Volume 37, Issue 1

Pocket cartoons are a regular feature of most contemporary newspapers and magazines. As such, they represent a way of conveying complex social and political commentary in a simple visual form. How well we enjoy verbal (oral) jokes depends on the number of mindstates in the joke, and here we ask whether this is also true of visual cartoons. We use survey data from a sample of 3,380 participants attending a public exhibition of published print media cartoons by well-known cartoonists to determine the extent to which viewers’ ratings of cartoons are determined by the mentalizing content of cartoons, the participants’ gender and age, and the publication date of the cartoon. We show that the number of mindstates involved in the cartoon affects its appreciation, just as in verbal jokes. In addition, we show that preferred topics vary by age and gender. While both genders strongly prefer cartoons that explore the complexities of romantic relationships, men rate visual jokes more highly than women do, whereas women prefer jokes that involve political commentary or the dynamics of close relationships. These differences seem to reflect differences in the way the social worlds of the two genders are organized.

Mock impoliteness is defined as a specific form of politeness, one in which participants in a conversation perceive acts such as jocular mockery, insults and banter as non-impolite (Haugh, Michael & Derek Bousfield. 2012. Mock impoliteness in interactions amongst Australian and British speakers of English. Journal of Pragmatics 44. 1099–1114). Following the model of the third wave of politeness and Sinkeviciute, Valeria (2019. Conversational humour and (im) politeness: A pragmatic analysis of social interaction . Amsterdam: John Benjamins), the aim of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon in colloquial conversation. Second, it illustrates this in a language other than English, specifically Peninsular Spanish, using data on informal interactions. The database is composed of 148 humorous sequences from the VALESCO.HUMOR corpus (http://www.observahumor.com/corpus_valesco). 25.67 % of these were identified and analyzed as mock impoliteness, using a tentative procedure for exploring humor negotiation in mock impoliteness through the assessment of a number of elements. These included the issue of which linguistic and paralinguistic elements are used by participants, and the interpretation of the initial aggressive style focused on the target, be it the recipient in a conversation or an absent third party (Béal, Christine & Kerry Mullan. 2017. The pragmatics of conversational humour in social visits: French and Australian English. Language & Communication 55. 24–40). Finally, we considered the question of whether or not the humor introduced by mock impoliteness was sustained throughout a sequence. When a target is oriented to a recipient in the exchange, the data shows a trend towards strengthening social bonds with the group and sustaining humor across the sequence. In other cases, however, the recipient might feel offended or insulted and hence respond in a serious mode, the main effect of the humor then being to create social distance within the participant group. When the target is oriented to an absent third party, humor tends to serve to reinforce cohesiveness between the group at the expense of others.

While most of the literature has focused on the individual-level effects of humor, the number of studies addressing and analyzing humor in its social context as a group-level phenomenon has also started to increase. Yet there is still increased heterogeneity of results, as well as problems regarding conceptualization and measurement of humor in groups. To further our understanding of humor as an emergent multilevel construct, we conducted a systematic literature review on the antecedents and consequences of humor in groups. The findings indicate that factors such as group composition, interpersonal familiarity, task structure, trust, cohesion, positive team environment, communication norms, communication channels, and timing dynamics play important roles in the emergence and type of humor expressed within groups. The consequences of humor in groups include the emergence of cohesion, the delineation of group boundaries and identity formation, influence on group atmosphere and affective dynamics, facilitation of collective coping and team engagement, and potential effects on team performance. We discuss research progress and gaps, and conclude by outlining future research directions.

The way humorous verbal communication is construed in a linguaculture can be analyzed within the framework of cognitive metaphor theory and its more discursive and cultural developments. Cognitive/conceptual metaphors are instrumental for framing humor as a communicative form which goes beyond mere aesthetic experience. This article focuses on the conceptualization of verbal forms of humor in Romanian. The examples are retrieved mainly from internet mediated communication, backed by corpus analysis, and compared to older literary examples (19th–early 20th century). The examples illustrate the stability of various metaphorical scenarios in the Romanian linguaculture. The analysis reveals that several conventional metaphorical scenarios exist in parallel, displaying what are the functions of humor in an emic perspective. In the case of the Romanian examples, the list comprises the disciplinary, aesthetic, and therapeutic functions. The main metaphorical scenarios are subsumed to (physical) aggression, food , and health domains. The scenarios associated with each domain emphasize a certain function: for example, the disciplinary function of humor relates to physical aggression, while the aesthetic function relates to food . However, the conventional scenarios also show combinations between these functions.

Previous research has shown that humor can have an impact on people’s interpersonal relationships and the way they are perceived by others. In addition, it has been suggested that use of humor by teachers can be positive, but also negative. The aim of the research was to examine students’ perceptions of lecturers described as using different ‘humor styles.’ Using an online study, a sample of undergraduate students ( n  = 201) were presented with one of 20 vignettes of a male or female lecturer using a particular style of humor (affiliative, aggressive, self-defeating, self-enhancing) or no humor, while they were teaching content described as ‘easy’ or ‘challenging.’ They responded to questions to assess: approachability of the lecturer, feelings of engagement, perceptions of the learning environment, and general perceptions of the lecturer. It was found that a lecturer using aggressive humor was perceived more negatively compared to when using the other humor styles, and that the adaptive styles of humor (particularly affiliative) had a positive impact on student perceptions, compared to when no humor was used. Self-defeating humor was perceived more positively compared to aggressive humor, but, unexpectedly, no differently to the other styles of humor. The findings will add to the growing literature on the use of humor in an educational context.

This paper explores the effects that stand-up comedy performed by expats and other migrants can have on social integration of migrants. The study is situated in the Czech Republic where migrant population is growing fast and the necessity for exploring successful integration strategies increases. The study is designed as ethnographic research which relies on participant observations – attending and recording stand-up performances; semi-structured qualitative interviews with comedians; and informal interviews with audience members. The main findings identify three key aspects through which stand-up comedy can foster social integration of migrants: community-building and a nurturing a sense of belonging; acquiring cultural competencies of the host culture; and enabling inter-cultural understanding through cultural exchange.