Humorous mode of utterance as a means of constructing identity-related attitudes in Mikhail Zadornov’s satirical discourse (1990-2017)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify the patterns of the functional and stylistic transformation of laughter in Mikhail Zadornov’s satirical discourse from 1990 to 2017 taking into account the construction of identity-related attitudes among a mass audience. The material of the study comprises a corpus of journalistic texts published on the author’s website, zadornov.net, and video recordings of Mikhail Zadornov’s monologues, totaling approximately 45,000 word tokens. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying the patterns underlying the functional and stylistic transformation of Mikhail Zadornov’s satirical discourse: for the first time, the role of linguistic mechanisms of creating the comic in the construction of national identity has been determined, and the dynamics of the functions of laughter across different periods of the author’s creative career have been established. It has been noted that this process is realized through precedent texts, transformed phraseological units, the binary opposition “us – them”, hyperbole, gradation, parody, and etymological myth-making. A functional transformation of laughter has been identified: from the carnivalesque self-irony of the 1990s, through the intensification of the binary opposition “us – them” in the 2000s, to mobilizational laughter in the 2010s. The results of the study demonstrate that the humorous mode of utterance facilitates the incorporation of value-laden judgments into a system of cultural representations shared by the audience and functions as one of the linguistic means of constructing national identity.