BLACK HUMOUR: ORIGIN DESCRIPTION AND AN ATTEMPT OF IDENTIFICATION

Abstract

The article deals with the study of such black humour aspects as the history of its appearance and attempt of distinguishing among the other types of the comic category, namely humour, irony, satire, and sarcasm. The material of the study is the works of small forms, the authentic story “Pig” in particular, by Roald Dahl (1916–1990), the most prominent representative of the English-language literature of the 20th century. The aim of the article is to describe the methodology suggested by the author for identifying black humour from the material of a literary prose text. Achieving the overall goal presupposes the solution of the following objectives. Thus, the history of development and the tradition of theoretical understanding of the “black humour” term have been traced. An interpretation of the specified term based on native and foreign interpretive sources has been provided and the leading criteria for its differentiation among the varieties of the comic category have been identified. The author considers the peculiarities of R. Dahl’s creative method, whose poetics is characterised by a clearly expressed black-humorous component. The article also specifies the algorithm for identifying black humour in prose works, which involves the use of three groups of analysis methods (linguistic, semasiological and communicative). Using the example of an English-language story, the author proves the expediency of applying the following components of linguistic methods, namely: definition of the unit of study, characterisation of the context, analysis of language units. The following methods and techniques were used to achieve the general aim of the research, such as: observation method, compositional analysis, contextual analysis, and semantic-stylistic analysis. We interpret black humour as one of the varieties of a comic category; as humour with an admixture of cynicism, the comic effect of which consists in mocking ‘gloomy’, macabre topics; as an ironic-bitter smile of a person about his / her miserable situation in the real world. It is proved that the unit of research of black humour is a complex syntactic whole, which in the compositional and thematic substance contains all the necessary structural elements – the beginning, the development, and the ending. The means of connection are repetitions of lexical units within two consecutive phrases, anaphoric clarifying phrase, anaphoric pronoun, parallelism. An important feature of grammatical organisation is the agreement (in a broad sense) of verb tense forms, which leads to the creation of a common tense perspective of the narrative. Modal verbs, particles, adverbs, and special intonation are used as means of expressing subjective modality. A typical feature of the question-answer complex is the use of elliptical sentences. An analysis of language units at different levels determines the emphasis on the macabre element – death that is tragicomically considered in the story. The compositional and speech means of organising black humour is based on opposition, antonymy of lexical units, contrast. The functioning of hyperbole, verbal and situational irony, and paradox are frequent at the lexical and semantic level. Typical means at the syntactic level are overinterrogations and explanations based on repetitions with an evaluation of what was heard. This evaluation is expressed by declarative, exclamatory or interrogative sentences. The graphic emphasis, which is created by means of italics, focuses on the meanings emphasised by interrogative words, auxiliary and notional verbs. Paralinguistic means help to reveal the protagonist’s emotions and thoughts. The perspective of the study presupposes a description of semasiological and communicative methods as components of the algorithm, which, together with linguistic methods, allows a more complete understanding of the explication of black humour in a literary prose work.