You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to investigate the humorous strategies that comedians deploy during performances, with focus on the cognitive processes of meaning extraction brought about by the comedians’ linguistic choices and contextual navigations. The focus is specifically on the socio-linguistic functions of verbal humour. In terms of its theoretical framework, the research is based on the linguistics theories of humour traditionally grouped into three major categories namely: superiority, relief, and incongruity. This is complemented by insights from pragmatics. Data were purposively collected from video compact disc recordings of 10 routines of 5 males in editions of A Night of a Thousand Laughs and Glo Laffta Fest. These constitute the primary data of this research, which were subjected to pragmatic analysis.
The study reveals that Nigerian stand-up comedians adopt verbal ironies, stereotypes and call and response strategies as linguistic tools for humour delivery. These create the necessary interactive environment in which humour thrives.
