupid underdog

    Canny jokes

    Sex
    Religion

    Disasters

    Suspending disbelief

     

     

    Chapter 2 The Language of Jokes Goes Global

    Humour in unscripted TV entertainment

    Presenting with humour

    The teasing scold

    Behaving badly for a laugh

    Translating humour for the movies and television

    Non-verbal humour

    Visual humour

    Acoustic humour

    Verbal humour

    Purely linguistic orally conveyed verbal humour

    Visually conveyed verbal humour

    Culture specific verbal humour

    Verbal/visual Humour

    Verbal humour

    Translation as a Humorous Device

     

    Chapter 3 The Language of Jokes and Gender

    Male, Female Humour and Laughter

    Targeting Gender

    Sexist humour

    Specific sexist jokes

    Wives

    Mothers-in-law

    The Dirty Joke

    Rape Jokes

    Feminist Jokes

    Women and Self-deprecatory Humour

    Gender Bending

     

    Chapter 4 The Language of Jokes On-Line

    Conversational Humour on-line

    Signalling laughter on-line

    Ping-pong-punning

    Ping-pong-punning Below the Line

    Below the Line Communities

    Hashtaggery

    When the verbal meets the visual - In and around Internet memes

    Real life moments

    Manipulated content

    Memes as Ethnic jokes

    Exclusive to the Internet

    Criss-cross humour

    Meme Transference

     

    Biography

    Delia Chiaro is currently Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Bologna’s Department of Interpreting and Translation and President of the International Society of Humor Studies. She has published widely on a number of intercultural issues regarding humour and has given numerous keynote lectures at international conferences around the world. A member of the Editorial Boards of the Mouton journal Humor: International Journal of Humor Research and the John Benjamins journal The Israeli Journal of Humor Research: An International Journal, Chiaro is also Associate Editor of the "Topics in Humor" book series for John Benjamins.

    "On the whole, The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age is a very comprehensive and readable source invaluable for scholars and students interested in language and humour as well as for those working in the areas of language, (social) media and sociolinguistics."

    - Mariza Georgalou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens & Hellenic Open University, European Journal of Humour Research