Humour has for a long time been regarded as something unproblematic that in general shouldn’t be taken seriously, and humour research has mainly focused its positive functions and effects. However, humour is indeed a social and discursive practise that, just like others, have social implications. The aim of this essay is, informed by an intersectional perspective, to problematize and critically examine stand-up comedy as discursive practise and to make visible how humour build upon dominating discourses in society. The aim is also to examine the self-contradictory dimension of the jokes. In a critical discourse analysis of Özz Nûjen’s show Dålig stämning (2013), using PC (political correctness) as an overall analytical framework, the analytical categories ‘women’ as well as ‘ethnicity and culture’ are focused. My conclusion is that in all cases of Nûjen’s prerogative of interpretation, ‘stupidity’, as the lowest common denominator, sticks to symbols, bodies and phenomenon that are associated with something deviant or negative. By what is not expressed, a white, normative Swedish PC-identity is constructed as the abstract, preferable subject. Nûjen’s stand-up comedy, i.a. in expressions of self-contradiction, proves to mainly reinforce social norms. Consequently, negative preconceptions and biased representations of reality are cemented. Though Nûjen does contribute to sociocultural change to some extent, the elaborations of the jokes in most cases prove to sustain the social order. A renegotiation of identities is therefore made strictly limited. However, in one case, Nûjen does challenge the notion of identities as fixed and essential, when renegotiating the master status and construction of “The ethnical Other woman”.

La presente tesi ha come scopo l’analisi della traduzione per il doppiaggio dell’umorismo costruito su argomenti tabù (quali ad esempio riferimenti al sesso, alla sessualità, all’obesità, al consumo di alcol e droghe) presente in quattro sitcom americane, nello specifico Friends, Will & Grace, How I Met Your Mother e 2 Broke Girls. In particolare, partendo dalla teoria della riscrittura proposta da Lefevere (1992,) la ricerca mira ad identificare casi di censura e manipolazione presenti nella traduzione in italiano dei suddetti testi audiovisivi. Con un approccio traduttivo descrittivo, i dialoghi trascritti dall’inglese sono stati confrontati con la loro traduzione in lingua italiana e i risultati dimostrano che censura e manipolazione all’interno della traduzione per il doppiaggio sono due fenomeni esistenti pur non essendo sempre possibile distinguere tra i due dal momento che non solo i vari specialisti coinvolti nel doppiaggio, quali traduttori, direttori del doppiaggio, doppiatori, adattatori, ma anche gli organi afferenti al patronato (Lefevere 1992) possono in qualche modo influire sull’atto traduttivo stesso. Un confronto diacronico tra le sitcom prese in esame dimostra tuttavia come fenomeni censori e manipolatori nella traduzione dell’umorismo tabù siano oggi in diminuzione rispetto al passato, probabile segno di una mutata ideologia nella cultura di arrivo. / The purpose of the present thesis is to analyse the translation for dubbing of humour based on taboo topics – such as, for example, references to sex, sexuality, obesity, alcohol and drug addiction – present in four American sitcoms, namely Friends, Will & Grace, How I Met Your Mother and 2 Broke Girls. Moving from the theory of rewriting introduced by Lefevere (1992), the present research aims to identify cases of manipulation and censorship in the Italian translation of the above-mentioned audiovisual texts. Following a descriptive translational approach, the English dialogues have been compared to their Italian translation. Results show that censorship and manipulation exist in the translation for dubbing even though it is not always possible to distinguish between the two. Indeed, not only the several specialists involved in the dubbing process, such as translators, dubbing directors, dubbing actors, adaptors, but also the powers linked to patronage (Lefevere 1992) can influence in several ways the translation process. However, a diachronic comparison of the analysed sitcoms demonstrates that censorial and manipulative phenomena in the translation of taboo humour are decreasing compared to the past, and this is probably due to a change in the receiving culture ideology.

