The Taboo Conference 2016 Book of Abstracts - UPF

The Taboo Conference 2016

20th and 21st of September

Book of Abstracts

Conference Programme

2

.Registration - Hall Outside Auditorium - 8.30-9.15

.Welcome Room 4 - 9.15-9.45 Organisers’ Instructions

Keynote 1 Room 4 - 9.45-10.45 Speaker, Giselinde Kuipers

Papers 1 Day 1: Tuesday 20th, September - 11.15-12.30

Session & Room TOPIC SPEAKERS (a, b, c)

Session A Room 1 Politics a- Alikhair b - Arkhipova c- Boudana & Bourdon

Session B Room 2 Sexual & gender diversity a- Badenes b- Castro & Champangnatte c- Lüth Session C Room 3 Offensive topics a- Danielle J., Deveau b- Dore c- Palmieri

Papers 2 Day 1: 12.30-13.45

Session D Room 1 Politics a- Burima & Vasiljeva b- Joonas c- Kuzovkin & Kirzyuk

Session E Room 2 Offensive language a- Huerta Camblor b- Ranzato c- Ramírez-Tur Session F Room 3 Offensive topics a- Danneil b- López González c- Kraidy

Papers 3 Day 1: 15.30-17.00

Session G Room 1 Politics a- Monti b- Margala c- Radchenko Session H Room 2 Offensive language a- Parra b- Bondarenko c- Espinoza

Session I Room 3 Offensive topics & gender stereotypes a- Lipson b- Terry c- Ribeiro & Moreira

Papers 4 Day 1: 17.00-18.30

Session J Room 1 Swearwords & offensive language a- Benom b- Costal Criado c- Vandaele

Session K Room 2 Offensive topics a- ousa riso sto o b- Moir c- Noonan

Conference Dinner 20.30h at Marítim Restaurant

Papers 5 9.00-10.15 Day 2: Wednesday, 21st September

Session M Room 1 Race a- Darriba b- Sánchez /López c- Descamps

Session N Room 2 Offensive language a- Ávila /Rodríguez / Costal b- Bucaria c- Giordano

Session O Room 3 Offensive topics a- Aspray b- Wachowski c-Al-Adwan

Papers 6 Day 2: 10.15-11.30

Session P Room 1 Violence and Crime a- Garin b- Arias-Badia c- Roig

Session Q Room 2 Sex a- Sanz Moreno b- Barak /Padva /Gilad

Session R Room 3 Religion & Stereotyping a- Ansari b- Mesa Villajos c- Ledru

Papers 7 Day 2: 12.00-13.15

Session S Room 1 Violence and crime a- Pizarro Pedraza b- Radchenko c- Gibert

Session T Room 2 Sex a- Díaz b- Moalla c- Hien

Session U CLOSED

Papers 8 Day 2: 13.15-14.30

Session V Room 1 Children & Politics a- Martínez Sierra b- Sanina c- Zabalbeascoa

Session W Room 2 Disability & old age a- Kuragina b- Perez & Klimkova c- Schiau

Room 4 16.45-17.45 Keynote Speaker, Delia Chiaro

Closing remarks 17.45-18.15 Room 4

WIFI connection is event@upf & password is 1pompeuf

http://www.maritimrestaurant.com/


3

Tag Speaker Title Topic / Chair

Giselinde Kuipers That’s not funny! Hu or, taboo and the regulation of discourse

Chiara Bucaria

A1a Alikhair, Mohammad S.

Breaking Political Taboo in Sudanese Comedies: a Linguistic study.

Politics / Anna Espunya

A1b Arkhipova, Alexandra

To fear Stalin, to laugh on Fidel: two ways of tabooing in authoritarian societies

A1c Boudana & Bourdon

Ethics and semantics. How to assess the meaning of political cartoons

B2a Badenes, Guillermo

Contemporary American Queer Drama: Camp, not Humor

Sexual and gender diversity / Eva Espasa B2b Castro &

Champangnatte Laughing Off: Taboo and LGBT Humour

B2c Lüth, Nanna Gender-Variant Art and Laughter Curriculum

C3a Danielle J., Deveau Taboo subjects in stand-up comedy: The uneven politics of freedom of speech discourses

Offensive topics / Dídac Pujol

C3b Dore, Margherita Taboo Humour in Intercultural Stand-up Comedy

C3c Palmieri, Giacinto Audience reaction to taboo humour in stand-up comedy across cultures: the cases of Romina Puma and Luca Cupani

D1a Burima & Vasiljeva Humour in School Novel: soviet taboo and transgressing the in Z. Ērgle’s novel “Starp u s eitenē runājot...”

Politics / Jeroen Vandaele

D1b Joonas, Koivukoski Speaking out the politically incorrect in good and bad – Toward a theory of populist comic?

D1c Kuzovkin & Kirzyuk

Criminal Humor or Jokes (= anecdote) as Crimes in the Post-Stalin Era: a Statistical Reconstruction

E2a Huerta Camblor, Jairo

Translating taboo and humour in audiovisual texts for children: different cultures, different values

Swearwords and offensive language / Gullermo Parra

E2b Ranzato, Irene Politically Incorrect Language In TV Drama

E2c Ramírez-Tur, Víctor

lasphe ous perfor ance in entral- astern urope fro Otto u hl to Ion rigorescu

F3a Danneil, Sandra Trick, treat, and transgress: the comedy of the Simpsons' treehouse of horror

Offensive topics / Joana Ribeiro

F3b López González, Rebeca Cristina

Taboo Humo(u)r: Language, Culture, Society and the Media. Taboo Humour in Animation: Drea Work’s Fil s (2001-2012)

F3c Kraidy, Marwan M. The Naked Blogger of Cairo: Abject Body or Abstract Citizen?

G1a Monti, Andrew The Artillery of Dissent: the political content of stand-up comedy 1990-2010

Politics / Alexandra Arkhipova G1b Margala, Miriam What a Riot! Deviant Humour and Humorous

Deviance in Hrabal

G1c Radchenko , Daria To name without a name: humor and taboos in rallies’ slogans about utin

H2a Parra, Guillermo Drugs and taboo in the translation of audiovisual dialogue

Swearwords and offensive language / J.J. Martínez-Sierra H2b Bondarenko,

Kateryna Ukrainian and English Slang: Tackling Taboo


4

H2c Espinoza, María José

Dropping the ‘f’ bo b on a press conference: interpreting humour, political intentions and sexual innuendos

I3a Lipson, David Pushing buttons and boundaries: Michael Moore Offensive topics and gender stereotypes / Giacinto Palmieri

I3b Terry, Adeline Death and disease dysphemisms and humour: the case of House, M.D.

I3c Ribeiro & Moreira Dumb blonde, sex bomb, emotional, promiscuous, manipulative: humour and the pushing and breaking of taboos

J1a Benom, Carey The Use of Taboo Terms in Standup Comedy: A Corpus Analysis

Swearwords and offensive language / Victoria Alsina J1b Costal Criado,

Tomás Dwarf shortage: Jimmy Carr and the nature of offence

J1c Vandaele, Jeroen How a Kid Ought (Not) Joke and Speak. Manolito Gafotas in Scandinavia

K2a ousa riso sto o,

Humour, taboo and television: how the Spanish comedy Ciudad K defies conventions

Offensive topics / Raquel Sánchez

K2b Moir , James Humour Me: Musing over a Televised Misunderstanding

K2c Noonan, Will L’espéranto et les cyclotouristes”, or the proble of interpreting humour in context

L CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED

CONFERENCE DINNER 20.30H Marítim Restaurant 20.30h

M1a Darriba Zaragoza, Marc

Like if I was Ro anian!”. arodying/ roducing Racis in ublic T the case of avier arc a lbiol in olo nia (TV3)

Race / Anthony Mitzel

M1b Sánchez & López Ethnic Taboo in Black-ish TV show

M1c Descamps, Yann Telling It Like It Is: Black Comedy and the Representation of Race Relations in the United States, 1960s-2010s

N2a Ávila/Rodríguez/ Costal

OffTaGe. Offensive and taboo language in comedy video clips dubbed and subtitled by students

Swearwords and offensive language / Delia Chiaro N2b Bucaria, Chiara Manipulating taboo humour in translated

television series

N2c Giordano, V. / Stagnaro, V.

A game of Taboo: black humour and manipulation in the Italian version of Game of Thrones

O3a Aspray, Benjamin K.

Gross-out Flooding Out: Gender, Spectacle, and Scatological Comedy

Offensive topics and humour / Irene Ranzato O3b Wachowski, W. Metonymy, taboos, and humour

O3c Al-Adwan, Amer The Censorship of TV Comedy in the Arab World

P1a Garin, Manuel The Last Laugh: Understanding Suicide Gags in Film Comedy

Violence and crime / James Moir

P1b Arias-Badia, Blanca

I'm a very neat monster!: Language exploitation as a humoristic device in crime TV shows

P1c Roig Translating Chavs into Catalan: The Dubbing of Little Britain by the Catalan Public Broadcaster

Q2a Sanz Moreno, Raquel

Audio describing sex: is there a way to do it? Sex / Carey Benom

Q2b Barak-Brandes & Padva & Gilad

Winking Game? Traditional and Ironic Perspectives on Male Bodies in ''Elemento'' (An Israeli home design) campaign

http://www.maritimrestaurant.com/


5

R3a Ansari, Yalman A Verdant Approach to Analyzing "How Much Humor is Religiously Humorous" in an A Posteriori Context

Religion / J.J. Ávila

R3b Mesa Villajos, A. Faith, laugh and reason: a review of controversy

R3c Ledru, Juliette The Chinese American tangle of taboo humor and hyper-stereotyping: debunking racist and sexist representations of women in literature and cinema (2001-2008)

S1a Pizarro Pedraza Challenging the taboo of violent death on twitter: a linguistic analysis of the humoristic use of #jesuis

Violence and crime / Laura Pousa

S1b Radchenko, Daria aterializing “Dead aby” Jokes annibalistic Food Codes In The Folklore Of Ukrainian Crisis

S1c Gibert Maceda, T. Taboo Hu or in argaret twood’s Fiction

T2a Díaz, Javier On the translation of jokes containing sexual allusions in Modern Family

Sex / Kateryna Bondarenko T2b Moalla, Asma Dealing with Taboo topics in the co-construction

of humor in intercultural communication

T2c Hien, Le Thuy The art of humor in So Do (Dumb luck) – once a banned novel of the greatest Vietnamese writer of the twentieth century Vu Trong Phung

U3a CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED

V1a Martínez Sierra, J.J. Crossing the line? Paedophilia in Family Guy. A Translational Approach

Children & Politics / Javier Díaz

V1b Sanina, Anna Visual forms of political humor in Russian new media

V1c Zabalbeascoa, Patrick

Terrorists in Madrid change guns and bombs for Punch and Judy

W2a Kuragina, Liubov With hu our through the taboo area “disability” Disability and old age / Rosa Roig

W2b Perez & Klimkova, Emília & Simona

Offensive cartoons and comic strips? On the cultural determinacy of Deaf humour

W2c Schiau, Ioana Laughing About Old Age: A Coping Mechanism or a Sign of Self-Ageism? Exploring Self-Defeating Humour in a Sample of Romanian Older Adults

Keynote 2 Delia Chiaro

Subversive and deniable: The British and their love hate relationship with the cheap innuendo.

Patrick Zabalbeascoa

Tuesday, 20th September

6

KEYNOTE 1

Giselinde Kuipers. University of Amsterdam. Netherlands.

Title: That’s not funny! Humor, taboo and the regulation of discourse

In contemporary liberal democracies, very little is taboo in the strongest sense of the word: circumscribed

by restrictions and prohibitions to the extent that it has become practically unspeakable, untouchable and

invisible. Instead, everything can be discussed, but there are unwritten rules regulating how things can –

and cannot – be discussed. For instance, some topics and activities can only be discussed using specialized

discourses: medical, therapeutic, confessional, religious, or legal discourse. Such topics are often

particularly off limits for non-serious – playful or humorous – discourse. Death, disease, disasters, but also

religion or other sacred institutions are “not funny”: they are not supposed to be joked about. Thus,

tabooization takes on a specific form: the regulation of discursive type, and in particular the suppression of

non-serious discourse.

However, this taboo on humorous treatment of topics als increases the humorous potential of these topics:

the precise fact that they are off limits makes them the topic of, for instance, sick humor, transgressive

humor, or adolescent humor. Moreover, this type of humor often kindles “humor scandals”: because it

touches on socially sensitive topics it highlights societal rifts. Thus, the tabooization of joking about serious

topics is a double-edged process: while it is meant to suppress the humorous potential of specific themes, it

also augments – in specific settings—its potential to arouse laughter.

In this lecture, I will explore the relation between humor, taboo and the regulation of discourse by

analyzing some specific instances of humor regarding topics that are “too serious too joke about”. Using

some recent examples from various countries, I will explore 1. What sort of topics of considered off limits

for humor; 2. Why, how and under what circumstances people do joke about these topics; 3. How the

regulation of discourse is attempted in these cases: how do people respond to the breaking of this taboo?

When and how do they fail or succeed in this regulation?

Papers 1 - Day 1: Tuesday 20th, September - 11.15-12.30

Session A

Alikhair, Mohammad S. English Department, Alzaiem Alazhari University. Sudan.

Title: Breaking Political Taboo in Sudanese Comedies: a Linguistic study.

Discussing political issues in the Sudanese context is highly sensitive, sharply dangerous and meticulously

censored. Politics discussions do not go unchallenged or unpunishable, particularly in media and Theatre.

This study aims to unravel how Sudanese Comedies critique political issues in this congested and danger

fraught atmosphere, how they break political tabooness and what are the linguistic strategies employed by

these comedies in response. The data for the study is drawn from, The Regime Wants! – A Sudanese

comedy which is densely infused with array of political themes— the comedy was transcribed and these

politically tabooed instances were excerpted from the comedy to represent the corpus of study. In

addition, in depth interviews were conducted with comedians and producers in Sudan regarding the

politically tabooed subjects in comedies and the challenges they face in this respect. The findings of the

study reveal that Sudanese comedians resort to theatre to express their critique to the political situation.

