with the cult of fertility. The satirical side reveals itself in the ability of humor to

destroy traditional cultural constants, thus helping to refresh the culture.

3.In question of humor the modern science applies to semiotics and pragmatics (in models and theories suggested by Violet Morin, Viktor Shklovsky, Viktor Raskin, Salvatore Attardo, Paul Grice, etc.).

4.The Russian semiotician Igor Smirnov studies comedy through the prism of the theory of archetypes. The semantics of comedy, that lies in the confrontation between archetypes of trickster and cultural hero, is a semiotic continuum, the essence of which is “invective affront”, a contest of words, where the participants change roles of trickster and cultural hero to assure the society – a third party – that the rival is an enemy, damages public norms and should be derided and driven out from the society. Depending on the situation, the trickster or the cultural hero wins this fight: the carnival culture approves of the trickster’s victory, an a social affront the cultural hero will be more likely to win. This victory has a ritual character; the participants’ skill works to assure the third party of the damage and guilt. It is important at that moment that the participants understand in what context they are and whose role – trickster or cultural hero – will bring a success.

5.The invective affront is the key to the semantics of humor, that was formed at the times, when human beings passed from pre-cultural stage to civilization. In the ritual of invective the physical aggression changes into verbal, and laughter, being a way to express aggression or the emotion of pleasure, acquires invective semantics. In the humorous discourse invective loses it conflictogenic character and acquires a joyful agonistic nature. More clearly these change is shown in the pragmatic act if derision, which stands between a joke and an offence.

6.The pragmatic analysis of invective shows that a permanent component of its propositional content is an invective name. The invective name will be a word, a set of words or word-phrases that in the process of naming H will

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differ from H so, that it will lower his status and find his guilt in breaking the social order.

7. An invective name includes: a real name or characteristic of ‘H’; somebody else’s or a created name ‘not-Н’; characteristics or any other semantic components ‘d’, that add to or explain ‘not-H’. The component ‘d’ has a number of typical features, based on the semantics of the archetype of trickster (alcohol abuse, sodomy, etc.). This component is universal for all names. In speech the differences rise in ways of joining several features into clusters, in stereotypization of invective images and under the influence of immediate context.

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CHAPTER 2. PRAGMATICS AND SEMANTICS OF INVECTIVE IN

COMEDY TV-SHOWS

§ 2.1. ON THE NOTION OF ‘DISCOURSE’

Nowadays, “discourse” is a term full of philosophic ambiguity. Its modern content was established in works of structuralists (R. Barthes, A. J. Greimas, J. Kristeva) and post-structuralists (M. Foucault, J. Derrida, J. Habermas). In a broader sense it denotes any interchange of utterances, but then there is a danger of confusing it with such terms as “text”, “dialogue”, “style”, “speech”.

The word “discourse” originates from Latin discere – “to discuss, talk; decline; retreat”. In Middle English and Middle French the noun discourse was common among nobles and denoted “a refined talk” with traces of meaning such as “to express a wise and essential viewpoint on social occurrences”. Parallel with it was the process of transforming this word into a term: at universities professors used it to define direct speech (discours direct), indirect speech (discours indirect) and parts of speech (parties du discours). The military semantics (“retreat”) also does not vanish completely: learned discussions are planned as acts of war – attack versus defense. In the XVIII-XIX c. its meaning changes into “a scientific or a philosophical treatise, and the XX c. gives rise to multiple theories of discourse.

As it was mentioned before the new philosophical content of this term was developed in the works by structuralists. The term was employed in the new critical discussion of Saussure’s dichotomy “langue – parole”: “Одним из первых ввел в обиход специфическое понятие дискурса бельгийский лингвист Э.

Бюиссанс (Buyssens E., Les langages et le discours, Bruxelles, 1943),

включивший в соссюровское противопоставление языка и речи… новый член: langue – discours – parole, “где langue – система, некая отвлеченная умственная конструкция, discours – комбинации, посредством реализации которых говорящий использует код языка (то есть сема), и parole – механизм,

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позволяющий осуществлять эти комбинации (то есть семический акт)”21

(Ильин 1975: 453-454). From whence in the works of French structuralists (such as A. J. Greimas and J. Courtes) rose a semiotic approach to the term: discourse was treated as a presumption of discursive competence, i.e. the ability to put a thought into the formalized frames of language. E. Benveniste considered discourse as “the representation of events in a text without particular concern for their chronology in real time” (Mills 1997: 8). The rules of such representation mould the discourse, so that it becomes wrapped, limited by narration and history. In Greimas and Courtes’ view these frames are close in meaning to the word “style”; in pragmatics of language they include social taboos, ideological views, etc.

