Article published In:
Art and the expression of complex identities: Imagining and contesting ethnicity in performanceEdited by Valentina Pagliai and Marcia Farr
[Pragmatics 10:1] 2000
► pp. 39–59
Edited by Valentina Pagliai and Marcia Farr
[Pragmatics 10:1] 2000
► pp. 39–59
Comic performance and the articulation of hybrid identity
This article describes how comedians and radio professionals in Corsica draw on a bilingual linguistic and metalinguistic cultural repertoire. In the context of Corsica’s history of language domination, language shift, and linguistic revitalization efforts, many of the products of language contact - mixed codes and compentences - are socially stigmatized. In the logic of dominant language ideologies, these mixed codes do not ‘count as’ language and depreciate individual speakers and collective identitities. Comic performances, it is argued, derive part of their tension and effect from the dominant view of languages as fixed and bounded codes which index single identities. Yet at the same time, performers make use of bilingual repertoires in ways that validate mixed language practices and identities. They do so by making maximal use of fluidity and indeterminacy in speaker stances towards mixed codes and identities. Bilingual comic performance also validates mixed codes and identities by evoking an ‘expert’ bilingual audience.
Keywords: Performance, Corsica, humor, hybridity
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
References (30)
Auer, Peter (1995) The pragmatics of codeswitching: A sequential approach. In L. Milroy and P. Muysken (eds.), One speaker, two languages. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115–135. 
Bauman, Richard (1977) Verbal art as performance. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Bauman, Richard and Charles Briggs (1990) Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 191: 59–88. BoP
BoPBell, Allan (1991) The Language of the news media. Cambridge MA: Oxford University Press.
Duranti, Alessandro (1994) From grammar to politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. BoP
Filippi, Paul (1992) Le français régionale de Corse. Ph.D. Dissertation University of Corsica.
Finlayson, Rosalie and Sarah Slabbert (1997) We just mix: Code switching in a South African township. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1251: 65–98.
Gal, Susan (1989) Language and political economy. Annual Review of Anthropology 181: 345–367.
Gardner-Chloros, Penelope (1995) Codeswitching in community, regional and national repertoires: The myth of the discreteness of linguistic systems. In L. Milroy and P. Muysken (eds), One speaker, two languages. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 68–89.
Gelo, Daniel J. (1999) Powwow patter: Indian emcee discourse on power and identity. Journal of American Folklore 112.443: 40–57.
Giles, H. and P. Smith (1979) Accommodation theory: Optimal levels of convergence. In H. Giles and R. St. Clair (eds.), Intergroup behaviour. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Goffman, Erving (1961) Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill.
Handler, Richard (1988) Nationalism and the politics of culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Hanks, William (1996) Language and communicative practices. Boulder CO: Westview Press. BoP
Haviland, John B. (1996) Text from Talk in Tzotzil. In Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban (eds.), Natural histories of discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 45–78.
Heller, Monica (1995) Codeswitching and the politics of language. In L. Milroy and P. Muysken (eds.), One speaker, two languages. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 158–174.
(1994) Crosswords. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. BoP
BoPHill, Jane and Judith T. Irvine (1993) Introduction. In J. Hill and J. Irvine (eds.), Responsibility and evidence in oral discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–23. BoP
Irvine, Judith T. (1996) Shadow Conversations: The Indeterminacy of Participant Roles. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds.), Natural histories of discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 131–159.
Jaffe, Alexandra (1999) Ideologies in action: Language politics on Corsica. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. BoP
BoPLe Page, Robert and Andrée Tabouret-Keller (1985) Acts of identity: Creole-based approaches to language and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Meeuwis, Michael and Jan Blommaert (1994) The ‘markedness model’ and the absence of society. Multilingua 13–4: 387–423.
Nelson, Cecil (1992) Bilingual writing for the monolingual reader: Blowing up the canon. World Englishes 11.2/3: 271–275.
Urban, Greg (1996) Entextualization, replication and power”. In M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds.), Natural histories of discourse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 21–44. BoP
Stroud, Christopher (1992) The problem of intention and meaning in code-switching. Text 121: 127–155. BoP
Verschueren, Jef (1998) Understanding pragmatics. New York: Arnold.
Woolard, Katheryn (1989a) Double talk: Bilingualism and the politics of ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
(1987) Codeswitching and comedy in Catalonia. IPrA papers in Pragmatics 11: 106–122.
(1999) Simultaneity and bivalency as strategies in bilingualism. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8.1: 2–29.
