Huumor ja/kui vägivald? Folkloristlik-lingvistiline lähenemine

Abstract

"Humour and/as violence? A folkloristic-linguistic approach". Humour has long been viewed as a subversive phenomenon that points to the incongruities and shortcomings noticed and ridiculed by members of society. The intentions of humour creators are always difficult to pinpoint. Whether with good reason or not, most humour has a target, and the depiction of this target is inevitably politically incorrect, insulting, or even downright blasphemous. Jokes violate harmonious coexistence, collective identity, and communication norms, and that seems to lie at the core of humour. We claim that the superiority and incongruity approaches to humour (traditionally, three major approaches to humour are recognized: superiority, incongruity, and relief) relate to the idea that humour contains some form of clash, either between individuals or meanings. This clash is an element that connects many existing humour theories and is increasingly useful in explaining contemporary forms of humour. Our theoretical contribution analyzes ideas about humour proposed by humour scholars over centuries, particularly those proposed by folklorists and linguists. Humour violates logic, expectations, or linguistic conventions in order to “kidnap” its recipient where they do not intend to go. This is especially true in the anonymous space of the internet, where users enjoy little responsibility for what they say and can usually deny any harmful intention – the ambiguity of humour allows for that. The bottom line is that humour can be used to convey a variety of messages and achieve different goals, some prosocial and others more aggressive. Humour in itself, however, is inherently neither friendly nor aggressive, and its meaning always emerges in context.

Keywords

• folkloristics
• linguistics
• humour
• aggression
• violence