Beyond academic discourse: practs of humour in departmental chatrooms of selected Federal University students in Southwest Nigeria

Osisanwo, Ayo; Agunbiade, Modupe

doi:10.1080/14725843.2024.2339842

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

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“…The justification for this study lies in the limited research on the linguistic investigation of staged family comedy. While there have been linguistic studies focusing on humour (Bamgbose, 2019;Dynel & Poppi, 2019;Ogungbe & Omolabi, 2020;El-Masry, 2021;Yus, 2021;Okhuosi, 2022;Osisanwo & Ilesanmi, 2023;Atoloye, 2023;Osisanwo & Agunbiade, 2024) and family discourse (Blum-Kulka, 1990;Everts, 2003;Johnson, 2007;Carvalho et al, 2017;Akintaro, 2023) independently, scant attention has been given to linguistically investigating humour within family discourse. This study, therefore, aims to examine the pragmatic acts of humour in selected comedy skits by Maryam Apaokagi, using Jacob Mey's pragmatic acts theory, to identify the humour types, pragmatic functions and contribution to the overall meaning of the discourse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pragmatic acts of humour in family discourse in selected Maryam Apaokagi's comedy skits

Osisanwo,

Atoloye,

Akintaro

2024

EJHR

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Humour plays a crucial role in family discourse as it fosters emotional connection, diffuses tension, and promotes open communication by providing a light-hearted and relatable atmosphere. Extant studies on family discourse have focused on (im)politeness strategies and pragmatic markers. However, scant attention has been paid to the communicative functions of humour in family discourse. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate humour in Maryam Apaokagi’s comedy skits, to identify the types, their pragmatic functions, and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the discourse. Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory served as the theoretical framework. Data for the study comprised eight selected Maryam Apaokagi’s comedy skits, produced in Nigeria. The selection is based on their humorous reflections of family issues and subjected to pragmatic analysis. Findings reveal that pragmatic acts exist in four interlocutory contexts among family members: couple (husband-wife) relationship; sibling(s)-relationship; mother-child relationship; and distant-family relationship. The contexts are indexed by eight pragmatic acts and functions which underpin expressions of humour: warning to threaten the husband, promising to raise hopes, requesting to make a mockery of the elder brother, ordering to deliberately disrespect the elder sister, questioning to persuade and apologise indirectly, scolding to condemn a child’s inappropriate actions, exaggerating to boast and show off, speculating to impress the mother and indict the child. Employed with wit to avoid serious conflicts, these humorous acts were largely foregrounded by conversational, psychological and physical acts, and underscored by such contextual factors as inference, reference, relevance, and shared situation knowledge to humorously depict how family issues are variously handled.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pragmatic acts of humour in family discourse in selected Maryam Apaokagi's comedy skits

Osisanwo,

Atoloye,

Akintaro

2024

EJHR

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Discursive Tropes of Aggression Against Queer-Sexuality in Nigerian Standup Comedy

Ilesanmi,

Osisanwo

2024

Sexuality & Culture

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“Silence is the best answer for a bully”: an exploration of humour techniques in selected Nigerian newspaper political cartoons

Osisanwo,

Atoloye

2024

Language and Semiotic Studies

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Newspaper political cartoons, known for their satirical nature, employ semiotic and linguistic techniques to comment on or criticise political leaders and events humorously. While previous studies on Nigerian newspaper political cartoons have focused on ideological issues and discourse frames, little attention has been given to the linguistic investigation of semiotic humour techniques in these cartoons. This study, therefore, investigates these humour techniques, utilising Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin’s General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) as the framework within a descriptive design. Three newspapers – Punch, The Guardian, and Daily Trust – were purposively selected for their regular publication of cartoons, criticising Nigeria’s politics. Eleven political cartoons were purposively selected for their semiotic and humorous depictions of Nigeria’s politics, and subjected to linguistic analysis. Six semiotic humour techniques were identified in the cartoons: exaggeration, humorous metaphor, distortion of formulaic expressions, neologism, innovative collocation, and sarcasm. These techniques were employed to satirise three governance issues in Nigeria – misgovernance, corruption and insecurity.

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Beyond academic discourse: practs of humour in departmental chatrooms of selected Federal University students in Southwest Nigeria

Cited by 3 publications

References 18 publications

Pragmatic acts of humour in family discourse in selected Maryam Apaokagi's comedy skits

Pragmatic acts of humour in family discourse in selected Maryam Apaokagi's comedy skits

Discursive Tropes of Aggression Against Queer-Sexuality in Nigerian Standup Comedy

“Silence is the best answer for a bully”: an exploration of humour techniques in selected Nigerian newspaper political cartoons

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