Linguocultural Analysis of Ethnic Stereotypes in Humorous Discourse: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Ethnic stereotype is a culture-determined portrayal of a society, culture or a nation. A comprehensive worldview of an ethnic group tends to form stereotypes, and its analysis makes it possible to identify an ethnic group’s cultural identity and characteristics. This study examined ethnic stereotypes in humorous discourse as portrayed in jokes of Kazakh, Russian, Arabic, English and French languages. By making a comparative, definitional, contextual and quantitative analysis of ethnic stereotypes in humorous discourse, this study adopted the linguistic, cognitive and discursive theory of humorous discourse to identify the similarities and dissimilarities in the ethnic stereotypes of five multi-structural languages. The data was retrieved from various sources including collection of jokes (Kazakh, Arabic, English), random anecdotes, and French jokes with translation. A total of 37 jokes and anecdotes were analyzed in this study with a lingua-cognitive approach and semantic and stylistic analysis which helped to understand participants’ communicative intention. The study also revealed both characteristic and universal features of each nation reflected in its national worldview, mentality and the image of the world. The study also introduced universal and national features of humorous discourse of each cultural community. The findings suggest that the formation of a stereotype depends on particular associations and repetitions, as well as social responsibilities shared by members of a community. The study implications suggest that linguacultural analysis of ethnic stereotypes in humorous discourse in a comparative aspect is considered a priority direction for further research.