Postmodernism forms a completely new view on the discourse. M. A. Mozheiko and Reverend Sergiy Lepin give a following interpretation: the Classical type of rationality leant on Logos, world’s immanent ontological primary sense that is revealed to us when we try to rationalize and give a logical representation for some objectivity – in the new type of rationality Chaos and Hyubris22 dominate (Можейко 2001: 232-236).

There is no pre-discursive providence that reads the objective world and helps to decipher it. In attempt to learn something about a new objectivity an individual ruins it or tears it into parts, forcing the objectivity to become objective. M. Foucault in his work “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason” (1961) offers the objectivity (in case of this work – insanity) speak for the author, tell its story before it suffers from an act of cognition. And in the following silence an anonymous depersonalized whisper will be heard – something

21/One of the first to introduce the specific notion of discourse was the Belgian linguist E. Buyssens (Buyssens E., Les langages et le discours, Bruxelles, 1943), who added a new component to Saussure’s opposition of language and speech: langue – discours – parole, where langue – a system, some distant mental construction, discours – combinations, using which the speaker realizes the code of language, and parole – the mechanism that lets us to utter these combinations./

22“Хюбрис (франц. I'hubris – от греч. ubris – необузданность, невоздержанность, бесчинство) – термин, используемый в современной западной философии (при отсутствии соответствующего слова в обыденных языковых практиках) для обозначения предпороговых форм стихийных процессов, задающих неустойчивые параметры функционирования определенной системы и открывающих возможности новых форм её бытия” /Hyubris (French I'hubris – Old Greek ubris – unrestraint, outrage) – term used in the modern Western philosophy (…) to denote pre-stage forms of elemental processes, that assign unstable parameters to functioning of a certain system and give opportunities for new forms of its existence/ (Можейко 2001: 950).

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already-uttered and at the same time un-uttered23 . This idea anticipates the eschatology of narration, because that, what hides behind “the unuttered”, is nonexistence, an accidental occurrence, an event that ruins a harmonious order of narrated things, established by the classical rationality.

This anticipation is logical. In the theory of information it is stated that “Чем более система замкнута и упорядочена, тем более сильной становится тенденция к уравниванию частей, к схематизму, монотонности и усреднению, т. е. к возрастанию энтропии”24 (Славиньский 1975: 268). Thus, the mechanic causality of things in the Classic science yields to the postmodernist mechanic non-causality, which gives rise to semiotic machines like the one that Gulliver once came across: an accidental combination of signs suddenly discovers a law of nature. The rationality of Gulliver’s times judged this theory as a nonsense. The new rationality demands its application in any new type of scientific research25. Therefore, the category of creativity is replaced by the category of “an unpredictable occurrence”.

This theory describes two main meanings of discourse. The first one was advanced by Jurgen Habermas, who tried to protect the rationality as it is, outside its typology. According to Habermas, discourse is a reflexive verbal communication (Habermas 1996). Discourse rationalizes the sphere of communicative action, whether it is scientific, social or cultural sphere. It is necessary to resist “hybridization”, confusion of discourses, so that the philosophical discourse could save its purity. Here discourse has a cognitive value and is opposed to the mundane talk. Its epistemological value is underlined. The term again acquires the meaning, put in it by the classical philosophers of XVIIIXIX c.

23“I have not tried to write the history of that language, but rather the archaeology of that silence.” (Foucault 2006: xi)

24/The more system is isolated and organized, the bigger is a tendency for equalizing its parts, schematism, monotonousness and leveling, i.e. for growth of entropy./

25For instance, how can the Big Bang theory be explained from the point of view of the Classical rationality? – And then, it just banged! Or, how can the point of singularity and event horizon be rationalized, if these terms denote something that is an end of all rationality?

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The other viewpoint was expressed (or, better say, prompted) by J. Derrida, who spoke of the prevalence of oral speech over written in the Western-European culture (Derrida 1978, 1998). Writing, as a postcard, glances among addressees and is never fully understood. Discourse is a process, when the text interprets itself and the interpretation is only possible at the moment of glancing (note the etymology of discere “to glide”).

