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Joking draws on complex cognitive abilities: understanding social norms, theory of mind, anticipating others responses and appreciating the violation of others expectations. Playful teasing, which is present in preverbal infants, shares many of these cognitive features. There is some evidence that great apes can tease in structurally similar ways, but no systematic study exists. We developed a coding system to identify playful teasing and applied it to video of zoo-housed great apes. All four species engaged in intentionally provocative behaviour, frequently accompanied by characteristics of play. We found playful teasing to be characterized by attention-getting, one-sidedness, response looking, repetition and elaboration/escalation. It takes place mainly in relaxed contexts, has a wide variety of forms, and differs from play in several ways (e.g. asymmetry, low rates of play signals like the playface and absence of movement-final holds characteristic of intentional gestures). As playful teasing is present in all extant great ape genera, it is likely that the cognitive prerequisites for joking evolved in the hominoid lineage at least 13 million years ago.

This study tries to ascertain the attitudes of tertiary learners’ internet meme consumption and its potential for pedagogical implications. Internet memes, as multifaceted cultural artefacts, have become pervasive in contemporary digital communication, influencing societal discourse and online interactions. Despite their prevalence, research on learners’ everyday experiences and attitudes towards memes in educational settings is a rarity. This research therefore aims to examine the affective and cognitive attitudes of undergraduate students towards internet meme culture. Utilising a cross-sectional survey design, data was collected from 119 second-year undergraduate students at St. Joseph's College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli, India. The questionnaire focused on measuring both affective and cognitive appeal towards meme consumption. The analysis revealed that memes as an educational tool have a positive impact on the affective and cognitive domains in a classroom setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the perception of comic timing effects in prose fiction and the involvement of this effect in a reader's ability to recognise and appreciate humour. It suggests that the effect of comic timing, generally, results from perceived changes in pace rather than absolute timing. In a written text, a comic timing effect can be constructed linguistically through changes in perceived narrative urgency. In the passages analysed here, this change is from a state of impeded urgency, where textual features that encourage a sense of pace are combined with features that diminish this, to a state where the impediment to urgency is removed. This corresponds with and contributes to the reader's sense of emergence from the text world, a positional shift that encourages their sense of sharing humour with the author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the value of humor is appreciated in mental health care, little is known about how professionals employ humor. The purpose of this systematic review was to explore how mental health professionals use humor. Academic databases were systemically searched. Papers were subjected to quality appraisal. Ten studies met eligibility criteria. Mental health staff used humor to cope with stress and adversity. They also used humor to enhance relationships with service users, and to erode team-related power dynamics. It was suggested that knowing when to use humor appropriately was dependent on experience and how well staff knew service users. However, it was also found that staff's use of humor was sometimes negatively perceived by service users, as it could reinforce power dynamics. Due to the limited and low level of evidence, it is recommended that rigorous research in the area of humor in mental health practice is undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During scenic opera rehearsals, the participants create performance bodies – fictive behaviours that portray the characters in the libretto. They use depictions – interactional practices comprised of short scenes staged for the other participants – to propose and negotiate performance bodies that suit the developing aesthetics of the production. In this paper, we focus on non-serious proposal depictions: depictions that become treated as laughable and not suitable for the performance. Non-serious depictions can accomplish joint fictionalizations, especially with teasing (Cantarutti, 2022), and are used in contrast with an ideal performance (Keevallik, 2010). Building on this work, we analyze how non-serious depictions are used to decide what the wished performance will be. We discuss two types of non-serious depictions in the workplace setting of the opera rehearsal process and show how negotiations over the seriousness of depictions achieve aesthetic intersubjectivity among the colleagues. The ambiguity between serious and non-serious proposals is exploited as a resource when navigating the unknown territories of a piece of art under development. The material consists of 20 h of video-recorded opera rehearsals in Swedish and English, with an Italian libretto. • Opera rehearsal participants use depictions in proposals to create a performance. • Depictions can be designed as either serious or non-serious. • This paper focuses on how depictions are designed and treated as non-serious. • Non-serious depictions can be treated as tangential to the interactional agenda. • They can also be a tool to manage aesthetic intersubjectivity and affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the application of a micro-analytic approach to critically explore how a Muslim women's Sister's Circle (SC), based at a British university, interactionally resists discourses of Islamophobia and othering through humour. I reflect on how I navigated methodological tensions during my PhD, specifically around context in Conversation Analysis (CA; Schegloff, 1997), and explore the benefits of synthesising CA with other critical approaches. Through applying an EM/CA informed discourse analytic approach, this paper showcases how the SC employs humour as a tool for subversion to discursively 'undo' othering and reject victimhood. Humour serves as a tool to reverse a social order that otherwise positions Muslims as 'other'. In summation, this paper argues that applying a synthesised micro-analytic approach enriches the analysis and discussion of implications, demonstrating the benefits of applying such an approach to the study of how (racially) minoritized communities (re)produce and respond to their respective realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humour is a universal phenomenon that offers several physiological and psychological benefits across cultures. The objectives of this study were to examine the relationships between daily hassles, humour and well-being; and to investigate the moderating effect of humour on the relationship between hassles and well-being. A correlational design was adopted to collect data from 644 participants (men = 300, women = 344), aged between 18 and 58 years using purposive and snowballing sampling techniques. The Daily Hassles Scale, Sense of Humour Questionnaire (SHQ-R) and the Personal Well-Being Index—Adult (PWI-A) were administered to the sample. The self-report measures were appropriately scored and the collective data were analyzed. Statistical analyses revealed a positive relationship between sense of humour and well-being. A negative relationship was observed between sense of humour and hassles; and between well-being and hassles. Further, sense of humour was found to be moderating the relationship between daily hassles and well-being. This study highlights the role of humour in softening the impact of hassles on the well-being of the Indian population. This strengthens the construct of humour in the context of positive psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, vicarious identification (VI) with the Ukrainian fight swept across the West becoming the de facto and normatively