COVID-19 Vaccines Humor and Identity Construction in the Arab World
Keywords:
Arabic humor, COVID-19 vaccines, glocalized identity, social media, stancetakingAbstract
In addition to tracing the themes and stages of humor during COVID-19, the study explores the interaction between COVID-19 vaccines' performance humor and identity construction in the Arab world. It presents a textual and visual qualitative analysis of two solo social media sketches, Egyptian and Lebanese, employing a socio-interactional approach to language use infused with a sociocultural perspective to identity construction and stancetaking. The study shows that humor in these sketches has two functions: to alleviate frustration with COVID-19 through laughter and to convey a serious message. The two functions are interdependent; neither is attainable without the other. To generate humor, both comedians rely on shared sociocultural values, repertoires, and knowledge of how vaccines became available to Arabs, public reactions, as well as the hesitancy and controversy surrounding vaccines and boosters. They utilize language mixing and Westernized physical appearance to construct glocalized identities as a positioning mechanism of their stances that advance the humor.
References
Abu Laila, M. (2020, April 15). Sha‘b ibn nukta... Kayfa hazama al-MaSriyuun korona bissukhriya? [People born funny… How Egyptians defeated Corona with cynicism?]. Saut Al-Umma. شعب ابن نكتة.. كيف هزم المصريون كورونا بالسخرية؟ (صور) | صوت الأمة (soutalomma.com)
Abu Louz, G. (2018, June 8). Twiter ra’iis wuzaraa’ l-’urdon... Nukat wa-imtiħan wa-ghish min singaafura [Twitter Jordan Prime Minister… Jokes, test, and cheating from Singapore]. Al-Arabiyya. تويتر رئيس وزراء الأردن.. نكت وامتحان وغش من سنغافورة (alarabiya.net)
Al-Khatib, M. A. (1999). Joke-telling in Jordanian society: A sociolinguistic perspective. Humor, 12(3), 261-288.
Al-Mazrou‘i, F. A. (2020, April 28). Al-fukaaha fii zaman korona [Humor during Corona time]. 24. الفكاهة في زمن كورونا (24.ae)
Al-Sa‘d, R. (2020, April 8). Baina fakkayy korona: nukaat wa-hazal fii ħaDriti lmawt [Within the jaws of Corona: Jokes and humor in the presence of death]. Shabakat Al-Naba’ Al-Ma‘loumatiyyah ‘Information News Network’. https://annabaa.org/arabic/investigations/22796
Al-Shalabi, S. (2020, June 4). Wasala lvairuus ’ilaa dhdhurwa wa-maa zaaluu yskharuun… Al-MiSriyyuun wa-korona nukta laa tantahi [The Virus reached its peak and they are still joking… Egyptian and Corona are a non-ending joke]. Al-Ro’ya.وصل الفيروس إلى الذروة وما زالوا يسخرون.. المصريون وكورونا نكتة لا تنتهي (alroeya.com)
Alsudias, L., & Rayson, P. (2020). COVID-19 and Arabic Twitter: How can Arab world governments and public health organizations learn from social media? Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on NLP for COVID-19 at ACL 2020. https://aclanthology.org/2020.nlpcovid19-acl.16/
Apte, M. L. (1985). Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach. Cornell University Press.
‘Aqrabawi, H. (2020, May 7). Tajalliyaat l-fukaaha fii zaman l-korona… filasTiin namuudhajan [The manifestations of humor during corona… Palestine as an example]. Arabi21.
‘Arraf, S. (2020, April 17). “Safqat l-qarn” wa “korona”…lima koll haadhaa ttankiit? [“The deal of the century” and “Corona”…Why all this joking?]. Fusha. (arab48.com)
Attardo, S. (2020). The Linguistics of Humor: An Introduction. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198791270.001.0001
Bageshwar, B. R., & Zafar, S. (2023). Beyond laughter and smiles: analytical paradigms in social media COVID-19 humour studies. The European Journal of Humour Research, 11(1), 95-116.
Bassam, L. (2022). Multilingualism in Lebanon: Code-switching as cultural representation. In F. Al Rashdi & S. Rao Mehta (Eds.), Language and Identity in the Arab World (1st ed., pp. 153-173). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003174981
Barahmeh, Y. (2023a). Are Jordanians (still) ’humourless’? The European Journal of Humour Research, 11(1), 201-211. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.1.751
Barahmeh, Y. (2023b). Identity politics and ethnic humour in contemporary Jordan. The European Journal of Humour Research, 11(3), 72-87.
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural, linguistic approach. Discourse studies, 7(4-5), 585-614.
