Analysis of speech humorous: conditions of production of little Johnny jokes

Author(s)

Fernanda Góes de Oliveira Ávila

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2012-07-30

Examining board members

Sírio Possenti; Maria Irma Hadler Coudry; Roberto Baronas

• Advisor: Sírio Possenti

Abstract

The aim of this paper is the analysis of a corpus consisting of a set of "little Johnny jokes". In this material, we want to evaluate, based on theoretical Discourse Analysis French, what are their conditions of production, seeking to understand the historical and social reasons and stereotypical male representation in this material. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the ideology present in sexist in little Johnny jokes: the construction of masculinity from the transgression of social rules. What seem relevant in this theme are the following questions: "Why does humor about the relationship between teacher and student?"; "Why do these boys are made jokes and bad students?"; "Why this discourse the teacher is ridiculed?"; "To what extent the talk of the jokes is 'truth'?"; "What are the linguistic triggers that make these issues a laughingstock?". In an attempt to elucidate the issues outlined above, our theoretical framework is mainly the literature on mood (Freud, 1905; Bergson, 1900; Propp, 1976; Raskin, 1985; Bakhtin, 1987, and Possenti, 1998), about the school (Carvalho 2001, 2003 and Menandro e Souza, 2010) and especially the literature on men (Nolasco, 1993, 1995; Bourdieu, 2009). And the foundations of analysis are supported by the French Discourse Analysis, especially with regard to concepts related to the production conditions, stereotypy, ethos, simulacrum, discursive memory. The starting point for analysis is to understand the functioning of the humorous speech, and from that to deconstruct the dominant social imaginary that little Johnny jokes are naively produced by children for the purpose of causing terror in adults. Subsequently, we try to show that little Johnny jokes are made under the pretense of voices and children are the result of historical conditions of competition in respect of pupils with the school and the fruit of the boys attempt to (re) assert their masculinity. Our objective, therefore, evident that from this tension between student and school and (bad) conduct of the boys is created stereotypes that are subsequently put into circulation by the humorous speech by means of a technical language (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/02800-6 - The stereotypes in jokes Johnny
• Grantee: Fernanda Góes de Oliveira Ávila
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master