prescribed response and a source of status, self-esteem and jouissance for all those vicariously participating. For their part, and with some success, the Ukrainians encouraged such a response through carefully curated acts of vicarious identity promotion. Mobilising the British context as an example, this article reflects on the temptations and limiting politics of vicarious war, highlighting three points. First, that VI with the Ukrainian fight was tempting, in part because it enabled a nostalgic appropriation that helped flesh out post-Brexit notions of 'Global Britain', but that in doing so made this increasingly a war more about 'us' than 'them'. Second, that humour has played a particularly central role in these processes. Third, that VI-derived support is inherently unstable, something evident whenever news from the battlefield has turned grim, threatening to diminish the ontological satisfaction previously derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary non-fiction picturebooks for children are often fictionalised in one way or another. Many non-fiction picturebooks for children are thus hybrids between fiction and non-fiction but labelled as non-fiction for children and presented to children as non-fiction. Their purpose is to inform and teach, and at the same time entertain and elicit affective responses. To succeed in achieving this dual purpose, this study assumes that designed teaching can create opportunities to separate combined depictions in fictionalised non-fiction. The purpose of this study is to explore children's responses to imaginary constructs in designed reading activities, and to answer what opens up for children when combined depictions in fictionalised non-fiction are separated and made discernible. This is studied in four reading activities with a teacher and six five-year-olds in a preschool setting, reading and discussing picturebooks about dinosaurs and their extinction. The analysis shows that when combined depictions in fictionalised non-fiction are separated by contrast, and thus made discernible as established knowledge and imaginary constructs, this opens up for the children's interpretation, appreciation, and creation of imaginary constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines how impoverishment and disillusionment in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1949) have been rendered on the Greek stage (transl. Papathanassopoulou 1984). Ιt examines the use of impoliteness which renders the protagonists' outcast identity and frustration, as Godot is not showing up. Findings show that respondents appreciated both foul language (impoliteness) and humour (low-power distance) in the Greek version of the play. The significance of the study lies in that target audiences may enjoy aspects of characters' identities perhaps unsuspected in the ST, because local contexts may prioritize codes manifesting intended attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of laughter in media strategies. The aim is to distinguish between laughter shared 'with' the audience and laughter directed 'at' the audience. The research briefly traces the historical evolution of laughter from a repressed and morally criticised expression to a symbol of wealth and empowerment, a transformation facilitated by media diffusion. The subsequent analysis, based on the Portuguese context, seems to indicate a current tendency towards a more empathetic, lighter, and more visibly expressive form of laughter that transcends boundaries such as age, education, and social status, thus fostering a deeper connection with the audience. This study underlines the profound impact of laughter on audience engagement and highlights the central role of communal laughter—laughing 'with' the audience—in contemporary media communication. In conclusion, the findings suggest that a more empathetic and less critical approach to audience behaviour through laughter has the potential to attract larger audiences. Indirectly, this emerging trend may be indicative of a growing reluctance among members of contemporary society to tolerate ideas or perspectives contrary to their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being a globally significant form of art and culture, the performance of comedy has seemingly maintained a very low profile in cultural economics. The case for greater research scrutiny of this art form is advanced alongside some possible reasons for the relatively low academic attention devoted to comedy. The scope for considering comedy in economic terms is also considered, and a range of research questions are raised to stimulate debate and further enquiry on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Design Methods Results Conclusions Guided by the hedonic surplus/mood‐as‐resource hypotheses, we sought to identify message components that prevent health information avoidance by inducing hedonic psychological states.Two experimental studies.Participants, age 45–75, recruited from the online survey platform, Prolific (Study 1 N = 288, Study 2 N = 505), completed a survey of their colorectal cancer (CRC) information avoidance tendency and demographics. They were reinvited to participate in a study where they were randomized to view one of four types of images: humorous comics, cute animals, coping messages or streetscapes images (control condition). To assess CRC information avoidance behaviour after viewing the stimuli, participants choose whether to be directed to a website to complete a CRC risk calculator (Study 1), or whether to view a CRC information video or a video about foot care (Study 2). Using logistic regression, we regressed each outcome variable on interactions between self‐reported CRC information avoidance tendency and experimental condition. We then used the PROCESS macro to test if mood mediated these interaction effects.In Study 1, to the degree participants reported CRC information avoidance tendency, viewing humorous comics compared to control images increased their odds of choosing to view the risk calculator (OR = 5.26, p = .02). The same was true in Study 2 for choosing to watch the video about CRC vs. foot care (OR = 2.42, p = .04). Effects were not mediated through mood and there were no effects for the cute animals or coping messages.Using humour at the outset of a health message may increase reach to people who otherwise avoid CRC or other health messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of parodic humour in Boris Johnson's populist communication. Populist parties and conservative politicians have increasingly drawn humorous connections to films and entertainment in their political communication. But, despite the increasing research on populism, the role of humour in political communication is not yet at the centre of populism research. The article shows how professionally designed humour can dominate discourses and bring immense amounts of media attention to specific details while distracting attention from other political issues. The argument of the article is illustrated by analysing humorous communication of the former British PM Boris Johnson in 2019 and 2020. Among others, Johnson compared himself to Marvel's Hulk, a parody that echoed through the news media. The article provides a very specific and new insight into the means by which populist strategies make use of parodic humorous elements in their communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humour plays a substantial role in the dissemination of ideas, beliefs and practices. In particular, it can offer an alternative framework for addressing situations of struggle, stress and suffering, such as war, political strife and social upheaval. In Palestine, humour is manifested in many everyday interactions, functioning as a coping mechanism and offering a way to confront both the Israeli Occupation and the dire political and economic situation. This article engages with humour as it occurs in the everyday lives of Palestinians, looking at the role of humour in a specific context, in a time of political violence. One of the arguments I wish to make is that each new atrocity or each further erosion of rights is reflected in a new series of 'in-jokes', which enable Palestinians to refer to, make sense of and adapt to the