Pragmatic Architectonics of Stand-Up Comedy: Actor’s Image, Addressee’s Factor, Interactivity

Abstract

Stand-up comedy is interpreted in the study as a discourse pattern, perfect for the “cynical” opposition of all aspects of real eventfulness. Fixing the relevant areas of implicit (usually socially labeled) knowledge, not always covered by traditional institutional sources, bringing this knowledge to the target audience are important discourse functions performed by comedians in their appropriate roles. It is established that the actor puts on the mask of an ordinary representative of society, against the background of a comic distortion of reality, he voices “marginal” metaphorical meanings that form the current everyday routine, expressing anger and despair about vicious and weak manifestations inherent in human nature. The comedy genre allows performers to demonstrate a personal view of the world order, to realize their place in the world around them. It is concluded that these possibilities become the central element of the identity of the actor-comedian, determine the parameters of who he objectively is, fix his finding between the internal state and the external manner of behavior that can be recognized by the audience. The comedian is like a creative “persona”, a psychological entity with special characteristics that can be publicly noticed, recognized and used by representatives of a certain culture as a whole. The scenarios generated by the comedian are investigated, which can be traditional or situational (specific to the current communication environment). Their switching in the actor’s discourse determines the nature of the relationship with the audience from complete collusion to confrontation with it.The humorous potential of the actor’s judgments programs a sudden cognitive shift in the audience’s consciousness, which is generated by the discrepancy between perceived meanings and generally accepted mental models of explication of meanings from linguistic units, the effect of deceived expectations. The viewer experiences an unexpected change of psychological state due to spontaneous changes in the interpretation of individual words, phrases or the actor’s narrative as a whole. At the same time, the actor’s jokes do not always correspond to the comedy genre, as a rule, they acquire a deeply tragic content.

Keywords

• stand-up comedy
• humorous effect
• monologue
• dialogue
• addressee factor
• phatic contact
• heckler