A Critical Stylistic Study of Pidgin English in Select Nigerian Stand-up Comedy Video Clips

Abstract

This research is a study of the use of Pidgin English in selected stand up comedy video clips and how these comedians achieve their goals with words. The study also identified the Critical Stylistic features that explain the comedies of the selected comedians. The comics’ choice of words is far from being incidental, superficial, or supplementary. Performers’ choices of words show how their ideas are embodied in language. That is to say, the effect of how a comedian uses words and humour strategies is vital for understanding the contextual meaning of jokes and how they appeal to logic and reason. Data were obtained from videos on YouTube channels of seven comedy shows. The selected comedians are Basket mouth, Bovi, I go dye, Ali Baba, MC Shakara, Akpororo and AY. It further interpreted the analysed features and used three out of the ten critical stylistic tools which are prominent in the data. This was done with the view of investigating how Critical Stylistic tools were applied in the comedies. The data analysed were principally chosen with what we discovered to be in line with the tools. As said, the data were analysed using three of the tools which are: Naming and Describing, Hypothesizing, and Representing Time, Space and Society. Findings showed that Naming and Describing was used by the comedians to manipulate the audience, making use of Pidgin English and also passing information to them which might seem true or false but for the aim of creating humour. Hypothesizing is also used by the comedians to describe the degree of certainty about their comedy and they make use of modal auxillaries like would, shall, should and so on to construct humorous meanings. Representing Time, Space and Society was used by the comedians to describe or explain certain time, place and social context using demonstrative pronouns and deitic words. The study so far has been able to discover the tools of critical stylistics and how they have been used to identify the words used by comedians.