Zhao Benshan's sketch comedies are full of humorous elements.But the studies of the mechanisms causing humor in these Chinese contexts are relatively rare in the pragmatic domain at home.This essay,appealing to se...Zhao Benshan's sketch comedies are full of humorous elements.But the studies of the mechanisms causing humor in these Chinese contexts are relatively rare in the pragmatic domain at home.This essay,appealing to several pragmatic theories—mainly cooperative principle and polite principle,aims to exemplify and explicate the underlying systems that make up the humorous language.展开更多
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson have frequently been paired up for comparison in studies of early modern English drama.Conventional views about Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s comedies evolved and crystallized in the seventee...Shakespeare and Ben Jonson have frequently been paired up for comparison in studies of early modern English drama.Conventional views about Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s comedies evolved and crystallized in the seventeenth,eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.People believed or were led to believe that Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s comedies were in clear opposition:Shakespeare’s comedies were sweet,romantic,amiable,popular and entertaining,whereas Jonson’s were based on an abstract theory of humors,cold,satiric,pedantic,and moralizing.Only in the last century did these oppositions begin to change,but too slowly.This paper calls those binary oppositions into question.It tries to present a more truthful picture of these two playwrights and their comedies through an examination of some of their works.It argues that some of those oppositions are stereotypes and should not be taken seriously by contemporary Shakespearean and Jonsonian scholars.展开更多
While Pinter's earliest plays have been recognized in the modernist history of theatre as comedies of menace and his later plays as political comedies,this article argues that his earliest plays are equally very l...While Pinter's earliest plays have been recognized in the modernist history of theatre as comedies of menace and his later plays as political comedies,this article argues that his earliest plays are equally very liable to be interpreted as political comedies.Regardless of their absurdist dramatization of people's helpless exposure to external,unidentifiable threats,a common post-WWII characteristic feature of human experience,I claim that The Room and The Dumb Waiter(both written 1957,staged 1960),two model examples of Pinter's earliest oeuvres,do not simply follow the aesthetic of absurdist theatre to express human futility.The audience's experience of viewing the theatrical performances of both plays in terms of discursive cyclicality or character normality is subverted into one of changeability,strangeness,and contradiction.To foreground the political implications of such revolutionary theatrical experience,Pinter's plays are examined in the light of his unique use of defamiliarization,relying not on Brecht's traditional techniques of singing,dancing,image-projecting,or captioning,but on a simple,dual technique of image destruction and creation.It consists of divesting characters of their normality and portraying them instead as individuals who identify only with unusual images of place,time,body,and consciousness.Using this special technique of defamiliarization,both plays are examined to reveal Pinter's central political theme of undermining reality for purposes of mental and physical subjections.展开更多
East Asian diasporic comedians living in the US and the UK have always been associated with their racial idenities and,consequendy,either adopt or are forced to adopt racil sterotypes that alienate their performances....East Asian diasporic comedians living in the US and the UK have always been associated with their racial idenities and,consequendy,either adopt or are forced to adopt racil sterotypes that alienate their performances.As a conoribution to scholarship in Asian diasporic studics,media studies,and humor studies,this paper offers contemporary Chinese diasporic comedies as a case study into how Chinese comedians use these stereotypes to redlaim a voice.Comedians such as Ai Wong,Jinmy O.Yang,and Nigdl Ng can use comnedic mediums such as standup,comedy television scries,and YouTube videos to address racialized East Asian strreotypes,empower the East Asian community through comedic counter:narratives,and educate the non-Asian public about their reality and culture.By doing so,these comedians adopt the inconguity in comedic discourse to demystify the East Asian/Asian American community to represent their current realics and the ones that bclong to the older generation and situate it all in a global and histonical framework.They dcbunk East Asian American sexuality sterotypes by performing the racial mundane.At the same time,they also ridicule these stereatypes through abjection humor or what I call"comedic trickster"figures to potentially challenge the existing power dynamics in the Western world.Instead of ssmiaing the Asian heritages and merging into the dominant white culure,these comics acknowledge their difference and address these racialized sterotypes.展开更多
文摘Zhao Benshan's sketch comedies are full of humorous elements.But the studies of the mechanisms causing humor in these Chinese contexts are relatively rare in the pragmatic domain at home.This essay,appealing to several pragmatic theories—mainly cooperative principle and polite principle,aims to exemplify and explicate the underlying systems that make up the humorous language.
文摘Shakespeare and Ben Jonson have frequently been paired up for comparison in studies of early modern English drama.Conventional views about Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s comedies evolved and crystallized in the seventeenth,eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.People believed or were led to believe that Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s comedies were in clear opposition:Shakespeare’s comedies were sweet,romantic,amiable,popular and entertaining,whereas Jonson’s were based on an abstract theory of humors,cold,satiric,pedantic,and moralizing.Only in the last century did these oppositions begin to change,but too slowly.This paper calls those binary oppositions into question.It tries to present a more truthful picture of these two playwrights and their comedies through an examination of some of their works.It argues that some of those oppositions are stereotypes and should not be taken seriously by contemporary Shakespearean and Jonsonian scholars.
基金Open access funding provided by The Science,Technology&Innovation Funding Authority(STDF)in cooperation with The Egyptian Knowledge Bank(EKB)Open access funding provided by Al Azhar University under a Transformative Agreement plus fully OA agreement.
文摘While Pinter's earliest plays have been recognized in the modernist history of theatre as comedies of menace and his later plays as political comedies,this article argues that his earliest plays are equally very liable to be interpreted as political comedies.Regardless of their absurdist dramatization of people's helpless exposure to external,unidentifiable threats,a common post-WWII characteristic feature of human experience,I claim that The Room and The Dumb Waiter(both written 1957,staged 1960),two model examples of Pinter's earliest oeuvres,do not simply follow the aesthetic of absurdist theatre to express human futility.The audience's experience of viewing the theatrical performances of both plays in terms of discursive cyclicality or character normality is subverted into one of changeability,strangeness,and contradiction.To foreground the political implications of such revolutionary theatrical experience,Pinter's plays are examined in the light of his unique use of defamiliarization,relying not on Brecht's traditional techniques of singing,dancing,image-projecting,or captioning,but on a simple,dual technique of image destruction and creation.It consists of divesting characters of their normality and portraying them instead as individuals who identify only with unusual images of place,time,body,and consciousness.Using this special technique of defamiliarization,both plays are examined to reveal Pinter's central political theme of undermining reality for purposes of mental and physical subjections.
文摘East Asian diasporic comedians living in the US and the UK have always been associated with their racial idenities and,consequendy,either adopt or are forced to adopt racil sterotypes that alienate their performances.As a conoribution to scholarship in Asian diasporic studics,media studies,and humor studies,this paper offers contemporary Chinese diasporic comedies as a case study into how Chinese comedians use these stereotypes to redlaim a voice.Comedians such as Ai Wong,Jinmy O.Yang,and Nigdl Ng can use comnedic mediums such as standup,comedy television scries,and YouTube videos to address racialized East Asian strreotypes,empower the East Asian community through comedic counter:narratives,and educate the non-Asian public about their reality and culture.By doing so,these comedians adopt the inconguity in comedic discourse to demystify the East Asian/Asian American community to represent their current realics and the ones that bclong to the older generation and situate it all in a global and histonical framework.They dcbunk East Asian American sexuality sterotypes by performing the racial mundane.At the same time,they also ridicule these stereatypes through abjection humor or what I call"comedic trickster"figures to potentially challenge the existing power dynamics in the Western world.Instead of ssmiaing the Asian heritages and merging into the dominant white culure,these comics acknowledge their difference and address these racialized sterotypes.
