{"title":"exploration of phonological jokes in Maryam Apaokagi's selected comedy skits","authors":"Ronke Eunice Okhuosi","doi":"10.7592/ejhr.2022.10.4.700","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The majority of studies on Nigerian comedy are discourse- and pragmatics-related, despite the impact of phonology on humour creation as seminal studies have shown. These seminal studies describe phonological jokes to mean ambiguous utterances whose humour lies in their multiple phonological interpretations. However, comedy skits from Nigeria show that there are more dimensions to phonological jokes. Therefore, this study investigated the phonological jokes in comedy skits from Maryam Apaokagi, using Chomsky and Halle’s Distinctive Features and McGraw and Warren’s Benign Violation Theory. Twenty skits were purposively selected from the artist’s YouTube channel. Four strategies were identified in the data: minimal pairs, phonological restructuring, phonological ambiguity, and phonological extension. Four instances each of minimal pairs and phonological restructuring were identified; the former replaced phonemes in words, thus, changing their meanings, while the latter re-arranged phoneme sets and syllables to achieve new structures. There were two instances of phonological ambiguity where strings of sounds had multiple meanings; homophony was engaged to achieve rhythm and humour. Phonological extension had twenty-eight instances; it occurred when one character produced a syllable, and another extended it by providing a longer but partially similar word. Four types of phonological extensions were identified, and these were extension into regular words, popular names, concepts and other languages. The jokes portrayed socio-cultural and economic situations in Nigeria like poverty, promiscuity, high living costs, and burglary. Apaokagi used comedy to teach patience and tolerance. The comprehension of these jokes thrived on shared background knowledge between the artist and the audience.","PeriodicalId":37540,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Humour Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Humour Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7592/ejhr.2022.10.4.700","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The majority of studies on Nigerian comedy are discourse- and pragmatics-related, despite the impact of phonology on humour creation as seminal studies have shown. These seminal studies describe phonological jokes to mean ambiguous utterances whose humour lies in their multiple phonological interpretations. However, comedy skits from Nigeria show that there are more dimensions to phonological jokes. Therefore, this study investigated the phonological jokes in comedy skits from Maryam Apaokagi, using Chomsky and Halle’s Distinctive Features and McGraw and Warren’s Benign Violation Theory. Twenty skits were purposively selected from the artist’s YouTube channel. Four strategies were identified in the data: minimal pairs, phonological restructuring, phonological ambiguity, and phonological extension. Four instances each of minimal pairs and phonological restructuring were identified; the former replaced phonemes in words, thus, changing their meanings, while the latter re-arranged phoneme sets and syllables to achieve new structures. There were two instances of phonological ambiguity where strings of sounds had multiple meanings; homophony was engaged to achieve rhythm and humour. Phonological extension had twenty-eight instances; it occurred when one character produced a syllable, and another extended it by providing a longer but partially similar word. Four types of phonological extensions were identified, and these were extension into regular words, popular names, concepts and other languages. The jokes portrayed socio-cultural and economic situations in Nigeria like poverty, promiscuity, high living costs, and burglary. Apaokagi used comedy to teach patience and tolerance. The comprehension of these jokes thrived on shared background knowledge between the artist and the audience.
期刊介绍:
The European Journal of Humour Research (EJHR) is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal with an international multidisciplinary editorial board. Although geographically-oriented towards the ˋold continentˊ, the European perspective aims at an international readership and contributors. EJHR covers the full range of work being done on all aspects of humour phenomenon. EJHR is designed to respond to the important changes that have affected the study of humour but particular predominance is given to the past events and current developments in Europe.