How do these viewpoints help to find a taxonomic correspondence between “humorous discourse” and “mass media discourse”? A. Kibrik notes in (Кибрик

2008) that the use of word phrase “mass media discourse” is often not justified. It is not settled if the discourse of mass media is one type or many, collected under one heading. That is why he suggests to study it on the crossing of two taxonomies: genre and stylistic. The genre will define such sub-types as newsreel discourse, discourse of TV-show, etc. The stylistic paradigm will draw mass media discourse close to the publicist functional style. But at the same time it is obvious that the aim to define the scientific meaning of the notion of mass media discourse is connected with the need to separate the notion of discourse from that of style and genre.

It is also obvious that the mass media discourse shows its specifics in connection with different social institutes (mainly institutes of authority). The Austrian sociologist R. Wodak postulates that language does not only reflect, but also constitutes social processes (Wodak 1989). Therefore, the mass media discourse should not be separated from the political discourse, and its analysis should be conducted within a social-historical context. Such approach originates from works by Teun A. van Dijk and is nowadays developed by many other researchers (N. Fairclough, R. M. Blakar), especially within the field of Critical Discourse Analysis26.

Thus, as a subject of a linguistic research the mass media discourse should not be allocated to a written or oral type of discourse. It is dynamic and

26 Discourse and communication: New approaches to the analysis of mass media discourse and communication (ed. Teun A. van Dijk 1985), Language and globalization (Fairclough 2006).

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multidimensional. Rising from institutionalized verbal practices, it is dependent on the social-historical context and is realized in a series of communicative events.

A usual phenomenon in mass media discourse, humor is connected with its entertaining function, but it can also be found in a serious communication. There is no taxonomic connection between the notions of “humorous discourse” and “mass media discourse”. The humorous discourse is defined through the presence of comic mode in an utterance, and it can be found in all social spheres. The mass media discourse is bound to a certain type of social institute – mass media. Some of their products (TV-programs, publications, ads) may contain humorous mode as well, so they can be studied as manifestations of a humorous discourse.

§ 2.2. THE SPECIFICS OF MASS-MEDIA DISCOURSE

By the beginning of the XXI c. there has been a long talk on the nature of mass media discourse. Its specifics is researched mainly through its relation with the mass culture. It is the mass culture that forms mass media at the modern stage of the global cultural development. It gave the mass media the power to be called the Fourth Estate, when press became accessible for everyone; and it is also taking this power back, when it is trying to make mass media even more sellable at the price of good quality of its products.

The classic definition of mass culture given in Belyaev’s Dictionary of Aesthetics (Беляев 1989: 194) contains such key-words as “large circulation”, “consumer”, “production”, that characterize the mass culture as a non-classical type of post-folklore culture, that replaces spiritual values with consumer values. Formerly the traditional type of folklore culture offered quite a few professions of selling cultural values, like strolling actors or publishers of cheap popular printing. When the process turned into a mass production, it resulted in the spread of technologies that made large circulation possible and brought the inaccessible elite culture into a deep crisis. On the other hand, the low folklore culture being detached from means of mass production had to cooperate with the upper market, which gave rise to a new hybrid – modernism – that survived not only by means of

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art patronage. Its aim was to make culture profitable by means of easy reduplication. To ensure its profits this new culture borrowed all means of folklore culture by which it managed to win the attention of a crowd – breaking taboos, laughing over the sacred, simplifying the complex, giving relief to the blotted energy of masses, bound under the strict rules of the society. The major aim was to bring entertainment without compensating on the traditional culture for letting laugh and criticize over it. The main principle of this process is copying forms and genres, taking out more complex ideas and filling them with the content that would meet everyone’s expectations.