Cancelas-Ouviña, L. (2021). Humor in times of COVID-19 in Spain: Viewing coronavirus through memes disseminated via WhatsApp. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.611788
Constantinescu, M. V. (2023). Identity investment in stand-up comedy and online sketches. The European Journal of Humour Research, 11(2), 68-87. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.2.802
Du Bois, J. W. (2007). The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (Ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction (pp. 139-182). John Benjamins.
Ghadban, L. (2020, April 14). Nukat korona… aDDaħek ka’azma thaqaafiyya [Corona jokes… Humor as a cultural crisis]. Al-Nasr. https://www.annasronline.com/index.php/2014-08-09-10-34-08/2014-08-25-12-21-09/147725-2020-04-14-10-57-25
Guidi, A. (2017). Humor Universals. In S. Attardo (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor (1st ed., pp. 17-33). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315731162
Habib, R. (2023). Arabic songs: An affective forum for combating COVID-19 and other insecurities. Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies, 43(6), 733-753. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2021-0042
Habib, R. (2010). Rural Migration and Language Variation in Hims, Syria. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 23, 61-99. http://www.linguistics.fi/julkaisut/sky2010.shtml
Hawkins, S. (2014). “Madam you drive a hard bargain”: Selling to tourists in Tunis’s Medina. In D. L. Bowen, E. A. Early, & B. Schulthies (Eds.), Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East (3rd ed., pp. 262-273). Indiana University Press.
Hussein, A. T., &Aljamili, L. N. (2020). COVID-19 humor in Jordanian social media: A Socio-Semiotic approach. Heliyon, 6(12): 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05696
Imo, T. (2021, May 14). Six comedians who are reviving sketch comedy online. BuzzFeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/ tochichels/sketch-comedy-online
Jaspers, J. (2013). Interactional sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. In J. P. Gee & M. Handford (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 135-146). Routledge.
Jensen, E. (2020, April 3). Is it OK to laugh at coronavirus jokes and memes? USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/ 2020/04/03/coronavirus-memes-and-jokes-ok-to-laugh/5116078002/
Kadri, K., & Jumrah, J. (2022). Shifting meme content during information development on the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice, 10(1), 30-44. https://doi.org/10.1633/JISTaP.2022.10.1.3
Larkin-Galinanes, C. (2017). An overview of Humor Theory. In S. Attardo (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor (pp. 4-16). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315731162
Lemish, D., & Elias, N. (2020). ‘We decided we don’t want children. We will let them know tonight’: Parental humor on social media in a time of coronavirus pandemic. International Journal of Communication, 14, 5261-5287.
Miczo, N. (2021). The ethics of news media reporting on coronavirus humor. Humor, 34(2): 305-327. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0011
Mifdal, M. (2022). Covidly humorous memes: coping, social cohesion and power dynamics of humour during the pandemic in Morocco. The European Journal of Humour Research, 10(3), 189-210. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2022.10.3.688
Muhawi, I. (1996). Language, ethnicity, and national identity in the Tunisian ethnic joke. In Y. Suleiman (Ed.), Language and identity in the Middle East and North Africa (pp. 39-60). Routledge.
Nicholls, C. (2020). Online humor, cartoons, videos, memes, jokes, and laughter in the epoch of the coronavirus. Text Matters, 10, 274-318. https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.10.17
Phillips-Kumaga, L., Hansen-Garshong, R., Ackom, C. K., Teku, C. A., & Osei-Tutu, A. (2022). “Kwatakwata by June diεε…”: Internet humour used during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic by social media users in Ghana. The European Journal of Humour Research, 10(1), 134-146. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2022.10.1.600
Raskin, V. (1985). Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. D. Reidel.
Robertson, R. (1994). Globalisation or glocalisation? Journal of International Communication, 1(1), 33-52.
Rzymski, P., Zeyland, J., Poniedziałek, B., Małecka, I., & Wysocki, J. (2021). The perception and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines: A cross-sectional study in poland. Vaccines, 9(4), 382. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines9040382
Sebba-Elran, T. (2021). A pandemic of jokes? The Israeli COVID-19 meme and the construction of a collective response to risk. Humor, 34(2), 229-257. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0012
Tawalbeh, A., Abu-Elrob, R., Al-Saidat, E., & Alenazy, M. (2023). Forms and functions of jokes disseminated during the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan. The European Journal of Humour Research, 11(3), 88-104. https://doi.org/10.7592/EJHR.2023.11.3.769
Wardhaugh, R., & Fuller, J. M. (2021). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (8th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
Yaish, S. (2020, March 13). Going viral: Arab world treats virus panic with humor. The Jakarta Post. https://www.thejakartapost. com/life/2020/03/13/going-viral-arab-world-treats-virus-panic-with-humor.html