Zentella, Ana Celia (1997) Growing up bilingual. Malden, MA: Blackwell. BoP
Cited by (55)
Cited by 55 other publications
Wu, Yifan
2023. Stylizing Asian. Working papers in Applied Linguistics and Linguistics at York 3 
García Vizcaíno, María José
2022. Humor in code-mixed airline advertising. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 145 ff.
Cornips, Leonie & Louis van den Hengel
2021. Renewing the coal mining past. International Journal of Language and Culture 8:2 ► pp. 267 ff.
Fonseca, Natália Barroncas da
2021. REPERTÓRIO LINGUÍSTICO RECONFIGURADO PARA LUCRO NO CASO JOEL SANTANA. Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada 60:2 ► pp. 379 ff.
Jung, Neiva Maria & Regina Coeli Machado e Silva
2021. Deutsches fest: vergonha e orgulho em um evento de mobilizações simbólicas e econômicas. Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada 60:2 ► pp. 364 ff.
Bekker, Ian & Erez Levon
2020. Parodies of whiteness: Die Antwoord and the politics of race, gender, and class in South Africa. Language in Society 49:1 ► pp. 115 ff.
Gonçalves, Kellie
2020. The Performance of Place and Tourist Performativity Through Bungee Jumping On and Offline. In Labour Policies, Language Use and the ‘New’ Economy, ► pp. 147 ff.
Miller, Zubin
2020. Stand-up Comedy and Young India: The Expression and Construction of Identity. Changing English 27:4 ► pp. 446 ff.
Miller, Zubin
2024. The Ritual of Comedy: Expressions from the Young Indian Middle Class. In Politics of Recognition and Representation in Indian Stand-Up Comedy [Palgrave Studies in Comedy, ], ► pp. 31 ff.
SturtzSreetharan, Cindi
2020. Heteroglossia. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ► pp. 1 ff.
Woodhams, Jay M.
2019. The Political Priest: Multiple Stances, Multiple Selves. In Political Identity in Discourse, ► pp. 187 ff.
Ben Nafa, Hanan
2018. Joseph Gafaranga: Bilingualism as interactional practices. Multilingua 37:1 ► pp. 119 ff.
Elordui, Agurtzane
2018. Vernacularisation of media: stylistic change in Basque youth media. Multilingua 37:6 ► pp. 561 ff.
Elordui, Agurtzane
2018. Vernaculars in the stylization of new Basque youth media identities: Is there a realignment of ideological relations?. Discourse, Context & Media 26 ► pp. 82 ff.
Elordui, Agurtzane
2022. Jon Gotzon's syncretic bilingual parody: Pushing the boundaries of ‘authentic’ Basque. Language in Society 51:1 ► pp. 51 ff.
Lucena, Maria Inêz Probst & Bianca Campos
2018. DINÂMICAS SOCIOLINGUÍSTICAS E CULTURAIS DE INCLUSÃO/EXCLUSÃO DE ALUNOS DESCENDENTES DE IMIGRANTES RUSSOS NO SUL DO BRASIL. Linguagem em (Dis)curso 18:3 ► pp. 715 ff.
Stengs, Irene
2018. Chapter 8. Peripheral performances. In The Sociolinguistics of Place and Belonging [IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society, 45], ► pp. 149 ff.
Tseng, Amelia
2018. Abriendo closings in bilingual radio speech: Discourse strategies, code-switching, and the interactive construction of broadcast structures and institutional identity. Text & Talk 38:4 ► pp. 481 ff.
Chun, Elaine W.
2017. How to drop a name: Hybridity, purity, and the K-pop fan. Language in Society 46:1 ► pp. 57 ff.
Chun, Elaine W.
2022. Ideologies of legitimate mockery. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 263 ff.
Reyes, Angela
2017. Ontology of Fake: Discerning the Philippine Elite. Signs and Society 5:S1 ► pp. S100 ff.
Britt, Erica
2016. Stylizing the preacher: Preaching, performance, and the comedy of Richard Pryor. Language in Society 45:5 ► pp. 685 ff.
Dumas, Nathaniel W.
2016. “This guy says I should talk like that all the time”: Challenging intersecting ideologies of language and gender in an American Stuttering English comedienne's stand-up routine. Language in Society 45:3 ► pp. 353 ff.
Furukawa, Toshiaki
2016. Humor, laughter, and affect in multilingual comedy performances in Hawai‘i. In Emotion in Multilingual Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 266], ► pp. 267 ff.
Furukawa, Toshiaki
2022. “No flips in the pool”. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 371 ff.