painful realities they encounter in everyday life. The narratives of individuals' lives in Palestine are reflected upon via the exploration of humorous daily discourse which is displayed in jokes and humorous anecdotes. I explore what thoughts, desires and fears individuals and families in Palestine share within their social networks in the form of jokes. In addition, the article traces what kind of jokes are circulated and how people in various situations react to different kinds of jokes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we describe and analyse police managers' response to incidents of gender and sexual harassment as they play out in a police workplace context. The aim is to examine managers' supervisory discretion in safeguarding employees' legal rights, through three research questions: 1) What implicit understandings of sexual harassment, in the organisation, are made visible by managers´ approach to harassment; 2) what do these implicit problem understandings mean for which incidents become legitimate and illegitimate experiences of harassment in the organisation; and 3) which types of harassment incidents are employees protected against? Based on two cases of harassment, observed during 6 months of fieldwork, we explore and analyse humour and managers' power of definition, applying socio-legal perspectives on implementation of laws and rights in a work context. Through this, small incidents of everyday harassment become visible and highlight the role of police managers in transforming policy to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humour has long been viewed as a subversive phenomenon that points to the incongruities and shortcomings noticed and ridiculed by members of society. The intentions of humour creators are always difficult to pinpoint. Whether with good reason or not, most humour has a target, and the depiction of this target is inevitably politically incorrect, insulting, or even downright blasphemous. Jokes violate harmonious coexistence, collective identity, and communication norms, and that seems to lie at the core of humour. We claim that the superiority and incongruity approaches to humour (traditionally, three major approaches to humour are recognized: superiority, incongruity, and relief) relate to the idea that humour contains some form of clash, either between individuals or meanings. This clash is an element that connects many existing humour theories and is increasingly useful in explaining contemporary forms of humour. Many academic definitions of humour have been proposed (e.g., Martin 2007: 3), many of which underline the partial overlap between humour and aggression. Besides researchers, laypeople also seem to know the ingredients of good (and bad) humour (Laineste 2011, 2020; Kuipers 2006). They draw a sharp line between "good" - funny, healthy, harmless - humour, and "bad" humour - aggression, offence, or blasphemy (Laineste 2011; for lay definitions of irony, see Simpson 2003). Furthermore, the emergence of the internet has shaped how humour is perceived and communicated (Attardo 2023; Laineste, Shilikhina 2024). The contextual nature of humour and/as violence is distilled in the observation that "humour does not give offence; its recipients take offence" (Bucaria, Barra 2016: 7), meaning that offence is always relative and contextual and needs answers to questions like: Who is it offensive to? In what situation? What kind of power dynamics are at play? The answers to these questions are not necessarily straightforward because, in the context of online communication, humour has become a topic of intense political and social dispute worldwide. On the one hand, having a sense of humour is a highly valued personal trait, and lacking it is a serious drawback; on the other hand, humour verges on the border between acceptable and unacceptable, appropriate and inappropriate, good-natured and violent - in general: good and bad. Recent humour studies focusing on white supremacist jokes, religious humour, or anti-democratic jokes challenge the notion of humour as mere entertainment. Moreover, it is difficult to predict what is humorous and to whom, especially in a globalized society where every joke is within an easy reach of anyone. Humour scandals arise at the juncture of different discourses within society, triggering discussions about the nature of humour. In present-day online interactions, the ambiguity of joking may lead to unpredictable results. Additionally, it has been suggested that audiences have become more sensitive to all kinds of attacks, including humorous ones (Nagle 2017). Our theoretical contribution analyzes ideas about humour proposed by humour scholars over centuries, particularly those proposed by folklorists and linguists. Humour violates logic, expectations, or linguistic conventions in order to "kidnap" its recipient where they do not intend to go. This is especially true in the anonymous space of the internet, where users enjoy little responsibility for what they say and can usually deny any harmful intention - the ambiguity of humour allows for that. The bottom line is that humour can be used to convey a variety of messages and achieve different goals, some prosocial and others more aggressive. Humour in itself, however, is inherently neither friendly nor aggressive, and its meaning always emerges in context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intersection of humour, feminism, and teen identity in Olivia Wilde's film Booksmart (2019). Centred around two academically ambitious best friends, Molly and Amy, the film navigates their quest to prove that being 'smart' does not preclude being 'fun' as they embark on a night of revelry before graduation. Through a critical analysis of two key scenes – catching a Lyft with their Principal and hallucinating becoming dolls – the paper argues that Booksmart both perpetuates and challenges conventional teen film tropes, revealing the complexities of young women's representation in contemporary media. The film's humour, marked by a productive ambivalence, allows for a nuanced exploration of female empowerment, challenging stereotypes surrounding high-achieving girls and acknowledging the societal pressures they face. Rather than presenting a simplistic feminist narrative, Booksmart embraces contradictions and promotes a 'both/and' philosophy, highlighting the complexities of identity and the experiences of women, ultimately contributing to discussions on feminism in popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Humour and/as violence? A folkloristic-linguistic approach". Humour has long been viewed as a subversive phenomenon that points to the incongruities and shortcomings noticed and ridiculed by members of society. The intentions of humour creators are always difficult to pinpoint. Whether with good reason or not, most humour has a target, and the depiction of this target is inevitably politically incorrect, insulting, or even downright blasphemous. Jokes violate harmonious coexistence, collective identity, and communication norms, and that seems to lie at the core of humour. We claim that the superiority and incongruity approaches to humour (traditionally, three major approaches to humour are recognized: superiority, incongruity, and relief) relate to the idea that humour contains some form of clash, either between individuals or meanings. This clash is an element that connects many existing humour theories and is increasingly useful in explaining contemporary forms of humour. Our theoretical contribution analyzes ideas about humour proposed by humour scholars over centuries, particularly those proposed by folklorists and linguists. Humour violates logic, expectations, or linguistic conventions in order to “kidnap” its recipient where they do not intend to go. This is especially true in the anonymous space of the internet, where users enjoy little responsibility for what they say and can usually deny any harmful intention – the ambiguity of humour allows for that. The bottom line is that humour can be used to convey a variety of messages and achieve different goals, some prosocial and others more aggressive. Humour in itself, however, is inherently neither friendly nor aggressive, and its meaning always emerges in context.

