Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society: Online-First ArticlesThe humorous effect of routine formulas in Spanish and English televised monologues
The present comparative study investigates the use of multi-word expressions known as ‘routine formulas’ in the
humorous monologues of four comedians from four different late-night TV shows in Spain and the United States. The study is framed
in the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) and linguistic phraseology. The study of routine formulas is intriguing due to their
overlooked status in discussions, despite their simple semantics. Yet, they play various pragmatic roles, particularly in humor
creation and comprehension, which is the primary focus here. The study aims to achieve two objectives: first, to identify the
routine formulas present in both Spanish and English and assess their frequency in monologue delivery, and second, to examine how
these formulas contribute to humor within the monologues.
Keywords: phraseology, routine formulas, humor, late-night TV monologues
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical framework
- 2.1Humor theory
- 2.2Phraseological unit
- 2.3Phraseology and humor
- 3.Motivation for the study and research questions
- 4.Data and methodology
- 4.1Corpus
- 4.2Taxonomy of routine formulas and data analysis
- 5.Findings and discussion
- 6.Conclusion
-
References
Published online: 31 May 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.23062.mir
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.23062.mir
References (49)
Alvarado Ortega, Maria Belen. 2010. Las Fórmulas Rutinarias: Teoría y Aplicaciones. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
. 2015a. “Phraseological Features in Conversational Routines. An Integrative Model of Autonomy.” Lingusticae Investigationes 38 (1): 313–330.
. 2015b. “Independencia y fórmulas rutinarias. Reestructuración de la esfera 3”. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada 28 (1): 1–16.
. 2021. “Indicadores semánticos para el estudio del humor en la comunicación: el caso de la fraseología en los monólogos”. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 851: 1–7.
Arsenteva, Elena (ed.). 2014. Phraseology in Multilingual Society. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Attardo, Salvatore, and Victor Raskin. 1991. “Script Theory Revis(it)ed: Joke Similarity and Joke Representation Model.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 4 (3–4): 293–347.
Attardo, Salvatore. 2008. “A Primer of the Linguistics of Humor.” In The Primer of humor research, ed. by Victor Raskin, 101–155. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.
. 2017a. “The GTVH and Humorous Discourse.” In Humorous discourse, ed. by Chlopicki, Wladyslaw, and Dorota Brzozowska, 93–105. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Barros Grela, Eduardo. 2016. “American Anti-humor and 21st century Spanish Television Comedy.” Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai-Philologia 61(3): 287–302.
Blanco, Xavier. 2010. Los frasemas composicionales pragmáticos. In Opacité, idiomaticité, traduction, ed. by Pedro Mogorrón and Salah Mejri, 19–32. Alicante: Universidad.
. 2014. “Microestrctura lexicográfica para unidades frásticas; los pragmatemas”. Kañina 38 (3): 13–18.
Briz, Antonio. 2013. “Variación pragmática y coloquialización estratégica. El caso de algunos géneros televisivos (la tertulia).” In (Des)cortesía para el espectáculo, ed. by Carlos Fuentes Rodríguez, 89–125. Madrid: Arcos/Libros.
Burgers, Christian, and Margot van Mulken. 2017. “Humor Markers.” In The Routledge handbook of language and humor, ed. by Salvatore Attardo, 385–399. London, New York: Routledge.
Castellón Alcalá, Heraclia. 2013. “Humor y tipos textuales. Los textos expositivos en los monólogos cómicos”. Humor, ironía y géneros textuales 11: 41–59.
Chovanec, Jan. 2017. “Interactional Humour and Spontaneity in TV Documentaries.” Lingua 1971: 34–49.
Cowie, Anthony Paul. 1994. “Phraseology.” In The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. by R. E. Asher, 3168–3171. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Camp, Elise. 2015. “Humoring the Audience: Performance Strategies and Persuasion in Midwestern American Stand-up Comedy.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Studies, 28 (3): 449–467.
