Bing, Janet M.

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Old Dominion University

Old Dominion UniversityODU Digital CommonsEnglish Faculty Publications English1999Gendered Jokes: Humor as a Subversive ActivityJanet M. BingOld Dominion University, jbing@odu.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_fac_pubsPart of the Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, and theLinguistics CommonsThis Conference Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the English at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion inEnglish Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contactdigitalcommons@odu.edu.Repository CitationBing, Janet M., "Gendered Jokes: Humor as a Subversive Activity" (1999). English Faculty Publications. 5.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_fac_pubs/5Original Publication CitationBing, Janet. "Gendered Jokes: Humor as a Subversive Activity." Women & Language 22.2 (1999): 51-52.The following abstracts are of papers presented at the 44**' Annual Conference of the Internaional LinguisticsAssociation, New York University, April 16-18,1999:Punctors in Japanese: A Study of Discourse Particles Across Languages. Makiko Akiyama, New York UniversityRecently, researchers have begun to systematicallyexplore the functions of an expanded set of forms usuallyreferred to as discourse markers (hereafter, DMs). Theyconsider as punctors words that share some structural andfunctional characteristics such as nervous tics, fillers, signof hesitancy, etc., that give directions to the hearer, abouthow interpret the discourse, related to either the structureof the discourse, or to actions of discourse. Punctors aresimilar to DMs but appear only in spoken language andhave lost all or most of their original meaning. Vincent andSankoff (1992) identified punctor occurrences in the fourprosodic contexts of regulation, demarcation,segmentation, and discourse. They claim that speakers usepunctors in much the same way even if the overall rate ofuse and use and backgrounds of the speakers aresignificantly different although they do not discuss anyvariation in punctor usage.I hypothesized that systematic variation may bepresent in speech and compared my Japanese data withVincent and Sankoff s Quebec French. In both sets of dataas the number of punctor occurrences increased for anygiven speaker, the number of different forms used alsoincreased.Three principal tendencies were observed in theJapanese data.1. No significant systematic variation in punctorusage reflected age or educational leveldifferences.2. In Japanese females tended to use punctorsmore frequently than males.3. A dialect difference is also present.In Japanese male non-Tokyo dialect speakers tendto use more punctors than do male Tokyo dialectspeakers. However, two female speakers showed justthe opposite result, even though the difference isminimal. In addition, even though the generalhierarchical punctor occurrence order is the same forall speakers (regulation, segmentation, demarcation,and discourse respectably), dialect differences showthe punctor occurrence varies in the segmentationcontext. E-mail: mal7@is4.nyu.eduSexism and Derogation in Brazilian Soap Operas. Martha Reis Almeida, University of GeorgiaIn a previous investigation I followed Robin Lakoffsguidelines (1990) to recognize and disclose derogation andsexism in language usage in Brazil. The results showedthat not only lexical items but also forms of address andepithets were asymmetric in terms of gender. For example,Um touro, a bull, describes a strong person but thefeminine, a vaca, cow, when applied to a woman, means awhore. Using a framework based on these findings Ianalyzed a 1993 Brazilian soap opera, Fera Ferida,Wounded Beast. The investigation confirmed my previousfindings in language usage. Female characters had namesthat described their physical attributes of beauty, whilenames of male characters either described their socialstatus, or they were Greek and Latin names symbolizingwisdom and power. Many other forms of derogation weredetected.This paper looks at a 1998 soap opera Hilda Furacao,Hilda Hurricane, that takes place at the present time. Itexamines whether the social gains of the last decades inthe status of women have had any impact in reducingderogation and sexism in language usage. E-mail:marta@arches.uga.eduGendered Jokes: Humor as a Subversive Activity. Janet Bing, Old Dominion UniversityHumor, as one type of self-reflective activity, canreveal unexpected perspectives and new alternatives.Many jokes, however, are based on negativestereotypes and may reinforce existing assumptionsand beliefs. In this paper I argue that different kinds ofhumor have different social consequences. Althoughcertain types of "feminist jokes" can be liberating,other jokes which claim to be feminist can actuallywork against the best interests of women.Different types of humor have different targets anddifferent consequences. Subversive humor targets ideologyand reveals the absurdity of certain social practices,including those that unfairly exclude people from power.The