However, the sensitive and highly tabooed nature of the subject enforced comedians to invent alternative

discursive material to evade censorship. Moreover, they employed several linguistic strategies such as

euphemisms, paradoxes, political satire and shocking effects to escape any potential dangers. Furthermore,


7

the study found that performing, producing and presenting politically charged comedy in the Sudanese

context is challenged by countless obstacles and could hardly be presented to the audience without

replacing political tabooness with counter-discursive and euphemistic settings. //

Arkhipova, Alexandra. Centre for Typological and Semiotic Folklore Studies, Russian State University for the

Humanities. Russia.

Title: To fear Stalin, to laugh on Fidel: two ways of tabooing in authotaritarian societies.

The proposed paper is dedicated to the types of taboos in authotaritarian societies connected with the

dictator and to the X-phemisms (Allan & Burridge's theory) that appeared as a result of the substitution

process. In the Soviet Union and Cuba a powerful system of taboos, built up around the ban on mentioning

ruler’s name, his body and appearance was established through the state cult of the leader. The

comparative analysis (both sociolinguistic and anthropological) of different taboo systems, related to

Stalin’s and Fidel Castro’s names, is stated in the paper. All examples were collected by the author during

archive or field work. Soviet citizens tried to avoid the dictator’s name in “profane” communication

because of fear, therefore it was replaced by verbal substitutes or even non-verbal signs.In Cuba a system

of X-phemisms connected to Fidel Castro, became an oportunity for the people to indicate a form of

humorous protest not because of fear. Since all official communication channels are still inpregnated with

political propaganda, the Cuban traditon created its own new language register based on taboos and X-

phemisms as a way of struggling with the official language. Later on they became part of the everyday

language and ceased to play their role: to praise the leader (euphemisms) or to offend him (dysphemisms).

Consequently, a new generation of nicknames appeared, which should be mocking the previous variants.

This led to the formation of a wide set of X-phemisms of Fidel Castro’s name.

Keywords: taboo, X-phemism, dysphemism, euphemism, Fidel Castro, Stalin. //

Boudana, Sandrine & Bourdon, Jerome. Tel-Aviv University. Israel.

Title: Ethics and semantics. How to assess the meaning of political cartoons

In the past decade, media and political science scholars have called for more research on the ways in which

press cartoons test the acceptability of humour, the Mohammed cartoons being perhaps the most extreme

example of a general process of increasing controversiality. After recalling why political cartoons have

become increasingly controversial, due to old and new characteristics of the genre and its circulation

(critical are the global appropriation and harnessing of the genre for political interests), this paper proposes

a theoretical framework to help delineate ethical boundaries for the use of the genre. For this, it combines

scholarship on disparagement humor (particularly Kuipers’ 2011 distinction between laughing downward at

excluded minorities and laughing upward at the powerful) with literary critic E.D. Hirsch’s distinction

between the meaning of a text—which refers to the author’s intentions—and its significance—which

emphasizes the contexts of production and reception.

Hirsch (1984: 223) considers meaning as “a principle of stability in an interpretation”, based on the author’s

“consciousness”, while significance“embraces a principle of change” (Hirsch 1976: 80), as it depends on the

contexts in which the symbols are used, and on their reception by various audiences, regardless of the

author’s intentions. We analyze concrete examples to make this operational, and to reconstruct both

meaning (despite the cartoonists’ tendency to address accusations about significance with the typical “I

didn’t mean it” line of defense), and significance (which is sometimes manipulated by political


8

representatives arguing about and manipulating the feelings of “their” publics). We argue that the

confrontation of meaning and significance is operative both as a theoretical framework for understanding

the controversies and as a methodological tool for their analysis." //

Session B

Badenes, Guillermo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina.

Title: Contemporary American Queer Drama: Camp, not Humor

Over the past 20 years, the American LGBTQ liberationist movement has managed to make new voices

heard and acquired certain social conquests, partly overturning decades of exclusion and segregation.

However, some of the cultural productions from the margins are not usually translated: These new voices

are still unheard in many places in the planet. The intersections between sexuality and ethnic identity –

both individual prerogatives that are still largely deemed taboos – offer a model of characterization in

drama highlighting diversity, addressing topics frequently overlooked by the mainstream, and posing

complex translation problems. The crosses between race and sexualities focus on the preservation of

otherness as a response to conformity to social mores. In that respect, there is one main recurrent strategy

in these dramas, the use of camp. I intend to underline the idea that camp – and not humor itself – is most

frequently used on the queer stage to trivialize the tragedy of marginal existence. This analysis studies

three queer plays belonging to Asian-American, Chicano and African-American playwrights who aim at

transgressing hegemonic standards of normality and reject the idea of accommodating to society

expectations delving into the necessary strategies for their translation. While these authors challenge

American drama from the point of view of subject matter, characterization and dramatic structure, noting

difference at the center of their plays, their lack of translation limits the scope of their influence. In the

conclusions, I reveal that the new American queer theater may be that which rekindles the spark of

belligerence that may have been lost when gay ceased to be a synonym for marginal and became another

mainstream construct while, from the point of reception, I pose the question as to where we stand

regarding the lack of translation of marginal texts. //

Castro, Lidiane & Mariatt de Oliveira Champangnatte, Dostoiewski. Universidade do Grande Rio, Brasil.

Title: Laughing Off: Taboo and LGBT Humour

Discussing sexualities that are not normative still is a taboo in Brazil because of the strong influence of

religion, mostly Catholic and Christian, which is powerful all over the country considering offline and online

life and acts on all the different levels of society. There are many stereotypes associated with gay and

lesbian people regarding the Brazilian media, showing men as effeminate and women as masculine, gays as

promiscuous and lesbians as seeking marriage or moving in together after something like a third date, as

well as stereotypes that directly reinforce gender biases and social roles by the act of reproducing hierarchy

and subjection standards with what is expected from men and women behaviour. In addition, it is

important to be highlighted that there are many other stereotypes that reinforce homophobia and a bad

image of homosexual people related to gender roles. This text proposes a reflection on contemporary

representation of gays and lesbians through an analysis of the Facebook page “Humor GLS – LGBT”, LGBT

Humour, where humour is used to address topics related to homosexuality that are taboos in the brazilian

society including but not limited to the concept of family, aggressions, homophobia, religion, politics,

gender identity, sexual orientation and chauvinism. The main goal is to understand, in the light of queer


9

theory, how the use of humour on a LGBT themed Facebook page with almost 150 thousand followers can

oppose or reinforce homophobia and how it interacts with the concept of performativity when doing so.

Keywords: Taboo; Humour; Queer theory; Social Representation; Heteronormativity. //

Lüth, Nanna. University of the Arts Berlin. Germany.

Title: Gender-Variant Art and Laughter Curriculum

In a German publication about humour in the classroom (Kassner 2002), humor is seen as a favored quality

of a good teacher; empirical studies unsurprisingly demonstrate, that the articulation of humor also in

schools needs reflection, because it is a sensitive field of action. Sexualization, racialisation and gender

stereotyping are central components of the mainstream regimes of the ridicule (Kotthoff 1996, Bing 2004,

Mayo 2008). Nevertheless, performing and sharing a sense of humor, which affirms the power structures, is

attractive. For the ones who succeed to provoque laughter or other signs of agreement, it not only helps to

assert their belonging to a social context, but also to gain popularity and recognition. Now, coming from an

engagement in queering art education, it suggests itself to combine a serious matter, namely promoting

the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity, with the appropriation of humourous art works with queer

perspectives for teacher training and working in schools. A lot of queer-identified artistic projects make use

of irony, jokes or satire to communicate with listeners/viewers, which ususally are marginalized and often

laughed at. With some examples of artistic positions I want to demonstrate different strategies to cause

laughter and good moods on the side of gender-non-conforming persons. For instance, there are the

drawings and installations of Ins A Kromminga, artist and intersex activist, which are blending irony, anger,

information and phantasy - references to science fiction or other myths are included. Also the deliberate

hybridization and exaggeration of styles - f.i. in the music videos of Evan Ifekoya is producing interventions

into the norms, which are both seductive and funny. Both ways of working can be regarded as reparative

from a trans* or queer*(friendly) point of view. These re-processings of humor will be described as

impulses for educational concepts (Sedgwick 2003). //

Session C

Deveau, Danielle J. Simon Fraser University. Vancouver, Canada.

Title: Taboo subjects in stand-up comedy: The uneven politics of freedom of speech discourses

Within the field of stand-up comedy, freedom of speech is held up as sacrosanct. The comedian, as part of

their profession, has the right to say the unsayable, no matter how taboo. In instances where comedian

vulgarity or missteps (telling the wrong kind of offensive joke to the wrong audience) produce public

criticism, comedians often close ranks. Indeed, while the comedian might consider him/herself a cultural

critic, this belief in the value of criticism can evaporate quickly if the performer is the subject of critical

inquiry. This inconsistent politics of freedom of speech is very much at play in public debates around

problematic forms of professional humour, particularly those that engage with taboo subjects, or are easily

read as sexist, racist, and homophobic. As a political discourse, comedy is a double-edged sword. On the

one hand, it can be a critical and subversive mode of address, it establishes ingroups, reinforces (or

subverts) social codes, and allows speakers to say the unsayable. On the other hand, producers of humour,

while quick to reinforce their own rights to freedom of speech, are not necessarily open to criticisms waged

in their direction. That is, the comedian has the right to exercise freedom of speech, but cannot always be


10

counted upon to respect that right in their own critics. Performers might hide behind thin discourses about

the value of freedom of speech, or the role of the comic as cultural critic, but we see that such affiliations

can be fickle. In facing critique, comic performers also have, and utilize, the option of denying their

seriousness. So, humour is to be taken seriously, but how does the scholar of humour navigate such a field

when the topic in question always has recourse to claims of non-seriousness; that is, that the teller is “only

joking,” or the more direct critique of seriousness, “can’t you take a joke?” //

Dorè, Margherita. University of Rome “La Sapienza”. Italy.

Title: Taboo Humour in Intercultural Stand-up Comedy

Nowadays, stand-up comedy has become an increasingly popular mode of entertainment, with comedians

gaining national and international fame and reputation (e.g. Louis C.K., Eddie Izzard). They develop their

‘comic persona’ so as to be the voice of their contemporary culture as well as its social commentators while

entertaining (Mintz 1985: 74–75). To achieve this, comedians rely heavily on stereotypes based on race,

sexual orientation, ethnicity and religion, which some people may find obnoxious. As a matter of fact,

stand-up comedy can be said to allow for a sort of freedom of speech that can rarely be matched by any

other sorts of interpersonal encounters (Seirlis 2011). Moreover, stand-up comedy has been said to fulfill a

specific social and cultural function since it can be considered as a sort of outlet for the audience’s sense of

superiority towards the weaker or negative members of society that are being made fun of (Mintz 1985:

79). According to Lockery and Mayers’s (2011) survey, people enjoy attending stand-up comedy shows

because they respect the artist, expect to laugh at the unexpected, feel close to the comedian, like the idea

of interacting with him/her and want to share the comic experience with others. As Pérez (2013) observers,

the audience tends to accepts and laugh at disparaging humour (even when verging racism) as stand-up

comedy goers do not take potentially offensive remarks at face value (cf. also Scarpetta and Spagnoli 2009).

Hence, this study concentrates on the use of taboo humour in stand-up comedy and in particular it explores

how topics such as sexuality, scatology, cultural disparagement are exploited to enhance comedian-

audience interaction at the Rome’s Comedy Club. These stand-up comedy events take place in Italy and are

performed mostly by English comedians for expatriates living and Italians with a good command of English.

Keywords: Stand-up Comedy, Stereotypes, Taboo Humour, Sex, Cultural disparagement. //

Palmieri, Giacinto. University of Surrey. U.K.

Title: Audience reaction to taboo humour in stand-up comedy across cultures: the cases of Romina Puma and Luca Cupani.

Stand-up comedy is a highly interactive form, in which audience reaction plays a very important role. This

makes it a very promising testbed to highlight reactions to taboo humour. In particular, the experience of

stand-up comedians who perform across cultures can highlight the culture specificity of what constitutes

taboo. Luca Cupani, for instance, had just moved to the UK from Italy when he won a competition with a

set that included a joke deemed “racist” by the other comedians, while appreciated by the audience. The

MC of the night commented that “apparently racism is acceptable if it comes from an Italian”, a judgement

that Cupani judged “racist” in turn. The case highlights a difference in the perception of offensiveness not

only between Luca’s native country and his host country, but between the audience and the comedians’

community. Moreover, it raises questions on how the perceived identity of the performer influences the

alleged offensiveness of humour. Romina Puma, on the other hand, experienced a culture shock when she


11

performed in Italy a comedy set originally developed in the UK. Romina suffers from muscular dystrophy

and has made her condition the main subject of her comedy. Contrary to her experience in UK, Romina

experienced that in Italy the audience reacted with puzzled embarrassment. Back to the UK, Romina

brought her solo show to the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was well received from an audience

that often comprised people suffering from disabilities. This did not prevent, however, an audience

member from publishing a review on the festival website attacking Romina for her alleged insensitivity to

the seriousness of the condition and expressing offence “on behalf of my disabled friends”. This experience,

again, raises questions not only of culture specificity, but also of agency in the perception of taboo humour.

//

Papers 2 Day 1: 12.30-13.45

Session D

Burima, Maija & Vasiljeva, Elina. Faculty of Humanities at the Daugavpils University

Title: Humour in School Novel: soviet taboo and transgressing them in Z. Ērgle’s novel “Starp mums meitenēm runājot...”

