прагматика и медиа дискурс / Mikhalkova_pragmatics_of_invective_some_corrections
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sexual victories |
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Hypertrophied gentiles |
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2. |
Cluster |
Men: |
physical victory |
+ |
Unusual sexual likes + breaking |
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sexual abuse |
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the law |
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Women: absence of sex + |
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ugliness |
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3. |
Stereotype |
Gender |
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stereotype: |
an |
Gender stereotype: a female |
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average Russian woman is a |
politician |
should |
tackle |
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woman of easy virtue |
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problems of sexism |
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4. |
Modern |
Щука, хек, оса, жаба |
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To cross |
(about |
animals), |
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context |
Передача, |
концерт, |
goldfish |
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романтический фильм |
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James Franco, Barack Obama, |
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“Я спросил у ясеня” |
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Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton |
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Оренбург |
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Campus tour guide |
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Левитан, Александр Серов, |
Google, Photoshop |
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Майкл |
Джексон, группа |
Pedophiles |
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“Премьер-министр”, |
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Wedlock |
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Земфира, группа “Гости из |
Global warming |
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будущего” |
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Bikini |
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Три богатыря, Добрыня |
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Reporters, |
commentators, ED |
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Сумоист, трудовик, физрук |
specialists |
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Гомосек, |
нимфоманка, |
Erection, to go into labor, VD, |
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оргазм, надувная женщина |
penicillin |
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Дагестан, |
Аджария, |
Honda Odyssey |
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Румыния |
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МГУ |
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Камасутра |
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Баня |
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Рентген |
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The archetypical content of this invective includes different violations of sexual conduct. The Russian show mentions the cluster of “physical victory + sexual abuse”, which is found in other types of invective, like destructive nature or origin. And the American show underlines illegal character of breaking sexual taboos. At the level of stereotypes we find mainly information about gender stereotypes. In this type of invective in Comedy Club women are usually portrayed as sexually immoral; the stereotypical naming for this group is “tyolki”. SNL, on the contrary, gives an image of a female, who either hides her sexuality, like a female politician, or whose conduct in choosing partners is not criticized (Coleen in “James Franco’s Monologue” or Soccer Mom #2 in “The Escalator”).
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2.4.9. INVECTIVE OF STRANGE FOOD PREFERENCES
The topic of food is closely connected with the topic of bodily wastes in invectives. This is a bright illustration of the carnival opposition of the top and the bottom. In our research we do not single out bodily wastes as a separate type of invective, because there are few examples of it in the analyzed texts. However, this topic is also researched in the given paragraph. Food and wastes are two physiological needs, that are part of natural instinctive behavior of any human. That is why they constitute an meaningful part in the invective. The quantitative correlation of names with the semantics of food in both cases is almost the same: 20 in Russian and 16 in American.
Food preferences rarely become the main subject of invective. They are rather likely to accompany other invective types or come in a line with other types in monologues or sketches. As in the case with the invective of sexual preferences everybody can become its object. That is why the invective concerns both usual people and people of certain professions, connected with food. In the following example the waiter informs the clients, who ordered sparkling water:
“I’m gonna get you a water. Because soda is bad for your weak ass teeth” (Pizzeria Uno).
In another example the famous sportsman Michael Phelps advertises a new diet, which allows to eat any portion and kind of food:
“The only diet that lets you eat whatever Michael Phelps eats. As you can tell, it works wonders for me” (The Michael Phelps Diet).
An actress cannot tell edible from inedible:
“Nicole: “It smells like coconut. Should I eat it?”—Paris: “Nicole, that’s air freshener”.—Nicole: “I’m just gonna eat it” (Paris Hilton Apologizes).
In Comedy Club an unlucky fisherman asks other fishermen, who have brought food with them, to share it:
“Я не ел три дня. Дайте червей” (Вот так рыбалка!).
The charge itself can contain the information about actions of the accused, when they eat or drink something unnatural:
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“Русский супермен пил березовый сок и высосал березу” (Бессмертный о русском супермэне),
or use food in a game:
(Мартин Скорсезе о своём детстве) “We used to play baseball in our backyard. But we couldn’t afford bats and balls so we used loaves of bread and meatballs” (Yankee Stadium Stories).
In another example the inventor of super-toilet, which can flush any mass of food, advertises his invention:
“The first toilet that doesn’t use suction. Just look at how it handles this massive load of pumpkin ravioli” (Dyson Toilet).
Wrong food can badly influence people who eat it:
“It’s powerful combination of synthetic testoterone and seven psychoactive drugs go right to your dog’s brain like a perfect touchdown pass, leaving it excitable, on-edge, combative, with a defiant chip on its shoulder” (Angry Dog).
