Delinquency-associated stereotypes in Gypsy jokes and their connection to social aspects

Abstract

Ethnic humour was scarcely addressed by Romanian studies. Therefore, I propose an analysis of Gypsy jokes, that considers a general linguistic perspective, but the broadest dimension is the pragmatic one. The study focuses on 100 ethnic jokes that portray the Gypsy as a main character. I categorised these jokes according to the main topic they present. From a methodological point of view, I use the Intersecting Circles Model (Yus 2013a, 2013b, 2016 etc.), as it operates with the three dimensions found in ethnicity-centred humour (make-sense frame, cultural frame, and utterance interpretation). The quantitative approach illustrates the number of jokes found in each category as a main theme or as a complementary one. The qualitative analysis copes with delinquency-associated stereotypes: theft, begging, lying, dishonesty, metal obsession, as well as their main cause considered by sociologist – poverty. The paper also introduces a terminological distinction – hypo-stereotype vs hyper-stereotype.