COVID-19 in modern Russian laughter discourse: psycholinguistic method of devaluation of danger as an effective method of psychological protection

Keywords: coronavirus (COVID-19), emotive linguistic, laughter discourse, Russian anecdote, Russian language pictures of the world, psycholinguistic.

Abstract

The mysterious Russian soul is always looking for non-trivial aspects of a problem. The modern coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has become the subject of ridicule in the everyday laughing practices of Russian people. In this case, the laughing discourse acts as a form of psychological defense and struggle against the inevitable evil.
The importance of the research is due to the lack of knowledge of the communicative and cognitive aspects of laughter discourse and the need to study the modern anecdote on the topic "coronavirus pandemic" in the aspect of forming the stability of the human psyche in the conditions of pandemics and isolation. The relevance of this work is also determined by the fact that it expands the empirical base of discourse linguistics, LSP theory and practice, motivology and emotive linguistics, whose interests include consideration of the problem of the influence of emotions on language. The relevance of the work also lies in the fact that special attention is paid to the little-studied phenomenon of "black humor", which is vividly represented in the laughing discourse about coronavirus.
Unfortunately, today Russia occupies the leading positions in terms of the number of people infected with virus COVID-19. Archetypal fear of unknown Evil, of invisible death evoke chthonic experiences of the unconscious from the depths of the subconscious, actualizing the laughable techniques of devaluing danger as one of the effective methods of psychological protection.
The world stereotype defines Russian people as frowning and unsmiling, extremely hostile to the world around them. The article reveals the specifics of modern Russian anecdotes about COVID-19. This allows the reader to understand what the stress resistance and resilience of the Russian person in a situation of degenerate press of negative information in various media is. This situation is complicated by fake news stories about the pandemic. What are Russian people laughing at during the pandemic? What helps them survive and stay mentally healthy in this situation? What is the specifics of Russian jokes about the pandemic? How do these anecdotes structure a person's inner space in a new way? What Parallels can we find in a laughing culture that plays up the stigmatized situations of tragedies, wars, and epidemics? This article is intended as an attempt to answer these and other questions.

Author Biography

Irina S. Karabulatova, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN-university) Moscow, Russia.

Doctor of Philology, Professor, Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Philological Faculty Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN-university) Moscow, Russia.

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Published
2020-12-15
How to Cite
Karabulatova, I. (2020). COVID-19 in modern Russian laughter discourse: psycholinguistic method of devaluation of danger as an effective method of psychological protection. Personality Society, 1(2), 4-16. https://doi.org/10.46502/issn.2712-8024/2020.2.1
Section
Articles