Cette étude s'attache à démontrer comment les écrits satiriques du poète élisabéthain John Donne (1572-1631) lui permettent de développer une esthétique propre, qui ne se cantonne pas qu'au corpus satirique strict mais trouve également une résonance dans le reste de son œuvre. Traditionnellement considérée comme une tendance marginale dans sa poésie, la satire chez Donne s'exprime à travers d'autres textes, laissant ainsi transparaître un « esprit satirique ». Le jeu et la prise de distance du poète vis-à-vis des conventions littéraires, sociales et religieuses de son époque nous permettent de mettre au jour une poétique dominée par le doute et la mélancolie. Cette humeur noire, selon la théorie médicale des humeurs, nous conduit vers l'humour et le comique : fort peu examinés chez Donne, ces concepts transparaissent pourtant à la lecture des textes les moins explorés par la critique, dévoilant ainsi une esthétique qui donne sa cohérence au corpus. John Donne n'est pas que le chef de file de la poésie métaphysique : son statut de satiriste lui confère également celui d'humoriste. / This study aims to show how the satiric writings of Elizabethan poet John Donne (1572-1631) display a specific aesthetics, which is also to be found in all his work and not only in his satiric texts. Although it has traditionally been considered as a fringe element in Donne's poetry, satire appears in other writings, thus disclosing a ''satiric spirit''. By playing and distancing himself from the literay, social and religious standards of his time, the poet's work reveals an aesthetics ruled by doubt and melancholy. According to the system of medicine called ''humorism'', melancholy is a black fluid that brings us to humour and comedy : even though they have been rarely examined in Donne studies, these concepts do stand out after a close reading of the least sought-after poems. It thus unites and makes the whole of Donne's poetry coherent. Not only is he the best representative of the metaphysical poets, he is also a satirist as well as a humorist.

Modern humour appears to initiate the deconstruction of modern correspondence thinking. A close examination shows the opposite, namely that modern humour forms part of correspondence thought in a complicated reciprocal relationship of disruption and support. Ironically, humour is particularly suited to explicating the deconstruction of correspondence thinking in poststructuralist language theories by being prone to refute cornerstone principles of modernism such as truth, rationality, reliability and permanence. This dissertation focuses on the exceptional suitability of humour to adapt to the loss of the centre and to demonstrate the shift from the modernist ontological approach to the postmodernist creative metaphorical approach to art. Humour, like metaphor, reinvents meaning rather than discovers it; it remains open-ended instead of offering closure. It becomes a valid creative option and enters a new dynamic into a postmodern culture of play where truth and meaning remain infinitely suspended in an ungrounded state of possibility. / Art History, Visual Arts & Music / M.A. (Visual Arts)

Impersonal, non-face-to-face contact and text-based interfaces, in the e-Learning segment, present major problems that are encountered by learners, since they are out on vital personal interactions and useful feedback messages, as well as on real-time information about their learning performance. This research programme suggests a multimodal, combined with an edutainment approach, which is expected to improve the communications between users and e-Learning systems. This thesis empirically investigates users’ effectiveness; efficiency and satisfaction, in order to determine the influence of edutainment, (e.g. amusing speech and facial expressions), combined with multimodal metaphors, (e.g. speech, earcon, avatar, etc.), within e-Learning environments. Besides text, speech, visual, and earcon modalities, avatars are incorporated to offer a visual and listening realm, in online learning. The methodology used for this research project comprises a literature review, as well as three experimental platforms. The initial experiment serves as a first step towards investigating the feasibility of completing all the tasks and objectives in the research project, outlined above. The remaining two experiments explore, further, the role of edutainment in enhancing e-Learning user interfaces. The overall challenge is to enhance user-interface usability; to improve the presentation of learning, in e-Learning systems; to improve user enjoyment; to enhance interactivity and learning performance; and, also, to contribute in developing guidelines for multimodal involvement, in the context of edutainment. The results of the experiments presented in this thesis show an improvement in user enjoyment, through satisfaction measurements. In the first experiment, the enjoyment level increased by 11%, in the Edutainment (E) platform, compared to the Non-edutainment (NE) interface. In the second experiment, the Game-Based Learning (GBL) interface obtained 14% greater enhancement than the Virtual Class (VC) interface and 20.85% more than the Storytelling interface; whereas, the percentage obtained by the game incorporated with avatars increased by an extra 3%, compared with the other platforms, in the third experiment. In addition, improvement in both user performance and learning retention were detected through effective and efficiency measurements. In the first experiment, there was no significant difference between mean values of time, for both conditions (E) & (NE) which were not found to be significant, when tested using T-test. In the second experiment, the time spent in condition (GBL) was higher by 7-10 seconds, than in the other conditions. In the third experiment, the mean values of the time taken by the users, in all conditions, were comparable, with an average of 22.8%. With regards to effectiveness, the findings of the first experiment showed, generally, that the mean correct answer for condition (E) was higher by 20%, than the mean for condition (NE). Users in condition (GBL) performed better than the users in the other conditions, in the second experiment. The percentage of correct answers, in the second experiment, was higher by 20% and by 34.7%, in condition (GBL), than in the (VC) and (ST), respectively. Finally, a set of empirically derived guidelines was produced for the design of usable multimodal e-Learning and edutainment interfaces.

