(Im)politeness and Its Strategic Expression in Ethnic Stand-Up Comedy (drawing on English-language performances of Asian comedians)

Abstract

The article investigates the category of politeness and its strategic functioning in stand-up gigs involving ethnic humor and delivered by Asian comedians in front of western audience. The following reasons constitute the rationale behind the research: the importance of communication between members of multicultural communities, a lack of research on ethnic stand-up discourse, the play frame of the communicative situation engaging participants in a distinctive form of interaction. The aim of the research is to identify and classify speech moves effectuating the discursive (im)politeness tactic in ethnic jokes with specific audience members or audience as a whole being the butts. In this research paper a stand-up performance is considered to be a speech act. The extent to which Grice’s maxims could be applied with regard to stand-up discourse is analyzed. It is highlighted that, according to the audience’s beliefs, a stand-up comedian is expected to play a role of a marginal person, flouting conventional rules of social conduct. The categories of (im)politeness, including mock impoliteness, and their potential in creating comic incongruity is considered. The article provides an overview of modern literature concerning (im)politeness strategies in stand-up comedy. The material under research is a three-stage selection of video recordings of stand-up performances. A discourse analysis of the performances was conducted to pin down the application of (im)politeness tactics targeting the audience. The author distinguishes three types of speech moves: moves neutral toward the ‘face’ of the interlocutor(s), moves supporting the ‘face’ of the interlocutor(s), moves putting the ‘face’ of the interlocutor(s) at potential or real risk. The findings suggest that moves putting the ‘face’ of the interlocutor(s) at potential or real risk make up the majority of speech moves made by the comedians, the primary reasons being their effectiveness when it comes to creating the comic incongruity and their ability to boost the comedian’s ‘face’.