a sociolinguistic study of the use of stereotypes

HUMOR & LANGUAGE
A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE USE OF STEREOTYPES IN THE
STAND-UP COMEDY OF RUSSELL PETERS
By Marie Galting, Lasse Lindegaard Pedersen, Javor Loznica, Vilhelm Lucas, Susan June
Pejtersen, Christine Van Kuylenstierna and Jesper Schnedler Henriksen
Supervised by Anne Fabricius
Table of Contents
!
Table&of&Contents&.......................................................................................................................&1!
Abstract!......................................................................................................................................................!2!
Summary!...................................................................................................................................................!2!
1.&Introduction&............................................................................................................................&4!
1.1!Problem!definition!.........................................................................................................................!5!
1.2!About!Russell!Peters!.....................................................................................................................!5!
2.&Methodology&...........................................................................................................................&6!
2.1!Qualitative!method!........................................................................................................................!8!
2.2!Selection!of!data!..............................................................................................................................!9!
2.3!Analyzing!the!data!......................................................................................................................!10!
3.1&Introduction&to&Sociolinguistics&.................................................................................&13!
3.1.1!Style!in!Language!.....................................................................................................................!14!
3.1.2!Language!functions!and!context!.......................................................................................!17!
3.1.3!High!Performance!....................................................................................................................!20!
3.1.4!How!style!affects!social!meaning!and!style!in!jokes!.................................................!20!
3.2&Phonetic&theory&and&approach&....................................................................................&24!
3.2.1!Russell!Peters’s!narrative!voice!........................................................................................!26!
3.3&Humor&and&Language&.....................................................................................................&27!
3.3.1!Definition!of!Humor!................................................................................................................!27!
3.3.2!StandNup!Comedy!....................................................................................................................!28!
3.3.3!Theories!of!Humor!..................................................................................................................!29!
3.3.4!Functions!and!Context!of!Humor!......................................................................................!32!
3.3.5!Accents!and!Stereotypes!in!Humor!..................................................................................!33!
4.&Analysis&.................................................................................................................................&34!
4.1!Peters!&!The!Green!Card!Tour!...............................................................................................!35!
4.2!StandNup!as!stylization!and!high!performance!...............................................................!41!
Section!1:!Narratives!created!through!language!variation!and!stylization!...............!45!
Section!2:!Cultural!understanding!and!social!meaning!......................................................!52!
Section!3:!Pronunciation!and!the!metalinguistic!level!of!humor!...................................!57!
5.&Discussion&.............................................................................................................................&65!
6.&Conclusion&............................................................................................................................&71!
7.&Literature&&&References&...................................................................................................&73!
1
Abstract
By looking at stand-up comedian Russell Peters’s show “The Green Card
Tour”, we seek an understanding of how sociolinguistics and humor correlates
and are applied for comedic effect. In order to achieve the latter, this project
will firstly attempt to explain sociolinguistics and humor in relation to each
other. Later, those concepts will be applied to the chosen sections within the
The Green Card Tour, specifically revolving around how Russell Peters
achieves comedic effect. The objective of this project is to explain – with help
from our theoretical approaches – how comedic effect is achieved, in the
specific case of the stand-up comedy genre. Along with the aforementioned
sociolinguistic and humor approaches, a phonetic approach will be applied.
Summary
I dette projekt undersøges det hvordan Russell Peters humoristiske stil forstås
igennem sociolingvistiske værktøjer. Ydermere undersøges det hvordan
sproglige variationer bliver brugt til at fremhæve og skabe humor. Projektet
tager udgangspunkt i Russell Peters og hans show The Green Card Tour og
tager sit afsæt i både socialkonstruktivisme, såvel som i strukturalisme. Disse
videnskabsteoretiske retninger bidrager til baggrundsviden og bygger
fundamentet for de forståelser som drages af de valgte teorier. Showet
bearbejdes ud fra teorier om sociolingvistik og humor teori og anvender ud fra
et metodemæssigt perspektiv fonetikken.
Analysen er således udarbejdet ved hjælp af fonetiske værktøjer der igennem
analysen hjælper til en bredere forståelse af de konkrete lingvistiske narrativer.
Den bygger på de valgte teorier og er opbygget i tre sektioner der belyser
forskellige aspekter af showets lingvistiske stil. Ud fra analysen findes det at
Russell Peters i høj grad benytter sig af kulturelle stereotyper og parodier der
2
understøttes af både style shifting, relief/release theory, incongruity theory og
superiority theory. De jokes som Peters fremstiller understøttes derudover af
publikums social meaning, der fremhæver de humoristiske elementer i showet.
Ud fra disse distinktioner diskuteres det hvorledes Peters gør brug af metalingvistikken og derigennem konstruerer komiske situationer. Yderligere
berøres emner som lingvistiske funktioner, high performance, signposting og
stereotyper. Nogle af de pointer der anskueliggøres, omhandler hvorvidt Peters
deltager i fastholdelsen af diverse stereotyper og yderligere i hvor høj grad
Peters gør brug af de eksisterende kulturelle referencerammer.
Heraf konkluderes det, at der findes tre primære faktorer, når det kommer til
den humoristiske succes der opnås i Peters show. Disse betegnes som værende
stiliseringen
af
de
kulturelle
stereotyper,
brugen
af
elementer
i
overensstemmelse med humorteori i jokes og evnen til at skelne når lyd i sig
selv kan indeholde morsomme elementer.
3
1. Introduction
Stand-up comedy has gained immense popularity in the twentieth century, and
is enjoyed by all generations. Although there are several types of stand-up
comedians, from ones who perform sketches or use props, to those who tell
stories or use one-liners, the majority of stand-up comedians have one thing in
common: They use language to achieve success and make people laugh. Some
changes their pitch or tone for comedic effect, others employ different dialects
to represent certain stereotypes for humorous effect. Indeed, stand-up
comedians sometimes rely just as much on intentional use and abuse of
phonetics, dialects and other parts of language as they do on the material of the
jokes, and these aspects might end up being the core of the joke instead. This
raised interest in our group on the subject of phonetics and their use in stand-up
comedy, whilst also quickly making us realize that sociolinguistics likewise
play an important part in what we are interested in. This is seen by the phonetic
effects used by comedians, signifying something that the society at large can
agree on being humorous, such as exemplifying a stereotypical ethnicity, or
social class. This linguistic and sociolinguistic aspect of stand-up comedy then
becomes our subject of interest, and we ask ourselves why and how language
itself is used for comedic effect?
While exploring the relation between language and humor, we wanted to work
with a specific stand-up comedian. After considering comedians such as Eddie
Izzard, Eddie Murphy and Louis C.K., we settled on the Canadian comedian
Russell Peters. We found his use of cultural stereotypes as a source of humor
interesting (and funny) and decided that his style of humor would be highly
suitable for our investigation. Much of Russell Peters’s comedy is based on his
ability to imitate accents and dialects and use these to portray characteristics of
certain ethnic or cultural groups, such as Indian, Chinese or Irish.
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The connection between language and humor, which is the subject of interest
in this project, combined with the choice of Russell Peters as source material
lead to the following problem definition.
1.1 Problem definition
How can the humoristic style of Russell Peters be understood through a
sociolinguistic perspective, and which features of language variation are
utilized in enhancing and establishing humorous effect?
1.2 About Russell Peters
In order to investigate the use of language and linguistic variation as part of
humor and comedy, the project will be focused upon the stand-up comedy of
the Indo-Canadian comedian Russell Peters. He was born and raised in
Toronto, Canada as the son of Anglo-Indian parents who emigrated to Canada.
In addition his background provides him with a certain flair for portraying
cultural stereotypes. Peters performs a specific style of observational comedy,
which is politically incorrect and mainly focused on ethnic or cultural
stereotypes. In an interview to the Indian newspaper India Today, Peters
himself states that “...if you’re politically correct, chances are that you’re not
coming to one of my shows. I get to go onstage and say things that everybody
thinks all the time, but can’t say out loud.” (Web 1). The fact that Peters
himself is part of a minority culture, could be argued to allow him to portray
racial stereotypes without being perceived as a racist by the audience. Peters’s
politically incorrect brand of comedy has earned him a place among the highest
paid stand-up comedians of this millennium, selling out large arenas all across
the globe. His international appeal, combined with his use and abuse of cultural
stereotypes and linguistic variation in the form of accents and dialects, makes
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him an obvious choice as this project will attempt to uncover the connections
between humor and language.
2. Methodology
In order to explain the underlying methodology behind the linguistic theories
used in this project, the following contains an explanation of respectively
structuralism, pragmatism and social constructivism.
Structuralism is based on the realization that if human actions or productions
have a meaning there must be an underlying system of conventions (Robey,
1973: 22). On the other hand, structuralism is a view that investigates the inner
structure rather than the outer conditions. This means that the aim is to describe
all cultural phenomena and forms of expressions as being parts of a sign
system. In addition structuralism claims that every linguistic sign is only
understood in its connection to the surrounding signs (Web 2).
When talking about linguistic structuralism one of the most important schools
of linguistic theory is phonology. This research form contains all the
structuralist concepts as its aim is to analyze the use of sounds in connection
with other sounds (Web 2). By conforming the analytic work within this
structural way of thinking, phonology hence become both a central tool as well
as a methodologically way of approaching our source material. This means that
the direct form of working structuralist consist of the phonology
implemented.
One of the most significant theorists in structuralism is Ferdinand de
Saussure, as he was one of the first to break the historic oriented linguistic
science. Therefore, he was both a pioneer as well as an advocate of the science
of structuralism. Saussure implemented structuralism through his studies on
linguistics and introduced notions such as langue and parole (Web 3). It is
6
important to mention Saussure in this project, because he is one of the most
significant theorists when talking about structuralism, furthermore he is the
creator of the way in which the mind is set, when analyzing specific linguistic
empirical material. Saussure implemented a model of three parts which
explains how phenomena are realized. These are recognized as signe, signifiant
and signifié and respectively represent expression, content and reference of a
given phenomenon. This explains how the world view is dominated by
thoughts which characterize words and phenomena as not only an etiquette, but
a double-sided case consisting of the expression and the notion of meaning
(Web 3).
The importance of structuralism and Saussure in this project lies within the
way we understand our empirical material as well as setting the basis for the
analytic approach.
Pragmatism is a subfield within linguistics and semiotics, which gives the
opportunity of explaining how context contributes to meaning. This means that
pragmatism creates the opportunity of understanding utterances within a
certain context beholding knowledge such as the participants’s background,
purpose and expectations (Web 4). With this in mind it is understood that
pragmatism grants the cultural as well as contextual awareness, which, in this
case create the foundation of why stand-up shows are funny. This means that
the pragmatic approach explain and help in understanding the comic utterances
within the given context.
Although this project is based on thoughts of linguistic structuralism it is also
founded within social constructivism. This basic methodological assumption
revolves around the notion that all human acknowledgement is a social
construction (Web 5). This is relevant in aspects of being able to construct
humorous situations within a given context containing certain types of social
7
constructions. The social constructivism also provides concrete reasons for
why the accents and dialects that Peters provides in this project is to be
considered as funny. This reasoning provides the notion of stand-up as being
funny because of the social construction gathered within the forum as well as
the cultural understandings founded across the spectra of cultural identities.
These two notions on methodology create the foundation on which this project
is based. Furthermore they establish the preconceptions which should be within
the awareness of the reader of this project.
2.1 Qualitative method
To investigate our field of research and answer the problem definition, we have
decided to use a qualitative method. The main reason for us avoiding a
quantitative approach, is because it would provide us with a vast amount of
superficial data and answers, which would of course help us determine how
Russell Peters is performing (ex. at different shows/stages) but would not say
as much about what the act itself holds of social meaning and linguistic quality.
This quantitative method would potentially have allowed us to use linguistic
variationism to determine style shifts, Peters’s own style, and inconsistencies in
his adopted accents and dialects, yet it is not something we felt would be
relevant to know. Quantitatively speaking, it could also have been interesting
to see how different audiences would react to the same show – and how Peters
most likely would adapt his performance to the audience as well – however,
this will not be the focus of this study either. This is not due to a lack of
relevance in these observations and type of research on their own, but in the
context of what we are aiming to achieve it falls short. We realize it could be
turned to supplement our project in various ways, but the amount of tedious
slogging, through heaps of information does not merit the usefulness of the
data achieved in our case.
8
Instead we apply a qualitative method; more specifically we will be looking at
one particular stand-up show to see how comedic effect can be understood and
explained by looking at the linguistic mechanisms that make it possible. It is
thus our hypothesis that by making a linguistic analysis it is possible to get a
greater understanding of the social phenomenon that humor is. Therefore, by
theorizing that field of study, we wish to answer not only how language can be
used to create comedic effect, but essentially why language holds a comedic
potential in the first place.
2.2 Selection of data
As our method is a qualitative one, we obviously cannot use several of Peters’s
shows, yet neither can we use the full content of a single show – the data
collected would simply be too much. However, this is not to say that which
show is chosen is not important, since even though Peters has many of the
same themes for his shows, there is still a difference in context (in the form of
location), time (things that were considered funny at his first performance
could be considered dated when compared to his newest), and the audience
reception. Because of this, we chose to limit ourselves to one particular show,
The Green Card Tour. By doing this we can ensure that all of the jokes are
subjected to the same audience (somewhat at least, as the show was filmed
over the course of two showings, with the best snippets cut and pasted
together), and that we are working with his newest material. Hence, we have
not put value in what is considered his best performance in the case of the
show itself, but instead focused on what can be considered the most temporally
relevant one, by choosing his latest DVD release as our case.
Since we cannot analyze the entirety of the show in a project to a justifiable
extent, given the limit on pages, we have instead opted for three sections of
varying length, which we have picked after having watched the show. We
9
chose these three sections to add variety, instead of examining one longer clip
of equal length. The selection of these sections is based on two things: The first
is a subjective estimate of style-shifting in Peters’s language (ex. shifting from
one dialect to another). In other words, it was a requirement that Peters in one
way or another used his regular, well-known mimicry of dialects and accents in
order for the joke to function humorously. This is one of the hallmarks of
Peters’s work, and we felt it important that it was reflected as much as possible
in this project. The second requirement was that the section, or joke, had a
positive response from the audience, such as laughter or clapping. Even though
we did not choose the show itself based on acclaimed success (i.e based on
how funny it is) we felt that to ignore this factor in our sections would be folly.