Da Silva, Emanuel
2015. Humor (re)positioning ethnolinguistic ideologies: “You tink is funny?”. Language in Society 44:2 ► pp. 187 ff.
Jaffe, Alexandra, Michèle Koven, Sabina Perrino & Cécile B. Vigouroux
2015. Introduction: Heteroglossia, performance, power, and participation. Language in Society 44:2 ► pp. 135 ff.
Koven, Michèle & Isabelle Simões Marques
2015. Performing and evaluating (non)modernities of Portuguese migrant figures on YouTube: The case of Antonio de Carglouch. Language in Society 44:2 ► pp. 213 ff.
Weiyun He, Agnes
2013. The Wor(l)d is a Collage: Multi‐Performance by Chinese Heritage Language Speakers. The Modern Language Journal 97:2 ► pp. 304 ff.
Ciriza, Maria del Puy
2012. Basque natives vs. Basque learners: The construction of the Basque speaker through satire. Discourse, Context & Media 1:4 ► pp. 173 ff.
Faudree, Paja
2012. How to Say Things with Wars: Performativity and Discursive Rupture in theRequerimientoof the Spanish Conquest. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22:3 ► pp. 182 ff.
Managan, Kathe
2012. Words to Make you Laugh?: Performing the Public in Guadeloupean Comedy Sketches. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22:2
Atkinson, David & Helen Kelly-Holmes
2011. Codeswitching, identity and ownership in Irish radio comedy. Journal of Pragmatics 43:1 ► pp. 251 ff.
Dick, Hilary Parsons
2011. Language and Migration to the United States. Annual Review of Anthropology 40:1 ► pp. 227 ff.
Moriarty, Mairead
2011. Minority languages and performative genres: the case of Irish language stand-up comedy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 32:6 ► pp. 547 ff.
Kelly-Holmes, Helen
2010. Rethinking the macro–micro relationship: some insights from the marketing domain. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2010:202
Thompson, Katrina Daly
2010. “I am Maasai”: Interpreting ethnic parody in Bongo Flava. Language in Society 39:4 ► pp. 493 ff.
FREKKO, SUSAN E.
2009. “Normal” in Catalonia: Standard language, enregisterment and the imagination of a national public. Language in Society 38:1 ► pp. 71 ff.
Bhatt, Rakesh M.
2008. In other words: Language mixing, identity representations, and third space1. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12:2 ► pp. 177 ff.
HIGGINS, CHRISTINA
2007. Shifting tactics of intersubjectivity to align indexicalities: A case of joking around in Swahinglish. Language in Society 36:01
Jaffe, Alexandra
2007. Minority Language Movements. In Bilingualism: A Social Approach, ► pp. 50 ff.
Jaffe, Alexandra
2009. Entextualization, mediatization and authentication: orthographic choice in media transcripts. Text & Talk - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies 29:5 ► pp. 571 ff.
Jaffe, Alexandra
2013. Minority language learning and communicative competence: Models of identity and participation in Corsican adult language courses. Language & Communication 33:4 ► pp. 450 ff.
Jaffe, Alexandra
2015. Staging language on Corsica: Stance, improvisation, play, and heteroglossia. Language in Society 44:2 ► pp. 161 ff.
Jaffe, Alexandra
2016. Indexicality, stance and fields in sociolinguistics. In Sociolinguistics, ► pp. 86 ff.
VERSCHIK, ANNA
2007. Jewish Russian and the field of ethnolect study. Language in Society 36:02
Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2006. Multilingualism, diaspora, and the Internet: Codes and identities on German‐based diaspora websites1. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10:4 ► pp. 520 ff.
Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2007. Bilingualism in the Mass Media and on the Internet. In Bilingualism: A Social Approach, ► pp. 207 ff.
Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall
2005. Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7:4-5 ► pp. 585 ff.
Hall, Kira
2005. Intertextual Sexuality. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15:1 ► pp. 125 ff.
Hall, Kira
Queen, Robin
2005. "How Many Lesbians Does It Take . . .". Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15:2 ► pp. 239 ff.
Koven, Michèle
2004. Transnational perspectives on sociolinguistic capital among Luso‐Descendants in France and Portugal. American Ethnologist 31:2 ► pp. 270 ff.
Skapoulli, Elena
2004. Gender Codes at Odds and the Linguistic Construction of a Hybrid Identity. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 3:4 ► pp. 245 ff.
Prego-Vázquez, Gabriela
2002. ¿De onde es?, ¿de quen es?. Sociolinguistic Studies ► pp. 229 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.