Cover not available

In:The Pragmatics of Humour in Interactive Contexts
Edited by Esther Linares Bernabéu
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 335] 2023
► pp. 87–107

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

“The girl is on fire!”

Interactional humour in YouTube comments on the Notre Dame disaster

 | Masaryk University, Brno
 | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Published online: 24 May 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.335.04cho
Abstract
The article deals with online interactional humour in user comments on YouTube. Drawing on an extensive dataset of verbal reactions to a video discussing the (in)appropriateness of joking about the 2019 burning of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, the analysis traces how online commenters recontextualise the disaster and how they jointly produce humorous interaction on a sensitive topic. The analysis focuses on the emergence of joking threads, which consist of jokes shared by the commenters and additional (non-)humorous metapragmatic comments that develop the interaction in various directions. The data reveal that commenters cooperatively engage in a rich range of humour-related practices on a socially sensitive topic, which oscillate between disaster humour and religious humour.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Setting the field: Interactional humour, disasters, and religion
    • 2.1Interactional humour
    • 2.2Disaster humour
    • 2.3Religious humour
  • 3.Material
    • 3.1YouTube commenting and humour
    • 3.2The data of the study
  • 4.Data analysis
    • 4.1Disaster humour joking thread
    • 4.2Religious humour joking thread
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (58)
References
Archakis, Argiris, Sofia Lampropoulou, and Villy Tsakona. 2018. “‘I’m Not Racist but I Expect Linguistic Assimilation’: The Concealing Power of Humour in an Anti-racist Campaign.” Discourse, Context and Media 23: 53–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore. 2017. “The GTVH and Humorous Discourse.” In Humorous Discourse, ed. by Władysław Chłopicki, and Dorota Brzozowska, 93–105. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1911/1901. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Temple of Earth Publishing. [URL] (accessed 27 February 2018). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bischetti, Luca, Paolo Canal, and Valentina Bambini. 2021. “Funny but Aversive: A Large-scale Survey of the Emotional Response to Covid-19 Humour in the Italian Population during the Lockdown.” Lingua 249: 102963. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boespflug, Francois. 2011. “Laughing at God: The Pictorial History of Boundaries Not to Be Crossed.” In Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, ed. by Hans Geybels, and Walter Van Herck, 204–217. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bou-Franch, Patricia, Nuria Lorenzo-Dus, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich. 2012. “Social Interaction in YouTube Text-based Polylogues: A Study of Coherence.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 17 (4): 501–521. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucaria, Chiara, and Luca Barra. 2016. “Taboo Comedy on Television: Issues and Themes.” In Taboo Comedy: Television and Controversial Humour, ed. by Chiara Bucaria, and Luca Barra, 1–18. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chiaro, Delia. 2012. “Translation and Humour, Humour and Translation.” In Translation, Humour and Literature: Translation and Humour (Volume 1), ed. by Delia Chiaro, 1–29. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. The Language of Jokes in the Digital Age. #like #share #lol. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chovanec, Jan. 2011. “Humour in Quasi-conversations: Constructing Fun in Online Sports Journalism.” In The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains, ed. by Marta Dynel, 243–264. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Irony as Counter Positioning.” In The Pragmatics of Irony and Banter, ed. by Manuel Jobert, and Sandrine Sorlin, 165–194. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. “Early Titanic Jokes: A Disaster for the Theory of Disaster Jokes?” Humour: International Journal of Humour Research 32 (2): 201–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chovanec, Jan, and Villy Tsakona. 2018. “Investigating the Dynamics of Humour: Towards a Theory of Interactional Humour.” In The Dynamics of Interactional Humour: Creating and Negotiating Humour in Everyday Encounters, ed. by Villy Tsakona, and Jan Chovanec, 1–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crilley, Rhys, and Precious N. Chatterje-Doody. 2021. “From Russia with Lols: Humour, RT, and the Legitimation of Russian Foreign Policy.” Global Society 35 (2): 269–288. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Michael Haugh. 2014. Pragmatics and the English Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, Christie. 2011a. “Jokes about Disasters: A Response to Tales Told on Television Full of Hype and Fury.” In Sick Humour, ed. by Christian Hoffstadt, and Stefan Höltgen (eds.), 11–40. Bochum: Projekt Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011b. Jokes and Targets. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dillahunty, Matt. 2019. “Atheist Debates – Notre Dame, and Jokes.” [URL] (accessed 12 March 2022).
Disney. 1996. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Animation film.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Djerf-Pierre, Monika, Mia Lindgren, and Alexis Mikayla Budinski. 2019. “The Role of Journalism on YouTube: Audience Engagement with ‘Superbug’ Reporting.” Media and Communication 7 (1): 235–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dynel, Marta. 2012. “Swearing Methodologically: The (Im)politeness of Expletives in Anonymous Commentaries on YouTube.” Journal of English Studies 10: 25–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “The Landscape of Impoliteness Research.” Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2): 329–354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ervine, Jonathan. 2019. Humour in Contemporary France: Controversy, Consensus, and Contradictions. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fine, Gary Alan, and Michaela De Soucey. 2005. “Joking Cultures: Humour Themes as Social Regulation in Group Life.” Humour: International Journal of Humour Research 18 (1): 1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. 1991/1905. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. London: Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Georgalidou, Marianthi, Katerina T. Frantzi, and Giorgos Giakoumakis. 2020. “Aggression in Media-sharing Websites in the Context of Greek Political/Parliamentary Discourse in the Years of the Economic Crisis.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8 (2): 321–350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer. 2001. “The Pragmatics of Humour Support.” Humour: International Journal of Humour Research 14 (1): 55–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hempelmann, Christian F. 2003. “‘99 Nuns Giggle, 1 Nun Gasps’: The Not-all-that-Christian Natural Class of Christian Jokes.” Humour: International Journal of Humor Research 16 (1): 1–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hugo, Victor. 2006/1831. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johansson, Marjut. 2017. “YouTube.” In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 173–200. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuipers, Giselinde. 2005. “‘Where Was King Kong when We Needed Him?’ Public Discourse, Digital Disaster Jokes, and the Functions of Laughter after 9/11.” The Journal of American Culture 28 (1): 70–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Good Humour, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Knowledge about Humour.” In Script-based Semantics: Foundations and Applications. Essays in Honour of Victor Raskin, ed. by Salvatore Attardo, 93–133. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kürti, László. 1988. “The Politics of Joking: Popular Response to Chernobyl.” The Journal of American Folklore 101 (401): 324–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laineste, Liisi, Anastasiya Fiadotava, and Tõnno Jonuks. 2020. “When the Moral Mentors Lapse: A Comparative Study of Estonian and Belarusian Clergy Jokes.” Folklore 131 (3): 292–309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewis, Paul (ed.). 2008. The Muhammad Cartoons and Humour Research: A Collection of Essays. Humour: International Journal of Humour Research 21 (1): 1–46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martínez-Cardama, Sara, and Fatima García-López. 2021. “Ephemeral Mimetics: Memes, an X-ray of Covid-19.” European Journal of Humor Research 9 (4): 35–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morreall, John. 2009. Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mpofu, Shepherd (ed.). 2021. Digital Humour in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norrick, Neal R. 1993. Conversational Joking: Humour in Everyday Talk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003. “Issues in Conversational Joking.” Journal of Pragmatics 35 (9): 1333–1359. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oring, Elliott. 1987. “Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster: The Challenger Shuttle Explosion and Its Joke Cycle.” Journal of American Folklore 100 (397): 276–286. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Moira. 2009. “Humour, Unlaughter, and Boundary Maintenance.” Journal of American Folklore 122 (484): 148–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spilioti, Tereza. 2020. “The Weirding of English, Trans-scripting, and Humour in Digital Communication.” World Englishes 39 (1): 106–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suler, John. 2004. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology and Behaviour 7 (3): 321–326. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsakona, Villy. 2003. “Combining Two Different Realities: Evidence from Greek Bin Laden Jokes.” Antares 6: 49–52.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Humour, Religion and Politics in Greek Cartoons: Symbiosis or Conflict?” In Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, ed. by Hans Geybels, and Walter Van Herck, 248–268. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. "Okras and the metapragmatic stereotypes of humor: Towards an expansion of the GTVH." In Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory, ed. by Marta Dynel, 25-48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “Constructing Local Identities via/for Humour: A Cretan-Greek Case Study.” Styles of Communication 9 (2): 118–147.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Online Joint Fictionalisation.” In The Dynamics of Interactional Humour: Creating and Negotiating Humour in Everyday Encounters, ed. by Villy Tsakona, and Jan Chovanec, 229–255. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020a. Recontextualising Humour: Rethinking the Analysis and Teaching of Humour. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020b. “Tracing the Trajectories of Contemporary Online Joking.” Media Linguistics 7 (2): 169–183. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsakona, Villy, and Jan Chovanec. to appear. “The Sociopragmatics of Humour.” In De Gruyter Handbook of Humour Studies, ed. by Thomas E. Ford, Władysław Chłopicki, and Giselinde Kuipers. De Gruyter Mouton.
Van Herck, Walter. 2011. “Humour, Religion and Vulnerability.” In Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, ed. by Hans Geybels, and Walter Van Herck, 191–203. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vásquez, Camilla. 2019. Language, Creativity and Humour Online. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weaver, Simon. 2010. “Liquid Racism and the Danish Prophet Muhammad Cartoons.” Current Sociology 58 (5): 675–692. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weizman, Elda. 2015. “Irony in and through Follow-ups: Talk and Meta-talk in Online Commenting in the Israeli Context.” In The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-ups, ed. by Anita Fetzer, Elda Weizman, and Lawrence N. Berlin, 173–195. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Chovanec, Jan & Camilla Vásquez
2025. Experiencing Digital Discourses: From Engagement and Multimodality to Social Action. In Experiencing Digital Discourses, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Georgalidou, Marianthi
2024. Humorous Genres and Modes in Greek Political Discourse. In Political Humor Worldwide [The Language of Politics, ], ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Mullan, Kerry
2024. “Resident superhero”. Internet Pragmatics 7:1 ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2024. Exploring the Sociopragmatics of Online Humor [Topics in Humor Research, 12], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 november 2025. 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue