1,720,991 research outputs found
Statistical methods for the linguistic analysis of a humorous TV sketch show
Full text linkIn this article some statistical methods are applied to analyse a humorous
TV sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me! The typical text and corpus analysis based on the frequency and distribution of individual words or on recurrent phraseology can only provide a first descriptive insight into a humorous TV product. In addition to text features, two other aspects must be considered: the presence of verbal and visual humorous stances and the way the audience perceive them. The article shows how statistical techniques provides helpful tools to the textual analysis of the show and illustrates the results from a survey study concerning the opinions of viewers on the type of humour which characterizes this particular TV programme
Detecting semiotically-expressed humor in diasporic TV productions
No full textIn this article, we suggest a semiotic approach to the study of visual humorous texts. Our method is based on the multimodal script analysis, which is a useful tool for examining not only verbal texts but also more complex texts, which combine the presence of images and sounds with verbally expressed humor. The resulting framework highlights how some visual comic mechanisms may enhance a different perception of semiotically expressed humor. Moreover, we present a statistical model in order to detect and measure how the resolution of some incongruities may also be determined by specific variables, which help to establish the existence and the strength with which the appreciation of humor varies according to the ethnic group of origin. In particular, the study analyzes the clip 'Jodhpur Station, 1947' from a very popular British Asian sketch-show, Goodness Gracious Me (GGM). The sketch shares some similar features with the narrative strategies typical of joke-tellers and is characterized by a complex humorous apparatus depending on different levels of understanding relating to encyclopedic, cross-cultural, and even diasporic knowledge of the world. © Walter de Gruyter
Editors' Introduction
No full textThe definition of hate speech online and the laws curtailing such forms of speech are in a constant flux due to the supranational character of the internet, the slippery nature of online harassment, and the porous relationship between actual violence and discriminatory speech. Besides the hateful messages propagated across social networking platforms and micro-blogging sites, the recent rise of live-streamed hate has also captured public attention forcing governments and internet providers to contend with the issue of how to prevent and punish such online activity.
As many of the contributors highlight throughout this volume, the term ‘hate’ itself is extremely difficult to define, stemming as it does from the extremes of socio-psychopathic impulses, an inability to regulate emotion adequately, or merely from a lack of empathy. In some cases, the denigrators do not even hate their victims, they are merely pliable individuals who feel the need to emulate the sentiments of a strong cohort of denigrators in order to gain ‘insider’ status. Such individuals, however, are no less to blame than the hate mongers themselves, since they actively contribute to an echo chamber which serves to amplify and reinforce the hatred deployed. Whether they truly detest their targets or merely emulate the apparently dominant group, the aim of haters, be they online or offline, is to relegate the victims to a generic category of ‘others’, and in hate speech the other is always the enemy. The concept of ‘Othering’ is linked to a number of analogous dichotomous segregational categorizations such as inclusion/exclusion, superiority/inferiority and dominance/subordination. The differences between the ‘us’ belonging to the dominant grouping, and the ‘them’ banished to the out-group are magnified in hate speech: the insiders are safe, legitimate, normal and rational, the outsiders are dangerous, different, threatening and antagonistic. As Lister states: othering is a “process of differentiation and demarcation, by which the line is drawn between “us” and “them” – between the more and the less powerful – and through which social distance is established and maintained” (2004: 101).
