‘Are we laughing at the same?’ : A contrastive analysis of
Covid-related memes in Czech, Chinese and Spanish

ŽÁKOVSKÁ, Iveta, Carmen MAÍZ-ARÉVALO and Ying CAO. ‘Are we laughing at the same?’ : A contrastive analysis of Covid-related memes in Czech, Chinese and Spanish. European Journal of Humour Research. Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies, 2023, vol. 11, No 1, p. 143-167. ISSN 2307-700X. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.1.720.

Other formats: BibTeX LaTeX RIS

TY  - JOUR
ID  - 2227264
AU  - Žákovská, Iveta - Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen - Cao, Ying
PY  - 2023
TI  - ‘Are we laughing at the same?’ : A contrastive analysis of Covid-related memes in Czech, Chinese and Spanish
JF  - European Journal of Humour Research
VL  - 11
IS  - 1
SP  - 143-167
EP  - 143-167
PB  - Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies
SN  - 2307700X
KW  - Chinese
KW  - Covid-19
KW  - Czech
KW  - humour
KW  - memes
KW  - Spanish
UR  - https://europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/720
N2  - Humour is often employed as a coping mechanism, with therapeutic effects on those producing and receiving it (Christopher 2015; Samson & Gross 2012). This buffering effect of humour might explain why, at the time of an international pandemic like Covid-19, human beings, independently of their cultural origin, have resorted to humour as a means of alleviating uncertainty and fear, and of enhancing feelings of connection and bonding with others. The proliferation of Covid-related humour has also led to a wide range of studies, with special attention to memes. However, contrastive studies are more limited, especially those comparing very different languages and cultural realities such as the Chinese, the Czech and the Spanish ones. This paper aims to redress this imbalance by analysing a corpus of 300 Covid-memes (100 memes per language). More specifically, we intend to answer the following questions: (i) what dimension(s) of humour are predominant in each language? (ii) what actors do the memes in the three countries target? and (iii) to what extent can these preferences relate to cultural differences/similarities? Applying a mixed-method approach, results show that there seems to be a global preference for affiliative humour while aggressive (and self-deprecating) humour appears to be more culturally bound, with a higher frequency in the Czech and Spanish datasets in contrast to the Chinese one. Likewise, the Czech and Spanish dataset share a significantly higher number of common frames, which might be pointing to a more European, Western type of humour in comparison to the Chinese approach (Jiang et al. 2019).
ER  -

Basic information
Original name	‘Are we laughing at the same?’ : A contrastive analysis of Covid-related memes in Czech, Chinese and Spanish
Authors	ŽÁKOVSKÁ, Iveta (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution), Carmen MAÍZ-ARÉVALO (724 Spain) and Ying CAO (156 China).
Edition	European Journal of Humour Research, Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies, 2023, 2307-700X.

Other information
Original language	English
Type of outcome	Article in a journal
Field of Study	60203 Linguistics
Country of publisher	Poland
Confidentiality degree	is not subject to a state or trade secret
WWW	URL
RIV identification code	RIV/00216224:14210/23:00130047
Organization unit	Faculty of Arts
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.1.720
Keywords in English	Chinese; Covid-19; Czech; humour; memes; Spanish
Tags	rivok
Tags	International impact, Reviewed
Changed by	Changed by: Mgr. Pavla Martinková, učo 361548. Changed: 28/2/2024 16:41.

Abstract

Humour is often employed as a coping mechanism, with therapeutic effects on those producing and receiving it (Christopher 2015; Samson & Gross 2012). This buffering effect of humour might explain why, at the time of an international pandemic like Covid-19, human beings, independently of their cultural origin, have resorted to humour as a means of alleviating uncertainty and fear, and of enhancing feelings of connection and bonding with others. The proliferation of Covid-related humour has also led to a wide range of studies, with special attention to memes. However, contrastive studies are more limited, especially those comparing very different languages and cultural realities such as the Chinese, the Czech and the Spanish ones. This paper aims to redress this imbalance by analysing a corpus of 300 Covid-memes (100 memes per language). More specifically, we intend to answer the following questions: (i) what dimension(s) of humour are predominant in each language? (ii) what actors do the memes in the three countries target? and (iii) to what extent can these preferences relate to cultural differences/similarities? Applying a mixed-method approach, results show that there seems to be a global preference for affiliative humour while aggressive (and self-deprecating) humour appears to be more culturally bound, with a higher frequency in the Czech and Spanish datasets in contrast to the Chinese one. Likewise, the Czech and Spanish dataset share a significantly higher number of common frames, which might be pointing to a more European, Western type of humour in comparison to the Chinese approach (Jiang et al. 2019).

Links
MUNI/A/1479/2021, interní kód MU	Name: Paradigms, strategies and developments - English linguistics and translation II
MUNI/A/1479/2021, interní kód MU	Investor: Masaryk University

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‘Are we laughing at the same?’ : A contrastive analysis of Covid-related memes in Czech, Chinese ...

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