This study examines the role of laughter in media strategies. The aim is to distinguish between laughter shared ‘with’ the audience and laughter directed ‘at’ the audience. The research briefly traces the historical evolution of laughter from a repressed and morally criticised expression to a symbol of wealth and empowerment, a transformation facilitated by media diffusion. The subsequent analysis, based on the Portuguese context, seems to indicate a current tendency towards a more empathetic, lighter, and more visibly expressive form of laughter that transcends boundaries such as age, education, and social status, thus fostering a deeper connection with the audience. This study underlines the profound impact of laughter on audience engagement and highlights the central role of communal laughter—laughing ‘with’ the audience—in contemporary media communication. In conclusion, the findings suggest that a more empathetic and less critical approach to audience behaviour through laughter has the potential to attract larger audiences. Indirectly, this emerging trend may be indicative of a growing reluctance among members of contemporary society to tolerate ideas or perspectives contrary to their own.

In the texts of the comics, it is aimed to convey the message to the target audience by creating a humorous effect through metaphoric language and puns. In the translation of such texts, the same humorous effect is expected to be conveyed with similar metaphoric language and puns. This expectation is one of the difficulties that translators may encounter during the translation of comics. At this point, it is assumed that the translator will overcome these difficulties by following various translation strategies and methods in the translation process, as long as s/he has a grasp of both cultures and languages. In this study, we tried to figure out how the songs we frequently encounter in comics are translated into another language. In this context, the songs in the comic book series Les Aventures de Tintin (The Adventures of Tintin), whose original language is French, were analysed according to Hurtado Albir's "fidelity approach in translation". Overall, this study highlights that during the translation of the songs in the comics, the translator can reflect the humorous effect in a similar way to the target language when s/he deverbalizes the source text and translates the song under the norms of the target language.

In Totò’s proletarian mask, in his incessant gesticulation, in the linguistic paradoxes that characterise it, the traces of a stratified comic culture are instinctively condensed: from Aristophanes and Plautus to the commedia dell’arte, from medieval jesters to jonglerie. All debts that have been variously indicated and investigated by scholars and that have as their common denominator the technique of improvisation codified in 1699 by the Palermitan jurist Andrea Perrucci, author of the treatise Dell’arte rappresentativa premeditata. Add to this the Marinettian allure that can be discerned in the mechanicalness of the movements and in the disarticulation of the body, which brings to mind the studies of Fortunato Depero who, in the 1910s, was interested precisely in the mechanical aspects of theatrical acting. The «physicofollia», with its examples of fast, irreverent and polyexpressive theatricality that Marinetti posed as a condition for a renewal of the theatre, provided multiple cues for overturning the modes and structures of traditional theatre and for introducing into contemporary dramaturgy those elements of estrangement that we will find in the work of Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco and in surrealism.