The justification for this lies in that, since we are looking at why linguistic
variation is considered funny, the requirement for any given piece of text we
analyze has to either lead up to hilarity, be hilarious in a context, or be
hilarious in and of itself. Determining this is of course difficult in a scientific
sense, since it a largely subjective manner depending on your humoristic
preference. Because of this, our point of reference in this regard is twofold:
The audience has to laugh at the joke, and we ourselves have to be able to see
the humoristic value of it.
2.3 Analyzing the data
After we settled on The Green Card Tour, we had to decide which tools and
theories we would use to analyze the show. Given our problem formulation, we
asked ourselves “which concepts can help us explain the comedic effects of the
show?”. Through that, humor, sociolinguistic and phonetic aspects were
deemed thorough enough to answer our problem formulation. Many other
concepts have been considered or could have been used. Interaction for
instance, applies very well to what Peters does with his audience in the way he
10
gets them involved as part of his humoristic structures. He also uses a lot of tag
questions, and parts of his show remind us of a conversation. Thus,
Conversation Analysis was an option but it would not help us answer our
problem formulation, as the interaction can be explained through humor theory
on how it achieves comedic effect.
Thus, when analyzing The Green Card Tour, we have decided to illustrate and
examine the comedian’s use of language by looking closer at both the macro –
and micro level of the speech-acts in the performance.
Looking at the empirical data – The Green Card Tour-show – we can identify
three levels (the three S’s) in our field of research that is stand-up comedy.
The Show level is the artistic performance that the comedian does on stage,
both the scripted and the improvised parts (since it can at times be difficult, if
not impossible, to tell them apart, especially in Peters’s shows). The themes of
the show will be summarized and the overall style of the performer will be
analyzed and discussed by drawing upon theories from, among others, Nikolas
Coupland, Roman Jakobson and Ulrike Erichsen.
Since we cannot possibly make an in depth analysis of the whole show, we
have as mentioned chosen three sections from the show, each of these
11
exemplifying Peters’s performance. However, specifying aspects of the show
in general and analyzing them is still important, in order to provide context to
our three sections, which is why the first part of the analysis will center on this.
The Section level is typically a part of the show, which can be identified as a
bit – typically a narrative building up to one or several punchlines and/or a call
backs.
As mentioned we have chosen three specific sections from the show for us to
analyze. These will be put in order, and we will apply our various theories to
them in order to examine what interplay they have between one another, and
how hilarity is achieved. Because these sections are the jokes themselves, they
can be said to be the most vital part of our project. It will be possible to watch
these sections by scanning QR-codes inserted next to the analysis of each
section.
The Sound level is the micro-linguistic level. The language-use of Russell
Peters will be dissected in its core and illustrated by a broad phonetic analysis
looking closer at: vowels and consonants. The point of this analytic level is to
document the changes of Peter's voice when he is performing, and note parts
which are important in the sense that they are key when determining why the
joke is funny, and therefore works as intended. Thus, Peters’s regular speaking
voice is not something, which we will focus on, instead we wish to show when.
Finally, it should be noted that although the sound level is integral in
understanding the difference between Peters’s various style shifts, it is in no
way the focus of the project. Our main goal is not to find out how funny the
sound itself is. In this respect, phonetics are then used as a toolkit instead of a
focus, so that by being able to determine certain linguistic features in a given
joke, we can say how the stylistic shift differs from his normal voice, and what
it says of the stereotype being portrayed.
12
In the following sections we will continue to unfold theories about
Sociolinguistics, Phonetics and Humor. These three fields of research will
provide us with a valid basis for analysis, through which we will discuss the
results and implications of applying these theoretical aspects to the stand-up of
Russell Peters.
3.1 Introduction to Sociolinguistics
The stand-up comedy of Russell Peters is mainly focused on two aspects;
culture and language. This is prevalent in his use of cultural stereotypes (such
as Indian, Irish and Chinese) and their use of English as a first or second
language accompanied by certain gestures and expressions. For this reason,
sociolinguistics is a relevant field of study in the analysis of his work.
Sociolinguistics is in the most basic sense of the word, the study of society's
effect on language. It was pioneered by the American linguist William Labov
and the British sociologist, Basil Bernstein (Coupland, 2007: 3). Just as this
description implies, sociolinguistics is a very broad field of study, and covers
many aspects of studying language; from how the individual uses language to
what the majority in a region have accepted as the “proper” way of speaking.
In fact, there are many definitions of this term, from studying language in
society, or looking at language in a social context, or the focus on language
diversity, and the only thing they all have in common is that the language itself
is prioritized (Coupland, 2007: 4). In the case of language diversity,
sociolinguistics has a focus on how different societal aspects, whether they be
age, gender, religion, ethnicity or region, can have noticeable effects on
language use, both in terms of pronunciation, but also in terms of grammar and
choice of words. In short, hearing someone speak, or reading a transcribed
version of their speech, can reveal not only where the individual is from, but
13
from which socio-economic class they belong to – when examined in a
stratified society – and many other aspects (Meyerhoff, 2006: 1). This is of
course never a reliable method of assessing these particular qualities of a
person, but generalizing is sometimes necessary to a certain degree. For
instance, although we could be wrong in assuming that an individual is from a
lower middle class just by listening to them speak, we could at the same time
be correct in determining which region they live in, or at the very least,
originated from.
Therefore, this project will focus on using parts of these definitions in
analyzing pieces of a stand-up comedy routine, with style playing an important
role. Thereby emphasizing the need for giving a thorough explanation of these
theories within the project, both before and while they are being applied.
3.1.1 Style in Language
As mentioned, the use of language – in our case English – can reveal many
things about an individual or group. This is because the environment people are
in, helps form their choice of words, grammar and pronunciation, which in
short can be called style. This generates the question of what style really is.
Initially, the term itself will be explained as well as why it is appropriate to use
it in this case.
Shortly, style means a way of doing something. It can be said to be a
coherent system of attributes applied to objects or actions (Coupland, 2007: 1).
Many countries have developed their own architectural styles, such as the
skyscrapers of urban New York, where steel and concrete are predominant.
Style has a social meaning, and will continue to have social meaning even
when taken out of context. However, this is not to say that the social meaning
will be the same depending on the setting, or locality of the interpreters. If we
look at the aforementioned example with the skyscraper and take it out of the
14
context of New York, we would probably ascribe some of the same meanings
to the style regardless: It is urban, busy, modern, probably related to the
business world etc (Coupland, 2007: 1). Perhaps we would not apply all of
these, depending on where we were from, or perhaps we would apply different
qualities to this style altogether, but we would still have a set of connotations in
regards to it. It is therefore slightly ironic, that when taken inside its context,
the definitions of style, and indeed even the acknowledgement of its existence,
can be difficult to recognize. Therefore, if you live in the busy central area of
New York, you would probably not attribute much thought into the social
significance of the area’s style, except for when comparing it to the rural or
suburban area (Coupland, 2007: 1). Furthermore, something or someone
possessing a certain style not only indicates that it has a collection of qualities
that comprise it, but that these qualities makes it different from other styles,
and that this is one of the ways it is definable.
Style can also be considered something, which is made. Hereby making it a
conscious choice made for the select purpose of signifying some sort of social
meaning.
When applying the example of fashion to this term, some youths would say
that they do not care about fashion, although it can be argued that they
nonetheless have a style; a selection of clothing and perhaps accessories which
they have chosen in order to convey some type of social meaning. This could
be baggy jeans and shirts in order to make others identify them with the hiphop
culture, or a dress shirts for them to be considered high class or professional
etc. In fact, even if you refrain from choosing a style and sticking to it, you
could still be categorized as having a style; one that is centered on you not
caring, which still expresses something to society. Of course, this project is
neither about architecture nor fashion, but style is just as prominent in language
and speech as when applied elsewhere.
15
If we take the style of the Danish language spoken in rural Jutland and
compare it to the style of Danish spoken in Copenhagen, we can see some of
the same patterns emerging. Firstly, for someone who knows the language,
both of these styles have glaringly obvious features that differentiate them from
one another. However, these are only apparent when comparing them. Just as
with the example of New York’s architecture, a "Copenhagener" would
probably not pay attention to the style of their speech when in the city, but if
they were to visit rural Jutland, everyone would immediately be aware that
they were not locals, and would perhaps even be able to determine that they
were in fact from Copenhagen. Furthermore, their style of speech would
probably lead to the people of rural Jutland making certain assumptions about
them. Therefore having a certain style of speech has different social meanings
depending on where you are. These styles within speech, differentiated by
region or social class, and determined by vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation, are within sociolinguistics commonly known as dialects
(Coupland, 2007: 2). It should be noted that when it comes to determining
styles within speech, the scope of it is important.
In the example with the Copenhagen dialect of Danish, it becomes important to
look at it through a wide scope, because there are speech styles, or dialects,
within the city itself, which either denominate which part of the city the
individual is from or from which social grouping he belongs to. Therefore,
cities can be considered vast sociolinguistic systems in and of themselves
(Coupland, 2007: 3).
However, in spite of both architecture and language consisting of many
different styles, there are differences in how these are assessed. This is because
understanding speech styles and how they are structured socially is not enough
when it comes to sociolinguistic analysis. We need to look past the product, in
a sense, and look at the process instead, understanding how people use, or
16
perform, social styles. There is an aesthetic aspect to the production of
language as well, which needs to be taken into consideration when conducting
an analysis (Coupland, 2007: 2). Furthermore, it should be noted that there is a
difference between dialect and the commonly known, and used word, accent,
since we will be using both throughout the project. Dialect is generally used
when referring to speech linked by either geography or social standing. It
consists of a specific vocabulary and grammar employed by a given group,
with a very easy example being the difference between American, British and
Australian English. The language is the same, but there are several cases of
differing grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. On the other hand, there is
the commonly used accent, which sometimes is used too broadly. Accent
centers purely on the phonetic aspect of language, so pronunciation is in focus.
(Coupland, 2007: 5). For instance, if we were to ask an American and an
Australian to describe the same situation, chances are that no matter how close
their answers came to each other, different vocabulary and grammar would be
prominent. However, if they were told to read the same sentence aloud, we
would not be able to determine whether or not they had a certain dialect, only
that they employed a type of Australian and American accent.
3.1.2 Language functions and context
Roman Jakobson was a Russian-American linguist, who is often credited for
presenting the first coherent formulation of what is known as stylistics
(Coupland, 2007: 10). This in turn can be described as a precursor for what has
thus far been referred to as style, and was mostly based on lists of language
features and functions (Coupland, 2007: 10). Jakobson argued that the poetic
function was a general feature of all language use, and as such, linguists should
strive to account for it, among his other functions (Coupland, 2007: 10). Since
this project concerns how Russell Peters uses language in order to achieve
17
comedic effect, the poetic function should, according to Jakobson, very much
have a role to play. Despite Jakobson being a linguist and not specifically a
sociolinguist, his primary work of categorizing and outlining the six functions
of language can be used in the analysis of Peter’s work, and will therefore be
covered here. In this project there will be references to the term text in this part,
which of course implies not only to the written form, but to the spoken one of
Russell Peters. The functions are as such:
The referential function serves exactly the purpose its name implies. This
function is seen when people through the use of language say something of
something. It provides what Jakobson refers to as the context of a message or
text, what it is about, and can as such be said to be omnipresent in all texts
(Juel, 2013: 382).
The emotive function focuses on what a given text tells the recipient of its
author or sender. Although sometimes it is explicit, most of the time it is covert
and subtle, forcing recipient to look deeper for it. For instance, it can be
questioned whether or not there is anything indicating that the author is
sarcastic, angry, happy and so on (Juel, 2013: 383).
The conative function unlike the previous one, is all about what the author
wants of the receiver. It centers on what a text is trying to make its reader do.
This of course does not have to be a physical action, and could instead be a
speaker wanting to inspire certain thoughts throughout his or her speech. This
function is at its most overt and obvious when seen in speech acts and the
imperative form (Juel, 2013: 386).
The phatic function could be said to be a social one, since it relates to the
contact between addresser and addressee. It is present when language is used in
a way as to state your presence or reaffirm it. One such example can be seen in
18
phone conversations, where the constant "yes, aha" etc. are phatic affirmations
of not only someone still being on the line, but of letting the speaker know that
what he or she is saying is heard and understood (Juel, 2013: 387).
The metalingual function is found when language refers back to itself, or in a
sense takes a step back to look at itself. Although Jakobson's standard example
is lexical information about a given word, it is in fact present in everyday life
and speech, such as when we check with someone whether or not they
understand us, in which case we are referring back to what we just said (Juel,
2013: 388)
The poetic function, the one that we initiated this chapter with, can also be
called the aesthetic function. Its obvious meaning is one that focuses on
features within language that can also be found in poems, such as rhymes,
puns, alliteration and the likes. However, it is also apparent whenever a text is
drawing attention to itself as a crafted message or product, and the style and
form that it consists of (Juel, 2013: 389).
Any given text, be it speech, literary works, messages, film or stand-up
comedy, can be said to exhibit some, if not all of these functions. Indeed, it is
rare to find any linguistic product that has only one. As is also apparent, some
of these functions are very closely related. For instance, we mention the phatic
function being used in a phone conversation as a reaffirming factor, but the
same can also be viewed as acknowledgment of the text that is the phone
conversations, thus it automatically also serves a metalingual function.
Likewise, Russell Peters uses all of these functions to varying degrees.
19
3.1.3 High Performance
When talking a social communicative situations High performance needs to be
taken into account. Any communication through speech can be perceived as a
social performance, this means that a type of control is present. This will shine
through the knowledge or presupposition of alternate possibilities and
outcomes, an expectation of how your performance will be perceived
(Coupland, 2007: 146). However, not all performances are the same, despite
speaking in front of an audience, it can still be considered as a performance,
because of the “unplanned” feature. Peters’s performance, also made in front of
an audience, would be categorized as a high performance (Coupland, 2007:
147). High performances are often determined by the physical aspects. A High
performance show is scheduled, temporally and spatially bounded, it is open to
the public and during the performance there is a distinctive relationship
between audience and performer (Coupland, 2007: 147). Despite these physical
requirements however, are not all that is required for something to be
considered a high performance. Because a performance is not merely a lingual,
but a communicative event as well. To analyse whether a performance can
been perceived as a high performance seven dimensions of communicative
focusing, have been drawn up by Coupland. In the analysis it will be shown
made clear what each dimension consists of and how Peters’s show fit into
these.