As it was said above, the mass culture is oriented towards a mass consumer. Therefore, its main aim is to attract as many people as possible27. The knowledge employed by the mass culture here seems to be quite primitive, though very advanced technically and requiring a lot of professional care. On the other hand, it is very imposing on the consumer masses and very effective in what seems to be the main aim of such culture – to hold the consumer attention as long as possible. In case of mass media this “holdup” results in an overly consuming of information, which stops with a click – the channel changes and zapping continues. The products of mass culture should be constantly consumed, otherwise they will not stand competition and will succumb to other products that will maintain this function more effectively. In Ortega y Gasset’s view Natürmenschen, “civilized barbarians”, use the mass culture to fulfill their biological needs (for example, for energy reliefs, testosterone increase, bodily relaxation, etc.) and only secondly for their social, cultural and cognitive development.28

Thus, if earlier the two cultures – elite and folklore – compensated over each other: the first gave laws and the second broke them, nowadays taboos and rules are at constant process of destruction, where social norms are only needed to have something for breakage. Likewise, complaints over social paroxysms and neurological disorders are not accidental. When the society gives more value to

27“Mass-man”, “a Natürmensch rising up in the midst of a civilized world” (Ortega Y Gasset 1994).

28See more detailed in (Вершина, Михайлюк 2002: 65).

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popularity and success rather than to compassion and learnedness, an individual is much more likely to choose what is brought on him or her by the mass culture.

Another feature of the mass culture is propaganda of “thingism” (cult of things). It is closely connected with advertising activity. Y. Borev calls it aesthetics of mass consumption where spiritual values are replaced by material and are counted in money terms (Борев 1988: 401): with the help of marketing technologies the mass informational production attracts buyers of mass things.

When the mass media start to be overloaded with the competition for the buyers of their products, their status of the Fourth Estate is gradually taken away from them, as they turn into a habitual object of desire for an average consumer. The owners of media corporations aim to get an immediate profit, for which reasons they enforce the entertaining function of mass media, even in those genres where it is unnecessary or interfering, making the message less explicit (for example, by putting more blatant videos in newsreels). This course of action does not take into account that “radio and television audiences are not just consumers, that is market participants, but also citizens with a right to participate in culture, observe political events and form their own opinion” (Habermas 2007), which means that commercialization of mass media should not obstruct its primary aims

– to inform on cultural and social matters. Instead of it the modern mass media become translators of the values of mass culture. These factor does probably the main impact on the mass media discourse today, making it a favored object for scientific attacks.

The school of CDA has done a lot of research on the topic of mass media discourse in late 1980s and in 1990s (see the abovementioned works by Teun A. van Dijk, R. Wodak, N. Fairclough). But the issue is still problematic, and is being widely researched nowadays. A number of Russian researchers are working on it as well: М. Н. Володина (2007), И. И. Засурский (2001), С. Г. Кара-Мурза

(2006), В. И. Карасик (2000; 2004), А. А. Кибрик (1994; 2008), С. Г.

Корконосенко (2004), Е. И. Шейгал (2000), and others. Their analysis has several directions: research of separate genres (talk-show, interview, debates),

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creating typologies, philosophical grounding of the notion of mass media discourse, etc.

We will now discuss the definition of mass media and classifications of its aims. The definition, given in A. Radugin’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cultural Studies says: “СМИ – принятое в общественно-политической и обществоведческой лексике собирательное обозначение технических средств, обеспечивающих функционирование трансляционной сферы культуры”29 (ed. Радугин 1997: 371). This formal definition unites two notions – “culture” and “ideology”. This important moment describes another function of the mass culture, not mentioned before – support of the image of different social institutes that both state and private mass media can fulfill, depending on their role in the state policy or in the social informational field. Therefore, the following circle of production goals for mass media can be outlined:

1.Broadening of the audience (consumers of mass media products);

2.Enforcing the audience to consume more information;

3.Increasing the effectiveness of advertising (“thingism” propaganda);

4.Support and idealization of in-state and other friendly social institutes. It is obvious that all these goals bring to one – capitalization of mass media,

via realization of their products and fulfillment of state and social orders. On the other hand, a consumer does not want to buy things only to benefit somebody else. That is why it is important to hide the actual goals behind “higher aims”, which become virtual when they are divided between genres of mass production. These aims are: informative, entertaining, educating, aesthetic, ideological, evaluative, cognitive, regulative/prescriptive etc. – the final list is an ambiguous matter. In 1948 Harold Lasswell offered the following typology: surveillance – research with the aim to discover dangers, that threaten the society, correlation – correlation of different parts of the society, that is done in correspondence with the environment, transmission – passing the heritage onto the next generations (Lasswell 1971: 84-

29 /Mass media – accepted in the social political and common lexis collective nomination of technical means, that enable functioning of the broadcasting sphere of culture./

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