Joking

This study stages an analysis of religious politics in Dar es Salaam and Tanzania from below. At its heart is an original account of Muslim political mobilisation in Tanzania that foregrounds the everyday lives of urban actors in Kariakoo, a super-dense market district at the centre of Dar es Salaam.

Under British colonial rule, Kariakoo was Dar es Salaam‟s principal African residential neighbourhood; the beating heart of the city's lively cultural scene and the cradle of Tanganyika‟s African nationalist movement. Today, Kariakoo has grown into one of the most important commercial districts in the East African region. In 2012 and 2013, it was also the site of episodes of Muslim mobilisation which led to clashes with state police and armed forces.

Drawing on rich data derived from fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the neighbourhood, I ask what the everyday life of Kariakoo reveals about religious politics in Tanzania. More specifically, I use it to investigate the intersections between Muslim mobilisation, informal livelihood practices developed by urban users in response to escalating conditions of economic precarity, and popular discontent concerning entrenched inequalities and uneven development along religious lines.

By drawing together several innovative research trajectories in the fields of religious and urban studies, I am able to hold together the notions of the religious and the urban in a manner that spotlights just how integral religion is to Kariakoo as an urban ecology. The subsequent discussion reveals the remarkable dynamism of Muslim social practices and modes of affiliation when considered as numbering among the everyday livelihood practices that are employed by urban users in Kariakoo.

This study brings a more nuanced explanatory frame to bear on the contemporary realities of Muslim activism and religious politics in Tanzania and beyond than those that prevail in much academic and media commentary.

A partir de materiales etnográficos de campo, se describen diversas instancias de fenómenos que hacen reír a los chacobo (Pano) de la  Amazonía boliviana en contextos discursivos o prácticos como la caza, las fiestas, las relaciones interétnicas, las relaciones de parentesco, la onomástica o la mitología, y se propone una hipótesis sociológica de interpretación del humorismo chacobo.

This article investigates spontaneous humour-related phenomena in TV documentary, arguing that their presence helps to overcome the scripted nature of the genre. Focusing on the diegetic level of interaction between the presenter and other individuals present in the scene, the analysis traces how the interlocutors achieve mutual in-tune-ness that is necessary for setting up the play frame. It pays attention to several humour-related phenomena, including non-humorous laughter, joint joking and physical pranks. The findings indicate that while laughter can alleviate tension associated with face-threat or personal failure, other forms of humour emerge in the diegetic frame as part of the programme producers’ design to divert from the transactional mode of factual television to a more entertaining hybrid format based on a significant experiential component. As a result, TV viewers do not simply receive information but derive pleasure from the playful spontaneity performed for their benefit by the presenter and other interlocutors.

This article deals with humour construction in online newspapers. Analysing the new interactive genre of live sports commentary, it documents how humour is produced through incongruities, allusion and irony as well as co-constructed in quasi-conversational interaction between the journalist and his online audiences. It is argued that humour is crucial not only for enhancing the interpersonal dimension, i.e., building up solidarity within the virtual group of followers, but also for providing entertainment in dull moments of the game, thus having a compensatory function with respect of the ideational dimension. The quasi-conversational nature of the genre makes it possible for the audience to get involved in collective humour and even in joint fantasizing. The analysis is a case study of a report on a high-profile international football match for the online version of the Guardian newspaper.

Analyses of conversational joking most often strictly follow a discourse or conversation analytic approach focusing on and starting from features observable on the surface of discourse. In this paper we argue that conversational humor should be described in terms of a specific processing, and thus advocate a cognitive approach to conversational humor. Moreover, we will show how humor-specific processing affects the discourse structure. This culminates in the argument that features observable on the surface of discourse have a different status in relation to the cognitive phenomenon of humor. Some of them facilitate the interpretation of a stretch of talk as humorous and have a rather catalytic function within processing, while others evoke or privilege an interpretation which is subsequently replaced or simultaneously combined with another less prominent interpretation, and thus are directly involved in or trigger the humor-specific disruptive processing. However, prior to showing how models from Cognitive Linguistics can enrich the analysis of conversational joking, we will briefly introduce discourse and conversation analytic approaches to humor from face-to-face interaction in
order to reveal their drawbacks.

This article addresses both well-researched and relatively unexplored questions pertaining to humor and laughter. The following are some of the questions that are
considered here: What is humor? What is the role of laughter in humor? What are the ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of laughter? How does humor work, cognitively? What is the functional significance of humor? What are the varieties of laughter and how are they perceived?What kinds of disorders of laughter
have been documented and what do they suggest about the neural circuitry underlying laughter and humor?

