Deaf jokes and sign language humor
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Rachel Sutton-Spence,
und
Donna Jo Napoli,
Abstract
This paper describes the humor of Deaf communities, arguing that the humor is related primarily to the dominant visual experience of Deaf people, but also influenced by their knowledge of humor traditions in the hearing society at large. Sign language humor in America and Britain may be seen in the creation of new visual signs, the witty reanalysis of existing signs and in bilingual games in which English is manipulated within sign languages. The content of Deaf humor supports the in-group of community members who embrace their signing collective Deaf identity and denigrates out-group people, including deaf people who do not belong to the community and hearing people who are often seen as a threat to the community. Many of these jokes also make reference to sign language. We conclude that the visual nature of Deaf humor is one of its key characteristics and ask what else this can tell us about the Deaf cultural way of interacting with and presenting the world.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- A flip-flopper and a dumb guy walk into a bar: Political humor and priming in the 2004 campaign
- Laughter on the 2008 campaign trail: How presidential candidates used humor during primary debates
- The case of humor in the Malaysian House of Representatives
- Surprise and humor in product design
- Deaf jokes and sign language humor
- Are pun mechanisms universal? A comparative analysis across language families
- Book reviews
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- A flip-flopper and a dumb guy walk into a bar: Political humor and priming in the 2004 campaign
- Laughter on the 2008 campaign trail: How presidential candidates used humor during primary debates
- The case of humor in the Malaysian House of Representatives
- Surprise and humor in product design
- Deaf jokes and sign language humor
- Are pun mechanisms universal? A comparative analysis across language families
- Book reviews
