The Performance And Production Of Humorous Discourse

“Talk show Conference”is the first domestic competitive stand-up comedy program jointly produced by Tencent Video and Xiaoguo Culture Media Company.With its innovative program content,format and bold stand-up comedy performances,the show has been on Weibo’s hot search for many times,triggering heated public opinion.The distinctive features of the discourse content and program production of“Talk show Conference” are of research value.Taking Dutch scholar Van Dijk’s mass communication discourse theory as a perspective and combining with American scholar Richard Bowman’s performance theory,this paper analyzes the discourse and programs of Talk Show Congress based on program discourse and interview data.The program production and discourse characteristics of “Talk show Conference” are explored at three levels: actor discourse,program production,and social context.This paper is divided into three main parts.The first part analyzes the actors of“Talk show Conference” based on the individual-actor perspective,and discourses the talk show texts in terms of discourse themes,rhetorical discourses,and discourse styles to explore the discourse characteristics of the program and the performance qualities in the actors’ individual discourse structures and performance styles.The second part is based on the organization-programming team perspective,and combines the results of the interview with the assistant director to explore the characteristics of the talk show team in terms of the program’s positioning,producers,and the program’s competition system.The third part,based on the social-period perspective level,examines the interaction between the cast and program of “Talk show Conference” and the social context,as well as the impact generated by the interaction.The study finds that:(1)the overall theme of the talk show is lifelike,with a thematic structure consistent with mass communication discourse theory,and mainly uses the rhetoric of exaggeration,metaphor,and irony,and the actors’ discourse style has obvious performance frames and performance techniques;(2)the talk show is positioned as a “youthful comedy”,and through the selection of the program’s theme,the show’s actors and actresses are able to interact with the social context.(2)Stand-up comedy is positioned as a “young comedy”,and the “performance” style of the actors’ discourse is strengthened through the selection of topics,scenes,and the competition system;(3)The humorous discourse of stand-up comedy interacts with modern society,which is reflected in the newness of the social structure of the stand-up comedians and the new needs of the show itself to meet and create the humor of the times.Due to the limited time and ability,this study also has many shortcomings,such as not conducting a comparative study between “Talk show Conference” and the previous “Trolling Congress”,and analyzing Stand-up Comedy Congress from three levels: individual,organizational and social,lacking consideration from external media and ideological directions.Based on this,future research directions will be more dedicated to the exploration of more segmented levels of stand-up comedy and focus on the developmental dynamics of stand-up comedy programs in China based on the level studies.