Laughter Research Articles

BAKHTIN AND RENE GIRARD ON DOSTOEVSKY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The article provides a critical comparison of two independent interpretations of F. M. Dostoevsky: from the side of M. Bakhtin and from the side of Rene Girard. Both authors have created coherent ways of understanding and reading the literary heritage of the writer in the perspective of their own understanding of the history of literature and the intellectual history of mankind as such. Dostoevsky is significant for Bakhtin not simply as an illustration of the applicability of some of his own ideas within the framework of literary criticism. Bakhtin sees Dostoevsky as an innovator in the development of the menippea genre and an unprecedented dialogization of literature. At the same time, without Dostoevsky, the movement of literature postulated by Girard towards the embodiment of the Gospel revelation would be incomplete. The incompleteness of Girard or Bakhtin without Dostoevsky (with all the reservations) is not fundamental. Without Dostoevsky, history as such fundamentally changes for Girard and for Bakhtin. The apparent incomparability of the authors makes it possible to read Dostoevsky differently. From the context of Girard, the meaning of Bakhtin's works and, inevitably, the meaning of laughter and dialogue (polyphony) in history are significantly transformed. On the other hand, the ways of including Dostoevsky in the image of history created by Girard, independently of Bakhtin, also run into difficulties.

The Poetics of Laughter in War and Peace

The Poetics of Laughter in War and Peace

La traducción de términos especializados con efecto humorístico en el texto audiovisual: los chistes científicos en The Big Bang Theory

Uno de los retos más fascinantes que se plantean en traducción audiovisual es la transferencia del humor, que puede estar presente en distintas formas y quedar sujeto a elementos visuales o léxicos. Esta tarea se dificulta cuando hay expresiones o palabras ineludibles, como es el caso de los términos científicos presentes en los diálogos de The Big Bang Theory. En este trabajo analizaremos una serie de chistes y juegos de palabras empleados en la popular sitcom, haciendo hincapié en aquellos que contengan terminología especializada, con el fin de observar las soluciones aportadas por el traductor para mantener el mismo grado de especificidad al tiempo que transfiere la carga humorística para provocar las risas entre el público.

No laughing matter

No laughing matter

The laughing is over1

The laughing is over1

Letter to the Editor: ‘The Laughing Disease’—From Kuru to the Joker's Sinister Laugh and Madness

Letter to the Editor: ‘The Laughing Disease’—From Kuru to the Joker's Sinister Laugh and Madness

Gelotophobia in romantic life: Replicating associations with attachment styles and their mediating role for relationship status:

The fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia) plays a detrimental role in courtship (e.g., predicting a lower likelihood of entering a relationship) and romantic relationships (e.g., low relationship...

Safety Definitions: Colloquial, Standards, Regulatory, Torts, Heuristic, and Quantitative

Scholars of every stripe have confessed that they cannot define pornography; but they know it when they see it. This unsatisfactory state-of-affairs is trivial compared to defining safety. Safety presents cascading levels of subjectiveness each of which defies definition. The current definitions of safety disguise our ignorance and deprive us of both certainty and objectivity. Indeed, as the field of safety continues to exist in a “research-free zone” we are all trying to be the one-eyed man in the valley of the blind. This paper considers colloquial, legal, and technical definitions of safety; all are useful, none are satisfactory. Even worse, none of the definitions pass the idiomatic “laugh test.”

셔만 알렉시의『탈주』에 나타난 웃음의 의미

셔만 알렉시의『탈주』에 나타난 웃음의 의미

Acehnese Onomatopoeias: Investigating, Listing, and Interpreting Their Meanings

Sound-imitating words, called onomatopoeia, present in most of languages in the world including Acehnese language, one of traditional languages in Indonesia, in which a great deal of onomatopoeias exist in it due to its unique constructions of onomatopoeia. Otherwise, this research aims at finding out kinds of Acehnese onomatopoeias understood and spoken among native Acehnese people by using Pidie dialect. Thus, five people in the Pidie Jaya regency were sorted out to be the subject informants by actualizing purposive and snowball technique. Moreover, a descriptive qualitative method was manifested in the research by actualizing some instruments to get the data such as structured interviewing and documentation. Hence, all of the data were interpreted in words by listing, transcribing their phonetics orderly, as well as describing both their function and meaning. A three-step analysis – data reduction, data verification, and data display-- was employed to describe the data gathered. Result of the research reveals that Acehnese Onomatopoeias covers a wide range of expressions in sound-imitating words in which are categorized into three big classes; Phonomimes which includes auditory impressions of various imitative sounds of animals, objects, oral-related sounds, nasal-related sounds, action-related sounds; Phenomimes -- mimetic words to describe objects’ condition and human’s activities such as visual impressions, attitude-related impressions -- characteristics, laughing manners, speaking manners -- object condition impressions, body trait impressions; Psychomimes – symbolizing psychological state or inner feelings – include sensation impressions like taste, smell, temperature, inner sensation impressions such as headache sensations, skin ache sensations, body ache sensations, and emotional impressions like crying and nervousness. Still, most of Acehnese onomatopeic words are in forms of repetition and nasalization which seems to be more unique compared to other languages.

Tom Shippey: Laughing Shall I Die. Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings

<b>Tom Shippey:</b> <i>Laughing Shall I Die. Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings</i>

Dying with Laughter—The Importance of Shifting Perspective and How Laughter Changed My Life (102)

Dying with Laughter—The Importance of Shifting Perspective and How Laughter Changed My Life (102)

The Tradition of Laughter

The Tradition of Laughter

Strategia nierozstrzygalności w wierszu jest taki pomnik Tadeusza Różewicza

The article deals with Tadeusz Rozewicz’s poem jest taki pomnik and puts forward a new interpretation concerning the mechanisms he uses to construct meanings. The author focuses on three issues: (1) the role of photography as an interpreter, (2) intertextual encryption of key contexts for the spiritual idea of the poem, (3) the allopathic function of laughter. She also indicates components of the strategy of undecidability, as a result of which a work containing what might seem an unambiguous ideological statement launches mechanisms guarding against one-way reading.

Russians’ Everyday Perceptions of Money and Finance in Laughter Discourse through Different Years

В статье рассматриваются повседневные представления россиян о деньгах и финансах, складывавшиеся на протяжении ХХ–XXI вв. Источником послужили 95 анекдотов, интернет-мемов, демотиваторов разных лет, отобранных на основании упоминания о деньгах и финансах, которые были классифицированы по историческим периодам и по трем тематическим блокам: 1) передающие общие представления о деньгах и их месте в жизни человека и общества; 2) отражающие реакцию на финансовую политику государства; 3) фиксирующие актуальные финансовые практики и представляющие рекомендации по их оптимизации. Повседневный спонтанный смеховой дискурс рассматривается как форма контрсуггестии и сопротивления мифологизации социальной реальности. Подтверждается предположение о том, что в советский период смеховой дискурс утверждал значимость денег и монетарный универсализм, а в постсоветский период распространения рыночного мифа монетарного универсализма – значимость немонетарных ценностей и отношений. Выполняя дифференцирующую функцию, юмор противопоставляет смеющихся и объект насмешки, снижает напряженность и страх. В смеховом дискурсе финансовых практик выявляются акторы, воспринимаемые как источник угрозы благополучию. Смеховой дискурс как форма повседневного знания здравого смысла предлагает «рецепты» оптимизации финансовых практик в условиях нестабильности рынка и государственной политики.

Stop laughing: this is serious

Stop laughing: this is serious

The importance of investing in your relationship: Emotional capital and responses to partner transgressions:

Throughout their relationship, couples experience a myriad of small positive moments together, such as sharing leisure activities or laughing with one another. Although these moments may seem trivi...

Aux frontières de l'expérience esthétique: le grotesque baudelairien

Cet article porte sur le grotesque chez Baudelaire. Alors que les écrits de Baudelaire sur le rire informent très souvent les théories contemporaines de l'esthétique grotesque, sa propre production poétique est souvent laissée de côté en vertu du privilège que Baudelaire lui-même accorde aux arts visuels (caricature et pantomime). Dans cet article, nous voudrions faire valoir la manière dont le grotesque se manifeste dans des œuvres de Baudelaire apparemment peu propices à son épanouissement parce que trop ostensiblement marquées par le « comique significatif », sorte d'antithèse du grotesque. A travers une discussion de Pauvre Belgique, et de « Le Chien et le Flacon », nous montrons que le grotesque intervient avant tout chez Baudelaire comme l’événement d'une suspension ou d'une distorsion du sens visé, ce qui revient à distinguer sa lecture d'une expérience proprement « esthétique »

Nurses Lead a Movement to Inspire More Kindness, Joy, and Laughter

Nurses Lead a Movement to Inspire More Kindness, Joy, and Laughter

Semiology of hyperkinetic seizures of frontal versus temporal lobe origin.

Hyperkinetic seizures are usually associated with frontal lobe epilepsy. However, some patients have hyperkinetic seizures of temporal lobe origin. The semiological differences in hyperkinetic seizures between frontal and temporal lobe epilepsy have not been well studied. Here, we retrospectively assessed ictal semiology in order to distinguish between hyperkinetic seizures of frontal lobe origin and those of temporal lobe origin. We retrospectively reviewed data on patients who had undergone surgery for hyperkinetic seizures of temporal or frontal lobe origin and achieved favourable seizure outcomes (Engel Class I) with a minimum postoperative follow-up of 24 months. We reviewed seizure histories, imaging reports, video-EEG monitoring data, operative records, and pathological findings. We analysed and compared the hyperkinetic semiology of video-recorded seizures of temporal lobe origin and those of frontal lobe origin. Forty hyperkinetic seizures in eight patients (seven adult patients and one 12-year-old patient) with temporal lobe epilepsy and 45 hyperkinetic seizures in nine patients (eight adult patients and one 16-year-old patient) with frontal lobe epilepsy were analysed. Emotional facial expressions (such as fear, laughing, or anger), bilateral forceful elbow flexion, bilateral forceful grasping, facial flushing, and bilateral facial contraction were observed significantly more frequently in seizures of frontal lobe origin. Oroalimentary automatisms, seizures during wakefulness, salivation, and bilateral drop of the corners of the mouth were observed significantly more frequently in seizures of temporal lobe origin. Observation of a number of signs during hyperkinetic manifestations may help to predict whether a seizure originates from the frontal lobe or the temporal lobe.