Exploring Jokes – Intercultural Communication Essay
Intercultural communication plays an important role in the process of human relations. It helps to understand people from different countries, their behavior, their cultures better. It also helps to understand how they perceive the world they live in. Intercultural communication is connected with anthropology, different cultural studies and psychology.
Definition of intercultural communication
It is known that different researchers give different definitions to the term intercultural communication. Karlfield Knapp defines this term as “interpersonal interaction between members of different groups which differ from each other in respect of the knowledge shared by their members and in respect of their linguistic forms of symbolic behavior”. (Ibad)
THE ROLE OF JOKES IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Jokes play one of the most significant roles in intercultural communication – jokes help to make the conversation easier and to get rid of tension between the partners in conversation even if they belong to different cultural groups. One more important thing is that sometimes jokes are used to express the ideas of one of the partners concerning the other partner, to mock at somebody, to tell truth by means of a joke, to hurt somebody’s dignity, to injure somebody’s pride, to give offense to somebody. That is why all the jokes can be divided into two groups:
kind jokes ;
offensive jokes.
Definition of the term “joke”
Joke is a humorous story which is told with the main goal to make people laugh.
Forms of jokes
Jokes can be represented in the different forms such as in the form of a question and in the form of a short story.
Peculiarities of jokes
It is known that jokes usually have such stylistic devices as irony, word play, sarcasm with a punchline at the end of the story in order to make it humorous.
Types of jokes
Speaking about different types of jokes, it is necessary to say that the type of joke made in this or that group depends upon the situation, location and the contingent of the group. There are several types of jokes:
inside jokes, or private jokes which mean that only some people who belong to this or that social group will understand the main meaning of the joke. The other people usually do not have any clue concerning the meaning of the joke. An inside joke may be a word or a phrase. For example, the repeating of one and the same word which was told by one of the participants of the conversation can have the effect of the inside joke. The inside jokes can unite the participants of the group. Inside jokes are connected with some event or some experience in the group. (What is an Inside Joke?)
political jokes which represent a poor economic situation in the country. Political jokes are very popular because they show the weaknesses of politicians and the government leaders. Political jokes are interested to most people because they have common themes to discuss. (Quain)
Ethnic jokes which take humor from some recognized stereotypes of a certain group including its culture and language. Ethnic jokes may be racial. Ethnic jokes mark “moral, social and geographical boundaries of a nation”. (Davies 4)
THE USE OF STEREOTYPES IN THE JOKES
Most of the jokes rely on stereotypes which help to find a link with some familiar behavior of this or that representative of the social group. For example, the blond stereotype stand for a women with blond hair who are always very beautiful and sexy, and rather stupid.
Definition of the term “stereotype”
Stereotype stands for generalization of some traits of character or behavior, or ideas of a certain group of people. Stereotypes can be positive and negative. For example, the old people can be stereotyped as cranky in one situation and as wise in another one, the Irish people are stereotyped as those who drink too much, the Jews are stereotyped as greedy and so on. Stereotypes in jokes are connected with prejudices concerning appearance of this or that representative of a social group, religion, sexual orientation and disability. (Davies 41)
EXPLORING JOKES OF A CERTAIN SOCIAL GROUP
My task was to observe some kinds of jokes that were told in a certain social group. I have made some notes about the types of jokes and their content. My goal in this essay is to describe the cultural setting in which each joke was told. I also asked the people within the group about the main point of each joke.
According to my observations, the ethnic jokes took the first position in the group which was studies by me. The ethnic or racist jokes are short stories which ridicule in a deft way racist or ethnic stereotypes. Among the ethnic jokes which were told in this social group are the following types of stereotypes:
the Irish as dullards;
the French as rude snobs;
the Americans as boasters;
the Jews as money grasper;
the Germans as machines without any sense of humor;
the Scots as stingy;
the Newfoundlander as stupid.
Of course, all the above mentioned stereotypes have some truth facts.
The most interesting thing for me was the use of stereotype of the Bosnian in the jokes. It is known that in Bosnia people like to joke. Bosnian humor touches the themes of ethnicity, gender and geography. The ethnicity and geography in the Bosnia jokes are connected with former Yugoslavia.
Here is one of the jokes about the Bosnian which was told in the social group:
Three men came to the railway station. One of them was a Montenegrin, the other was a Serb and the third man was a Bosnian. When they arrived to the station they saw that the train was leaving. They decided to run: the Montenegrin stopped after a while, the Serb also gave up and the Bosnian managed to catch the train and leave. When a person who saw them running asked the Montenegrin and the Serb: “How did it happen that you did not go while the Bosnian had gone?”, they answered: “Oh, he is a fool. Only the fool could take us to the station”.
It is known that some jokes can tell much about the ethnic relationships. The above mentioned joke is one of them because it tells about disunity of the Serbs, the Montenegrin and the Bosnian. Ethnic jokes describe the typical elements of this or that ethnic group. Such jokes help “to define and redefine the boundaries of some socially differentiated groups” (Apte 26)
Inter-group humor can easily divide the world into several groups stereotypes of which will be “boundary-makers”. This fact will construct so called social identity and as a result social relations between the groups. Of course, social stereotypes can be created by other things such as mass media, books, Internet. (Davies 14)
The stereotypes in jokes can easily strengthen some values connected with this or that social group such as traits of character and elements of culture and traditions. Some jokes have moralistic elements which teach us to be better than the main characters of such jokes.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is necessary to say that stereotypes play an important role in modern society. They not only generalize some elements from another culture but also simplify the understanding of another culture. As stereotypes can be both negative and positive, they can tell the truth about the main characters of the joke. Of course, stereotypes in jokes have some disadvantages. One of them is that stereotypes can be accepted by the listener without his own relation to this or that situation, without his critics. The other disadvantage is that people are often mistaken in their understanding of another culture. The most important thing is that stereotypes in jokes are very often based on human emotions what prevents to understand better another culture. Generally speaking, stereotypes in jokes help us to know more about other people’s behavior, values and culture. Stereotypes in jokes can be related to intercultural communication.