Overeating is also dangerous:
“Я дома не завтракаю вообще… All-inclusive… Салаты здесь – все… Фрукты! Еще салаты, которые сюда не влезли… Мясо жареное, рыба вяленая. Супы… Плошки с йогуртами… Конкурс, кто больше унесет”
(Отпуск у руссо туристо),
“And for dinner a whole pork butt, two piñatas filled with corned beef hash, four wedding cakes, an actual pig in a blanket, a tub of pasta Alfredo” (The Michael Phelps Diet).
The invective of strange food preferences is created as an attempt to explain, using inverted logics, how the accused acquired these preferences. It could happen, owing to intellectual deficiencies:
“Paris: “Nicole, that’s air freshener.—Nicole: “I’m just gonna eat it” (Paris Hilton Apologizes),
or cooking inexperience (usually about women):
“Говно – твои голубцы!” (Подслушал в сексшопе),
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“She’s the worst cook in the world, alright? The other night, she fixed alphabet soup – it spelled out “Help!” Are you kidding? What a lousy cook!” (Dangerfield Tribute).
In case of Comedy Club they can be connected with sexual preferences: “Рыбосеки… Придурки, которые любят рыбу, а потом её еще и едят”
(Общество ихтиофилов), “Сосисочно-глотательный завод: соси и глотай” (Сумо и Репортаж из запоя).
Sometimes their aim is a deception:
(about false unicorns in a zoo-shop) “Y’know what the best part is about this little freakshow? Is he don’ gotta eat, because he culls his strength from the dreams of children” (DiCicco Brothers Unicornery),
(about an ex-groupmate, who tells a fake story of success) “Разбогател я… Котов ловил и колбасу из них делал” (Одноклассники).
In Comedy Club we also found a case, when a comedian was accused of eating a famous writer, because he suddenly demonstrated a similar poetic talent:
“Ты съел Гришковца!.. Ну-ка плюнь Гришковца!” (Незлобин и Элвис поговорили о женщинах).
Food preferences and unusual treatment of food, that are mentioned in invective of this type, are, of course, exaggerated (for example, when it concerns the quantity of what was eaten and drunk) or absolutely impossible in reality (like the unicorns, feeding on children’s dreams, or cannibalism, which helps you to get qualities of the eaten person). On the other hand, they can be a reason to attack the antagonist’s negative qualities or social stereotypes. For example, in the following case with the road policeman:
“Гаишник: “Ссыте!”—Водитель: “Ну, давай, че там? Пей, нюхай.
Смотри давай” (Случай с гаишником).
The accusation in this joke is built on the stereotype, that Russian road policemen are corrupt and use all kinds of tricks to prove, that the driver broke the law.
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To express the obscenity or abnormality of nutritional behavior a ridiculer usually stands in opposition with other personages or audience. Such is the image of “a fisherman” in Vadik Galygin’s performance “Общество ихтиофилов” is opposed to the guests, laughing at him. In another sketch a hungry fisherman, who asks for worms, is rejected from the society of normal fishermen, who eat food, typical for humans:
“Дайте червей.—У нас нет ни червей, у нас нет ни хлеба, ни червивого хлеба, ни хлеба с червями, ни червей на хлебе, ни червивых хлебов!” (Вот так рыбалка!).
Another example is the mentioned waiter from “Pizzeria Uno”, who pays doubtful compliments to the guests and, consequently, stays without clients in the end:
“And if you don’t like cheese then I suggest you eat a bowl of hair because you are a dummy” (Pizzeria Uno).
In the invective those, who eat too much food are also rejected by the society for their physical unattractiveness, or they are allowed in it in cases of delusion, like in the example with a woman, who got so fat, that people start to think, she is pregnant:
“I’ve been on the Michael Phelps diet for almost two weeks and people are already coming up to me and saying “Congratulations” [reveals a big-ass stomach] Because they know I found the perfect diet” (The Michael Phelps Diet).
The competition in the invective of strange food preferences is induced, when people, who break food taboos (like eating prohibited or uneatable things, playing with food, using it as symbols of phallic cult), become subject to a mockery and are expelled from the society. Accusing them, the ridiculer points at the physical and mental drawback, that they acquired before or after breaking the taboos (fatness, food-poisoning, stupidity). In case of Comedy Club wrong nutritional behavior is sometimes connected with sexual preferences (as in the example about “Сосисочно-глотательный завод”) or with a victory in a physical competition. For example, in the sketch “Сумо и Репортаж из запоя” the couch of
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the sumo wrestler from Dagestan after his victory over the Japanese wrestler eats the national Dagestan food – khachapury (a cheese-pie) – while the Japanese couch commits suicide – hara-kiri (the play on words is built on the similarity of the two words). The archetypical base of this ritual presupposes the triumph of life (entailing a feast for the winner) over death (suicide).
