Abstract
The field of humour studies is characterized by multidisciplinarity, with theories and approaches emanating from psychology, philosophy, linguistics and media studies, among others. Cutting across this rich but at times hard to reconcile diversity, Chiaro’s The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age offers an adroit synthesis of relevant strands of scholarship, exploring how humour functions in contemporary modalities and addresses present issues. The book begins with a summary of scholarship on the language of humorous discourse to date, then proceeds to extend the discussion across specific genres and cultural themes, often pairing linguistic observation with critical commentary.
The introduction discusses the dichotomy between our physical and digital realities, the impact this has on our communication, and the pervasiveness of humorous discourse in digital media. Chiaro then gives an overview of the following chapters, which focus on how the language of humorous discourse interacts with translation, gender and online discourses, and touches on the rising status of comedy and satire both as a barometer for public opinion and as commentary on current affairs.
The first chapter begins by questioning whether the language of humorous discourse has changed since Chiaro’s first book on humorous discourse, The Language of Jokes: Analysing Verbal Play, was published in 1992. The proliferation of smartphones and accompanying explosion in digital communication is flagged as the primary cause for any change. Chiaro makes a point of adopting a broad definition of humorous discourse that encompasses the various registers and genres afforded by digital texts and presents a synthesized account of key points of discussion in humour studies, such as Rod Martin’s definition of humour as ‘a form of mental play comprising cognitive, emotional, social and expressive components’ (cited in Chiaro, 2017: 8). She also presents some initial observations on how digital media might interact with issues such as laughter, timing and audience. Chiaro then reviews the most widely accepted theory for linguistic humour, Attardo and Raskin’s (1991) General Theory of Verbal Humour, summarizes Norrick’s (2000) notions of the three-part narrative joke structure, and lists the archetypical joke themes/targets identified by Davies (2011), including the stupid underdog, the canny protagonist, sex, religion, disasters and the suspension of disbelief. The first chapter thereby anchors the following discussion in the relevant scholarly tradition and cultural context.
The second chapter discusses the impact film, television and digital technology have had on humorous discourse over the past century, and the emergence of the United States as the world’s primary media exporter. Chiaro observes that these developments have resulted in non-anglophone audiences having to consume humorous texts in translation. This topic is explored across reality and unscripted television, films and scripted television, instances of combined visual and verbal humour, and even instances where humour arises out of the act of translation itself. Recurring humorous motifs in each of these contexts are identified, including insightful discussions on humour’s relationship with social transgression, how to translate physical and culturally specific humour, to what extent physical humour is universal, and audiences’ appreciation for humour based on poor translation. In particular, Chiaro’s analysis of the interaction of physical and verbal elements in filmic texts illuminates the intricacy of the challenges posed to translators, with her comparison of the original and translated transcript of a scene from the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda revealing the blend of phonological, semantic and cultural resources a translator must employ to render translation successful.
In Chapter 3, the tone of the book becomes more critical as the focus shifts to how issues surrounding gender are reflected in humorous discourse. After exploring gendered associations with humour itself, including an analysis of lexis associated with male and female laughter in the British National Corpus (2007), the author progresses to sexist humour. Here, she surveys discourse targeting symbolic female figures such as wives and mothers-in-law and themes such as sex, rape, feminism and gender identity. While the discussion illustrates how historic patterns of sexism and misogyny persist across the humorous discourse found in new media, it also demonstrates that the same kinds of texts can be manipulated to subvert these patterns. In the discussion of self-deprecatory humour by female comedians, for instance, Chiaro points out that despite the structure and targets of these jokes echoing their overtly sexist counterparts, irony, sarcasm and even the contextual factor of being told by women render the humour subversive to the sexism it references.
The final chapter addresses how humorous discourse has evolved in the dynamically interactive communicative environment of Web 2.0. Themes touched on earlier in the book are expanded upon in more detail here. The first section looks at conversational humour online and explores the differences between face-to-face conversational humour and its digital counterpart of comment threads. In her discussion of discourse such as ‘ping-pong-punning’ (threads of comments dominated by ‘speakers’ exchanging puns) and linguistic devices such as hashtags (e.g. Zappavigna, 2018), Chiaro not only identifies elements of humour in digital media that both reflect and diverge from that of face-to-face communication, but also demonstrates that the two registers reciprocally influence each other.
The main achievement of The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age is its marriage of an engaging style with the author’s comprehensive knowledge of the subject. Excepting some of the finer points of linguistic theories of humour, the discussion is accessible to scholars across disciplines and even informed readers outside of academia. While results are not rigorously representative (except perhaps for those arising from corpus analysis methods), readers familiar with the media and genres discussed will find the author’s conclusions convincing. The inclusion of relevant references from fields spanning psychology, sociology and linguistics further enrich the discussion, offering a compelling, three-dimensional interpretation of humour’s role in the contemporary media landscape.
While this breadth contributes to the book’s value for readers interested in an overview of how various themes and new media interact with humorous discourse, inevitably it also precludes the kind of fine-grained linguistic analysis some readers may be seeking. Chiaro’s discussion of the underlying themes and structures of the humorous texts is largely based on textual interpretation rather than linguistic evidence, with divergent potential readings not entertained. The notable exception is her discussion of ‘ping-pong punning’, where her analysis unpacks a number of examples in detail. As such, readers interested in how semiotic resources interact with humour may not be satisfied.
Relatedly, the discussion of cultural issues in the book is to an extent ad hoc. As a result, while Chapter 3 discusses the theme of the language of jokes and gender in some depth, issues such as race or religion are only briefly touched on in other chapters. Both of these limitations reflect the challenges of exploring a topic as broad as humorous discourse in a systematic or comprehensive fashion in a single volume. This is, however, a minor concern, as the book is clearly intended more as a collection of commentaries spanning a curated set of issues than as a manual on how to approach research into humorous discourse across media or as an encyclopaedic review of how humour interacts with every facet of culture.
Overall, Chiaro’s book is an informative and at times even wryly funny overview of how humour has been affected by new media, which delves into a number of genres and cultural themes. Its conclusion, that the language of jokes itself remains unchanged, but the rate at which humour is produced, disseminated and consumed has accelerated, is an illuminating one, especially in light of alarmist rhetoric regarding the impact of digital communications on contemporary language use. It thus offers a valuable update on issues surrounding both the study of humour and its cultural relevance and makes for rewarding reading for anyone interested in these areas.