A discourse identity of the fool-wisecracker in the carnival space of the USA and Great Britain

Abstract

The paper reveals functional and communicative characteristics of a discourse identity of the fool-wisecracker as the main subject of the carnival communicative space of the USA and Great Britain. This discourse identity combines qualities of a fool as a person who fools everybody around as conscious negligence, wit, joy and laughter as well as qualities of one who can ridicule, joke and shudder for others. The study involves the linguo-philosophical method along with dialectical principles to the study of the object. According to analysis of the lexeme fool a discourse identity of the fool-wisecracker is represented by the corresponding lexemes clown, jester, buffoon and trickster. Discourse identities of the clown, the jester and the trickster belong to the socio-professional sphere which is determined by their professional affiliation (official place of work, education). The buffoon and the trickster belong to the unprofessional sphere – every person under certain conditions is able to acquire characteristics of the fool-wisecracker. In order to create humour and manipulate the addressee, these types of the fool-wisecracker compose incongruent communicative situations by verbal, non-verbal or supraverbal means. A discourse identity of the fool-wisecracker is actualized with the help of the dialectical principles – interconnection, contradiction, historicism and creative linguistic activity. Each type of the fool-wisecracker in the USA and Great Britain uses certain ways to create a comic effect: the clown – verbal means (hyperbole, assonance, alliteration) in conjunction with supraverbal ones (costume and attributes); the jester – intellectual humour expressed by linguistic means (stylistic devices); the buffoon – purveyor improvisations (noodle stories, bawdy stories, jokes and fables); the trickster – stylization under the folk trickster (irony and sarcasm in speech).