Christie Davies, the renowned humour researcher and a passionate propagator of the comparative me... more Christie Davies, the renowned humour researcher and a passionate propagator of the comparative method in studying jokes, stressed the necessity of establishing a relationship between two sets of social facts: the jokes themselves on the one hand, and the social structure or cultural traditions wherein they disseminate on the other (Davies 2002: 6). He also inspired others to examine the differences and similarities in the patterns of jokes between different nations, social circumstances and eras. By doing this and building falsifiable models and generalisations of joking relationships, he changed the way we look at and analyse ethnic jokes.This study returns to earlier findings of Estonian (Laineste 2005, 2009) and Belarusian (Astapova 2015, Zhvaleuskaya 2013, 2015) ethnic jokes and takes a look at new trends in fresh data. Starting with the jokes from the end of the 19th century and ending with the most recent jokes, memes and other humorous items shared over the Internet, the pape...
Internet humour flourishes on social network sites, special humour-dedicated sites and on web pag... more Internet humour flourishes on social network sites, special humour-dedicated sites and on web pages focusing on edutainment or infotainment. Its increasing pervasiveness has to do with the positive functions that humour is nowadays believed to carry – its bonding, affiliative and generally beneficial qualities. Internet humour, like other forms of cultural communication in this medium, passes along from person to person, and may scale (quickly or gradually, depending on the comic potential and other, sometimes rather elusive characteristics) into a shared social phenomenon, giving an insight into the preferences and ideas of the people who actively create and use it. The present research is primarily carried by the question of how the carriers of Internet humour, that is, memes and virals, travel across borders, to a smaller or greater degree being modified and adapted to a particular language and culture in the process. The intertextuality emerging as a result of adapting humorous texts is a perfect example of the inner workings of contemporary globalising cultural communication. Having analysed a corpus of 100 top-rated memes and virals from humour-dedicated web sites popular among Estonian users, we discuss how humour creates intertextual references that rely partly on the cultural memory of that particular (i.e. Estonian-language) community, and partly on global (primarily English-and Russian-language) cultural influences, thus producing hybrid cultural texts. The more interpretations are accessible for the audience (cf. polysemy Shabtai-Boxman & Shifman 2014), the more popular the text becomes, whereas the range of interpretations depends on the openness of the cultural item to further modification.
Special Issue of the European Journal of Humour Research
Editor
Introduction
Essay Contributors:... more Special Issue of the European Journal of Humour Research Editor Introduction
Humor is a trans-genre phenomenon that functions above
the established genre rules, challenging t... more Humor is a trans-genre phenomenon that functions above the established genre rules, challenging them through parody and other subversive practices. At the same time, genre rules have an influence on humorous discourse, but this often works in the negative: the rules are distorted in the process. Humor can thus be seen as counter-discourse, continuously and playfully deconstructing and reconstructing the text through adding new layers of meaning and context. Similarly to discarding genre rules, humor discards taboos and sabotages non-humorous discourse through performing the unexpected and the forbidden
The proverb Eestlase lemmiktoit on teine eestlane (“the favourite food of an Estonian is another ... more The proverb Eestlase lemmiktoit on teine eestlane (“the favourite food of an Estonian is another Estonian”) is widely spread on the Estonian Internet, and its versatility is evident in its multiple variants in numerous different contexts as well as in its contaminations with other well-known proverbs. This study1 maps the frequency of its use in the Estonian language (and in the neighbouring countries) and examines its meanings in different contexts. Equally importantly, the context of its usage will be analysed, mapping its positive, ironic and humorous use in online interaction. The saying has come to be seen by native speakers as the embodiment of the Estonian communication style. Taken against the backdrop of studies in pragmatics of emotive communication of Estonians (e.g. Vainik 2002; Vainik and Orav 2005a, 2005b), the results give ground to argue that the saying indeed carries an essence of “Estonianness” and that it might have even originated in Estonia: while this saying proliferates the Estonian cultural space, it is quite uncommon in other countries (having only some mention in the Russian- and Latvian-language Internet, often in the context of describing the Estonians). This, together with the contextual analysis of the potential meanings of the saying, provides insight into the cultural models and collective self-perceptions that underlie it.
Christie Davies, the renowned humour researcher and a passionate propagator of the comparative me... more Christie Davies, the renowned humour researcher and a passionate propagator of the comparative method in studying jokes, stressed the necessity of establishing a relationship between two sets of social facts: the jokes themselves on the one hand, and the social structure or cultural traditions wherein they disseminate on the other (Davies 2002: 6). He also inspired others to examine the differences and similarities in the patterns of jokes between different nations, social circumstances and eras. By doing this and building falsifiable models and generalisations of joking relationships, he changed the way we look at and analyse ethnic jokes.This study returns to earlier findings of Estonian (Laineste 2005, 2009) and Belarusian (Astapova 2015, Zhvaleuskaya 2013, 2015) ethnic jokes and takes a look at new trends in fresh data. Starting with the jokes from the end of the 19th century and ending with the most recent jokes, memes and other humorous items shared over the Internet, the pape...
