Humour in Multicultural South African Texts: Finding Common Ground

Abstract

South Africa is a country of extreme beauty and rich cultural diversity. South Africans, or the Rainbow Nation, as we are affectionately referred to, have the ability to moan together, criticise our politicians together, feel each other’s pain together, cry together, but we do not seem to share the ability to laugh together. Humour and the definitions of it vary across cultural frontiers. We recognise the fact that different things are funny to different people. Humour can also be used as a tool in the education process to ease tensions and create a safe environment to discuss issues of cultural differences and inequality. In order to understand humour, there needs to be an understanding of the contexts found in a variety of texts. For the purpose of this paper, the Communication 1 lecturers of Walter Sisulu University will undertake a comparative study of written texts from three sister South African magazines, purportedly aimed at different cultural groups in our country, over a four week period, to investigate the different ways that humour has been used in these texts. Although this study will deal primarily with the comparison of humorous texts, the similarities and differences in the way that this humour is portrayed will be examined, thereby enhancing our understanding for use in the lecture room. This will be a multicultural study seeking to investigate whether it is possible to find humour that can cross cultural barriers by not being offensive, overtly sexual in nature, and politically incorrect, and thus allowing us to smile at situations that we would not normally consider. Finally, this paper will examine whether it is possible to view humour through various texts as a means of cultural reconciliation.

Keywords

• humour
• comparative texts
• multiculturism
• reconciliation
• south africa