An experimental workshop brought together 20 stand-up comedians, environmental advocates, artists, researchers, and professors in Yaoundé, Cameroon on 27 and 28 March 2023. Building upon historical traditions of les griots and the popularity of contemporary comedic oration in Cameroon, our collaborative and interactive workshop centered efforts to move beyond dominant and colonial formulas to think creatively about the potentials, limitations, and logistics of humor as a methodological orientation. In this coauthored reflection, we build on the emergent insights generated during our workshop and propose future directions for social scientists and geographers keen to mobilize humor in their intellectual projects. We consider (a) the relations between humor and socio-political and socio-ecological dynamics (including in political contexts of authoritarianism); (b) the need to ground an academic methodology of humor in nuanced and place-based knowledges; and (c) the possibilities and dangers of humor in a wider intellectual praxis seeking to decenter and deprivilege power in research relations and to motivate certain forms of self-critique during research. More broadly, we argue that humor might contribute in the larger ongoing project of moving African geographical scholarship toward practices of creativity, experimentation, and joy beyond ‘damage-centered, deficit-centered, and extractive academic approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far) published her only book Mrs. Spring Fragrance in 1912, it received about twenty reviews in the American and Canadian press. Many of the reviews suggested that the nature of the book was light and fresh, albeit the larger part of her works dealt with unsuccessful cases of Americanisation and their grave consequences. In this article, I will focus on the use of humour in what are perceived as Eaton’s light pieces. I argue that by making grave matters light, Eaton was able to secure publication while safeguarding her messages. More importantly, Eaton developed a special sense of humour, which I term a benevolent amusement, in her works. Her structurally coded messages, wrapped in multilayered humour, are like time capsules to be opened now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the politicisation and limitations of Afrodiasporic humour in Elnathan John’s 2019 text: Be(com)ing Nigerian. Although most literary commentators tend to categorise this satirical guide as a novel, it does not follow the plot structure of a conventional prose narrative. Rather, John models his text on ethics and aesthetics of Onitsha pamphlet literature, a popular culture tradition which flourished during the colonial epoch. My central argument is that John’s satirical critique of Nigerian national identity does not only elicit the reader’s laughter, but also challenges his fellow citizens to recalibrate their cultural ethics, in order to achieve a self-improvement agency both individually and collectively. In providing this self-improvement guidance, John effectively invests the reader’s aesthetic sensibility with an ideological hermeneutic, which underpins, and so enables, a vicarious satirical critique of what it means to be Nigerian in different socio-political contexts. I therefore demonstrate how John deploys colonial and Eurocentric clichés, biblical imagery and rhetoric, irony, sarcasm, parody, and hyperbole to satirise the constructedness, complexities, and ambiguities of a Nigerian identity born out of British colonialism and post-independence misrule of both military and civilian dictatorships. For insofar as form dialectically overlaps with theme, John’s self-improvement guide is ineluctably embedded with a satirical politics and poetics. That is, as a Nigerian diasporic writer who currently lives and works in Germany, John inhabits a transcultural space between the local and the global, from which he satirises both indigenous and Western values. I also contend that John’s transcultural ambivalence reveals the limitations of his Afrodiasporic humour, since Nigeria’s ethnic diversity implies cultural incommensurability and potential audience conflict. I then conclude by reflecting on how John’s satirical guide adumbrates the production, circulation, and critical reception of African postcolonial humour, a genre which remains largely undertheorised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to untangle the relationship between religion, humour, and feminism by analysing the humour which underscored the campaign for women’s ordination in the Church of England. By examining the wordplay, the cartoons, and the physical objects through which humour was expressed, this article highlights the creativity which underscored the activism of these lesser-known activists. Through centring the experiences of these religious activists, this article extends existing scholarly conversations which seek to diversify understandings of who and what should be considered part of the ‘women’s movement’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that not all suggestions can be implemented, understanding how supervisors can turn down employee voiced suggestions while not discouraging employees voicing in the future is critical for theoretical and practical reasons. Supervisors may use humour when not endorsing employees' suggestions as they attempt to ease tension by injecting something lighthearted, but doing so, we argue, is not uniformly beneficial. Hence, we conducted a preregistered study that tests how supervisors' use of humour when turning down an employee's voiced suggestion affects voice resilience. Utilizing signaling theory, we theorize supervisors' use of humour when turning down voice strengthens voice safety but weakens voice impact perceptions. Indirectly, humour therefore may constitute a mixed blessing for voice resilience (voice behaviour after voice non‐endorsement). Additionally, we hypothesized that the positive link between humour and voice safety and the negative link between humour and voice impact are moderated by supervisor–employee relationship quality (leader–member exchange (LMX)). We tested these predictions in a time‐lagged study of 343 employees whose voice was recently turned down. Humour indeed increased voice resilience via voice safety; against expectations, humour positively related to voice impact (via it, resilience). LMX is significantly moderated. However, unexpectedly, humour helped voice safety, impact and the resilience of low LMX employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This presentation will explore the theoretical foundations of humour, laughter and what constitutes a joke. It will touch on the effects that laughter has in our brain. In the therapy room humour, when used appropriately, can serve as a powerful tool in navigating existential dilemmas and fostering therapeutic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the intersection of humour and humanitarianism in engaging Northern audiences with global Southern poverty issues. It analyses witty social media campaigns that critique humanitarian practices and Africa's representation, notably What's Up Africa (WUA) on YouTube, Radi‐Aid on YouTube, Humanitarians of Tinder on Tumblr and Barbie Savior on Instagram. Using 'contraflow', it shows how humour and positionality shape reception. WUA's Black African‐centric comedy, particualrly, highlights the often‐underexplored role of race in development discourse, challenging the White institutional core of humanitarianism. These insights reveal power dynamics and invite further academic inquiry into the transformative potential of comedic humanitarian critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe end of the fifteenth century was a charged moment in Iberia as authors grappled with shifting social categories in the decades leading up to and following the Expulsion of the Jews. Two of Juan del Encina short theatrical églogas are quite suggestive for reassessing the