Federal Communications Commission. Broadcast of Obscenity, Indecency, and Profanity. 2024. [URL]
Granger, Sylviane and Magali Paquot. 2008. “Disentangling the Phraseological Web. In Phraseology. An interdisciplinary perspective, ed. by Sylviane Granger and Fanny Meunier, 27–49. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Haugh, Michael. 2017. “Teasing.” In The Routledge handbook of language and humor, ed. by Salvatore Attardo, 204–218. New York/London: Routledge.
Keltner, Dacher, Lisa Capps, Ann M. Kring, Randall, C., and Erin A. Heerey. 2001. “Just Teasing: A Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Review. Psychological Bulletin 127 (2): 229–248.
Levinson, Stephen C. 2000. Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press.
Martin, Amanda, Barbara K. Kaye, and Mark D. Harmon. 2018. “Silly Meets Serious: Discourse Integration and the Stewart/Colbert era.” Comedy Studies 9 (2): 120–137.
Martinez Marín, Juan. 1999. Unidades léxicas complejas y unidades fraseológicas. In El neologismo, ed. by Jose Manuel González Calvo et al., 97–116. Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura.
Melčuk, Igor. 1998. Collocations and lexical functions. In Phraseology: theory, analysis and applications, ed. by Anthony Paul Cowie, 23–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mir, Montserrat and Patxi Laskurain-Ibarluzea. 2022. “Spanish and English Verbal Humour: A comparative Study of Late-night Talk Show Monologues.” Contrastive Pragmatics 3 (2): 278–312.
Pamies, Antonio. 2007. “De la idiomaticidad y sus paradojas”. In Nouveaux apports a l’etude des expressions figées, ed. by Germán Conde, 173–204. Cortil-Wodon: Inter Communications & E.M.E.
. 2014. “El algodón no engaña: algunas observaciones en la motivación en fraseología”. In Fraseología y paremiología: enfoques y aplicaciones, ed. by Vanda Durante, 33–55. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes.
. 2019. “La fraseología a través de su terminología”. In Estudios lingüísticos y culturales sobre China, ed. by Martín Ríos, 105–134. Granada: Comares.
Priego-Valverde, Béattice, Brigitte Bigi, Salvatore Attardo, Lucy Pickering, and Elisa Gironzetti. 2018. “Is Smiling During Humor so Obvious? A Cross-cultural Comparison of Smiling Behavior in Humorous Sequences in American English and French Interactions.” Special Issue: Conversational humor: Forms, functions and practices across cultures. Intercultural Pragmatics, 15 (4): 563–591.
. 2002. “Compuestos, colocaciones, locuciones: intento de delimitación”. In Lenguas e Lingüística: Léxico y Gramática, ed. by Alexandre Veiga, Miguel González and Montserrat Souto, 325–339. Lugo: Tristram.
. 2009. “La gramaticalizaci6n de unidades fraseológicas irónicas”. In Dime cómo ironizas y te diré quién eres. Una aproxi-mación pragmática a la ironía, ed. by Leonor Ruiz Gurillo and Xosé. A. Padilla Garcia, 371–390. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
. 2013. “Apuntando maneras: El papel de la fraseología en el humor”. In Fraseopragmática, ed. by Inés Olza and Elvira Manero, 167–184. Berlin: Frank&Timme.
. 2015. “Phraseology for Humor in Spanish. Types, Functions and Discourses.” Lingusticae Investigationes 38 (2): 191–212.
. 2020. “Evidentiality and Humor in Spanish: About Buenafuente’s Monologues”. RESLA. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics 3311: 303–326.
Scarpetta, Fabiola. and Anna Spagnolli. 2009. “The Interactional Context of Humor in Stand-up Comedy.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 42 (3): 210–230.
Seizer, Susan. 2011. “On the Uses of Obscenity in Live Stand-Up Comedy.” Anthropological quarterly 84 (1): 209–234.
Timofeeva, Larissa. 2012. El significado fraseológico: en torno a un modelo explicativo y aplicado. Madrid: Liceus.
Timofeeva, Larissa & Leornor Ruiz Gurillo. 2021. “Marcas e indicadores humorísticos en las narraciones escritas de niños y niñas de 8, 10 y 12 años en español. Propuesta tipológica”. Spanish in Context 18 (1): 83–112.