Table 11
Levels of invective semantics in the invective of strange food preferences
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LEVEL |
INVECTIVE OF STRANGE FOOD PREFERENCES |
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Comedy Club |
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Saturday Night Live |
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1. |
Archetype |
Eats |
human |
wastes |
and |
Uses food in games, overeats |
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strange |
unusual |
food, |
Eats uneatables (hair, air- |
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uneatables, overeats |
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freshener) |
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Food used as phallic symbols; |
Culinary inefficiency |
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cannibalism |
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Culinary inefficiency |
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2. |
Cluster |
Food + phallic symbols |
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Food + game artifact |
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Food |
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physical |
destruction |
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(poisoning) |
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3. |
Stereotype |
Gender stereotype: woman is a |
Gender stereotype: woman is a |
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good cook |
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bad cook, a blonde woman is |
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silly |
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4. |
Modern |
Черви, слон |
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Unicorns, geese |
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context |
Дагестан, Украина |
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Donut, |
soda, lamb, |
pumpkin |
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Сумоист, корреспондент |
ravioli, pasta, pig in a blanket, |
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Евгений Гришковец, Виктор |
pasta |
Alfredo, |
alphabet soup, |
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Салтыков |
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cheese, pork butt, piñata, corned |
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All-inclusive, |
узбекская |
beef hash, wedding cake, bacon- |
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кухня, хачапури, сосиски, |
wrapped |
sausage, |
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buttered |
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колбаса, березовый сок, |
wrapped meatball, toast, coconut |
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водка, кофе, голубцы, сало |
Baseball bat, ball |
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ЛСД |
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Michael |
Phelps, |
Paris |
Hilton, |
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Железо |
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Nicole Ritchie |
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Synthetic |
testosterone, |
seven |
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psychoactive drugs |
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Car freshener |
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To burp |
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Invective of food preferences touches upon layers of the ancient semantics. The food carries a shamanic meaning in cannibalism, that helps to get another person’s talents, in a feast, that follows a victory, in phallic cults, as phallic symbols. A person or animal, who eats strange food has unusual virtues (as in the
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case with dog’s food “Angry Dog”, where the dog becomes stronger and more aggressive). Only a trickster can play with food, because for him it does not carry the semantics of goodness. The food stereotypes are based on the distribution of gender roles (a woman as a cook versus an emancipated woman). The modern context in both cases gives examples of meals, that are known only to the carriers of certain cultural background (Alphabet soup, khachapuri).
§ 2.4.10. INVECTIVE OF ORIGIN AND FAMILY CONNECTIONS Invective of origin and family connections is the last of the defined types of
invective. It encompasses all the accusations of unknown, alien or unworthy origin, and of belonging to a certain race, nation, ethnos, and even of family relations with animals and evil spirits. This type often contains terms of kinship and their rude, vulgar analogues. The proportion of such names in Comedy Club and SNL is 28 and 15, correspondingly.
National identity often becomes a topic in the invective of origin. In the following case Comedy Club comedians complain, that the host made them perform together, although they are of different nationality – a Russian and a Jew:
“Вот видите, так всегда у нас в России: из-за армянина русский и еврей поссорились” (Незлобин и Элвис поговорили о женщинах).
Or Hillary Clintaon gived the following opinion about other candidates for President:
“Bill Richardson, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, but understand are part Colombian, or Mexican, or something” (An Address from the All-But-Certain-To-Be Next President).
Such type of invective often mentions ethnical autoand hetero-stereotypes. The antagonism is built on the opposition: the addresser claims to belong to the majority, and the addressee is accused of being part of a minority. Thus, SNL connects it with the topic of tolerance and racial discrimination, especially concerning Afro-Americans. For example, a woman, working in an agency, complains about her colleagues:
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“From the moment I get in, it’s “Denise, we need this”, “Denise we need that”. Which is stressful, because my name is Linda. Denise is the other black woman that works here” (Excedrin).
People mistake her for another woman, because their cognitive field is not used to scrutinize dark faces, as in a stereotypical thinking all dark-faced people belong to the category of an alien race, strangers, thus, they all seem to look alike for a person with light skin (of the Caucasian race).