Zenta Ērgle’s novel “Starp mums meitenēm runājot” (Between Us, Girls) is a specific phenomenon of

Latvian literature in the soviet period. Written in 1976 the novel breaks taboos of the soviet literature,

especially children’s literature related to the problem of upbringing, school life, and the topic of love. In the

context of soviet adolescent literature, the novel presents the forbidden topics and it ridicules what was

not allowed to ridicule – some elements of the system of education and upbringing. Humour takes a special

place in the structure of the novel. On the one hand, humour manifests itself as a specific language spoken

at school that expresses learners’ views on life and what they are not willing to agree with. On the other

hand, humour performs the function of building the book structure: all editions of the novel (both the

translations in the soviet times and the renewed edition of 2012) are published with the famous

illustrations by Edgars Ozoliņš who was a renowned cartoonist working in the cartoon magazine “Dadzis”.

Cartoon stylistics affects the artistic world of the novel and its perception. Cartoon is included in the plot of

the novel as well – one of the boys draws and entertains his friends with cartoons on teachers and

classmates. Love is one of the taboos of soviet children/adolescent literature. The plot of the novel

foregrounds the question if it is allowed to joke on love. In this way the writer depicts the adolescent

position. Taboo is lifted also on another level of the structure. Cartoon language makes it possible to speak

about “adult problems”. Book illustrations in the form of cartoon lifts the taboo on human sexuality

(clothes, shapes). Cartoon text (remarks, thoughts) is cut out from the context of the novel and makes a

peculiar supra-text where the tabooed topic is highlighted as if in a commix form. The paper regards the

peculiarities of the comic phenomenon perception in contemporary culture space. //

JoonasKoivukoski.UniversityofHelsinki, Finland.

Title: Speakingoutthepoliticallyincorrectingoodandbad–Towardatheoryofpopulistcomic?

In late modernity distinctions between serious and entertainment,partyandidentitypolitics have

been blurredfurther.Overallthevariationofacceptedformsofpublicpoliticalrepresentation has

increased incomparisonto“high”moderneraofmoremonotonicpolitical performances. The

recent behaviour ofsome(neo)populistpoliticiansinEuropeis,invariousways,contestingthe

boundaries of“proper”behaviourforaMP.Sometimes this testing is interpreted, or

retrospectively justified, as being humorous. There have been a fewrecent studies analysing


12

humorous publicperformancesenactedbypoliticiansindifferentcontexts,butthetopic has not

been scrutinisedinrelationtopopulismorpopulistrhetoric.Thisseemsrathersurprising given

that comical performanceand/ormockeryareessentialtobrandimagesofsomeofthe

mainstream populistpartyleaderinEuropetoday(considere.g.BeppeGrilloinItaly,JónGnarr in

Iceland, NigelFarageinUKandTimoSoiniinFinland).Previousstudiesonpoliticians’use of

humour indicatevariousfunctionstocomicutterancesdependingonthecontextual matters.

Accordingly, humourcanfunctionascriticismtowardotherpoliticians,asdistractionfrom counter‐

arguments, and as seductiontowardspossiblevotersandownpoliticalblock. Yet, as public comic

performances areusuallysemanticallyandpragmaticallycomplex, more nuanced analyses are

requiredinrelationtoeachspecificcase.InmypresentationIaimtosketchouta theory for

populist comic.Iapproachhumoursmediatedperformancesofpoliticiansasmoreor less

consciously produced texts. I buildonanideathatpopulistcomiccanbebothathreat and

corrective toliberaldemocracies(cf.Mudde&Kaltwasser2012).Afewempiricalcases from

Finland are scrutinisedinrelationtoclassicalandmorerecenttheoriesofhumour to spell out

the characteristics for “populistcomic”.//

Kirzyuk, Anna (School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, RANEPA), Kuzovkin, Gennadij (Memorial)

Title: Criminal Humor or Jokes (= anecdote) as Crimes in the Post-Stalin Era: a Statistical Reconstruction.

Presumably, the unique feature of a Soviet joke is the consistent motif imprinted upon it: people were

imprisoned for political jokes (in folklore, within the plot structure, this motif is presented in the thematic

group “jokes about jokes”). How truly does this reflect the realities of penal policy? Until recently, there

have been no statistics about this kind repression in the post-Stalin era. This is due to departmental records

management in addition to legal subtleties and practices. We will not investigate in detail the reasons for

this, though they are clear to us. This issue requires special consideration. The research program "History of

Dissent in the USSR", is concerned with repressive policies in the years 1953 – 1987 (the chronological

framework of the Program). For a quarter of a century, the research conducted by the program has

touched upon issues such as: periodization, legislative frameworks, basic research tools, specific practices,

sources, etc. It is therefore logical that the range of statistics available on persecuted jokes in the post-

Stalin era originated as a result of the research initiative of this program. Yet, somewhat unintentionally,

urban folklore has been the focus of the program’s attention. To a certain extent, this has affected the joint

project of “Memorial” and Oxford University (2012-2014). This project identified all the references to

famous jokes and anecdotes in the samizdat bulletin The Chronicle of Current Events. The statistic data,

covering the years 1953-1983, was first introduced at the conference “Samizdat: Epochs, Texts and Fates”

(July 26-27, 2014, Moscow). The researcher N. Vasilieva produced the main body of statistics. She used the

solid reference “58-10.” This book contains brief summaries of political affairs from the fond of the USSR

Prosecutor’s Office in the State Archive of the Russian Federation for 1953-1991. It turns out that in the

reference section, relating to the years 1965 -1982, jokes are not mentioned. This long "joke-break" (the

name appeared in our working slang) is curious and until us, nobody has noticed it. In the report we

describe what additional sources (official and unofficial) were used to discern the first range of statistics.

We explain why, after verification, the findings cannot be conclusive. We will offer a new version of the

statistical reconstruction, to put it simply, what it can become in the future (we presume with confidence

that empirical studies will continue). //


13

Session E

Huerta Camblor, Jairo. University of Oviedo. Spain.

Title: Translating taboo and humour in audiovisual texts for children: different cultures, different values

Different cultures use different levels of formality to reflect similar situations. The same happens with

taboos: what may be considered ordinary in one culture can appear to be taboo for another society. This is

especially relevant in translation, as some taboo words or topics often need to be filtered for the sake of

acceptability and appropriateness within the context of reception. An added difficulty is certainly humour.

Considering all the literature which deals with humour and translation, it is undoubtable that humour is a

culture-bound phenomenon which entails many challenges for translators. Special attention deserves

audiovisual translation for children; translators of these products are constrained by a number of factors,

such as the peculiar audiovisual genre in question and the age of the target audience (probably the most

important taboo filter). Likewise, it cannot be forgotten that audiovisual translation is a form of constrained

translation in which the images, sounds, types of shots, etc. also influence the translation of humour and

taboo. The goal of this paper is to explore taboo humour in the translation of audiovisual products for

children (from English into Spanish), with a focus on dubbing, the main translation mode used when

translating for children. However, it will also be possible to study the patterns or behaviours which appear

in subtitling. The description of several examples from animated films and cartoon TV series will explain

why some translations seem to deviate considerably from their respective source texts. Some instances of

this are the reinforcement or censoring of topics like religion or death, and words considered to be

blasphemous. In order to understand many translation decisions, it will be necessary to comprehend the

triangle formed by three important issues: taboo, humour and children who receive the same audiovisual

text in cultures where different norms and values are at stake and determine what is correct or apt for

children and what is not.

Keywords: taboo humour, audiovisual translation, children audience, acceptability, values, norms. //

Ranzato, Irene. Sapienza Università di Roma. Italy.

Title: Politically Incorrect Language In Tv Drama

Political correctness can be interpreted as an attempt to extend the boundaries of what is considered

taboo by including areas which previously involved prejudicial attitudes and stigmatising language (Hughes

2007). If ours can certainly be defined the age of political correctness, it is perhaps symptomatic that some

of the television series that have most attracted the general public in recent years are notable for their

'incorrect' language and for the extensive use of taboo words. Contemporary series set in pre-90s past - a

time when the notion of political correctness had not been systematically conceptualised - rely for many of

their humorous quips and for some of their most effective characterisations on sexist and racist language. It

is my contention that a great part of the pleasure felt by both the audiences in viewing this kind of

programmes and by their authors in writing them is due to the possibility of relief from the constraints of

PC language even in situations which are not primarily comedic and even in dialogues which adhere to the

code of realism. This proposed contribution will look at examples from TV series set in the 1950s, 1960s

and 1970s - Masters of Sex (M. Ashford, 2013-present, USA), Mad Men (M. Weiner, 2007-2015, USA), Life

on Mars (M. Graham, T. Jordan and A. Pharoah 2006-2007, UK and 2008-2009, USA) - as well as from

historical or pseudo-historical shows like the fantasy drama Game of Thrones (D. Benioff and D.B. Weiss

2011-present, USA), in order to analyse the linguistic and narrative strategies (for example, the frequent


14

juxtaposition of characters who represent and integrate our contemporary point of view) that make

potentially offensive language not only palatable but actually relishable to contemporary ears. //

Ramírez Tur, Víctor. Universitat de Barcelona. Spain.

Title: Blasphemous performance in Central-Eastern Europe: from Otto Mühl to Ion Grigorescu

This communication aims to delve into the correspondences between some performative strategies from

the Central-Eastern area associated with blasphemy, political parodic attacks, carnival transgressions –

M.Bakhtin- and gender troubles –J.Butler-. Any contribution to the European performative practices from

the seventies should start taking the influence of the Viennese Actionism into account. In this sense, we

would like to use as a starting point the scandalous practice of the most ironic performer among the

Viennese Actionism components: Otto Mühl. In that sense, we should frame our contribution introducing

ZOCK - Zealous Organisation of Candid Knights-, the organization he created in 1967 with Oswald Weiner to

behave violently in order to destroy the state system, the related drawing practice where we will find

images of the artist, among others, pissing and defecating over the national flag, and finally, the

embodiment of the stifling biopolitcs that they identify with the catholic, military and bourgeois-aristocratic

powers that still persist in Vienna, but also with the new consumption society dynamics. Some of his

performances are at the same time abject rituals and ironic actions splashed by junk food and other

rejected elements related to the consumer society. Having introduced the work of Otto Mühl, we would

open the framework in order to offer new tools of interpretation of one the most important European

Eastern performers: Ion Grigorescu. His practice is associated with the contemporary Romanian history,

especially with that moment when the lowest level of personal freedom determined special conditions for

carrying out performative practices. Isolated from the official artistic scene controlled by Ceausescu’s

regime, the artist developed a series of filmed actions where he performed –using constantly the uncanny

strategy of duplicating things and bodies- a diseased but rebel body. Grigorescu moons vigilance cameras –

Our home, 1974-, assumes the identity of the dictator in a parodic movie - Dialgoue with Nicolae

Ceausescu, 1978- and blurs gender stereotypes by altering his own body, especially the genitalia –

Male/Female, 1976, Delivery, 1977-. It is worth noting that in order to comprehend Grigorescu’s practice,

we will not only use some necessary tools from the abject theory –Bataille/Kristeva- or the religious

anthropology –Durkheim/Girard- but also Romanian specific tools that extend the short European

intellectual canon, for instance, the notion of social schizophrenia developed by Katherine Verdery.

Session F

Danneil, Sandra. TU Dortmund University. Germany.

Title: Trick, Treat, and Transgress: The Comedy of The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror

There is no such thing as transgressive comedy. The question is, however, what makes it so hard to

formulate a definition of transgressive comedy? If it were defined as a genre, transgressive comedy would

only be limited to a distinct and ever recurring set of rules. But due to its manifold dimensions, I will

approach transgressive comedy as a style, which worships a “cult of unreason” (Jenks 22). I will investigate

how comic transgressiveness methodologically colonizes the liminal space between a (pop-)cultural

dialectic of order and disorder. And I will look at it as a cyclical concept within which transgressive comedy

has found a way to establish comic radicality. One of transgression’s most dedicated scholars, sociologist

Chris Jenks, puts it in a nutshell when he says that the point of transgression’s investigation is “to


15

demonstrate its presence in, and impact upon, contemporary life.” (21) By fictionalizing taboos,

transgressive comedy can thus best be situated in the everyday routine of America’s TV ‘primecom’ that

keeps challenging the ethical attitude of cartoon audiences. In my analysis, however, I will demonstrate

how The Simpsons’ Treehouse in particular yet reinforces the comedic impact by annually bringing matters

of political correctness to a head. By reading the show as animated epipahny of the American Dream

undreamt, The Simpsons is more than family amusement. In my talk, I will deal with the show as a cultural

narrative that dismantles binaries of high and low, inside and outside or restricted and permitted. With

regard to concrete examples of The Simpsons’ Halloween Special of The Treehouse of Horror, fertile ground

will be provided to approach a definition of transgressive comedy. //

López González, Rebeca Cristina. Facultad de Filología y Traducción Universidad de Vigo. Spain.

Title: Taboo Humour in Animation: DreamWork’s Films (2001-2012)

In 2001, DreamWorks Animation released Shrek. Praised by critics and adored by the audience alike as seen

in box office sales in Spain, nearly €13 million, August 10th, 2002; The U.S.A., over $250 million,

December 2nd, 2001; The U.K., nearly £29 million, October 28th, 2001; and Italy, €7 million, July 2nd, 2001,

earning $484.4 million in the worldwide box office. This film was enriched with comic scenes, which were

meant to subvert Disney’s canon (Zipes 1997: 71) for animated feature films (Mínguez 2012: 249-262).

Most Shrek viewers probably remember the doses of scatological humour recreated by the protagonist of

the saga, subtle and non-subtle sexual ironies distributed throughout scenes, and the jokes dealing with

image matters, such as this ogre’s greenish, ugly appearance. Thanks to DreamWork’s first box office hit,

taboo humour was introduced to entertain the general public without incurring the non-granting of a G

rating (general audience) certification by the Motion Picture Association of America in the USA. These

events are the basis for the main objective of this paper which is to unravel what taboo humorous content

has been maintained in some of DreamWorks films after Shrek, its successful pioneer. The reasoning

behind the selection of the films studied herein will be provided as well as several examples which stem

from the thematic areas proposed in this conference. Shrek’s successful formula has led to the creation of

literature about fairytales and cinema through rewritings and film adaptations; the dilemma of whether

animated feature films and their content might be aimed at children and young adults and/or adults; and

the study of how this saga has been dubbed despite the linguistic and cultural translation challenges posed

to the dubbing agents among several other topics. These matters will also be dealt with in this paper with

regard to taboo humour.

