Publications

Publication details [#60163]

Furukawa, Toshiaki. 2015. Localizing humor through parodying white voice in Hawai‘i stand-up comedy. Text & Talk 35 (6) : 845–869.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
De Gruyter

Annotation

This discourse analytic study explores the strategic application of represented talk and thought in Hawai‘i stand-up comedy. Drawing on membership categorization and stylization, the study examines how Local comedians create discursive contrasts by using Pidgin (Hawai‘i Creole) to render Locals and by using “Haole” (‘white’) or racially parodied, mock English to render non-Locals. Local comedians and their audiences jointly handle and show their grasp of these culturally particular indexicals to co-produce and confine humor. It is further shown that local humor is a political act that is selectively conceived for a specific sociolinguistic and cultural audience and a sociopolitical setting.