Impoliteness Strategies in John Mulaney's Stand-Up Comedy

https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v11i1.87082

Zitta Arlivia(1), Thomas Joko Priyo Sembodo(2*)

(1) Universitas Gadjah Mada
(2) Universitas Gadjah Mada
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


An analytical study on comedy provides significant insight into comedy as a complex and pervasive medium of expression penetrating everyday life. This study investigates the impoliteness strategies in John Mulaney’s stand-up comedy and how the most frequently used strategy entertains the audience through five sources of pleasure. The data gathered are the utterances containing impoliteness strategies from John Mulaney’s stand-up comedy specials: New in Town (2012), The Comeback Kid (2015), Kid Gorgeous (2018), and Baby J (2023). The impoliteness strategies found in the stand-up comedy were then classified using the theory of impoliteness strategies proposed by Culpeper (1996). The data containing the most frequently used impoliteness strategy are then classified based on Culpeper’s (2011) theory of five sources of pleasure of entertaining impoliteness function. The result shows 344 impoliteness strategies, with the positive impoliteness strategy being the most frequently used, with 163 occurrences (47.4%). From the 163 occurrences of positive impoliteness strategies, 105 entertain the audience through emotional pleasure (64%), followed by the pleasure of being superior with 33 occurrences (20.1%), the pleasure of feeling secure with 14 occurrences (8.5%), voyeuristic pleasure with ten occurrences (6.1%), and aesthetic pleasure with two occurrences (1.2%). The findings indicated that throughout his stand-up comedy performances, John Mulaney employs various impoliteness strategies, especially positive impoliteness strategies, to entertain the audience, primarily by evoking their emotional pleasure.


Keywords


impoliteness strategies; stand-up comedy; entertainment; John Mulaney

Full Text:

PDF


References

Baynes, K. (1991). The normative grounds of social criticism: Kant, Rawls, and Habermas. State University of New York Press.

Brodie, I. (2009). Stand-up comedy as a genre of intimacy. Ethnologies, 30(2), 153–180. https://doi.org/10.7202/019950AR

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press.

Culpeper, J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, 25(3), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(95)00014-3

Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge University Press.

Dean, G. (2000). Step by step to stand-up comedy. Heinemann.

Dean, G. (2023). Stand up comedy glossary - Greg Dean’s stand up comedy classes. https://stand-upcomedy.com/standup-comedy-glossary/

Hafisa, A., & Hanidar, S. (2021). Impoliteness strategies in Trevor Noah’s Afraid of The Dark Stand-up Comedy Show. Lexicon, 7(2), 215–223. https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v7i2.66571

John Mulaney - IMDb. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2023, from https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1825214/

Lockyer, S., Mills, B., & Peacock, L. (2011). Analysing stand-up comedy. Comedy Studies, 2(2), 99–100. https://doi.org/10.1386/cost.2.2.99_2

Mintz, L. E. (1985). Stand-up comedy as social and cultural mediation. American Quarterly, 37(1), 71–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/2712763

Mulaney, J. (2012). John Mulaney: New in town - full episode. Comedy Central. https://www.cc.com/episodes/iku0l8/john-mulaney-new-in-town-john-mulaney-new-in-town-ep-1

Mulaney, J. (2015). John Mulaney: The comeback kid. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/id-en/title/80058424

Mulaney, J. (2018). John Mulaney: Kid gorgeous at Radio City. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/id-en/title/80238110

Mulaney, J. (2023). John Mulaney: Baby J. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/id-en/title/81619082

Ogoanah, F. N., & Blessing, M. O. (2020). Impoliteness as a tool for humour delivery in Nigerian stand-up comedy. LOJEL, 1(2), 70–82. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356597709_FINAL_VOLUME_2

Prananta, A. Y. (2016). The reconstruction of impoliteness strategies as a device for characterization in the subtitle of American TV series comedy The Big Bang Theory. International Seminar of PRASASTI, 3(1), 115–121. https://doi.org/10.20961/PRAS.V0I0.1456

Sunday, A. B., & Bamgbose, G. A. (2021). A pragmatic analysis of humour strategies and functions in “Jenifa’s Diary” and “Professor JohnBull.” The European Journal of Humour Research, 9(4), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2021.9.4.564

Toddington, R. S. (2015). Impoliteness as a vehicle for humour in dramatic discourse. University of Central Lancashire.

Yuanita, A. (2019). Language impoliteness in Stand-up Comedy Academy (SUCA) II on Indosiar. Proceedings of the Social Sciences, Humanities and Education Conference (SoSHEC 2019), 60–63. https://doi.org/10.2991/soshec-19.2019.62

Yule, G., & Widdowson, H. G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.



DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/lexicon.v11i1.87082

Article Metrics

Abstract views : 1248 | views : 704

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2024 Zitta Arlivia, Thomas Joko Priyo Sembodo

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


Lexicon Office

English Department
Faculty of Cultural Sciences,
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Soegondo Building, 3rd Floor, Room 306
Yogyakarta, Indonesia 55281
Telephone: +62 274 513096
Email: lexicon.fib@ugm.ac.id

ISSN: 2746-2668 (Online)

Web Analytics View Stats

Creative Commons License
LEXICON is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lexicon is indexed in

 

About UsSubmissionIssuePoliciesReview