Another wide-spread form of invective touches upon the relationship with the mother. It roots in the deepest layers of archetype, inducing the addresser to use vulgarisms, obscene language:
“Mr. Voinic: “Well, Art Wilson is a dirty son of a bitch” (The Babysitter). But vulgarisms are not enough to make an original invective name, that
would make people laugh. That is why there are different forms of motherhood mockery: through a sexual victory
“Я потом изловчился, развернулся и его маму уыиграл” (Самый сильный борец Абхазии Ашот),
or a social exposure of the antagonist’s mother (or her comic look-alike): “Michael Phelps’ Mom: “Yeah! Good job, Michael!! Whoo!! That’s my boy!! That’s my son up there!! Whoo!!.. What?! A mom can’t be proud of her son?!” (Michael Phelps’ Monologue).
Finally, there are situations where kinship is revealed in the least expected manner. As in the example from Comedy Club, where the antagonist is blamed of getting the job, using family connections:
“По чему вы тренер?!!”—“У меня у жены есть брат. Он работает в спорткомитете” (Спортивный канал “Спорт! Спорт! Турбоспорт!”).
In the next sketch a road policeman stops a driver, not knowing, that it is his son: “Ты знаешь, кто мой отец?.. (по телефону) Пап, меня тут какой-то дебил грузит” (Случай с гаишником).
Another comedian builds his performance on the phrases, after which “you definitely won’t have sex”. Among them there are several terms of kinship:
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(a girl says to her boyfriend) “Слушай, ты же мне, как брат!” (Подслушал в сексшопе),
“А у меня на этой кровати дед умер!” (Ibid.).
In SNL there are cases, when the ridiculer confesses, that he has a strange origin or tells about his parents’ abnormal behavior:
“When I was a kid, my parents moved a lot – but I always found ‘em” (Dangerfield Tribute);
“Juror #5, uh, where are you from, originally?”—“Zorbanos. It’s a gaseous planet near the Hexadron Galaxy” (O. J. Simpson Jury Selection).
The theme of race discrimination is sometimes revealed in the invective through accepting a new origin or joining another nationality or race. The white priest, that came to church to preach, changes his style of preaching into AfroAmerican:
“I said, I said, are we feeling good church?! I, I, I feel good, sister!!”—“Oh, preach! Light skin, preach!” (Southern Baptist Church).
The invective of origin, as it was mentioned in the beginning, is built on the opposition of majority and minority. Thus, the addresser looks for the strongest ties, that would attach the addressee to a minority or an alien ethnos. In Comedy Club the whole performance may consist of the jokes about different nations. For example, “Самые короткие анекдоты” by Garik Martirosyan:
“Про китайцев: “Аист задолбался”… Про индийцев: “И полюбили они друг друга, и поженились, и нарожали друг другу детей, и жили долго и счастливо, пока не узнали, что они братья” (Короткие анекдоты и мобильный телефон “Витязь”).
The two jokes in the example refer to exaggerated sexuality and even unnatural sexual relationship, that is ascribed to the nations of China and India. At the same time Martirosyan (being an Armenian) adds several auto-stereotypes about his nation and nations of other comedians (Belorus). For example, the shortest joke about Armenians:
“Возвращается как-то армянин домой…” (Ibid.),
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But in his speech there are no anecdotes about Russians, Russians forming the majority of the audience and viewers.
Accusing of unusual relationship and deviant behavior conveys another archetypical meaning. They refer to the descent-based communities, where blood relationship was the main way for an individual’s self-identification. That is why unusual relationships can lead to the loss of identity, which in its turn brings him or her into a lower social group of rootless people. Thus, the complaint of one of the comedians, whose personage is an alcohol addict, explains his addiction by his origin:
“Мать честная, отец лживый… Что ж за семья у меня такая?”(Сумо и Репортаж из запоя).
In the modern mass media discourse the invective about ethnic relationship is quite rare owing to the world antiracist policy. In the American show it is more obvious. There are no any scabrous jokes about other nationalities, but the problem of races is always solved in favor and support of Afro-Americans, that frequently act as a majority (like in the mentioned sketch “Southern Baptist Church”). The Russian show is less tolerant, especially in relation to the people living in the Caucasus and other Southern regions and borderline countries (in Dagestan, Armenia, Abkhazia). It may be connected with the cognitive function of laughter, as well, because its creative-cognitive side helps the society to overcome fear, that these regions force on Russians in the process of migration, war and terrorist conflicts.
As far as the archetypical component of the invective of origin is concerned, through the archetype an individual is assigned dissimilarity with the majority, foreign origin, or a blame for breaking taboos, imposed by the kinship (e.g. incest). But the modern society provides the person with various ways of selfdetermination (and the kinship here is not completely obligatory). Thus, the invective of origin loses much of its value nowadays and starts to play a mediator role in a humorous competition. For example, in the mentioned case with the sportsman:
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