PDF

Sport commentators’ gaffes as a source for folk humour

https://doi.org/10.54013/kk747a3

Keywords: folklore, humour, linguistic theories of humour, sport commentators’ bloopers, sport commentators’ gaffes, sport commentators’ use of language

The paper analyses, from folkloristic and humour theoretical aspects, sports commentators’ gaffes, or bloopers, collected from live sports broadcasts on different Estonian media channels from 2010–2019. We will attempt to answer three questions: 1) How should such comments be defined in terms of folklore? 2) Which theoretical humour mechanisms are the foundation of this humour? 3) How to categorise the gaffes?

The main focus of the article is on gaffes as a subtype of humor. Sports commentators’ gaffes fall into the category of linguistic humour, which is why it can be analysed by means of linguistic theories of humour. Although we may suspect that sports journalists are intentionally funny, it is generally not true. The remarks are usually not funny for the commentators themselves, but the audience perceive the jokes emerging during live broadcasts as unintentional humour (see Martin 2007) or accidental humour (Nilsen, Nilsen 2000). Sports commentators’ gaffes can be adequately researched in light of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) by Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin (1991), which generally uses the hierarchic representation model of six knowledge resources. What makes these cases worth recording is their juicy expressiveness, different logic, mistakes, developments that seem interesting and emotionally valuable. The material has a great potential of becoming folklore, starting a life of its own among people, losing the initial connection with the author of the gaffe. It can also be seen as a phenomenon reflecting Estonian sports history. This survey is an attempt to categorise the material in terms of GTVH: tautologies, unintentional juxtapositions where the viewer/listener knows what is meant, nonsense, pointless words, unintended puns, reuse of old proverbs etc. Of course, one has to keep in mind that we can usually not speak of intentional linguistic ‘comedy’ in the case of this kind of jokes, which is why the gaffes should better be described with neutral linguistic terms (metathesis, paronymy, homonymy with its subtypes of homography and homophony) instead of intentional types of humour (wordplay, such as spoonerism, malapropism, Freudian slip, paranomasia/paranomastic image).

Most of the relevant mechanisms function at word and sentence levels. Most of the tropes in our collection are similes with comparative conjunctions such as nagu and kui (over 20% of the 2000-strong corpus), used to express and describe the intensity of a property. There is no limit for a journalist producing figurative, sometimes quite absurd similes, while humour is born from the seeming incongruence of the subject and the referent of comparison taking the recipient by surprise.

 

Piret Voolaid (b. 1971), PhD, Estonian Literary Museum, Senior Research Fellow; Executive Manager of the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies (Vanemuise 42, 51003 Tartu), piret.voolaid@folklore.ee

Kalle Voolaid (b. 1969), MA, Estonian Sports and Olympic Museum, Researcher (Rüütli 15, 51007 Tartu), kalle.voolaid@spordimuuseum.ee

References

Arhiiviallikad

Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumi folkloristika osakonna teadusarhiiv EFITA (F02-016-0001).

 

Veebiviited

Delfi Sport 2019. „Elämä on laiffi” ja teised Matti Nykäneni paremad tsitaadid. https://sport.delfi.ee/news/melu/uudised/elama-on-laiffi-ja-teised-matti-nykaneni-paremad-tsitaadid?id=85220535 (5. I 2020).

Facebook: Kalev Kruusi parimad palad. https://www.facebook.com/kruusinaljad/ (1. IX 2019).

Facebook: Kalev Kruus tsitaadid. https://www.facebook.com/Kalev-Kruus-tsitaadid-­201115846633967/ (1. IX 2019).

 

