33.3146, Calls: English; Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics/France

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-33-3146. Sat Oct 15 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.3146, Calls: English; Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics/France

Moderators:

Editor for this issue: Everett Green <everett at linguistlist.org>
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Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2022 21:43:20
From: Virginie Iché [virginie.iche at univ-montp3.fr]
Subject: The Pragmatics of Cringe Humor on the Screen & on Digital Media

 
Full Title: The Pragmatics of Cringe Humor on the Screen & on Digital Media 

Date: 04-May-2023 - 05-May-2023
Location: Montpellier, France 
Contact Person: Virginie Iché
Meeting Email: cringehumor2023 at gmail.com
Web Site: https://cringe-humor.sciencesconf.org/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Pragmatics 

Subject Language(s): English (eng)

Call Deadline: 20-Nov-2022 

Meeting Description:

This conference intends to examine the pragmatics of cringe humor in the
English language on the screen (in sitcoms, TV series, filmed stand-up
comedies, films etc.) and on digital media (in audiovisual, textual or
multimodal forms).

We are delighted to announce that our keynote speakers will be :

- Pr. Marta Dynel (Łódź University, Poland and Vilnius Gediminas Technical
University, Lithuania).
Her plenary talk is entitled: ''From communities of practice to affinity
spaces: Cringe humour (or not) across social media'' 

- Pr. Alexander Brock (Martin-Luther Universität Halle Wittenberg, Germany).
His plenary talk will examine the ''cringe factor'' in comedy panel shows, one
of the shows taken as a case-study being 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. 

- Pr. Salvatore Attardo (Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA).
His plenary talk is entitled: '''Hard to watch'': cringe and embarrassment
humor.'
(Plenary talk via Zoom)


2nd Call for Papers:

This conference intends to examine the pragmatics of cringe humor in the
English language on the screen (in sitcoms, TV series, filmed stand-up
comedies, films etc.) and on digital media (in audiovisual, textual or
multimodal forms). “Cringe humor” points to the specific embodied reactions to
cringeworthy/humorous contents found both on the screen and on digital media,
i.e., “an involuntary inward shiver of embarrassment, awkwardness, disgust”
(OED), “shudder and discomfort” (Schwind 2015, 67), “psychic unease” or
“physical pain” (Duncan 2017, 37), and even “intense visceral reaction” (Dahl
2018, 19).
           What does it take to turn cringe into humor and make the awkward
become funny or vice versa? According to the Incongruity-Resolution model of
humor (Suls 1972, 1983, Shultz 1972), humorousness relies upon unexpected
associations that go against “our normal mental patterns and expectations”
(Hye-Knudsen 2018: 15). What is more, according to the Benign Violation theory
(Warren and McGraw 2015), which builds upon the incongruity theory, the
violation of our expectations that is necessary for humor “must have a
negative valence instead of simply departing incongruously from one’s
expectations or mental patterns, hence why slipping on a banana peel is often
considered humorous while winning the lottery is not.” (Hye-Knudsen, 2018:
15). However, most violations do not make people laugh. The Benign Violation
theory holds that to remain humorous, those violations have to remain benign,
which is why they stop being funny if they are too threatening, too
aggressive, or too serious. Yet, if they are too benign, do they still make
people cringe? One of the goals of the conference will therefore be to
determine when cringe humor fails or succeeds and to identify the “felicity
conditions” for cringe humor on the screen and on digital media (pauses,
intonation, facial expressions, illocutionary force markers online such as
emoji, emoticons, GIFs…)—and whether these (or some of these) felicity
conditions hold for both media or are media-specific.
           The conference will also address the issue of the politeness of
cringe humor in English (or lack thereof) on the screen and on digital media.
Humor has been interpreted as one of the strategies of politeness, speakers
engaging in humorous interactions claiming common ground, which can be seen as
a form of positive politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987, 103-104; Attardo 2020,
274). However, cringe humor seems to complicate and potentially destabilize
interactions at all communicative levels. If cringe humor is meant to “enhance
the rapport” with the other speaker and/or the audience (see Spencer-Oatey
2000, 2005 on “rapport-management”), how can we account for its physical
manifestations? If, alternatively, cringe humor unintentionally or
deliberately aggravates the rapport with the other speaker/the audience, how
can we account for its success? Is cringe humor meant to create “an in-group
perception for the speaker and the addressee(s)” or “an out-group division
between the speaker and (some members of) the audience” (Attardo 2020, 277)?
In other words, what (mis)alignment between the speaker and the addressee(s)
is involved in cringeworthy and humorous content, and to what effect? Are
addressee(s) expected to empathize with the target of cringe humor (and bond
with them—in keeping with what Billig after Goffman (2001, 27) calls the
‘nice-guy’ theory of embarrassment) or sneer at them (and distance themselves
from them as highlighted by Kanzler) or both? Do addressee(s) tend to approve
or disapprove of the speaker’s use of cringe humor on CL1, and for what
reason(s)? Do they feel cringe humor is meant to reinforce and perpetuate
stereotypes or denounce and satirize them (Tsakona 2017)? Can there be,
therefore, such a thing as an ethics of cringe humor?

Full CfP available online:
https://cringe-humor.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/7




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LINGUIST List: Vol-33-3146	
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