3.1.4 How style affects social meaning and style in jokes
Coupland states that there are many dimensions within the term style other than
the differences the various styles represent. The term style is according to
Coupland more of an “aesthetic dimension of difference”. Therefore, when
attempting to analyze a specific style of utterance or joke – and through that
process determine its social meaning – it becomes essential to look at the joke
20
as an act of speech; it has to be determined who made the joke and under what
circumstances it was made, as well as understanding what the motivation and
aim of the joke was to begin with. All these factors provide the tools in finding
what social meaning the style of the joke essentially contains (Coupland, 2007:
1-2).
For the joke to have any stylistic significance it has to be distinctly different
from other jokes containing the same structure of style. The meaning of a joke
lies within the choice of designs made when analyzing it. Social meaning is a
concept found in many disciplines, although usually in relation to linguistic
studies and Coupland states that:
It can refer to how we input meaning to, and take meaning from, our culture, our
communities, our personal histories, our social institutions, and our social relationships.
Cultural values and norm, social power and status, intimacy and distance are all social
meanings. There are the meanings we invest in our own and other people’s social
positions and attributes- selfhood, personal and social identities, social stereotypes,
prejudice, conflicts and boundaries.
(Coupland, 2007: 18)
Social meaning thus becomes a way of referring to how we attribute meaning
to, and interpret meaning from different aspects of our lives, former
experiences as well as current.
The social significance of linguistic variations is often attributed to how
often they occur in a person’s speech compared to someone else’s speech and
is in this case not a matter of the presence or absence of them (Coupland, 2007:
21). For example, introducing the concept of social meaning in a discussion of
language variations can be done through the use of different sentence
structures. These sentence structures can then be used to determine how
educated the speaker is or from which socio-economic class the individual
belongs to. These language variations and use of sentence structures can be
21
explored in order to acquire knowledge concerning the direct connection
between standard grammatical use of language vs. the relatively formal speech
attributed to the educated middle class society. However, such studies might be
considered precarious seeing as how there are some uncertainty associated with
the terms standard and non-standard grammar and language variations. This is
because these can only really be interpreted in relation to one another, although
a connection between educated individuals and standard-grammar vs
uneducated individuals and non-standard use of grammar has to some degree
been determined (Coupland, 2007: 21). This concept could easily be applied to
Russell Peters’s style, where he often attributes the use of standard-grammar to
posh British people, whereas he uses incorrect or non-standard grammar when
portraying someone of a lesser socio-economic status or a foreigner. Therefore,
when considering sociolinguistics as well as other areas where social meaning
becomes significant, putting two utterances or jokes by Russell Peters next to
each other and comparing them can become the tool required to find out how
their meaning is achieved through contrasts and differences in their use of
style.
The significance of social meaning can also be viewed through symbols, where
societies generate links between signs and meaning, which are random to begin
with, and change their meaning when put in a different context. They then
become reshaped into symbols that the recipient interprets and puts into
connection, thereby giving it a different meaning. This is called the process of
naturalization, where random signs that technically could be called symbols of
meaning are treated as if they were (natural) icons or (objective) indexes. An
example of this being sound and linguistic forms, such as features of accents
and dialects that are given an indexical-type meaning (Coupland, 2007: 22).
However, considering the interpretation of social meaning in terms of the
indexical potential of style such as features of accents and dialects (whether
22
individually or in groups), there is a basic need for awareness concerning the
complexities and possible instabilities within the meaning. Therefore, linguistic
features are required to attain a unique social meaning, because even within the
same socio-cultural settings, each person’s understanding of the meaning
differs from individual to individual (Coupland, 2007: 23).
There are no specific guidelines dictating what style or social meaning is or
what constitutes as style. Style can be many things and have many different
indicators and meanings;
Meaning and stylistic effect are not fixed and stable, and cannot be dug out of the text
as in an archaeological approach, but they have to be seen as a potential which is
actualized in a (real) reader’s mind, the product of a dialogic interaction between
author, the author’s context of production, the text, the reader and the reader’s context
of reception - where context includes all sorts of socio historical, cultural and
intertextual factors.
(Coupland, 2007: 177)
It is necessary to think in term of social meaning potentially being called upon
or parodied in particular discursive frames for particular local effects. This
implies, once again, that social meaning does not exclusively reside in
linguistic forms, or even in so-called speech communities or in speaker's
sociolinguistic histories or experiences. It is partly a situated achievement
within acts of speaking and thus belongs within the field of sociolinguistics
(Coupland, 2007: 24).
Therefore, social meaning is a complicated concept in itself and not
necessarily something that refers to the nature of relationships between
language structures and participation in social groups. Following this line of
thought, it may seem as though style contains the whole of discursive practice.
However,
in
Coupland’s
terminology
it
comprises
his
theories
to
predominantly center around the conventional restrictions of accents and
23
dialects and the meaning attributed them. Despite this, Coupland emphasizes
that it is significant to accentuate the disingenuousness that comes when
separating dialect from discourse. The reason for this is that social meanings
contrived through dialects are extensively integrated in more commonly
discursive practices. In view of all these facts it can be concluded that social
meaning is relevant in relation to the way in which people insert or derive
meaning from everything, especially in language.
3.2 Phonetic theory and approach
Phonetics is the science of speech production, and concepts such as dialects
and accents – that are highly relevant in our approach to Russell Peters’s show
The Green Card Tour – are subcategories that will be utilized by looking at
phonetic aspects of Peters’s performance. Throughout the project, some terms
encountered in “Practical Phonetics and Phonology” – a book co-written by
Beverley Collins and Inger M. Mees – will be recurrent. Collins and Mees’s
definition of Non-Regional British English (NRP) as the standard British will
be utilized in our transcriptions, as well as General American English (GA).
Those terms will be referred to by their initials throughout this paper.
Going back to the very definition of phonetics, we see that in language there
are several ways to pronounce words. These are defined as accents, or even
more specifically as phonetic variation (usually from non-English speaking
countries). In contrast, dialects are “variation in grammar and vocabulary” such
as specific words or expressions used within a particular geographical area, or
within a specific social class (usually from English-speaking countries). Both
accents and dialects in a stylized manner are used by Russell Peters, and will
be subject to a close phonetic analysis (Collins & Mees, 2013: 2).
24
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is the system that is used in the
transcription of our data. The transcription will be a so-called broad
transcription rather than a narrow transcription. This means that we will keep it
simple, as the objective is to find the obvious phonetic features. The
transcription will consist of two levels; an orthographic line and a phonetic line
(based on the IPA). Intonation and diacritics are very precise concepts, but
their use would be futile for us as the broad transcription will suffice for us to
make our points. This chosen level of depth will hopefully allow us to
transcribe exactly what the speaker does in order to perform a particular accent,
or dialect, which is then recognized by his audience. In this regard, it must be
stressed, that Russell Peters mostly introduces his accents and cultural
references explicitly, hence his audience does not necessarily have to guess.
Yet, phonetics has a lot more to it than just transcription. The whole concept of
articulatory phonetics, that goes into what we - as people - physically do with
our organs of speech in order to produce certain sounds, will be ignored. Later
on in this project, when looking at what Peters does to imitate other accents,
the phonetic transcription will suffice for us to prove the difference.
Consequently, it would be superficial and irrelevant for us to use that particular
perspective of how Peters produces the sound, as it it the sound itself we are
interested in.
To sum up, the phonetic part of this project will mostly be the transcription.
Phonetic analysis will be, in this project, a tool for us to investigate and
examine how the sounds of a speaker are somehow conveying a comic
message – in some cases, only by changing the pronunciation and/or the
mimicry. Often, the phonetics merely help Peters towards achieving comedic
effect, but rarely is his accent alone the fun factor.
25
3.2.1 Russell Peters’s narrative voice
In order for us to distinguish when Russell Peters is imitating accents or
dialects, we need to identify what his narrative dialect is. In that regard,
additional background information about Russell Peters is relevant concerning
his language. Being born and raised in Northern America (Canada) with an
Indian heritage though his father, Russell Peters expresses himself in a dialect
close to General American English (GA). He is an actor and stand-up
comedian who tells many stories about his family, especially his Indian father,
furthermore he uses events in his life, namely ones experienced through his
travels, have a big impact as he uses them to build jokes.
In Appendix 3, we encounter a clear indication as to Russell Peter’s identity
and accent. By transcribing it, it will give a clear idea of Peters’s narrative
voice:
In America they get upset. I can understand why they get upset
with the word “cunt” in America, because of our accent
over there. We pronounce it what a hard [k] and a “unt”.
!n !mɛr!k! ðe gɛt !psɛt | aj kæn !nd!rstænd waj ðe gɛt !psɛt
wɪð ð! w!rd k!nt !n !mɛr!k! bɪkɔz !v aw!r !ksɛnt ov!r ðɛr |
wi pr!nawns ɪt wɪð e hærd ‘k ænd e ‘!nt
(Appendix 3)
Peters refers twice to American people as “they”. Nevertheless, he expresses
that he belongs in the same accent category by saying “our accent over there”
or “We pronounce it [...]”. Thus, given his current domiciliation in the United
States of America and his upbringing in Canada, he clearly considers himself
Northern American and his accent to be similar to General American English
(GA). Features of GA appear in the above example where the word “hard” is a
26
clear example of the GA rhotic /r/ pronunciation, and the /h/ is always
pronounced too (Collins & Mees, 2013: 158-164). Thus, Peters pronounces it
/hærd/ while in comparison an NRP speaker would pronounce it /hæːd/. In the
extract, all of his /r/’s are rhotic. In Section 1, we encounter the word “palm”
being pronounced by Russell Peters both as himself narratively and in NRP, as
he does the British voice-over. In GA, he says /palm/ whereas the a is
prolonged much more in NRP and instead sounds as follows /paːm/. It is thus
safe to assume that whenever Russell Peters speaks in another dialect/accent
than General American English (without necessarily explicitly saying that he is
doing so), he is performing a joke.
3.3 Humor and Language
The American author E.B. White once said about the topic, that “humor can be
dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are
discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind” (Web 6). In the following we
will attempt to examine the innards of humor, so that we may have a better
understanding of the theoretical elements of comedy and humor. In order to
gain a greater understanding of the functions of humor and the linguistic
elements which contribute to the constitution, we have chosen to account for
theories on the correlation between humor and language. We will also briefly
examine specific features of stand-up comedy as a performative art. This will
contribute to a more theoretical understanding of the stand-up comedy of
Russell Peters.
3.3.1 Definition of Humor
It is very difficult to define what humor is. However a simple definition of the
term could be, that humor is something that makes us laugh, smile or be
otherwise amused. This seems like a quite simplified definition but as professor
27
in the use of English language and author of the book ‘Language of
Humor’(1998) Alison Ross, states “...although laughter is not a necessary or
sufficient condition of humor, from a commonsense point of view it is a good
starting point for a definition” (Ross, 1998: 2). The subjective nature of humor
makes it difficult to categorize something as universally funny, but few of us
would confess to having no sense of humor. Ross emphasizes the social nature
of humor and states that ”…the social context is important for the creation and
reception of humor” (Ross, 1998: 2). Most people rarely laugh out loud when
they are alone and there are many occasions where humorous remarks or jokes
are thought to be inappropriate, for instance dark or morbid humor at a funeral
or similar tragic circumstances (Ross, 1998: 1–2). On the other hand, laughter
is often said to be contagious, which is also the reason that many sitcoms on
television use canned laughter to tell the viewers when to laugh. The context of
humor can therefore be said to be equally important to the content and certain
situations and settings prompt laughter more naturally.
3.3.2 Stand-up Comedy
Stand-up comedy performances provide a setting where humor is expected, and
as such it is more likely for the audience to laugh at jokes made by a stand-up
comedian, because the setting and context encourages them to laugh. It can be
compared to the majority of older sitcoms which feature laugh tracks or canned
laughter, making it clear for the audience when it is time to laugh, but also
making sure that the context is understood as one of comedy. Laughter is the
essential element of stand-up comedy and the most obvious determination of
whether the joke works or not. Professor in English at Williams University
John Limon was one of the first to approach stand-up as a separate style of
comedy and attempt an academic definition of the art of stand-up. He presents
the study of stand-up using the following three theorems: 1. If you (the
28
audience) think something is funny, it is. 2. A joke is funny if, and only if, you
laugh. 3. Your laughter is the single end of stand-up (Limon, 2000: 11–12).
Stand-up comedy is usually performed before a live audience and features a
certain interaction between the performer and the audience, where the instant
response from the audience plays a central role in both the sending and
reception of the humor. The American comedian Will Ferrell said that this
instant response from the audience is part of why “... stand-up is hard and
lonely and vicious” (Web 7). According to Limon “Stand-up is uniquely
audience-dependent for its value because joking is, essentially, a social
phenomenon” (Limon, 2000: 12). Stand-up comedy is characterized by this
codependency between the comedian and the audience, but also by the
structure and form of the performance itself. In the case of Russell Peters, the
interaction between him and the audience is quite apparent, and in the show
selected for analysis in this project, he relies on dialogue with the audience to
be able to set up the jokes. However rehearsed and scripted a stand-up
performance may be, it will usually involve features of spontaneous speech and
improvisation (Ross, 1998: 97). Stand-up comedy has evolved a lot since the
first brave comedians took to the stage, and although many stand-up
performances are now filmed and broadcasted on television, it is the immediate
response from – and interaction with – the audience which makes stand-up
comedy the unpredictable, rule breaking, rock and roll of humor.
3.3.3 Theories of Humor
Across different academic fields of study there are many theories that try to
provide useful tools to analyze humor. The most common approaches are
theories concerning the subjects of humor, whether the comedy allows us to
feel a certain superiority, or allows us a sense of release/relief and the theory
that we laugh at something unexpected or a certain incongruity (Ross, 1998: xi-
29
xii). In the following these three approaches to humor theory – superiority,
release/relief and incongruity – will be described to allow us to apply these to
the analysis of our source material.
