Humorous characteristics of the axiological concept “stupidity” in Anglo-Saxon linguaculture based on stand-up comedies

This article aims to examine a humorous component of the concept “stupidity” in the framework of axiological linguistics. Due to an important role of the axiological concept “stupidity” in humorous discourse, some humorous aspects of this concept have been studied by many researchers; however, according to the author’s data, a detailed analysis of the concept “stupidity” realizing in humorous discourse has not yet been carried out. The empirical base of the work consists of 50 stand-up specials which are more than 4500 minutes long. The first part of the article analyzes the main humorous characteristics of the axiological concept “stupidity.” The following main humorous characteristics were revealed: unreasonable behavior, ignorance of the language, ignorance of obvious things, violation of logic in statements, stereotyping of thinking. Unreasonable behavior is realized through formal observance of rules/laws, lack of attention to details, meaninglessness of performed actions, senseless risk of life or health, unintentional bodily harm. Ignorance of the language is realized through literal understanding of idioms, equating of meanings of words with similar sounds, ignorance of meaning of words. Violation of logic in statements is realized through violation of the cause-and-effect relationship, the lack of a logical connection between phenomena, the use of quasi-logic, the omission of important information to understand statements, the combination of mutually exclusive statements. The second part of the article examines the implementation of the axiological concept “stupidity” when the socio-cultural characteristics become a humorous object. Ethnic, gender and professional characteristics are mainly subjected to be a humorous object in Anglo-Saxon culture. In American linguistic culture, at the present stage, stupidity is associated primarily with African Americans. In British linguistic culture, stupidity is mostly attributed to Welsh and Americans. In addition, in Anglo-Saxon linguaculture representatives of outskirts and villages are endowed with stupidity. As for the gender aspect of humorous discourse, female stupidity is much more common than male stupidity. While female stupidity is ridiculed by both women and men, male stupidity, as a characteristic of gender, is ridiculed mainly by women. Within the framework of professional humor, politicians, police officers and doctors become objects of humorous discourse more often than representatives of other professions. Professional stupidity is usually realized through ignorance of profession, i.e. ignorance of things which are obvious for this profession. Thus, the main humorous subjects are different axiological concepts which become the basis for ridiculing particular socio-cultural characteristics. During the research, the author has learnt that certain representatives of society are associated with a certain trait of stupidity. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References