Keywords
Nigerian prank comedy
pragmatic cues
social media
context
How to Cite
Abstract
Humour studies in Nigeria have focused predominantly on stand-up comedy and situation comedy. Little attention has been devoted to humour in skit comedy, especially Nigerian prank comedy skits (NPCS). Therefore, this paper examines the construction of humour in NPCS, focusing on Zfancy (Ubani Zion Chibuike), Kun Zlim (Jimoh Wasiu Olawale), MC Makopolo (Mbam Uche Henry) and Teaser Prank (Emmanuel Okeke), with a view to determining the pragmatic features of their jokes and the societal issues foregrounded. Thus, Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory, in addition to Superiority Theory, was adopted for analysis. Data were collected from prank videos of the selected prank comedians on their YouTube channels. This study found that Nigerian prank comedians create humour for their audience through their targets’ reactions. Prank comedians trick their targets in their conversations to act on false belief and react in amusing ways. They deploy the pragmatic acts of threatening, requesting and implicating, in crime-related jokes; warning, in religious jokes; investigating, in linguistic/educational jokes; and inviting, in sexual jokes. The targets’ reactions to these practs create humour for the audience who are aware that the targets’ reactions are based on misconception. Noticeably, crime, religion, education and sexuality are the social themes highlighted in the jokes. The study corroborates the assertion of earlier studies that humour revolves around societal issues.
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