Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Assistant Professor of Persian Language and Literature, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The present study, with a cognitive approach, analyzes the Adversarial Humor in Fakhreddin Ali Safi's Latayef al-Tawaif and attempts to analyze the linguistic and conceptual mechanisms of subverting the discourse of dominance in the linguistic actions of the subordinates, relying on the theory of form-ground inversion in cognitive linguistics. As a discursive action in the context of unequal interactions, Adversarial Humor allows the subordinate actor to invert a threatening situation to his advantage and gain temporary but meaningful linguistic superiority through the redefinition of meaning. The analysis of thirty selected anecdotes in this work showed that subordinate speakers use three types of linguistic correspondences—structural, polysemous, and metaphorical—to disrupt the perceptual framework of domination. Qualitative analysis of the anecdotes shows that form-ground inversion, as a fundamental mechanism, allows the speaker to move hidden or marginal elements of the initiating discourse to the center of meaning and to construct from them a new, creative, and sometimes derogatory structure for the response. This strategy not only plays an important role in generating laughter and surprise, but is also considered a critical tool for undermining the power structures established in the text and beyond it, and at the same time, this strategy, especially the correspondence at the polysemous level, can be used to censor and bypass the wrath of the power system.
Keywords
- Adversarial Humor
- cognitive linguistics
- form-ground inversion
- tribal humor
- linguistic correspondence
Main Subjects
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