Key words: DreamWorks animation, humour, taboo, children and young adult audience, animated feature

films //

Papers 3 Day 1: 15.30-17.00

Session G

Monti, Andrew. Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.

Title: The Artillery of Dissent: the political content of stand-up comedy 1990-2010

According to Averroes, who famously reformulated Aristotelian dramatic theory, comedy is the art of

blame. In our age, the art of blame finds its most successful expression in stand-up comedy. Yet, despite

being a “huge cultural phenomenon” (Lockyer, 2011), stand-up comedy has so far received little academic

attention, and the available literature consists of analyses that are mostly anecdotal in nature, focused on


16

single performers, or offering comparisons based on arbitrary preferences. To date, there is no systematic

scholarship on the aggregate political content of stand-up comedy that examines a large corpus of material

in a wide timeframe. The dearth of statistical research in this area is surprising. After all, according to

industry polls “25% of Millennials say comedy helps them shape their political beliefs, 53% say comedy

makes them think and gives them perspective” (Cook, 2012) and according to reports, stand-up comedy is

currently experiencing a “second boom” (Fox, 2015). This paper presents the preliminary findings of a

systematic content analysis of the aggregate political content of stand-up comedy produced in the US in the

post-Cold War era, 1990-2010. The corpus of material consists of the political content extracted from the

albums of the 50 most successful (by market standards) stand-up comedians in the chosen timeframe. The

data, plotted along the left-right spectrum, indicate a fundamental congruity between the political content

of mainstream stand-up comedy and perspectives belonging to the anarchist tradition of political critique.

The congruity is unaccounted for in the scholarly literature and, as such, offers an opportunity to test

competing theories of comedy. //

Margala, Miriam. University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA.

Title: What a Riot! Deviant Humour and Humorous Deviance in Hrabal.

I will present Hrabal’s highly engaging deviant humour and humorous deviance as indelible characteristics

of his idiosyncratic style, known as Hrabalesque, which he used so efficiently to subvert the cultural

‘normality’ as harshly dictated by the communist Czechoslovakia especially during the 1970s and 80s.

Hrabal uses humour, the absurd and the comical of the vernacular used by everyday/common Czech

people who ”palaver” about their everyday lives incessantly while ignoring everything political. Through

comical, even absurd palavering, Hrabal’s conspicuous silence on political issues becomes significant. By

blatantly ignoring what only few dared to ignore (i.e. socialistic realism where the ethical and expressive

goal was to praise the imposed status quo), he points to the oppressive system and its absurdities. More

specifically, the actual speech of his palaverers becomes a commentary on the system and its absurdities. I

will discuss how through and in their palavering, the ordinary people are in control of their lives and make it

what they wish it to be in circumstances where every aspect of anybody’s life is prescribed and dictated by

those in power. The expression of the characters and their language use is potently deviant; the characters

cleverly negate the oppressive directives of the regime free to punish those expressing their dissent. In

Hrabal’s own words:

[Palavering] is a certain type of poetic activity, which deviates from hitherto current activities, that it will

rather attempt the prohibited, the uncertain and the incomprehensible and what cannot be got at by rules

and whose meaning becomes clear only afterwards. …

For Hrabal’s characters, palavering is the way to be themselves, to rebel against the official power, to get

rid of and get even with the dictates of the system. It is concrete, material, and significant in their lives. This

deviant humour becomes their manifest and strongest political expression. More generally, Hrabal’s use of

humour to challenge political correctness, cultural values, societal conventions, religion, prejudice etc.

transcends time, countries and cultures. (Examples from English translations of Hrabal’s work will be used

to demonstrate all the germane points.) //


17

Radchenko , Daria. Institute for Social Sciences at Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Moscow, Russia.

Title: To name without a name: humor and taboos in rallies’ slogans about Putin.

This contribution is dedicated to the study of the system of humor and taboos in Putin’s nicknames. The

analysis proposed in this study relies on the database «Voices of protest», which was compiled by the

research group Monitoring of Contemporary Folklore at the Russian Academy of National Economy and

Public Administration. This group consists of anthropologists, who systematically monitor and analyze the

emergence and development of political discourse (pro- as well as anti-Putin) in protest slogans during

rallies. Active since the first protests in 2011, it has collected a rich database of material, such as interviews

and over 5 000 slogans. Since the begining of the large anti-Putin protest in the winter 2011-2012, one of

the first trends of protersters was to construct a new attitude toward the state power and Putin. During the

first big rally (under the motto “for the fair election in the Parlament”) at the end of 2011 the name Putin in

protesters’ slogans was used directly and neutrally (Putin, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich). But then,

when the authorities ignored the demands of protesters, in the next rally the situation completely changed.

Protesters started to use humoristic nicknames of Prime Minister (Botox) and comic diminutive forms of his

names (Vovochka, Vova), showing their disrespect to the power. The humor applied to the names of

officials represents «weapon of the weak» in James Scott’s terms. The main type of slogan’s structure was a

text with an addressing to the power in humorous way. Two years later, in 2014, the wave of protests

started again but the political situation was different. People started to be afraid of what they wrote or

said in public. So, instead of using Putin’s name directly, protesters started tabooing it, but in a very specific

way to be understood only by the group of “ours”. That leads to the X-phemisms (Allan & Burridge's theory)

that appeared as a result of the substitution process, for example, the old man Kabaev [according to

rumors, Putin’s mistress is a girl named Alina Kabaeva]). Our paper will focus on the detailed analysys of

this phenomena and it’s social and linguistic context. //

Session H

Parra, Guillermo. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Barcelona, Spain.

Title: Drugs and taboo in the translation of audiovisual dialogue

In our current societies, few topics are considered as taboo as drugs and the environment that surrounds

them. Apart from the socioeconomic aspects of drug abuse and addiction, the consumption of many

substances, either legal (e.g., alcohol) or illegal (e.g., cocaine), has a direct effect on speakers’ behaviour

and verbal production. The resulting disordered speech is especially interesting from a linguistic and

translational perspective, as the lack of inhibition characteristic of drugged subjects leads them to overtly

flout the conventions of social conversation. Such transgressions may be in terms of content or tenor, and

tend to vary in degree. The present paper focuses on the fictional representation of this particular way of

speaking, which we have termed disorderly speech (Parra, 2014, in press), in original English-language

movies and their translations into Spanish. Excerpts from the feature films Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

(Cassavetti, Nabulsi, Nemeth, & Gilliam, 1998), The Wolf of Wall Street (Aziz et al., 2013), and Trainspotting

(Macdonald & Boyle, 1996), among others, are analysed and compared to their Spanish dubbed and

subtitled counterparts.

Keywords: drugs, disorderly speech, dubbing, subtitling, taboo //


18

Bondarenko, Kateryna. Kirovohrad Volodymyr Vynnychenko State Pedagogical University. Ukraine.

Title: Ukrainian and English Slang: Tackling Taboo.

This research is devoted to English and Ukrainian slang as one of the definiens of humour culture (Mattiello

2008). Slang is a language pulsating nerve, unlike the standard it’s not restricted by PC rules and is free to

nominate realia-taboo. Its mechanisms correlate rather with primeval instincts ruled by “childishly simple-

minded censors” (Freud 2002) than with civilization cultural layering. The primeval worldview preconditions

a special value system (“forbidden wishes”) with human survival and successful reproduction being the

most valuable. The latter is perceived unconsciously but remains the core principle of the studied

phenomena. The methodology is based on semantic ideographic classification of the lexicon serving as a

basis for cognitive and linguistic speculations. Among the domains that attract more than 90% of human

being slang nominations the most productive are the following.

№ Person nominations by differential characteristics: property, condition, relations, contacts, activity, function

Ukr (%) Eng.(%)

1 by race, nationality, as related to a territory, place of residence, location

9.1% 7.55%

2 by intellectual, intellectual-emotional, intellectual-emotional-physical state, property, quality

29.76% 34.73%

3 by social property, social status, activity, functions; by personal and social relations, contacts

21.42% 22.48%

4 by profession, occupation, kind of activity, efforts and relations determined by the activity

12.61% 11.16 %

5 by physical, physiological, mental condition, peculiarity; by gender, by gender and age

27.11% 24.08%

Total 100% 100%

The measurements involved mapping the substandard lexicon onto lexical-semantic groups and

interpreting the peculiarities in English and Ukrainian. The overall finding was that both English and

Ukrainian slang focus on broadly similar things. The primitive values underlie slang as an integral part of

humor culture and the menace to the reproductive, social, ego-instincts is seen as inappropriate, and –

consequently – requires extra lexicalization. The data compared involved domains that are characterized as

sexist, racist, welcoming of the crassest stereotyping. //

Espinoza, María José. Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.

Title: Dropping the ‘f’ bomb on a press conference: interpreting humour, political intentions and sexual innuendos.

The presentation revolves around a consecutive interpreting exercise of a real Berlinale Press Conference,

in which a group of students encountered the unusual situation of having to translate sex-related humour,

swearwords and aggressive irony. Students had the opportunity to encounter the three types of functions

humour can fulfill according to some well-established theories: relief, incongruity and superiority. The

speakers and journalists of this press conference, amidst a more than apparent hostile mood, present an

aggressive tone with in crescendo use of expletive language (from ‘freaking’ to ‘f-bombing’), derisive

comments on homosexuality and ironic retorts on the pro-National Rifle Association approach of a film. The

outline of the practice will be described, from the technical aspects such as the use of glossaries and prior

information, to the final outcome, the translational choices made by the students. Interestingly enough,

two patterns repeated themselves: shyness about using swearwords in the controlled environment of the


19

classroom (and in front of their teacher) and a political correct approach that downgraded both the form

and content of what was being told by the speakers. This mock press conference provides us with a fitting

example about the fact that heed must be paid to incorporate humour into our interpreting practices on a

two-fold basis: as a communicative means and as a purpose. Most importantly, students need to be

reassured about the role of interpreters, faithful facilitators of the communicative exchange that takes

place wherever our presence is needed as language and cultural mediators.

Keywords: press conference, swearwords, NRA, sexuality, social institutions and cultural values,

consecutive interpreting, interpreting studies, humour, irony, aggressiveness, political correctness. //

Session I

Lipson, David. Paris Sud University, France.

Title: Pushing buttons and boundaries: Michael Moore

“One of the main functions of satire is to confront the uncomfortable issues,” -- Michael Moore

Michael Moore, self-proclaimed troublemaker and native of Flint, Michigan, currently finds himself the

figurehead of a nationwide political movement decrying that city’s toxic water scandal. In this, he has come

full circle from his break-out documentary hit Roger & Me of 1989, which employed caustic dark humor to

denounce the economic devastation wreaked on that community when General Motors relocated its

operations. His later films and his two TV series also tackle controversial issues in American society, yet

unlike traditional documentarians, Moore uses humor in a take-no-prisoners approach where no subject is

taboo. In one episode of The Awful Truth he addresses the issue of school massacres via a fake

advertisement for a "Teen Sniper School." In another, he pokes fun at death and dying by staging the

funeral of a man in desperate need of a new pancreas whose claim for a transplant was rejected by his

HMO. He further developed these sketches into the feature-length documentaries Bowling for Columbine

and Sicko. In "The Sodomobile" episode Moore takes a group of "gay freedom riders" on a tour of all the

states in the US that still have anti-sodomy laws on the books in 1999. Moore’s use of taboo humor and

satire continue a legacy that harks back to Twain and Swift who employed agitprop to stir up the

population. Moore deliberately chooses subjects that other media avoid to open up a conversation about

them. This talk will demonstrate that Moore, through taboo humor, polemical subjects and shocking

images, seeks to provoke the spectator, to elicit a political reaction, a revolution inside the movie theater

that will carry over into a revolution outside the movie theater. //

Terry, Adeline. University of Lyon 3. France.

Title: Death and disease dysphemisms and humour: the case of House, M.D.

The existence of social taboos is unsurprisingly reflected in language, hence the numerous taboo words or

expressions in the English language. This entails the use of euphemisms to mention taboo topics, so as to

preserve one’s face and that of the co-speaker(s). This is particularly true when it comes to death and

disease, as speakers usually feel uncomfortable when dealing with these two topics. However, some

speakers display a surprisingly non-normative behavior when it comes to tackling these subjects. This is the

case of Gregory House, a fictional character who is the protagonist of the American television medical

drama and black comedy House, M.D. aired on Fox from 2004 to 2012. The diagnostician, portrayed by

English actor Hugh Laurie, unexpectedly tends to use dysphemisms rather than euphemisms; contrary to


20

euphemisms, dysphemisms are offensive expressions that replace euphemisms in discourse for that very

reason [Allan and Burridge 1991: 26]. However, the use of dysphemisms in black comedy TV series most of

the time has to be analyzed on two different levels: that of the characters on the one hand, and that of the

viewers on the other hand. Gregory House very often resorts to dysphemisms to speak to his patients;

these characters perceive dysphemisms as such and get offended, but the viewers tend to laugh as they are

not targeted. On the other hand, when House uses dysphemisms to talk to other characters such as his

team or to his colleagues, these tend to be less offended because they know him, or to fake being offended

– which is a humorous device as well. House’s constant use of dark humor and sarcasm, along with his

constant breaking of social taboos and political correctness codes, makes this TV show a linguistic

goldmine; this presentation will focus on the various dysphemisms created through figurative linguistic

devices and their humorous effects; what is the most productive means to create these dysphemisms? Why

do we laugh? //

Ferraz Ribeiro, Joana & Owen Moreira, Gillian. University of Aveiro. Portugal.

Title: Dumb blonde, sex bomb, emotional, promiscuous, manipulative: humour and the pushing and

breaking of taboos.

