The European Journal of Humour Research

Vol 9, No 4 (2021)

‘She is like a Yakshini’: character construction via aggressive humour in Chinese sitcom discourse

Ying Cao,Chong Han,Xiangdong Liu,Adrian Hale

Abstract

This paper looks at the importance of aggressive humour in the discursive construction of a ‘Yakshini’ character in a popular Chinese sitcom, Ipartment. The exaggerated, aggressive nature of such a stereotypical character undermines traditional cultural norms of Chinese femininity. Such characterisation of a heroine through aggressive humour in a popular sitcom reflects the fact that empowering women has become (or is becoming) more acceptable in contemporary China. 

References

Attardo, S. (2012). 'Smiling laughter and humor’, in Santangelo, P. (ed.), Laughing in Chinese, Rome: Aracne Editrice, pp. 421-436.

Bednarek, M. (2010). The Language of Fictional Television: Drama and Identity. London, New York: Continuum.

Bednarek, M. (2012). 'Constructing 'nerdiness’: Characterisation in The Big Bang Theory’. Multilingua 31 (2-3), pp. 199-229, doi:10.1515/multi-2012-0010.

Bednarek, M. (2015). ”Wicked’ women in contemporary pop culture: ‘Bad’ language and gender in Weeds, Nurse Jackie, and Saving Grace’. Text & Talk 35 (4), pp. 431-451.

Bell, N. (2009). 'Impolite responses to failed humor’, in Norrick, N. R. & Chiaro, D. (eds.), Humor in interaction, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 143-164.

Bell, N. (2014). 'Reactions to humor, non laughter’, in Attardo, S. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, pp. 629-633.

Bell, N. (2015). We Are Not Amused: Failed Humor in Interaction. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.

Bell, N. & Attardo, S. (2010). 'Failed humor: Issues in non-native speakers’ appreciation and understanding of humor’. Intercultural Pragmatics 7, pp. 423-447.

Boxer, D. & Cortes-Conde, F. (1997). 'From bonding to biting: Conversational joking and identity display’. Journal of Pragmatics 27 (3), pp. 275-294, doi:10.1016/s0378-2166(96)00031-8.

Brock, A. (2015). 'Participation frameworks and participation in televised sitcom, candid camera and stand-up comedy’, in Dynel, M. & Chovanec, J. (eds.), Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 27-47.

Bubel, C. (2006). The Linguistic Construction of Character Relations in TV Drama: Doing Friendship in 'Sex and the City’ [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Saarbrücken: Universität des Saarlanders.

Bubel, C. & Spitz, A. (2006). 'One of the last vestges of gender bias’: The characterization of women through the telling of dirty jokes in Ally Mcbeal. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 19 (1), pp. 71-104, doi:10.1515/humor.2006.004.

Chen, Y. (2008). 'From ideal women to women’s ideal: Evolution of the female image in Chinese feature films, 1949 to 2000′. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 14 (3), pp. 97-129.

Coates, J. (2007). 'Talk in a play frame: more on laughter and intimacy’. Journal of Pragmatics, 39 (1), pp. 29-49, doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2006.05.003.

Crawford, M. (2003). 'Gender and humor in social context’. Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9), pp. 1413-1430. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00183-2.

Culpeper, J. (1998). '(Im)politeness in dramatic dialogue’, in Culpeper, J., Short, M. & Verdonk, P. (eds.), Exploring the Language of Drama: From Text to Context, London: Routledge, pp. 83-99.

Culpeper, J. (2001). Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Harlow: Longman.

Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge University Press.

Dynel, M. (2008). 'No aggression, only teasing: The pragmatics of teasing and banter’. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 4 (2), pp. 241-261, doi:10.2478/v10016-008-0001-7.

Dynel, M. (2011). 'Women who swear and men who fret: The subversive construction of genders in films: A case study of Lejdis and Testosteron’, in Gonerko-Frej, A. et al. (eds.), Us and Them – Them and Us: Constructions of the Other in Cultural Stereotypes – Perceptions, Challenges, Meanings, Aachen: Shaker Verlag, pp. 431-456.

