IMPOLITENESS STRATEGIES USED IN STAND-UP COMEDY BY DAVE CHAPPELLE

This paper explores the use of impoliteness strategies in Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy, focusing on how he combines positive and negative strategies to intensify face-threaten- ing acts (FTAs) and enhance humor. It conducts a descriptive pragmatic discourse analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, of a stand-up comedy transcript downloaded from the Internet. It categorizes excerpts following Culpeper’s (1996) framework on positive and negative impolite- ness strategies and examines their combinations. The analysis reveals a frequent use of multiple strategies, particularly the combination of the negative strategies of condescending and associ- ating a person with something unfavorable with the positive strategies of using taboo words and offensive labels to refer to a person. These combinations are frequently and simultaneously em- ployed and as a result create a stronger FTA, but they do not intensify the humorous effect. Pos- itive strategies, such as using taboo words and calling the other names, predominantly function as intensifiers that strengthen the impact of negative strategies, rather than as the main sources of humor. NNegative strategies, including condescension, scorn or ridicule, and explicitly asso- ciating the other with a negative aspect, are the ones having a primary role in employing FTAs in the corpus. The multilayered use of impoliteness strategies demonstrates their important role for FTAs ins comedic discourse.