The superiority theory is used to describe the tendency of laughing at the
downfall of others, as a way of asserting or maintaining power. This type of
laughter is in many ways the least desirable and can sometimes cause the
receiver to turn on the sender, if the comedy is perceived as a mockery of an
already suppressed target (Ross, 1998: 51). There are many examples of this
type of humor, where another culture is mocked or ridiculed – for example
Americans vs. Canadians, English vs. French, Danish vs. Swedish etc. – but the
teller of the joke can also use this form of humor to illustrate his own
shortcomings to the audience or to portray general human flaws. George
Orwell once said about these jokes that “...the aim (...) is not to degrade the
human being but to remind him that he is already degraded” (Ross, 1998: 51).
Both of these kinds of jokes are quite common in stand-up comedy in general
and are also present in the comedy of Russell Peters. According to Ross,
investigating which groups are the butts of jokes can tell a lot about the
attitudes of the society in question.
Release/relief theory has to do with taboos and the reception of, and response
to, humor which addresses politically incorrect topics such as sex, death or race
and why we laugh at something we find shocking (Ross, 1998: 61). The
release/relief theory focuses on the recipient of the comic stimulus and his or
her social and psychological context. It explains laughter as a form of psychic
release – for example a nervous or hysterical laugh – helping the person to
regain his or her social and emotional equilibrium (Reichl & Stein, 2005: 28).
Whether or not the audience are offended by a joke or humorous remark is
often determined by a number of factors. The general attitudes of the society
30
and culture in question can help determine what is appropriate humor and what
is considered offensive. But humor can also help to challenge and alter the
boundaries of what is right and wrong to say, “...by breaking some rules, but
keeping some limits” (Ross, 1998: 61). Many stand-up comedians tend to
balance on the edge of the politically incorrect and deliberately seek to provoke
a reaction from the audience. When dealing with taboos or delicate topics,
there is a thin line between what is funny and what is considered racist, sexist
etc., the comedians risk crossing peoples personal boundaries and thus
offending or alienating their audience.
The incongruity theory focuses on the structural principle of comic or
humorous communication and explain the comedy as the result of the
“...perceiving of a situation or event in two self-consistent but habitually
incompatible frames of reference” (Reichl & Stein, 2005: 29). The theory
focuses on the element of surprise, for example in the form of double meanings
or puns, where the humorous elements contain a level of ambiguity between
what is expected, and what is delivered. humor in a sense breaks with one of
the foremost rules of language use, that we should try to communicate as
clearly as possible, as many forms of humor and jokes deliberately misleads
the receiver. The incongruities of humor can occur on multiple linguistic
levels, such as phonology, graphology, morphology, lexis or syntax (Ross,
1998: 20-21). An example of this could be the way Russell Peters alters his
pronunciation and grammar, in order to portray certain cultural stereotypes.
The incongruity or ambiguity can also occur when humor attempts to cross
cultural borders, as humor is often quite different from country to country or
from culture to culture. What is considered hilarious in one culture or context,
might be deemed completely inappropriate in another. Something could also be
considered funny because it alters or distorts our idea of conventional thinking,
thus creating ambiguities in the rules of language use (Ross, 1998: 27-28).
31
Co-writer of the book ‘Cheeky Fictions’ (2005) on humor theory, Ulrike
Erichsen, points out that humor may be used to defuse cultural conflicts by
offering a strictly limited context for such conflicts. Because many cultural
conflicts occur from the differences in cultural values and norms humor can
have a socially regulatory function, which can provide an outlet for criticism
without aggravating the initial conflict. In this way humor may be used as a
way of approaching conflicts without getting to the core of it. Erichsen also
claims that humor can be used to alert the reader of cultural barriers that need
to be overcome in order to understand intercultural communication (Reichl &
Stein, 2005: 30).
3.3.4 Functions and Context of Humor
The primary function of humor seems to be expressing a certain emotion,
however Erichsen claims that humor can also be used to camouflage emotions
rather than express them. As we have mentioned before, this can be described
as the phatic function – though closely related to the conative function – of
communication values within a group. This means that the verbal aspect of
humor hence produces the intentional action wanted within the specific group.
Erichsen claims consequently that sharing a sense of humor implies sharing a
culture within a group. With help from other theorists, Erichsen here states that
the cultural understanding creates humor as an ethnic phenomenon. This means
that humor is a way of expressing being part of a specific ethnic group or
community (Reichl & Stein, 2005: 31).
When talking about humor we distinguish between canned jokes and
conversational jokes. This separation allows us to discuss the relationship
between jokes and the context in which they occur. A canned joke is a joke that
has been used before the time of utterance in a form similar to the one used by
32
the speaker. Its form does not depend on contextual factors. A contextual joke,
contrary to this, attends to the ongoing conversation and has an improvised
element (Attardo, 1994: 296). It is important to point out that all jokes, canned
or not, will appear in context by the fact that they are told within a set of
parameters. A conversational joke is often characterized by being unfunny
retold outside the original context. This means that people often say “you had
to be there” pointing out that the joke was funny only within a context
(Attardo, 1994: 297). The distinction between conversational jokes and canned
jokes is thus not as simple; to approach a formal definition of canned jokes as
opposed to conversational jokes, the definition may be based on the dimensions
of all possible contexts in which a joke occur (Attardo, 1994: 297). In the
stand-up comedy of Russell Peters for example, the canned, scripted or
rehearsed parts of the show are present in the form of the stories and jokes
about other cultures or about his travels. The conversational jokes are
exemplified in the conversations or dialogue he has with the audience, which
he uses to set up the canned jokes. In stand-up comedy the context is
specifically important, as the location (city or country) for the show can often
determine the content and structure of the show. All in all the context of humor
is quintessential to the presentation, reception and acceptance of humor.
3.3.5 Accents and Stereotypes in Humor
According to Mühleisen, co-author of the book Cheeky Fictions, the question
of why accents and stereotypes are great sources of humor, has several aspects
to it. Within this, a crucial feature concerns the reference group, which has to
do with the purpose or function of the reproduction of the particular accent or
stereotype in the particular situation (Reichl & Stein, 2005: 228). Mühleisen
claims that what makes e.g. mimicry and parodies funny is the concepts of
reference. In describing the comic effect of both caricature and mimicry there
33
is a certain complicity with the audience. The knowledge or understandings
referred to on stage only has a funny outcome if the audience beholds the same
knowledge or understandings. In this way a broad cultural understanding is an
important constituent in making mimicry and parodies funny (Reichl & Stein,
2005: 230).
Mühleisen hence concludes that no accents are funny in their own right. It is
necessary to understand the accents within the category of either mimicry,
caricature or travesty associated with a particular population group. So the
humorous effects “...lie in the assumed shared knowledge and expectation of
the audience” (Reichl & Stein, 2005: 241) in portraying stereotyped characters
“...or in the destruction of the unity of a person’s speech.” (Reichl & Stein,
2005: 241).
Humor can undoubtedly be viewed as an essential aspect of human life, yet it
might be one of the most difficult ones to define. In this section, we have
examined numerous features of humor, as well as several attempts to approach
a definition of what humor is. As we have established in the previous, humor is
at the same time a social and individual phenomenon and although we do not
always laugh at the same jokes or find the same things funny, there are certain
aspects of humor, which can be said to constitute the foundation of humor. In
the following analysis we will examine select parts of Russell Peters’s stand-up
show The Green Card Tour and look at the sociolinguistic and phonetic aspects
of his performance, as well as examine the humorous elements of the show
using the theory presented in the previous sections.
4. Analysis
In Russell Peters’s stage performances he uses observational comedy where he
highlights various racial, ethnic and cultural diversities through the use of
34
speech patterns and accent, which will be analyzed in this section. This
corresponds with a theory based upon the notion that those who represent
culture are aware of and engaged in specific ways of communicating and
interacting. These interactions rely on familiar speech patterns and being
capable of making them recognizable for the receiver, who then through the
cultural context will be capable of understanding what has been represented
(Coupland, 2007: 107). Although many of the cultures he represents in these
jokes are not his own, he has observed these various cultures enough to be able
to reproduce them within the forum of his performances and does so in a way
that is convincing enough to be deemed valid by the audience. Using phonetic
transcription tools and theories on stylization this analysis will attempt to
uncover how Peters’s humorous techniques function and how the comedic
effect is achieved.
4.1 Peters & The Green Card Tour
Before looking at our chosen sections of the show known as The Green Card
Tour, we will look at and analyze the show itself in general first. Although one
can argue against the necessity of this, we believe that the main, and strongest
argument for doing it is that since we are dealing with humor, context, as Ross
has shown, is all-important (Ross, 1998: 2). If looking at our sections in and of
themselves, without prior knowledge of Peters or the context of The Green
Card Tour, the understanding of it would be insufficient.
The definition of humor can be difficult to point out, but in coherence with
The Green Card Tour it must be said that the obvious existence of laughter
indicates that the show is founded within a humorous sphere. Also the fact that
the audience has placed themselves within a social context, which procreates
laughter and develops personal expectations of being entertained, results in
framing the situation as being humorous. In such a context not only does a
35
common knowledge exist between the audience and the performer of what is to
be expected, but also between the members of the audience. One could argue
that it is exactly the redemption or violation of these expectations, which is one
of the main premises of the stand-up genre. Laughter and applause (but also
silence) can in this way be viewed as social control mechanisms determining if
a joke is considered funny or not. Evident of this is the use of canned laughter
on television and the fact that it is rare for people to laugh out loud by
themselves. Laughter and humor are indeed socially determined and thus based
on the same disciplinary structures of which the social context consists.
In this way the ability to define The Green Card Tour as being something
humorous relies on the appearance of laughter and expectations of being
entertained humorously. In some cases, namely without being provided with a
context, it could even be considered mildly racist or otherwise offensive, and
although much humor is like this, the main objective is to make people laugh.
With this in mind, it is easy to determine that the conative function of not only
Peters’s comedy, but of all comedy, is laughter. However, this can be achieved
in different ways, and in some cases laughter is not the only conative function,
or objective. For instance, Peters has said in an interview that he does not seek
to bring down or mock certain cultures or ethnicities, but to raise them up
through humor. Although this in itself may not immediately seem relevant as to
how his comedic style achieves its hilarity, the obvious fact that if everyone
feels offended, they are probably not going to laugh, should be kept in mind.
So when we ask ourselves how The Green Card Tour is constructed, we are
seeking to provide context for the remainder of the analysis and project.
The first thing to note about our chosen show is location. As the name implies,
it is a show that Peters is touring with. This means that some bits and pieces are
probably tailored to fit the audience we are presented with in the version we
saw, since the show itself has toured the world. The version we are looking at
36
is from his official DVD, filmed in front of an audience of 30.000 over two
nights at the O2 Arena in London. Without going into the success of having
such a large audience, there are still some things this tells us. To begin with, it
can be assumed that the majority of the audience are Londoners, and therefore
British. Peters usually has a diverse ethnic crowd attending his shows, and this
is the case for The Green Card Tour as well. However, it does not mean that
e.g. an Iraqi audience member from a show taking place in the US, would find
the same things funny as one from the UK. In other words, in spite of the many
different nationality backgrounds of the audience, to some extent the majority
of them can be classified as being British. Since we did not have access to
other versions of his show, we cannot know how much (if anything) has been
changed to fit a British audience, but there can be no doubt that the sections
featuring British/Irish imitations have a different cultural impact on an
audience sharing the language. This is in fact part of the reason why all three of
our chosen sections feature British English and Irish English, since we believe
they are more significant for analysis given the native crowd. The significance
comes into play due to the fact that telling a joke about a British Isles dialect,
such as Irish, can be said to have a higher risk factor when a decent portion of
your audience can be assumed to know of this dialect firsthand. Yes, in some
ways the jokes can be even funnier, since the targets of the joke are sitting
among the crowd, but the importance of imitating a certain dialect correctly
rises when a large portion of your addressees are familiar with that dialect. It is
perhaps for this reason that Peters stays fairly close to classic British dialects,
such as Irish and posh British, something which is apparent for his jokes in
general: The simpler and more general the dialect or accent is, the safer it is
that the majority will find it funny. Nevertheless, his bit with Boston American
English, does show a willingness to go into tighter regional specifics in regards
to style, whilst sticking to the safer, more well-known dialects when he is not
on home ground, so to speak.
37
In order to talk about what makes an accent funny, it is important to consider
the concepts of reference. These create the scope in which Peters works and
gives him the opportunity of creating humorous situations. The Green Card
Tour has a multifarious audience that provides Peters with the opportunity of
involving many aspects and characteristics from a large number of countries.
Hence the cultural knowledge shared between Peters and the audience creates
the cultural set of references. The situation in itself also creates humor,
understood as being a part of how the accent is perceived to be funny. This
means that the accent in itself is unfunny (for the most part), but the coherence
of context, what is said and the emergence of laughter, together creates the
humorous situation in which the accent becomes funny. In addition it is
important to mention that Peters is able to reproduce specific accents and
dialects with great similarity to the original, which also has a humorous effect.
Even with signposting, a certain degree of similarity is required to achieve
comedic effect, and it is therefore this skillset, which in part makes Peters as
humorous as he is.
As The Green Card Tour is built up by a coherent use of jokes it is important to
investigate the specific use of these. The style of stand-up comedy calls for a
specific use of jokes that is highly characterized by conversational jokes. Thus
the conversational joke is often thought of as being of a concise conversation.
The conversational jokes that emerge in The Green Card Tour are jokes which
are created through fragmented conversations marked by closed questions
aimed towards the audience. With the information gathered from the audience,
Peters introduces humorous monologues. Peters’s use of canned jokes is
miniscule as he makes up specific humorous contexts in which the laughter
emerges.