Attardo, Salvatore 1994. Linguistic Theories of Humour. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Attardo, Salvatore 2010. A primer for the linguistics of humor. – The Primer of Humor Research. (Humor Research 8.) Toim Victor Raskin. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter, lk 101-155.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110198492.101
Attardo, Salvatore; Raskin, Victor 1991. Script theory revis(it)ed: joke similarity and joke representation model. – Humor. International Journal of Humor Research, kd 4, nr 3-4, lk 293-347.
https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1991.4.3-4.293
Brady, Adrian 2012. Opening His Legs and Showing His Class: The Funniest and Daftest Sports Quotes Ever. Welbeck Publishing Group.
Chovanec, Jan 2016. Eavesdropping on media talk: Microphone gaffes and unintended humour in sports broadcasts. – Journal of Pragmatics, kd 95, aprill, lk 93-106.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.01.011
Ferguson, Charles A. 1983. Sports announcer talk: Syntactic aspects of register variation. – Language in Society, kd 12, nr 2, lk 153-172.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500009787
Harrik, Airika 2020.Sünnituskohaga ei mangita! Skandaalse uudise vastuvõtt Facebooki grupis KalambuuR. – Keel ja Kirjandus, nr 1-2, lk 30-43.
https://doi.org/10.54013/kk747a10
Hutcheon, Linda 1994. Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. London-New York: Routledge.
Kalenjuk 2019 = E. Kalenjuk (koost). Ja – kommentator! Vasilij Utkin, Viktor Gusev, Vladimir Stognienko, Gennadij Orlov, Oleg Žolobov, Ol’ga Bogoslovskaja i drugie o tonkostjah professii. Moskva: Èksmo. [Э. Каленюк (ред.), Я – комментатор! Василий Уткин, Виктор Гусев, Владимир Стогниенко, Геннадий Орлов, Олег Жолобов, Ольга Богословская и другие о тонкостях профессии. Москва: Эксмо.]
Krikmann, Arvo 2004. Koestler, Raskin, Attardo ja teised. Lingvistiliste huumoriteooriate uuemaist arenguist. (Reetor 4.) Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum.
Laineste, Liisi 2003. Suunad huumori uurimises. – Keel ja Kirjandus, nr 11, lk 793-804.
Liik, Peeter 2013.Televisiooni spordireportaažidele iseloomulikud jooned Eesti, USA ja Briti ajakirjanduspraktikas. Magistritöö. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli sotsiaal- ja haridusteaduskond, ajakirjanduse ja kommunikatsiooni instituut. http://hdl.handle.net/10062/31122
Müller, Torsten 2007. Football, Language and Linguistics: Time-critical Utterances in Unplanned Spoken Language, Their Structures and Their Relation to Non-linguistic Situations and Events. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace; Nilsen, Don L. F. 2000. Encyclopedia of 20th-century American Humor. Phoenix: Oryx Press.
Raskin, Victor 1985. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. (Synthese Language Library 24.) Dordrecht-Boston-Lancaster: Reidel & Hingham.
Rebane, Raul; Tammaru, Tõnu 2010. Kilde ETV spordireportaažidest. – Uba. Toomas Uba. Koost Gunnar Press, Voldemar Lindström. Tallinn: Menu Kirjastus, lk 49.
Steen, Rob 2008. Sports Journalism: A Multimedia Primer. London-New York: Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203945742
Susi, Joosep 2019. Kadunud poeetika otsinguil. Ühe jalgpallireportaaži arvustus. – Vikerkaar, nr 4-5, lk 113-124.
Uba, Toomas 1968. Spordireportaaž raadios ja televisioonis. – Fakt. Sõna. Pilt. Kd IV. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool, lk 118-177.
Voolaid, Kalle 2010. Mootorratturid tulevad kurvist, Till pikalt ees! Tallinn: Jutulind.
Voolaid, Kalle 2015. Mootorratturid tulevad kurvist, Till pikalt ees! 2. Tallinn: Jutulind.
Voolaid, Piret 2015. Lapsesuufolkloor lingvistilise huumoriteooria vaateväljas. Suulistel ütlustel põhinev kirjalik traditsioon. – Keel ja Kirjandus, nr 12, lk 841-858.
https://doi.org/10.54013/kk697a2
Wertsch, James V. 2002. Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613715
Williams-Smith, Jake 2019. Murray Walker: I wouldn’t be here if social media existed in my time. – MotorSport, 30. VII. https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/news/f1/murray-walker-i-wouldnt-be-here-if-social-media-existed-my-time?fbclid=IwAR2_I09CeUEW65EGAoxGgfsFT-pyPZ8W_9C1dGu6z3wBoxsbBgz1GzpWlN4 (1. IX 2019).
Õim, Katre 2003. Võrdluste struktuurist ja kujundisemantikast. (Reetor 2.) Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum.