Russian Jokes About Psychiatrists as a Construction

Among Russian jokes (‘anecdotes’) there is a type devoted to psychiatrists and their practice. However, the similarity is not reduced to the characters alone, and can be seen in the structure of the situation itself. There are a) a doctor, b) a patient or a relative of theirs, and c) a problem. A listener supposes that the doctor will address the problem, and the patient will help to solve it, but this relationship turns out to be false. The comic effect — what makes us laugh — is the violated expectation: in the real world, one expects that a patient (or a relative of theirs) is to fulfi ll the role of a mediator, thus enabling a doctor to address the problem, whereas in the reality of the joke the assumed role of a mediator is not fulfi lled in any way. The article reveals that the principal common feature for these short stories is actually the underlying structure that resembles constructions,which are of interest for Construction Grammar.

Keywords

constructions, Russian jokes, text structure, violated expectation

Received

18.03.2021

Publication date

19.03.2021

Number of characters

24136

Cite

GOST	Belousov S. Russian Jokes About Psychiatrists as a Construction // Russkaya Rech’ – 2021. – Issue 1 C. 7-21 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/rusrech/s013161170013900-9-1-en (circulation date: 19.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013161170013900-9
MLA	Belousov, Sergei S "Russian Jokes About Psychiatrists as a Construction." Russkaya Rech’ 1 (2021):7-21. DOI: 10.31857/S013161170013900-9
APA	Belousov S. (2021). Russian Jokes About Psychiatrists as a Construction. Russkaya Rech’ (1), pp.7-21 DOI: 10.31857/S013161170013900-9

100 rub.

When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 0, views: 813

Readers community rating: votes 0

1. Belousov S. S. [Ot slova sovsem as a grammatical construction]. Uchenye zapiski Petrozavodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2016, no. 7–1 (160), pp. 72–77. (In Russ.)
2. Carrell A. Joke competence and humour competence // Humour, 1997, no. 10–2, pp. 173–185.
3. Fillmore Ch. J., Kay P., O’Connor M. C. Regularity and idiomacity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone // Language, 1988, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 501–538. (In Eng.)
4. Propp V. Ya. Morfologiya skazki [Morphology of a fairy-tale]. 2nd ed. Moscow, Eastern literature General editorial department of the Publishing House “Nauka”, 1969. 168 p.
5. Rakhilina E. V., Plungyan V. A. [Joke as a construction]. Lingvistika konstruktsii [Construction Linguistics]. Ed. E. V. Rakhilina. Moscow, Azbukovnik Publ., 2010, pp. 138–155. (In Russ.)
6. Shmeleva E. Ya., Shmelev A. D. Russkii anekdot: Tekst i rechevoi zhanr [Russian joke: Text and speech genre]. Moscow, Yazyki Slavyanskoi Kul'tury Publ., 2002, 144 p.