When looking at the jokes in general, they are typical of Peters’s usual
selection, where all of them have a cultural focus one way or another. They
38
range from his well-known Indian and Asian styles, to his more recent foray
into British. All in all, his jokes in this show are no different in style to his
other shows, which are based on observational comedy, with a focus on class,
racial, ethnic and cultural observations in particular. Peters is capable of
representing various cultures in his show, but this does not coincide with his
reenacted cultural performances always being valid or reliable. What he does to
make the audience understand the upcoming joke or accent is that he almost
always signposts. By this we mean that he takes the extra precaution of
signifying explicitly whenever he is about to crack a joke about a cultural
stereotype, usually through directly mentioning them in one way or another. A
concrete example of this will be seen in our section where Peters jokes about
the word “cunt” when pronounced by the Irish. He explicitly says: “
[...] when the Irish say it, it sounds “cunt”
/wɛn ð! ajrɪʃ se ɪt ɪt sawndz ‘kʊ:nʈ̬ /
(Appendix 3)
This creates the effect that even if we should disagree with his Irish dialect
sounding Irish, we understand what he is trying to convey, and accept it for the
duration of the joke. Whatever cultural representation is being reenacted, or
new forms of contribution to social meaning are being represented, depends
somewhat on the format or sort of meaning that is being conveyed (Coupland,
2008: 108). That being said, given his observational style of comedy,
Jakobson’s referential function is present throughout every single joke Peters
uses. His signposting creates a context for his jokes, even without us
understanding the dialect itself.
Only two things in particular stand out in regards to the style of this show
compared to others: The first is, as mentioned, that there is a larger focus on
British stereotypes, which could either be a feature of the show in general, or
39
something tailored to fit his given audience. The second is that, compared to
two other shows we have skimmed through “Outsourced” and “Red, White and
Brown”, there is a noticeable increase in audience interaction. This can either
indicate that he is improvising a larger part of his performance than usual,
cracking jokes at, and with, nearby audience when appropriate to fill out gaps
in the show, or it could mean that he is using appropriate audience members as
a springboard to his so called canned material. It is rather safe to assume that it
is a combination of the two, since regardless of how sure he can be of having a
diverse crowd, hedging your bets on someone of a particular heritage being
among the first three or such rows, is still a bit of a gamble.
As such, in the respect of looking at his significant audience interaction,
whether it be improvised or not, it is clear that for The Green Card Tour,
Peters’s performance is characterized by a strong phatic function, if seen
through the scope of Jakobson’s theory. He uses audience interaction and
thereby the phatic function to, in a sense, reaffirm that he knows the
stereotypes he is poking fun of are in the same room as him. This then has the
effect of seeming that he is not talking behind anyone’s back, and making fun
of them, but instead joking with them. Simultaneously, the metalinguistic
function also comes into play, as he references his own jokes with the
audience, and his excessive use of signposting a joke before he actually begins
it.
Since Peters’s work features heavy use of stylistic variations, there is no
doubt a poetic function to it. However, according to Jakobson, most aspects of
language have a poetic function to it, and it could even be considered a staple
of comedy. Without going so far as to call it art, stand-up comedy is still in
most cases a constructed message, with one or more goals.
40
4.2 Stand-up as stylization and high performance
Before analyzing the three sections we will showcase how Peters’s show can
be considered high performance, whilst also focusing on the stylization aspect
of it. This will also later be applied in the analysis of the sections.
Although Peters uses what can be considered mostly everyday language (his
style shifts aside), in that he could just as well be talking to one person,
intimately, as he could be standing on a stage, there can be no doubt that what
he is conducting is a performance. When analyzing if a performance is
considered a High performance seven dimensions of communicative focusing
can be added. Peters’s show in some way embodies all of these to some degree.
To begin with, there is form focusing, in which the poetic and metalinguistic
linguistic functions are once more the cornerstone. Here it is basically the style
that Peters’s uses in his Green Card Tour which is in question. Second we have
meaning focusing, where the intensity and depth of actions and utterances are
in play (Coupland, 2007: 147). In the case of Peters, meaning is key. Jokes are
built up on the assumption that people will understand at least some of the
meaning of an Irish dialect, in which case, in spite of Peters’s signposting, he
does not need to explain every little detail, since it would surely kill the joke.
Situation focusing slightly borders on the physical aspect, since its object is the
presence of the crowd. The audience is gathered, and is aware of their roles in
accordance to each other and the performer. In our case it is closely related to
performer focusing (Coupland, 2007: 147), which states that the performer
usually holds a stage, either physically or in the minds of the audience. There is
as such, an understanding of speaker rights compared to the audience. So, the
audience understands that Peters has the word, and that their roles are more or
less that of the silent crowd, except for when laughing. Chatting can be seen as
something to be avoided, since you would miss out on pieces of the
41
performance, and although audience interaction is a large part of Peters’s show,
it is nonetheless done on his terms.
This in turn connects it to relational focusing, which means that Peters’s
performance is not simply to his audience, but for them as well (Coupland,
2007: 147). As we have argued before, it is very likely that The Green Card
Tour is to some extent tailored to fit the given audience. This could either be by
including more British parts, or by virtue of knowing that Peters’s audience
usually consists of a wide variety of ethnicities, enabling him to structure his
show even in terms of spontaneous material, in which he relates to the
audience. For instance, if someone in the first row is brown-skinned and
middle eastern looking, Peters can assume that person to be an Arab without
insulting him/her excessively, and even if he is wrong in his assumptions, he
can either build up a joke from there, or brush it off and use it as a stepping
stone to telling the “Arab joke” he had prepared.
Next is achievement focusing, in which demands or expectations are
involved. There is in short, a potential to win or lose, which is of course
apparent with not just Peters, but every stand-up comedian (Coupland, 2007:
147). If the audience does not laugh, you have failed. The difference lies in that
Peters perhaps runs an additional risk of insulting or offending people with his
racial stereotypes, although this is mostly when not taking into consideration
that the majority of the audience would be familiar with his style of comedy
(thus the vast difference in ethnic groups attending his shows), and would
therefore require a joke to be especially crass or potentially racist sounding to
be offended.
Finally, there is repertoire focusing. Here it is assumed that the performer
requires rehearsal in order to produce the performance, and that audiences are
sensitive to the material and whether or not parts of it are new or old. In this
case, the expectancy of Peters to tell ethnic jokes looms overhead, and in a
sense, binds him. If the audience were treated to a different comedic style than
42
what they were expecting, they might still laugh, but would no doubt be
disappointed as well. In this sense, Russell Peters has built a comedic style
around himself that has assured his success – with the catch that it is somewhat
required of him to stay within a given set of parameters whilst simultaneously
producing new material and performances.
As we have mentioned before, Peters is not always completely accurate in his
depiction of ethnic stereotypes, which he mitigates by using signposting, but
although a degree of skill and accuracy is needed in order to achieve a
successful comedic effect, the audience knows that what Peters is portraying is
a stereotype, and not an actual representation. It is precisely this gap between
what is considered actual social practice and performed social practice, which
makes high performance important, since it has the effect of making the
audience reflect on what is being performed/said (Coupland, 2007: 155).
It is in this regard that the stylization and shifts used by Peters in The Green
Card Tour can be determined as being “... strategic inauthenticity, with
complex implications for personal and cultural authenticity in general”
(Coupland, 2007: 154). This implies that Peters is very clear on the fact that his
accents and style shifts are not completely authentic. It is a voice guise he puts
on for the duration of a sketch, and then lets it go again until he needs it. This
means that he also knows exactly when and what to use style shifting for when
aiming to make people laugh. However, there are other implications in regards
to cultural and personal authenticity, in that he possibly perpetuates the
stereotypes by employing them.
This is just one of the aspects relevant in stylization, which Peters embodies
in his work. Other important features of stylization in Peters’s performance are
all grounded in his treatment of cultural and ethnic stereotypes used for
comedic purposes. For instance, he also uses his stylized speech and shifts to
project certain identities and personas belonging to, in one example, a rich
Arab man. In this particular example, his social reference is: to that of the well43
known stereotype of Saudi Arabian oil sheikhs. He is not required to go into
excessive details, or explain to us what constitutes this persona he assumes,
therefore he can instead focus on the narrative aspect which is funniest. So in
this sense, his stylization is metaphorical, as Peters assigns stereotyped values
to Saudi Arabian rich people, without ever having to represent them in full
(Coupland, 2007: 154). However, for this stylization to achieve its effect of
being funny, it is necessary for the audience to understand not only which
ethnicity, culture or the likes is being characterized, but somewhat agree with
the stereotypical attributes assigned to it. At the same time, it encourages a
process of social comparison and re-evaluation of whichever stereotypical
identity Peters assumes with his shifts in mannerisms and speech (Coupland,
2007: 154). By including the audience through interaction, he makes it
acceptable to laugh at his projected persona, especially if he gets the hand
picked audience member to laugh as well: for when an Arab laughs at his
impression of an Arab, he is indirectly indicating that that is how they
sound/speak (or at least, that he accepts Peters’s impression), and that there is
some merit to the observations made.
Finally, although we have said that a perfect reconstruction of any given
dialect or accent is never expected of Russell Peters, it undeniably still holds
importance. Stylization, in this instance, is highly creative and considered a
performance, and as such it means that his audience expect and demand a
certain degree of proficiency in his ability to convey his chosen dialects,
especially when using one that the majority of the audience has, such as
British. So regardless of his signposting, his goal is not just to let people know
which stereotype he is perpetuating, but to make it as believable as possible,
allowing us to say that his aptitude in stylistic utterances have a direct
connection to how funny the audience considers him to be.
We will now go on to examine sections from the show in order for us to
illustrate the many aspects of Peters’s performance.
44
Section 1: Narratives created through language variation
and stylization
In the show there is a section in which Peters describes his stay in Dubai and
his following trip to Lebanon. In this section he reenacts an advertisement with
a British voice-over:
Come on down to Dubai for the World Shopping Festival.
Stay in the beautiful seven-star Jumeirah Beach Hotel. See
the world’s tallest building. Stay on the beautiful Palm
Island.
/ k!m an daʊːwn tu dubaːj fɔr ð! w!rld ʃɒpɪŋ fɛst!vɒl | ste !n
ð! bjut!f!l sɛv!n stɑ̃ː ʃumeɪra bitʃ hoʊtɛːl |si ð! w!rldz tɔl!st
bɪldɪŋ | ste an ð! bjut!f!l pa:m ajl!nd/
(Appendix 1)
In this voice guise Peters is using a breathy and higher pitched voice and is
articulating each word very clearly with small pauses in between his sentences.
In the attempt of creating the British accent he raises his head trying to form
the specific voice. He is – as he is proclaiming – aiming for a British accent,
most likely NRP. However, the rhythm of the speech has to fit the norms of the
context, which is a commercial. This means that it might differ from regular
NRP in some aspects, but the phonetics remain highly similar to NRP and are
therefore worth investigating. By reenacting this advertisement with a
recognizable NRP accent he implicitly makes it clear to the audience that this
is a conscious choice made by the people advertising for Dubai. It is done in
order to make the vacation spot sound more attractive, posh and high-end by
using an accent which connotes such features. The features attributed to
standard grammar use and style, denotes social meanings connected to an idea
45
of upper class citizens. This created the desire to be part of this exclusivity
because the recipient want to attain this social meaning which is without a
doubt the aim of using the British voice-over in this context. This particular
stylisation of posh British is aided by, as we said, him raising his head. This not
only has the effect of making him sound slightly different, but also gives him
an air of superiority, further stereotyping his portrayal of the British. Likewise,
he is smiling throughout the entire advertisement, with his eyes slightly lidded.
The smiling makes it easier to produce the qualities needed for his
interpretation of posh British, and together with his straight posture and
gesturing, gives off an air of the advertisement trying to sell you something,
whilst also conveying a sense of British superiority. Besides, his voice pitch is
more similar to a British woman, than a British man. It fits very well with the
commercial and advertisement aspect.
Nevertheless, phonetic transcription shows that NRP is largely relevant for us
to spot the linguistic variations Peters is producing in order to sound British.
The length of certain vowels such as in the /aː/ “Dubai” or “palm” is a typical
feature of NRP, whereas in GA the pronunciation would be a single /a/. Other
vowels as the /aʊː/ sound in “down”, are arguably exaggerated by Peters as /aʊ/
would suffice according to NRP. This can be explained in two ways, it is either
because it “sounds” British to make long vowels more than needed, or either
because of the context of advertisement where speaking slowly and
exaggerating the British will sell more. Moreover, there is no post-vocalic /r/ in
“star”, which contradicts strongly with the rhotic GA and enhances the NRP
dialect.
However, some of the speech has some GA connotations that Peters failed to
convert to NRP. The “on” is pronounced as /an/ rather than /ɒn/ as it “should”
be in NRP. Also, in his pronunciation of “hotel” as /hoʊtɛːl/, Peters uses an
American quality on the first syllable. This so-called “Goat” vowel would be
46
pronounced /!ʊ/ by a NRP speaker and not /oʊ/. The second and last syllable
does have an NRP feature in the free steady-state /ɛː/ vowel sound (Collins &
Mees, 2013: 16). Interestingly enough the comedic effect is still maintained,
probably due to the sign-posting Peters performs before the voice guise, but
also because “close enough” may cut it as long as everyone can agree on the
premise of the joke.
Further into the section, Peters reenacts a situation where a Lebanese man is
having a discussion with Peters himself. Hereby the monologue is changed into
a “dialogue”, and this way of creating constant style-shifts is a classic tool for
stand-up comedians. It enables him to naturally switch between the two
different accents, as he is simply reproducing a situation that he presumably
experienced. In such a case it is easy to detect just how much comedic effect
that there can be conveyed through a change of voice and mimicry (Peters
changes his facial expression every time he switches characters, notably by
producing globulous eyes when enacting the Lebanese man).
In this section Peters repeats many of the same words with both voices, thus
giving us a good idea of how the voices differ from each other and thus how
the style shifts are effectuated:
[Lebanese man]
It’s stupid
/ ɪt ‘s stup!d̚
[Russell]
I go, “what do you mean, it’s stupid?”
aj go w!t du ju ‘min ɪts stup!d
[Lebanese man]
They do dumb things
ðe du d!m θɪŋz
[Russell]
What do you mean, they do dumb things?
47
They have the tallest building in the world?
w!t du ju min ðe du d!m θɪŋz |
ðe hæv ð! tɔl!st bɪldɪŋ !n ð! w!rld
[Lebanese man]
It’s empty… That’s like having fastest car with no
engine.
ɪts ɛmpti | ðæts lajk hævɪŋ fæst!st kar wɪð no ɛnʒ!n
The S’s are stressed and there is no audible release to the end of the word
“stupid” compared to his normal voice. The Lebanese man is performed with a
deep voice and the vowels are more rounded compared to Peters’s own voice.