hermeneutics of Iberian identities. The humour serves to reassure the audience that self-transformation is a ridiculous prospect confined to the stage. Nevertheless, the exploration of themes of identity shifts underscores the collective anxiety that social transformations might indeed be occurring in contemporary Castilian society and need to be dismissed with humour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of humour, teaching, gender, age, birth order, siblings, parents' level of education and income on kindergarteners' costly sharing behaviours. The participants consist of 106 kindergarteners enrolled in three public kindergartens in Şanlıurfa. The participants interacted with two assistants, one of whom made them laugh (the joker) and the other taught them something new (the teacher). After the meetings, a third assistant presented 20 stickers to each child. Among the 20 stickers, the children selected their 10 favourite stickers. Another assistant asked the children to share their stickers with teaching, joker or stranger if they desired. The children's distribution of their stickers to the joker, the teacher assistants and the neutral recipients did not statistically differ. This might be the result of egalitarian tendency of young children. Multiple regression revealed gender as a predictor variable for sharing with jokers and total sharing. The girls shared significantly more than the boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humour and antisocial behaviour on the internet are under-researched. Online spaces have opened a gateway for new ways to express unrestrained humour (e.g., dark humour) and ways to behave antisocially (e.g., online trolling). The tendencies and motivations of those engaging with such humour and behaviour are yet to be clearly established and understood. The present study aimed to fill this gap by exploring the interplay between dark humour, online trolling, and dark personality traits. Participants (N = 160) completed an online survey consisting of trait scales to assess the Dark Tetrad, dark humour, and online trolling, as well as two online trolling tasks (enjoyment and ability) and two dark humour meme tasks (enjoyment and ability). The results confirmed relationships between the Dark Tetrad and the dark humour trait, and several Dark Tetrad traits were related to the enjoyment of and ability to produce dark humour. Furthermore, dark humour and online trolling were closely related. The findings also revealed that online trolls did not enjoy being trolled but did enjoy trolling, and this ability to troll is underpinned by sadism. These findings illustrate the potential dark psychological motivations for using dark humour, demonstrate that online trolling is infused with darker forms of humour, and provide deeper insights into online trolls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its members subject to a series of scandals, questions of legitimacy and the desirability of retaining the Spanish monarchy have repeatedly resurfaced. Leading the charge are the country's graphic humourists, whose confrontational attacks have been met with draconian legal retaliation under the auspices of lèse-majesté. While derision is typically directed towards Juan Carlos I and Felipe VI, what of their consorts—Emerita Sofía and Letizia Ortiz—legitimized by marriage alone? This article explores how Spain's cartoonists have used its Queen consorts as ludic sites from which to question the value of monarchy in a country marked by enduring crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the nature and functions of humour in digital game live streaming on Twitch. Most streamers and viewers seem uncomfortable with 'serious' in-game narrative content, resulting in weighty or emotional moments in games becoming sources of comedy and humour. Many also subvert the platform's power dynamics by mocking community standards or the possibility of being banned, while some go even further and treat streamers themselves as fair game for mockery. This article thus examines how the humour of play, games and the Internet combine and evolve in an emerging and distinctive 'stream-humour', which can be sometimes playful and supportive yet sometimes shade into antagonism, rule-bending and hostility. Examining these dynamics on Twitch, in turn, provides a valuable window into how platform infrastructures and cultures generate norms and cultures of humour and amusement, and strengthens our understanding of online communities and platform power in this and similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For patients, hospital emergency departments (EDs) are unfamiliar, institutional contexts involving high-stakes communication in heightened emotional circumstances. This study examines laughter, as one expression of emotion, in an existing 649,631-word corpus of naturally occurring clinician-patient interactions recorded in five Australian hospitals. A mixed methods approach revealed (1) the spread, frequency and producers of laughter, and (2) the functions of laughter in unfolding interactional contexts. First, a corpus analysis showed that laughter in the ED was most frequently produced by nurses and patients, but relatively infrequently by doctors. Secondly, two case studies comprising all the interactions of two patients for the whole duration of their ED visits were analysed in detail to explore the individuals' contrasting patterns of laughter. The analysis revealed how laughter can be a cue to the affective dynamics of patient-clinician interactions about serious matters, for example, signalling difficult topics and managing anxiety in the ED context. Laughter, and any related humour, can indicate the achievement of mutuality, which is considered a cornerstone of genuine shared decision-making and patient participation in their own care. Therefore, the findings suggest that a sensitive responsiveness to patient-initiated laughter, and any associated humour, may promote patient-centred relationships in clinical interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Humour is an integral part of human interactions, but it is not clear how it contributes to creativity in innovation. This paper provides new insights into the emerging literature about the impact of humour on creativity in innovation by conceptualizing humour as a situation‐specific state and using a mixed methods research design to investigate the use and impact of humour in two specific innovation contexts: idea generation by customers and collaboration in innovation teams. Our research makes four important contributions. (1) It suggests and demonstrates the relevance of a situation‐specific humorous mood. (2) It distinguishes between natural and instrumental humour and emphasizes that a purposely induced humorous mood can enhance creativity. (3) It shows that the impact of humour is not limited to a firm's individual employees but can also include external actors, such as customers and interactions between members of innovation teams. (4) It identifies the key drivers and effects of humorous mood in innovation. The findings from two empirical studies are integrated into a framework that captures the key concepts and relationships and that is also used to derive several directions for further research to better understand the effects of humour on creativity in the context of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's media landscape, concepts like Americanization and professionalization of politics are evolving, driven by technological advancements and social media usage. The internet has transformed political communication, emphasizing emotional appeal and user response, leading to a rise in politainment and celebrity politicians. This shift towards 'pop politics' blurs the line between entertainment and information, with virality and humour playing key roles. This study conducts a semiotic-narrative analysis of unofficial social media profiles of Spanish