ON COGNITIVE FOUNDATION OF BLACK HUMOR

ON COGNITIVE FOUNDATION OF BLACK HUMOR

Author:  G.I. Berestnev¹, S.L. Vasilyev¹, A.A. Kamalova²

Affiliation:  ¹Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, ²University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

Abstract: 
The article for the first time examines black humour from cognitive perspectives, with the aim to reveal deep mental foundations of this phenomenon.
The method of research is largely a reconstruction, in which the subject area is defined as the aggregate of particular cognitive conditions that ensure the implementation of black humour. The authors show that black humour centres on the idea of death and the related phenomena, and is nested in the “other reality” of the game. This reality has a number of characteristic features: it is focused on the thought of misfortunes; these misfortunes do not frighten, but, on the contrary, attract a person. In this reality, no moral laws or values, crucial for real life, work; this reality is abstract in comparison with the ordinary world. Moreover, it is transcendental in relation to common world conceptions; it is also metonymically connected with its linguistic descriptions. The game performed in these descriptions is transferred to the reality of black humour, thus creating its comic effect.

The reliability of the reconstructions is confirmed by interdisciplinary data from the field of culture and language, as well as by the provisions independently researched in transpersonal psychology, the history of religion, and philosophy. The investigation of black humour related to the selected theoretical and methodological approaches allows us to regard it as a special cognitive universal and part of the basic foundations of the human psyche. The main psychological and cognitive modes of its realization are the fear of death and non-existence, and overcoming this fear.

Keywords:  cognitive linguistics, black humor, semantic game, concept, culture, transpersonal psychology, death.

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Acknowledgments:  The research is financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 16-04-00034-DHSc «Lan-guage and cognitive effects of ‘black humor’».

For citation:  Berestnev, G. I., Vasilyev, S. L., & Kamalova, A. A. (2018). On cognitive foundation of black humor. Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki, 3, 41-49. (In Russ.).

Pages:  41-49