In addition, Peters rolls his Rs to imitate him and his voice is placed in the back
of his mouth. Furthermore, the Lebanese character is performed with a stronger
voice, to the point where it seems like he is almost yelling. Along with that,
grammatical errors are present and in this particular section. For instance, the
sentence “That’s like having fastest car with no engine” is missing a
determiner. These errors enhance the fact that English is not the native
language of the Lebanese. As a result of this, his voice and accent are stylized
as such by Peters.
In the continuation of the dialogue with the Lebanese character, another extract
of Section 1 can be highlighted. The discussion is still about Dubai, and the
fact that they have made an island shaped like a palm tree. In line with the
previous dialogue, the Lebanese person refutes its utility. He then tells Russell
that the palm tree is a wrong tree. Russell then asks him why that is, and he
explains as follows:
[Lebanese man]
[...] there is no “P” in the Arabic alphabet. The
“P” is a “B”. Nobody wants to stay on Bomb
Tree.
48
/ðɛr ɪz no ‘pi ɪn ð! ær!bɪk ælf!bɛt | ð! ‘pi ɪz e ‘bi |
nobadi wants tu ste an ‘bam tri
[Russell]
Ok, aside from that. Isn’t that a cool idea? A palm tree
island?
oke !sajd fr!m ðæt | ɪzn ðæt e ku:l ajdi! | e pam tri ajl!nd/
The language characteristics explained above are still at use in this particular
bit. It is worth noticing that Russell Peters once again prepares the expectation
of the audience by explicitly explaining – through the Lebanese character – the
linguistic variation that will constitute part of the joke. It appears clearly from
the transcription that the only pronunciation difference between “palm” and
“bomb” is the first consonant, respectively “p” and “b”. However, even if this
factor is amusing with certain words, the joke is especially directed at the
specific case of the alleged fact that an Arab person pronouncing “palm” would
sound like “bomb”. Bearing this in mind, it could possibly comport negative or
even racist connotations in the mind of the audience, because of certain
inappropriate associations that could be made between Arabs and terrorism.
The accent attributed to the Arab brings associations to terrorism because of
the social meaning attributed to the arab language in general which in many
ways is created and intensified by the western media.
This is in a way a conative function in its effect: Peters does not explicitly
talk about terrorism or suicide bombers or anything of the like, and is instead
just dropping the word “bomb” while in a Middle Eastern setting, created by
him. Peters expects us to make the final connection, and the main punchline of
the joke therefore relies on the conative function in particular. Yet in spite of
the somewhat racist connotations we might get through this connection, people
in the audience – through laughter – show that they have understood, but also
accepted the heavily implied association, as a joke.
49
Another interesting thing to notice about this part of the joke is that the Arab
character is relying heavily on the metalinguistic function, in that he is
referring back to the language itself. In a way, Peters does our job for us, as
this is a literal example of stylistic variation resulting in comedic effect.
Russell Peters is capable of producing a scenario like this because he has a
profound understanding of social and cultural linguistic connotations and the
associations these will generate in the mind of the audience, thereby bringing
about the comical effect. It can of course also be argued that Peters coming
from an Anglo-Indian background, whilst still growing up in a western society,
enables him to cross some lines that either a fully ethnic Indian or
American/Canadian would not be able to do. Some would no doubt view it this
way, but it is a narrow and overtly racist observation. Instead, when it comes to
this particular joke he is able to pull it off without sounding culturally biased
due to two features.
Firstly, although Indians do not share much with Arabs culturally, they do
share something in the context Peters presents the joke, namely an otherness.
That is to say, Indians and Arabs have in common that they are not native to
the context of Great Britain, and thus are on ‘even footing’ in that regard, or
that they are in the same boat, so to speak.
Secondly, although Peters toys with superiority theory, as we will dive into
in a bit, he manages to not patronize the Arab stereotype. In fact throughout the
narrative of the joke, it becomes clear that the "silly" person is the British
stereotype instead. The Arab stereotype, in spite of having a less correct
grammar, and a thick accent, cuts to the point of the absurdity of “bomb tree”
and notes how superfluous the features such as the island and the seven star
hotel are, in a way creating a parallel to the British voice-over through it. It
also depicts two contradicting kinds of Arab people, the ones in places such as
Dubai enriched by oil money, and the others in places such as Lebanon that
have a conflicted history and that definitely cannot be defined as rich.
50
In coherence with the distinctions mentioned earlier it is important to look at
the superiority theory which revolves around some of the same points. Peters
uses superiority humor in the section where he mimics the British voice in the
advertisement for Dubai. This is characterized by the fact that, as earlier
mentioned, he implies to be higher ranked socially as well as that he is playing
on the British stereotype of being posh and noble. In addition Peters mentions
that “they alway make it look so glamorous” which to a great extent is implied
by the British voice, and is then further amplified by him signposting not just
which style shift he is about to do, but also how we are supposed to perceive it.
This kind of humorous method is dependent on there being someone in the
audience who is subjected to the specific relation of the joke. In this joke about
the British voice over, the comic effect and its quality is reliant on the social
origins within the audience. More so, the joke only has a comic effect if the
notion of British people being noble and posh, is a common cultural
understanding within the audience.
The superior humor also manifests itself in the joke regarding the Lebanese
man discussing Dubai with Peters. In this joke the Lebanese man expresses
how he finds Dubai as being a stupid and dumb place. In this way he puts
himself above the population of Dubai by pointing out that they in Dubai do
dumb things such as building very large empty buildings and creating an island
that only fulfills its purpose seen from the air. This superiority creates the
humorous effect of neglecting the landmarks Dubai has created by stating that
it is a stupid place in general. However, the superiority is in fact also conveyed
in a third way as well; that of Dubai itself. Although the Arab man condemns
them for the waste in having an island that only has the utility of appearing
nice from the sky, or the tallest building, these things still indicate that Dubai is
superior to other countries in that they can afford such frivolous use of money.
51
As well as using the superiority humor in this section, Peters uses release/relief
theory when creating the humorous premise of Dubai being a stupid and dumb
place. He does this by first stating that Dubai is a glamorous place but then
experiences how the Lebanese man states that it is stupid. The way in which he
say it’s stupid is characterized by being the relief in this section, as well as the
build up towards this stupid is characterized by being the release.
Within this whole section there is also to find a more general form of the
release relief theory. This is indicated by the palm tree versus the bomb tree.
The specific release lies in the whole intro which first states that Dubai is
glamorous, next states it is stupid. Finally Peters imply that the relief hereby is
defined as the bomb tree which also functions as the main punchline in this
section.
Peters uses incongruity to clarify the shifts between respectively being
himself and the Lebanese man. This is done by him shifting between his own
accent and an impersonated Lebanese accent. The specific incongruity is here
characterized by grammatical differences and tone of voice, this creates
surprising effects which furthermore is co-creating in the humorous build-up.
Language variation and stylization are in Section 1 the key in the creation of
Peters’s narrative.
Section 2: Cultural understanding and social meaning
Culture precedes a text and because all communication is basically text, culture
is thereby realized through text and embodied within text. Therefore, when an
individual belongs to a culture, it is an active, interactive and reconstructive
process, meaning that culture is much more than representations of dialects and
symbols belonging within certain cultures. It is possible to duplicate different
dialects and symbols, but this does not necessarily make one part of that
culture. Belonging to a culture requires certain participation within the culture
52
itself. So when we reconstruct or represent forms of culture, as Russell Peters
does in his show, we will inevitably enable them in new contexts (Coupland,
2007, 107-108). This is again exemplified in Peters’s show when he describes a
journey to the US, where he meets an American trying to duplicate the dialect,
symbols and attitudes belonging to the Irish community, thinking that it will
make him Irish. However, as Peters tries to convey by saying ”When the fuck
were you Irish?”, the American has never belonged to the Irish culture and is
therefore not Irish. As mentioned when introducing The Green Card Tour, the
show is in London, thus the context is more favorable to the introduction of a
joke on both Americans and Irish people.
Peters performs jokes that are aimed at both the audience and himself,
hereby creating a situation where the audience is invited to laugh at themselves
and others – in this case the Americans.
[Russell]
The Irish hate it when Americans go back there
and tell them they’re Irish.
That’s my favorite thing to watch.
[American man with fake Irish dialect]
How you doin’? I’m Irish.
/ ˈhaʊ je ˈdoʊen | ˈaɪm ˈaɪˌrɪʃ |
[Irish man]
You’re not fuckin’ Irish. You’re a fuckin’ cunt.
| j! nɒt ˈfʊkɪn ˈaɪrɪʃ | j!r ! ˈfʊken ‘kʊnt /
(Appendix 2)
In this dialogue between an American from Boston who claims to be of Irish
descent, and a man from Ireland, Peters makes the distinction between the two
men more obvious by using a significantly more nasal voice when portraying
53
the American from Boston. Whereas he stresses the vowels more obviously
whilst attempting to sound like a native Irishman. This can particularly be seen
in his use of the / ʊ / in “fucking” and “cunt”, instead of / ʌ / as in NRP.
However, he is not as consistent in his use of accents as he seems to the
audience. When he portrays the Irishman he uses the pronunciation of the word
“fucking” inconsistently, changing it from / ɪ / to / e /. The confusion can be
attributed to the high tempo of his dialogue, which although has the effect of
making mistakes or inconsistencies more likely, also has a positive countereffect of making these errors in pronunciation seem slight and unnoticeable
when compared to a regular tempo of speech.
In this section Russell Peters implicitly explains how just being able to
replicate an Irish dialect with a Boston stylization, does not make the
individual Irish. In order for someone to be a part of a certain culture it is,
according to Coupland, important to be an active member of that community
and culture. Peters thereby implies that the American’s claim, that he is Irish, is
not at all justified because he is from Boston and therefore is not an active
member of an Irish culture (Coupland, 2007, 107). It could be argued then that
this particular American from Boston, belongs to a community where it is
given social meaning and significance to be of Irish descent and this might be
his reasons for using this stylization.
Once more the superiority theory is also significant, because the audience is
laughing at the downfall of the American; who is proud of his supposed
ancestry and the optimistic belief he has in his ability to sound somewhat Irish.
The Irishman is asserting his power over the American by letting him know
that being able to sound Irish does not make him Irish (Ross, 1998: 51). What
is also noticeable, is that the Irishman instantly recognizes the American for
what he is, based on his poor dialect. This stands as something of a contrast to
our statement, and the point of the joke, that sounding Irish does not make you
Irish. This different facet of the same point is that although dialect and accent
54
alone, no matter how perfectly executed, does not make you of a particular
ethnicity or cultural group in and of itself, it is still a factor that is taken into
consideration, and as the joke indicates, is the main thing that gives the
American’s attempt at another cultural heritage away. To this effect, the
audience is in fact laughing because the American is being ridiculed and
mocked because of his arrogance. We can also safely assume that Peters being
Canadian and living in the United States, enables him to safely mock this
group, with the fact that the audience is British merely helping in regards to
approval of the joke.
It could also be said that the emotive function is in use here. Although the
sender of the joke is in fact Russell Peters, and the only thing we can learn
from this section explicitly about him is that he enjoys watching these
situations unfold, finding them entertaining. This is irrelevant in itself, but we
can instead go deeper into the text and look at Peters’s portrayal of the man
from Boston instead. In this case, it is implied that Americans are compelled to
look to their European roots as a means of establishing a cultural identity. It is
also indicated that they take it as a point of pride, since they are eager to flaunt
the fact that they are Irish, or of another descent for the matter, whereas their
native counterparts seek to distance themselves from this perceived truth. So
the comedy can also be said to function on the basis of the prideful American
being built up as a cocksure individual, boasting about his heritage to everyone.
Then, as soon as his ancestry is put into contact with someone from the actual
country, his ego is immediately deflated in the form of the no-nonsense
response from the Irishman.
As this specific joke focuses on the means of being of a cultural ethnicity the
incongruity lies within the double meaning. This is to be understood as the
American Irish beholds a certain ambiguity which is characterized by the
double cultural ethnicity and identity. This is the base of this joke and as well
as creating the foundation on which the joke is based, it creates several means
55
of relation to the subject. This means that the joke has a broader group of
reference, both the real Irish as well the American Irish.
The relief in this joke is founded on the clash between different cultures.
Specifically the collision between two cultures, who separately thinks they are
of Irish origin, shows how the relief with in this joke has both surprising
element as well as a liberating function. When talking about release it is in this
joke characterized by the build-up which is is recognized as the introduction to
the punchline also known as the point of relief. The audience’s laughter shows
us not only that the joke is considered funny, but also that the cultures
represented by Peters are recognized and therefore true. In stand-up and humor
theory in general there is a common phrase saying: it is funny, cause it is true.
That is the premise of much observational comedy, like that of Peters, and in
that way, such comedy can be understood as a way of verifying certain
stereotypes, prejudices or even taboos within society – if they are not
recognized, they would hardly be considered funny.
Interestingly enough, one could argue that by reproducing these voices and
stereotypes, Peters is ultimately participating in maintaining the very same
social structures that he is portraying, thus perpetuating the stereotype. This
leads to the classic discussion of the relationship between art and culture, that
there is a never ending chain of reproduction going on; art reproducing the
social structures of society and vice versa. That is also why many (often poor)
comedians aim at the lowest denominator, hereby having an easier job by
hitting cultural symbols that most people will recognize as true.
56
Section 3: Pronunciation and the metalinguistic level of
humor
In the following extract of the show, Russell Peters introduces a joke by telling
the audience about an event that (allegedly) happened in his life during one of
his travels to Northern Ireland. Note that the first part with Russell’s regular
voice will not be transcribed, as we deem it to have no phonetic relevance right
here. However, the rest will be transcribed as it also holds phonetic meaning
that will be explained after the extract.
[Russell]
Love the Irish. They swear more than any human beings
on the planet. I remember I did shows in Belfast,
Northern Ireland, one time. I got off stage, this dude
walks up and goes;
[Irish accent]
Hey, you’re fucking brilliant tonight. You were a great
fucking crack. You’re fucking crack on. Fuck you, you
ugly fucking cunt. You’re a fucking shite. Fuck off.
Fuckety fuck. Fucker fuckee. O’Malley. O’Sullivan.
Drink some Baileys. Fuck, fuck. Fuckety fucker. Fuckee
come over. Fuck yeeee!