Humour, like other forms of text, represents and reproduces ideas and, therefore, a field of study where

boundaries are pushed and taboos are broken. By approaching stereotyping and humour as a way around

direct conflict it is possible to learn more about the role of humour in this cultural phenomenon of

tabooing. Of all the stereotypical oppressed groups that have been the butt of humour, women were the

last group to make their move towards equality and, some argue that they haven't actually done it yet.

That's the reason why speaking seriously about taboo subjects, like certain stereotypes on women,

continues to cause discomfort. On the other hand, when the same stereotype is expressed through

humour, people (women included) tend to react in a less stressful and more positive way. As such, humour

has an important social purpose, mainly when it comes to forbidden subjects or taboos. //

Papers 4 Day 1: 17.00-18.30

Session J

Benom, Carey. Kyushu University. Fukuoka, Japan.

Title: The Use of Taboo Terms in Standup Comedy: A Corpus Analysis

Within the context of the study of “the language of humor”, this study asks two questions: 1) How does the

use of taboo terms in standup comedy differ from that in non-humorous language? 2) How are the

individual styles of comedians manifested with respect to the use of taboo terms? I began by employing the

Sketch Engine website (Kilgarriff et al 2014) to create the Corpus of Standup Comedy (CSC), a small

(125,000 word) corpus of 16 stand-up performances by five comedians (George Carlin, Eddie Murphy,

Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, and Louis CK), representing 15 hours of data. My motivation for making use

of standup comedy was twofold: first, in order to avoid the problem of defining exactly which portions of a

corpus are humorous, I wanted to create a corpus of purely humorous language. Second, unlike canned

jokes which lack a larger context, I wanted the data to belong to an interconnected discourse. I selected the

most frequent taboo terms, as given in Jay (2009), and investigated their frequencies and collocations (both

with other lexemes and with various syntactic patterns), comparing their use in the CSC with that in two

other (non-humorous) corpora, as well as contrasting the use of the terms by individual comedians.

Preliminary results suggest that, in standup comedy, taboo words are frequently employed in order to


21

achieve solidarity with the audience, whereas results from the other corpora suggest that the words are

most frequently used to refer to taboo topics. In addition, contrasting the frequency and usage types of

taboo words by the different comedians makes their distinct styles clearly evident. //

Costal Criado, Tomás. Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain.

Title: Dwarf shortage: Jimmy Carr and the nature of offence.

Shifting attitudes towards taboo language in British society have led to profound changes in broadcasting

regulations over the last few decades (Ofcom, 2015a and 2015b). Similarly, the advent, popularisation, and

eventual crowning of stand-up comedy stars, who nowadays attract live audiences in their thousands, has

paved the way to the breaking of deeply ingrained cultural taboos, ranging from sexual perversion to sexist

and racial slurs, previously regarded as well without the boundaries of acceptability or political correctness,

and therefore subject of chastisement, suppression and condemnation. One instance of this step by step

transformation of viewer expectations and the controversy generated by comedians on the mass media

and various types of organised public events would be Jimmy Carr’s ascent from the dimly lit local pubs to

the packed national and international arenas. Carr’s transgressive approach to dark comedy and morbid

humour has repeatedly placed him in the spotlight of social outrage, from which he has rarely emerged

unscathed but undoubtedly reinforced in terms of his persona. This study intends to reflect upon the British

comedian’s views on the nature of offence and buffoonery through his own publications (Carr & Greeves,

2006 and 2007), analyse the gradual reformulation of his stage performances during the period 2003-2014,

and advance a number of hypotheses concerning the nature of the relationship that is defined between the

comedian and his audience, the comedian and the establishment, as well as the comedian and

broadcasting regulators. //

Vandaele, Jeroen. University of Oslo. Norway.

Title: How a Kid Ought (Not) Joke and Speak. Manolito Gafotas in Scandinavia

Originally marketed for children, Elvira Lindo’s Manolito Gafotas series has established itself in Spain as a

classic work of comic fiction that transcends age barriers. Soon, the comically risqué and colloquial

narratives were translated into French for Gallimard’s Jeunesse collection (10+), and sold well. Translations

into many languages followed, and some were quite successful (e.g., Japanese, Farsi). Yet other expectable

translations did not follow (e.g., Swedish), or not soon (e.g., English), and quite some were not well-

received (e.g., English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Italian). Failure cannot be reduced to

differences in national styles of humor, however. Rather, various translation agents have silenced moral

and colloquial aspects of Manolito’s voice—omitting what might make it despicable for some but likeable

for others. In each situation, a different constellation of specific factors and agents contributed to the

silencing of Manolito’s street-wise humor. After offering a short overview of the international translation

and reception, this paper will focus on the Norwegian and Danish translations, presenting them as opposite

numbers: while the Norwegian translation tends to censor taboo language and ideas, the Danish translation

even reinforces the taboo-based aspect of comedy. Does this suggest that Scandinavia is culturally very

multiple when it comes to values and taboos, or might another explanation be given for this remarkable

difference in the translation of Lindo’s taboo-laden stories? The paper is based on close reading and

background information drawn from a seminar and talk with Elvira Lindo. //


22

Session K

Pousa, Laura & Crisóstomo, Raquel. Universidad Complutense de Madrid & Open University of Catalonia

Title: Humour, taboo and television: how the Spanish comedy Ciudad K defies conventions

Ciudad K is a comedy of one season that shows how lives the citizens of an idealistic village with a high

intelligence quotient in the contemporary Spain. This show broadcasted in 2010 by the second channel of

the Spanish public television is contextualised in one of the last trends in the field of audiovisual humour

based in taboo. A well-known example of this is the group of international comedies like The Office, Little

Britain or Curb your enthusiasm that started a new age in the relationship between the viewer and the

representation of his own world, finding out a new concept of humour in Occident. The goal of this

presentation is to clarify the uniqueness of Ciudad K in the Spanish context of the last audiovisual tv

production because of the use of the parody as a narrative mechanism that allows the inversion of the

classical genre representations. To show this we will focus on the treatment of religion, arts, education,

social relationships and the intelectual landscape besides the analysis of some of the highlighted sketches.

These fragments have been chosen in order to emphasize how Ciudad K bases on local referents and

Spanish social topics to critize them by presenting a new and discerning perspective of the conventions of

its own audiovisual format." //

Moir, James. Abertay University, Dundee, Scotland.

Title: Humour Me: Musing over a Televised Misunderstanding

The Celebrity Big Bother Brother 2015-16 show on Channel 5 in the UK witnessed one of the most bizarre

events to have occurred in the history of the television programme. Celebrity contestant Angie Bowie had

been told of the death of her former husband, pop star and cultural icon David Bowie, off-camera. She later

confided to another contestant, Tiffany Pollard, that “David’s dead”. This statement led to what was seen

by many as a comedy of errors as Pollard then proceeded to hysterically inform other contestants that

another housemate, whom she had assumed was David Gest, had died. The resulting reaction of the other

housemates, the public and the press sheds some light on the contested nature of humour concerning

death when set within the context of a televised show in which ‘personality’ and authenticity are

considered as one of the main criteria by which the participating celebrities are judged. Moreover, there

was also a reaction concerning the motivation of the television programme producers in screening what

had happened. This paper explores reactions to this event as a matter of sociological interest through an

examination of what was said by contestant on the show, public reactions in online posts, and newspaper

reporting. The ways in which contestants’ reactions and presumed machinations feature in this discourse

reveals much of the ambiguities of humour within the context of a ‘reality television’ as well as specific

interactional features that are used to judge the comedic or otherwise nature of the event. These

observations are discussed with reference the incongruity theory of humour in which surprise or sudden

shock feature as the main source of the humorous episode." //

Noonan, Will. Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France.

Title: L’espéranto et les cyclotouristes”, or the problem of interpreting humour in context.

This paper will explore some of the problems of interpreting humour across the boundaries of time, place

and language, by means of a (superficially somewhat unpromising) case study drawn from early twentieth-


23

century French cycling publications. The examples discussed form part of the 2014-16 digital humanities

research project “Jeux cyclistes dans la littératire, la presse et la publicité, 1890-1940” funded by the

Regional Council of Burgundy, preliminary findings of which were reported at TaCo2014 in Durham. The

paper will also offer an overview of results for the French-language corpus and of possible methodological

applications for the project as a whole. From October 1911 to April 1912, French magazine Le Cyclotouriste

printed a series of increasingly polemical letters in response to a light-hearted opinion piece arguing that

the international language Esperanto was of little practical use to touring cyclists abroad. While these

letters reflect, in part, a broader debate amongst proponents of different versions of Esperanto, their

increasingly vicious tone over eight issues of a publication dedicated to sports and leisure and more often

characterised by a cheerful or playful tone, is puzzling to today’s reader. Editorial comments highlighting

the tangential relevance of the argument to the activity of bicycle touring, and its apparent contradiction of

Esperanto’s aim to promote peace and universal understanding, provide hints as to a possible humorous

intent, although the overall effect, veering between whimsical absurdity and pointed satire, is difficult to

untangle. Trying to interpret these exchanges raises, in turn, questions about the role of context and

historical distance in distinguishing between the serious and the comic, and about the role of the bicycle as

a signifier of modernity and the machine age. Partly due to its strong and varied comic potential –

frequently exploited by publications like Le Cyclotouriste and by the media at large – the bicycle can, in this

sense, be understood as a repository for the same forms of anxiety associated with other contemporary

developments ranging from Esperanto to motor vehicles to broader social change. While claiming to

understand the specific motivation behind humour necessarily involves an act of interpretation, the study

of humorous objects – like bicycles – can also provide keys to exploring their broader cultural context." //

Wednesday, 21st September

24

Papers 5 9.00-10.15 Day 2:

Session M

Darriba Zaragoza, Marc. Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Barcelona, Spain.

Title: Like if I was Romanian!”. Parodying/Producing Racism in Public TV: the case of Xavier García Albiol in

Polònia (TV3)

Polònia is a political satire show broadcast on the Catalan public television channel TV3. On airsince 2006;

the show, which features popular Spanish and Catalan politicians impersonated by actors, has maintained

remarkable ratings ever since. This paper explores the way that Polònia addresses racism through parody,

taking as a case study its depiction of Xavier García Albiol, a politician who has been repeatedly accused of

xenophobia and racism. While mayor of Badalona, García Albiol’s harsh criticism of the local Romani

community caught the attention of the media on several occasions and once brought him to court. In this

study I use interviews with screenwriters, directors, producers, makeup artists, actors and mixers making

Polònia to explore how they chose to cover the García Albiol racism story. The aim of the interviews is to

establish what if any criteria shaped the choices they made. Key questions include: Is it allowed to make fun

of everything? Is the fun worth showing racist attitudes on public television? Is there a safe way to depict

racism from a parodic perspective? And, if so, what are the steps to follow and which lines should never be

crossed? As well as building up a picture of the creative process in the specific case of parodying García

Albiol’s, the qualitative data from the interviews also reveals the producers’ perspective on the wider issue

of infotainment, what its role is and how it fits into public service broadcasting.

Keywords: Polònia, Political satire, Infotainment, Public TV, Media Production, Racism, Xenophobia" //

Sánchez Ruiz, Raquel &López Cirugeda, Isabel. University of Castilla-La Mancha. Spain.

Title: Ethnic Taboo in Black‐ish TV show

People constantly censor the language they use so as to avoid discomfort, harm or injury in a specific

community, culture or context; therefore, political correctness and linguistic prescription taboo behaviour

(Allan and Burridge 1991: 1-2). However, humans sometimes break the taboo in informal and interpersonal

relationships, which constitutes joking relationships (Burgen 1996: 30-31). Kienpointner (1997: 257)

describes this verbal behaviour as cooperative rudeness, Leech’s Banter Principle (1983: 144-145), which

occurs when the speaker says something that is clearly not true and obviously rude but shows solidarity

towards the recipient in a friendly or informal context. Within African-Americans’ urban culture, playing the

dozens (Crespo-Fernández 2007: 221), sounding, snapping, signifying and ritual put-downs (Montgomery

1995) or friendly banter (Allan and Burridge 1991) are usually common to create tension and laughter in an

amusing atmosphere. Under these premises, it is the aim of this paper to explore the subtle boundaries

between the need for respect for black racial backgrounds and the breaking of existing taboos for shock

value or inside friendly banter in the comedy series Black-ish. To this end, we will rely on Taboada and

Grieve’s appraisal method (2004: 159-161), at the same time, based on Martin’s Appraisal (2000) and

Martin and White’s Appraisal Theory (2005). The choice of this particular TV show is not casual since, while

Black-ish has been addressed from a social perspective dealing with black identity and popular culture

(Childs 2015), there is a dearth of information regarding ethnic taboo in this series. The results will show

how taboo is accepted in humour and comedy in today’s multicultural society and how ‘offense’ is

perceived through this genre.

Keywords: ethnic taboo, Black-ish, humour, comedy, friendly banter //


25

Descamps, Yann. Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 - France.

Title: Telling It Like It Is: Black Comedy and the Representation of Race Relations in the United States,

1960s-2010s

This paper aims at approaching the work of the main African-American standup comedians from the last 50

years from a political perspective. Indeed, humor has been an empowering tool for African-Americans in

many respects. Through the use of a culturally-charged language known as Spoken Soul or Ebonics, the

celebration of elements of African-American popular culture such as hip-hop or black athletes, and a self-

criticizing yet positive redefinition of black masculinity, African-American comedians have had a

multidimensional empowering impact within the African-American community that needs to be

highlighted. Moreover, their direct references to slavery, racism and discriminatory policies have brought

inter- and intra-racial tensions to light. Last, their own status within African-American culture is to be

questioned, since they take on several parts – from jokesters to political messengers. Not only are

comedians performing jokes, but they are performing blackness, and their representation of it is signifying,

especially when put into perspective and in relation with their time. Thus, these latent responsibilities lead

them to face their own challenges, as they are in charge of “flipping the script”, challenging stereotypes,

and remaining true to their roots while turning into mainstream cultural phenomenon. This paper focuses

on live standup performances by comedians Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Paul Mooney, Eddie

Murphy, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Kevin Hart, with a special focus on TV shows by Pryor, Rock and

Chappelle, in which they tackled race relations thoroughly in relation to the news of their time. //

Session N

Ávila-Cabrera, José Javier /Rodríguez Arancón, Pilar / Costal Criado, Tomás. Universidad Nacional de

Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain.

