Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the use of multiple semiotic resources in a multimodal text, namely a YouTube video on the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam. More specifically, it observes how dynamic intersemiosis is adopted for humorous meaning-making and with an ultimate promotional function. First, it is here claimed that dynamic intersemiosis acts as the humour-enacting trigger enabling script shift, i.e. the semantic process of frame reversal inherent in humour generation. Then, multimodally expressed humour is discussed as performing a parody of similar tourism and eco-tourism texts and of the specialized language they adopt. The questions raised are: How do dynamic images and the soundscape combine in terms of congruence and dissonance? How does intersemiosis act as a humour-enacting trigger in the multimodal artefact? How does multimodally expressed humour position the Hans Brinker Hotel within a tourism discourse? How and why is the parody of promotional (eco)-tourism videos realized?

Keywords

dynamic intersemiosis humour multimodality parody tourism discourse video

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adami

(2009) We/YouTube: Exploring sign-making in video interaction. Visual Communication 8(4): 379–399.

Adami

. (2011) The rhetoric of the implicit and the politics of representation in the age of copy-and-paste. Learning, Media and Technology 37(2): 131–144.

Attardo

(2001) Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Attardo

Raskin

(1991) Script theory revis(it)ed: Joke similarity and joke representation model. Humor 4 (3–4): 293–347.

Attardo

Raskin

(1994) Non-literalness and non-bona-fide in language: Approaches to formal and computational treatments of humor and irony. Cognition and Pragmatics 2(1): 31–69.

Baldry

Thibault

(2006) Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis. London: Equinox.

Balirano

Corduas

(2008) Detecting semiotically expressed humor in diasporic TV productions. Humor 21(3): 227–251.

Bateman

J.A.

Schmidt

K.H.

(2012) Multimodal Film Analysis: How Films Mean. London: Routledge.

Bhatia

V.K.

(2004) Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-based View. London: Continuum.

10.

Bhatia

V.K.

(2010) Interdiscursivity in professional communication. Discourse and Communication 4(1): 32–50.

11.

Burn

(2013) The kinekonic mode: Towards a multimodal approach to moving image media. In: Jewitt

(ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 2nd edn. London: Routledge, 373–383.

12.

Calvi

M.V.

(2010) Los generos discursivos en la lengua del turismo: Una propuesta de clasificación. Iberica 19: 9–32.

13.

Chiaro

Norrick

(eds) (2008) Exploring humo(u)r, language and culture. Special Issue, Textus (21)1.

14.

Critchley

(2002) On Humor. London: Routledge.

15.

Culler

(1988) The semiotics of tourism. In: Framing the Sign: Criticism and Its Institutions. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 153–167.

16.

Dann

. (1996) The Language of Tourism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Oxford: CAB International.

17.

Dann

(2012) Remodelling a changing language of tourism: From monologue, to dialogue to trialogue. Pasos 4(10): 59–70.

18.

Davies

(2002) The Mirth of Nations. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

19.

ELAN software (nd) Available at: http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/ (accessed July 2013).

20.

El Refaie

(2009) What makes us laugh? Verbo-visual humour in newspaper cartoons. In: Ventola

Moya Guijarro

J.A

. (eds) The World Told and the World Shown: Multisemiotic Issues. London: Palgrave, 75–89.

21.

Enkvist

N.E.

(1991) Discourse strategies and discourse types. In: Ventola

(ed.) Functional and Systemic Linguistics, Approaches and Uses. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 3–22.

22.

Fennell

D.A.

(2014) Ecotourism, 4th edn. London: Routledge.

23.

Francesconi

. (2005) The language of souvenirs: The use of humour in London T-Shirts. Textus 18(2): 381–395.

24.

Francesconi

(2011) Multimodally expressed humour shaping Scottishness in tourist postcards. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 9(1): 1–17.

25.

Francesconi

. (2012) Generic Integrity and Innovation in Tourism Texts in English. Trento: Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche.

26.

Francesconi

(2013) The semiotics of inter-panel transition in comic-strip postcards. Text & Talk 33(6): 725–746.

27.

Francesconi

. (2014) Reading Tourism Texts: A Multimodal Analysis. Bristol: Channel View Publications.

28.

Halliday

MAK

(1978) Language as Social Semiotics. London: Edward Arnold.

29.

Halliday

MAK

Hasan

(1985) Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

30.

Hans Brinker Budget Hotel (nd) Available at: http://www.hansbrinker.com/ (accessed January 2014).

31.

Hans Brinker Budget Hotel (nd) Eco-tour video. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv3KqZUY_qc (accessed March 2014).

32.

Hutcheon

(2000[1985]) A Theory of Parody: the Teaching of Twentieth Century Art Forms. New York: Methuen.

33.

Iedema

(2001) Analysing film and television: A social semiotic account of hospital – an unhealthy business. In: Van Leeuwen

Jewitt

(eds) Handbook of Visual Analysis. London: Sage, 183–204.

34.

Jenkins

O.H

. (2003) Photography and travel brochures: The circle of representation. Tourism Geographies 5(3): 305–328.

35.

Jewitt

(ed.) (2013) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.

36.

Kress

(2010) Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.

37.

Kress

Van Leeuwen

. (2001) Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold.

38.

Kress

Van Leeuwen

(2006[1996]) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.

39.

Lagerwerf

(2007) Irony and sarcasm in advertisements: Effects of relevant inappropriateness, Journal of Pragmatics 39: 1702–1721.

40.

Lange

P.G

. (2011) Video-mediated nostalgia and the aesthetics of technical competencies. Visual Communication 10(1): 25–44.

41.

Lemke

(2002) Travels in hypermodality. Visual Communication 1(3): 299–325.

42.

Maci

(2013) Tourism Discourse: Professional, Promotional and Digital Voices. Genova: Ecig.

43.

Martin

R.A.

(2007) The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

44.

Norrick

N.R.

(2004) Non-verbal humor and joke performance. Humor 17(4): 401–409.

45.

Pan

Tsai

Lee

(2011) Framing New Zealand: Understanding tourism TV commercials. Tourism Management 32: 596–603.

46.

Pearce

P.L.

(2009) Now that is funny: Humor in tourism settings. Annals of Tourism Research 36(4): 627–644.

47.

Royce

T.D.

(2007) Intersemiotic complementarity: A framework for multimodal discourse analysis. In: Royce

Bowcher

(eds) New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 63–109.

48.

Sontag

(2002[1971]) On Photography. London: Penguin.

49.

Stewart

C.O.

(2013) Strategies of verbal irony in visual satire: Reading The New Yorker’s ‘Politics of Fear’ cover. Humor 26(2): 197–217.

50.

Stubbs

. (1996) Texts and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.

51.

Thurlow

Jaworski

(2010) Tourism Discourse: Language and Global Mobility. London: Palgrave.

52.

Tsakona

(2009) Language and image interaction in cartoons: Towards a multimodal theory of humor. Journal of Pragmatics 41(6): 1171–1188.

53.

Urry

. (2002[1990]) The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies, 2nd edn. London: Sage.

54.

Urry

Larsen

(2011) The Tourist Gaze 3.0, 3rd edn. London: Sage.

55.

Van Leeuwen

(1999) Speech, Music, Sound. London: Macmillan.

56.

Van Leeuwen

(2011) The Language of Colour. London: Routledge.

Dynamic intersemiosis as a humour-enacting trigger in a tourist video

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References