تحلیل طنز در «البخلاء» اثر جاحظ بر اساس نظریه عمومی طنز کلامی (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
در طنز کلامی، زبان علاوه بر این که وسیله ای برای رساندن معانی طنزآمیز است، به عنوان ابزاری برای طنزآفرینی نیز درنظر گرفته می شود. در نظریه عمومی طنز کلامی علاوه بر تحلیل سطح معنا، سطوح زبانی، شناختی و جامعه شناختی طنز نیز مورد تحلیل قرار می گیرد. «البخلاء» اثر مشهور «جاحظ» است که در آن حالات گوناگون مشاهیر، علماء و ادبای بخیل در قالب داستان هایی کوتاه توصیف می شود. نثر البخلاء به علت ماهیت جذاب و نقادانه، نقشی مؤثر در ایجاد، تثبیت و عادی سازی انگاره های ذهنی جاحظ در قالب طنز دارد. وجود این ویژگی نشان می دهد که این اثر قابلیت انطباق با نظریه عمومی طنز کلامی را دارا است؛ بنابراین در این پژوهش تلاش می شود با تکیه بر روش توصیفی-تحلیلی، متغیرهای شش گانه نظریه عمومی طنز کلامی در داستان های البخلاء بررسی شود. پرسش اصلی این است که عناصر کلامی جاحظ در طنز «البخلاء» چگونه است؟ نتایج نشان می دهد تقابل انگاره در این اثر به صورت واقعی/غیرواقعی، منتظره/غیرمنتظره و ممکن/غیرممکن و با استفاده از سطوح ساختواژی، واژگانی، نحوی و معنایی جلوه یافته است. همچنین طنز داستان زمانی به اوج می رسد که تقابل های فوق از طریق قرارگرفتن دو شخص متضاد و یا دو موضوع مخالف ارائه می گردد.Analysis of humor in "Al-Bokhla" by Jahiz based on the general theory of verbal humor
In this theory, in addition to analyzing the level of meaning, the linguistic, cognitive and sociological levels of humor are also analyzed. "Al-Bokhla" is a famous work of "Jahiz" in which various states of celebrities, scholars and miserly writers are described in the form of short stories. Due to its attractive and critical nature, Al-Bakhla's prose plays an effective role in creating, stabilizing and normalizing Jahiz's mental ideas in the form of humor. The existence of this feature shows that this work has the ability to adapt to the general theory of verbal humor; Therefore, in this research, relying on the descriptive-analytical method, six variables of the general theory of verbal humor are investigated in the stories of Al-Bakhla. The results show that the opposition of the image in this work is real/unreal, expected/unexpected and possible/impossible, and with the help of displacement, inversion, juxtaposition and reasoning between the images of each story, clarification has been created; Therefore, the position and purpose of each story is designed according to the taste of the audience. Also, Jahiz has used constructional, lexical, syntactic and semantic levels in order to strengthen the language of his stories.
1. Introduction
Humor is a powerful communicative tool used to convey ideas, opinions, and information through jokes and laughter. Beyond facilitating social interaction, it also serves to attract attention, shape opinions, and even drive social change. In the case of verbal humor, language itself is not merely a means of conveying humorous content, but a valid instrument for creating humor. There are various linguistic theories for analyzing verbal humor, with the General Theory of Verbal Humor being one of the most comprehensive one. The central claim of this theory is to demonstrate the possibility of similarity between verbal jokes based on a framework of 6 variables. These variables termed "knowledge resources" are the building blocks that can be utilized to generate entirely novel jokes. The theory organizes these resources in a hierarchical manner.
2. Research Method
This study employed a descriptive-analytical and content analysis approach. The theoretical foundation drew upon linguistic resources and the statistical range of stories in Jāhiz's "Al-Bukhalā'". It is worth noting that the prose of "Al-Bukhalā'", with its captivating and critical nature, played an effective role in shaping and normalizing Jāhiz's humorous mental imagery. This feature underscored the importance of researching this work. Therefore, the aim of this study was to critically examine the linguistic structures used in the selected stories and identify which components of the General Theory of Verbal Humor contributed to the richness of humor in these narratives. Given that most of these stories were structurally similar to very brief jokes, often spanning just a single paragraph, the analysis involved presenting each story in full and then examining the variable of "knowledge resources" within that particular text.
3. Discussion
The satirist brings together the structure of the word together to express the humorous concepts and, by using specific vocabulary and compounds, tries to make his word beautiful. This will throat the text that, in addition to entertaining the audience, also offers good deeds and behavior from people in the community. The basis of humor is highlighting. Highlighting is based on adding or removing some of the rules and principles of the structure of the text. Therefore, we will have a text whose language is literary and highlighted (Safavi, 2005: 16). The concept, meaning and instances of laughter as a social action, which is defined under the term of literary culture of humor, like any other phenomenon, is formed in a "contextual" and "diachronic" process and in each period it has its special meaning and has evolved according to its literary culture and the certain contextual situation; by studying the general situation of society of a particular author’s time or a special text era, one can recognize what and why of the literary features of the author's imaginative and mental field and the text. The book "Al-Bukhalā'" has described the various situations of renowned scholars, scientists, and miserly men of letters presented through a series of short stories (Abdulkarim, 2014: 77). The class conflicts and prevalent poverty in Jāhiz's society combined with his unique sense of humor and expressive prowess have made this work captivating to readers and one of the most renowned classical comedic texts in Arabic literature. The stories in "Al-Bukhalā'" are a social construct reflecting Jāhiz's own milieu, carrying multiple layers of meaning and serving various social functions for the audience. From this perspective, the book can be considered a social critique, in which Jāhiz examines the phenomenon of miserliness among individuals or specific groups in a humorous manner, skillfully utilizing comedic language and tools. The General Theory of Verbal Humor is an expanded form of Raskin's theory of semantic imagery and also forms part of Attardo's classification of text communication. In addition to analyzing the level of meaning, this theory examines other information at the phonological, structural, sociological, and cognitive levels. Consequently, the scope of this theory encompasses diverse forms of planned text, covering all types of text along with non-linguistic forms.
Jāhiz's own sociocultural context and lived experiences evidently shaped the humorous and satirical stories in "Al-Bukhalā". The majority of these stories served to criticize the social and cultural dynamics of the society, in which he himself lived. In doing so, he targeted and ridiculed various social classes, often drawing upon the prominent and influential figures of the era, who were predominantly of Iranian origin. Thus, he not only entertained the audience, but also presented a model of the actions and behaviors prevalent in his society. Consequently, the General Theory of Verbal Humor emerged as an effective framework for analyzing the prose of "Al-Bukhalā'" as it accounted for Jāhiz's keen observations and incisive commentary on the social realities of his time.
4. Conclusion
The stories in "Al-Bukhalā" predominantly utilized the logical mechanisms of surprise and unusualness, which corroborated the notion of imagery opposition central to the General Theory of Verbal Humor. The humorous element of surprise arose from a sudden shift in the audience's expected conditions, while the identification of unusual events was grounded in the audience's pre-existing cognitive imageries. The stories presented a pair of contrasting imageries manifested as real/unreal, expected/unexpected, and possible/impossible. Regarding the logical mechanisms at play, the analysis and description of imagery opposition in the stories of "Al-Bukhalā" were achieved through the employment of key techniques, such as displacement, inversion, and adjacency, as well as various forms of reasoning (allegorical, inductive, and deductive). Examination of the variable of "situation" revealed that the stories were predominantly set in urban locations or the homes of the miserly individuals whose tales were narrated and generally occurred within Jāhiz's lifetime as indicated by the use of the first-person narrative (I saw) and direct dialogue with the stingy protagonists (I said).
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