This book offers a cognitive-pragmatic, and specifically relevance-theoretic, analysis of different types of humorous discourse, together with the inferential strategies that are at work in the processing of such discourses. The book also provides a cognitive pragmatics description of how addressees obtain humorous effects. Although the inferences at work in the processing of normal, non-humorous discourses are the same as those employed in the interpretation of humour, in the latter case these strategies (and also the accessibility of contextual information) are predicted and manipulated by the speaker (or writer) for the sake of generating humorous effects. The book covers aspects of research on humour such as the incongruity-resolution pattern, jokes and stand-up comedy performances. It also offers an explanation of why ironies are sometimes labelled as humorous, and proposes a model for the translation of humorous discourses, an analysis of humour in multimodal discourses such as cartoons and advertisements, and a brief exploration of possible tendencies in relevance-theoretic research on conversational humour.

On the shopfloor of an Indian automobile plant, a multi-ethnic workforce exchanges potentially offensive ethnic jokes with one another while remaining largely silent on actual incidences of communal violence. This paper shows how silence and profane humor are important aspects of an inter-ethnic sociality in the workplace, which distances itself from the retaliatory logics of communal violence. Speaking in the indirect register of irony, I argue that jokes about one another’s religion and ethnicity are a means by which cultural intimates articulate anti-communal perspectives on public life. I suggest that profanity is a style of interaction that relates to an anti-communal sociality which distances itself from the politics of sanctity.

ABSTRACT

People in urban environments practices and beliefs allow the creations of supportive social relationships important for dealing with economic and other insecurities among them. This paper examines the roles of “Waal-Nabi Biyoa” a kin-based joking relationship among Nabiihi in Upper West Region of Ghana. Waal-Nabiihi are the royal of the Waale throne and are made up of the Wa-na as well as other chiefs and their subjects who have access or legitimacy to the Wa throne. They adopted the use and other negotiated practices as well as beliefs associated with “Waal-Nabi Biyoa” for practical purposes. Participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and historical research were used to examine ways that Waal-Nabiihi uses these joking relationship to promote social cohesion, outwit the authority of the state, offer opportunities for economic gain, and preserve their cultural histories and identities in a rapidly changing global and urban environment in this twenty first century.
Keywords: beliefs, relationship, biyoa, ethnographic, joking, observation

With a few remaining Yaminahua and Pacaguara, the Chacobo are currently the only Pano-speaking group of Bolivian Amazonia. Through ethnographic description the paper analyses practical, symbolic and discourse contexts such as hunting, drinking bouts, interethnic relationships, mythology, gender ideology, kinship and onomastics in order to track down several phenomena that make the Chacobo laugh. After discussing some possible ways of classification of Chacobo humour, the paper proposes a sociological interpretation of joking as a form of collective thought.

The article deals with coherence in the language of online sports reporting (also known as live text commentary), arguing that an understanding of this particular text type is closely related to the readers' awareness of the specific textual structure of the match commentary. For their coherence, the texts rely on the ability of the readers to interpret certain utterances by placing them correctly within the overall structural framework of the text. In order to make sense of such match reports, readers must be aware that the commentary proceeds along two narrative layers-the primary layer of the game description and the secondary layer of interpersonal gossip. The latter layer may be unrelated to the sports game being reported and may develop several parallel topic lines constituted by utterances threaded together by various cohesive ties. Thanks to their being co-constructed by means of comments emailed by readers and cited by the journalist, the texts of this particular kind of online sports commentary assume pseudodialogic properties. As a result, this text type manifests some properties characteristic of chat discussions and other kinds of computer-mediated interaction.

Researches and writers like Jean-Claude Abbric (1978), Mariko Keletegui (1990), Jean-Godefroy Bidima (2003), and Adamou Barké (2006/2008), Georges Dorlian (2007) have discussed the issue of Tabbastaka or its aspects either as social representations, social structural identity, fictional identity, alliances and relatives’ identity, or jesting kinship as a social factor of integration.
Tabbastaka is the Hausa appropriate word which defines cousinage à plaisanterie or joking cousinhood. It has different spelling depending on languages and ethnical groups as mentioned by the Nigerienne Adamou Barké (2008):
Tabbastaka in Hausa; Bassetarey in Zarma-Songhaï; Dendiragu in Fulani;
Taboubza in Tamashek; Tchindi in Gourmantche; N’gui en Kanuri; Al’muzahatu
Bil’ukhuati in Arabe; values’system translated in French in terms of cousinhood
Joking or jesting kinship. It is a system of values which links in a network of bi-
Lateral relations local ethnical communities as crossed cousins… (284).
Tabbastaka by definition is the use of these bilateral relations in jokes. Joke as something said or done to amuse people and cause laugher, especially a funny story or amusing trick. The objectives in this paper is not to come back to what the above cited researchers have done but, to develop the impact of Tabbastaka on the West African communities in term of social cohesion especially, Gobirawa and Yoruba; Gobirawa and Katsinawa; Gobirawa and Daurawa; Gobirawa and Zamfarawa; Gobirawa and Kabawa; Gobirawa and Zarma/Songhaï; Fulani and Kanuri; Fulani and Arawa/Gubawa, just to limit myself to these binomial or mates. Through effective illustrations I will show how Tabbastaka influences these communities’ relations among them up to the point that they no longer fight each other for lands, pasture areas or wells and live hand in hand in harmony.
KEY WORDS: TABBASTAKA, JOKING COUSINHOOD OR JESTING KINSHIP, SOCIAL COHISION, WEST AFRICAN COMMUNITIES.

