“If we don’t quarrel, we joke”: Emic perspectives on Belarusian families’ humorous folklore
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Anastasiya Fiadotava
Anastasiya Fiadotava, PhD, is a junior researcher at the Department of Folkloristics of the Estonian Literary Museum and the Center for Excellence in Estonian Studies, Tartu. Her fields of interest include folkloristics, humor studies, and family lore.
Abstract
The paper discusses Belarusian couples’ reflections on the role of humorous folklore in their daily family interactions. The interviewees generally regarded being humorous as a positive feature and identified (explicitly or implicitly) several functions of humor, such as framing group boundaries, offering criticism, and sharing ideas that would otherwise be difficult to communicate. A recurring distinction evoked by respondents was between “good” (benevolent) and “bad” (offensive) humor. However, interviews also revealed that the actual perception of humor, especially in the form of mocking and teasing, can be very context-specific, and the boundary between aggression and playfulness is not always clear-cut. The paper explores this ambiguity by examining self-reported instances of mocking and teasing, whereupon the producer and the recipient of humor need to resolve the tension between “having a good sense of humor” and using humor in an offensive or aggressive way. The couples’ attitudes towards family humor are discussed within the broader context of the value of humor in modern society. The paper also reflects on the limitations of using the interview as a data collection method for studying family humor.
About the author
Anastasiya Fiadotava, PhD, is a junior researcher at the Department of Folkloristics of the Estonian Literary Museum and the Center for Excellence in Estonian Studies, Tartu. Her fields of interest include folkloristics, humor studies, and family lore.
This research was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies, TK 145), by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research EKKD65 grant (Source Documents in the Cultural Process: Estonian Materials in the Collections and Databases of the Estonian Literary Museum) and is related to the research project Narrative and Belief Aspects of Folklore Studies (EKM 8-2/20/3, Estonian Literary Museum).
Appendix Questionnaire
Do you often joke and laugh with your family members? Do you tell (or read) jokes to each other? Do you mention in your conversations some funny stories and anecdotes that happened to you at work/when you go out?
Do you make fun of your husband/wife/son/daughter? Do they make fun of you? If you/they do what do you usually laugh at? Do you make fun of the appearance (hairstyle, clothes, a desire to get slimmer)? Do you make fun of some habit (snoring, eating habits, etc.)? Do you make fun of the speech (filler words, speaking too fast/slow, speaking emotionally, etc.)? How do you react when someone is making fun of you? How does your husband/wife/child react when someone makes fun of them?
Do you share some jokes and phrases with you wife/husband/… that only the two of you understand? Have there been any incidents that generated your personal idioms?
Do you use some humorous phrases from your favourite films/TV programmes/books?
Do you rephrase some well-known humorous aphorisms, proverbs, etc. in your conversations?
Do you share with you wife/husband … some special funny rituals and traditions that are related to getting up/going to bed, eating, meeting/parting, visits to the cinema/theatre/friends and family?
Do you use some special funny gestures when you speak, walk, travel together, watch the movies, etc.? For example, I often clutch my husband’s thumb when something scary is happening in the movies we watch together.
Do you use some special funny forms of your names or humorous nicknames when you speak to each other? Are there any names or nicknames that you use only on special occasions?
Do you use any of your friends/relatives/famous people as a metaphor for some character trait that you find incongruous/funny?
And a final question that is not related to your family traditions. Do you know any jokes about wives and husbands, parents and children, mothers-in-law and sons-in-law? I plan to study such jokes in one of the other parts of my thesis.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- “If we don’t quarrel, we joke”: Emic perspectives on Belarusian families’ humorous folklore
- Relationships between everyday use of humor and daily experience
- Adolescents creating cartoons: A developmental study of humor
- Development and validation of the child humor orientation scale short-form
- What’s so funny? Adaptive versus maladaptive humor styles as mediators between early maladaptive schemas and resilience
- Depressogenic traits and depression: Are humor styles mediators?
- Reply to Holger Kersten: “Second Thoughts on Hyperbole about Satire’s Efficacy”
- Response to James Caron’s remarks
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- “If we don’t quarrel, we joke”: Emic perspectives on Belarusian families’ humorous folklore
- Relationships between everyday use of humor and daily experience
- Adolescents creating cartoons: A developmental study of humor
- Development and validation of the child humor orientation scale short-form
- What’s so funny? Adaptive versus maladaptive humor styles as mediators between early maladaptive schemas and resilience
- Depressogenic traits and depression: Are humor styles mediators?
- Reply to Holger Kersten: “Second Thoughts on Hyperbole about Satire’s Efficacy”
- Response to James Caron’s remarks
