Cover not available

Article published In: ‘Only joking’: Negotiating offensive humour in interaction
Edited by Chi-Hé Elder, Eleni Kapogianni and Ibi Baxter-Webb
[Pragmatics & Cognition 32:1] 2025
► pp. 93–120

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

Having a licence for offensive humour in stand-up comedy?

Exploring the case of Romanian comedians performing in the United Kingdom

ORCiD logo with link | University of Bucharest
Published online: 26 September 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.24022.con
Abstract
From a sociopragmatic approach, this article examines potentially offensive remarks in stand-up comedy performances by Romanian origin comedians acting in the United Kingdom. The analysis highlights the sociocultural allowances that enable comedians to engage in a type of verbal behaviour that diverges from socially accepted norms in most “serious” contexts. Following the idea that these performances do not affect the status quo but rather reinforce it (in a long tradition of carnivalesque), the analysis investigates how potentially offensive humour is designed and negotiated by Romanian comedians abroad: how they introduce and develop sensitive topics in the performances, audience reactions to potentially offensive comments, comedians’ awareness of the effects of their discourse, and how they co-create a style of humour that meets the expectations of the public.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Romanian migration and the perception of Romanians in the UK
  • 3.Offensiveness, self-deprecation, and marginal comedians
    • 3.1Offensive humour in stand-up comedy
    • 3.2Marginal comedians and self-deprecation
  • 4.Methodology and data selection
  • 5.Data analysis
    • 5.1Anti-feminism
    • 5.2Racism
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (67)
References
Archakis, Argiris & Villy Tsakona. 2019. Racism in recent Greek migrant jokes. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 32(2). 267–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2022. A migrant’s public apology as an instance of internalised racism: A Greek case study. Journal of International Migration and Integration 23(1). 161–182. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Attardo, Salvatore. 2020. The linguistics of humor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1977 [1929]. Le marxisme et la philosophie du langage. Essai d’application de la méthode sociologique en linguistique. Translated by Marina Yaguello. Paris: Minuit.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1984 [1965]. Rabelais and his world. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barnard, Catherine, Sarah Fraser Butlin & Fiona Costello. 2021. The changing status of European Union nationals in the United Kingdom following Brexit: The lived experience of the European Union Settlement Scheme. Social & Legal Studies 31(3). 365–388. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
BBC. 2018. May 24. Romanian becomes second most common non-UK nationality. [URL]
Billig, Michael. 2005. Laughter and ridicule: Towards a social critique of humor. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chun, Elaine W. 2004. Ideologies of legitimate mockery: Margaret Cho’s revoicings of mock Asian. Pragmatics 14(2–3). 263–289.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ciurea, Andreea. 2022. Bidirectional remittance flows: The experience of Romanian students and migrant care workers in the United Kingdom. Newcastle: Northumbria University PhD dissertation.
Constantinescu, Mihaela-Viorica. 2023. Identity investment in stand-up comedy and online sketches. The European Journal of Humour Research 11(2). 68–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan & Michael Haugh. 2021. The metalinguistics of offence in (British) English: A corpus-based metapragmatic approach. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 9(2). 185–214. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
d’Aiglepierre, Rohen, Anda David, Charlotte Levionnois, Gilles Spielvogel, Michele Tuccio & Erik Vickstrom. 2020. A global profile of emigrants to OECD countries: Younger and more skilled migrants from more diverse countries. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers no. 239.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Da Silva, Emanuel. 2015. Humor (re)positioning ethnolinguistic ideologies: “You tink is funny?”. Language in Society 44(2). 187–212. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Das, Ranjana & Anne Graefer. 2017. Provocative screens: Offended audiences in Britain and Germany. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dore, Margherita. 2018. Laughing at you or laughing with you? Humor negotiation in intercultural stand-up comedy. In Villy Tsakona & Jan Chovanec (eds.), The dynamics of interactional humor. Creating and negotiating humor in everyday encounters, 105–126. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dynel, Marta & Fabio I. M. Poppi. 2020. Arcana imperii. The power of humorous retorts to insults on Twitter. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8(1). 57–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elden, Chilmeg. 2023. Jocular self-deprecation in Japanese initial interactions. Journal of Pragmatics 2181. 45–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ervine, Jonathan. 2019. Humor in contemporary France: Controversy, consensus, and contradictions. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eurostat. 2020. Migrant integration statistics. [URL]
. 2021. Mobility of EU citizens increasing. [URL]
Fic, Tatiana. 2013. Commentary: Migration from Bulgaria and Romania to the UK. National Institute Economic Review 2241. 4–7. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gherghina, Sergiu, Sorina Soare & Paul Tap. 2023. Speaking out against the discrimination of Romanians abroad: An analysis of parliamentary speeches in the home country. Nationality Papers 511. 403–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gilbert, Joanne R. 1997. Performing marginality: Comedy, identity, and cultural critique. Text and Performance Quarterly 171. 317–330. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2004. Performing marginality. Humor, gender, and cultural critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1967. On face-work. An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. In Erving Goffman, Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior, 5–45. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goubin, Silke, Anna Ruelens & Ides Nicaise. 2022. Trends in attitudes towards migration in Europe: A comparative analysis. HIVA — Research Institute for Work and Society. [URL]