/ he jur ‘f!kɪŋ brɪlj!nt t!najt | ju w!r e gret ‘f!kɪŋ kræk |
jur ‘f!kɪŋ kræk an | f!k ju ju !gli f!kɪŋ k!nt | jɔr e f!kɪŋ
ʃajt | f!k ɔf | f!keti f!k | fuk!r fuki | omæli | os!l!v!n |
drɪŋk s!m beliz | fuk fuk | fuketi fuker | f!ki k!m ov!r |
f!k jɛː
[Russell]
I was like: “well, thank you, Father”. I’ll see you on
Sunday.
aj w!z lajk, wɛl θæŋk ju || ‘fað!r | ajl si ju an s!nde /
57
(Appendix 3)
One of the interesting things about this extract is its structure that eventually
leads to laughter from the audience several times. Firstly, Peters says “I love
the Irish” just to stress out that the upcoming joke will be about the Irish, and
that he loves them, thus it is not personal and they should not feel offended. He
then goes and states what can only be described as a fact or an accepted
stereotype by saying that Irish people swear more than any other people.
Lastly, he starts telling us how he was in Northern Ireland, thus giving
credibility to his previous statement. In only three steps, he has secured the
foundation for the joke, and has prepared the audience for an Irish accent
involving swearing by the character of a person he has met in Northern Ireland.
This way of constructing the beginning of a joke is an example of Peters using
the emotive function of language. Although the only emotion is his directly
mentioned love of the Irish as a people, we can establish the main factor of
aforementioned credibility through his claim of visiting Belfast. It not only lets
us know that Peters has something to base his observations of the Irish on, but
because it is something he in fact mentions several times throughout this show
(he mentions being in Dubai as well for instance) it creates an image where the
audience implicitly believes that he is an authority when it comes to these style
shifts and cultural observations. Thus, our image of Peters is that he is not only
a comedian, but that due to having travelled the world, there is an authenticity
to his jokes. This can also be seen as an instance of the conative function, since
it lets us see that Peters not only wants us to laugh, but to accept his
observations as authentic and believable as well.
Although there is a distinction between Northern Irish (which is more similar
to Scottish) and Irish accent, Russell Peters does not distinguish between these
two, and instead imitates the Northern Irish accent equally to the Irish accent in
58
Section 2. That does not seem to have an influence on the audience. They are
more inclined to find it funny, as he has already explained explicitly that he
would perform an Irish accent. Phonetically speaking, the Irish imitation is
mainly recognizable through the pronunciation of / r /, where it is pronounced
with a strong tap when it is non-final as in the word “crack” or “brilliant”
(Collins & Mees, 2013: 180). The variation of the word “shit” is another
stylization from Peters on Irish and British English. It would be written “shit”
and pronounced in General American English (GA) as / ʃɪt / but in this
particular Irish dialect example, the Northern Irish person pronounces it / ʃajt /,
assumable spelled “shite”. However, Peters emphasizes more on the swearing
rather than the Irish pronunciation in this section.
Laughter from the audience occurs all the way through the Irish imitation,
where Peters has to wait for silence to move on to the next line. Considerable
laughter can then be observed after “Father”, and to a similar degree after
“Sunday”. Incongruity theory offers part of the explanation as to why the
audience responds to this joke with laughter. In the end of the joke about the
Irish, Peters surprises the audience by adding the word Father to the long line
of obscenities, implying that in Ireland even a priest swears like a sailor.
Furthermore it is through incongruity theory that it becomes clear that the
surprising, as well as unfamiliar cultural use of swearing raises laughter. This
section has to a great extent a significant use of specific incongruity theory;
meaning that the huge amounts of swear words adds surprising elements as
well as concrete grammatical differences and use of cultural terminology.
Release/relief theory can also be applied, as the long line of profanities could
be considered offensive to some and cause the audience to laugh as a way of
coping with the offense. The social meaning attributed to excessive swearing is
in contrast to the social meaning you would attribute to a priest. What makes
the joke funny is that it breaks with the pre-constructed notions you have
59
connected with priesthood and swearing and combining these two contrasting
notions creates an element of surprise thereby catching the audience off guard..
Moving on to our next example, which takes place a few lines before the above
section with Peters performing the swearing Irish guy. Peters here depicts how
the Irish pronounce the word “cunt”, and then moves on to a more expressive
performance through gestures:
[Irish accent]
Look at you, you’re a fucking cunt
/ lʊk æt ju jɔr e f!kɪŋ ‘kʊnt
[Russell]
Doesn’t “cunt” sound nice? Don’t you want to be
a “cunt”? I want to be a “cunt”!
d!znt ‘kʊnt sawnd najs | dant ju want tu bi e ‘kʊnt||
‘aj wan! bi e ‘kʊnt /
(Appendix 3)
Here Peters explains the contrast between the American and the British
pronunciation of the word cunt. He explains how the American way of
pronouncing the word is not as desirable as the Irish way because of the
harshness of the pronunciation. Through the social meaning this pronunciation
constitutes undesirable and negative connotations. This makes it social frowned
upon to use this word because of its social meaning within America. Whereas
in the Irish pronunciation, Peter highlights that the softness and round / ʊ / of
the word makes it more socially acceptable to say and therefore attributes the
social meaning to be of a positive nature. He then goes on:
60
[Puts his head backwards, and starts shaking his head sideways as he leans
forward as if he was addressing someone/something placed lower while saying
the following:]
Who’s the little “cunty, cunty”?
/ ‘huz ð! lɪt!l kʊnti kʊnti
[Leans backwards again, places his one hand with the palm facing the front of
his face and leans forward again, shakes his head sideways while repeating the
following]
Who’s the little “cunty, cunty”?
‘huz ð! lɪt!l kʊnti kʊnti /
[Indistinct babbling while holding the hand closer and closer, then vibrates his
lips]
(Appendix 3)
The apparent thing here is the importance of Peters’s body language to
understand the comedic effect, hence the rather long explanatory texts in the
brackets. Without these indications, the meaning would be entirely different.
One can associate a lot of meanings and interpret Peters’s gestures in various
ways. At first, it seems like he is talking to a child or a pet by bowing forward
and looking down. Arguably, the addition of the sound /i/ to the word “cunt” is
also a way of making a word more childish, therefore it can be associated as an
affectionate way of talking to child or a pet. After repeating the sentence
“who’s the little cunty cunty”, he still addresses his hand but babbles. This can
be interpreted as a sexual reference, as the word “cunt” originally means the
female genitalia. In that regard, the palm of his hand, that he is closely facing,
could symbolize the female genitalia that he is talking to and referring to as
61
“cunty”. Later on, when he vibrates his lips, they are almost touching his hand,
which could be viewed as Peters’s imitation of cunnilingus.
The audience laughter that follows indicates that they have seen something
funny there. That laughter can be explained through the help of the
release/relief theory, introduced in the humor section. As demonstrated in the
previous paragraph, Russell Peters gestures and oral performance contained
some sexual connotations. Indeed, there is a taboo surrounding talking about
politically incorrect things such as sex, which leads to laughter from the
audience as they find the topic “shocking”. Thus, it is ok for a member of the
audience to laugh about it but only in this context of stand-up comedy. The fact
that Peters “dares” to take on a sexual topic and that he makes inappropriate
gestures is on of the elements that trigger the psychic release among the
audience, expressed by laughter. In terms of dialect, Peters clearly plays on the
Irish particularity of the “Strut” vowel. It would be pronounced /!/ in GA or /ʌ/
in NRP. In Irish, it is closer and back, thus resembling much more the “Foot”
vowel /ʊ/ (Collins & Mees, 2013: 180-181). As a result of that Peters
pronounces “cunt” as /kʊnt/ as opposed to /k!nt/ as he would say it in his
narrative GA voice.
Next extract from the section is along the same lines. It seems that Peters
focuses on sound to trigger humoristic effect on his audience. Chronologically,
it takes place a little before the previous extract, where Peters introduces the
word “cunt” to convey different jokes. To put things into context, Peters
explains how Americans pronounce the word “cunt” in the following lines:
[Russell]
It sounds mean and aggressive. It doesn’t sound like the
soft delicious thing that it is, you know.
/ ɪt sawndz miːn ænd !’grɛsɪv | ɪt d!zn sawnd lajk ð! saft
d!lɪʃ!s θɪŋ ðæt‘ɪt ‘ɪz ju no |
62
[American accent]
Cunt!
‘k!nt |
[Russell]
It sounds like a really big rock being thrown into
the middle of a lake, doesn’t it?
ɪt sawndz lajk e rɪli bɪg ‘rak biɪŋ θron !n ð! mɪd!l
!v e lek d!zn ɪt
[Mimics throwing a rock and the sound of a rock penetrating water while
pronouncing:]
Cunt. Like that same…
k!’ʊnt | lajk ðæt sem ||
[Re-mimics the same sound and repeats:]
Cunt
k’!nt
(Appendix 3)
To exemplify the American accent here, Peters exaggerates and gives a
metaphor to help the audience assimilate his train of thought. He argues that
the stress is on the /k/ sound, and that it is pronounced in an “aggressive”
manner. He then goes and produces the unlikely metaphor that the
pronunciation of the word “cunt” is like the sound of a rock being thrown into
a lake. However, when Peters pronounces it before explaining his metaphor, he
pronounces it /k!nt/. In the metaphor, he says /k!’ʊnt/.Thus, moving the stress
to the vowel “u” instead of the “c” as well as adding an extra /ʊ/. Thus, in his
exaggeration, he is contradicting himself. As he is trying to explain a single
word with a single pronunciation, the phonetic transcription should show no
differences. After uttering “cunt” while mimicking the sound of a rock
63
penetrating water, he utters it a second time, as if he is does not consider that
he got it right the first time. This inconsistency leads us to thinking that the
primary focus of his joke is not accent, but rather the metaphorical sound. So
here we see a clear instance of the sound itself being funny, in contrast to most
of our other examples. It is another clear instance of the meta-lingual function
and its importance. Once more, by signposting and telling us what the sound is
like (that of a rock being thrown in a body of water, producing a plunging
sound, that we are all familiar with), it suddenly becomes even funnier,
because we otherwise would not connect that particular utterance of the word
with an event.
In this analysis, we have set the context before digging deeper into the
examples. We have analyzed concrete extracts from Peters’s The Green Card
Tour with the following perspective: “What does he do in this extract to trigger
(or attempt to trigger) laughter from the audience”. This was done by keeping
in mind our three approaches, phonetics, sociolinguistics and humor theory, as
well as our problem formulation. The results from the analyzed data will be
accounted for and discussed in the following chapter.
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5. Discussion
Having analyzed our chosen data to a sufficient degree, we will now move on
to discussing the results acquired, and what they mean in regards to our
problem statement.
The first question that comes to mind is the relevance of Jakobson’s
linguistic functions, and how the fact, that The Green Card Tour is a high
performance, has to do with it being funny. These factors, as we have seen, are
the skeleton of Russell Peters’s jokes. We have found that his stand-up being
considered a high performance has certain implications. The most important of
these affect the way people view his show, and whether or not they find the
material funny. In short: Are the jokes viewed as jokes because of the context
of the high performance, or do they hold a comedic quality themselves?
The performance itself provides a certain context in which laughter is
expected, which in turn makes it a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy; Peters, being
the performer, is automatically granted a certain level of respect and authority,
which he would not necessarily have in other contexts. Likewise, the linguistic
functions, which we have applied throughout the analysis, have shown that
Peters readily uses some in favor of others. Where the referential and conative
functions are omnipresent in his show and sections on a very general,
superficial level, the metalingual function plays a more poignant role in many
parts. For instance, it can easily be determined that the entirety of his
performance has the referential function of telling us stories he has observed
throughout his travels, thereby making the conative function to make us laugh,
and see him as an authority on these matters. Still, these observations lack
significance in and of themselves. They serve as the scaffolding for which
functions such as the metalinguistic one can come into play, and it is precisely
this function which we have found has the most significant part when it comes
to the linguistic features and stylistic shifts in Peters’s jokes. In fact, it can be
65
argued that Peters’s unique style of comedy is founded on constantly shifting
styles himself, which is exactly what people are paying for and expecting to
see. In this way he makes the audience realize the importance of sounds in
dialects/accents, thus referring back to his own material, and making people
think about why the sound itself is funny.
As we have seen, this is especially evident in his presentation on the
different ways of pronouncing the word ‘cunt’ in Irish and American accents,
and how the social meaning attributed to it differs wildly compared to not just
the sound of the word, but the cultural setting in which the word is uttered. For
instance, when Peters describes how the word “cunt” sounds aggressive in
America compared to the way it sounds in Ireland. He describes the American
pronunciation as being similar to that of a rock penetrating water, and then
utters the sound the way he described it. The sound itself is then seen as being
the funny part. Nonetheless, this is not a regular occurrence, and for most of
the show the sounds he produces (accents and dialects) are there to enhance the
credibility of his jokes. Indeed, even if the accent is not the element that
triggers laughter, it is often a crucial tool in the build-up of a joke. For instance,
in Section 2, Peters performs a Boston accent and an Irish accent in a dialogue
between two characters. In principle, the humorous effect could be achieved
without performing the accents in this particular example, but they add
credibility to the story and to Peters’s performance as a whole.
Interestingly, we can also see a type of fusion between the metalinguistic
and poetic functions, where Peters draws attention to his show as an act, by
giving us insight to how he views different sounds of words. By doing this, he
reveals the importance of taking stylistic variation into consideration when
constructing humor as a type of communication. A clear example of this is
when he uses stylisation in a metalinguistic way, such as in the “Bomb Tree”
bit, with the phonetic difference of the “P” in Arabic functioning as the
punchline, thus making the linguistic aspect the joke itself.
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However, it is important to notice that even though stylization and phonetic
variation are essential for the construction of humor and help us understand
how and why Peters is able to obtain comedic effect, they are far from the only
factors which should be taken into consideration.
It should be clear by now, that the relationship between language and humor is
complex. Language is per definition a coherent system of signs used as a
means of communication, and humor can be viewed in much the same way; it
(often) relies on the recognition of social meaning. In that way humor can be
understood as a language of its own. It can be used in various ways of
communicating messages, from relieving tension in a social situation to
insulting others. The humor used within stand-up is characterized by having a
clear, predefined purpose and goal of entertaining people and making them
laugh. Peters’s use of stylization has shown that the recognition of cultural and
social structures is a key point when trying to unravel the connection between
language and humor, as the sound itself for the most part is not enough. In
trying to achieve humorous effect, he assumes a shared cultural knowledge is
present, which also presupposes a shared social meaning. If the shared
knowledge and meaning were absent, the humor would fall flat. Peters of
course realizes the importance of the social meaning embedded in performed
stereotypes, and thus knows that the auditory aspect serves mostly as a
supporting factor to these observations, rather than functioning as the joke
itself.
