Analyzing the Humor in Zhao Benshan’s Sketch Comedies—A Pragmatic View

Zhao Benshan’s sketch comedies are full of humorous elements.But the studies of the mechanisms causing humor in these Chinese contexts are relatively rare in the pragmatic domain at home.This essay,appealing to several pragmatic theories—mainly cooperative principle and polite principle,aims to exemplify and explicate the underlying systems that make up the humorous language.     

Humorous Relations: Attentiveness,pleasure and risk

Abstract

This article focuses on the structures of humor and joke telling that require particular kinds of attentiveness and particular relationships between speaker and audience, or more specifically, between classmates. First, I will analyze the pedagogical and relational preconditions that are necessary for humor to work. If humor is to work well, the person engaging in humor needs to gauge their interlocutors carefully. I discuss, too, the kinds of listening necessary for listening for the joke, including attentiveness to complex possibilities for meaning. This attentiveness to complexity is linked to curiosity and a willingness to be startled, two qualities that are central to the risk and pleasure of learning discussed by Socrates and Maria Lugones. Examining the place of risk in Socrates’ teaching and the place of serious play in Maria Lugones’ discussion of difference, I suggest that humor can help to illuminate complicities and invite more robust interactions with difference, creating pleasurable encounters to work through difficult social divisions.     

“幽默”中的语用礼貌原则

“幽默”作为语言交际的重要手段,在社会交往中起着重要的作用。礼貌原则作为人际交往所遵循的重要原则,“幽默”与其存在密切的关系。本文将对其展开深入的论述,一方面讨论“幽默”中如何体现礼貌原则的若干准则;另一方面分析如何运用“幽默”来弥补礼貌原则的一些不足。     

Talking Smack: Verbal Aggression in Professional Wrestling

The current study presents the results of a content analysis of the verbal aggression found in 36 hours of televised professional wrestling. The coding scheme was adapted from the National Television Violence Study and past research on television verbal aggression. Results show that an abundance of verbal aggression occurs in televised professional wrestling, with swearing, competence attacks, and character attacks being the most common types. In addition, the primary motives for verbal aggression use are amusement and anger. Furthermore, verbal aggression tends to be communicated and received by White, male individuals with no clear dispositional characteristics. The results are discussed in terms of potential effects of exposure to the verbal aggression found in professional wrestling.     

Examining the association of job tenure,employment history,and organizational status with employee dissent

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between temporal and structural components of organizational life (i.e., job tenure, employment history, and organizational history) and employee dissent. This was accomplished by comparing respondents’ reports about their tendencies to use varying strategies for dissent to their reports about present job tenure, number of full‐time employers, total years work experience, and organizational status. Structural equation models were used to examine the association between temporal measures (job tenure, number of full‐time employers, total years work experience), structural measures (organizational status) and dissent constructs. Findings indicated that articulated dissent use was associated with management status, whereas latent dissent use was associated with nonmanagement status, increases in present job tenure and decreases in number of full‐time employers and total years work experience.     

An instructor self‐disclosure scale

This ‐paper introduces the Instructor Self‐Disclosure Scale and reports on two initial studies that address the reliability and validity of the scale. The Instructor Self‐Disclosure Scale is an 18‐item measure of the amount of instructor self‐disclosure. In Study One, instructor self‐disclosure was positively related to the student motives of relational, excuse‐making, and sycophancy. In Study Two, instructor self‐disclosure was positively related to out‐of‐class communication, the student interest dimensions of meaningfulness and impact, and cognitive learning. Additionally, the Instructor Self‐Disclosure Scale appears to be a unidimensional, internally reliable measure.     

An Examination of Aggression and Adaption Traits with Moral Foundation

ABSTRACT

Moral Foundation Theory forwards that morality is a traitlike disposition that guides one's behaviors, attitudes, and communication. This study examined the relationship between participants' moral foundations and their aggressive and adaptation communication traits. Results of this study suggest that the foundations that concern others (i.e., harm/care and fairness/reciprocity) were associated negatively to verbal aggressiveness, argumentativeness, and Machiavellianism and associated positively with responsiveness, assertiveness, and cognitive flexibility. The foundations that concern socially binding constructs (i.e., in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity) were negatively related to Machiavellianism and cognitive flexibility.     

‘We need a committee for men's rights’: reactions of male and female viewers to reverse gender discrimination in Korean comedy

This study investigates the ideological implications of Nambowon (‘the Committee for Men's Rights’), one of the most popular sketches in a live comedy series entitled Gag Concert in Korea. The sketch humorously criticizes women who take advantage of men in various situations and always ends with a funny slogan demanding equal rights for men and the end of reverse gender discrimination. We treat Nambowon not as an idiosyncratic text but as part of Korean television programs that portray the rising social status of women as well as gender differences. Previous studies of gender and comedy have typically focused on textual meanings, and relatively little work exists to explain the audience's reception. Thus, we explore why audiences enjoy the show and whether and why there are differences in the reactions of male and female viewers to the portrayal of gender in Nambowon.     

Emerging Adult Siblings' Use of Verbally Aggressive Messages as Hurtful Messages

The purpose of this study was to identify the specific types of verbally aggressive messages emerging adult siblings use with each other and to determine whether these types of verbally aggressive messages differ in perceived hurtfulness, intensity, and intent. Participants were 115 individuals who identified a verbally aggressive message recently used by a sibling. Results indicated that siblings use seven types of verbally aggressive messages (i.e., name calling, insults, withdrawal, physical acts or threats, repudiating the relationship, negative affect, unfair comparison), and the seven types of verbally aggressive messages do not differ in their perceived hurtfulness, intensity, and intent.