Abstract
This paper argues that paralinguistic resources employed by stand-up comedians to construe textual personae (impersonated characters) make a substantial contribution to the creation of humor by allowing the comedian to distance themselves from particular social values and by referencing shared cultural stereotypes. A stretch of stand-up comedy discourse is analyzed to explore how gesture and voice quality contribute to the construal of projected personae. These are mapped in relation to the interaction between comedian and audience to discern how they evoke specific social values. The results suggest that textual personae are deployed by the comedian to embody stereotypes that connote particular value positions, and that the comedian can construe blended or hybrid personae through the use of multiple semiotic resources. Impersonation thus constitutes a powerful resource for negotiating social values in order to generate tension and create humor.
About the authors
Lorenzo Logi is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, and is employing Systemic Functional Linguistics to research the social semiosis occurring in stand-up comedy performances. He completed his Master’s in Applied Linguistics at the University of Sydney in 2017, writing his dissertation on bonding and affiliation in television sitcoms. Recent publications include Logi, L. and M. Zappavigna (forthcoming). “Impersonated personae – paralanguage, dialogism and affiliation in stand-up comedy.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research and Logi, L. and M. Zappavigna (2019). “Dialogic resources in interactional humour.” Journal of Pragmatics 153: 1–14.
Michele Zappavigna is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales. Her major research interest is the discourse of social media and ambient affiliation. Recent books include: Searchable Talk: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse (Bloomsbury 2018), Discourse of Twitter and Social Media (Bloomsbury 2012), Researching the Language of Social Media (Routledge 2014, with Ruth Page, Johann Unger and David Barton), and Discourse and Diversionary Justice: An Analysis of Ceremonial Redress in Youth Justice Conferencing (Palgrave 2018, with J.R. Martin). Email:m.zappavigna@unsw.edu.au.
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