Still, simply performing cultural references and/or stereotypes such as
dialects and parodies alone, does not do the trick. If that was the case we would
be laughing constantly at every reference that was made in mundane
conversations. So even though, as we have seen, setting a context of
recognizable cultural references is the basic premise of achieving comedic
effect, there must be more elements to the creation of comedy than referring
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what could be considered everyday actions and occurrences. If this was all it
took, everyone could be a stand-up comedian.
The answer can partly be found in the release/relief theory: the use of swear
words, of immoral narratives and the ambiguous and uneven power relation
taking place when singling in on a member of the audience – all of these
comedic tools are evident of a benign violation of identity as the audience is
presented with an uneasy sensation which is relieved by the punchline.
We have throughout the project established that Peters’s portrayals of
stereotypes are required to be somewhat accurate both in terms of cultural
features, but also in the case of the sound itself. But to which degree is
accuracy required for one such portrayal to be considered funny?
We have found that the need to perform a completely accurate cultural
representation becomes somewhat obsolete in regards to humor, and it could in
fact be argued that after a certain point, being “more accurate” ceases to matter.
This is mainly due to his use of signposting and narrating, letting people in on
which culture he is portraying. He plays on the exposed characteristics of the
various cultures, meaning that he mainly observes the stereotypes and reenacts
that part of the culture, instead of actually portraying the culture in its
wholesome. In that way his humor plays on exaggeration, both because it
makes his points clearer, but also because exaggeration holds a comic element
in itself. This creates an interesting combination of laughing at something
because of the “It is funny because it is true” reason, but also because the truth
is blown out of proportion. Obviously stereotypes exist for a reason, but Peters
builds them up further, and in some cases into absurdity, which is where the
funny part comes in. Truth itself is not remarkable in a humorous sense, but the
way it is handled is, either through exaggerating something, or underplaying it.
A deeper, underlying question could be whether or not Peters is perpetuating
the selfsame stereotypes his jokes are centered on, and the impact this has on
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his stand-up. The jokes Peters build up might be considered negative and
offensive to some cultures, taken out of the humorous context. Accordingly
Peters states that he uses humor to elevate different cultures. It could of course
be argued that the characterizations he performs, creates a sort of social
understanding of how they are viewed by society, but that presupposes that the
audience is being reflective, and not just taking the humor at face value.
He avoids this in effect by selecting specific members of the audience who
accept his comedic style to represent the culture he stereotypes, thereby making
sure that culture is not ridiculed. He usually also introduces a joke with a
compliment about an ethnicity, such as “I love the Irish”, to emphasize that the
upcoming joke is not meant to be disrespectful. Furthermore, if his jokes were
portrayed in a different context than high performance, they would run a higher
risk of being considered harmfully culturally biased, and could bring about the
topic of racism as a result of the cultural context. Thus the primary danger of
Peters’s type of humor is offending your audience either directly, or having
them be offended on behalf of others. However, Peters also circumvents this
partly by being part of a minority culture himself, and partly by having
supposed firsthand accounts of many of the situations he describes. So the
answer to whether or not he perpetuates stereotypes is in our case irrelevant,
unless it also has an effect on the humorous value of his show. This is of course
a difficult point to assess, since it is assumed that his regular fans either
condone this behavior, or do not view it as being so. Obviously, if he was
considered directly racist and harmful because of his style of comedy, he
would not have as large a mainstream following as he does. But as it is
undeniable that Peters is stereotyping not only negative, but positive values of
certain cultures, it creates an image of what we as his audience think is funny,
regardless of social implications. So the conative function of stand-up –
making people laugh – becomes the center and most important aspect of any
69
given comedy show, and as long as this function is achieved, whether or not
stereotypes are perpetuated does not matter to the audience.
Cultural differences are often the cause of prejudices and conflicts and
therefore, strange as it may sound, the perfect subject for a comedian to engage
with if he/she can navigate through the potential pitfalls. Peters appears to be
able to introduce these taboo topics, and come out unscratched.
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6. Conclusion
How can the humoristic style of Russell Peters be understood through a
sociolinguistic perspective, and which features of language variation are
utilized in enhancing and establishing humorous effect?
From a sociolinguistic starting point, this project has sought to explain and
understand the underlying communicative premises on which humor relies.
Throughout the discussion, it became clear to us that there are three main
factors when it comes to the success of Peters’s performance: Stylization of
cultural stereotypes, the use of elements in accordance to humor theory in the
structure of his jokes, and the ability to discern when sound itself can hold
funny features.
In Peters’s work, these three elements are co-dependent: The language
stylization provides Peters with the necessary linguistic tools such as producing
phonetic differences in order to play more parts in a dialogue, to create
different cultural scenarios. This, in combination with his skills in structuring
his performance according to aforementioned theories of humor, enables him
to do everything that makes the show humorous.
Peters’s use of signposting makes the accuracy of his stylization less important,
by presetting people’s expectations. In addition to this, his exaggeration of
stereotypes serves the same purpose, and proves that social implications, such
as perpetuation of these same stereotypes, is not problematized as long as the
end result is considered funny. Peters presupposes a mutually shared
knowledge of cultural context and social meaning, which, if absent, would
remove the foundation of his act.
Finally, it becomes apparent that language variation and stylization are the
cornerstones to Peters’s specific brand of stand-up, and that many of his bits
employ heavily stereotyped characters and voice guises in order to achieve
71
humorous effect. By using stylized voices he connotes social meanings which
are recognizable, but also hold the potential of being funny in their own right.
In this way, language stylization and the use of voice guises become both the
means and the end of Peters’s comedic performance.
72
7. Literature & References
Attardo, Salvatore: Linguistic Theories of Humour. Mouton de Gruyter
(1994).
Collins, Beverley & Mees, Inger M.: Practical Phonetics and Phonology – A
resource book for students . 3rd Edition. Routledge London (2013).
Coupland, Nikolas: Style: Language Variation and Identity – Key Topics in
Sociolinguistics. Cambridge University Press, New York (2007).
Juel, Henrik: Communicative functions – A phenomenological approach to the
analysis of media content. Kristiansand (2003) – Translated in 2013.
Limon, John: Stand-up Comedy in Theory – or Abjection in America. Duke
University Press (2000)
Meyerhoff, Miriam: Introducing Sociolinguistics. Routledge, London (2006).
Reichl, Susanne & Stein, Mark: Cheeky Fictions – Laughter and the
postcolonial. Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam (2005).
Robey, David: Structuralism – an introduction. Clarendon Press, Oxford
(1973).
Ross, Alison: Language of Humour. Routledge, London (1998).
The International Phonetic Association: Handbook of the International
Phonetic Association – A guide to the Use of the International Phonetic
Alphabet . Cambridge University Press (1999).
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Internet References
Web Reference #1 – Russell Peters interview in India Today (5-23-14):
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/russell-peters-comedy-superstar-netflixseries-racial-humour-toronto/1/321261.html
Web Reference #2 – ‘Den Store Danske’ – Encyclopedia article on
Structuralism (5-23-14):
http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Sprog,_religion_og_filosofi/Sprog/Sprogvidens
kab,_overbegreber/strukturalisme
Web Reference #3 – ‘Den Store Danske’ – Encyclopedia article on Ferdinand
de Saussure (5-23-14):
http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Sprog,_religion_og_filosofi/Sprog/Sprogforsker
es_biografier/Ferdinand_de_Saussure
Web Reference #4 – ‘Den Store Danske’ – Encyclopedia article on Pragmatism
(5-23-14):
http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Samfund%2c_jura_og_politik/Sprog/Semantik_
og_pragmatik/pragmatik
Web Reference #5 – ‘Den Store Danske’ – Encyclopedia article on
Socialconstructivism (5-23-14):
http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Sprog,_religion_og_filosofi/Filosofi/Filosofi_o
g_filosoffer_-_1900-t./socialkonstruktivisme
Web Reference #6 – E.B. White quote, Wikipedia article on Humor (5-23-14):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour
Web Reference #7 – Will Ferrell interview in U.T. San Diego (5-23-14):
http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050624/news_1c24ferrell.html
74
Bilag 1 38:00-­ 40:12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mpL0PGaJOM Section 1: British Voice-­over/“Bomb”-­tree [Russell] They keep trying to sell Dubai to us. That’s always funny to me. And whenever they try to sell Dubai in the commercials, they always make it look so glamorous and it’s always, like, a British voice-­over or an American voice-­over like, [Russell] (Reenacts with NRP dialect) “Come on down to Dubai for the world shopping festival. Stay in the beautiful seven-­star Jumeirah Beach Hotel. See the world’s tallest building. Stay on the beautiful Palm Island.” [Russell] I’m like, “Ooh, that sounds good.” And then I’m in, like, Lebanon, and I asked around. “They go,” [Reenacts man with Arabic dialect] “Where were you before this?” [Russell] I go, “I was in Dubai.” [Man with Arabic dialect] “It’s stupid” [Russell] I go, “What do you mean, it’s stupid?” [Man with Arabic dialect] “They do dumb things” [Russell] “What do you mean, they do dumb things? They have the tallest building in the world?” [Man with Arabic dialect] “It’s empty… That’s like having fastest car with no engine.” [Russell] ”They have a seven-­star hotel” [Man with Arabic dialect] “When did five become not enough?” [Russell] ”They made an island that looks like a palm tree. You gotta admit that’s kind of impressive.” [Man with Arabic dialect] “Yes, that’s good idea. Only wrong tree.” [Russell] ”What do you mean, wrong tree?” [Man with Arabic dialect] “You see, Russell, there is a reason you never hear an Arab voice advertising this tree.” [Russell] ”Which tree? The palm tree?” [Man with Arabic dialect] “Yes” [Russell] “Why won’t you say it?” [Man with Arabic dialect] “Because there is no ‘P’ in the Arabic alphabet… The ‘P’ is a ‘B’. Nobody wants to stay on Bomb Tree.” [Russell]
“Ok, aside from that, isn’t that a cool idea? A palm tree island?” [Man with Arabic dialect]
“No, is only good if you are flying over. Then you look down, you go “Hey, look. Bomb tree”. But you go to Bomb Tree Island, now you’re on the island, you don’t see bomb tree anymore. Hey, now I’m on shitty sandbar in the middle of the ocean.” Bilag 2 53:53-­54:39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-­9mGG4x6RQ Section 2: Irish vs. Boston Irish [Russell] [.......] In America, Irish. Every everybody white person claims in to America be says they’re Irish. I was in Boston-­ if you ever go to Boston it’ll freak you out... Everybody in Boston thinks they’re Irish. I’m there and like,” what are you, man?” He goes… [Reenacts an American, trying to sound Irish”] “fuckin’ Irish.” [Russell] I go, “Oh, cool, what part?” [American] “Boston” [Russell] “I forgot about that Your parents from Ireland?” [American] “Nah, Boston” [Russell] “Grandparents?” bridge they built, yeah. [American] “Boston” [Russell] “Great-­grandparents?” [American] “Boston” [Russell] ”When the fuck were you Irish? They always claim to be Irish, but they’re not Irish.” [………] [Russell] The Irish hate it when Americans there and tell them they’re Irish. That’s my go back favorite thing to watch… [Reenacting American with fake Irish dialect] “How you doin’? I’m Irish.” [Reenacting Irish man] “You’re cunt.” not fuckin’ Irish. You’re a fuckin’ Bilag 3 54:49-­ 56:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biI21Cc8PCI Section 3: The word “Cunt” and the Irish swearing [Russell]
That’s what I love about this part of the world [GB & Ireland]. You can say the word “cunt”, and nobody gets upset. [Russell]
It’s true. You guys say it like it’s,
[British accent]
Hello, you fucking cunt. How are you?
[British accent]
Oh, you cunt, I haven’t seen you in a long time. [British accent]
What you up to, you fucking twat? [Russell]
You can’t say “cunt” in America. Everybody gets really freaked out by the word. [Russell]
You guys say it so casually. I like the Irish say it the best. [Russell]
In America they get upset. I can understand why they get upset with the word “cunt” in America, because of our accent over there. We pronounce it what a hard [k] and a “unt” [American accent]
Cunt!
[Russell]
It sounds mean and aggressive. It doesn’t sound like the soft delicious thing that it is, you know. [American accent]
Cunt! [Russell]
It sounds like a really big rock being thrown into the middle of a lake, doesn’t it? [Russell]
[mimics throwing a rock] Cunt [mimics the sound of a rock penetrating the water while pronouncing “cunt”]. Like that same… Cunt [re-­mimics the same sound] [Russell]
But when the Irish say it, it sounds, [Irish accent]
Look at you, you’re a fucking cunt [Russell]
Doesn’t “coont” sound nice? Don’t you want to be a “coont”? I want to be a “coont”! [puts his head backwards, and starts shaking his head sideways, then slightly leans forward as if he was addressing someone/something placed lower while saying the following:] Who’s the little “coonty, coonty”? [leans backwards again, places his one hand with the palm facing the front of his face and leans downwards again, shakes his head sideways while saying repeating the following] Who’s the little “coonty, coonty”? [Indistinct babbling while holding the hand closer and closer, then vibrates his lips] [Irish accent]
What are you doing? I’m taking my “wee coont” for a walk. Can I pet your “coont”? Don’t touch my “wee coont”! He has teeth, he bites. [Russell]
I love the Irish. They swear more than any human beings on the planet. I remember I did shows in Belfast, Northern Ireland, one time. I got off stage, this dude walks up and goes: [Irish accent]
Hey, you’re fucking brilliant tonight. You were a great fucking crack. You’re fucking crack on. Fuck you, you ugly fucking cunt. You’re a fucking shite. Fuck off. Fuckety fuck. Fucker fuckee. O’Malley. O’Sullivan. Drink some Baileys. Fuck, fuck. Fuckety fucker. Fuckee come over. Fuck yeeee! [Russell]
I was like: “well, thank you… Father”. I’ll see you on Sunday