Dynel, M. (2013). 'Impoliteness as disaffiliative humour in film talk’, in Dynel, M. (ed.), Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 105-144, https://doi.org.10.1075/thr.1.07dyn.

Dynel, M. (2015). 'Impoliteness in the service of verisimilitude in film interaction’, in Dynel, M. & Chovanec, J. (eds.), Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 157-182.

Dynel, M. (2016). 'Conceptualising conversational humour as (im)politeness: The case of film talk’. Journal of Politeness Research 12 (1), pp. 117-147, doi:10.1515/pr-2015-0023.

Dynel, M. & Poppi, F. I. M. (2019). 'Risum teneatis, amici?: The socio-pragmatics of RoastMe humour’. Journal of Pragmatics 139, pp. 1-21, doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2018.10.010.

Eagly, A. H. & Mladinic, A. (1989). 'Gender stereotypes and attitudes towards women and men’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 15 (4), pp. 543-558.

Ferguson, M. A. & Ford, T. E. (2008). 'Disparagement humor: A theoretical and empirical review of psychoanalytic, superiority, and social identity theories’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 21 (3), pp. 283-312, doi:10.1515/humor.2008.014.

Gray, F. (2005). 'Privacy, embarrassment and social power: British sitcom’, in Lockyer, S. & Pickering, M. (eds.), Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour, Houndmills; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 146-161.

Haugh, M. (2010). 'Jocular mockery, (dis)affiliation, and face’. Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8), pp. 2106-2119, doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.12.018.

Haugh, M. (2014). 'Jocular mockery as interactional practice in everyday Anglo-Australian conversation’. Australian Journal of Linguistics 34 (1), pp. 76-99. doi:10.1080/07268602.2014.875456.

Haugh, M. & Bousfield, D. E. (2012). 'Mock impoliteness, jocular mockery and jocular abuse in Australian and British English’. Journal of Pragmatics 44 (9), pp. 1099-1114, doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2012.02.003.

Hay, J. (2001). 'The pragmatics of humor support’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 14 (1), pp. 55-82, doi:10.1515/humr.14.1.55.

Holmes, J. (2000). Politeness, power and provocation: How humour functions in the workplace. Discourse Studies 2 (2), pp. 159-185, doi:10.1177/1461445600002002002.

Holmes, J. (2008). 'Humour in the workplace: Not just men’s play’, in Holmes, J. (ed.), Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Social Identity Through Workplace Interaction, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 108-139.

Holmes, J. & Marra, M. (2002). 'Over the edge? Subversive humor between colleagues and friends’. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 15 (1), pp. 65-87, doi:10.1515/humr.2002.006.

Holmes, J., Marra, M. & Burns, L. (2001). 'Women’s humour in the workplace: A quantitative analysis’. Australian Journal of Communication 28 (1), pp. 83-108.

Holmes, J., Stubbe, M. & Marra, M. (2003). 'Language, humour and ethnic identity marking in New Zealand English’, in Mair, C. (ed.), The Politics of English as a World Language: New Horizons in Postcolonial Cultural Studies, Amsterdam, New York, NY: Rodopi, pp. 431-455.

Kong, X. Y. (2020). '狂欢之影,中国喜剧电影中的女性形象分析’ [Carnival of movies: An analysis of female images in Chinese comic movies]. Southerneast Communication 12, pp. 52-55.

Kotthoff, H. (2006). 'Gender and humor: The state of the art’. Journal of Pragmatics 38 (1), pp. 4-25.

Kozic, M. (2012). 'Framing communication as play in the sitcom: Patterning the verbal and the nonverbal in humour’, in Isabel, E. & Chovanec, J. (eds.), Language and Humour in the Media, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 107-139.

Laineste, L. (2013). 'Funny or aggressive? Failed humour in internet comments’. Folklore 53, pp. 29-46, doi:10.7592/fejf2013.53.laineste.

Lampert, M. D. & Ervin-Tripp, S. M. (2006). 'Risky laughter: Teasing and self-directed joking among male and female friends’. Journal of Pragmatics 38 (1), pp. 51-72, doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2005.06.004.

Liu, C. (2010). 跨文化交际禁忌语文化研究 [A cross-cultural study of the culture of taboo words in communication].[Unpublished Master thesis]. Chengdu: Sichuan Normal University.