Title: OffTaGe. Offensive and taboo language in comedy video clips dubbed and subtitled by students

The usage of offensive and taboo terms is usually considered a controversial matter when such terms are to

be dealt with in Audiovisual Translation (AVT). According to Díaz Cintas (2001), taboo language has a bigger

impact on the audience when it appears in its written form. Oral exchanges, nonetheless, exhibiting

offensive and taboo expressions can also have their impact on the audience. But what happens when such

offensive and taboo expressions are present in comedy films? Can some words sound milder when they

appear in a humorous scene that makes everyone laugh? This study, carried out during the second term of

the 2015-2016 academic year, gives an account of the methodology employed primarily in a previous study

by Ávila-Cabrera and Rodríguez-Arancón (2015). In it, a small number of distance university students (from

the UNED) in Spain, enrolled in a General Translation course of the third year of their English Studies

Degree, are asked to dub and subtitle a series of video clips interlingually, that is, from English to Spanish

and vice versa. This project provides the students with the necessary audiovisual tools to both dub and

subtitle video clips including comic scenes with offensive and taboo exchanges. By making use of a

taxonomy of offensive and taboo terms (Ávila-Cabrera, 2015a; 2015b; 2015c; 2016), the researchers will

analyse the quantitative data (included in the video clips) and the qualitative data (in the form of

questionnaires) in order to demonstrate whether the dubbed and subtitled versions maintain the strength

of the offensive/taboo terms of the originals by preserving humour or whether the latter prevails in favour

of neutralising/omitting the effect of such offensive/taboo terms. Whatever the case, all the linguistic


26

combinations employed are to be scrutinised in an attempt to provide further insight into the treatment of

this type of language, which has not been very thoroughly researched in AVT. //

Bucaria, Chiara. University of Bologna, Italy.

Title: Manipulating taboo humour in translated television series.

Although a considerable amount of research has been carried out in the field of global media studies on the

ways in which audiovisual products travel to different countries, little attention continues to be paid to the

cultural and linguistic adaptation that such cross-cultural transfer inevitably requires and to the

modifications to which these products become subject in the process. Particularly when it comes to

humour based on controversial, “adult” language and themes, the original products are likely to undergo

significant manipulation in translation, which sometimes produces considerably different adapted

products. In some cases, one could even talk about a sort of modification of the genetic code of the original

shows, one by which the final translated product appears to be sometimes substantially different from its

English-language version. As previous research has shown (e.g. Chiaro 2007, Bianchi 2008, Bucaria 2008,

Bucaria 2009,), manipulation of the original content often occurs when audiovisual materials are

transposed for Italian viewers, mainly through dubbing, which is traditionally the most widely used form of

audiovisual translation (AVT) in Italy. This paper focuses on the adaptation into Italian of a number of

English-language television series containing humour based on controversial language and potentially

disturbing themes, such as references to death, disability, sexuality/homosexuality, and drugs. By analyzing

both officially provided dubbed/subtitled and, when available, fansubbed versions of such series, this

research sets out to explore the differences in the ways in which controversial humour is adapted through

these three different modes of AVT for potentially very different viewers. More specifically, the paper will

offer examples from TV series in which taboo humour has been sanitized in the dubbed version and will

compare it to their subtitled and fansubbed counterparts that have been made available, respectively, on

DVD and the websites of the two main Italian fansubbing communities, ITASA and Subsfactory. //

Giordano, Valeria & Stagnaro, V. University of Rome Tor Vergata. Italy.

Title: A game of Taboo: black humour and manipulation in the Italian version of Game of Thrones

The HBO series Game of Thrones is one of the most popular dramas on television. Based on the book saga

by George R.R. Martin, it is famous for its gloomy and disturbing contents exploring taboos such as rape,

incest, prostitution, oral sex, orgies, defenestrating a kid, a de-humanising nude walk of shame, slavery,

genital mutilation, crushing a man’s head with bare hands, cannibalism etc. In this sense Game of Thrones

has been tracing a boundary of social acceptability of such morbid topics, since television now redefines

what is socially acceptable. More seditious the content, more the people will watch the show. It is

interesting that taboo breaking in Game of Thrones usually happens through humour. Morbid humour and

satire make light of subjects usually considered taboo, while laughter arises from cynicism. Game of

Thrones offers us a rich collection of brutality going alongside with the ridiculing version of them. Most of

the breaking-taboo scenes are intentionally hilarious and thus of great importance along with the issues

they pose during the audiovisual translation: manipulation seems to occur more in the intentionally

hilarious scenes than in those that are purely horrifying and disturbing. The research hypothesis is that this

happens since the dialogues of those scenes often contain swearwords and vulgar expressions, generally

toned down in the Italian dubbing. It is noteworthy that forbidden words, with their powers to shock and

scandalise, are considered most dangerous than the taboo explicitly displayed. The paper investigates the


27

manipulation of swearwords in the translation for dubbing of a corpus taken from Game of Thrones and

discusses translating issues exploring the shifting boundaries of the acceptability of the taboo, especially

referred to black humour moments as compared to the purely tragic elements that cause a debate

between real and perceived offense in the public. //

Session O

Aspray, Benjamin K. Northwestern University. Chicago, USA.

Title: Gross-out Flooding Out: Gender, Spectacle, and Scatological Comedy

Taking as a given the contemporary prevalence of scatological humor across mass and vernacular culture,

this paper examines an especially disreputable trope of film and television comedy: the explosive diarrhea

gag. The paper seeks to move beyond valid but limited explanations of scatology’s cultural significance

offered by Freud and Bakhtin, to analyze these gags within the framework of Erving Goffman’s concept of

“flooding out.” Just as Goffman’s dramaturgical sociology accounts for a “flood” of involuntary affect –

laughter, tears, rage – jeopardizing a social actor’s composure in an ongoing interaction, diarrhea gags

stage a more literal failure of containment. In the latter case, the social consequences are acutely

gendered. The gag’s occurrence in such mass market films as Dumb and Dumber (1994), American Pie

(1999), and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), and even the indie chamber dramedy Henry Fool

(1997), imagine extreme defecation as a threat to heterosexual coupling. It is envisioned as especially

incongruous with feminized bodies: the cross-dressing hero of White Chicks (2004), and South Park’s

recently transitioned transgender character Mrs. Garrison (2005), are ‘outed’ as deformed or incomplete

women by their noisy gastrointestinal distress. The presence of witnesses is an integral factor of the

explosive diarrhea gag. Rather than seeing, however, they – and we – hear. Sound, then, serves as the

privileged site of spectacularized biological ‘truth,’ upending the gendered performances upon which

tenuous social arrangements are based. Thus, rather than transgressing social and psychosexual structures,

as posed in Freudian and Bakhtinian analysis, scatology is found to serve a decidedly normative,

recuperative function. //

Wachowski, Wojciech. Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland.

Title: Metonymy, taboos, and humour

In the classical theory, metonymy is often defined as a figure of speech which operates on names of things.

In Cognitive Linguistics, however, metonymy is normally understood as a particular type of mental mapping

and a very basic cognitive mechanism (probably more basic than metaphor) rather than a simple linguistic

matter (e.g. Goosens (1990), Panther and Radden (1999), Nerlich and Clarke (1999, 2001), Barcelona

(2003), Ruiz de Mendoza (2003), Panther and Thornburg (2004, 2007), Dirven and Pörings (2003), Haser

(2005), Kosecki (2007), or Barnden (2010)). Metonymy is also thought to serve a number of different

functions. This paper concentrates on one of them, i.e. hiding the content. Metonymic hiding results from

our perceptual limitations, i.e. our inability to simultaneously highlight more than one element of a

conceptual frame. Thus, when we are led to follow one metonymic path, we automatically mute all the

others. The article concentrates on two forms of metonymic hiding. In the first one, in order to conceal the

target, either a peripheral subdomain (in a source-in-target relationship), or a very inclusive (opaque)

domain (in a target-in-source relationship) is selected as the source. In another form of hiding (used e.g. in


28

verbal and visual humour), a ‘dummy’ target domain is temporarily activated in order to divert attention

from the other ‘real’ target domain. This aim of this paper is to show that both humour creation and

dealing with taboo subjects often rely heavily on metonymic thinking. The theoretical framework of this

paper is provided by the school of thought commonly known as Cognitive Linguistics. //

Al‐Adwan, Amer. Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar.

Title: The Censorship of TV Comedy in the Arab World

Research on Audiovisual translation in the Arab world has been expanding dramatically over the last

decade, covering few cultural and linguistic issues. However, there is no much attention devoted to the

investigation of subtitling comic audiovisual material into Arabic. Needless to say, translating comedy into

another language and culture requires extra attention and consideration of the accepted norms in the

target culture. Therefore, this paper attempts to address this much needed research and sheds light on the

difficulties that Arab subtitlers usually encounter in tackling taboo humorous instances. In this paper, I carry

out a comparative analysis between the dialogue of the first season of the American sitcom Two and a Half

Men and its Arabic subtitles. The translation of humour in this sitcom proves to be extremely challenging as

it heavily relies on sexuality and some other “distasteful topics”, including swear words and suggestive

bodily functions. Drawing on descriptive translation studies, the paper shows that Arab subtitlers tend to

resort to a set of strategies in tackling sensitive humorous instances that could be embarrassing or

offensive to Arab viewers, even if this implies distorting or eliminating the intended humour. The paper will

also suggest few alternative strategies in an attempt to retain the humourous effect of the original

utterances, or at least part of it in the Arabic subtitles. //

Papers 6 Day 2: 10.15-11.30

Session P

Garin, Manuel. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.

Title: The Last Laugh: Understanding Suicide Gags in Film Comedy

This paper studies the suicide gag as a way of eliciting laughter but also as a tool for critical thinking that

radically questions our identity and our way of life. Suicide, or more specifically the failed suicide attempt,

constitutes one of the best-established film comedy tropes: since early cinema, filmmakers as varied as

Kitano, Capra, Kaurismäki, Lloyd, Herzog, Buñuel, Keaton, Fassbinder, the Coen brothers, Godard or Tex

Avery have employed it in different ways in their films. The recurrent use of suicide gags thus represents a

constant of cinema that merits analysis from the perspective of film aesthetics and philosophy. Focusing on

a specific type of gag, based on loops and failed attempts, this contribution analyses how suicide has been

portrayed by filmmakers and comedians as a tool to question pre-established taboos, prevent social

disregard and bring people together through laughter. Since Émile Durkheim published his canonical study

of suicide, the amount of works devoted to the subject has dramatically increased: books that underline its

literary and humanistic dimensions (like Al Alvarez’ The Savage God), monographs focused on the clinical

preventive standpoint (such as Kay Redfield Jamison’s Night Falls Fast), and even statistical surveys of

suicide in movies. But the strong connections between suicide and visual comedy remain to be explored,

both as a cultural trope and a potential therapeutic tool. Focusing on a specific motif among the numerous

versions of suicide gags, the failed attempt loop, I will argue that such gags contribute to contemporary

culture by raising public awareness of the contradictions of such a complex (and yet profoundly human)

issue, instead of reinforcing fears and taboos." //


29

Arias-Badia, Blanca. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.

Title: I'm a very neat monster!: Language exploitation as a humoristic device in crime TV shows.

In communicating, speakers of a language either conform to norms or exploit such norms, to make new

meanings or express old ideas in innovative ways (Hanks 2004, 2013). Since contemporary scriptwriters

typically strive for plausibility in their texts, fictional characters should be no exception to this trend (Wolff

& Cox 1988; McKee 1997; Trottier 1998; Brumme & Espunya 2012). This paper presents results of a corpus-

driven study which has analysed language exploitation in a parallel corpus composed of three American

crime TV shows —namely Dexter (2006), The Mentalist (2008) and Castle (2009)— and their Spanish

subtitles. Specifically, the contribution argues for the crucial role of comic intent in language exploitation.

The smile-provoking nature of devices like anomalous collocates, which result in lines such as I’m a very

neat monster or My lifeless remains cannot sue the city, can be hardly disputed. In the same way, ellipsis,

semantic-type coercion, metaphor, and simile are signs of linguistic creativity whereby writers and actors

search for laughter among their audiences. Corpus evidence reveals to what extent each of these devices is

present in today’s audiovisual products and their translations. For the purposes of this paper, emphasis will

be placed on humour connected to the semantic fields of law and order, death and killing, highly

representative of the analysed procedurals. Additionally, the paper will qualitatively explore the presence

of normal (vs. exploited) linguistic items which have a similar comic intent, such as specific pragmatic

markers—consider the sentence I didn’t kill them, honest! on the lips of a serial killer. This complementary

analysis enriches the approach to humour in the corpus and is expected to shed light on the way fictional

killers and cops alike seem to gain our sympathy every night at prime time. //

Roig, Rosa. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.

Title: Translating Chavs into Catalan: The Dubbing of Little Britain by the Catalan Public Broadcaster.

In March 2011 the Catalan public broadcaster (TV3) commissioned the dubbing of the first episode of the

British sketch comedy series Little Britain (BBC, 2003-2006, Matt Lucas and David Walliams). TV3 normally

commissions full seasons, but in this case wanted to explore the suitability and translatability of the series

for Catalan audiences before committing to a greater expense. Broadly satirical and noted for politically

incorrect, prototypically British characters in stereotypically British environments, Little Britain explores

(mainly lower) social class identities, features humour of a scatological and sexual nature (among other,

aged women’s incontinence, extreme spring-winter love affairs, twisted gay stereotypes), and makes

people with low cognitive abilities the butt of jokes. Taboo and stigma underwrite its humour. Nonetheless,

after assessing the dubbing of the first episode, the Catalan public broadcaster finally committed to the

dubbing of all three seasons. In this paper, I will focus on the portrayal of the British underclass as

represented by Vicky Pollard, the iconic ur-chav; I will explore the translation, adaptation and dubbing into

Catalan of the series, focusing on the recreation of the chav identity in a Catalan context, with a particular

emphasis on social stigma and taboo humour. My approach is both descriptive (cf the challenges posed by

idiolect and cultural references in a context demanding adequate isochrony and lip-synch) and analytical of

translation, and thus re-creation, of politicized taboo-based humour*. *See Owen Johnson, Chavs: The

Demonisation of the Working Class (London: Verso, 2011)." //


30

Session Q

Sanz Moreno, Raquel. Universidad de Valencia, Spain.

