The European Journal of Humour Research

The humorous body

2024-01-01T16:08:12+01:00

This paper is a commentary upon the mingling of the affective and discursive varieties of humour in the eighteenth century based on the observation that the body and bodily processes are at the core of humour in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. The author notes in this novel a curious coming together of the various conceptions of the functioning of the human body prevalent at that time and linguistic slippages. Linguistic quips aid in a slippery transition between the various conceptions of the body and discursive linguistic aspects, thus creating humour. Linguistic slips of this kind seem to be inspired by John Locke’s philosophy popular at the time, while an analysis using Henri Bergson’s essay on the comic is carried out to look at the mechanism in which humour is produced through the body in the novel as the iatromechanistic and humoral models of the body lend themselves to be seen as comic in the Bergsonian sense.

The effect of self-related humor on convergent and divergent thinking

2024-01-01T16:08:32+01:00

Humour enhances creativity, but the question is whether different types of humour have a similar effect on improving individual creativity. It is evident that negative humour style is negatively related to creativity, while positive humour style is positively related to it. However, no evidence has been found that self-related humour (self-enhancing and self-defeating humour) directly affects creative thinking in the experimental setting. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of self-related humour on convergent and divergent creative thinking. We included 60 (38 male, 22 female) participants and randomly assigned 20 in each condition to conduct this experiment. To evoke humour, we used 12 stimuli (12 self-enhancing jokes, 12 self-defeating jokes, and 12 non-humorous statements) in each condition. Remote Association Task (RAT) was used to measure convergent thinking, and Alternative Uses Task (AUT) was used to measure divergent thinking. We expected that i) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at convergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group and ii) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at divergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group. Our results supported our hypotheses and suggested that self-enhancing humour induced individual creativity both in convergent or divergent thinking (originality, fluency, flexibility). In contrast, self-defeating humour failed to affect either convergent or divergent thinking.

Genre and stylistic markers of Ukrainian folk jokes

2024-01-01T16:07:50+01:00

This article focuses on the study of Ukrainian social and domestic folk jokes that contain information about the life of people, their habits, customs, traditions, and relations, and ridicule the weak sides of Ukrainians. The research material comprises 311 folk jokes that date back to the second part of the 19th century – the beginning of the 20th century. They are selected from the collection by M.V. Nagornyi (1940) and the book of Ukrainian folk satire and humour (1959). The goal of the research is to study the main genre and stylistic markers of Ukrainian folk jokes. It is noted that Ukrainian folk jokes have a form of dialogue. Ukrainians’ longstanding tradition of self-deprecating humour is also mentioned. The stylistic markers of the texts under consideration are the choice of vocabulary with diminutive suffixes, a wide range of expressive means, and stylistic devices that are a basis for achieving humorous effects. Diminutive suffixes are proved to have acquired specific characteristics in folk jokes giving positive or negative evaluation. Ukrainian social and domestic folk jokes, some of which take the form of joke-stories, are distinguished by precision, witty expression, and concise and dynamically constructed plot. The future research might involve the detailed study of the peculiarities of the Ukrainian social and domestic jokes of the third millennium, focusing on their linguistic and extra-linguistic features.

Humorous advertisement categories

2024-01-01T16:08:43+01:00

Humour is a prevalent strategy in advertising, but research findings are contradictory regarding its effectiveness. A potential resolution of the contradictory findings could be to create a category system distinguishing between the basic types of humorous advertisements, which could systematically be used in future research. Several classifications have been reported and some typologies have been suggested, but none is based on the audience’s representations. Our aim was to identify the basic types of humorous advertisements with an approach that considers both the previous typologies and the non-experts’ representations.

In the present study, 18 humorous advertisements were assessed based on a questionnaire study with 13 questions and 246 adult participants. Based on the cluster analyses of the empirical data, three basic types of humorous advertisements were identified: taboo-breaking, exaggeration, and cute or sentimental humour. Eight items were differentiated most clearly among the humorous advertisement types. Both the humorous advertisement categories and the applied items are worth consideration in further studies. Conscious use of the identified categories in future research could help to develop a more comprehensive model of humorous advertising effects.

Humour as an advertising resource: memes at the service of brands

2024-01-01T16:08:01+01:00

In this study, we investigated the phenomenon of memes generated based on user-generated content (UGC) discourse about the Japanese electronic brand Casio. We collected 150 memes from various platforms and applied a quantitative content analysis methodology to determine the main characteristics of the memes. Additionally, we employed statistical techniques to identify patterns and relationships among the variables studied. The results revealed that user-generated content could be interpreted as an unintentional advertising strategy for the Casio brand. We observed significant similarities in the structure and themes of the memes, indicating a mutual influence among users. Furthermore, we found that mentioning the brand in one of Shakira’s songs significantly impacted the meme generation. These findings emphasise the importance of understanding and harnessing the unintentional advertising potential that arises from the interaction between popular culture and brands.

Humour-themed holistic learning processes in a Finnish primary school

2024-01-01T16:08:22+01:00

Although humour in education has shown positive research results, its use in Finnish classrooms is not common and is not included in Finland’s curricula. In this study, pupils’ humour is utilised as part of a holistic learning process in Finnish primary education. Implementing holistic learning processes means focusing on child-centredness, dissolving subject boundaries and concentrating on learning-to-learn skills, overall growth and traditional subject-learning goals. As a framework for the learning process, this study follows the guidelines of the Narratives and Crafts model, which aims to connect arts-based activities with different themes. This study aims to investigate the role of humour in the context of an arts-based learning process and to assess opportunities for its more conscious use in learning. The data were taken from the outcomes of 36 pupils during a holistic learning process and were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results indicated that creative or arts-based activities and humour worked well together as a means for pupils to incorporate their inner thoughts and personal perceptions into their assignments. Furthermore, humour can be a source of a long-term process, and expressions of pupils’ humour can be steered by assignments and preliminary materials, as well as by collaboration with other pupils and the teacher. However, teachers should have more research-based information about humour in the classroom and about the importance of humour in the community and for pupils.

Book review

2023-09-25T06:57:02+02:00

Book review

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2023-11-12T11:41:13+01:00

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2023-11-07T11:55:21+01:00

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Book review

2023-09-30T17:49:56+02:00

Book review

Book review

2023-11-25T10:38:37+01:00

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Book review

2023-09-18T15:05:55+02:00

Book review

Book review

2023-11-07T13:12:55+01:00

Book review

Book review

2023-10-29T19:01:49+01:00

Book review