Throughout the centuries, jokes have accompanied people’s lives, being part of the fabric of civilisation. Constituting themselves as social practices (with a strong social impact on people’s everyday life) jokes were (and still are) an... more "Throughout the centuries, jokes have accompanied people’s lives, being part of the fabric of civilisation. Constituting themselves as social practices (with a strong social impact on people’s everyday life) jokes were (and still are) an expression of people’s joy of life in happy times and a means of escaping the harsh reality in difficult times. Our paper has in view the latter context that triggers humour, analysing a set of jokes that used to be (more or less secretly) told during the communist regime in Romania. They are culture-specific jokes, highlighting the absurdities of Romania’s political situation under the communist government, laughing at Ceauşescu (the Romanian communist dictator), his family and staff and, at the same ti...

While most sociological and anthropological work carried out in regard to the Israel Defence Forces has focused on regulars, this article provides an inside look into Israel's combat reserves. The analysis is carried out through an examination of the place of humor and joking in the social and organizational life of two different infantry units: a high-grade unit deemed equivalent to the army's regulars and a unit of older troops who carry out less dangerous missions. We argue that reserve duty involves entering a special behavioural frame that is governed by rules different from those of everyday (civilian) life and that these are also special times that offer opportunities for exploring many of the problematic issues that the men face. Humor, in turn, provides fruitful entry points to an analysis of the taboo themes and the muted conflicts of such frameworks. Thus we show how various kinds of humor are related to core issue of socialization, cohesion, motivation, the danger of military work, and images of masculinity.

This article explores prejudicial and racist discourse in reader comments in internet news discussion forums. Based on data from an online debate among Czech commenters on the mainstream iDnes.cz news site, it seeks to contribute to the existing critical linguistic approaches to discursive strategies of othering. Analysing user comments referencing a news article on a sensitive social topic, namely the complicated reception of Central European Roma immigrants in the UK, the paper focuses on three salient themes found in the data: (a) the re-education of the ethnic minority; (b) the users’ perception of the media as politically correct and siding with the outgroup; and (c) the outgroup’s negative stereotype associating it with criminality. The paper argues that the discourse on these topics simultaneously relies on and reinforces the negative stereotype of the ethnic group, while revealing a complicated relationship between three stakeholders: the ingroup, represented by the commenters; the outgroup, made up of members of the ethnic groups; and the media, as representatives of the authorities and the elites. The findings reveal how quasi-humorous comments that involve such stereotypical representations contribute to the normalization of everyday racism against ethnic outgroups.

Im Folgenden geht es um Lachen als soziale Praxis. Dabei können wir vom verbreiteten Kriegshumor nicht direkt auf das Kriegslachen schließen. Lachen in einem anthropologisch auch nur etwas strikteren Sinn bezeichnet nicht etwa die Reaktion auf einen Humor-Reiz, sondern ein differenziertes Spektrum menschlicher Äußerungsformen, deren körperliche Dimension nicht weniger wichtig ist als ihre mentale, kommunikative oder soziale.

This research identifies the practice of carrilla, a socially recognizable kind of joking used among a group of second generation Mexican-Americans from East Los Angeles.  Using
DuBois’ (2007) concept of the stance triangle, this research finds that carrilla is sustained as subjects take up by divergent stance positions in relation to objects that are considered
to be of high sociocultural and intersubjective value.  Radcliffe-Brown’s (1940) idea of the joking relationship is used as a foundation for showing how joking can simultaneously appear
hostile and friendly, and for demonstrating the social role of joking in general.  In taking up divergent stance positions, actors engaged in echando carrilla (doing carrilla) can regulate
behaviors and ideas that are considered to be socioculturally important (such as gender, race, class and assimilation, among others) by invoking specific values within a shared epistemic
framework. Carrilla as it is practiced among the participants in this study is hypothesized to be adapted from similar interactional practices present in Northern Mexico.