political representatives, examining their language, content, and usage patterns resembling fan communities. Parodic Twitter profiles of prominent figures like Pedro Sánchez, Yolanda Díaz and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, along with Ada Colau's Instagram account, are analyzed. The findings reveal a trend towards employing politainment strategies to engage social media users, fostering emotional connections akin to non-political fan communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of political memes in recent years allows us to assume that they are a new tool of political communication and that social networks increase the possibilities for civil society to express opinions and intervene in the debate on matters of public interest. This article aims to examine the memes that have been disseminated on Twitter since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa in the wake of the president's speeches to the nation to discover whether one can speak of a political rhetoric in memes and their argumentation. To this end, the research uses a qualitative-quantitative approach to classify the taxonomy of memes according to their content, combining the thematic classification of memes and the typology of images in digital discourse to discover the existence of the use of popular political rhetoric. The final sample comprises 351 memes, and the analysis shows that they used humour as a means of escape rather than as an effective way of sending political messages. Thus, the results reflect the existence of a resignification of popular culture that transcends memes as persuasive elements based on the inertia of popular rhetoric in contemporary political communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks a threefold exploration of an aspect of Mark Twain's forays into translation, particularly with respect to one tale's fate in its first French version. First, back-translation's most ostensible purpose is to represent a foreign language text's (in)accuracy transparently; Twain, assuming a persona as a naive mistranslator, humorously reinvents the procedure to disparage a rendering of his work, constituting an act of translation (meta)criticism and producing a work of parody. The study turns to literary back-translation as an emerging horizon of translation "against our teleological conception of translation" (Lane 2020a, 6), and a potential source of creative misprision or misreading. Twain uses literalism, I demonstrate, as a comic strategy to confound sense. I show cases in which Twain indulged in pseudotranslation and free-associational mistranslation often as imaginative perspective-taking. Secondly, I survey the intrigue behind his famous back-translation of the jumping frog tale, including its textual variations, and locate it as a subversion. Thirdly and finally, I perform a comparative reading of representative passages from Twain's story, the 19th-century translation by Theodor Bentzon (actually Marie-Thérèse Blanc), and Twain's vengeful back-translation, in order to reveal patterns of the American writer's translation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically explores the use of satire and humour by fast-foods outlets in South Africa and Zimbabwe to advertise and market their menu through digital media platforms, Facebook and Twitter. Using Nando's South Africa and Mambo's Chicken, in Zimbabwe, as case studies, we examine how satire and humour are used as advertising strategies, and as a reflection of these countries' economic and political environments. Consumers are overwhelmed with information coming from different sources such as Television, radio, newspapers and Internet. The paper's theoretical approach is gleaned from advertising and satire. We argue that through their encounter with food, consumers tend to understand the reason behind their 'empty stomach', and mediate on prevailing socio-political and economic issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We carry out further our reflection about Cancel Culture, this time with a dialogue between Clotilde Bertoni and Corrado Confalonieri: especially concerning two subjects, the gender issue, and the various sides of comedy and humour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, Linguistic Landscape (LL) research has been extended to cover several variables, domains, modes, and geo-political contexts. Arguably, humour remains understudied in LL research. This article, therefore, examines incongruities in LLs using a corpus of digital signs and incongruous inscriptions gathered across several mediums in urban Ghana. Drawing on the incongruity theory, we examined the levels of incongruities in the corpus. The study found that incongruities in public signs in urban Ghana manifest at the lexical, grammatical, semantic, and phonological levels. We conclude that the resolutions of these incongruities induce laughter and humour in the audience with the shared sociolinguistic knowledge, and humour intelligence. The findings have implications for the theory on humour and the research on LL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the alleged incompatibility of humour and religion, identifies the need for a multifaceted approach to the study of humour and religion, and spotlights important scholarship on humour and religion. It also outlines how this special issue emerged from an online symposium organized by the editors (Nicole Graham and Paul S Martin) in 2020 titled: The Sacred and The Profanity: Humour, Religion and Ritual, hosted by the University of Bristol and the University of Kent and introduces the various papers which are spread across both the globe and historical periods and which engage various media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that humour plays a significant role in the formation of a collective identity and 'creates a sense of internal cohesion' based on shared experiences [Fominaya, C. F. (2007). The role of humour in the process of collective identity formation in autonomous social movement groups in contemporary Madrid. International Review of Social History, 52(S15), 243–258. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859007003227]. In this paper, we focus on humour in jihadi English magazines. This study is based on 82 English magazines published by the Taliban, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This research takes a mixed method of analysing data both qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings point to a statistically significant difference amongst these groups in the type of humour they utilise. In general, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and TTP show similar patterns in the types of humour they employ, a pattern that often stands in stark contrast with ISIS. ISIS is more likely than Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or TTP to use dehumanising and mocking humour while less likely than these groups to use situational humour, which is a less negative form of humour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article defends Noël Carroll’s incongruity theory of humour from the pressing criticism that his articulation of incongruity is too vague to serve as a key notion of the theory. I first distinguish between two versions of the criticism of vagueness: the claim that Carroll’s notion of incongruity is vacuous, and the claim that it allows for shoehorning. To reject the first claim, I put Carroll’s notion of incongruity to the test by analysing complex comic texts, demonstrating that it is not vacuous as it allows for capturing their similarities and differences. In response to the second claim, I claim that Carroll’s notion of incongruity should be amended adding a pertinence condition, which requires that the elements establishing the incongruity are part of the same context. Finally, I show that the pertinence condition helps Carroll, replying to a set of counterexamples moved to his sufficiency conditions too.