<p>Language-play can briefly be described as the wilful manipulation of the peculiarities of a linguistic system in a way that draws attention to these peculiarities themselves, thereby causing a communicative and cognitive effect that goes beyond the conveyance of propositional meaning. Among the various phenomena answering this description are the different kinds of puns, but also more strictly form-based manipulations such as rhymes and alliteration, in addition to a host of other, sometimes even fuzzier, subcategories.</p><p>Due to its unusual nature, and especially its frequently strong dependence on the idiosyncrasies of a particular language, language-play can generally be assumed to constitute a significant challenge in a translation context. Furthermore, given its non-negligible effects, the translator is not free to simply ignore the language-play (provided it has been recognized as such in the first place) without having taken an active stance on its treatment. However, the difficulties in finding a suitable target-language solution are possibly exacerbated if the source text is a complex multimedia product such as a film, the translation of which, normally in the form of dubbing or subtitling, is subject to additional constraints.</p><p>In view of these intricacies, it has been the aim of this study to analyze and measure how language-play in film has actually been treated in authentic dubbing and subtitle versions. As a prerequisite, the concept of language-play has been elaborated on, and more than a dozen subcategories have been described, developed, and employed. For the purpose of carrying out a meaningful analysis of the dubbing and subtitling of language-play, a corpus has been compiled, comprising 18 family films and 99 of their various target versions, most on DVD, and yielding nearly 800 source-text instances of language-play and thousands of translation solutions.</p><p>The results indicate that especially two sets of factors, among the many that are likely to influence a translation, play a prominent role: the type of the language-play, and the identity and working conditions of the translator. By contrast, the mode of translation (dubbing vs. subtitling), the target language, or the general properties of the films, could not be shown to have a sizeable impact.</p>

