Stylistic devices for creating humorous effect: an empirical research (based on Ted Talks case study)

Paliichuk, Elina and Lukina, Yulia (2020) Stylistic devices for creating humorous effect: an empirical research (based on Ted Talks case study) Studia Philologica, 1 (14). pp. 60-67. ISSN 2311-2425; 2412-2491

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Abstract

The paper focuses on the study of humor effects in the English language TED Talks. The methods of stylistic analysis as well as empirical methodology were applied to establish the role of textual linguistic and audio-and-visual presentation in evoking readers and viewers’ reactions. The stylistic analysis was a preliminary stage to define the pragmatic potential of the TED Talks texts. The most recurrent literary devices used in the talks are pun, irony, oxymoron, epithet, metaphor, parallel constructions, periphrasis, zeugma, chiasmus, etc. It is assumed that the TED Talks texts are saturated with stylistically coloured verbal means, which ensure the self-sustainability of such texts in terms of their influence of the audience. To verify the hypothesis, an experiment has been conducted, with 40 participants aged 21-37, all students are from the Institute of Philology of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University. The two groups of participants (text(transcript)/video)) answered the same questions aimed at evaluating the TED Talk in terms of being witty, ironic, sarcastic, humorous, as well as in terms of the change in the emotional state of the readers and viewers, and in terms of the emotions (feeling bored, upset, cheerful, laughing, glad, inspired, enthusiastic) the respondents felt after they were shown a video or proposed to read a transcript. The findings demonstrate the degree of differences in responses between the groups (text/video), which speaks for sustainability of textual level of presentation in evoking certain emotions due to specific combination of verbal means and thus support the hypothesis as to high degree of pragmatic potential of TED Talks texts in creating humor effects.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: https://doi.org/10.28925/2311-2425.2020.149
Uncontrolled Keywords: TED Talk; humorous effect; stylistic devices, empirical study, emotional response
Subjects: Це архівна тематика Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Статті у журналах > Статті у періодичних наукових виданнях Університету, які не включені до затвердженого Переліку МОН України (не входять до категорії Б)
Divisions: Це архівні підрозділи Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Кафедра англійської філології та перекладу
Depositing User: ст. викл. Еліна Олександрівна Палійчук
Date Deposited: 07 Jun 2022 12:04
Last Modified: 07 Jun 2022 12:04
URI: https://elibrary.kubg.edu.ua/id/eprint/37337

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