Although the focus of this volume concerns, in the main, the digital environment, the editors and contributors are all well aware that hate speech online does not occur in a virtual vacuum, its effects are dramatically real for those individuals who are on the receiving end. Cyberbullying and hate speech impinge upon the lives of individuals from social, economic, professional and psychological standpoints (see, amongst others, Van Dijk 1987; Delgado 1982; Graumann 1998; Tsesis 2002; Klein 2010; Herz & Molnar 2012; Sindoni 2017, 2018; Fruttaldo 2020), and increase the sense of fear and vulnerability of entire communities
Homing in on HATE: Critical Discourse Studies of Hate Speech, Discrimination and Inequality in the Digital Age Edited by G. Balirano and B. Hughes (2020)
Full text linkHoming in on HATE: Critical Discourse Studies of Hate Speech, Discrimination and Inequality in the Digital Age Edited by G. Balirano and B. Hughes (2020) Napoli, Italy: Paolo Loffredo Editore srl, 267 pp
A short-term diachronic perspective on political commercials as a hybridized genre: a multimodal critical discourse analysis
No full textIn today’s media-enhanced societies where news, opinions and entertainment constantly pervade the social space, political commercials remain the area in which politicians and institutions strive to construct an effective and credible image for themselves. As a genre, political commercials rely on the multimodal resources of fiction filmmaking, including script, visuals and performance; over the years, this genre has been able to distill political campaign themes into powerful visual and verbal messages and has contributed to construe what marketing theorists have recently defined as “nation branding” (Leonard 2002), i.e. a set of instruments employed to construct and improve a “competitive identity” (Anholt 2007) for politicians and institutions.
Endorsing the assumption that new genres reflect major changes in communication purposes (Bhatia 1993), we contend, by means of a contrastive analysis between traditional and online electoral campaign practices, that novel forms of genre mixing/switching can also be gauged in the context of new media capabilities. To this purpose, we will collect and investigate a short-term diachronic corpus of video political commercials, which covers a time-span of 50 years (1950-2009)
Food Across Cultures - Linguistic Insights in Transcultural Tastes
No full textThis edited volume brings together original sociolinguistic and cultural contributions on food as an instrument to explore diasporic identities. Focusing on food practices in cross-cultural contact, the authors reveal how they can be used as a powerful vehicle for positive intercultural exchange either though conservation and the maintenance of cultural continuity, or through hybridization and the means through which migrant communities find compromise, or even consent, within the host community. Each chapter presents a fascinating range of data and new perspectives on cultures and languages in contact: from English (and some of its varieties) to Italian, German, Spanish, and to Japanese and Palauan, as well as an exemplary range of types of contact, in colonial, multicultural, and diasporic situations. The authors use a range of integrated approaches to examine how socio-linguistic food practices can, and do, contribute to identity construction in diverse transnational and diasporic contexts. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of translation, semiotics, cultural studies and sociolinguistics
Redrawing the Map of an Enlarged European Id-Entity: New Margins Stretching the Centre
No full textThe European Union’s historical development has produced a political and institutional structure based on a set of common items of reference, such as flags, mottos and icons, all evoking adherence to shared European beliefs. The final creation of a pan-European identity is the outcome of different mechanisms, all converging towards the making of a collective set of values and rules that new Member States must embrace when joining the Community. Following the latest evolutions of the EU enlargement process, new issues need to be faced: the broadening of geographical horizons to national entities coming from different cultural and political backgrounds calls for the establishment of a multi-levelled European identity, which is designed to encompass new horizons and bridge the gap between Europe’s margins and centres. The paper investigates the linguistic and semiotic strategies used by the European Union website to promote aggregation and a feeling of mutual belonging between “old” and “new” citizens of Europe. To this purpose, a multimodal analysis of the website’s visual and textual material is introduced to highlight the strategies employed to enlarge, mould and reframe the foundations of a common European heritage. This multifaceted process of integration leads towards the study of the inevitable emergence of new visual and verbal items tailored to suggest a sense of belonging, while redesigning Europe’s new “variable geometry”. Being European thus becomes no longer a matter of birth, but rather a question of adjusting to the Community’s institutions and system of values, which are meant to unite all Europeans, transcending their diversity
The Islamic State male warrior: using performativity to reaffirm hegemonic masculinity
No full textThe study explores the concept of performativity (Butler, 2009) in relation to hegemonic masculinity as communicated by terrorist propaganda through media outlets, which have increasingly replicated, amplified and extended this representation of masculinity across the globe
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