Speech style in direct discourse as a strategy for gender construction in stand-up comedy

Abstract

This research examines the role humorous planned discourse plays in the construction of gender identity. The main aim is to explore some of the distinct ways in which Spanish female stand-up comedians use humor language and gendered speech styles in direct discourse to deconstruct their imposed gender roles and subvert the heteronormative notions of femininity and masculinity. We depart from the hypothesis that speech styles are used regardless the sex in order to cause certain effects both comical and social. So as to corroborate this idea, our study gathers a corpus which comprises 10 monologues by Spanish stand-ups, performed in Spanish theatres and pubs in the span of time of 2017 and 2018. These monologues were transcribed and divided into humorous sequences in order to examine the main function of the different speech styles and their relationship with the humor styles proposed by Martin Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray and Weir (2003). The analysis of the effects obtained in relation to the construction and deconstruction of gender identity as well as the account of the most prominent linguistic elements employed, have allowed us to prove that the use of gendered speech styles is a discourse device not only for breaking with sex roles but also for reinforcing and perpetuation some gender clichés.