Ce mémoire analyse le phénomène de l’humour politique envers les chefs d’État égyptiens (Moubarak, Moursi et Es-Sissi) sur les places publiques et sur les réseaux sociaux durant les soulèvements du printemps arabe entre 2011 et 2015 qui furent remplis de tumultes, de divisions et de déceptions. L’humour politique était très présent dès le premier moment et a non seulement joué un rôle important comme marqueur de transformations dans le système politique, mais aussi comme marqueur du déroulement d’un drame social qui connaît des phases d’évolution et de régression, voire un retour vers un point de départ. Alors que la symbolique du chef d’État égyptien implique la mobilisation d’une image locale d’Ibn El Balad (égyptien authentique et fils du pays), père et unificateur d’un peuple sensible à son héritage millénaire et à ses traditions, l’humour politique reflète à la fois les aspirations des jeunes activistes branchés sur le monde pour une société civile basée sur le respect des droits de la personne et le rappel populaire constant des valeurs traditionnelles fondatrices de la nation égyptienne que le président égyptien doit incarner, soit la famille et la religion. Même si le tabou du président est brisé, le champ politique semble retourner vers un point de départ. Le peu de libéralisme gagné avec ces tumultes révolutionnaires depuis cinq ans se trouve détourné et devient plutôt un signe négatif dans une société qui, une fois revenue à la normale, demeure profondément conservatrice. / This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of political humor to the head of the Egyptian State (Mubarak, Mursi and Es-Sissi) on public squares and on social networks during the Arab Spring uprisings between 2011 and 2015, which was a period of turmoil, divisions and disappointments. Political humor was very present from the first moment, and has not only played an important role as a marker of changes in the political system, but also as a marker of the progress of a social drama who knows evolution and regression phases, or even a return to a starting point. While the symbolism of the Egyptian head of state involves the mobilization of a local image of Ibn El-Balad (authentic Egyptian and son of the country), father and unifier of a people sensitive to its old heritage and traditions, political humor reflects both the aspirations of young activists globally connected to a civil society based on respect for human rights and the constant reminder of traditional values, founders of the Egyptian nation that the Egyptian President must embody, such as family and religion . Although the taboo president is broken, the political field seems to return to a starting point and limited liberalism gained with these revolutionary turmoil for five years is hijacked and becomes a more negative sign in a society which, once returned to normal rest deeply conservative.

This thesis discusses the comic discourse in Laurence Sterne's novel The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. It shows the way in which the theories of the comic of Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud are applied in this novel. In Tristram Shandy, the principles of the comic of Bergson and Freud do not function in their usual manner; they are fulfilled by the structure and the process of narration. The comic in this novel is also enhanced by the fact that aspects of narration that are usually static and unchanging throughout a novel (such as the nature of the narrator) gained dynamism in Tristram Shandy. This dynamism offers a space for the structural comic to origin. The comic of Tristram Shandy also draws from the principle of association. This novel inspired later theories of humour and the comic in general.

The topic of computer/video games and their translation has only recently attracted attention of translation scholars. The thesis aims at introducing the phenomenon as a legitimate topic of translation studies, presenting it as a specific and influential medium with an extensive user subculture. A description of the overall process of game localization, and specifically its practice in the Czech Republic are included. Lexical analysis of selected computer game reviews and online discussions is complemented with a questionnaire survey to reveal if and how computer games and game- focused articles influence the constitution of a characteristic sociolect and its usage outside the gamer subculture. Concepts used in intercultural and interlingual transfer of computer games are defined and compared with established terms in translation studies. A comparative analysis of original and Czech versions of two computer games is carried out to identify translation methods used in the transfer of culture- and language-specific elements in order to determine whether the process of computer game translation exhibits any specific features that may justify the introduction of new terms into translation studies. Specific features of computer games in translation are described and an analysis of several games...

This thesis aims to describe and analyze the process of construction of otherness, use of humour and taste performance on Facebook page Divnolidi z Brna a okolí. Theoretical background explores contemporary approaches to the research of social network sites (particulary on privacy and sharing; a separate chapter is devoted to Facebook social network site), sociological term of taste as the instrument for social distinction (here, the study is primarily based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu), interdisciplinary concept of otherness (in which we examine works of Mary Douglas, Stuart Hall and Marc Augé) as well as theoretical approach to humour called theory of superiority. We conducted a quantitative description of Divnolidi z Brna a okolí page and a qualitative analysis (a method often called "data-crawling") of 47 page posts. Analytical section of this study focuses on answering following questions: What types of posts can be found on the site? How are individuals captured in these posts perceived? How do the users perceive taste / otherness of the captured individuals? Where were these "weird people" (in Czech language "divnolidi") spotted and how do the users perceive these places? Furthermore, we analyze the use of humour by the page users and the way they react to the site's policy and other...