Title: Audio describing sex: is there a way to do it?

Audio description (AD) is an emergent Audiovisual Translation modality which aims to provide accessible

audiovisual products to blind or visually impaired people. The actions, the characters, the places are

described in order to provide information so that the audience understands and enjoys the film. The audio

description is inserted in the original soundtrack of the film, and therefore the audience can rely on it to

understand the audiovisual product as a whole. The way the audio describer is describing what he sees on

the screen conditions, and even determine, the mental image the receptor is going to build on the film he is

watching. Therefore, the audio describer acts as a linguistic and cultural bridge between the visually

impaired audience and the film. Sex, violence, death and disease, when present in a film, must also be

described but, according to the cultural component of these items, their audio description should be

different considering not only the language in which the film is described but especially the target culture,

and the target audience’s expectations and considerations of those components. Our study focuses on a

descriptive analysis of the English and Spanish audio description of four films. Following a descriptive

methodology, we analyze the scenes in which sex and violence are important for the film. Subsequently, we

categorize the translation strategies used (Pedersen, 2005) and highlight the differences observed in the AD

in both English and Spanish that will impact on the perceptions of the different target audiences. We

observe that the decisions that the describer makes may be conditioned by the cultural consideration of

sex among the English and Spanish target audience. There are considerable differences observed in the

strategies chosen by the audio describers, which will certainly contribute to a different understanding of

the same film by different audiences. //

Barak-Brandes, Sigal & Padva, Gilad. Tel Aviv University. Israel.

Title: Winking Game? Traditional and Ironic Perspectives on Male Bodies in ''Elemento'' (An Israeli home

design) campaign.

Considering the intricate politics of male nude in mainstream advertising, the current research critically

analyzes the showing of (semi) naked Israeli men in the uncommon campaign of Elemento, a local furniture

and décor company that unexpectedly focuses on male nude (http://www.elemento‐

design.com/campaigns). Apparently, the stripped young men unset the prevalent Israeli machismo and

reflect a Western progressive, open-minded approach towards body politics, male eroticism, varied desires

and designed bodies and artifacts. Our goal was to examine the features of the ads, problematize the

manifestation of male nudity and evaluate its extraordinariness, by using a thematic analysis of the ads. It

seems that today's sophisticated readers, who are often exhausted by mass advertising, cynical and

disbelieving, require some changes in methods of address and this have met the advertisers' necessity to

innovate and provide new, exciting and provocative images in order to be interesting and relevant for their

potential customers. The 'knowing wink' is a new rhetorical strategy that draws readers' attention to the

advertisement itself as a construction. It enables characters in an ad to step aside the narratives and to join

the readers in an ironically speculative commentary on the ad. In this respect, we suggest that the

Elemento campaign might imply an ironic perspective on contemporary Israeli masculinities, especially

ironizing the 'new man' and the 'sexual man', while assuring the audience that this kind of masculinity is

only a media fashionable, a false construct with no real connection to the dominant conventional

machismo type which is so prevalent in the Israeli society. These ads seem to use the consumers past


31

knowledge about images of men in ads while using an ironic tone of voice. This use of ironic winking turns

'Elemento' to a company with a sense of humor, besides its claimed high quality of furniture design. //

Session R

Ansari, Yalman. Arizona State University / Thunderbird Executive Leadership Council. USA.

Title: A Verdant Approach to Analyzing "How Much Humor is Religiously Humorous" in an A Posteriori

Context.

It has been more than a year since the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris, and understanding the intensity and

extent of acceptability of humor in religion has once again become a topic of in-depth debate. Although

religion is not against the use of humor, yet evidently there are certain limits one may wonder whether

extending them would mean pushing the limits too far to cause gigantic ripples. Contrary to what many

thinkers believe that humor is not a powerful tool for social change, this paper examines the boundaries

dividing a perceptual gap between religion and humor. The paper also looks into the resulting dovetail

effect on both religion and humor and examines how these boundaries of acceptable humor are related to

cognitive structures and personality traits. The paper examines the fallout effects of humor in an a

posteriori context by harmonizing the difference in perceptual reality of social and religious consequences

associated with humor. Since humor is a benign intervention for a better understanding and outlook on

various perspectives, thus strengthening human relationships, it may also be used as a means for

therapeutic adjustments and sensitizing to subtle human feelings. The paper offers some models and

guidelines as a step forward to better understanding the underlying harmony between religion, humor and

the human which is not so quite often delineated upon. //

Mesa Villajos, Alejandro. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain.

Title: Faith, laugh and reason: a review of controversy. Religion stands out as a major taboo in the field of humour. Especially in the case of monotheistic religions

and, in particular, in the case of Christianity and Islam, the clash that occurs to causes beyond an affront to

the feelings, customs or any other aspect of a community x. The conflict between humorous laughter and

religion carries a profound shock that involves a clash between conviction (faith), and doubt (laughter). For,

after all, one can not forget that it is skeptical and subversive power of laughter making it a weapon with

huge potential. In fact, doing some philosophical archeology, this conflict can be traced to at least the

Genesis biblical passages that refer to the ""Sacrifice of Isaac"". In them, the Lord tested Abraham's faith by

demanding the sacrifice of his son Isaac. Isaac means, interestingly, in Hebrew ""laughter"" or ""laugh"". It

should rule out chance in these passages. It should be noted, rather, the intent. However, laughter on

religion exists (although it may incur from the perspective of the believer in blasphemy). It has existed. And

probably there will be. Therefore, to analyze this phenomenon then becomes an object of philosophical

interest.

Keywords: faith, conviction, laughter, doubt, taboo, religion, Isaac, Abraham, blasphemy, comedy. //


32

Ledru, Juliette. University of Le Havre. France.

Title: The Chinese American tangle of taboo humor and hyper-stereotyping: debunking racist and sexist

representations of women in literature and cinema (2001-2008)

At the heart of cultural representations of Chinese Americans lies the articulation of racist and ethnic

prejudice: women have been portrayed as docile China dolls, seductive dragon ladies or model minorities.

Contemporary Chinese American literature has been read as exploring the tension between

accommodation and resistance to these stereotypes, as shown in the works of Asian American studies

scholars Elaine H. Kim and Jeffrey Partridge. However, for the past fifteen years, Chinese American women

authors and movie directors have engaged in a new form of resistance to stereotypes: what is deemed

taboo in Chinese culture and in American society is fought by means of humor, political incorrectness, and

hyper-stereotypical characters. This presentation endeavors to demonstrate that this breaking of taboos

has two purposes. First, debunking stereotypes through the use of reverse stigmatization (Erwin Goffman,

1963). The saga Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl (Tracy Quan, 2001/2005/2008) portrays the life of a

prostitute who battles between her non-normative profession and her straight personal life; the novel

Hello Kitty Must Die (Angela S. Choi, 2010) opens on the aborted defloration of successful lawyer Fiona with

her sextoy, and her subsequent friendship with a serial killer. The movie Saving Face (Alice Wu, 2004)

explores the taboo of being queer and Asian for Wil, successful surgeon and closeted lesbian. The second

objective is to shift paradigms: what is marginal and what is mainstream are no longer expressed along the

axis of ethnicity, but along that of sexualities, through depictions of ethnic characters who, on the surface,

seem to be fully integrated into the American mainstream. I will show that these works offer new

definitions of Chinese American identities while redefining the parameters of marginalities." //

Papers 7 Day 2: 12.00-13.15

Session S

Pizarro Pedraza, Andrea & De Cock, Barbara. Université Catholique de Louvain. Belgium.

Title: Challenging the taboo of violent death on twitter: a linguistic analysis of the humoristic use of #jesuis"

In January 2015, the attack on the French satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris caused a lot

of reactions on social media, including the appearance of the hashtag #jesuischarlie in order to express

support and alignment with the victims. From then on, the stem #jesuis has been productive e.g.

#jesuisparis after the November 2015 Paris attacks, but has also evolved into humoristic uses. In these,

humor has an adversarial function (Veale et al. 2006): they ridicule the conveyed political or emotional

load, underlining among others the superficiality of the massive social media protest (Kuipers 2002) and/or

intentionally pushing the boundaries of the taboo of violent death. This paper will address from a linguistic-

discursive perspective the hashtag #jesuis and its variants, specifically those used for humoristic purposes,

with the aim of placing this strategy among other functions of hashtags (Zappavigna 2015). Our analysis will

be based on a database of tweets from 2015-2016 containing #jesuis. The hashtag is not only produced in

French tweets, which is another proof of the creativity of its use. We will focus particularly on the evolution

of hashtags that were initially supportive, such as #jesuischien ‘Iamdog’ (concerning the death of a police-

dog), to the ridiculing by means of the playful breaking of the taboo of death, through hashtags such as

#jesuiscafard ‘Iamcockroach’, #jesuisfourmi ‘Iamant’. The latter use a parallel syntactic structure (Davies

1984), but refer to animals that are lower in the taxonomy, in terms of emotional connection, therefore

questioning the pertinence of mourning. With this study, we wish to explore how the limits of the taboo


33

are challenged in social media, which encourage their users to rapidly express themselves on sensitive

societal topics, such as terrorism. //

Radchenko, Daria. Institute for Social Sciences at Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and

Public Administration (Moscow, Russia)

Title: Materializing “Dead Baby” Jokes: Cannibalistic Food Codes In The Folklore Of Ukrainian Crisis.

The political crisis in Ukraine in 2013, followed by active military actions in the country’s Eastern region in

2014-2015 was covered by both official media and the users of the social networks, who generated and

transmitted a huge number of texts forming a negative image of the opponents and giving offensive

comments to the news - fakes and rumors among them. Many of the latter were based both on traditional

ethnic humor, predictably with a very sensitive (and thus offensive) topicality: death and attitude to the

dead, violence against children, sexual offence and homosexuality, etc. One of the unexpected results was

ironic appropriation of the opponent’s discourse in order to show its absurdity. For example, a wide-spread

rumor about Ukrainian nationalists who are suspected in torturing and killing children resulted in a new

ironic practice in Ukraine: producing and transmitting so-called “patriotic menus”, both fake and real, in

which dishes were given cannibalistic sounding names. Normally these names suggested victory over the

enemy (e.g. “fried separatists”). In some cases, food was given a form of a baby’s body and then either

eaten in public or shown on the internet. This, however, led to strengthening of accusations: the fact that

Ukrainians allow themselves to joke on sensitive topics was perceived as a result of lack of humanistic

morality (and therefore as an evidence that people joking in this way are able to actually kill). The paper will

discuss the dynamics of this interaction between ethnic and black humor, stereotypes, propaganda and

self-irony in the context of the conflict. //

Gibert Maceda, Teresa. UNED, Spain.

Title: Taboo Humor in Margaret Atwood’s Fiction

In her essay “Laughter vs. Death” Margaret Atwood addresses the connection between pornography and

violence, a sensitive issue she also explores in some of her novels, including Bodily Harm (1981), The

Handmaid’s Tale (1985), and Oryx and Crake (2003). Atwood focuses on the controversial topic of the

harmful dissemination of violent pornography in the media, and emphasizes its relationship with mutilation

and death in real life. Acknowledging that she was left “in a state of shock” when she saw some highly

sadistic material while conducting research for writing Bodily Harm, she expresses her deep concern over

the threat of brutal behavior toward actual women (Writing with Intent 12). But rather than adopting the

humorless attitude which seems to be typical of “a number of anti-porno pieces in the more radical

women’s magazines” (Bodily Harm 207), she prefers to resort to comic strategies whenever she deals with

this serious subject matter either as an essayist or as a novelist. Atwood’s ability to make fun of both those

in favor of censorship and those in favor of total freedom of expression adds strength to her arguments.

Furthermore, it helps her to achieve the deliberate goal of forcing her readers to face this dilemma not by

blindly taking sides with one camp or the other, but by choosing a more nuanced position which will lead

them to make informed and responsible decisions about the need to set up tolerance limits. By means of a

long series of extremely poignant visual images – sometimes conveyed via graphic scenes and on other

occasions through the use of grotesque metaphors – she makes us uncomfortable enough to wish to be

involved in the debate. Her jokes are not so much intended to amuse or entertain as to provoke a well-

calculated reaction. Her witty satirical humor does not simply bring forth hilarity, but is charged with

political intent." //


34

Session T

Díaz, Javier. Universidad de Jaen. Spain.

Title: On the translation of jokes containing sexual allusions in Modern Family

The presence of sexual allusions is a defining feature of a considerable amount of jokes. As stated by

Zabalbeascoa (2005: 194), in those jokes taboo may be considered as an external factor of humour. Partly

due to the fact that sex is associated with taboo, ambiguity is very often resorted to when a sexual allusion

appears in a joke. In addition, ambiguity itself may give rise to humorous effects and it may be reflected, for

example, in the presence of wordplay. Ambiguity may also lead to misinterpretation of the verbal

component, of the visual component, or of both of them, which produces humour too. The main objective

of this paper is to analyse the resort to sexual allusions in the jokes from the first two seasons of Modern

Family as well as their translation into Spanish. Not only will the verbal component be considered, but also

the visual component as well as the interrelation between language and image. The solutions adopted by

translators will be analysed and explained from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics, more specifically,

from a relevance-theoretic standpoint. Particularly in those cases in which the sexual allusion was one of

the meanings conveyed in a pun, translators had to decide whether prevalence was to be given to meaning

or to the cognitive effects produced by a pun, including humorous effects. Following Yus (2012), it could be

said that in the former case the semantic scenario was preserved, whereas in the latter case, the pragmatic

scenario was favoured. It has also been found that in some cases the sexual allusion disappears from the

target text, probably because the translator did not consider it relevant enough. Other conditioning factors,

however, should not be disregarded, such as certain requirements from the client, the translator’s inability

to find a solution which also incorporated a sexual allusion, or his/her unawareness of the existence of a

sexual allusion in the particular context.

