| The literature on humour studies offers a variety of purposes that humour (under which the joke is subsumed) serves in society. Aspects of these purposes have been investigated and reported on within various groups (Dundes 1977, Powell and Paton 1988, Ziv 1988, among others), but so far no organized report is available on humour among the Akan of Ghana, who are known to have always lived with a prominent tradition of "jokelore" (Baker 1986). The present study is, in part, an attempt to close this gap in humour studies by exploring jokes and joking among members of an Akan community through ethnopragmatics, a framework proposed by Duranti (1994), which emphasizes the linkage between language and sociopolitical processes. I attempt to enlarge the humour-studies literature by examining the text, context, and functions of jokes, hypothesizing that analyzing the joke by ethnopragmatic means helps provide a better insight into the nature and function of the genre. The research attempts to answer three main questions as follows: (1) what constitutes a joke among the Akan? (2) how, and under what conditions, are jokes created? and (3) what role do jokes play within the Akan society? The Akan have the sister terms aseres&egr;m and ns&egr;nkwaa to refer to the joke genre. These terms are not interchangeable since the performer of ns&egr;nkwaa, unlike that of aseres&egr;m, often has laughter in mind. His or her main aim is to make a humorous statement to attract laughter from the audience, but humour or laughter is of little or no importance to the aseres&egr;m performer. The dissertation explores several social functions of joking in Akan conversations including the notable finding that the joke may be a pragmatic tool for effecting command. The work also exemplifies the close link between folklore and language in a given culture, a relationship that requires further strengthening. |
