Nenko O. Sociological Conceptualization of Humour Discourse as a Manifestation of Political Consciousness

The thesis is dedicated to conceptualization of humour discourse as a manifestation of political consciousness in the framework of post-structuralism, phenomenology, theories of discourse and theories of humour. The cognitive functions of the concept are substantiated and the theoretical model of manifestation of political consciousness in humour discourse on the everyday level of social and political interactions is developed. It is proved that humour discourse' concept allows revealing the way that awareness, articulation and overcoming of the cognitive, axiological and affective contradictions between the official image of the political reality and knowledge, values and emotions of the subjects of the everyday interaction are accomplished. Theoretical model of the humour discourse bases on the following components and the ties between them. The first component is the semantic field of subject positions of an author, auditorium and an object of the humour discourse, which are tied by the relations of conflict and/or convergence. The other component is manifestation of these positions in textual and verbal-communicative dimensions of the humour discourse, which are influenced, in their turn, by the contextual factors. The characteristics and components of the both dimensions and the classification of the factors are presented. On the ground of the author's qualitative empirical research the theoretical elaborations are specified, in particular, the shaping of an "alternative" image of the socio-political space and construction of the political identification in the humour discourse are shown.