Moalla, Asma. Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Sfax, Tunisia.

Title: Dealing with Taboo topics in the co-construction of humor in intercultural communication.

In this paper, a semantico-pragmatic analysis to conversational humor is conducted. Eight naturally

occurring humorous conversations are analyzed with reference to the General Theory of Verbal Humor. The

paper focuses on the way Tunisian learners of English perceive and react to topics of humor generated by

speakers of British English during a 15-day linguistic stay in Tunisia. In the study, the semantic scripts used

by speakers of British English to generate humor are analyzed. The analysis reveals that the SEX/NO SEX

and OBSCENE/NON OBSCENE humor script classes are used by speakers of British English to elicit laughter.

These script classes, however, are considered taboo and are negatively evaluated by Tunisian learners of

English. The playfulness of these culture‐specific topics has not been recognized because Tunisian learners

of English do not have the scripts necessary to activate them. Additionally, humor competence, is found to

be a dynamic construct that develops with time. The more the participants are exposed to the other

culture, the more unifying script classes are generated and the more accommodating strategies are used to

adjust the construction of humor. Although, Tunisian learners of English do not seem to appreciate humor

constructed by activating the SEX/NO SEX and OBSCENE/NON OBSCENE script opposition classes, they, in

the second week of their communication with British participants, become able to add these scripts to their

general knowledge about British humor.

Key Words: Conversational humor, Semantic Scripts, General Theory of Verbal Humor, Taboo humor topics,

intercultural communication" //


35

Hien, Le Thuy. University of Naples “L’Orientale”. Utaly.

Title: The art of humor in So Do (Dumb luck) – once a banned novel of the greatest Vietnamese writer of

the twentieth century Vu Trong Phung

Dumb Luck is the most famous novel of Vu Trong Phung (1912-1939), a brilliant, prolific and controversial

satirist who has been compared to Balzac and lauded as the greatest Vietnamese writer of the twentieth

century. It charts the absurd and unexpected rise within the colonial society of a semi-illiterate vagabond

named Red-haired Xuan: from a ball boy to an undisputed expert in the field of sport, fashion and

medicine, a reformer of Buddhism and finally, a national hero. First published during 1936, this bitter satire

became the subject of intense debates over literary representations of sexuality, and banned by the North

Vietnamese authorities for the accusation of “outrage to morality” until 1986, now is considered one of the

masterpieces of Vietnamese literature and has been translated into English (Peter Zinoman, Dumb Luck,

2002), French (Janine Gillon, Le fabuleux destin de Xuan le Rouquin, 2007) and Italian by the intervention

proponent (Le Thuy Hien, Il gioco indiscreto di Xuan, 2012).

‐ Sex and sexuality: humourous scenes with sexual innuendo, women‟s virginity, adultery.

‐ Death and mourning: unmasking the hypocrisy of a grieving family for the death of the grandfather

after having plotted to kill the old guy.

‐ Religion: episodes with Buddhist monks in full competition to attract more and more devotees.

‐ Language and actions: blasphemy and dysphemism; ridiculous description of the way people

following the latest fashion.

The peculiarity of this novel is that the main target of the satire is neither the process of Westernization,

nor Westerners, but rather the Vietnamese who posed as “Europeans”. They embraced only the superficial

aspects of the Western culture, they adopted uncritically the behaviors and customs and then assumed a

superiority attitude toward their fellow countrymen who still very much attached to the tradition. The

novel's humorous tone. The intervention also serves as an invitation to reflect on the similarities and

differences between the satirical humor Vietnamese and Western, as well as the literary humor translation

between very distant languages and cultures (such as Italian and Vietnamese)." //

Papers 8 Day 2: 13.15-14.30

Session V

Martínez Sierra, Juan José. Universitat de València. Spain.

Title: Crossing the line? Paedophilia in Family Guy. A Translational Approach

Family Guy is an American adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane. The show tells us about the

daily life of the Griffins, and it is set in the imaginary city of Quahog (Rhode Island, U.S.A.). The series

displays a type of humour that, at some points, does seem to go beyond accepted limits or standards of

behaviour, while satirizing American culture. Thus, allusions to sex (including sexual intercourse between a

dog and a woman), death (impersonated by the character of Grim Reaper), drug addiction and alcoholism

(Peter Griffin is often inebriated), sickness and disabilities (Joe Swanson), religion (Jesus is a recurrent

character in the show), scatology (gags involving vomit and flatulence are common), and others of the like

are frequent. This presentation will focus on the character of John Herbert, an elderly neighbour of the

Griffin family who is portrayed as a paedophile, although almost everybody seems to remain oblivious to

this. He is specially fascinated by 15-year-old Chris Griffin, and we often witness his (unsuccessful) attempts

to be intimate with the youngster. In the episode The Courtship of Stewie’s Father, Herbert’s wish becomes


36

true in his imagination. He fantasizes with a family in which he and Chris are married and have two

children. In this presentation, different segments from the source version of the aforementioned episode,

in which samples of this paedophile fascination are shown, will be identified, and a comparison with the

Castilian Spanish dubbed version will follow. Our purpose is twofold: firstly, to provide a descriptive

account of how a highly sensitive, even offensive, topic is dealt with in adult animation and, secondly, to

reflect on how that topic is presented to the two cultures involved (American, in the case of the source

version, and Spanish, in the case of the target version), paying special attention to possible instances of

censorship in the case of the Spanish dubbed version. //

Sanina, Anna. National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Title: Visual forms of political humor in Russian new media.

Visual irony and humor are important indicators of how a country's current situation is perceived by its

people. It is especially significant when political changes are taking place, e.g., during election campaigns

and reforms. Creating social relations in this case occurs implicitly: with the help of irony and humor, the

participants in political discourse mark their social status and designate their own positions. Very often

people use irony and humor, imbedded in visual images, to express their dissatisfaction with politicians’

activities. However, not all events are a matter of irony and humor. In Russia, the examples of such

exceptions are political protests 2011-2013 and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis of 2014. These events remain

“a reason to be serious” because they are perceived as the turning points in the development of the

Russian state, as well as a private matter and personal pain. In other cases, the irony and humor serve as

instruments of critics used to note incorrect actions in the society. As an argument to these statements, I

will demonstrate the results of empirical research (2013-2015) that demonstrates narrative features of a

visual political irony and humor based on a study of Internet communities and social networks. It attends

material that was published over the last four years in the Internet, as well as interview with the creators

and distributors of the visual ironical content to understand better their intentions and interpretations of

the pictures. The covered period takes many significant events in the history of modern Russia, such as the

last year of the Presidency of Dmitry Medvedev and re-election of Vladimir Putin, the rise of the Russian

protest movement, the Crimean crises and the collapse of the Russian ruble. I conclude that the creation

and consumption of visual ironic and humor content includes elements of slacktivism and activism with the

dominance of the former as a routine practice and the latter as an exceptional." //

Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Spain.

Title: Terrorists in Madrid change guns and bombs for Punch and Judy.

This paper explores the nature of humour and taboo—as it is revealed—in the aftermath of a bizarre case

in Spain of throwing two puppeteers in gaol for a children’s street show deemed as criminal terrorist

propaganda, trial pending, with the threat of heavy prison sentences. Apparently, Spain has no greater

worries than to persecute these two performers. The Minister for the Interior personally informed the

media on how the “case” was developing. The Spanish Government recently passed a law popularly known

as “the Gagging Law”, which many feared would open the door for abuse against freedom of expression,

but very few expected it to be applied first to a couple of puppeteers hired by the Town Hall of Madrid in its

Carnival programme. The study attempts to find similarities and differences in the notion of political

correctness, and offensiveness. It also finds ties with the boundaries between children's and adult humour

as defined by what is taboo for children to be exposed to. Comedians and humorists might be seen as

pushing the limits of taboo in one direction, whereas legislators in certain political conditions prefer to pull


37

back the boundaries in the opposite direction. The case also illustrates the dangers of such essential

ingredients of humour, such as point of view, irony, and suspension of disbelief, when political advantage

can be gained by deliberate “literal” humourless interpretation.

Key words: puppet show, terrorism, gagging law, propaganda, offensiveness" //

Session W

Kuragina, Liubov. National Ivan-Franko-University of Lviv. Ukraine.

Title: With humour through the taboo area “disability”

Though the 21st century with its shift moral bounders differs with great freedom of speech and actions,

there is still no society without any taboo. Taboos build necessary limits; they guaranty good feelings of

order and immunity. Besides, taboos support social norms and laws. While some taboos continue their

living preserving people’s life (e.g. taboo on incest, violence), the others are broken through ardent

discussions or humour. The paper presents linguistic ways of handling with one of the modern taboo areas

in the German culture, namely people’s disability. The main objective of the paper is to define the role of

comedy and its borders in talking about disabled people. Along with such themes like death, sexuality,

politics or money, disability is a topic that German people would rather avoid, or when it is inevitable then

handle in a special way. The research is focused on humour as a universal way to keep on a taboo or to

break it. “Which linguistic means of comedy can be used when communicants face talking about disability

of the others?” is a fundamental question in the study. Previous researches mainly offer a descriptive

analysis of euphemisms used in communication about taboo themes. The data gathered in the German

newspapers and modern literature allow to claim humour as an alternative manner to discuss people’s

disabilities and widen the understanding of humour from a simple mean to evoke a smile or laugh to a fine

strategy for arguing hard points of human life. The examples include humour forms from the German press

and selections from humour literature and videos of German comics and performers of last five years. So

the findings support the conclusion that linguistic means of humour help to bring a taboo theme disability

to the normality and enable communication about a delicate subject." //

Perez, Emília & Klimkova, Simona. Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia.

Title: Offensive cartoons and comic strips? On the cultural determinacy of Deaf humour.

Addressing the community of the Deaf as a specific cultural group with its own linguistic, social and cultural

background, the authors of the article focus on the peculiarities of humorous cartoons and comic strips

for/about Deaf recipients. Previous research in the domestic context indicates that the core of the humour

in the analysed material stems very often from various communicational misunderstandings, ambiguities

and even condemnation emerging from an inability to hear or the fact that a communication tool other

than spoken language is being used. For a hearing recipient, however, it is often striking how forthright and

sometimes even callous an impression this humour can create. Thus the question of what is and isn’t

sensitive, acceptable, inoffensive or what should/shouldn’t remain a taboo might arise. The aim of the

proposed article is to ponder upon the acceptable in the cartoons and comic strips aimed at a Deaf

audience, researching the extent of the cultural determinacy of Deaf humour. This is observed from two

aspects – cultural affiliation to the Deaf culture as well as membership of and influence by the culture (and

humour traditions) of the hearing society. The authors will present the results of ongoing reception

research conducted with a sample audience. //


38

Schiau, Ioana. National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania,

Communication Science Department.

Title: Laughing About Old Age: A Coping Mechanism or a Sign of Self-Ageism? Exploring Self-Defeating

Humour in a Sample of Romanian Older Adults.

The following research project investigates the instances when older adults engage in humour about old

age. The current study questions whether this form of self-defeating humour (Martin, 2001) functions as a

form of coping (Thorson & Powell, 2009), or, conversely, as a form of (self-)ageism (Butler, 2009) that

breaks the norms of political correctness and gives voice to a negative (self-)stereotype of older adults

(Latrofa, 2010). While the research literature duly highlights the social and psychological benefits of

humour at large (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Ruch, Proyer, & Weber, 2010), humour can also often break

taboos, offend, be psychologically self-harming (Frewen, Brinker, Martin & Dozois, 2008) or reveal attitudes

that individuals do not want to confess (McGhee & Goldstein, 1972; Zwerling, 1955). There are few studies

investigating the connection between humour, ageing and ageism. Jokes about older adults generally

depict them as sick, senile, sexually impotent, unhappy, isolated, lonely, useless, and poor (Palmore, 1987).

Gender also seems to play a role in humour, as jokes about older adults contain more negative stereotypes

about older women, compared to men (Palmore, 1987). The current study is a qualitative one, using semi-

structured in-depth interviews on a sample of Romanian older adults. Participants are asked to reflect on

their use of humour in their interpersonal communication and are prompted to give an account of whether

they laugh or make jokes about being an older adult. Individuals explore the way they perceive such jokes

and their reasons for engaging in laughing about their own old age or about old age in general. Gender

differences are also considered, as an early study by Maltz and Borker (1982) found humour serves a

different role for men (status pursuit) and women (bonding, solidarity)." //

KEYNOTE 2

Delia Chiaro. University of Bologna. Italy.

Title: Subversive and deniable: The British and their love hate relationship with the cheap innuendo

In today’s highly sexualised societies that appear to embrace abundant talk about sex, is there still a place

for innuendo?

Sexual innuendo undoubtedly occupies a prominent position within the British comic tradition. From

Donald McGill’s cheeky seaside postcards to the allusive puns of the cinematic Carry On tradition; from

Chaucer, through to Shakespeare, Sterne and beyond, smutty banter has always been part and parcel of

British culture. However, the allusive remarks of the hosts of the BBC’s Great British Bake Off, Mel Giedroyc

and Sue Perkins who frequently refer to [cakes’] “soggy bottoms” and “cracks”, as well as to “hot buns”

have recently been cause of complaints on behalf of numerous viewers. The Daily Mail has even gone as

far as maintaining that their “smutty” innuendos made the show no longer fit for family entertainment.

Following an overview of the cheap, sexual innuendo in English literature, stage and screen, my talk sets

out to explore the relationship between joker and recipient arguing that any lewdness detected by anyone

choosing not to get a joke exists solely in the (filthy) mind of the complainant.

The Taboo Conference 2016 Book of Abstracts - UPF

Documents

Transcript of The Taboo Conference 2016 Book of Abstracts - UPF