Lopez-Zafra, E. & Garcia-Retamero, R. (2012). 'Do gender stereotypes change? The dynamic of gender stereotypes in Spain’. Journal of Gender Studies 21 (2), pp. 169-183, doi: 10.1080/09589236.2012.661580.

Lorenzo-Dus, N., Bou-Franch, P. & Blitvich, P. G.-C. (2013). 'Impoliteness in US/UK talent shows: A diachronic study of the evolution of a genre’, in Lorenzo-Dus, N. & Blitvich, P. G.-C. (eds.), Real Talk: Reality Television and Discourse Analysis in Action, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 199-217.

Luo, J. (2009). '爱情公寓挤进暑期档前五,成今夏黑马’ [The dark horse of this summer. Ipartment squeezed into the top five summer TV programs]. Eastern Morning News. Retrieved February, 4 2020 from http://yule.sohu.com/20090822/n266148537.shtml.

Matsumoto, Y. (2014). 'Collaborative co-construction of humorous interaction among ELF speakers’. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 3 (1), pp. 81-107, doi:10.1515/jelf-2014-0004.

Norrick, N. R. (1993). Conversational Joking: Humor in Everyday Talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Perkins, C. & Schreiber, M. (2019). 'Independent women: From film to television’. Feminist Media Studies 19 (7), pp. 919-927, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1667059.

Schnurr, S. (2008). 'Surviving in a man’s world with a sense of humour: An analysis of women leaders’ use of humour at work’. Leadership 4 (3), pp. 299-319, doi: 10.1177/1742715008092363.

Schnurr, S. (2009). 'Constructing leader identities through teasing at work’. Journal of Pragmatics 41 (6), pp. 1125-1138, doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.10.002.

Sinkeviciute, V. (2013). 'Decoding encoded (im)politeness: „Cause on my teasing you can depend”’, in Dynel, M. (ed.), Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 263-288.

Tang, Q. (2014). A Comparative Study of Verbal Humor in Chinese and American Sitcoms from the Perspective of Cross-cultural Pragmatics: A Case Study of Ipartment and Friends [Unpublished Master thesis]. Beijing International Studies University, Beijing.

Wang,Y. P. (1984). '漫说水浒里妇女形象的塑造’ [A discussion of the portrayal of women in the classical Chinese novel, Water Margin]. Northeast Normal University Journal 1, pp. 53-58.

Williams, J. E., Satterwhite, R. C. & Best, D. L. (1999). 'Pancultural gender stereotypes revisited: The five factor model’. Sex Roles 40, pp. 513-525.

Wu, H. (2013). '国产情景喜剧叙事策略变化研究——以“我爱我家”,“武林外传”,“爱情公寓”为主要考察对象’ [An examination of the changes in narrative strategies in Chinese sitcoms: Case studies of I Love My Family, My Own Swordman, and Ipartment] [Unpublished Master thesis]. Nanjing: Nanjing Normal University.

Wu, X. (2016). 新媒体背景下的国产情景喜剧——基于媒介,社会,文化因素的分析 [An analysis of domestic sitcoms against the background of new media – From the perspectives of medium, society and culture][Unpublished Master thesis]. Fuzhou: Fujian Normal University.

Xia, D. & Lan, C. (2019). '(Im)politeness at a Chinese dinner table: A discursive approach to (im)politeness in multi-party communication’. Journal of Politeness Research 15 (2), pp. 223-256, doi: 10.1515/pr-2016-0056.

Yang, L. (2011). 本土室内情景剧迎来发展期——以“爱情公寓”和“老友记”作比较 [The development of domestic situation comedy – A comparative study of Ipartment and Friends]. Shengping shijie [News World], 4, 40-42.

Zhang, X. & Liang, J. (2008). 从“铁娘子”到“新榜样”:中国女性社会角色演变 [From „iron lady” to „new model”: The evolution of the social roles of Chinese women]. Thinking 34 (1), pp. 88-91.

Zhao, H. (2011). 泼辣:女性美的一种类型 [Pōlà: A type of females’ beauty] [Unpublished Master thesis]. Nanjing: Nanjing Normal University.