Internet humour flourishes on social network sites, special humour-dedicated sites and on web pag... more Internet humour flourishes on social network sites, special humour-dedicated sites and on web pages focusing on edutainment or infotainment. Its increasing pervasiveness has to do with the positive functions that humour is nowadays believed to carry – its bonding, affiliative and generally beneficial qualities. Internet humour, like other forms of cultural communication in this medium, passes along from person to person, and may scale (quickly or gradually, depending on the comic potential and other, sometimes rather elusive characteristics) into a shared social phenomenon, giving an insight into the preferences and ideas of the people who actively create and use it. The present research is primarily carried by the question of how the carriers of Internet humour, that is, memes and virals, travel across borders, to a smaller or greater degree being modified and adapted to a particular language and culture in the process. The intertextuality emerging as a result of adapting humorous texts is a perfect example of the inner workings of contemporary globalising cultural communication. Having analysed a corpus of 100 top-rated memes and virals from humour-dedicated web sites popular among Estonian users, we discuss how humour creates intertextual references that rely partly on the cultural memory of that particular (i.e. Estonian-language) community, and partly on global (primarily English-and Russian-language) cultural influences, thus producing hybrid cultural texts. The more interpretations are accessible for the audience (cf. polysemy Shabtai-Boxman & Shifman 2014), the more popular the text becomes, whereas the range of interpretations depends on the openness of the cultural item to further modification.
Special Issue of the European Journal of Humour Research
Editor
Introduction
Essay Contributors:... more Special Issue of the European Journal of Humour Research Editor Introduction
Humor is a trans-genre phenomenon that functions above
the established genre rules, challenging t... more Humor is a trans-genre phenomenon that functions above the established genre rules, challenging them through parody and other subversive practices. At the same time, genre rules have an influence on humorous discourse, but this often works in the negative: the rules are distorted in the process. Humor can thus be seen as counter-discourse, continuously and playfully deconstructing and reconstructing the text through adding new layers of meaning and context. Similarly to discarding genre rules, humor discards taboos and sabotages non-humorous discourse through performing the unexpected and the forbidden
The proverb Eestlase lemmiktoit on teine eestlane (“the favourite food of an Estonian is another ... more The proverb Eestlase lemmiktoit on teine eestlane (“the favourite food of an Estonian is another Estonian”) is widely spread on the Estonian Internet, and its versatility is evident in its multiple variants in numerous different contexts as well as in its contaminations with other well-known proverbs. This study1 maps the frequency of its use in the Estonian language (and in the neighbouring countries) and examines its meanings in different contexts. Equally importantly, the context of its usage will be analysed, mapping its positive, ironic and humorous use in online interaction. The saying has come to be seen by native speakers as the embodiment of the Estonian communication style. Taken against the backdrop of studies in pragmatics of emotive communication of Estonians (e.g. Vainik 2002; Vainik and Orav 2005a, 2005b), the results give ground to argue that the saying indeed carries an essence of “Estonianness” and that it might have even originated in Estonia: while this saying proliferates the Estonian cultural space, it is quite uncommon in other countries (having only some mention in the Russian- and Latvian-language Internet, often in the context of describing the Estonians). This, together with the contextual analysis of the potential meanings of the saying, provides insight into the cultural models and collective self-perceptions that underlie it.
Uploads
Papers by Liisi Laineste
Editor
Introduction
Essay Contributors:
Ibukun Filani
Liisi Laineste, Piret Voolaid
Vittorio Marone
Berenice Pahl
Liat Steir-Livny
the established genre rules, challenging them through parody
and other subversive practices. At the same time, genre rules
have an influence on humorous discourse, but this often
works in the negative: the rules are distorted in the process.
Humor can thus be seen as counter-discourse, continuously
and playfully deconstructing and reconstructing the text
through adding new layers of meaning and context.
Similarly to discarding genre rules, humor discards taboos
and sabotages non-humorous discourse through performing
the unexpected and the forbidden
The saying has come to be seen by native speakers as the embodiment of the Estonian communication style. Taken against the backdrop of studies in pragmatics of emotive communication of Estonians (e.g. Vainik 2002; Vainik and Orav 2005a, 2005b), the results give ground to argue that the saying indeed carries an essence of “Estonianness” and that it might have even originated in Estonia: while this saying proliferates the
Estonian cultural space, it is quite uncommon in other countries (having only some mention in the Russian- and Latvian-language Internet, often in the context of describing the Estonians). This, together with the contextual analysis of the potential meanings of the saying, provides insight into the cultural models and collective self-perceptions that underlie it.
Editor
Introduction
Essay Contributors:
Ibukun Filani
Liisi Laineste, Piret Voolaid
Vittorio Marone
Berenice Pahl
Liat Steir-Livny
the established genre rules, challenging them through parody
and other subversive practices. At the same time, genre rules
have an influence on humorous discourse, but this often
works in the negative: the rules are distorted in the process.
Humor can thus be seen as counter-discourse, continuously
and playfully deconstructing and reconstructing the text
through adding new layers of meaning and context.
Similarly to discarding genre rules, humor discards taboos
and sabotages non-humorous discourse through performing
the unexpected and the forbidden
The saying has come to be seen by native speakers as the embodiment of the Estonian communication style. Taken against the backdrop of studies in pragmatics of emotive communication of Estonians (e.g. Vainik 2002; Vainik and Orav 2005a, 2005b), the results give ground to argue that the saying indeed carries an essence of “Estonianness” and that it might have even originated in Estonia: while this saying proliferates the
Estonian cultural space, it is quite uncommon in other countries (having only some mention in the Russian- and Latvian-language Internet, often in the context of describing the Estonians). This, together with the contextual analysis of the potential meanings of the saying, provides insight into the cultural models and collective self-perceptions that underlie it.