engleski

Prosodic features, parody and rhetoric

This paper will examine the power and rhetorical nature of parody with an emphasize on the importance of prosodic features in creating parodic speech. Unlike caricature which bases its exaggeration and humorous effect on visual representation of specific features, parody in addition to visuals uses prosodic features to create its effect. While it is in many ways a form of mimicry, parody is understood as the mimicking of the style of a well-known writer or form (Berger, 1993) and it’s a form of humor that creates distance between itself and the object being parodied. This distance is noticeable, often by the ridiculous and absurd exaggeration. The rhetorical function of humor has been discussed and theorized in several important works (Berger 1993, 2011, Bujizen 2004 etc.) and most of them agree that: “Humor’s enthymatic nature allows a speaker to successfully take up a perspective on a subject that might otherwise not be available, presuming that the audience is able to create a form of reasoning that is embedded within the enthymeme” (Layle, 2021). Among different types of humor, Bakhtin sees parody as a significant and powerful social force with a distinct rhetorical function. Although parody uses gestures and facial expressions to create effect, we believe that prosodic features are crucial in its rhetorical function and power to critique existing social practices and reshape the contours of the public sphere (Hariman, 2008). In this paper we will examine distinctiveness between the original and the parody in context of prosodic features. We believe that despite the use of facial expressions and gestures which contribute to parodic effect, prosodic features are the ones which emphasize specific characteristics with an intent to ridicule, diminish authority and reduce credibility of a parodied target and to criticize in humorous manner. Prosodic features (certain voice quality i.e. nasality, pitch, pronunciation and articulation, accent etc.) are strongly connected with stereotypical perception (for instance, nasal voice with lower education, quiet weak voices with weak personality etc.) Corpora for analysis included sketches from Saturday Night Live show which targeted important political figures in their parody (Presidents, Prime-Ministers, Congressmen, Senators). Analysis included comparison between original speaker (i.e. politician) and parody performed by SNL actors. The goal was to discover which of the features were used to mimic and to be as similar as original and which were added by an actor with an intent to ridicule and fulfill the function of parody. Results of an analysis have shown that when one wants to emphasize certain personality traits or emotional state of the speaker they use specific prosodic features, for instance loose diction to signal indifference, high pitched tone or high intonation endings to signal lack of intelligence, hyperbolized disfluencies to signal lying etc.

parody, prosodic features, rhetoric, argumentation, SNL

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