primary targets of subversive jokes are repressiveactions, social structures, systems, and attitudes; humorcan undermine these by revealing absurdities (such as thedifficulties businesswomen have in getting theirsuggestions heard). Subversive humor ridicules unjustWomen and Language, Volume XXII, No. 2 Page 51social causes rather than than the people who maintain andbenefit from such systems.Divisive humor, on the other hand, divides groups into"us" and "them," based on stereotypes and questionablesocial myths. Divisive humor has long been used againstwomen and other out-of-power groups. Many women donot object to divisive humor as long as it attacks "theoutsiders" and as long as the "in-group" is female.Although divisive humor may make women feelbetter and may reinforce group solidarity, it also reinforcesstrict categorization (the belief that members of a categoryshare certain inherent characteristics), and genderpolarization (as defined by Bem,1993). Most importantly,divisive humor alienates potential allies because itstrengthens the prevailing (and usually incorrect)assumption that social inequities result from mean-spiritedindividuals consciously discriminating against women andother marginalized groups. By attacking "oppressors"rather than revealing the nature of oppressive systems andbehaviors, divisive humor can actually strengthenreactionary power structures. Strategically, subversivehumor, which allows everyone to laugh, can be far moreeffective. E-mail: Jbing@odu.eduLonga et Brevis: Speaking Turns and Pauses in a Pair of All-Male and All-Female Academic Department Meetings.Susan Kay Donaldson, Tacoma Community CollegeExamination of audiotaped 30-minute openingsegments of an all-male physics department meeting andan all-female English as a Second Language departmentmeeting revealed striking differences in styles of speakers:long individual turns and many long pauses in the all-malephysics meeting and short turns (with much overlapping)and few—and only relatively short—pauses in the all-femaleESL meeting. In addition, when suggestions for action ordecisions arose, the males were generally silent, thefemales generally effusively talkative and supportive. Incontrast to what might have been expected, the men didnot compete for the floor, whereas in the female group,one struggle over topic ensued, but with a cooperativeoutcome. E-mail: sdonalds@tcc.tacoma.ctc.eduHumor appreciation: using semantic scripts to explain gender differences. Karen A. Duchaj, Northwestern UniversityThe effect of gender on humor appreciation has beeninvestigated in many ways. Results vary from finding noappreciable differences in humor appreciation betweengenders to discovering various types of differences andproposing explanations. This paper, applying script-basedsemantics to the findings, provides a new perspective onindividual appreciation of jokes. A script is a piece ofsemantic information that accompanies a lexical item.According to Raskin, the opposition in scripts createshumor in a joke text.I examined three variables of responses by sex:perceived funniness, cleverness, and offensiveness.Discriminant analysis revealed no statistically significantdifference was found between males and females regardingperceived funniness and cleverness of the jokes, but asignificant difference for offensiveness. For females.regression analysis found a statistically significant inverserelationship between perceived funniness andoffensiveness for the jokes tested. A slight inverserelationship for the male subjects was not statisticallysignificant.I propose that the dichotomy in the males' andfemales' appreciation of jokes can be explained by adifference in the semantic scripts associated with particularlexical items. For example, in the jokes studied, the wordchild seemed to activate different scripts for women thanfor men. This finding suggests that script analysis of jokesin conjunction with appreciation study may revealdifferences in the mental lexicon, shedding some light oncommunication issues between the sexes. E-mail:beatles@casbah.acns.nwu.eduBasque pronouns: En-'gendering' Basque ethnic 'authenticity'. Begona Echeverria, University of California at San DiegoSince Brown & Gilman's classic study, pronouns havebeen considered key markers of identity and stance (i.e.power and solidarity), yet my research is the first study ofthe pragmatics of Basque pronoun use. Basque nouns haveno gender, except for the familiar second person pronoun,hi. The formal second-person pronoun, zu, can be used byeither gender to address either gender. But the use of hirequires a gender marker on its accompanying verb forms:toka forms encode a male addressee with a 'k', while nokaforms encode a female addressee with an 'n.' Theaddressee is encoded in the verb forms even when theaddressee is not an argument in the sentence. Like other T-Women and Language, Volume XXII, No. 2, Page 52

Gendered Jokes: Humor as a Subversive Activity

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Gendered Jokes: Humor as a Subversive Activity

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