Greengross, Gil & Geoffrey Miller. 2008. Dissing oneself versus dissing rivals: Effects of status, personality, and sex on the short-term and long-term attractiveness of self-deprecating and other-deprecating humor. Evolutionary Psychology 61. 393–408. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hargreaves, Alec. 2003. The contribution of North and Sub-Saharan African immigrant minorities to the redefinition of contemporary French culture. In Charles Forsdick & David Murphy (eds.), Postcolonial studies: A critical introduction, 145–154. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2017. Teasing. In Salvatore Attardo (ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and humor, 204–2018. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael & Valeria Sinkeviciute. 2019. Offence and conflict talk. In Matthew Evans, Lesley Jeffries & Jim O’Driscoll (eds.), The Routledge handbook of language in conflict, 196–214. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haydon, Graham. 2006. On the duty of educating respect: A response to Robin Barrow. Journal of Moral Education 35(1). 19–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet. 2000. Politeness, power and provocation: How humour functions in the workplace. Discourse Studies 21. 159–85. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet & Meredith Marra. 2002. Over the edge? Subversive humour between colleagues and friends. Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 15(1). 65–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horowitz, Jeannine & Sophia Menache. 1994. L’humour en chaire. Le rire dans l’Eglise médiévale. Geneva: Labor et fides.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyers, M. Conrad. 1968. The dialectic of the sacred and the comic. Cross Currents 19(1). 69–79.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaffe, Alexandra, Michèle Koven, Sabina Perrino & Cécile B. Vigouroux. 2015. Introduction: Heteroglossia, performance, power, and participation. Language in Society 44(2). 135–139. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 2004. Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In Gene H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation, 13–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
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). 213–242. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuipers, Giselinde. 2011. The politics of humour in the public sphere: Cartoons, power and modernity in the first transnational humour scandal. European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(1). 63–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lægaard, Sune. 2007. The cartoon controversy: offence, identity, oppression? Political Studies 55(3). 481–498. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lampert, Martin & Susan Ervin-Tripp. 2006. Risky laughter: Teasing and self-directed joking among male and female friends. Journal of Pragmatics 381. 51–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Light, Duncan & Craig Young. 2009. European Union enlargement, post-accession migration and imaginative geographies of the ‘New Europe’: Media discourses in Romania and the United Kingdom. Journal of Cultural Geography 26(3). 281–303. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meyer, John. 2000. Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication. Communication Theory 101. 310–331. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mintz, Lawrence E. 1985. Stand-up comedy as social and cultural mediation. American Quarterly 37(1). 71–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nguyen, Naomee-Minh. 2016. I tweet like a white person tbh! #whitewashed: Examining the language of internalized racism and the policing of ethnic identity on Twitter. Social Semiotics 26(5). 505–523. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nica, Felicia & Mădălina Moraru. 2020. Diaspora policies, consular services and social protection for Romanian citizens abroad. In Jean-Michel Lafleur & Daniela Vintilă (eds.), Migration and social protection in Europe and beyond (vol. 21), 409–425. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nicola, Sanda-Elena, Caroline Zickgraf & Serge Schmitz. 2021. The Romanian white-collar immigrants in Brussels: A transnational community under construction. Belgeo. Revue belge de géographie 11.
Otto, Beatrice K. 2001. Fools are everywhere: The court jester around the world. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Driscoll, Jim. 2020. Offensive language: Taboo, offence and social control. London: Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Priego-Valverde, Béatrice. 2009. Failed humor in conversation: A double voicing analysis. In Neal R. Norrick & Delia Chiaro (eds.), Humor in interaction, 165–184. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Speaking through other voices: Conversational humour as a polyphonic phenomenon. In Clara-Ubaldina Lorda & Patrick Zabalbeascoa (eds.), Spaces of polyphony, 43–54. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pyke, Karen D. 2010. What is internalized racial oppression and why don’t we study it? Acknowledging racism’s hidden injuries. Sociological Perspectives 53(4). 551–572. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosello, Mireille. 1998. Declining the stereotype: Ethnicity and representation in French cultures. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz Gurillo, Leonor & Esther Linares-Bernabéu. 2020. Subversive humor in Spanish stand-up comedy. Humor. International Journal of Humor Research 33(1). 29–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rutter, Jason. 2001. Rhetoric in stand-up comedy: Exploring performer-audience interaction. Stylistyka X1. 307–325.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santarcangeli, Paolo. 1979. Le bouffon et le fou, hérauts de la liberté et de la vérité. Diogène 1061. 30–43.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Speight, Suzette L. 2007. Internalized racism: One more piece of the puzzle. The Counseling Psychologist 35(1). 126–134. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stănculescu, Mara L. 2019. The Eastern European migrant occupational experiences in the UK: Fall, recovery and success trajectories. A life-course qualitative study on the career of Romanians at origin and in the UK. Leicester: University of Leicester PhD dissertation.
Stewart, Patrick. 2011. The influence of self- and other-deprecatory humor on presidential candidate evaluation during the 2008 US election. Social Science Information 501. 201–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sturges, Paul. 2010. Comedy as freedom of expression. Journal of Documentation 66(2). 279–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsakona, Villy. 2023. Online satirical news as instances of liquid racism: Evidence from Greek. University of Bucharest Review. Literary and Cultural Studies Series 13(1). 92–107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verschueren, Jef. 2000. Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use. Pragmatics 10(4). 439–456.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vicol, Dora-Olivia & William Allen. 2014. Bulgarians and Romanians in the British national press: 1 Dec 2012–1 Dec 2013. Migration Observatory report, COMPAS, University of Oxford. [URL]
Vigouroux, Cécile B. 2015. Genre, heteroglossic performances, and new identity: Stand-up comedy in modern French society. Language in Society 44(2). 243–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weaver, Simon. 2011. Liquid racism and the ambiguity of Ali G. European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(3). 249–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue