Humor in anthropology and folklore

Oring, Elliott

doi:10.1515/9783110198492.183

Cited by 37 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…As Oring argues, blond jokes are not really about blondes nor women because blondes are “merely a ‘placeholder’ for joking about a particular set of values for which the blond is regarded as a symbolically appropriate—though not a sociologically accurate—representation” (Oring, 2003, p. 66). They are about the inappropriateness of traditional values concerning women in the modern world (Oring, 2003, 2008). Contrary to jokes, successful satire requires that the satirist's moral stance is at least implicitly present, although the satirist must remain impersonal so that the presented values could be understood as common ones, shared by the society (Frye, 1957/2000).…”

Section: Humor and Satirementioning

confidence: 99%

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

Tesnohlidkova

2020

Sociology Compass

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The landscape of political humor and satire is changing rapidly, and it is becoming an increasingly relevant aspect of our culture. Although scholars have been actively trying to capture this change, majority of the existing frameworks for understanding humor and satire in politics still reduce these phenomena to mere genres or rhetoric tools. In addition, they provide insufficient accounts concerning the reception of humor and satire, and neglect to interpret and explain what they communicate. In the article, a general understanding of humor and satire outside of a political context, followed by an overview of studies discussing humor and satire in politics through their applications in social movements, as leadership tools, and through their manifestations in mass media has been presented. Lastly, a cultural sociological perspective to the field has been introduced. It has been argued that approaching humor and satire in politics through a structural hermeneutic method of the Strong Program will enable us to recognize and treat political humor and satire as autonomous and complex cultural systems which carry an internal power to move people.

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Section: Humor and Satirementioning

confidence: 99%

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

Tesnohlidkova

2020

Sociology Compass

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“…According to Elliot Oring (2008), anthropological and folkloristic interest in humour has dealt primarily with joking relationships, the ritual use and meanings of humour and various folk genres of it (see also Apte 1985); the scope of my investigation falls into the nal category mentioned. Moreover, the wider phenomenon of humour has compelled generations of researchers from diverse research traditions to tackle the subject from a number of di erent angles (see e.g.…”

Section: Empirical Focus and Frames Of Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My interpretation of the meanings generated by humour is based on the assumption that the humorous mode is produced in a narrative or a situation through an ambivalent, incongruous or surprising element. It can take the form of a con ict, which can be, among other things, emotional, conscious, linguistic, logical, or social (Knuu ila 1992: 44-46;Oring 2008). For instance, Victor Raskin's semantic theory on verbal humour explains that the humorous mode in narrative is produced through a clash of opposing cultural scripts, such as true / false, to cite one example of opposition (Raskin 1985: 99-117.…”

Section: Empirical Focus and Frames Of Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Search of Hidden Sexuality. Old Age and Sexuality in the Light of Humorous Narration

Vakimo

2015

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1 Sinikka Vakimo University of Eastern Finland, Joensuuis article deals with the perceptions of the elderly from the agrarian culture of early-to-mid-20 th -century Finland. It focusses especially on how the sexuality and corporeality of old women are de ned in humorous oral narration. e research materials include archival anecdotes about old age and sexuality.e research draws upon theoretical discussions presented in feminist cultural gerontology and folklore studies. e gure of the old woman emerges here as a strikingly complex sexual agent, a gure whose body and sexuality are visible in anecdotes and not hidden.Keywords: cultural conceptions, age and sexuality, body, humour, folklore IntroductionEver since its inception as a eld of research, cultural gerontology has preoccupied itself with the cultural de nitions and varying a itudes and perceptions of old age. e analysis of historical materials, including, for example, European art and literary works from antiquity, have enabled researchers to perceive certain mental models of old age common in Western culture. Although researchers acknowledge the diversity and context-bound nature of de nitions of old age, they still concur that the prevailing cultural de nitions have generally been, and continue to be, negative. Old age, especially female old age, is invariably associated with physical and mental decline as well as loss of social, economic and sexual power (Beauvoir 1986: 99-311; Covey 1991: 161-174; Falkner and Luce 1992: 4-5; Soden 2012: 84-85; see Minois 1989). In spite of the tremendous societal and cultural changes that have occurred, many of these perceptions continue to inform present-day images of old age circulating in the media and popular culture (see Featherstone and Wernick 1995; Dolan and Tincknell 2012; Swinnen and Stotesbury 2012;Ylänne 2012).e present article seeks to shed some light on the area of popular thought and inhering notions of gendered old age in recent history. My investigation concentrates on cultural models of thinking which are situated in early-to-mid-20 th -century Finland, when face-toface communication still gured more prominently in the production and circulation of ideas and information than in the media-centred society of today. erefore the empirical investigation concentrates on orally-transmi ed folk narratives. Oral folk narratives are rmly bound to their narrative communities and to the cultural models for collective thinking and experiencing (Siikala 1989: 189-190). at industrialisation, urbanisation and subsequent structural changes in livelihoods took place in Finnish society relatively late (Virrankoski 2012) is evident in the cultural models of thinking represented in folk narration; their origins 1 I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the expert referees of my article. eir valuable comments encouraged me to express my ideas with more clarity and thus improve the quality of the article as a whole.

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“…The performativity of joke-telling, which includes their capacity to create sociability, sharedness, and a range of other pragmatic acts, has recently begun to receive more scholarly attention. While anthropological research has often addressed humor as embedded in the cultural practices under study (Oring 2008; Raskin 2008), sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have started to explore more systematically the performative qualities of joke-telling rather than, for example, their apparent versus opaque meaning per se—this being one way of theorizing how jokes ‘work’. This has resulted in descriptions of diverse pragmatic functions of joke-telling as embedded in various sociocultural contexts such as supporting HIV patients (Black 2012), constructing identity (Bucholtz, Skapoulli, Barnwell, & Lee 2011; Managan 2012), and assessing the ‘racial’ in US public discourse (Hartigan 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This capacity of jokes to comment on the sociocultural surround comes not only from the content of jokes, through the 'what is said', 7 or denotational text, but also through the manner in which jokes are delivered, or their interactional text (for this distinction, see Silverstein 1997;Wortham 2001). While anthropological research has often addressed humor as embedded in the cultural practices under study (Oring 2008;Raskin 2008), sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have started to explore more systematically the performative qualities of joke-telling rather than, for example, their apparent versus opaque meaning per se-this being one way of theorizing how jokes 'work'. While anthropological research has often addressed humor as embedded in the cultural practices under study (Oring 2008;Raskin 2008), sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists have started to explore more systematically the performative qualities of joke-telling rather than, for example, their apparent versus opaque meaning per se-this being one way of theorizing how jokes 'work'.…”

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confidence: 99%

Performingextracomunitari: Mocking migrants in Venetobarzellette

Perrino¹

2015

Lang. Soc.

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In Italy, barzellette are short funny stories that speakers perform in various social events with large groups of friends, relatives, or colleagues. In Northern Italy, where a strong anti-immigration platform has been implemented by two influential political parties of the Veneto region, barzellette are performed to represent certain immigrant groups, especially the so-called extracomunitari. In this article, I examine the performative power of multidialectal language play in race-based humor through an analysis of two such joking events. I show how Veneto speakers perform barzellette in their local language, Veneto dialect, to mock immigrant voices, using approaches that purport, not necessarily in a deliberate fashion, to ‘contain’ or ‘conceal’ their racist remarks in their local code. In this way, they sharpen an exclusionary divide between an ‘us’, as insiders, as the local speakers of this language, and a ‘them’, as outsiders, or the immigrant ‘others’, who do not share this code. I thus examine issues of covert racist discourse within an ‘unmarked’ framework in which race and racializing discourses are embedded in social and cultural patterns. (Code-shifting, jokes, Lega Nord, migration, race, racialized discourse, Veneto dialect)*

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Humor in anthropology and folklore

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

Humor and satire in politics: Introducing cultural sociology to the field

In Search of Hidden Sexuality. Old Age and Sexuality in the Light of Humorous Narration

Performingextracomunitari: Mocking migrants in Venetobarzellette

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