Humor Across Cultures: Exploring Italian and Spanish comedy through audiovisual translation It is common knowledge that language is the most evident manifestation of idiosyncrasies and that it undoubtedly allows cultural elements of a very different nature to be expressed. Among these elements is the aspect related to humor, the transposition of which from language/culture A to language/culture B often poses major challenges for the translator. In this paper, we aim to address this phenomenon from the perspective of verbal humor and cultural references. Our analysis will focus on Italian and Spanish, two languages generally considered cognate due to their common historical background. The reason for this choice is justified by the limited number of scientific contributions in this field of study. Based on a corpus created from the transcriptions of the Italian and Spanish subtitles of an Italian series called Incastrati, available on Netflix, our interest will be devoted to analyzing how the two languages express certain aspects of humor. To this end, regarding the methodology, we will adopt a qualitative approach aimed at evaluating the translation results given by audiovisual translation in terms of comparative analysis. Additionally, our analysis will be based on the translation procedures proposed by renowned scholars in the field of audiovisual translation, such as Agost (1999), Fuentes Luque (2001), Chaume (2012), and Martínez Tejerina (2016). We aim to observe whether humor is expressed in the same way in both Spanish and Italian, to confirm or refute that the linguistic proximity between Spanish and Italian facilitates the translation process. In the conclusions, it appears that the proximity between Spanish and Italian, in many cases, does not facilitate the process of interlinguistic transposition. For this reason, the translator/subtitler is occasionally required to make appropriate changes and adaptations to render humor effectively. ______________________________________________ Resumen De todos es sabido que la lengua es la manifestación más evidente de una idiosincrasia y permite, sin duda, expresar elementos culturales de muy distinta naturaleza. Entre estos elementos se halla la vertiente relacionada con el humor, cuya transposición de una lengua/cultura A hacia una lengua/cultura B suele plantear importantes desafíos para el traductor. El objetivo de este artículo es el de abordar el humor desde la perspectiva de las referencias culturales. Nuestro análisis se centrará en el italiano y el español, dos lenguas consideradas históricamente afines. La razón de esta elección se justifica por las escasas contribuciones científicas en este campo. A partir de un corpus creado mediante las transcripciones de los subtítulos en italiano y español de la serie italiana « Incastrati », disponible en Netflix, nuestro interés se dirigirá a analizar cómo las dos lenguas expresan determinados elementos humorísticos. Metodológicamente, adoptaremos un enfoque cualitativo y comparativo destinado a evaluar los resultados de la traducción audiovisual. Además, el análisis considerará los procedimientos traslativos propuestos por destacados estudiosos de traducción audiovisual, como Agost (1999), Fuentes Luque (2001), Chaume (2012), Martínez Tejerina (2016).Nuestro objetivo es observar si el humor se expresa de la misma manera en español e italiano, para confirmar o desmentir que la afinidad lingüística es un elemento que facilita el proceso de traducción. De las conclusiones se desprende que la proximidad entre estos dos idiomas en muchos casos no agiliza el proceso traductor. Por este motivo, el traductor/subtitulador se ve obligado de vez en cuando a realizar las modificaciones y adaptaciones oportunas para plasmar eficazmente el humor. Palabras clave: Humor; Traducción Audiovisual; Lenguas Afines; Español-Italiano; Técnicas y estrategias de traducción

Maitena Burundarena: feminism and humour in Spanish-Intralingual and interlingual translation This paper focuses on the translation of comics, a type of so-called “subordinate” translation that is typically subject to space and time constraints – respectively, the limited space available in each speech bubble and the need for written text to render actions effectively in a few words and to qualify a character, so as to allow the audience to understand his or her psychology. Specifically, the article examines the case of the Argentinean cartoonist Maitena Burundarena (an author known for her humorous production), observing the double transposition of her work (“Mujeres Alteradas 5”, 2001 and “Superadas 1”, 2002): from Rioplatense Spanish into Peninsular Spanish and into the interlingual Italian version. With regard to intralingual translation, we will reflect on the need to have a version adapted for an Iberian audience, also with reference to the humorous rendering of text and image and from a contrastive perspective. Focusing on interlingual translation into Italian, the difficulties that emerged during the translation process will be analysed, observing how the use of certain strategies sometimes leads to conflicts and losses in the final product that alter the scope of the humorous intent of the prototext. The affinity between Spanish and Italian, two cognate languages, hides many pitfalls in translation. In order to compensate for some of these linguistic and cultural losses, particularly related to culturally marked terms or colloquial expressions, alternative translation solutions will be proposed. While in some cases a literal translation will be suggested, more creative renderings will also be proposed, so as to more closely respect the author's intentions. ________________________________________ Abstract Questo saggio si occupa di studiare la traduzione del fumetto, un tipo di traduzione “subordinata”. Essa è infatti sottoposta a restrizioni di spazio (quello chiuso della nuvoletta, che contiene parole o pensieri di un personaggio) e idealmente anche di tempo, poiché tali espressioni devono saper rendere, in pochi condensati termini, le azioni, ma pure qualificare un personaggio, così da consentire al pubblico di comprendere la sua psicologia. Nello specifico, il testo prende in esame il caso della vignettista argentina Maitena Burundarena, osservando la doppia trasposizione della sua opera (“Mujeres Alteradas 5”, 2001 e “Superadas 1”, 2002) dallo spagnolo rioplatense allo spagnolo penisulare, fino alla versione interlinguistica in italiano. Per quanto concerne la traduzione intralinguistica, si rifletterà, in ottica contrastiva, sulla reale necessità di disporre di una versione adattata per un pubblico iberico, anche in riferimento alla resa umoristica di testo e immagine. In merito alla traduzione in lingua italiana, verranno analizzate le difficoltà emerse durante il processo traduttivo, osservando come alcune strategie di resa nella lingua target evidenzino talvolta dei conflitti e delle perdite nel prodotto finale che alterano la portata della nota umoristica del prototesto. L’affinità tra spagnolo e italiano nasconde infatti molte inside nella traduzione. Allo scopo di compensare alcune di queste perdite linguistiche e culturali (di termini culturalmente marcati e colloquialismi) si proporranno soluzioni alternative di traduzione, in alcuni casi suggerendo una traduzione letterale, in altri, una versione maggiormente creativa rispetto a quella ufficiale, così da rispettare più fedelmente il messaggio originale. Parole chiave: Fumetto femminista; Maitena; Tradurre interlinguisticamente; Umorismo; Variante Rioplatense